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[EuchreJack]

Reading through this thread, the devs and community were being extremely reasonable and explained exactly why these battles could have been happening. Since we're exchanging anecdotes here, I've had just as many RNG matches work in my favor as opposed to working against me. Shit happens, that's how war is.

they offered *no* explanation, idk where you did find one. they offered wishful thinking and ret-connection of things that didn't happen, insofar that when I submitted more samples of the bullshit the game subject its player to it got widely ignored https://nws-online.proboards.com/post/73880/thread because it basically contradicted all their head-canon.

the thread is basically people ignoring facts exercising inane level of cognitive dissonance to protect their dear game.

I actually agree with pretty much most of what you're saying.  The Battle Generator is awfully broken, and will probably never get fixed.  If that was your reason for buying the game, you probably should get a refund.  Now me, I bought it so I could design battleships.  Actually getting to use them regularly, is less of a concern. 

Plus, I know how to "game" the Battle Generator so that I can actually use my battleships:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Build FAST battleships, and NO cruisers in the same sea zone as the battleships, the game will be forced into letting you play with them.  It does get better latter in the game when ship speeds increase and fleet actions seem to spawn more (observational bias on that last one?)

[EuchreJack]

Hm, did I say the Battle Generator was never getting fixed? Well, it seems the Expansion might just be addressing it, with the new Divisions feature.

But the thing that has me posting about this game and its expansion is the Officers feature.  Finally, some random idiots to command my ships, and a feature that actually has me considering purchasing the expansion!

[EuchreJack]

So....
It looks like the Expansion has expanded into a whole new game.
Rule the Waves III has been announced with a release date of October.

You may begin Hyping.

[Knave]

So....
It looks like the Expansion has expanded into a whole new game.
Rule the Waves III has been announced with a release date of October.

You may begin Hyping.

Hmm I was just thinking about this game the other day... and then promptly forgot to check on news, so thanks for posting!

Sounds like a good decision all around.

October release date, but what's exciting is a STEAM release! As much as I would have supported their product via their webstore if I had to, the restrictive DRM they placed on RTW2 did leave a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Looking forward to diving back in in the future.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. After *lots* of discussion between Fredrik and myself, and including feedback from our wonderful NWS Beta Team members, we have decided that the upcoming release should be a standalone game, namely "Rule the Waves 3: Ironclads to Missile Cruisers". We have worked on this project for ~ 2.5 years now; with the amount of changes and additions, not to mention improvements in many many areas, we realized a short while back that the work has gone well beyond a simple expansion/dlc...we somehow passed 'feature creep' and entered the realm of what I like to call 'feature bloat' at some point in the past it would appear :-) The previously released 'Expansion Catalog', while it showed much of what was included at its release, will likely become somewhat outdated as additional work is done for the final game release - more details of this will be coming out in our marketing campaign later on.

The exact price point for the RTW3 game has not yet been decided, but it will fall close to our (NWS) typical price range for our new games, somewhere in the 35-45 range is my best guess right now - the exact price will be set/announced later on.
We do plan to put the game on sale at a *reduced price* for the first week or so of the release, which will effectively give anyone who wishes to take advantage of it a good price break.

2. Release date: The game will be released in OCTOBER of this (2022) year. THIS IS A SOLID RELEASE WINDOW. This release window gives us some additional time to 'finetune' the game, and a chance to add even more new features and useful changes as well in the meantime!

3. STEAM: Yes, we plan on a Steam release at the same time as the game is released to the store!!! The initial sale price (that I mentioned above) should also apply on Steam as well as on the store.\

[JWNoctis]

I could only hope they'd eventually have a more-or-less DRM-free version like RTW2 now is.

I think the restrictive DRM was more or less the idea of the late owner of their previous store, who was... rather frustrated by pirates outnumbering legitimate customers by four to one or something for RTW1. How did they find out the number of that, I do not know.

As for no third-party release, be it Steam or anywhere...That's more or less the way it was before store platforms of any kind was popular.

[Culise]

I could only hope they'd eventually have a more-or-less DRM-free version like RTW2 now is.

I think the restrictive DRM was more or less the idea of the late owner of their previous store, who was... rather frustrated by pirates outnumbering legitimate customers by four to one or something for RTW1. How did they find out the number of that, I do not know.

As for no third-party release, be it Steam or anywhere...That's more or less the way it was before store platforms of any kind was popular.

I think, if I recall, it was something like comparing the download count on The Pirate Bay to the number of purchases on the storefront.  It neglects people who shift from pirate to legit buys, people who download more than once if they lose their local copy or the like, and also ignores people who would not have bought the game whether or not they purchased it as far as actual "lost sales" are concerned.

I bought the game after learning they removed the most odious aspects of the DRM, and I've been enjoying it.  Learning I'll have to pay full price for the expansion isn't really something I begrudge them for, since I think I can certainly get my money's worth.  As for Steam, I think that it's fine, especially if they do keep it DRM-free beyond the storefront itself.  Given that they're planning on a release on their own storefront as well, I hope that will be how they go about it.

[EuchreJack]

From what I understand, the Steam release won't contain any more DRM than normal with Steam.  So you can buy it there if you don't like whatever they decide to do with the store option.  I might pick it up on Steam just because I overall prefer having Steam manage much of my purchased game collection.

[Vivalas]

I could only hope they'd eventually have a more-or-less DRM-free version like RTW2 now is.

I think the restrictive DRM was more or less the idea of the late owner of their previous store, who was... rather frustrated by pirates outnumbering legitimate customers by four to one or something for RTW1. How did they find out the number of that, I do not know.

As for no third-party release, be it Steam or anywhere...That's more or less the way it was before store platforms of any kind was popular.

I think, if I recall, it was something like comparing the download count on The Pirate Bay to the number of purchases on the storefront.  It neglects people who shift from pirate to legit buys, people who download more than once if they lose their local copy or the like, and also ignores people who would not have bought the game whether or not they purchased it as far as actual "lost sales" are concerned.

The DRM never really bothered me all that much, but this also came to mind. The only way to possibly know that 4:1 statistic is by somehow knowing the unique download count across every platform, but even that doesn't account for people who later buy, as a lot of people do (although unlike 90% of games these days RTW also has a trial, so, that's probably less significant here).

If piracy is the concern, I think the Paradox approach of "large flourishing mod community" over DRM is still the best.

[Knave]

New RTW3 news!

Sounds like they've agreed to work with a secret unannounced publisher for the sequel https://nws-online.proboards.com/thread/6535/concerning-expansion-operations

No names yet, but it looks like this means Oct release will be pushed back to Q1, 2023. Bright side though is it means more funding/resources, so will probably end up with a better game when all is said and done. Will be interesting to see which pub they went with. Slitherine? Microprose? Any other guesses?

[Vivalas]

Slitherine seems the most likely. Microprose has done a lot of good work out of the blue lately with low poly and more retro graphics, but I think even Microprose wouldn't want to publish a glorified spreadsheet

[EuchreJack]

Paradox would probably want to update the graphics, but they're growing and looking for new stuff.
Hooded Horse is new and looking to expand. This sounds like their niche.

[JWNoctis]

Adding graphics would probably make it a whole new game by itself. Adding graphic representation for everything from Whitehead-era torpedo to Exocet-class missile would probably take several new games' worth of content.

An alternative could be an export/import feature a la Automation functioning as a graphical car designer for Beam.NG Drive, or Field of Glory: Empires battles resolved in FoG2. The closest recent game I know of and still in-development in this genre is Naval Hurricane, though that one's so far limited to WWI-era, i.e. RTW1 stuff.

I think one of the ancestors of RTW series is Thunder at Sea, an expanded campaign layer for Fighting Steel, the previous relatively hardcore battleship simulator, now a full quarter of a century old, longer than the peace between WWI and WWII.

[LoSboccacc]

Ultimate admiral dreadnought has all the graphics you want. It finally has a campaign mode (well, for Europe for now) but you don't get carriers

[EuchreJack]

Ultimate admiral dreadnought has all the graphics you want. It finally has a campaign mode (well, for Europe for now) but you don't get carriers

Some would argue that lack of carriers is a feature...

[Knave]

Looks like the easy bet of Matrix/Slitherine was the winner!
https://www.matrixgames.com/news/rule-the-waves-3-announced

Q1 2023, Steam + other stores.

Also looks like they're opening up Beta Testing as of today for anyone interested in applying.