[Thomasew]

Hi Cornwallis


Sonalysts have indicated that they are going to be a lot more involved with the community, .. as it pertains to Dangerous Waters.

As I indicated in an earlier post, ... we will be working .. 'with' .. them, ... and not .. without them, .. as was the case with SC.

Let's not make more of this, .. than needs be.

Within the next couple of months, .. most of us will be playing DW, .. and we will be in a far better position to make informed decisions/suggestions etc., .. that will make DW even bigger and better.


So, .. no rocking the boat .. ... for now.


Thanks ..


Cheers
Tom

[Jamie]

OK... let's all take a deep breath.

I am not one of the "suits of Sonalysts" nor an officer of the company (as Cornwallis put it) but as one of the Producers of the game I like to think that I have some "say" as to potential directions community efforts will take with DW. And it is not our intention (the development team) to squash what was such a vibrant and productive crew of folks who created some truly amazing mods for SC.

However... ... We all know that we are developing games for a niche market, and with EA moving on we had to re-evaluate the ways in which we can continue to develop these products that you all enjoy so much (as evidenced by our deal with Battlefront - which we think gives us the best chance to succeed and hopefully make a profit). So if a mod will prohibit our ability to make Sonalysts Combat Sims brand a "profitable one" then we will be reluctant to support it and we may try to graciously ask to put a stop to it if we have to (with Battlefront's help as well).

Now I have talked to JSteed and the truth is, the work he did in SCU is truly amazing (seriously!). We would have never thought possible that someone can modify the DLLs and allow multiple controllable platforms, as a programmer (albeit a junior one) I was truly impressed, and I told John that. However, that is exactly what he did - he modified the DLLs which are coded assets to the game and there aren't many EULA's out there that smile upon that sort of thing... However, at the time EA had pretty much given up on SC and John energized the sim with a vitality that was beneficial for everyone involved and we obviously saw the enjoyment you derived from it. We decided that the best course of action was to "turn a blind eye" to it because obviously our whole reason for being is to foster a happy community and also because we weren't sure what direction we were going to go with our next game or the game engine...

Well, now we all know what direction we took... with the advent of SCS, we are taking a shot that we can continue to make a living on these games and we need every sale that we can get. We are in this for the "long haul" and hopefully with expansions and additional controllable platforms we can make a profit and also fund additional games (FC2 anyone? ). If people can simply download the ability to play new "controllable platforms" for FREE, then any expansions we release with suffer to some degree because some of those people will be sufficiently satisfied with the FREE alternative (it may be a small portion, maybe not, but it's a portion nonetheless).

Again, it doesn't mean that what John did wasn't impressive. It truly was... And he's a heck of a BETA tester, I'm sure he was frustrated to no end that he couldn't open up MS Dev Studio and fix the bugs himself...

Also, as Scion said... Another way in which we try to fund the games is by making government modifications and expansions to all of our games. Again, if our government customers can download an alternative for free (i.e. a mod) that meets some if not most of their training needs, then why are they going to pay us? Most of the mods we do for the government are pretty extensive, but some customers are still content with training their students with whatever they can get for $45 and a broadband connection... That's bad for us.

We respect you guys tremendously, and we feel that you deserve to hear the truth from us. As I've said to Oleg we're all in this together ("cumbaya" and all that) so if DW fails, then we all fail. So we hope that you will understand our perspective and support us in this new and exciting venture (and hopefully, all SCS products to come).

Thanks!
- Jamie

[Molon Labe]

Makes perfect sense to me

I just hope that *some* modding is allowed, for example, to address realism concerns...much of which we don't know about yet, since we haven't played. (But I suspect the SM-2 may be a target at some point. )

I'm definitely looking forward to new playables, and I'm very happy that SCS is in this for the long haul and has chosen to take naval sims in the direction that they're going in. Integrating detailed sims of subsurface, surface, and air platforms together is a superb idea with a LOT of growth potential.

[Bonxa]

Give us a yell if you need us to buy two copies a sailor.

[John Channing]

[Thomasew]

..

[bblank]

[quote="Jamie"]OK... let's all take a deep breath.

Well, now we all know what direction we took... with the advent of SCS, we are taking a shot that we can continue to make a living on these games and we need every sale that we can get. We are in this for the "long haul" and hopefully with expansions and additional controllable platforms we can make a profit and also fund additional games (FC2 anyone? ).

Thanks!
- Jamie[/quote]

FC2 - Fleet Command 2, you have my vote!!!