Question about the expansion

[Morphius]

yeah i get ya now i just asumed it was the same developer lol

[Morphius]

there is one thing thats eating away at me and an answer by a developer would be nice to ease this annoying thought.

You keep saying you didnt have enough funding to create closed servers for us, but you had enough to make an expansion which in my eyes would cost way more than making closed servers, one thing u could of done was make the closed servers first then implement the closed servers into the expansion, cause in my eyes if this had proper multiplayer thousands of people would buy/play it i know hundreds of mates who would of it had proper multiplayer.

But yeah thats whats been eating away at me you say u didnt have enough funds and your struggling yet u spend god knows what on an expansion, i would of loved closed servers and would be cool with waiting for an expansion, cause seriously 9 months after release you release an expansion is rather quick.

[Sarkania]

there is one thing thats eating away at me and an answer by a developer would be nice to ease this annoying thought.

You keep saying you didnt have enough funding to create closed servers for us, but you had enough to make an expansion which in my eyes would cost way more than making closed servers, one thing u could of done was make the closed servers first then implement the closed servers into the expansion, cause in my eyes if this had proper multiplayer thousands of people would buy/play it i know hundreds of mates who would of it had proper multiplayer.

I'm not developper, however I can say most of us don't have a degree in economy or marketing and we didn't had the opportunity to make a real study about the market. We come from diffrent countries and places, the vision we have might not be reflecting the world's state. I would not generalize too much. I'd trust what IronLore developpers are saying.
But! I must say I understand your request for a closed server. =) I dislike cheaters who are faking to be legit players, tho it doesn't mean those are "bad and evil" persons.

Personnally, I like TQ pretty much because it's relaxing me and will soon allow me to share time with my little brother who live few streets away from me. (He needs to upgrade his computer eh...eh...) I play alone, unless I have a real life friend connecting and then we speak on the mic/phone the whole night, joking and having fun while playing TQ. =)

Now I'm really happy about that expansion and hope to play soon! My lil brother bought it for my birthday, but it's DvD and I only have CD player. =O Well, time to upgrade some of my comp's features. =D

Congratulation to IronLore!

-Sark

P.S. When I see some of my friends loosing their "life" to WoW, it's sad. One of them even missed his chance to enter university because he "forgot" to prepare his papers and portfolio.
Even if TQ takes some of my hobbies' time, it seems to be easier than WoW, as far as I know, to have a break and then come back simply because we enjoye the game. I don't mean WoW players are all addic. I don't mean either to blast a specefic game/company/person.

[Mivo]

The expansion makes them money, closed servers only cost money. Sure, they would also result in a higher number of sold units, but closed servers are expensive to maintain, you need the hardware, the personnel, the on-going coding, and so on. It took many years and several different games before battle.net stopped sucking up significant amounts of money and made a tiny bit of profit. Blizzard went with a monthly subscription system for WoW too, which I think is quite telling, and "Hellgate: London", which is probably the closest game to D2 and TQ that we'll see later this year, is most likely going to charge a monthly fee for their closed servers (there will be a free MP mode too, just like TQ has it).

Certainly, I would have enjoyed a closed server mode for TQ, as would the devs (they expressed this a few times), but they're a small studio (a new one at that) with a publisher that is probably first and foremost interested in getting the heaps of money back that they put into the project, not in supporting a server system that may cost them money for years to come. It's just a risk that is hard to calculate. People who control the money like to play it safe.

TQ and TQ:IT are still among the best and most enjoyable games I ever played -- and it already now is among the ten games I spent the most time on (in 25 years of gaming).

[-Aerows-]

Pink Frog, you mentioned that you used to play Sacred. I had bought Sacred because a reviewer said that it was the best knock-off of Diablo 2 on the market. My wife and I enjoyed the game thoroughly, but it fouled up both our computers, not allowing us to go online at all. Both AOL and Dell told us that it is a German game, that it was fouling up a lot of their customers, and that we would have to reformat.

Others have told me that either AOL and\or Dell were to blame. Do you remember what kind of computer you had, and who your internet provider was? Did it give you any trouble? After all these years, I wouldn't mind playing it again.

Thank you, Vince

I have a US English system, and I bought Sacred (the UK English edition and the UK English Underworld Expansion). I cannot speak for how it played before the Plus expansion, since I didn't play Sacred then, but I can say that as of Plus and especially after the Underworld expansion Sacred was very good, and relatively bug-free.

Sacred is not truly, IMHO, a Diablo clone, because it has many unique elements in its gameplay. Personally, I think Sacred+UW is far superior to D2 and LOD. I eagerly await Sacred 2.

Disregard the ignorance of Dell technical support; as I type this post, it is on an XPS M1710 laptop. While I like my Dell products, be aware that software support done by under-trained and underpaid personnel is questionable, at best. To claim that software developed by a German company interferes with the operation of a US made laptop is a like stating that driving a German-engineered vehicle on a US road causes problems with the car! Furthermore, Encore software released Sacred in the United States; those assertions by the Dell technician that you spoke with are ludicrous. They were looking for something to blame because they couldn't resolve your issue, plain and simple.

Good grief, that has to be the stupidest excuse I have ever heard a technical support "expert" make to get a customer off of the phone. Be wary of driving your Toyota on a US highway; you will get poor performance ! LOL

[medierra]

The answer is as Cironir states in his response - THQ did not believe secure multiplayer would bring in enough additional sales to justify the cost. However, an expansion will generate a lot of additional sales for a minimal cost since it allows us to leverage the tech we already developed for TQ. An expansion also helps keep interest in the original game alive longer.

Unfortunately a big part of the problem here in terms of economics is that secure multiplayer cost nothing on a console since it is an inherently secure architecture. It is possible to hack a console but very few people actually go through the trouble to do it, whereas PCs have an open architecture so multiplayer is easy to hack even if the developers have tried to make it secure (as evidenced by the fact that blizzard has never been able to permanently solve the problem of map hacks in WC3).

So if you want to develop a PC game with secure multiplayer it is going to cost more than it would to develop the same game with secure multiplayer on a console. Publishers are becomin less and less willing to pay that difference, especially now that PC game sales are overshadowed by console game sales. The answer for many developers is simply to move to console.

Of course, who can say what will happen with the next generation or two of console hardward. Console online capabilities are expanding, they come with harddrives now, you can download software to them, in general they are becoming more and more complex... In the future they may loose the inherent security they now enjoy as they become more like PCs.

there is one thing thats eating away at me and an answer by a developer would be nice to ease this annoying thought.

You keep saying you didnt have enough funding to create closed servers for us, but you had enough to make an expansion which in my eyes would cost way more than making closed servers, one thing u could of done was make the closed servers first then implement the closed servers into the expansion, cause in my eyes if this had proper multiplayer thousands of people would buy/play it i know hundreds of mates who would of it had proper multiplayer.

But yeah thats whats been eating away at me you say u didnt have enough funds and your struggling yet u spend god knows what on an expansion, i would of loved closed servers and would be cool with waiting for an expansion, cause seriously 9 months after release you release an expansion is rather quick.

[-Aerows-]

Of course, who can say what will happen with the next generation or two of console hardward. Console online capabilities are expanding, they come with harddrives now, you can download software to them, in general they are becoming more and more complex... In the future they may loose the inherent security they now enjoy as they become more like PCs.

I would place my bets that they will lose the "inherent security"; it has already happened to a certain extent. Even cell phones have had virus and spyware attacks. Any avenue that provides a gateway out also provides a gateway in.

PC gaming isn't dead yet, though . Though I can be critical, I am also very thankful to those that chose to continue to develop games for the PC. The console gaming platforms are too closed for them to achieve the same level of customization that has been the hallmark of PC gaming. Frankly, Microsoft's drive to close off Vista to the extent that it has also makes me uneasy about the future of PC gaming.

Hopefully consumers will continue to vote with their money and that core fans will continue to support the games that they enjoy by purchasing them. Every single person that pirates a title steals from us all. Developers that release ongoing content updates (even the Bethesda method of paid content additions) mitigate those risks, IMHO.

I've mentioned it before, and I'll mention it here again; were Iron Lore to release good paid content a la the Oblivion method for a small fee (like ~$5), many gamers would purchase it. Hell, I even bought the horse armor.

Of course, I'd like to also see some of the issues resolved, too.

[Morphius]

thanks for your reply medierra, as for the consoles, in my eyes online play through a pc will and always will be superior cause use a control pad to play the type of games we play online just seems stupid, such as playing an rts with a control, a shooter, or even an rpg, ive tryed it once with the pc2 and it was pathetic, move to slow and its hard to aim.

Online pc will always be the better option, i just hope that thq give u guys more funding and hopefully youll either get closed servers for tq or havwe closed servers for another such rpg u might make.

[Anti-M]

...as for the consoles, in my eyes online play through a pc will and always will be superior cause use a control pad to play the type of games we play online just seems stupid, such as playing an rts with a control, a shooter, or even an rpg, ive tryed it once with the ps2 and it was pathetic, move to slow and its hard to aim.

Online pc will always be the better option.

I'm not so sure. Beyond the interface (typically gamepad vs keyboard/mouse) I don't really see too much difference. Console capabilities are quite formidable nowadays in terms of graphics capabilities and online access.

Rather than drag this off topic explaining my take on this, I started a new thread here if you'd like to discuss it.

[Frank234]

I'm a little dissapointed about the fact that there will not be closed multiplayer games, But the fact that there has to be closed games just to keep cheaters away really angers me. I find my friend [tom2k7] and I constantly banning people off our server for using hacked swords, the cheating relec known as ChrisRelic, and adding relics to their legendary armor.

I think iron lore shouldn't have to make closed multiplayer servers just to keep cheaters off, I don't see why they have to ruin a very nice rpg. This rpg destroyed Diablo 2 at its own style, and also took my addiction away from my fps games.