EA's announcement

[Voodoo Daddy]

Did anyone notice EA's big news announcement? I wonder if they studied the "Who's online" page at Strike Team lately?  Ahhh well, I guess that's just our luck. Well, Happy New Year to you All, and hopefully the new year will bring me more free time, so I can enjoy more masochism at the hands of little electronic men.  Ohh, by the way you won't see the announcement on EA's site, they only posted it at Strike Team.

[DjCiD]

I am baffled, I went to strike team home page and even registered to view the forum, but I didn't see any EA Announcement. Can you drop a link? Thank you.

[Voodoo Daddy]

Ohh Sorry,  here's the link.

http://strike-team.net/nuke/html/modules.php?

op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=63&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

If that doesn't work because of the line break try this

http://strike-team.net/nuke/html/index.php

Look just below the "Tour of Egypt Tournament" link, to where it says, "Red Alert 3" announcement. click on that link.

If that does not work, here is the text- Voodoo Daddy

Hi everyone,

I hope everyone is enjoying one of the best years ever for PC gaming.

On the eve of one of our own major releases, The Lord of the

Rings

[Voodoo Daddy]

And, by the way, the first paragraph is what puzzles me. Those of you that know me, know that this is my first computer game, and so I don't have as much depth of knowledge of the gaming industry as some of you might, but it never struck me, from what I have read here, and seen of their support for Emperor, that they ever gave a damn about the community. Personally I think that they are so dopey, that they haven't realised that only recently, have the computers become powerfull enough to get the most out of the game. Especially in the online environment. And I haven't seen any evidence that they were impressed with the fan base that continues here. Anyone else have any thoughts on this? Perhaps I am looking at it wrong? I think now the 'Puters are powerfull enough to fully exploit a updated 3d Emperor game. 

[desertway]

I think we may not be looking at the "big picture". We all talk about how Emp is far from dead and how many games are being played each month. You need to stop and think that all these games are being played by about 20 people. When you look at a company like EA or Westwood, 20 people is not a large number. They do business all over the world and have to justify to stock holders pretty much all expenditures. If you were a stock holder in the company would you want them throwing money at something that is going to have little to no return on investment? Probably not. The fact is they did support it when it was prudent from a business perspective. Now it is no longer prudent. All companies go through this where thet have to launch and support new lines of product. At some point they have to stop supporting the older products. It's a sad but true fact. Until they develop a "new" version of the Dune series, none of us can expect to see any additional support from these companies.

[cilc01]

HI.

Desert unfortunately you have right. But do you see sometime support from BLIZZARD they have good sites. I dont know if they have so much laggs like we in game but i think not. And theyr old games are still played. I think the problem is in EA. They dont make good support and theyr sites are onli for fun i think. If you want find there somethink you mast have somethink like MANUAL!!!!  >:(

Onli peopleas like OLAF thanks to GOD have theyr games alive.

They sopported onli ther stupid SIMS.

And we have large forum not onli DUNE but RA have too. So why they dont go some time here and dont see what we say.  >:(

[alchemi2]

I've said it before and i'll say it again and again. All EA have too do is remarket the game. This would be cheap in comparison to developping a whole new game. A patch to solve existing faults and they would have a beautiful product.

Emperors graphics still stand up against new games and it online playabilty outclasses many games on the market now.

With minimal effort and support, a revamp of WOL servers and increasing the game to 8 players would appeal to a whole new generation of players.

Emperor was never really sold to the public so there is a whole market out there to be tapped if only EA would put in a bit of effort.

This is shown time and time again by old players returning and the fact that you still get new players coming along.

Think about it how hard is it to get an origonal copy of the game and then to get online what with WOL being down and yet people still do manage and i d say there may only be 30 regularish players but there s about 50 in all and when you takein to account the above thats amazing.

[cilc01]

And i have twoo new players so dont say there are onli 20 players whiche play together. New players still come but game isnt in shops so they dont come much but onli if somebody of us tell to somebody  ::)

[Dunenewt]

Just wondering, how many of you guys have read this thread:

http://www.dune2k.com/forum/index.php?topic=16460.0

[Sober]

This is weird though. E:BFD was one of the top selling games for one month, and EA suddenly dropped it?

http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?id=1704

July 2001: (Top 20)

17. Emperor: Battle For Dune - Electronic Arts- $42

It'd be great to see more players, since quite alot of games are coming back up. Hey, I suck, but if I got even a bit better, maybe I could go on XWIS and start playing. I mean, 20 people getting like 1000 games is quite a feat in a month.

Well, in the eyes of EA, we're pretty much a write-off. Westwood is part of them now, so they don't acknowledge Emperor as one of their games. Serious. Go to their site and try to find Emperor on their game lists. It was there back in 2002, but not anymore. Even Simcity 3000 is still there, around the same time (IIRC) as EBFD, just it was more successful.

[desertway]

I'm with you guys. I wish there was still support. And if there was anything I could do about it...I would! The remarketing idea is a good one. Unfortunately we don't make the executive decisions for EA. I just hope someone who has some pull with these companies is reading these forums. They would see that there really is a tight knit community here. I have no doubts that if they were to "tweek" the game and remarket it, EBFD would easily become one of their best selling games.

Well now I'm going to go to EA's website and see if there's any place for gamers to post their ideas. You all might want to think about doing the same. After all we can accomplish alot more as a group than an individual voice.

[cilc01]

HI. Good idea Desert and Quote come to us and play whit us it is onli stupid game not game where you play for your live  ;D And Desert i will go and same like you.

Lets post on EA. Hehe mabye we have luck and they will reply i hope.