War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition...what's stopping you?

[MengJiao]

For me, the biggest stumbling block with WitP:AE isn't the amount of detail and information per se.  It's that the game doesn't do nearly enough to help you organize and keep track of the information, and more importantly, keep track of *your long term plans*. 

Well, it would be very nice if the game had a planning and tracking layer of some kind, but it doesn't.  One has to play with the games that are available and WitPAE is what stands at the end of a long line of games on the topic (Guadalcanal, WitP and all the patches and "official betas" of WitPAE)...since I've played all of those and have around a decade of experience, I'm resigned for better or worse to keeping about a page per move of notes, and losing the game eventually.  It seems unlikely that there will be a more comprehensive game about the war in the Pacific any time soon, so, sadly, that's the picture.

[undercovergeek]

For me, the biggest stumbling block with WitP:AE isn't the amount of detail and information per se.  It's that the game doesn't do nearly enough to help you organize and keep track of the information, and more importantly, keep track of *your long term plans*. 

This is fundamentally a flaw of the user interface. For me, no matter how intriguing WitP is, no matter how well it recreates the challenges (above all logistical challenges) of the PTO, the full campaign is simply unplayable. "3rd Party applications" like WitP-Tracker and WitP-Staff attempt to make things more manageable, and they succeed to some extent. But the fact that the functionality they provide isn't integrated into the game itself is a serious problem.

I can't think of another (relatively) recent PC game that forced me to work out so much of what I wanted to do with pen and paper.  Frankly, that just shouldn't be the case. The stuff I had to keep track of in notebooks -- which at bottom amounted to "Getting specific units and material from Point A to Point B so that I can build up for an eventual attack on Point C" -- was pretty basic stuff. Not easily organized stuff -- and there's the rub -- but basic stuff in order to carry out operations in the pacific.  The fact that the game does almost nothing to help you organizationally is why I can only ever get to about Spring '42 before I call it quits.   

I can't think of another (relatively) recent PC game that forced me to work out so much of what I wanted to do with pen and paper.  Frankly, that just shouldn't be the case. The stuff I had to keep track of in notebooks -- which at bottom amounted to "Getting specific units and material from Point A to Point B so that I can build up for an eventual attack on Point C" -- was pretty basic stuff. Not easily organized stuff -- and there's the rub -- but basic stuff in order to carry out operations in the pacific.  The fact that the game does almost nothing to help you organizationally is why I can only ever get to about Spring '42 before I call it quits.   

A fundamental and primary logic of using computers to play wargames instead of boards is (supposedly) allowing the machine to handle all the details and minutiae.  Unfortunately, when a game forces a player to use the same amount of pencil and paper tracking (or more), it fails from the outset.  All the support programs like WitP Tracker are basic features and functions that desperately need to be incorporated into the game.

From 6 years playing only this and been an active member on the Matrix Witp forum, for every one of your complaints, i will find you 10 saying 'i frikking love that im playing a game that needs me to take notes on my plans, how immerssive and awesome is that?!?!'

Coupled with many shots of peoples bedrooms with 2 monitors side by side, one with the game, one with a word document with all the notes. If youre not loving the logistics and plan making and note writing and sticky notepad element of the game, youre not playing it right.......

.........they would say

[MengJiao]

I can't think of another (relatively) recent PC game that forced me to work out so much of what I wanted to do with pen and paper.  Frankly, that just shouldn't be the case. The stuff I had to keep track of in notebooks -- which at bottom amounted to "Getting specific units and material from Point A to Point B so that I can build up for an eventual attack on Point C" -- was pretty basic stuff. Not easily organized stuff -- and there's the rub -- but basic stuff in order to carry out operations in the pacific.  The fact that the game does almost nothing to help you organizationally is why I can only ever get to about Spring '42 before I call it quits.   

A fundamental and primary logic of using computers to play wargames instead of boards is (supposedly) allowing the machine to handle all the details and minutiae.  Unfortunately, when a game forces a player to use the same amount of pencil and paper tracking (or more), it fails from the outset.  All the support programs like WitP Tracker are basic features and functions that desperately need to be incorporated into the game.

  I just don't experience my games in that way, ie as failures from the outset.  I take copious notes on lots of games, computer and otherwise.  I don't expect everything to be self-evident all the time and WitPAE is an interesting experience in non-self-evidence -- that's for sure.

[JudgeDredd]

I'm not necessarily against the minutiae...but it is very confusing, when working with a computer game, which bits the user has to do and which the computer will do. You only find this out as you go through the game and end up realising it IS down to you to make note of this or that...and by then you've "thumbed" the manual so much and searched so much that you're almost fed up with it.

Lack of knowledge leads to a lack of understanding which leads to frustration...in any walk of life.

[sandman2575]

I don't think anyone is arguing that, unless a game "makes everything self-evident all the time," it's a failure. But surely it should be one of the main goals of the game's user interface to facilitate gameplay as much as possible.  There's just no question in my mind that the Grigsby games do not meet this very important criterion. 

By comparison, I do resort to pen-&-Paper in playing OOTP on occasion.  But I actually think OOTP has a superb UI, one that is amazingly flexible and functional, allowing the player to organize a s**tload of information and organizational complexity. It's a masterpiece, in my view. Obviously, the sheer amount of information and detail in a WitP makes creating an effective UI very difficult indeed. But the game as it stands -- and no doubt will stand, for the remainder of its days -- falls well short of the mark.

[MengJiao]

I don't think anyone is arguing that, unless a game "makes everything self-evident all the time," it's a failure. But surely it should be one of the main goals of the game's user interface to facilitate gameplay as much as possible.  There's just no question in my mind that the Grigsby games do not meet this very important criterion. 

By comparison, I do resort to pen-&-Paper in playing OOTP on occasion.  But I actually think OOTP has a superb UI, one that is amazingly flexible and functional, allowing the player to organize a s**tload of information and organizational complexity. It's a masterpiece, in my view. Obviously, the sheer amount of information and detail in a WitP makes creating an effective UI very difficult indeed. But the game as it stands -- and no doubt will stand, for the remainder of its days -- falls well short of the mark.

  I agree, ideally a game should let you know a lot more about what your options are and how to manage them than WitPAE does.  On the other hand there is a lot in WitPAE that is automated.  You can let the Japanese economy run as it is set up to run for example.  You can leave bases on autofortify and let upgrades happen automatically.  You can even let subs patrol on autopilot and let searches all be 360 degrees.
  In some ways the choices in WitPAE are ideal for tantalizing the player: you can try to micromanage, hoping it works as planned and/or that the enemy falls for it somehow, so everything is a bit of a gamble (though when the shit hits the fan it can be hard to tell what went wrong or right -- so you never really know -- you don't even know what damage you did to the enemy most of the time).

  If you redesigned the interface, a lot of that uncertainty would be buried so to speak -- for example your planning would assume what?  A perfect staff and perfect coorperation?  Whereas we know (for example) as the Guadalcanal campaign got underway, many levels of Japanese and US planning, recon, and logistics were in fantastic disarray.  How would a good interface represent mind-boggling ineptitude on both sides?

   I can easily imagine the nasty comments from a cottage industry that would emerge in hating such a game -- a game where your reasonable plans turned into complete chaos for reasons that it would take many pages of notes to discover.

   At least WItpAE short-curcuits all that -- the idiocy is all there to see if you take your notes and see what you thought you were doing.  It's painful, but in some ways much more understandable than a planning layer that generates realistic idiocy not of your own making.

[sandman2575]

How would a good interface represent mind-boggling ineptitude on both sides?

;D  That's an interesting point!

Still, I'm not wishing for 100% total control over things so that I can pull off my plans flawlessly. In fact, if there's one thing I do wish for in a strategic WW2 game, it would be for things like Fog of War, C&C, lines of communication, intelligence gathering etc. to play a greater role so that the player has much *less* of a clear picture of what's going on all the time. I can't think of a WW2 game that really captures the sheer uncertainty that commanders confronted in trying to id the locations, dispositions, movements of enemy forces. Hell, CINCPAC had a hard enough time keeping tabs on their own forces! ("Where is Task Force 34 the world wonders").

But my complaint is not really that WitP should do a better job of helping you coordinate your forces from a C&C standpoint. It's that it should do a much better job of just helping you organize the basics of "Get Unit X from point A to B by Means Y on or about Date Z". One of the few ways I've found to use the UI to this effect -- and it's pretty meager at that -- is to use the "Set Future Objective" for units so that I remember where I eventually want to move them. But in general, the game does precious little to help you *plan* anything.

[MengJiao]

How would a good interface represent mind-boggling ineptitude on both sides?

;D  That's an interesting point!

Still, I'm not wishing for 100% total control over things so that I can pull off my plans flawlessly. In fact, if there's one thing I do wish for in a strategic WW2 game, it would be for things like Fog of War, C&C, lines of communication, intelligence gathering etc. to play a greater role so that the player has much *less* of a clear picture of what's going on all the time. I can't think of a WW2 game that really captures the sheer uncertainty that commanders confronted in trying to id the locations, dispositions, movements of enemy forces. Hell, CINCPAC had a hard enough time keeping tabs on their own forces! ("Where is Task Force 34 the world wonders").

But my complaint is not really that WitP should do a better job of helping you coordinate your forces from a C&C standpoint. It's that it should do a much better job of just helping you organize the basics of "Get Unit X from point A to B by Means Y on or about Date Z". One of the few ways I've found to use the UI to this effect -- and it's pretty meager at that -- is to use the "Set Future Objective" for units so that I remember where I eventually want to move them. But in general, the game does precious little to help you *plan* anything.

I agree, whatever it is that WitPAE is doing (and it is hard to pin that down really -- do China and Russia really need to be in the game at all?)
it is doing a very odd job of it.
On the other hand, there are the usual problems with what exactly a player's role is in a strategic war game.  Is he Admiral King?  Is he all Allied commanders?  And as usual I have to say that for me an ideal war game would make that very clear.  You would be for example Ghormley and (as your interface options would allow), find a good dentist and kick the Free French out of a nice HQ, get off the Argonne, attend the conference before Savo island and get yourself blown up if necessary.
But given how games have not-quite clarified such things, WitpAE does allow you some interesting (if irritating and frustrating and confusing) experiences.  If the interface were set up as simply a perfect planning mechanism somehow perfectly coordinating all forces (including shooting McArthur if necessary), this would be a huge problem and if it were an imperfect mechanism it would be an even bigger problem
I suppose some kind of highly variable staff mechanism might do both but that would hint at the need to clarify who the player is.  Which always seems to me to be the real problem.

[MengJiao]

FI can't think of another (relatively) recent PC game that forced me to work out so much of what I wanted to do with pen and paper.

I'm running with only about two small sheets of notes per move so far == and one gets tossed when executed == so I won't quite be able to read where I went wrong.

[Greybriar]

War in the Pacific - Admiral's Edition is on sale for 50% off until 10 August 2015.

[Staggerwing]

War in the Pacific - Admiral's Edition is on sale for 50% off until 10 August 2015.

And it's playable under Linux!

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3908238

Paging Huw! Paging Huw the Poo! Just one day left!

[Tuna]

Kind of stupid, that they don't make that the 'new' price.. I mean the game is 6 years old!!!.. and if you count the fact that it's really just an 'upgrade' of an even older game, the regular price is kind of ridiculous right now!

[Yskonyn]

It's not stopping me, damnit! 

Seriously,though, its that time again; the 'Let's learn this monster'-itch has returned.
The last few days most of my spare time has been devoted to watching YT videos (not many out there, but some are pretty good, eventhough none tell a complete tutorial) and browsing through the manual taking notes.

I have played Coral Sea to its conclusion. It ended in a draw. I believe due to the fact that the Japanese managed to make a big attack with their large carrier TF in the last two days of the scenario causing lots of damage to my ships.
I did prevent them from getting near to Port Moresby though.

Seeing the amount of aircraft they brought with them, I am wondering how one could ever turn this into a win, without just running circles with your Carrier groups hoping the Japanese will follow them instead of invading Port Moresby before the timer runs out.

This scenario doesn't even involve production and supply, but its there with a lesson I would say. It just seems like your tools are pretty limited.

Is a draw a common result? Did I do well with a draw? Should I continue to Guadalcanal?

[Tuna]

It's not stopping me, damnit! 

Seriously,though, its that time again; the 'Let's learn this monster'-itch has returned.
The last few days most of my spare time has been devoted to watching YT videos (not many out there, but some are pretty good, eventhough none tell a complete tutorial) and browsing through the manual taking notes.

I have played Coral Sea to its conclusion. It ended in a draw. I believe due to the fact that the Japanese managed to make a big attack with their large carrier TF in the last two days of the scenario causing lots of damage to my ships.
I did prevent them from getting near to Port Moresby though.

Seeing the amount of aircraft they brought with them, I am wondering how one could ever turn this into a win, without just running circles with your Carrier groups hoping the Japanese will follow them instead of invading Port Moresby before the timer runs out.

This scenario doesn't even involve production and supply, but its there with a lesson I would say. It just seems like your tools are pretty limited.

Is a draw a common result? Did I do well with a draw? Should I continue to Guadalcanal?

I think Guadalcanal is better for 'learning' the game, as you'll be dealing with more aspects. Loading troops, dealing with supplies, searching for the Enemy, etc...

[JudgeDredd]

Man - every time someone "resurrects" these monster game threads, it puts me in the mood for one.