We're not really dusting off that old debate, are we? :PElusive said:FWIW, this isn't remotely true. We did all we possibly could to make it a success. We were told from the start that the Voobly community wasn't a priority. I cancelled many of my Christmas plans last year to get something working when players expected it -- even after flying thousands of miles to visit my family. That rush could've been avoided had we been given the game earlier.
At this point, AoFE on Voobly is well supported -- not only does it fully work but you get the Voobly Mod Center, A/C, Spectator support and other features.
It could be even better if FE took advantage of the mod center for automatic installs + updates. But they have yet to. Nor have they helped promote the Voobly tournament AFAIK. I also, even offered to *pay* for a link on FE.com to get some reciprocal support and was told no (even after inquiring about paying more than Voobly's monthly revenue).
In my view, the requirements for success are/were:
- Support from Voobly
- Support from the mod/xpac/patch team
- Support from the players
It's interesting to compare FE against UP w/ those criteria.
- Support from Voobly - significant attention was given to both UP and FE.
- Support from the mod/xpac/patch team - UP team has been professionals and worked closely w/ us on providing the best experience possible. It's been a *great* experience working with them. Very different from our experiences w/ FE.
- Support from the players - Many seem much more interested in UP than FE. In part, perhaps that's because lack of #2, or focus in other areas by FE (e.g.: no DM balance, significant focus on SP and campaigns, etc.)
UserPatch became very popular on Voobly once we added the auto-install / transfer -- as did some mods. None of the updates we have done to make AoFE a better experience on Voobly does FE team seem interested in supporting.
Given the current direction of FE to a pay model and lack of focus on the original game. It's worth considering creating alternatives if there are players want balance packs and other improvements. The Voobly Mod Center documentation is at http://www.voobly.com/pages/view/gamemods . If someone put the effort to do a MP-focused xpac/mod with the help agreement of the community + put the few minutes of efforts to make it take of the Voobly Mod Center it would likely take off and be extremely popular like UP is.
Things happened as they did, I would say it's quite far from what you exposed here, but if you want to talk it out, feel free to hit me up over Skype.