will it ever stop? Hear comes another one! Shane -----Original Message----- From: Michael Feir [mailto:mfeir@xxxxxxxxx] Sent: March 5, 2003 2:22 PM To: blindgamers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: audyssey: games being released Hello, Elaine. Thought I might as well jump in here. First of all, I don't think James is trying to overshadow anybody. He told us in his last major update about why work was halted on the Genesis project, and that ESP Raceway is going to be released in the middle of this year. Both James and Justin have had to revise their release dates quite often since it's quite easy to run into unexpected difficulties when programming games as complex as these are. I've already run into a number of snags and unexpected difficulties writing down the design document for the game I'm going to try programming. I don't even want to think about the entanglements I'll face when I actually start trying to get the computer to understand what I want it to do. The way I see it, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Either you do things like BAvisoft and only let people know about a game when it's actually released, or you take a more proactive role like James and let us know what you're working on as you're doing it. As editor of Audyssey, I'm quite thankful that developers like James try to keep everyone informed about what's happening. I'd certainly agree that James has jumped the gun from time to time with setting his release dates. In fact, it's almost to the point where you could come up with a formula which might predict how many days or weeks off the games actually appear. However, James North and GMA Games do by far the most complex games we've seen. Look at how things work in the sighted gaming world, and I think you'd see how good we have it. My father and I have just started playing Masters of Orion III, and we've been waiting nearly a year since the first time we heard it would be out "soon". Perhaps, the programmers were thinking in geological time. Particularly with the small one-person operations we have working to produce accessible games, all sorts of things can happen to alter release dates. Looking at it from a business point of view, the last thing I think James wants is to release a game right when somebody else does. That way, people have two new games to choose from. If you time things so that you're the only person to release a game in a while, you get all the attention focussed on your new game exclusively. James is doing this as a business, and has doubtless thought through more angles on these things than I could. There's a difference between crying wolf to get attention and saying that a game should be released soon if you truly think it will. No game developer actually wants the flak and negative attention they get when they miss a release date. James has probably suffered from this more than anybody else since he goes to such great lengths to keep in touch. Michael Feir Editor of Audyssey www.audysseymagazine.org E-mail: mfeir@xxxxxxxxx MSN name: michaelfeir@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx BlindGamers is the discussion list of the Audyssey community and all members are expected to behave in accordance with the community charter which can be found at http://www.audysseymagazine.org/charter.htm to join the list send a blank Email to BlindGamers-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx messages for the list should be addressed to BlindGamers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx You can leave the list at any time by sending a blank Email to BlindGamers-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Visit us on the web at http://www.audysseymagazine.org/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ --- Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.459 / Virus Database: 258 - Release Date: 25/02/03 --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.459 / Virus Database: 258 - Release Date: 25/02/03