[Cpt-Maxim]

[Terror~of~the~seas]

Many of the founding members of TAG were also members of "Iron Wolves", an older and exclusively online naval combat-oriented game which cost as many as 15 British Pounds a month - depending on what payment plan you opted for. Frankly, I tend to believe that many such members of this now defunct "Iron Wolves" community (a.k.a., East and other founding members of TAG) saw in the development of a replacement (a.k.a., ERT) the potential for an enormous cash-grab.

Trivializing the comments of those who protest the cost of the original Enigma is frankly just ridiculous... as right up to the end of its own installation, the game advertises itself (through its mid-installation adverts) as the grandest of MMOGs... !! Any user who does not follow these forums is thus lead to believe, right up until he tries to play the game, that he has in fact bought a "true" MMOG... when in fact the original release has NO multiplayer whatsoever.

Now, don't get me wrong, I "like" the original/SP game - but I believe that TAG resorted to some very deliberate, very deceptive advertising in the hopes of upping its sales figures (if they knew, as they did, that the original release was NOT multiplayer - why release it still advertised as such on the box?)

[Apeboy]

Must you make the~same~point~in~every~thread?

TAG was upfront about the lack of any multiplayer capabilities long before any of us saw a splash screen during install, and, more importantly, before anyone had to pay.

Iron Wolves had been out of commision long before E:RT came along. As far as the cost of Iron Wolves, it was a bargain compared to other games in the same time frame ala AirWarrior and the early iterations of Warbirds.

[Terror~of~the~seas]

The second next above was my first~response~to~this~thread...

The fact is that many first-time or otherwise "new" gamers don't do the research. Forums, reviews? They "should" read them, but many don't. Pre-release reviews, on top of that, are almost always "biased" - as pre-release demos and betas tend to be directed to those individual whom have already shown a vested interest in the game's development, and who can hence be depended on to provide the developers with a very amicable response - good for the company's marketing strategy.

Nothing "at all" about my above post was intended as a "personal" attack on the producers, however - more just a professional complaint on how their advertising - restrained very little (I have seen countless other developers - electronic arts, sierra, etc. - go so far as to add notices to their packaging when certain services were not yet, or no longer, available - Jane's combat.net, for example) - might have misled first-time buyers. The manner in which "some" jump into "attack mode" upon reading such remarks is simply juvenile... not business-like in any sense.

I play/played WarBirds as well, after all, and even then it cost but half (It did offer many other payment options, however) - if even - of what was paid for Iron Wolves (Iron Wolves, in spite of being otherwise primitive, "was" a very fun game owing to the sheer number of human players involved - hopefully, something which spells "hope" for the future of Enigma).

P.S.: If and when multiplayer "does" come out... "you" ought to name your MP character "SINK-TOY" !! You'll be spending most of your time on the bottom, I guarantee it.... he he he

P.P.S.: Although it meant "earning" combat ships by pilotting tankers to various locations, it was actually possible to play Iron Wolves for free (although, you weren't allowed to use the public chat-room, either).

[EAST]

First timers not doing research is not our problem. We have never tried to deceive anyone and advertising an MMOG as a ploy is b.s.. Enigma was supposed to be an MMOG from the beginning.

I'm not going to go back into all the events that have led to us not being able to release an MMOG yet, the people who will rail against us won't read it and won't care. For anyone else it's just more information than they probably need. Suffice it to say, if things like September 11th and a dozen other things hadn't happened that directly affected our ability to get the MMOG done before having to find another way to keep the company alive while we tried to get it done, there would never have been a singleplayer Enigma.

We've been back on the road to getting the MMOG done 3 different times when events occured each time to derail us. Last year when we began full time work on nothing but Enigma MMOG, we found that the original code base hadn't been developed as it was designed and that it couldn't support an MMOG in it's current form. We began re-factoring our entire code base so that we could get back to our original vision of a naval MMOG. Enter more publisher antics and a publisher bankruptcy and once again we have to alter our strategy - this is the only reason we even considered releasing a regular player hosted multiplayer version.

Your observations and comments don't serve any purpose but to run Tesseraction and Enigma down - to discourage any potential new customer who reads this stuff. You don't know us, you don't know our company, you don't know where we've been and what we've gone through so please don't presume to share a conspiracy theory about our intentions or plans, you couldn't be more wrong.

Try running an underfunded game studio for 4 years and then get back to me.

BTW. There is only 1 former IW player here and that's me; I was an IW beta. IW showed that there was a market for a naval mmog, nothing more.

[Terror~of~the~seas]

I never meant to suggest anything "bad" about Iron Wolves - it was a fun game, even to those who "paid" ("To hear the insect upon the leaf pronouncing upon the 'too much' life amidst his hungry brother in the dust" - Charles Dickens). Still, I don't see what the 11th had to do with Enigma - fewer people were killed then, in a single (thus far un-repeated) incident, than are killed every MONTH in U.S. traffic accidents. Is it not thus inconceivable that all of the funds since wasted in unsustainable wars of imperialism would have saved infinitely more lives invested right at home?

I have seen far too many companies (not only in the United States) use the 11th as an "excuse" for poor stock performance (Tesseraction doesn't really apply – this is simply "why" I don't see how the 11th could be related), not to mention governments using it as an even poorer excuse to freeze civil liberties and embark on massive campaigns of deliberate "psychological" terror (i.e., releasing so-called "Binladen" tapes whenever they can best promote the ruling agenda) and unprecedented public deception (the utter annihilation of democracy in and of itself). Face it – the 11th did NOT change the world… the Bush administration merely saw in it an excuse to "reshape" the Arab world to serve its own, economic interests.
The "other" problems, recoding etc., I am actually aware of... and can understand a lot better than the repeated playing of the "11th card" (nothing personal... you are not the only people tend to use it). My issue with the MMOG advertising, in the first place, has nothing to do with what has happened "since" the release of ERT - by all accounts, in its own packaging, suggesting itself multiplayer-capable. Why should buyers, after all, have to "double-check" what is printed on the box?

I am not trying to “run” anybody down… simply to discuss, and hopefully therein to better understand what (let’s face it) has become a very complicated and not entirely obvious (in its set-backs) development. After all, I have repeatedly said that I "liked" the original product, even if it lacked some (okay, many) of the capabilities that I had come to expect. I still "want" the next Enigma to succeed in spite of it all, so trying to suggest that I am "running you down" is pure speculation. The fact is, there is almost no value (to a developer) in compliments... with the right criticism, however, you might have the "consumer insight" to create a decent, true MP product.

Since you mention "funding" as well, I am presently helping to set up a new federal, endangered birds' sanctuary in northern ontario – so, trust me, you guys are probably a lot better “funded” than I am he he he

P.S. I have to EMPHASIZE, though... that nothing I say is intended as a "personal" attack on "anyone" (I merely tend to be critical in my business-sense, because... as said above... I personally from my own experience consider criticism to be more conducive to building better (future) products.

P.P.S. The "11th card" might hold some ideas for developing the Enigma Prequel, however, as many viewed the American reasons for embarking on the Spanish-American war of the late 1800s (launched over the sinking of the Battleship Maine, which... sounds familiar... could NOT be proven to be the work of the Spanish) with the same degree of antagonistic skepticism.

P.P.S. I "LIKE" CONSPIRACIES!!!

[EAST]

[Terror~of~the~seas]

Just a quickie while I nuke some caffeine - I guess it does seem rather rhetorical, although it certainly is hard 'not' to sound rhetorical when discussing such events as the 11th (most of our so-called 'education' on such things has been given to us entirely 'through' rhetoric, after all).

I am not myself British, nor do I have much respect for British publishers... myself... either (nothing against the 'people', I merely had many troubles of my own in regards to publishers when helping to edit and produce a recent 4-volume encyclopedia on climate change).

I 'have' lived in England for much of my past life, however, which is why... discussing the Enigma timeline... I have trouble swallowing the idea of a "peaceful" (relatively speaking... minus sporadic terrorist acts and Irish assassinations) German occupation (I can't understand how they would have managed an amphibious landing in WW1, either, when they did not even have that true capability by 1940/1941).

In history, many British claimed... perhaps a little overly-romantic, but still... that they would sooner jump off the white cliffs of Dover than succumb to occupation by an enemy. In medieval times, many (during the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Franco, Saxon-Norman, and Hundred Years War) were known to have done just that... so the idea of them succumbing so peacefully to German occupation in World War 1 seems just a little odd... unless, by their twisted monarch (in Enigma's time), they are deceived into believing that... "somehow"... they've won. Just a thought.

Anyhow... do you have a *.txt or Word file of the 'complete' timeline available? Chances are, you may already have written answers to many of the questions I would otherwise ask - just, in the format in which I can access them on warfleet.net, they are not all that printer-friendly. Thanks,

Me

P.S.: I am not 'employed' (paid, personally) by my government, the 'sanctuary' I have founded is merely 'partially' financed by them - building utilities, maintenance, special transportation for wounded animals, veterinary medicines and surgical equipment, specialized veterinary staff, etc. (what doesn't come from government comes from private donors). For me, this would be a 'volunteer' placement were it I considered the opportunity to work with these animals 'worthless' (I don't).

Anyways... I probably won't repond to 'this' thread anymore, so there's no need to answer me here unless for the general purpose of informing others. I will personally be focussing more on just our old debate of Enigma history next time, as for me the discussion of economy has become quite pointless (not to mention, potentially 'endless')

[EAST]

[Terror~of~the~seas]

Oregon? Are you in Portland? What would you know... I used to work there during the summers - lived with an uncle involved in marine sciences at the university (since moved to Newfoundland). My aunt volunteered at the aquarium 'and' the avian sanctuary, so chances are you might have run into my relatives... couldn't you 'smell' the EVIL??!!

Ha ha... anyways, I'm sending you a note on the other issue, so I'll get back to it.