by JohnnyBlazers » Sat Jun 16, 2012 5:25 pm
I think that this has been handled very poorly by Strat, to roll-out a product on-line that does not work speaks volumes about what they think of their customers. In my job, if someone rolled out a new database that didn't work, management would chop some peoples heads off without question. I've been involved in a few data transitions and we never, ever went live without making sure that all functionality was up to par. Professionally speaking, this is never supposed to happen, but then again, if you think about it, SOM has always been a Mom & Pop type operation who relied on their legion of fanatics purchase their board game products. that has always been their bread & butter and the organization itself is probably not finely attuned to the realities of web based operations-that is not their thing.
The mistake here appears to be that they tried to integrate all of these "improvements" in their transfer to SOM, when what they probably should have done is move the game "as is" to the new site AND THEN make any improvements. Not crazy about the new interface, but then again it might be just a matter of time to get used to it since many of us have played the same game for 4-5 years now. Stylistically, I think the game hasn't changed since we went from ATG II to III.
I've followed this game religiously for the last 9-10 years and have gotten many hours of entertainment and I hope to be able to continue - the addiction has been broken, at least temporarily - I just wonder how many will actually come back to what looks like an inferior product?