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November 9th, 2004 - Future plans revealed . . (Pg 1/8)

Time for another quick update on how things are going at 2by3Games. We've been hard at work finishing up the Alpha stage of development on Gary Grigsby's World at War. The latest War in the Pacific patch has just been released. Also, we've got some information regarding our future plans . . .

Gary Grigsby's World at War

GGWaW has been progressing nicely the past few months. We're not yet at Beta, but we're getting close. The gameplay has been solid for some time now, but continues to undergo minor tweaking, AI improvement, OOB adjustment and bug fixing. We've also added the first of many videos that will go into the game and we've received the first sound and music deliveries from the sound studio (they look and sound great!). Artwork tasks continue to get completed as well. There are only a few game systems that need to have the final art installed (game history, turn replay {VCR}). Work on the combat animations, the last major game system that has existed only on paper, has begun and is a major focus this week. The four scenarios (with start dates of Spring 1940, Summer 1941, Spring 1942 and Summer 1943) have been completed and are being tested.

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November 9th, 2004 - Future plans revealed . . (Pg 2/8)

We're shooting to reach the Beta stage sometime this month, and we are currently on target for a February ship date. We've been getting good feedback on the AI from the testers. It's not brilliant, and won't do everything you think it should, but we're confident it will give you a challenging game. Once you've played all 5 of the players and have mastered many of the strategies of the game, upping the difficulty level will be a sure way to maintain the challenge.
You can follow the continuing development of GGWaW and view AAR's of test games on the Matrixgames forum (www.matrixgames.com).

War in the Pacific Patch

On the WitP front, the 1.30 patch was released on November 1. It's too early to tell exactly how well it's being received, but based on the amount of interest and the demand on the servers containing the WitP patch, we should be getting plenty of feedback shortly. Thanks to Mike Wood, Rick Porter (Kid), Raymond Gardner (Mr. Frag), and all the rest of the beta testers that have worked hard to get this patch out. In addition to fixing bugs, Mike was able to add many new features, including some specifically voted on by WitP users in the Matrix Games forum. Work has been underway for some time on compiling changes to be made in the next (1.40) patch. At this time, there is no release date planned for 1.40. A lot will depend on the response to 1.30

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November 9th, 2004 - Future plans revealed . . (Pg 3/8)

Uncommon Valor Patch

For those of you with Uncommon Valor, Mike has also begun work on a small patch for UV. This is the last planned patch for UV, and will include a few bug fixes and a few new features. There will most likely be a total of about 10 changes. For those you of who are hoping to see many of the features in WitP patched into UV, I'm sorry, but I must disappoint you. Because the code base in WitP is now so different from the code base in UV, it would be very difficult to retrofit WitP features into UV. Given that we (like any business) have limited resources, we've made the decision to put all of our future patch efforts into WitP. Since WitP includes many smaller scenarios that include the same area and time periods that are covered in UV, we feel it's best to focus on making WitP the best that it can be. In this way, we can satisfy both those that want to play the larger campaigns covered in WitP, as well as those that want to focus on playing the exciting battles of the South Pacific in 42/43. We still feel that UV (v2.30 and soon to be 2.40) is a high quality product that delivers many hours of fun gameplay for the money. Lacking a good mechanism to charge additional money for retrofitting WitP features into UV (and enough customers willing to pay), we just can't afford to undertake this time-consuming development work. We do hope you'll enjoy the UV 2.40 patch when it arrives (no date yet as to when this might get done, but don't count on it this year). It should be backward compatible with old saves, and should not be such a major change as to make anyone want to stop their ongoing games to wait for the patch.

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November 9th, 2004 - Future plans revealed . . (Pg 4/8)

New Product Development Plans

So, you are probably interested in what we have planned once we finish up GGWaW. Nothing is set in stone at the moment, but here's what we're working on now along with our current thinking on future projects: First, let me talk about the WWII Mediterranean game (using the WitP engine) that we had been doing some initial work on. The short answer is that we don't expect to continue work on this game. The longer answer involves many factors. We looked at the current state of the WitP engine vs. the current state of our GGWaW engine. We looked at the amount of work to take WitP to the Med in a way that would please our demanding grognard customers. We looked at the sales potential of this game and, lastly, we looked at how much fun we thought we'd get out of making this game.

Regarding the engine, the GGWaW engine is much more advanced than the WitP engine, which allows us to do things much more smoothly than we could using the WitP engine. We are also using text data files to contain many of the rules of the game, making game development much easier. This makes us alot more interested in doing games using the underlying engine of GGWaW than the one in WitP. This has little to do with the game's scale and/or rules, just the computer code technology that drives everything in the game.

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November 9th, 2004 - Future plans revealed . . (Pg 5/8)

As for the amount of work to do a WitP/Med game, all I can say is that it's a ton of work. The WitP engine requires tons of data and given that there are many differences with this theater of war and the land combat that it involved, it would require alot of work to get the game to correctly simulate the situation. At the moment, working on another game that has 800-1100 turns in it's full campaign is something that just looks like too much work (both to program and to test).

Looking at the sales potential, we have to start with WitP. We've always expected WitP to sell somewhere between 5,000 and 15,000 units in its life. Obviously that's a big spread, as we'll be much happier at 15000 units than 5000 units. So far, nothing we've seen has changed this expectation. The original Pacific War from SSI sold between 15000 and 20000 units at full price, and many more as part of multi-product wargame bundles. If I remember correctly, Pac War was only on the PC platform. This was at a time when there were still other computers being used by some gamers. My experience over the years is that a follow-up game will sell between 65-75% of the original title. Since less gamers are interested in the Med than in the Pacific, we'd have to cut that number to around 50% at best. This means that we could only expect to sell 2500 to 7500 copies of a Med game.

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November 9th, 2004 - Future plans revealed . . (Pg 6/8)

As for the fun potential, speaking for Keith, Gary and myself, we wouldn't expect to have a lot of fun developing Med War at this time. There would be some enjoyment in taking a known system to a new theater of war; one that hasn't been covered much. However, frustration would undoubtedly set in as we would be unable to include some features in the game due to the limitations of the WitP engine. Knowing our personalities, we'd throw ourselves into the project and do more than we should (or could afford to do), but the frustrations would chase out the fun factor.

Given these four basic factors, we've decided that it would be best to retire the WitP engine and move on. So, if the Med War is out, what's next?

Currently we have 2 projects we know we'd like to do. The first is a strategic American Civil War game starting with the GGWaW engine and many of its rules. We'd also like to get back to working on the Eastern Front game that we set aside in 2001 when we started the big push on Uncommon Valor/WitP/GGWaW.

Gary has designed the Civil War game on paper during the past year, and has managed to create most of the data files that will be set up in the game. I've had several meetings with Gary to review what he's come up with, and I can say I'm really looking forward to working on this game. Some of the artwork has already been designed and we should be in a position to get a game up and running early in 2005.

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November 9th, 2004 - Future plans revealed . . (Pg 7/8)

The game will use area movement similar to that of GGWaW, with additional terrain types such as rivers. One feature that is very different in this game is the inclusion of very extensive leader rules, along with a change in the sequence of play that allows players to react to enemy movement before attacks are executed. This game will become Gary's priority project for 2005.

As for the Eastern Front game, we hope to get back to it within the next few months as well. We expect that Mike Wood of Matrix Games will be working with us on this project. We will have some work cut out for us as we switch the game from an older engine to the new engine, but with Keith's help, Mike will be able to accomplish this task. Although the game is a game for the grognard's, we believe that it is early enough in the game's development to warrant switching engines.

The switch makes sense for the long-term success of the game and any other's that might follow it. The basic design of the game has not changed since we worked on it in 2000/2001. It will be a turn-based game with weekly turns and 10 mile hexes. It will not have an execution phase, but instead will have movement and combat all in one phase. We think it will be a relatively easy game to play, although it will be massive in befitting the size of the Eastern Front. One of my favorite games of all time is War in the East from SPI, so I'm really looking forward to being able to work on our own war in the east game, using everything we've learned over the last 10 years regarding interface design, graphics and AI.

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November 9th, 2004 - Future plans revealed . . (Pg 8/8)

Mike will continue to spend some time patching WitP, but will transition over the next few months to work primarily on Eastern Front. Keith will continue to be our technology guru, and will assist both Gary and Mike while they work on these two projects. He'll also invest some of his time to look into some new ideas that we have regarding a project which we all hope to get to in 2006 or 2007, Steel Panthers IV.

As you can see, we have a lot on our plate, and our eyes are always bigger than our stomachs, so who knows exactly what will happen. My request to those of you that have enjoyed our games over the years is to take a look at our upcoming Gary Grigsby's World at War by going to these sites:

http://www.worldatwaronline.com/ (Game info)

Gary Grigsby's World at War (Forum)

Then talk up the game with your gaming friends. We really think that if you are reading this page, you'd enjoy playing GGWaW when it comes out in early 2005.

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