Ashes Cricket 2013 General Discussion

[zeustrojanstark]

No i am not saying 2004 was a good game !! but it had cricketers with different body types which made it more realistic !! (Visually) please please at lest give us more realistic AI field settings ( No long on or long off in the first over of a test match please)

I beg to differ here mate.2004 was one of the best games ever in Cricket.The stadiums were detailed so high,for example,the Chepauk stadium even had the TV Station behind it which is actually here in Chennai and the gameplay wasnt all that bad too.We had so many players in the squad and the player height and to some extent weight were all different.At that point of time,it was one heck of a game,maybe now it may look funny and several laptops including mine does not support that game anymore but still who could get so many stadiums in a game that too with almost very real model.

 

[MattW]

I beg to differ here mate.2004 was one of the best games ever in Cricket.The stadiums were detailed so high,for example,the Chepauk stadium even had the TV Station behind it which is actually here in Chennai and the gameplay wasnt all that bad too.We had so many players in the squad and the player height and to some extent weight were all different.At that point of time,it was one heck of a game,maybe now it may look funny and several laptops including mine does not support that game anymore but still who could get so many stadiums in a game that too with almost very real model.

And it was released with several game breaking bugs that make it unplayable out of the box.

They have a hard deadline with the Ashes licence - when we first heard about the Big Ant game on the other hand, it had release dates listed for the end of 2011. There's a choice that they will need to make about what they can get done in time and what they can get done right.

 

[karthik kamath]

First of all we should be thankful to trikstars for choosing cricket over any other sports.. It's not fair to talk even before we have seen something from the game

 

[barmyarmy]

To be honest the big advantage AC13 has is the Ashes license. For casual gamers that's going to be the game they know about.
AC13 already have a marketing campaign underway, including the very successful twitter "get your team in the game one" whereas Big Ant hasn't even revealed a name yet for their game.
I'd be astonished if AC13 didn't outsell Big Ant at least in the first few months. Then the question is do non-hardcore gamers want two games? If they have AC13 will they bother buying BA if they hear good things about it?

 

[angad]

Half a game by the sound of it. Another reason I can't justify spending ?40 on it. Lovefilm to the rescue.

Well you really cant blame trickstar for it. Lets face it, if Big Ant hadnt come up with a cricket game (a dream game at that.....atleast on paper) then we would not have been so critical about these features not being in the game. All we would have asked for was a good strong gameplay ! And thats why I feel Trickstar did not see it (the competition from Big Ant) coming and thought they would be able to get away with not adding all these requested features in their first version of the game.

Frankly, this approach from Trickstar did put me off as it does make me feel they were taking us for granted since at that time we did not have any other cricket game to fall upon. This is the reason that I am now more passionate about BigAnt's game, as they have shown a genuine attempt (even if it doesnt succeed in the end....it doesnt matter) to provide us with a true next gen cricket game that we all had been craving for. In the last couple of months, here is the trend being followed in Big Ant's and Trickstar's respective threads:

Big Ant's Thread:

Member:

"Hey Ross, do you have this feature A in your game?? It is very hard to believe that this feature 'A' would be in your game as it might be getting into too many details, but I still thought I would ask you, so that atleast you can put it in the next version "

Ross:

"Ofcourse we have that feature in the game. And we didnt stop there, we made it so detailed that you get feature 'B' 'C' and 'D' as well which you had never imagined in a cricket game"

Trickstar's Thread:

Member:

"Hey Chief, do you have this feature A in your game?? We believe since you already had the basic gameplay in place, you would now be adding all these features as well which we had been craving for"

Chief:

"No. We dont think that feature is important enough to add to this game. The cost does not justify it. We have excluded that feature to make our game better. I will explain in a podcast!! Cheers! "

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To be honest the big advantage AC13 has is the Ashes license. For casual gamers that's going to be the game they know about.
AC13 already have a marketing campaign underway, including the very successful twitter "get your team in the game one" whereas Big Ant hasn't even revealed a name yet for their game.
I'd be astonished if AC13 didn't outsell Big Ant at least in the first few months. Then the question is do non-hardcore gamers want two games? If they have AC13 will they bother buying BA if they hear good things about it?

That is unless BigAnt comes up with the ICC license

But seriously though, A lot of the sales would also depend on which game releases first (it seems more likely that AC13 will release first). If BigAnt releases its game before AC13, then license or no license, AC13 will find it very hard to compete with BigAnt's game.

Also, it is not about a single version of the game anymore. Trickstar cannot really afford to have any more negative publicity after the IC2010 disaster (broken online). In this industry, you need brand loyalty from the gamers. If you provide them crap after crap and then another developer comes in and gives the gamers all that they ever dreamed of, then you can bet that when the next version of both these games come out, people would be flocking the stores to buy the game that gave them the most pleasure.

 

[kashan123999]

I hope trickstar stick to the basics and comes with a solid gameplay experience which will be long lasting...Moreover Their marketing campaign is very intelligent,not to mention the ASHES tag behind them...

 

[sami ullah khan]

While it is alright to express disappointment, I do not understand the assault on trickstar and Chief. I still expect to have solid AI, tight gameplay and bug free experience from Trickstar. Also it is too early to get all critical about the game without having seen any actual footage of the game in action.

 

[ThandaMilk]

AC13 already have a marketing campaign underway, including the very successful twitter "get your team in the game one" whereas Big Ant hasn't even revealed a name yet for their game.

Big Ant's Cricket Academy release is not only a way to get a bank of players created, it should also act as their word-of-mouth, social, viral marketing campaign. With the ability to post your creation to your favorite social network, users will want to share their player cards with friends and the community. Its a smarter way to market, than using Twitter or Facebook as mere marketing message broadcast mechanisms. Net net, expect Twitter / FB activity to rise significantly after BA's Apr 22 launch of Cricket Academy.

That said, I do agree Big Ant have a greater marketing challenge at hand. For what its worth, some non-scientific indicators of current awareness or interest on Twitter and FB:

Big Ant Studios Facebook page "likes" = 5,723
Ashes Cricket 2013 Facebook page "likes" = 22,974
Big Ant Studios Twitter page followers = 1,125
Ashes Cricket 2013 Twitter page followers = 1,591

We also have to keep in mind Big Ant's network is based on its larger presence as a studio (and therefore would include a segment of the audience not necessarily interested in the Cricket game), whereas Trickstar's social presence is focused specifically on Cricket, so the gulf is actually larger.

The reason I expect CA's release to bridge this gap (can't say to what degree), is because it is only logical to expect information related to the full game to be released around the same time. It wouldn't make much sense to ask users to create players for a yet un-named game they don't know much about.

 

[MattW]

Frankly, this approach from Trickstar did put me off as it does make me feel they were taking us for granted since at that time we did not have any other cricket game to fall upon.

I think Chief is just being honest - which I don't think you should fault him for. It's far better to know in advance what is there and what isn't than to buy the game and be disappointed after being promised everything.

I certainly suggest people who don't plan on buying both regardless to wait for the reviews, wait for both games.

The timeline means that Trickstar would have known about the Big Ant game for most if not all of the dev cycle - but knowing about it doesn't give them Big Ant's resources and development time that they have had.

While there's a lot of negatives too, I think there are benefits to a game engine designed just for cricket and I think there's knowledge you gain from being able to start from scratch a second time round.

 

[Chief]

Lol. OK. So I can't argue with this as you've clearly labelled it opinion, and it's funny stuff.

However... Couple of *minor* edits where I think my words have been misinterpreted, if you will allow?

Trickstar's Thread:

Member:

"Hey Chief, do you have this feature A in your game?? We believe since you already had the basic gameplay in place, you would now be adding all these features as well which we had been craving for"

"Hey dude: Appreciate the question! As you may have heard, we actually had NO "basic gameplay in place". Everything has had to be built completely from scratch for this game!"

Chief:
"No. We dont think that feature is important enough to add to this game. The cost does not justify it.

"This feature hasn't been included in the initial release because it was implausible on commercial grounds. However, it is our intention to include this as part of an update at some stage in the near future"

We have excluded that feature to make our game better."

Is there any situation you can think of where this wouldn't be the correct path?

 

[Gurjot95]

This negative feedback will not help anything. The worse outcome will be trickstar will stop developing any more cricket games and I am sure we would rather have competition b/w two cricket game developers rather than a standalone game. constructive criticism is always welcome but this is way beyond to encourage the developers. Let's just give this game a try before deciding our judgement even before we have seen this game. Chances are (and it's high possibility) this game may be far more graphically enhanced than Big Ant and that plays important role in attracting the causal gamers.

 

[Allrounder18]

I am having a funny feeling that AC13 might beat BA Cricket in terms of graphics.

 

[srk121]

Another feature is out!

 

[barmyarmy]

@Thandamilk - couple of points.

1. Big Ant's likes are for the studio not the game.
2. AC13s are for the game not the studio.

505 games is the producer for AC13 not Trickstar.

 

[Lee1981]

What assurances do we have this time around that we won't have another joke that is unplayable online play

And even worse the failure of anyone

A- doing anything about
B- even holding there hands up to there being a problem

Disgraceful if you ask me.

You should be going the extra mile this time around to win back some customer confidence, but oh no they decide to make a game that sounds no more advanced than the last pile of poop from 3/4 years ago..