Inspector Gadget Posted January 22, 2012 Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 I agree with your frustration about people playing multiple positions in the game game. Unfortunately, I don't think RTG is capable of policing it even if they tried. Your solution of every player having to submit a valid mailing address could unfortunately be circumvented by people for example giving their home address for one account and their work address or one of their friends, neighbors or relative address for the other. There was a time when I was younger when both myself and roommate played. Giving different addresses was not an option in that situation. That's probably not a common problem, but it just shows the pitfalls of the idea although I wish it would work. The other problem that is making this problem more prevalent is that the game is experiencing an ever shrinking clientele. Those that play are extremely dedicated, hence the fact that so many people play in multiple games of Victory simultaneously and maybe even Supernova as well. But even with that, players are often hard to come by in filling new games. Why is RTG experiencing this shrinking customer base? This is due to a few major reasons. 1) RTG no longer has the number of venues available to it to advertise and promote it's games like it used to. 2) Online games along with other computer and console based games/entertainment are far more engaging, cheaper and user friendly among other things, specifically to younger gamers and thus are very difficult to compete with. I'll bet there is hardly anyone younger than 30 currently playing Victory and I’ll bet most are much closer to 40 or older. That used to not be the case nearly so much. I think the game would experience a renewal of sorts if the game was updated, not just in its mechanics, but also in the way turns were processed, and if there were more ‘player aides’ similar to VICMAN that for example made it possible to track rail usage each turn. It wouldn’t degrade the level of tactical and strategic expertise needed to be successful, but it would make the game more accessible to newer players and those that are turned off by the current amount of time and attention to minutia that is required to run a position successfully. As for RTG updating us on the progress of Victory 2, my understanding is that he has a long way to go in just inputting the initial and fundamental code of the new game. He’s made clear that he’s following all the comments and conversations about the new game, but is holding off on joining in the conversation himself until he’s at the point where he will be dealing with code that deals with all the possible additions and or changes that could be made to the new game. Long story short is that the project is going to take a long time unfortunately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Spongebob Posted January 22, 2012 Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 Two points I wish to comment on [1] New players, if the clientel is over 40 then advertise to the over 40s. None game specific magazines more age specific but that is upto RTGs finances and we may not know the exact $$$$ situation as its not our business. For all we know the current situation may suite RTG just fine. [2] V2 Progress, I have forgot when V2 started and I know it will be dictated to as time allows but I am sure even with time constraints some progress should have been made. We all have time constraints and in the past I have coded a PBM game in under 12 months and been testing it. Never completed it as the financial incetive was not there for me but I am sure I could create a module based expandable system for test within 12 months using current map and database. No offense to Russ on this front. I always found the map and database to be the most time consuming. My final thought is that we just have to wait and any pressure we place on Russ will not speed things up, lets just enjoy what we can while we can, its one of the reasons I have not got heavily involved in the idea mash up that has taken place. Many valid points have been raised over the months but should all be moot at this point, V2 should be well past the design stage and anything commented on is gravy to be added later. Would be nice to have an update though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hamish Posted January 22, 2012 Report Share Posted January 22, 2012 I think the game would experience a renewal of sorts if the game was updated, not just in its mechanics, but also in the way turns were processed, and if there were more ‘player aides’ similar to VICMAN that for example made it possible to track rail usage each turn. It wouldn’t degrade the level of tactical and strategic expertise needed to be successful, but it would make the game more accessible to newer players and those that are turned off by the current amount of time and attention to minutia that is required to run a position successfully. That's where I am trying to help. I made the new order entry program, and now I am building something that combines (and expands on) VICMAN and the order entry program. Rail usage tracking is one of the features. I also think that a new version of Victory! should be automated as much as possible. I think that right now, there is still a considerable amount of manual operations involved in processing a turn. If I were Russ and I was going to design the game completely from scratch, I would probably create a client program (and maybe a website as well) that could submit the turn directly without having to e-mail it, and (and being a Microsoft minded guy) build the server side on Windows and SQL Azure, so you don't have any hardware to maintain either. The processing service would return the results practically immediately, which is more what today's internet focused user is expecting I think. It would also free up my time for tweaks and development of new features. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inspector Gadget Posted January 23, 2012 Report Share Posted January 23, 2012 Hamish - I agree whole heartedly with you. I've been discussing this topic with my friends who also play and we have come to the same conclusions about how turns should ideally be processed. As for you working on an improved VICMAN (one that works on Windows 7??) with the other additions you've mentioned (managing rail usage), you sir are my hero! Spongebob - RTG may indeed being doing just fine money-wise (and I truly hope they are), but that will not last if the active clientèle continues to shrink with little or no 'new blood' to replace them, much less to add to them. As for the progress of V2, I'm very confident that it will be a long time (at least a few years) before it ever sees the light of day unfortunately. The scope of the project is just so dang big for just one person and that's all that's working on it as best I can tell. I am indeed thankful for the game we have and if it never changed, that would still be better than it disappearing all together. My fear though, is that if the platform crashed once before, it could easily crash once again. Will RTG and the rest of us be so luck the next time? Will they be able to find yet another ancient and apparently rare machine capable of running it again? I sure hope so. Maybe you are right though. Talking about ideas for V2 is pretty pointless right now since it's so far off. We're just getting way too far ahead of ourselves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Spongebob Posted January 23, 2012 Report Share Posted January 23, 2012 Well we now have 8 pages of 'Ideas' and no progress. I am sure there are enough ideas for now. I dont want to kill the topic but the last time we had 8 pages of stuff was from me telling the world how I was going to rule it and destroy the Monk in the process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inspector Gadget Posted January 23, 2012 Report Share Posted January 23, 2012 Agree to a point. To be accurate though, all we had for the most part were a bunch of people posting their wishlist of what they'd like to see in V2. This forum had revived to a degree with people trying to have more of a conversation about the core issues that we think should most likely be addressed in V2 that were either lacking or simply not present in V1. Maybe premature, but a much more realistic and useful conversation than that which started this forum after 'the crash' as I and my friends like to call it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpd Posted January 23, 2012 Report Share Posted January 23, 2012 For now, I can think of only one (which is a bit of a pet peeve for me). Do away with the AR/IR separation for army unit repairs, and just repair them with ARM (like air force units). I can understand what the original motivation likely would have been to separate repairs into AR points and IR points (call it the 'hardware' and the 'software' if you will), but game mechanics wise they don't work like that. You create both the AR and the IR out of the same ARM points, so all you really are doing is this: - produce a resource - split said resource artificially into two components - bring both components in a certain mix back together for the repair orders I can fairly accurately calculate (more to the point: my computer can) how to split my ARM into AR and IR so there are no leftovers after the repair order has gone through, but it's cumbersome and really not necessary. Separation would only really make sense if IR's came from a different source as AR's, or the conversion from ARM to AR and IR would be in a different balance than the current 1 ARM = 1 IR and 1 ARM = 1 AR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spartan Posted January 23, 2012 Report Share Posted January 23, 2012 I FULLY agree. Good point. It unnecessarily complicates things for no other reason then to .... well, complicate things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warmaster Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 Another item we need relief on is the rule that does not allow fighter cover routes to pass over enemy/TA provinces. What possible bearing does the control of a province have or the ability of my fighters to fly missions through that province? I am so weary of defending my airbases from total elimination form either air40 drops on them or TAS strikes. My typical defense for a major airbase at say xParis is 2-4 armoured divisions in xParis and 50 fighters in the airbase on FC mission over Paris and other provinces win the area. That worked resonably well until an enemy took Paris with a ludicrous airdrop from say xMoscow and cut my fighter routes covering the region. Sadly it was not an AIC 1 city so my airbase started lossing supply and reducing my air forces. My fighters could not rise to defend the airbase from TBSA strikes since I did not control the province and eventualy the airbase died with all planes sitting on the runway doing nothing. the balance of my forces in the region started to wither without my FC and defeat loomed largely and quickly. Now I put 18 divisions in the province to defend the airbase and make it an AIC 1 city with loads of supply. Does my entire armyneed to exist just to defend airbases and keep FC over a region? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falco Posted February 15, 2012 Report Share Posted February 15, 2012 Another item we need relief on is the rule that does not allow fighter cover routes to pass over enemy/TA provinces. What possible bearing does the control of a province have or the ability of my fighters to fly missions through that province? I am so weary of defending my airbases from total elimination form either air40 drops on them or TAS strikes. My typical defense for a major airbase at say xParis is 2-4 armoured divisions in xParis and 50 fighters in the airbase on FC mission over Paris and other provinces win the area. That worked resonably well until an enemy took Paris with a ludicrous airdrop from say xMoscow and cut my fighter routes covering the region. Sadly it was not an AIC 1 city so my airbase started lossing supply and reducing my air forces. My fighters could not rise to defend the airbase from TBSA strikes since I did not control the province and eventualy the airbase died with all planes sitting on the runway doing nothing. the balance of my forces in the region started to wither without my FC and defeat loomed largely and quickly. Now I put 18 divisions in the province to defend the airbase and make it an AIC 1 city with loads of supply. Does my entire armyneed to exist just to defend airbases and keep FC over a region? Erm, use LDB protect the province and city, use supply depots to keep adequate supplies in the city. No more easy drops. Use HAA and LAA to reduce strike effectiveness, together with fighters on FC they will prevent/reduce your damage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spartan Posted February 16, 2012 Report Share Posted February 16, 2012 Just to clarify and to piggyback on Falco's post, based on your description and assuming I understood it, your FC wasn't cut because he airdropped into Paris province, assuming the fighters were based at the xParis airbase and Paris was the first location on your FC path. BUT, the fact that you had no supply stockpile (SSDL) in xParis meant that the planes at that base were 1) unable to fly missions, and 2) unable to draw GEN to avoid damage at the end of each turn AFTER he took the province. That being said, unless an enemy nation with a different tech (American) took xMoscow, there is no way the C.R. player or anyone else could have done an air assault into Paris from there. The range is simply too great. Also, wherever the air assault came from, he could have avoided your fighters, not matter how many you had on FC or even INT if he did the attack at night, assuming you didn't have night fighters which I'm assuming you didn't since most people don't. My final question is, what happened to your 2-4 armored divisions that were supposedly in xParis? Couldn't they have simply retaken the province and ended the threat? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dageraad Posted February 18, 2012 Report Share Posted February 18, 2012 There are a lot of Victory players with some programming skill. There are also players with some wargaming skill and certainly a lot of players that can find and use any kind of unintended exploit in a game like this. There are even players with some experience in game design. They all could contribute something to a Victory II, but we are all waiting for Russ to make a move. I do not intend to wait untill the start of game #100. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spartan Posted February 18, 2012 Report Share Posted February 18, 2012 There definitely seems to be a substantial reservoir of talent in all the areas you mentioned. The question is whether Russ feels comfortable drawing on people that he doesn't already have a good working relationship with, and if he even feels like he needs their help. Of that I just don't know. I do fear that if progress on Victory II is too slow, some players will grow disillusioned and maybe even leave RTG all together. I'm not saying that is valid response, but it may happen none the less. In Russ' defense, I don't think he ever made any promises about how or when a new version of Victory would come into being, but most, if not all of the players have come to expect and anticipate progress on it's development in the near future.Whether that's a fair and or realistic expectation on the players part, I just don't know. It is definitely one heck of a big project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Spongebob Posted February 18, 2012 Report Share Posted February 18, 2012 Well if anyone has the stones they should just set to work and then donate it to Russ for a lifetime of free gaming. I neither have the stones or the time. I am but a Sponge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Saint Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 Here's a lovely map suggestion: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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