Stand-alone?

Author	Topic: Stand-alone?
Suneun Apprentice Member # 2363	written Sunday, December 15 2002 08:30 Profile Homepage #0 Just wanted to gauge people's interests... Who would want BoA to make stand-alone scenarios instead of scenarios to be played within BoA? I know it's probably a pain for Jeff, and he probably thinks he'd make more money without stand-alone... but Whaddya think? The BoE scenario editor had the best game creation interface I've seen. I would love to take advantage of it to make actual games that can be traded around outside BoA. I think it would increase the market for BoA and more people would buy it. btw. I never liked the new interface in Geneforge... I guess Nethergate's interface was fine, but the newest party movement drove me crazy. Posts: 7 | Registered: Sunday, December 15 2002 08:00
Or else o'erleap. Law Bringer Member # 335	written Sunday, December 15 2002 08:45 Profile Homepage #1 I think making BoA scenarios stand-alone would cost Jeff sales. I don't think I would have purchased BoE if I could play all the scenarios for free, and I'm sure other people would also be perfectly happy with free games without a game-creator. Besides, in BoE at least the editor was free; if the player were also free, nobody would pay Jeff! —Alorael, who does think that Jeff should include one good scenario not made by him in unregistered BoA. That way, people could see just how impressive a scenario can be made by someone with (probably) no professional programming background. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Rupert Agent Member # 618	written Sunday, December 15 2002 09:33 Profile Homepage #2 To a certain extent two or three spiderweb or player made stand-alone scenarios to be distributed amongst the web to generate interest COULD be a good publicity 'stunt', however to allow multitudes of scenarios to be made (as in BofE's case which is a good plus) but that could be run without BofA itself would be just plain stupid and poor business sense. It just would not work because most BofE players just play, its a small minority that create scenarios for distribution and considering the man-hours and money that will be put in to it, that minority would not be enough for even minor return on it let alone profit. --------------------- The Winged One who does think that yes, switching from one movement type to another when you buy a new spiderweb game can get confusing... - Where am I? Where's my glasses? Where's my brain? ARGH!!! WHERE'S MY PC?!?! Posts: 1487 | Registered: Sunday, February 10 2002 08:00
Suneun Apprentice Member # 2363	written Sunday, December 15 2002 12:02 Profile Homepage #3 There have been game creation engines in the past. Most notably, Coldstone came out this summer. Unfortunately, Coldstone isn't very good. I've worked with BoE and it's a great scenario creator. I think there _is_ a market for a game creator. I'd be willing to pay more, like $50 for a BoA that could make stand-alone games. Or, there could be a licensing scheme with Spiderweb to release a game and split the profits 20-80 or something. Posts: 7 | Registered: Sunday, December 15 2002 08:00
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Sunday, December 15 2002 14:18 Profile Homepage #4 One other problem with standalones is download size. I have a relatively slow connection, and one of the attractions of BoE for me has been that even the largest scenarios are no more than 1 MB or so zipped. Now, the BoE program file alone is 1.2 MB (on the Mac version); add in all the graphics, sounds and what-have-you and you've easily got 4 MB of runtime and resources to be downloaded along with the game itself (admittedly, that'll compress down a bit when zipped, but it'll still make downloads of even small scenarios unpleasantly large). And BoA will probably have more space-consuming resources than BoE did. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
demonslay3r Guardian Member # 2238	written Sunday, December 15 2002 17:22 Profile Homepage #5 Haha... I remeber the days of slow internet. Thank God for uber-cable... 465megs in a little less that 20 minutes. I love it. That means I can download all of these wonderful games by Jeff (and further more, custom scenarioes by other people) in a couple seconds at the most. -------------------- DEMON PLAY, DEMON OUT! Posts: 1582 | Registered: Wednesday, November 13 2002 08:00
modnaR Shock Trooper Member # 1863	written Monday, December 16 2002 04:06 Profile #6 Lucky bizfish. I've still got a 56k crap modem (it actually gets more like 30k). Anyway, as far as a stand alone is concerned I'd advocate making it a seperate product, if it is made at all. It could run on the Avernum engine, but I think the release date on Blades of Avernum is late enough as it is ;) So I'd advocate making it some later product. I know I'd use a stand alone, at least I would if it were as user-friendly as BoE. While it is true that it isn't as user-friendly as it could be, as everyone and their mother points out, it is nonetheless alot better than similar products such as Divinity. -------------------- Fnord. (Insert your name here) is a capitalist pigdog. Deus Ex Penguin: God out of the Penguin......Cogito Eggo Sum: I think, waffle I am. If Voting could change the system, it would be against the law. Posts: 298 | Registered: Tuesday, September 10 2002 07:00