Westwood's Emperor Site

[ken124578]

Umm.. just for the record. Emperor did sell a lot of units. More than a half-million people bought the game, so that is actually better than a whole lot of games out there, including some other RTS games (except the big ones like Blizzard's & Ensembles').

--Chris

[Timenn]

I don't believe that so many people pirated the game.

So I don't think that would be the main reason for abondoning.

[zamboe]

Umm.. just for the record. Emperor did sell a lot of units. More than a half-million people bought the game, so that is actually better than a whole lot of games out there, including some other RTS games (except the big ones like Blizzard's & Ensembles').

It just did not sell 'enough' units to be considered a big game by EA, who is used to much larger numbers, like say, Madden, FIFA, Sims, Red Alert2, etc.

Did those huge numbers of people, play online & matchmake... umm...no. Did the ones that did stay around long, ...um..no. Did people leave Red Alert2 MP in droves to play Emperor instead? ...um..no..

Medium sales + Real Good Reviews - low Online interest - competition w/RA2 & Yuris - summer launch = "Emperor sales were a disappointment".

..

does not = nobody bought the game.

So, if everyone who pirated the game, actually bought the game and played online for a few months.. it would have turned out much much different. :) Doh!

--Chris

Let's see, 500,000+ games sold.

I'll make some numbers fiction.

Average wholesaler price, hmmm let say 25 $.

That would be a total of : 12.5 $ millions.

I don't think that R&D plus fees for using Dune brand can be that high.

I might be wrong, but I am almost sure, that Westwood made money with EBFD, and not few money, a couple of millions of net profit.

EBFD should have been compared with the first Red Alert, and not to Read Alert 2.

Well, anyway, I have nothing else to say right now.

[Gobalopper]

zamboe keep in mind that EA has higher standards for games then other companies.

[DukeLeto]

EBFD should have been compared with the first Red Alert, and not to Read Alert 2.

Err...You realize RA1 is the best selling RTS of all time, at about 8 million copies? ::)

[Chris Longpre]

Err...You realize RA1 is the best selling RTS of all time, at about 8 million copies?

Actually, the 8 million number is for the entire C&C franchise, includeding map packs, war packs, etc. from C&C1 thru RA2:YR. That said, RA1 was the single best selling RTS that Westwood has done. Obviously, I've not heard current numbers in a while, but RA2 was close to beating that about a year ago..so who knows.

Let's see, 500,000+ games sold.

I'll make some numbers fiction.

Average wholesaler price, hmmm let say 25 $.

That would be a total of : 12.5 $ millions.

I don't think that R&D plus fees for using Dune brand can be that high.

I might be wrong, but I am almost sure, that Westwood made money with EBFD, and not few money, a couple of millions of net profit.

EBFD should have been compared with the first Red Alert, and not to Read Alert 2.

You also need to take 10% off for 'Return Allowance' and 'Cost of Goods Sold'. Return Allowance is a dollar figure the retailers pre-charge us to cover any returns they receive. Cost of Goods covers the physical CD, package, printing on both, manuals, inserts, jewl-case (or not), etc.

So its more like $25 wholesale - 10% return allowance = $23.50.

$23.50 - $4.25 (COGS) = $19.25

$19.25 - 10% royalty for Dune = $17.32

$17.32 - 10% royalty to developer = $15.59

So at 500,000 units (let's just pretend they all sold before game was discounted from its full retail price, which was not true) ~= 7.8 million dollars US.

A game with size & scope of Emperor will typically run around $5 - $6 million to produce.. Let's say 6, since an external production typically costs more to produce.. that leaves a profit of 1.8 million so far.

Oh, and let's not foget close to a million in advertising, so that is a profit of $800,000 US.

EA had $2,019,000,000 in revenue from April 2002 - Dec 31, 2002. With Gross profit of $1,120,000,000 and net profit of $307,000,000. How important do you think another $800,000 is to that company?

And then, do the same calculations with a Sims add-on pack, which may cost $2-$3 million to produce, and will sell 4 times the units, ...well, you can see what I mean by 'lost opportunity cost'. Why not spend the $6 million dollars to build 2 more Sims add-on packs? Its a much better use of your money.

Anyways.. just more fun with numbers.. party on...

::)

[ken124578]

*CRITICAL HIT*

Ouch, chris hits the spot again ::) :P

[Nyarlathotep]

@ Chris

The master at work ;D

Very useful to have someone visiting the site who knows his stuff

[Mahdi]

You guys spent a million advertising Emperor? Wow, a million dollars sure doesn't buy what it used to ;D

[DukeLeto]

Err...You realize RA1 is the best selling RTS of all time, at about 8 million copies?

Actually, the 8 million number is for the entire C&C franchise, includeding map packs, war packs, etc. from C&C1 thru RA2:YR. That said, RA1 was the single best selling RTS that Westwood has done. Obviously, I've not heard current numbers in a while, but RA2 was close to beating that about a year ago..so who knows.

Are you sure? RA1 sold a little more than SC, and SC sold about 7 million... :-

[zamboe]

Let's see, 500,000+ games sold.

I'll make some numbers fiction.

Average wholesaler price, hmmm let say 25 $.

That would be a total of : 12.5 $ millions.

I don't think that R&D plus fees for using Dune brand can be that high.

I might be wrong, but I am almost sure, that Westwood made money with EBFD, and not few money, a couple of millions of net profit.

EBFD should have been compared with the first Red Alert, and not to Read Alert 2.

You also need to take 10% off for 'Return Allowance' and 'Cost of Goods Sold'. Return Allowance is a dollar figure the retailers pre-charge us to cover any returns they receive. Cost of Goods covers the physical CD, package, printing on both, manuals, inserts, jewl-case (or not), etc.

So its more like $25 wholesale - 10% return allowance = $23.50.

$23.50 - $4.25 (COGS) = $19.25

$19.25 - 10% royalty for Dune = $17.32

$17.32 - 10% royalty to developer = $15.59

So at 500,000 units (let's just pretend they all sold before game was discounted from its full retail price, which was not true) ~= 7.8 million dollars US.

A game with size & scope of Emperor will typically run around $5 - $6 million to produce.. Let's say 6, since an external production typically costs more to produce.. that leaves a profit of 1.8 million so far.

Oh, and let's not foget close to a million in advertising, so that is a profit of $800,000 US.

EA had $2,019,000,000 in revenue from April 2002 - Dec 31, 2002. With Gross profit of $1,120,000,000 and net profit of $307,000,000. How important do you think another $800,000 is to that company?

And then, do the same calculations with a Sims add-on pack, which may cost $2-$3 million to produce, and will sell 4 times the units, ...well, you can see what I mean by 'lost opportunity cost'. Why not spend the $6 million dollars to build 2 more Sims add-on packs? Its a much better use of your money.

Anyways.. just more fun with numbers.. party on...

::)

Great explanation Chris !

Let me make more fiction more numbers and a few Q's more.

I thought that the development was made between WW and IG, but the way you mention it, it looks that the development was made entirely by IG. Then WW was mainly devoted to produce and manage the marketing of EBFD.

If some of software engineering would have been made by WW then some of those costs would have kept as an R&D investment for future programs that could have taken advantage for example of the graphics engines. Perhaps all the rights for the software engineering were property of WW ?.

6 $US MM to produce. OK. Part of that was investment, right?. It would have shown it's benefits later on. Let me elaborate, when I first knew about Emperor : Battle for Dune, I liked the title a lot. Since it was not going to be the usual title like Dune 2000 for example. The idea, if I am not mistaken, was to create a new umbrella brand franchise called EMPEROR, just like WW did with C&C. So I was happy to see that EMPEROR as an umbrella brand was a long run project not only for Dune based games but only a way to get rid off of the obligation to deal with "The Herbert Limited" every time. Battle for Dune was just the first step of Emperor.

When I first knew that EA had intentions to take over WW, I thought It would back up specially the long run projects, the facts so far proved I was wrong, mainly short term returns were the considerations of their decisions.

1 $US MM of advertising, well, hard to believe that such a money made so little impact on gamers, give that the reviews of the game were great. The only guess I can make is that most of that money was spent in Korea, where this game was expected to make a good performance (the fact that one asian looking girl played as the Ordos mentat was another step in that direction), too bad it was not spend all in advertising in NA or Europe.

7.8 MM in net sales and 800 K of margin, that is about 10.25% ROS, I don't know the ROS standart for gaming industry but anyway 10.25% sound pretty good to me, no matter how big the cow is (EA), 10.25% looks as a promising project that should have been supported in the long run, not to mention the investment made in R&D if IG gave the rights to WW.

Well that's what I can guess so far, I might me mistaken. Hopefully you'll give us more insights.

[Gobalopper]

IG did a lot of the development, I think other then parts of the online component everything was done by IG. The engine is also IG's and isn't used by Westwood. Westwood has their own 3D engine they have been using for Renegade, E&B, and Generals.

[Chris Longpre]

You guys spent a million advertising Emperor? Wow, a million dollars sure doesn't buy what it used to ;D

While, I did not disclose any 'actual' numbers for Emperor in my example (due to ethical restrictions), those numbers are all good numbers for games *like* Emperor. :)

The actual Emperor marketing budget was not very different. Yes, you are right. It doesn't buy too much anymore. BTW, a marketing spend of 20% - 25% of development cost is considered good. Of course, I'd always want more! :) On the big franchise game (i.e. C&C) .. it could be a lot more than that...

Are you sure? RA1 sold a little more than SC, and SC sold about 7 million... :-

Yes, very sure. Its all on how the publisher phrases the comparisons. It was always great to say, "C&C has sold 8 million units", but that really meant that C&C1, Counterstrike, Aftermath, RA1, Tib-Sun, TB:Firestorm, RA2, RA2:YR, Sole Survivor, and all the repackaged Battle Chest, War Chest, etc. etc.. all add up to 8 million. I don't really know about SC numbers... but they were the 1st to really crack open the Korean market, and that outsold their domestic market in short order .. and with the extraordinary support that Blizzard put into SC in Korea, and other territories..well, its possible.. However, I'm still prone to think that SC, for as good as it did, was less than 4 million World-Wide.. The Sims still outsold it. (In my humble opinion...I have no facts to back up my position on SC sales..)

I thought that the development was made between WW and IG, but the way you mention it, it looks that the development was made entirely by IG. Then WW was mainly devoted to produce and manage the marketing of EBFD.

IG did the huge lion's share of work on Emperor. Towards the end, as we were trying for the Xmas season, we poured resources from all over Westwood, EA-Pacific, and others, into finishing Dune (as IG poured resources form their other projects as well!). Truely, it was a collaborative effort on both groups. Together, we made something better than if we had worked on it seperately.

If some of software engineering would have been made by WW then some of those costs would have kept as an R&D investment for future programs that could have taken advantage for example of the graphics engines. Perhaps all the rights for the software engineering were property of WW ?.

Even with the R&D savings, the prognosis for a sequel to Emperor remained finanically challenging... it was a close call either way.

6 $US MM to produce. OK. Part of that was investment, right?. It would have shown it's benefits later on. Let me elaborate, when I first knew about Emperor : Battle for Dune, I liked the title a lot. Since it was not going to be the usual title like Dune 2000 for example. The idea, if I am not mistaken, was to create a new umbrella brand franchise called EMPEROR, just like WW did with C&C. So I was happy to see that EMPEROR as an umbrella brand was a long run project not only for Dune based games but only a way to get rid off of the obligation to deal with "The Herbert Limited" every time. Battle for Dune was just the first step of Emperor.

When I first knew that EA had intentions to take over WW, I thought It would back up specially the long run projects, the facts so far proved I was wrong, mainly short term returns were the considerations of their decisions.

That kind of money pays for the cost of personal (figure 24 people for 24 months = 576 man-months... if your burdened burn rate for an employee, plus the lights, computers, infrastructure, the huge health insurance premiums (a USA thingie) is say only $10,000 per man-month.. well, then that is 5.76 Million right there), the cost of the video production, voice talent, motion-capture talent, consultants, and all other resources needed to complete the game (like my frequent travel to the UK to work closely with IG).

As for the umbrella of 'Emperor', i.e. the Franchise 'Emperor' ... if only it had sold more... <sigh> :)

7.8 MM in net sales and 800 K of margin, that is about 10.25% ROS, I don't know the ROS standart for gaming industry but anyway 10.25% sound pretty good to me, no matter how big the cow is (EA), 10.25% looks as a promising project that should have been supported in the long run, not to mention the investment made in R&D if IG gave the rights to WW.

EA is using long term decision making. Spending 6 Mil to make 800,000 is not a good business decision. To you or me, its a whole lot o'money. But to a corporation which has to report earnings & revenue every quarter, its not even a drop in the bucket. Stock prices are not going to raise a penny on the press release that Emperor made $800,000 for them.

Oh, and 10% ROI would not be considered good at all for a huge worldwide publisher. If you could get it closer to 35% you'd be doing okay. But really, you'd want it much higher to really be a 'big hit'.

:) Peace all...

[Mahdi]

Chris, if you can't answer this (or give a guess) due to legal obligations or lack of knowledge I understand, but why didn't WW/EA sell the Dune license after E:BFD? I mean, you guys didn't make it a secret that the game didn't do enough to warrant a continuation of the franchise. Sincethe miniseries there are more dune license's floating around now, which means yours dropped in value, and keeping it isn't going to stop anyone else from making Dune games, therefore driving up the desire for the games, keeping it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me....

[Chris Longpre]

To the best of my knowledge, there is nothing preventing any game company from making a Dune based game, provided that they secure the proper licensing. Heck, Dune Generations was being made at the same time as Emperor was finishing. No issues there.

[Mahdi]

Yeah, I know any company can make the game as they have the licesing, what I meant was, why didn't WW/EA sell their dune license after they decided they would produce no more Dune games? Seems kinda useless to keep it, now that companies can make games based on the miniseries.

[Gobalopper]

I don't think WW bought an exclusive licence though. So anyone would be free to make a game based on the movie or miniseries as long as they could afford it.

[Mahdi]

Ah, ok, I thought it was exclusive. My mistake.

[rigel6669]

Sure hope that the miniseries is a worldwide success that will lead to a new dune game being released :)

[Mahdi]

Sure hope that the miniseries is a worldwide success that will lead to a new dune game being released :)

I wonder if any company would dare try, the curse of Dune lives on!

Multiple screenplays unproduced

Jodorowski's Dune died during production

Lynch's Dune failed

DE failed

The Butlerian Jihad died during first draft

Songs of Muad'dib failed

Dune 2000 failed

E:BFD failed

Frank Herberts Dune (by cryo) failed

Dune Generations died during production

Ornithopter Assult died during production

It's the MacBeth of Sci-fi!

Note: When I say failed, I mean failed to live up to expectations, usually failing spectacularly.

[Vezner]

Hi! I'm new here but am an old timer from the old Emperor forum. I was one of the ones that bought the game on the opening day. I still have it on my HD and still like to skirmish with the comps every now and then. 8)

I'm totally bummed that EA seems to have abandoned the Dune universe forever. :'( At least we still have EB4D and D2K to keep us warm at night.

The Dune universe will live on. I dare say that if it weren't for Dune the RTS genre wouldn't be what it is today (Dune 2 anyone?)

LONG LIVE THE FIGHTERS!

[Navaros]

Perhaps I am naive, but if Chris sees this I would like to ask him:

why doesn't EA care about the adoration and respect of it's customers?

Does that not carry with it a substantial dollar value?

If you talk to a group of Blizzard devotees, you'll find a prevailing attitude among them that they especially love and will always be loyal to Blizzard for it's perpetual game support.

If you ask the same questions to a group of WW game fans, you'll find a prevailing attitude of hate and loathing at the fact that all WW games are abandoned before they are finished and the paying-customers abandoned along with the games.

Not wanting to make a sequel to Emperor is one thing. Not bothering to finish the game with patches subsequent to Retail is quite another.

As you may recall from some other posts of mine, Emperor is chock full of bugs. Many of which severally handicap fair gameplay and hence result in immense frustration. Even one that prevented the 2vs2 BC system from ever being fair because to Wash the game, one loser just needed to Quit before both bases were destroyed. How long would that one bug have taken to fix, I wonder. Compare that with how many people would never even touch the BC clan system and perhaps even Emperor itself, for that very reason.

To a big Evil Corp like EA is, I understand why they might not care about such bugs. But to an RTS gamer who expects fair play in his competitions but is robbed of it due to incomplete and erroneous coding, it is a really big deal. He spent his hard-earned money for something that doesn't function as professionally as one would hope from a product made by Professionals (ie: IG/WW).

While patching Emperor until it was a complete and bug-free game would not have added any hard numbers to the books of EA, what it *would* have done was generate goodwill and brand-loyalty among appreciative customers which, one would think, leads to easy Sales in the future by the already-established fawning customer-base.

To EA, the cost of fixing all the bugs in Emperor is surely chickenfeed, so why did they opt not to do it even if just so as to generate such goodwill?

I know Emperor in and of itself wouldn't generate enough goodwill on it's own. But it's not just Emperor that EA abandoned. They abandon *everything*. This results in hateful and disgruntled customers who may very well (such as myself) boycott all things EA, for all time. My boycott doesn't just affect me. It affects a ton of people in the exact same demographic as me. Which is to say, for every disgruntled former customer, EA is putting a potentially huge dent in their exact target market! Any time a friend, relative, acquaintance, someone on any forum I particpate in - anyone really - asks me if Generals or any other EA product is worth buying , or not even asks me specifially, but even mentions the name in my proximity be it by way of a forum post or anything else - I will tell him in no uncertain terms to avoid all things EA like the Bubonic Plague and give him ample reason to change his buying decision so that he never touches Generals let alone buys it.

Fiscally, does Blizzard have it all wrong? Should they not even bother supporting their games because by abandoning their customers like EA does would be far more profitable (and perhaps Blizzard wouldn't have been sold and bought by MS {or so I've heard})? Does the goodwill of legions of loyal, adoring customers who will buy anything with a Blizzard logo on it at any price simply due to the expectation of developer support Post-Retail have such an insignificant dollar value that it's better to just abandon all customers and to Hell with them, because caring about your customers is not profitable?

Perhaps the success of EA has already answered all these questions and I'm just being stupid for thinking that the paying customers should be respected and cared for even in this day and age of corporate gluttony by entities like EA.

[Chris Longpre]

Perhaps I am naive, but if Chris sees this I would like to ask him:

why doesn't EA care about the adoration and respect of it's customers?

I cannot speak for a corporate entity that I have no affiliation with. You should ask them, and let us know what they say.

Not wanting to make a sequel to Emperor is one thing. Not bothering to finish the game with patches subsequent to Retail is quite another.

Westwood did release a couple of patches post ship, which did address a good many bugs & feature requests. No game is every 100% bug-free, unfortunately. And some things you call bugs, come down to a difference in opinion on design choices... not bugs.

As you may recall from some other posts of mine, Emperor is chock full of bugs. Many of which severally handicap fair gameplay and hence result in immense frustration. Even one that prevented the 2vs2 BC system from ever being fair because to Wash the game, one loser just needed to Quit before both bases were destroyed. How long would that one bug have taken to fix, I wonder. Compare that with how many people would never even touch the BC clan system and perhaps even Emperor itself, for that very reason.

The *wash* system came about because of the HUGE number of disconnect cheaters in RA2. That affected our design decisions for multiplaye heavily. So, you are playing a 2vs2 BC game, and your ISP drops you. You should get the loss? Or, perhaps the other player plays the disconnect-reconnect game until you think you have too much lag, or your machine is bugged, and you quit. Should you get the loss? It is not an easy problem to solve, and most games create some artifical *rules* to help curb cheating, and give proper scoring. What did Generals end up doing? I know they were concerned over the same issue...

To a big Evil Corp like EA is, I understand why they might not care about such bugs. But to an RTS gamer who expects fair play in his competitions but is robbed of it due to incomplete and erroneous coding, it is a really big deal. He spent his hard-earned money for something that doesn't function as professionally as one would hope from a product made by Professionals (ie: IG/WW).

You were not robbed of your ability to play in competiions, LAN games, Quickmatches, WOL games, etc. etc. You were only robbed of official battleclan standings because your competitors cheated. Have you ever played an online competitive game where there were no cheaters? Aim-bots, move-bots, trainers, disconnecters, washers, exploiters, blah blah blah. ... I cannot think of many games that have not suffered from cheaters.

To EA, the cost of fixing all the bugs in Emperor is surely chickenfeed, so why did they opt not to do it even if just so as to generate such goodwill?

I know Emperor in and of itself wouldn't generate enough goodwill on it's own.

See my other posts regarding costs of game development. It is not chickenfeed. Also remember, Wallstreet primarily cares about revenue. With that in mind, you've answered your own question.

Perhaps the success of EA has already answered all these questions and I'm just being stupid for thinking that the paying customers should be respected and cared for even in this day and age of corporate gluttony by entities like EA.

;D

[Navaros]

Chris, thanks for your insights, I am sure all of us here appreciate them.

I just wanted to emphasize though, that I can write a book about how the bugs in Emperor make the gameplay fundamentally unfair in many ways.

ie: Westwood clearly wanted the player to able to control where he harvests via Refinery Waypoints. That is a listed feature in the README of a Patch. Yet this feature does not work, due to uncorrected bugs which were very clearly intended to be corrected. Which results in House Atreides needing to defend multiple spice fields simulataneously on most maps since the harvesting goes all over the map randomly. Atreides need Minos to compete vs. any good player of another House. Minos have huge mobility issues. So the Atreides economy can easily be wiped out by a player of another House who has much more speedy vehicles available to him if the Atreides Minos don't *happen* to already be at the point of the enemy attack before it happens. To simplify things, let's look at it mathematically:

An Atreides vs. an Ordos. Both players have spent $30 000 worth of money. The Atreides has Minos and Fedaykin as his main army, the Ordos has Dust Scouts and Laser Tanks as his main army. It should be a fair fight at this point. BUT: against his will, the Atreides' harvesting is split up into 3 sepearate spice fields all over the map due to bugs in the game. The Atreides has to defend all of them, yet Minos take forever to get from POINT A to POINT B. So, what can the Atreides do:

A>split up his $30 000 of units 3 ways, in which case the Ordos attacks $10 000 worth of the Atreides units with his full $30 000 of his Ordos units, destroys them, then moves that same army on to the next $10 000 and destroys it, and does this yet again. The Atreides never had a fighting chance because it is impossible to beat $30 000 with $10 000

B>put all his $30 000 units in one spot where he thinks he will be attacked. If he happens to get attacked at this spot, then he was lucky enough to have the benefit of a fair fight (though Emperor, as an RTS, should be fundamentally fair by default, not as a result of luck). If not, then the enemy will obliterate him at whicher spice fields he did not place his defense at. An elite player would back away from the main Atreides army, notice that the harvesting is split up, and not even bother to engage it until the other 2/3 of his economy, as represented by undefended harvesters, are dead.

In either case, the Atreides player gets shafted by the harvesting bugs. Someone who does not understand Emperor gameplay very well may say: "learn how to move your army and/or place your units in better positions". However, any expert would realize that this can not be done. The fact of the matter is, Minos are simply too slow to engage the enemy at distant portions of the map. By the time the Minos get to where the armies are engaged, the engagement is already resolved due to mobility issues. The mobility issues are part of design and not a bug, but these design decisions combined with the harvesting bugs make the game very unfair in many ways.

This concept is even confirmed through the average Emperor player. If the map is small or simple and there are few instances of where the harvesting bugs can be exploited, such as Knife Fight or Sandy Pass, it is known as an "Atreides Map". Any map on which Atreides is given a FAIR chance at winning is commonly referred to as an "Atreides Map". On maps where harvesting pathfinding bugs can and do get terribly exploited every time without fail, ie: Canyon Channel; they are known as "Hark or Ordos" maps.

But all the Houses are balanced by default. With the same amount of money/time invested by 2 Opponents in making a base/army in Emperor and if those armies were to engage each other directly without touching the enemy's economy, the only thing that would determine the winner would be the skill of the Player, not his choice of House.

It is a common misconception among the Average Emperor Joe that Atreides is an unstoppable juggernaut if he's allowed to build for a substantial period of time, and therefore that the inability to control harvesting is a way to make the other Houses have a better chance against Atreides. This misconception is not true. The very best Atreides will fall to the right units of other Houses even if he has 100 Minos and and 200 Fedaykin. At that point, the playing field is still even, and those who truly understand the fundamentals of Emperor gameplay will all concur.

If both players had an equal opportunity to control their harvesting along with everything else, Emperor would ALREADY be a balanced game.

The fact that harvesting can NOT be controlled - as Westwood intended the player be able to do - throws that default balance out of whack due to the speed differences of the Houses. This is why Emperor is made fundamentally unfair by pathfinding bugs. Because most maps are not like Knife Fight or Sandy Pass and hence Atreides are shafted by harvesting bugs right from the get-go.

I am sure you, Chris, must acknowlege that the inability to control harvesting is an uncorrected bug seeing as it's in the README as something that was to be fixed. Hence I am explaining some of these things for the benefit of Average Emperor Joes who might be reading this in the hopes they may perhaps be enlightened.

There are other very prominient bugs aside from the main ones that sabotage Emperor gameplay. The way units don't move to their destinations in logical paths and instead take asinine paths - some even wandering off into their own sub-groups without your permission when you really *need* them to stick together - which oftentimes result in the enemy having a much better angle at which to engage you than he reasonably should - is another huge bug. No attack-formation-move is yet another. The Ix Projectors busting for no apparent reason and making the Ix-user lose when a bug randomly ceases the functionality of his entire strategy that happened to be Winning the game for him up until that point (has happened to me many times until I got fed-up and stopped using Ix altogether) is yet another.

I concur that no game is bug-free, but in Emperor there is a whole motherload of bugs, many of which need to be fixed for the sake of RTS balance, and others quite blatant which should at least have been minimized for sake of a professional developer maintaining it's professional polish throughout the entire program.

About Wash Games - yes - if your ISP drops you, you should lose. The other player put in a lot of effort trying to beat you and if due to misfortune you are for any reason unable to see the game through to Completion, then you deserve to take a Loss for that. Mostly because the other player deserves the Win and it's more fair to give him that Win than it is to make it not count for either party.

[Vezner]

I agree that EA is a shame to the gaming industry. I admit that their games have great potential. MOHAA, BF1942, and Generals are all great games in concept but the lack of public relations and support that EA provides is disgraceful. I bought all of those games and in each case (perhaps excluding Generals since it is so new and the producer named Harvard is so cool with forum updates) EA stopped supporting them. Only after months of half arsed patching has BF1942 finally gained the "finished" feel. MOHAA still has bugs and EA has publically dropped that. I think that if EA were smart, and I know they aren't, they would take pride in their games like Blizzard or ID does and provide constant support to keep the community for the game alive. I may not be the greatest fan of Blizzard games but I highly respect them and the support that they provide. They are a model of efficiency and quality.

WW was too until EA bought them. You know why EB4D died? IMO because EA/WW didn't patch it enough to keep the interest alive. With bugs and etc in a game the fans just wont play it until patches come out to fix the problems.

So in short, I have decided that Generals is the last EA game that I am buying. I was going to get RTR (the expansion for BF1942) but I have decided that it would be far better if I didn't give EA my money seeing how they seem to not give a dang about their customers. If they don't respect or care about the fact that I pay their salaries, then I will stop giving them my money.

So, now it's time to look forward the the WC3 expansion and Doom 3. OH Baby!