Topic: A final thought on Taldren

[Elvis]

I agree with Agent Sloan, as a fan I wanted the game, having the game released in the condition it was in was preferable to having no game whatsoever.

After reading some posts on ToastyO's forums I'm further reminded that money doesn't grow on trees.

I understand that the game released as "was" was frustrasting for potential fans, which puished it even further into its niche. Doing OP wasn' t abiout abandoning EAW, it was about staying in business, which allowed the further patching of EAW. I understand that Taldren had a multigame contract with IP that because of IPs financial status wasn't going to be honored, and I don't think OP was actually part of that contract. From what I gather OP was a "gimme" to Taldren, without OP they would have been bust,(IP also needed the dollars) That "gimme" allowed Taldren the time to sell Activision on SFC3 or find any other deal they could to keep them afloat.

I found the posts on ToastyO's forum to be revealing, but it is not my intention to bring that discusion here, just that arm chair quarterbacking is frustrating and requires alot of assuming.

And we all know about ass u m(e) ing.

[_Rondo_GE The OutLaw]

 Taldren rewrote their game engine three times.  Thats is the fact.  Deny it if you will or better yet just miss the point...that is fashionable.   If you don't want to be fashionable just go back and reread Harlequin's post.

Hmm, somehow I missed this the first and second time reading through the posts. Which now that I think about it, isn't surprising, it was 5:00 in the morning when I read them. 

What do you mean by this? Is the rewriting of their Engine somehow indicative of failure? I certainly don't see it that way since as I said, I've never had any serious problems with the game (other than that memory leak after playing the singleplayer campaigns for a while but they fixed that pretty quick, patch 2005 I think, so it wasn't a big deal for me). A lot of game developers (if not most) update/add-features/change their game engines between games.

Harlequins point is that Taldren failed for delivering buggy and poorly implemented games, dishonest business practices, and taking forever to fix their games and so their closing of their offices should not have come to a surprise to anyone. I disagree in that in MY experience I did not find those games poorly implemented, or that they took forever to patch their games to a smooth finish (after they patched the memory leak I stopped checking for new patches for at least a year, perhaps longer, when I did check they were up to 2030), or that they were terribly buggy, or even that Taldren had behaved especially dishonest, in MY experience being the keywords.

However I'm sure others have had different experiences which will have colored their opinions differently from mine. Each experience is undoubtedly unique. "Facts" can be put forward all day long but ultimately most of those "facts" are open to interpretation. This is a discussision board so we should be able to put our opinions up for discussion, just realizing that those opinions WILL be discussed with by others and not always agreed with. When you get down to it, that's part of the fun. 


Edited for some obvious spelling and grammer errors 

Well obviously we have two different ideas as to what constitutes a serious flaw.  However when someone advertises that a certain feature is to be included in a game, or anything else for that matter, and it is not there when people go to buy it...yes...I would consider that major enough for me to  be talking to my lawyers and scrambling around to get it fixed or included.   I think it was serious because almost every pre-release review or advertisement of the game cited it as a major feature of the game.  But you stated you didn't care to play the Dyna so I suppose you won't concede that was a major problem with the game.   

Anyway I will concede that my statement about Taldren rewriting their game engine three times is inaccurate.  SFC1 belonged to 14 Points East and Taldren rewrote the game engine in SFC2.   SFC OP was the basis for SFC3 and as such SFC3 is not a new game engine, just a reconceptualization of the game using the same engine.   

However the real break point came between  SFC2 and SFC OP.  SFC OP was supposed to be an "expansion" of SFC2 but in actuality it was an entirely new game with a new game engine.  From every account I have read Taldren decided to rewrite the code because they fealt that SFC2 had too many problems that would continue on unless they rewrote it.  To me that is an admission of failure of sorts.    I know it had a negative effect on the community and sales because many did not want to buy an entirely new gawe when they were promised an expansion, even thought, but my lights, they were getting more for their money.  (IMHO)   

[Wildcard]

As I sat here and painfully read this thread, I was inclined to agree with some and disagree with others. Point blank..... You cannot make a copy of a copy of a copy and expect it to keep selling. I find that in the absence of Trek gaming when something finally appears we shoot right for it and will almost accept anything in it's absence. It is like leadership, People want to be lead they beg for it and in the absence of it they will believe anything that they hear. What the problem is with Trek gaming is quitw simple actually, NO IMMAGINATION. For Activision and Paramount to be into a legal battle bercause of lack of Trek is redicilious. Paramount should be sueing Activision for lack of Imagination. So orders come down, assignments given, And we get a copy of a copy of a copy........... Anyone who knows SFC series knows this, SFC III was not ready at all, But Nemises was and poof we go from a 8 race playable, or something like that to a 4 race playable. I do not call that an improvement. While I was modding SFC III creating The Near Distant Future I discovered in the strings discriptions for all sorts of things not in the game, Scatterpacks, Missles, wildweasels, phaser and disruptor 15's, If you look you will find all sorts of cool stuff that didnt get added because THEY needed to meet a deadline, The allmighty dollar ruled the day and the people making the game were not allowed to finish it. Point blank and simple. Instead of getting better we got worse and paid more for less. But since we all think the Trek gaming will never happen again we try to save what we have and that is all and good, But why arent we trying to get someone to create a whole different game? Why dosent someone build a real game. If I had the millions that it probably would take to buy the rights you would not have to worry about Trek gaming until I died. I have more imagination than anyone here. Why do we have to play 2D games and worship them? What ever happened to 3D? Whay cant we get a game crossed between Bridge Commander, Starfleet Command, and Elite Force? That would take talent. Mabey we dont have the talent here to create such a complex piece of work or the vision to make it happen. We would rather get SFC IV which would be a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy, And only have 1 playable race. But fret not you will get a patch that gives you back the heavy weapons.

[EmeraldEdge]

Actually I don't think there was a plan to have more than 4 playable races in SFC3, but the Cardassians and other races were meant to be in the game as non-player races for you to interact with.  The reason you found a lot of the other stuff is that it was leftovers from when they ported everything over from OP.  It just wasn't removed.  In addition there is probably, if I remember, a whole ton of stuff that they just slap in for the future (planning ahead for potential expansions, etc.  Like OP having lines for Andromedans and Tholians, and the like). 

I have more imagination than anyone here...

My, my.  What a bold statement.  Obviously you have missed the myriad of threads discussing what could be done for the future, the call for a 3d game, the desire to have a game that would be a combination of Bridgecommander, SFC, and games like Freelancer, for a game with dynamic imperial economics, and so many other things that we don't have.  Personally I couldn't care less if it's SFB based, but it's got to have enough content and depth to keep me interested in the game and believing in the fiction that it portrays something the last iteration failed at miserably for me (and I did play it for a long time as I was in the beta testing group for it, and messed around with modding it quite a bit trying to get something interesting out of it, although I do toy with doing a tall ships mod for 3).

As far as rushing it out, didn't they get an extension or two after missing deadlines for each project?  There comes a time when it's just got to come out though.  3 certainly had the best release of any of the others as far as bugs and functionality, it just lacked content.  Erik said it had it had the longest dev time of any SFC, and in some cases 2 projects altogether (I would assume 2 and OP on that last part), and they recieved the best deal on it too, so given that and the fact that they were basing it on a previous engine, shouldn't there have been a bit more content in there somewhere?  A little more depth, or at the very least a little more moddability?  Yeah, it had more than the previous ones, but you certainly can't make complete mods like you can with many other games.  In the end it's all down to the "Oh, well" file at this point, as the Dev is gone, no Trek licenses are in play, and the company that owns the SFC name isn't too likely to do anymore Trek games since they are sueing Paramount/Viacom.  You never know though.

[Whoo]

I have nothing bad to say about Taldren.
SFC is the soul reason I play on-line games, starting back at the beginning of SFC1.
Starfleet Command is nothing more than an expired title, born based upon SFB and now dying during SFC3.
Its not the game, its not the developers, its simply the nature of the beast.

Welcome to a new era MMORPG and Playstation.
Taldren, I am sorry to see you go, the only thing I feel held you back was probably the restrictions set by Paramount, certainly not by lack of vision.

I think someone in here said it best, "The big boys have taken over" and its a shame, because brilliant concepts and ideas are going to be lost in favor of mass production.

We are probably witnessing the end of the sleeper game...

[EmeraldEdge]

They will always come back for a short stint though even if they are "gone".  After all, every so often a small independent film takes hold in Hollywood and a short burst of little indie films comes out (and then the studios figure out a way to get in on it and form their own "indie" labels, lol.  But the small guys are still out there giving it their best, tryin' to make it and occassionally producing something pretty darn good.  Many articles are written comparing the film industry to the game industry, and if they are as similar as some hope, then we'll see folks pop their heads up everyonce in a while and walk amongst the giants, and maybe a few folks from that which was will be amongst them.

[AgentSloan]

Rondo_GE,

No, they are not disagreeing about "what constitutes a major flaw",
the point is that Taldren got the game out with "it",....

The other option most likely would have been no game at all,

<snip>

Well obviously we have two different ideas as to what constitutes a serious flaw.  However when someone advertises that a certain feature is to be included in a game, or anything else for that matter, and it is not there when people go to buy it...yes...I would consider that major enough for me to  be talking to my lawyers and scrambling around to get it fixed or included.   I think it was serious because almost every pre-release review or advertisement of the game cited it as a major feature of the game.  But you stated you didn't care to play the Dyna so I suppose you won't concede that was a major problem with the game.   
   

I for one, am very happy SFC II: EAW got released,
I love the game,


AgentSloan

[_Rondo_GE The OutLaw]

I have nothing bad to say about Taldren.
SFC is the soul reason I play on-line games, starting back at the beginning of SFC1.
Starfleet Command is nothing more than an expired title, born based upon SFB and now dying during SFC3.
Its not the game, its not the developers, its simply the nature of the beast.

Welcome to a new era MMORPG and Playstation.
Taldren, I am sorry to see you go, the only thing I feel held you back was probably the restrictions set by Paramount, certainly not by lack of vision.

I think someone in here said it best, "The big boys have taken over" and its a shame, because brilliant concepts and ideas are going to be lost in favor of mass production.

We are probably witnessing the end of the sleeper game...

I was actually paraphrasing Eric Bethke.  Y'know what Taldren could have become is another topic I suppose but perhaps it can be included here.

I think after they had produced SFC OP they had pretty much gotten their act together.  It seems to me that SFC2 taught them many things and they were producing cleaner code and listening more intently (in a more baanced kind of way).        

Unfortunately their future performance will never be known.  SFC3 obscures what they could have been because the artistic controls were set in place by people who really didn't appreciate the kind of game we had in place already, and I don't think they were from Taldren.

Sleeper games may still have a role in the future.   But they will have to be produced by communities that value the product.  That's going to be a  hard thing to do.

[Age]

I have nothing bad to say about Taldren.
SFC is the soul reason I play on-line games, starting back at the beginning of SFC1.
Starfleet Command is nothing more than an expired title, born based upon SFB and now dying during SFC3.
Its not the game, its not the developers, its simply the nature of the beast.

Welcome to a new era MMORPG and Playstation.
Taldren, I am sorry to see you go, the only thing I feel held you back was probably the restrictions set by Paramount, certainly not by lack of vision.

I think someone in here said it best, "The big boys have taken over" and its a shame, because brilliant concepts and ideas are going to be lost in favor of mass production.

We are probably witnessing the end of the sleeper game...

What is MMORPG?  If Paramount would let PC game rental at their Blockbuster stores this would help the PC game market out.

[Bonk]

...the black rectangle box in the DV was supposed to be the ad server out put...

Whoah! That was a close one! I would have bailed immediately never to return... I'm soooo glad that did not happen.

[RazalYllib]

Yeah Bonk, thats what I though at first, as I thought about it for awhile, then it made perfect sense (expressed in dollars and cents, pounds shillings and pence)

$$$ generated by ads needed to fund Server Time and Bandwidth, plus provided revenue stream to fund further content creation (ie full time scripting team to keep things lively) and provide the tools to free themselves as "content creators and providers" from the shackles that binds them to idiotic publishers, which an example company starts with the letter A...

I feel that watching ads flick by is a small price to pay for 1k+ capacity server for free.  This underlying philosophy is resonant to me.  I have a pretty good idea of what was happening behind closed doors from rather shocking revelations on ToastyO forums. 

It seems to me that Taldren got shafted and manipulated by forces beyond their control, into making unpleasant decisions by their "employers".  If I was moderately wealthy, I would pay every one who has not been sufficiently compensated, with interest and bonus for not going entirely insane after every thing they endured.  IMVHO- David would get double bonus....for just being there and listening to us long time testers gripe and moan about this that and the other for weeks at time and still kept at it. 

The only outstanding negative thing about the whole experience is EmeraldEdge's ban.  I wish David and EmeraldEdge would go off in a corner somewhere, and clear the air, kiss and make up as it were (no tongues though) and lets move on...that was then and we are on our own, with out a net.  And with the potential in source code release (server kit at a minimum)

We as a community will go where no one has gone before- has a nice ring to it eh

[Bonk]

Nice to see another Rog fan... 

I guess if we'd had that kind of player capacity, I'd certainly prefer ads to pay to play. I wasn't really thinking of the possibility of greater server capacity. (WON api/ Openskies SDK..?)

We as a community will go where no one has gone before- has a nice ring to it eh

Indeed Sir, it does indeed...

[RazalYllib]

Nice to see another Rog fan... 

I guess if we'd had that kind of player capacity, I'd certainly prefer ads to pay to play. I wasn't really thinking of the possibility of greater server capacity. (WON api/ Openskies SDK..?)

We as a community will go where no one has gone before- has a nice ring to it eh

Indeed Sir, it does indeed...

Ole Rog and me go way back...before I got on the bus

Just picked up the reissue of the Final Cut w/ Tigers broke Free where it should have been the first time around..
Also a boot (?) Flickering Flame w/ odd tracks including live Roger doing Knocking on Heavens Door -awesome, everyone winds up covering ole Mr Bob Dylan   

[Rod ONeal]

Yeah Bonk, thats what I though at first, as I thought about it for awhile, then it made perfect sense (expressed in dollars and cents, pounds shillings and pence)

$$$ generated by ads needed to fund Server Time and Bandwidth, plus provided revenue stream to fund further content creation (ie full time scripting team to keep things lively) and provide the tools to free themselves as "content creators and providers" from the shackles that binds them to idiotic publishers, which an example company starts with the letter A...

I feel that watching ads flick by is a small price to pay for 1k+ capacity server for free.  This underlying philosophy is resonant to me.  I have a pretty good idea of what was happening behind closed doors from rather shocking revelations on ToastyO forums. 

You are assuming a lot if you think that Activision would have used that money to give us anything. In today's big business climate that money would have gone directly into their pockets, IMO. Taldren? Maybe a different story though. If it was up to them, and they could afford it. Obviously, they needed more money than they got. Something like that might have helped them out.

As far as "pay to play". DON'T BUY THE GAMES AND THEY'LL STOP MAKING THEM. Please! It's just another way for them to bleed us. Unless the price is very reasonable and obviously to maintain the system. SFBOL's $40.00 annual fee with free software, comes to mind as a reasonable one.
These monthly schemes are rediculous though. You pay $50.00 for a game that you can't even play unless you subscribe to a monthly fee that competes with a cell phone rate or a basic cable bill. Companies already make a nice profit from the software sales. They've supplied us with free servers just fine. They don't need to charge us for one now.
The only gaming companies that are hurting are the ones who can't come up with a game that people want to play. I'm talking about producers here, not Developers. Unless they are one in the same.

[762_XC]

Harle, welcome back, it's been a long time.

Did you ever develop that game?

[Harlequin]

> To answer your question...he doesn't know what the heck he's talking about.

Since I bought NWN the first few days it hit shelves, ran a nwn server and became quite skilled at adding new content I'd say I am well versed in NWN. Did you run a persistent world using nwn's server?

>  It is actually quite applicable to SFC 2 however, except NWN was even a bigger nightmare.  There were some idiots even tossing around lawsuits...however...they were idiots.

The bottom line did the game for MOST people play out of the box? Yes. Is the same true for SFC2? No.

Did bioware put out patches with new content and fixes in a timely manor? Yes. Did Taldren? No.

Did bioware fix all major bugs within the first few months of release with several patches? Yes. did Bioware? No, nor did they ever get it working to a acceptable condition as even with the latest patches it crashes to desktop and multi-play has issues.

Can you currently play nwn, without any expansions. Yes.(And they still patch and add content to the orginial game even if you dont have any expantions.)

So yes I hold bioware in higher standing then taldren. If any of the above is not accurate then please feel free to point it out. It has nothing to do with bias, it has everything to do with simple performance. Bioware ran circles around taldren on this level, period.

I never said nwn did not have bugs/issues, of course it did. But I was able to play it strait though without one crash. (server aside out of the box, as after a few hrs i'd crash due to a memory leak, but they have since patched it long ago)

Also patch 1.62 for nwn is just around the corner with added content and more fixes and tweaks. Whens the next sfc patch/new content coming out?

A low blow? perhaps, but it makes my point.

[Sirgod]

I like Bioware also. htey also Had More Money in there Budget. How Many Patches have they for Free?

Stephen

[KBF-Crim]

And now....Dancing spam!
  THE FINAL THOUGHT THAT NEVER ENDS, IT JUST GOES ON AND ON MY FRIENDS!

[_Rondo_GE The OutLaw]

And now....Dancing spam!
  THE FINAL THOUGHT THAT NEVER ENDS, IT JUST GOES ON AND ON MY FRIENDS!

Pushing "Abort Hijack Thread Attempt" button.

bump.

[Harlequin]

I like Bioware also. htey also Had More Money in there Budget. How Many Patches have they for Free?

Stephen

They MIGHT have we will never know, those numbers are kept hidden from the general public. But certainly there was adversity. bio switching publishers from interplay to atari. Tho I will agree taldren had a fair amount of rangling to do themsevles, with all the licence issues of sfb/sfc

All there patches are free, As I am pretty sure most all other game devs are as well I am not sure your point..?