Re: Fed Up
 

Seems Shrapnel doesnt have anything else to say on the subject. I guess once they realized everyone here is just as fed up as I am they decided to go back to hoping silence works.

Seriously guys,......call the FTC and make a complaint. Enough complaints and the FTC will contact them and they will actually do something,...even if its refunding our money.

Its time to quit complaining, and just taking it,...its time to do something.

Re: Fed Up
 

Aaron and Shrapnel - these are simple relevant questions. Please give us some answers - don't ignore reasonable questions from your customers. This is not a hostile post - just an honest attempt to understand what's going on.

Re: Fed Up
 

Mike, at some point it becomes obvious what the truth is. That time has came and gone with this game. Aaaron does not intend to fix it,......because he hasnt made anything from it. Of course its completely his fault that the game failed miserably,...you cant release a product that is not worth playing at all and exepect it to sell well.
But now he wants to just walk away leaving us with a game that is a complete waste of money. It doesnt matter if you are reasonable......as you see you arent going to get an answer.

File a complaint with the FTC......its the only option they have left us with.

Re: Fed Up
 

I think this really says it all. If we arent willing to do the work for them,...they arent willing to fix the game WE PAID FOR.



And if you complain too loudly without doing their work for them,.......well they have a muzzle they want to place on you.

Of course the big kicker here is.....we HAVE ALREADY done the work they are asking for.

And you are welcome jaywalker. Since I havent saw you in these forums before, I hope you are a potential sale they lost due to how they are dealing with this.

Re: Fed Up
 

OK, I've filed a complaint at FTC. I've had enough. Please, all people who are also fed up, file complaints! Either they stop selling this unfinished and bad game, or get on with fixing it. When there's no new patch coming out, I want my money back!
Man, this forum really is the game forum I've been most active in of all forums of games I bought, because I hoped it will live up to its potential if I do something to support it. But this way (no info, no real support, lack of patches, no support from the community anymore) I think I've done enough.
The last thing I did was to send Aaron some savegames and gamelogs (before the complaint) last Friday. Haven't received any answer yet. I think further supporting this game is useless. We have to take other measures if there's no further support by Malfador.

Re: Fed Up
 

Either declare this game a failure and stop selling it, or hire betatesters and fix it, Malfador and Shrapnel. I don't want to do betatesting on this game. Some bug reports are OK, but the things Aaron wants from us have to be considered as professional betatesting.

Re: Fed Up
 

Hey people, if you know of some bugs that happened in your last games, and still have the savegames (I had some of the games I described in forum posts here), just send them to Aaron, and if you have logs enabled, you can simply send him the game logs, I think they are located in World Supremacy\backup. You can change the settings (which stuff to log) in debugsettings.txt located in the folder: "World Supremacy/userdata directory" You don't have to play more games if you still have savegames left.
JCrowe: Just send him savegames of the games you described in the forum, and logs if you have them. You only have to tell him which savegames are referred to in which posts (I have sent him collections of all post 1.09 forum posts).
He's answered my E-Mail with savegames, logs etc., and wants me to specify which games they are from, what happened in the respective games etc.

Re: Fed Up
 

But he hasn't told me specifically which settings to enable so that he can see AI-errors.
Hehe, I wanna quote a post from another forum (the forums of Armada 2526 by Ntronium Games:
"Thanks for the feedback, spillblood.
Well I wouldn't be too hard on Shrapnel Games for the quality of the game itself, although I concur it sucks that they don't do refunds. It's Aaron Hall of Malfador Machinations who actually made World Supremacy, and his PC titles have always been known for their weak AI (his Space Empires series is notorious for it). The actual gameplay and mechanics are generally pretty solid, but he can't code computer opponents worth a damn.

I did play the WS demo a little, but not enough to really get a good impression of it. Sorry to hear you had to buy the game before realizing (too late) that it wasn't your cup of tea, but I appreciate you sharing your take on it! It'll at least save the rest of us money and time better spent on good games (like Armada 2526 Supernova)."

I had put a warning not to buy the game there. Man, if I had known the Space Empires series already had poor AI, I wouldn't have bought World Supremacy.

Re: Fed Up
 

Any news? Starting to get silent again. No response from Shrapnel and Malfador, and I've not received an answer to my response-E Mail of the bug report (savegames, game logs) yet.

Re: Fed Up
 

I played the demo of this game, and was thinking of buying it. Not after reading the forum posts. Thanks! :)

Re: Fed Up
 

Shocking!

Re: Fed Up
 

I have been shocked at Shrapnel's behaviour. However, news of this saga is gradually spreading across the gaming world, as we speak.....

It's a great pity and such an avoidable tragedy - companies that treat customers badly always suffer as a result.

Re: Fed Up
 

Hehe, try this one out if you want a better working simple world conquest game:
http://triplea.sourceforge.net/mywiki
It's an open source clone of Axis & Allies, and the AI works better than the one in World Supremacy, and it's got a lot of maps. Try the latest unstable version (release candidate), because it's better than the last unstable, and the AI works better (and it's faster). But don't use the Dynamix AI (in Version 1.3.1.1) for England, USA or Japan in WW2-scenarios, because it can't move sea zones yet (but it's better in land battles than the two other AIs). Just use Moore N. Able or E.Z. Fodder for them. Try it out, it's free!

Re: Fed Up
 

Hey, who of you has already filed a FTC complaint? I get no answer on my last bug report mail, and it seems Shrapnel just want to sit out our complaints, judging by their complete silence.

Re: Fed Up
 

One thing I'm thinking: Maybe this is the first time they get really serious complaints about a game they released, and don't know how to handle it. But a company should be able to deal satisfactory with their customers, otherwise they'll go out of business. Man, they can't ignore us forever!
The current situation is a deadlock, I think, no real action from Shrapnel and Malf, and little action from the customers (aside of the FTC complaints made by me and ScottWAR).

Re: Fed Up
 

Good that our posting here serves a purpose. If you want to play hotseat or TCP/IP you should consider buying it though (especially hotseat), because the overall mechanics are good. What completely ruins the game (for single player) is the bad AI. But don't expect much support after buying it. I think it's simply not worth it's price. There are better free games than this (for example TripleA and People's General, or Battle for Wesnoth if you like Fantasy games).

Re: Fed Up
 

I'm certainly not hard pressed for games. I have lots. However, I like this demo but I would only play it against the AI. Since the support is the way it is here, not now.

I have over 40 Matrix games and plenty of Steam, Gamersgate, Paradox, Battlefront (although they have DRM), boxed games,and others. Tons. My favorite ones however are like World Supremacy.

Thanks for your honest posts! The one main thing besides easy download and install without DRM, is the support that Matrix gives. Can't beat that. I wish others were as good. :mad:

Re: Fed Up
 

Yeah, Matrix Games is pretty good. I own Armada 2526 (Matrix Games Version), which is a pretty awesome 4X game. Try Triple A (see post above), if you want a game similar to World Supremacy (it's a free open-source game, gets regular updates, and has a good community). And you can play it against the AI (which works better than the one in WS, but also isn't perfect, but they are working on a new AI, which isn't fully finished in the newest release).
By the way, DRM is also an important thing for me. I normally don't buy games that require an Internet connection to activate, because I have no permanent internet connection at home. I always go for Indie games without DRM or protected by serial numbers that can be entered offline.

Re: Fed Up
 

ANYONE still here? Seems this game is dead (again). Last patch didn't really reanimate it.

Re: Fed Up
 

Im still reading the thread. I think its really funny.
It is so much like threads in other forums here, and even on other games sites. Most of it just minor opinions of course. Obviously no one is ignoring you.

Re: Fed Up
 

Did you buy the game?

I did and I can tell you it's a flat out waste of money.

Glad you find humor in trash software being sold. lol.

Re: Fed Up
 

Yeah, I agree to Skirmisher. Do you own this game? Have you tested the demo? If not, you don't know what you're talking about. This game is a waste of money and I'm still upset about it. And Shrapnel don't care and don't refund us.
And you have to acknowledge that all people who bought this game and voiced their opinion here think the same.

Re: Fed Up
 

Shrapnel - I think you're running scared of your customers. Are you hoping this is going to go away. When are you going to do something to salvage your reputation?

Honestly, when you eventually look back on this fiasco, you're sure going to wish you'd done something positive instead of hiding away like cowards. It's utterly pitiful - and you're going to be the losers, unless you do something very soon.

Re: Fed Up
 

Man, we have a total deadlock here. Either we cooperate with Aaron, which requires a lot of effort, since he obviously has difficulties programming a decent AI, or Shrapnel finally dismisses this game, which I think is not gonna happen. Hopefully there'll be some progress here. It really depends on what you want, and I'm not sure if I should support this game anymore. By the way, have you noticed that Shrapnel wrote in their last Frag!- Newsletter that Aaron is evaluating a new patch, and wants opinions about that in the forum? But he sure doesn't communicate much with us here, neither does Shrapnel. I wonder what to do next.
OK, filed another support request in the Shrapnel store. I hope I can bring them to recognize our complaints again. There really has been no progress since my last demand to give a statement here.

Re: Fed Up
 

I think the FTC Complaints also will not achieve anything because there are not enough people complaining, which is caused by the little community this game has left. I'm asking again, are ScottWAR and I the only ones who have filed a complaint there?

Re: Fed Up
 

Any news? There's zero activity here.

Re: Fed Up
 

Just wanted to say thanks for the heads up on this game from all the posters above.

Already owning Weird Worlds, War Plan Pacific and most recently Dominions 3 I had quiet a favourable opinion of the titles offered by Shrapnel and was just about to purchase WS.

Thankfully having read this thread I have been saved both money and disappointment.

Re: Fed Up
 

Man, they ignored my last support ticket and I've still received no answer to my last two E-Mails to Aaron Hall. Seems their new tactic is to just completely ignore all stuff we send to them.

Re: Fed Up
 

I think it's time everyone just gave up on the game and Malfador in general. Aaron didn't, wouldn't or couldn't fix the AI during Beta testing, despite being told a full month before release, see my email to him below.

Note on the subject, v.18 was followed by .19, .20, .21 & .22 prior to the release version.

Re: Fed Up
 

Thanks for posting, usmcrave99. Here's the answer I received to my last support request, I wanna share it with you:

">Would you please answer to that ticket? I'm waiting for at least two weeks for an answer and there's zero activity in the forums, plus, Aaron just doesn't answer E-Mails to him anymore.

Hi Lars:

> I've compiled all our observations of the AI issues from the forum and sent them to Aaron about four weeks ago, and I've supplied savegames >and logs of these games to him, but I'm waiting for a response to this for two weeks now.

Please send to us through this support center the information you sent to Aaron. We have asked over and over that you contact Shrapnel Games support here for bugs or problems with the games. We DO NOT use the forums for customer support. While contacting Aaron may make you feel good, we have no way to document what you are finding as the problems.

Please help us to help you."

My comment to that: What use is it to send this stuff to the support center? Aaron has already received it, I've got confirmation from him via E-Mail.

Re: Fed Up
 

Well since they don't use the support forums for customer support, maybe they should change their ways?! I'm going back to the Matrix site where all my posts are honored by the staff. :p

Re: Fed Up
 

Yeah, just relying on the support system for customer support is simply ineffective. If they'd use the forum for that, too (like every other Indie game company I know does!), they could respond faster to support requests, and could lead real discussions with the customers, which we simply don't have here.
It's **** that you post bug reports here, and Malfador just don't notice them, and say they don't read the forums, just to correct themselves when you complain about that in E-Mails. In addition to this: Why have Shrapnel set up bug report and suggestions threads here when this forum is not intended for customer support and isn't read by the developers of the game?

Re: Fed Up
 

Dear Shrapnel and Malfador - You must have hoped that this thread had run its course. Aren't customers a pain in the @rse? Your credibility and goodwill are gradually shrinking, but you're too big and important to worry about that, I guess.

Remember the old customer relations maxim - a dissatisfied customer will, on average, pass the message on to seven other people - and that was before the days when reputations could be created or destroyed over the internet!

In a funny sort of way, you remind me of a certain media mogul who, until a few days ago, thought he could bluster his way out of his problems. Now he's being advised by a leading PR company, he's decided to issue public apologies. And you know what - no-one ever suffered from making an apology - think about it.

Re: Fed Up
 

I get the feeling they aren't paying attention at all to this forum. In all my last support tickets I hinted at this thread here. They don't answer (I've been waiting for at least two weeks for an answer to my last ticket), Malfador don't answer my E-Mails either, they just ignore us. This pisses me off pretty badly!

Re: Fed Up
 

I think I'll never buy another game by Shrapnel. They have lost me as a future customer. The behavior they are displaying here is the worst of any publisher/game company I've ever encountered.
In every post they've told us to use the support system, but now they even ignore tickets posted there. SHRAPNEL, MALFADOR ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?

Re: Fed Up
 

They are definitely off my list of game companies to buy from. Forever.

Re: Fed Up
 

I don't think we're going to get a rep weiner style press conference where Mal and Shrap get up in front of the press and express thier shortcomings to the world.
Though it would be nice to see them nervously twitching about in front of the glaring lights. lol

We tried the game and lost ,it's as simple as that.

No different than if you put thirty dollars worth of chips on a craps table and lost it.

Re: Fed Up
 

I live in Nevada and I can relate to that analogy. :D

Re: Fed Up
 

Hey, got a new mail from Aaron today, just wanna share it with you (although it seems he wasn't too happy I shared previous E-Mails here:
Seems he'd need more support from players willing to take part in possible beta patch phases, and it seems there aren't many people left who would still be interested in taking part.
But he has to give us some info that he wants to start a new patch phase himself here in this forum or in other ways. I replied that to him, and pointed out that I'd be willing to take part in future patch phases.

Re: Fed Up
 

But anyway, I think customers didn't get scared away because of Aaron's E-Mails I posted here, but because of Shrapnel's and Malfador's overall behavior, unresponsiveness against customer requests, lack of information etc.

Re: Fed Up
 

Hey, without pressing them via E-Mails, support tickets etc. they wouldn't give any statements here anyway.
It could be a good way if you would simply all write support tickets or E-Mails to Aaron demanding further support on the game, so that he sees that there are still some people who are interested in this game. I think without that he simply won't care, and neither will Shrapnel.

Re: Fed Up
 

Just thought you'd all like to see an extract from an email I (and presumably hundreds of others) received from Shrapnel today:

"World Supremacy on sale for $24.95. From the developer behind the best selling Space Empires series comes World Supremacy, the game of modern world domination. Part Axis and Allies, part Superpowers, and all amazing, World Supremacy allows up to eight players to battle for control of a randomly created world using contemporary weapons of war. Take the fight to your opponents using armor, helicopters, attack submarines, nuclear bombs, and more. A simple research tree and basic economic model add to your strategies. With player controlled starting variables, map randomization, and full modding capabilities, World Supremacy offers quite a bang for the buck."

This is the game that wasn't even properly beta tested, and they're still trying to pretend it's a finished product!

Re: Fed Up
 

I know ScottWar has contributed quite a lot to this (and earlier) threads. Did he know that his name is still being used by Shrapnel on the WS product page on this site?

"The Balance Mod
This mod was created by ScottWAR and it rocks! He is continually making improvements and as of January 02, 2011 is up to version 1.4."

Are you still 'continually making improvements', ScottWar? ;)

Re: Fed Up
 

If I hadn't browsed these forums, I would have bought this game. I sure am thankful for honest posts. Unfinished games really tick me off. Incomplete tested games tick me off even more. :down:

Re: Fed Up
 

Hehe, he isn't, because he has done all he can with this mod. The main defective component of the game, the AI, is unmoddable though. So we can't fix the game ourselves. It's Malfador's job.

Re: Fed Up
 

Ok Aaron.....
IF you had actually released an even HALFWAY finished product you would have more than one or two people playing this game.
IF you had listened early on when we first detailed the problems and fixed them you might have more still playing this game.
If you had not lied in those e-mails and proven to not want to support the broken game YOU released,....then those e-mails being made public wouldnt make you mad.
Aaron,..you have nobody to blame but yourself for the complete failure of this gmae,...its becasue you completely failed as a developer. You released a broken game and refuse to fix it. Simple as that.
You can e-mail that to him.


As for my mod,....I tried to remove them, but the 'you cant edit after 30 minutes feature' prevents me.
I guess its time to add another post to that thread.
I am also going to add a reply to the forum post about the sale, letting potential customers know they should check this forum and especially this post before the actualy consider buying anything from Aaaron or Shrapnel.

Re: Fed Up
 

Okay guys this thread has gone on long enough. We have explained our position a number of times here. I am closing this thread and will remove any threads opened to replace this.

Contact customer support if you want assistance with this game.

Thanks,