473 replies to this topic

[Ted_Ball]

To me it feels like this whole thing changed that Winter (I think it was Winter) when the Season Pass concept was floated and negatively reacted to and subsequently abandoned by PP.

No recurring revenue usually = death.

 

The die was cast long before that. The game didn't sell. You could point your finger at many, many reasons for that. Your revenue pours in if the game sells and keeps selling.

[Buck]

The die was cast long before that. The game didn't sell. You could point your finger at many, many reasons for that. Your revenue pours in if the game sells and keeps selling.

I can go along with that. In this context we could look at recurring revenue as a subscription for existing buyers or, to your point, ongoing sales of the core product.

Bottom line...not enough sales, no question.

Of course there was ultimately one sale that mattered quite a bit..

I'm still laughing at Perc's "junior Jones came out of the pub and we all popped a 3 wood" comment.

Lmao

[JoeBradley]

pgadesertrat, on 08 Mar 2018 - 9:19 PM, said:

The forced tempo requirement actually reduces any sense of feel in the golf swing.  Instead, as in a real golf swing, they should have accounted for an acceleration factor in the downswing.  Combined with the existing off-axis swing plane code (which is very well done) and modified tempo calculation impact, you would have an outstanding mouse swing.

 

Absolutely agree. I like aspects of the tempo element, but the fact that you MUST NOT accelerate through the ball goes against all instincts. Even Links had this in PS and RTS, and having played those for years, and some real-life golf, I still have to force myself not to make a natural swing. Absence of acceleration and irrelevance of club-head speed in the swing is very strange. 

 

[frank70]

I'm sure the reason for players leaving is a combination of all the above but I must strongly disagree with your statement regarding the mouse swing.  Perhaps if I was coming from the point of view of a 3 click player who'd never experienced a decent real time mouse swing I could agree.  First of all, it's not even a real time mouse swing, for which there is zero excuse.  I've personally coded a real time swing in both Unity via C# & UE4 via blueprints with intermediate programming skills at best.  It is not that difficult and has been part of many game titles dating back to Front Page Sports in the 90's.

  

Secondly, the fundamental effect of tempo affecting directional draw/fade bias makes no sense.  I made dozens of posts on the old beta boards regarding this key topic, requesting at the very minimum a simple option to turn the tempo effect on/off, and all were essentially avoided by the devs.   If they had implemented the tempo calculation to impact the quality of the strike and overall distance potential, now that would be logical.  The forced tempo requirement actually reduces any sense of feel in the golf swing.  Instead, as in a real golf swing, they should have accounted for an acceleration factor in the downswing.  Combined with the existing off-axis swing plane code (which is very well done) and modified tempo calculation impact, you would have an outstanding mouse swing.  IMO, the "real time" controller swing at Tour Pro skill level is by far the best choice in JNPG simply because it does NOT include a tempo component.

 

BTW - In no way am I asking for the swing to be made easier but conversely, all suggestions made were to add needed depth to the overall swing code.  PGA2000 had possibly the best real time mouse swing to date, that also included a wonderfully implemented tempo factor, which the game code would tailor to each user by learning their personal swing motion. As another user mentioned, no need to re-invent the wheel just to be different.  

From a pure golfing standpoint that is right. Tempo of swing alone doesn't determine direction.

 

But from a gaming standpoint, Perfect Parallel was able of kind of eliminating the "edging" problem all previous games with mouse swings had. Edging is still an advantage, but because the swing path determines the draw/fade element in the game and not the direction, it makes edging less of an advantage - which i find very good.

 

On top of that the Mouse Swing in JNPG implements 3 dimensions: Tempo, swing path and quality of contact. That makes "learning the swing" very difficult. It isn't easy to reproduce the same shots over and over again - what plagued every golf game to date. Tiger games. PGA 2000 or TGC: Those swings are not complex enough. Good gamers will "learn" them pretty fast and will consequently destroy any course in the game. This isn't the case with the RTS-M - and that's great!!

 

Another positive: The three dimensions of the RTS-M produce an almost endless amount of different ball flights. I have never seen that in any golf game so far - that's a huge step into the simulation direction. You won't see nearly as many different ballflights with 3-click.    

[Richard]

Just wondering: If Trackman doesn't continue with PC development why can't someone or a group buy the dev rights (or whatever you call it) for the PC? I'm sure there would be plenty of donations etc to help with that - then sell it as a separate entity with new name etc. The contact may stop this cold however.
Anyway just an idea.

Pappy, for the right price or financial arrangement it probably could. However, golf is such a small niche market, imho, it just isn’t profitable enough for PC and consoles. I especially think this is true if the development continues to stress realism and stays away from arcade features. Such a game,again imho, attracts golf enthusiasts rather than gamers. I believe that gamers prefer high action games. Golf is definitely not high action. That’s why I enjoy it on my PC. My age and health keeps me off real courses.

[Joe Habiger]

 

On top of that the Mouse Swing in JNPG implements 3 dimensions: Tempo, swing path and quality of contact. That makes "learning the swing" very difficult. It isn't easy to reproduce the same shots over and over again - what plagued every golf game to date. Tiger games. PGA 2000 or TGC: Those swings are not complex enough. Good gamers will "learn" them pretty fast and will consequently destroy any course in the game. This isn't the case with the RTS-M - and that's great!!

  

 

I'm sorry I got to call bull**** on this one, play World Golf Challenge and say this line again about good gamers will destroy courses. There are/was 8 of us that played that game for many years ( demo got a bad review so all the linksters stayed where they were but it was RARE if we even shot -8 in that game because you weren't hitting the fairway every shot plus the chipping was pretty tough and so was the putting so lots of times -3 was damn good for us. 

 

You don't need to make a mouse swing tough as nails, you need to make other parts more realistic/harder unlike PG and TGC2 where you can chip and flop with ease. Yep edgers might have had a field day in WGC hitting fairways but I highly doubt they would have scored very low because other parts AROUND and ON the green were much tougher you needed PACE and FEEL Not off tempo ball goes completely left or right....lol

 

Again no need to reinvent the wheel, make other parts of the game a bit more harder around the green, Putt for dough right? Same applies to 100 yards in, that is where you make your butter.

 

Also I am not against challenge but I am getting older and therefore just want to have fun with my buddies on Fridays and don't need to get upset or them upset because it takes us 10 shots just to GET to the green..lol, if you piss a person off they ain't going to want to play anymore. Capeesh?

[Buck]

You don't need to make a mouse swing tough as nails, you need to make other parts more realistic/harder unlike PG and TGC2 where you can chip and flop with ease. 

 

I agree and it's interesting you mention that.

I've been finding something similar with Tiger 14 on PS3.

 

Hitting fairways and getting around off the tee where you want can be deceptively simple at times, but the catch is, miss and find some rough or in some trouble and you are in for some work to recover.  Same goes around the green and out of traps.  It's much much much more varied and challenging to get up and down from all over and the scoring ends up reflecting that fun and challenge.

 

PG could use a lot more of that.

I especially notice how overly simplistic this still is when I switch back to play a round w/ my uncle and I'm just chipping in and lobbing in from all over, all the time, on TourPro RTS-C.  Also, still - getting out of sand is a super simple numbers/math game on RTS-C in PG (except for the overdone plugged lies of course).

[Joe Habiger]

I think overall if your going to make a golf game you need to have two separate area's, an arcade style where many people like to play because after all I just want to have fun with my buddies on Friday nights, I drink and talk with them on headsets and we have been doing this for 10 years or longer. I still think there needs to be a challenge but again an Arcade feel to it where you can shoot a realistic score like how the PGA tour shoots. You don't want Ultra low 60's to middle 50's become the norm though even on arcade but there is always those people who lock the axis or do whatever it takes to win and i'm not sure how much you can do to stop it but I have not looked into it.

 

You also have the Pro style play where it's going to be more geared to trying to be a tougher gameplay to challenge more players to think better on how to play there next shot. I think I have heard Tim Scott (Divotmaker) say that in today's times trying to build a game that sells is harder, you have a younger generation now and they all have different tastes then we use to have so spending tons of time and tons of money into a game that might hardly sell anything is a tough sell and I kind of agree. I have had a couple ideas for games and actually started them but not sure they will ever get finished because who knows if it would really sell very much. I do have different ideas then generally others do that have built these style of games now and truthfully I play them and while nice they also suck and that's maybe the reason they are not selling well. I'm old school, I have played some great darn games in my time and many games now are very lacking because it is cheaper to do this or do that or we don't have enough Devs. 

 

I don't know if some of you have played the fishing games out there now but some of them are great but what the F is with the pond fishing? The games I played back in the day you could actually use a boat, the lakes had depth. I have so many good ideas for my title but with little money, little time and nobody but me as a Dev it's really hard to get things done and that's just the one title I just spoke about while not really speaking about it. My other one is also just as great, to bad neither will probably see the day..lol - I have plans for a third but have not started on it but having great ideas for three titles sucks..lol

[Buck]

I think overall if your going to make a golf game you need to have two separate area's, an arcade style where many people like to play because after all I just want to have fun with my buddies on Friday nights, I drink and talk with them on headsets and we have been doing this for 10 years or longer. I still think there needs to be a challenge but again an Arcade feel to it where you can shoot a realistic score like how the PGA tour shoots.

 

 

I totally agree Joe..

 

I think my beef with PG in this regard, on RTS-C at least, is just that it's too simplistic and easy to recover from bad situations/bad lies/in the woods/out of weird bunkers/etc, even on TourPro, and it ends up defeating the challenge of the swing for the most part.

 

If there ever is a PG2, man I hope they can get a better collider situation and way to model & deal with lies.

The "air trees" and the ease of recovering from bad situations that are so frequent make it so you're basically cheating a course design and it ends up ruining the experience.

 

If there's no penalty (or not nearly enough) for blasting it deep into trouble, the sport isn't the same (or as fun/challenging/interesting).

[Ted_Ball]

You are both making a lot of sense.

 

Joe...like you I have many gaming ideas. I'd love to have the money to get them off the ground and I wouldn't care if they didn't sell - I would have a hell of a lot of fun. Satisfaction building them and fun playing them. I'd be a great rich man. They give money to the wrong people in this world.

[schmidt61059]

I presume Mike's post was an honest request for feedback, so in case he's still reading, here are some comments from a newcomer to these forums but a long-time PC golfer (and even purchaser of Mike's Links courses).

1. I don't care about avatars. I care about golf. So, yes, an immersive sim with better physics, graphics, etc. is a good idea, and I personally would probably be willing to pay for it. But as others have noted, it would be a pretty limited market. 

2. I still think the real selling point to JNPG is the designer and the realism of the real world courses. The screenshots a while back of what's possible in more recent versions of Unity had everyone salivating. It would be great to see that happen. I'd rather have effort put here than into avatars and such. Arcade stylings irritate me.

3. It seems like Mike's post implied that, for certain, the game will continue for sim use. I'm not sure what that means, and I would much like some clarification since I'm getting into that world. I realize he cannot reveal Trackman's business plans, but it would be nice to have confirmation that JNPG will continue to be developed, or at least available, for consumer use in that fashion. Personally, I'd really like to know this before I shell out the money for a SkyTrak license for the game (my SkyTrak arrives on Monday!)  As I've posted before, I also think support for cheaper sim option than SkyTrak would sort of be a bridge between PC players and sim players. 

[zmax - sim]

 

3. It seems like Mike's post implied that, for certain, the game will continue for sim use. I'm not sure what that means, and I would much like some clarification since I'm getting into that world. I realize he cannot reveal Trackman's business plans, but it would be nice to have confirmation that JNPG will continue to be developed, or at least available, for consumer use in that fashion. Personally, I'd really like to know this before I shell out the money for a SkyTrak license for the game (my SkyTrak arrives on Monday!)  As I've posted before, I also think support for cheaper sim option than SkyTrak would sort of be a bridge between PC players and sim players. 

 

Here's the Official Q&A with Andrew of PP that I posted over a month ago.   http://www.perfectpa...gt-sim-discord/

 

To recap, PG will continue to work on Skytrak and other devices while they continue to develop PG2.  Current active sim pass subscribers will have access to PG2 once it's released. No ETA at this time.

[schmidt61059]

Thanks, Zmax. Forgot about that post. I hope the "flood of new courses" actually happens.

[shimonko]

Just remember schmidt, there are no guarantees with any of this. You can buy a $1000 TGC 'lifetime' license and the game could disappear overnight, for there is no incentive to keep going once the sale has been made, apart from selling more lifetime licenses. I feel whatever Mike and AJ say will be honest, but they can easily be overruled.

At least with JNPG you have a reasonably priced subscription model and there's one thing for sure - people don't renew if there's no game. That's a good 200+ renewals a year with very little maintenance required. They also don't renew if there are better offerings elsewhere, so upgrades are done to keep the game current. If the game was discontinued for sim, decent companies always refund the unused portion or honor the pass for the time remaining. You'll be safe.

SkyTrak doesn't flatter JNPG, it isn't bad, but anything less would make the game, which has focused on physics, look bad. Not in favor of a cheaper option. I highly doubt OGT would want inaccurate devices playing in the league.

 

[Ted_Ball]

It has now ticked over a month - exactly four weeks - since Mike said Andrew would announce something or other.

 

Just a reminder.

[Richard]

It has now ticked over a month - exactly four weeks - since Mike said Andrew would announce something or other.

Just a reminder.

As I indicated before, in acquisitions it’s the buyer that controls the information flow not the seller. Andrew is probably not authorized to speak yet. We don’t even know if the deal is finalized yet, but I suspect it is, based on my interpretation of Mike’s post. I also believe that the game portion of PP was not the major purpose of the acquisition so it’s future path is probably not yet solidified. Of course all of the above is only my personal speculation.

[grumpter]

Thanks, Zmax. Forgot about that post.

The pessimist in me tries to read between the lines and what I'm not hearing leads me to believe it is very uncertain for those that use a sim other than TM. If you plan to build courses for JNPG I would tread carefully if using a sim other than TM. If you plan to just play the courses it might not be as big of a loss if/when they switch to TM exclusive use.

[zmax - sim]

The pessimist in me tries to read between the lines and what I'm not hearing leads me to believe it is very uncertain for those that use a sim other than TM. If you plan to build courses for JNPG I would tread carefully if using a sim other than TM. If you plan to just play the courses it might not be as big of a loss if/when they switch to TM exclusive use.

 

LOL.....This is complete nonsense.  

[drb7]

LOL.....This is complete nonsense.  

that makes complete sense, it TM has bought out PG they will want exclusive access to the future results

[zmax - sim]

that makes complete sense, it TM has bought out PG they will want exclusive access to the future results

 

For somebody that runs a jnpg simulator tour site for nearly 250 members that each pay $250 annually for access to use JNPG on various (non-trackman) launch monitor devices, I'm kind of "in the know".    

 

Btw, the total number of $250/year sim pass subs are probably 3-4 times the total number of members on OGT, since most people don't play online or on tour.