Insight into the sort of freak event that can delay a HPS project!

[Mr Grumpy]

Gents,
I just received my copy of WSF and it looks like a very interesting title especially as i am a big desert warfare fan, i had been aware that the title had been delayed by a unspecified problem and reading through the designer notes i came across these paragraphs which show how a project can be delayed by the most unexpected events......:eek1:


"War on the Southern Front is perhaps the longest HPS Game we’ve been involved with helping John Tiller to produce. We got started shortly after the release of The First Blitzkrieg in 2005, but an unfortunate event caused massive water damage to the Wig Graves basement where he kept years of research covering many aspects key to creating this game and others. Many of you may know Wig Graves is one of our key researchers and the person responsible for doing all the original basic scenario layouts. He is also the person who devised the system for rating the various combat values for the complete series Order of Battle (OOB). Because of the flooding, Wig suddenly spent many hours with a hair drier salvaging whatever information he could from the disaster.

After that set back, the project was prone to periods of enthusiastic scenario development. This was followed by long periods where this title went on the backburner, as the designers involved worked on other projects. John Tiller offers us a very flexible environment for game creation. Unlike most commercial developments where this is the primary employment for the scenario design team, we all have families, days jobs, and other distractions – even other responsibilities on other game projects. So, unfortunately, War on the Southern Front kept getting put on the back burner."


I changed some of the text to bold to highlight an important point about the way HPS projects are developed and explains the often long periods between title releases. ;)

[Bushido]

Foul,

Yes surely USA is a dangerous place to live!

But not agree that HPS is slow making games. I think they churn out new titles like no one else at least wargame companies.

Keep up the speed HPS. :bow:

[Glenn Saunders]

Ya guys - Wigs Pool failed and the entire contents went through a Basement door well into his study - as you can appreciate he was quite disappointed with his lose and just trying to figure out what to save was a depresing task to say the least.

Glenn

[rahamy]

I think the quickest project I have ever been on was 18 months from start to finish. On average the game projects I am running now are in testing 6 months prior to release and don't enter testing until a considerable amount of work has been done. Very time consuming stuff & when you squeeze it in between all your regular obligations it really stretches out. If only this wasn't a niche hobby...

[Mr Grumpy]

Foul,

Yes surely USA is a dangerous place to live!

But not agree that HPS is slow making games. I think they churn out new titles like no one else at least wargame companies.

Keep up the speed HPS. :bow:

The list of HPS titles just grows and grows and for me the fact all the titles in a series are brought up to the same standard by patch's rather than becoming obsolete (unlike other games company's i could mention) is a major factor why i support only HPS with my hard earned cash. :)

[Mr Grumpy]

Well as we now know WSF was delayed by a burst water tank disaster, i was searching back looking for posts on TFB and i found a thread asking if the series was "dead in the water", either the poster knew too much or without realising it was very, very close to the truth!! ;)

[Glenn Saunders]

Well as we now know WSF was delayed by a burst water tank disaster, i was searching back looking for posts on TFB and i found a thread asking if the series was "dead in the water", either the poster knew too much or without realising it was very, very close to the truth!! ;)

Truth be told - it was actually a swimming pool failure - the pool was an above ground things as I understand and was in the back yard and a door well that entered to the basement below ground level.

I also understand it was a catastrophic with a huge tidal wave rushing down the stairs, and into the basement.

...you can just imagine all the reserach WIg has or had ammazed, copied of Microfilmed German records on the East Front (wig did the OOB for Kharkov and did a first extremely detailed pass over Kursk - one that had to be "Sturm-inized" because it was too detailed), all his detailed Normandy research, ... it is amazing what this guy has - you want the setup for SPAIN in 1940, Wig has it.

Anyway - that was one huge delay, but there was others too.

Glenn