Comments on: Shrapnel Reassures on 82nd Airborne

By: Scott R. Krol

Scott R. Krol — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 22:11:18 +0000

@Alan: Nine years ago. Not ten. Nine. ;) @Jason: And we've been giving away winSPWW2 and winSPMBT for years too. Which by the way, are the original "supermod" Steel Panthers games. World at War was developed when Camo Workshop parted ways with Matrix in response to the schism. As far as recouping the cost? There are enough folks right now still playing the original game that even if they're the only ones who pick it up we'll be more than happy. You also have to consider that we're pure indie; it's not like we've been burning through millions of dollars of VC on penthouse offices or whathaveyou. In fact, as I mentioned in the press release that's actually the main reason for the delay. It's not like Shrapnel has been able to work on the game 100% of the time because Tim, the designer and creator, has been knee deep in making sure Shrapnel's wheels keep on turning. If we could have solely focused on the game it would have been out years ago... As far as graphics go...yeah, it ain't Brothers in Arms, but that's not our market...

By: Alan Au

Alan Au — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 20:31:50 +0000

I remember hearing about this almost ten years ago; I’m still waiting for it to come out.

By: James Allen

James Allen — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:44:31 +0000

I’m sorry they’re stuck with trying to improve an ancient code base from Windows 2000.

By: Jason Lefkowitz

Jason Lefkowitz — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:05:37 +0000

Sorry, I meant to include this link to the screenshots in my original comment…

By: Jason Lefkowitz

Jason Lefkowitz — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:04:04 +0000

Jeez louise, look at the screenshots for that game. It looks like a slightly prettier version of Steel Panthers: World at War -- another rescued-from-DOS game, which Matrix Games has been giving away for free for years. At some point you have to look at a project and ask if it's still worth pushing it ahead to completion. Do they expect to sell enough copies of 101st Airborne to even recoup the costs of so many years of development?

By: XPav

XPav — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:17:19 +0000

I’m sorry, I know Vista breaks things and isn’t all that, but most of the things planned to not be in Vista have been known for years.

Directplay (what I guess they’re complaining about when it comes to networking) has been deprecated for years (Feb 2006 at least!)

I’m sorry they’re stuck with trying to improve an ancient code base from 101st Airborne, and I’m sorry that programming and APIs have moved on, but at some point, I can’t help but blame the people developing the thing for not having the people to work on the game to get it to a releasable state.