Zezo forum:

Post by Moderation | 2012-01-12 | 00:22:08

I guess the writing was on the wall. We will have sail damage to think about now. I doubt it will be much of an issue for those of us using auto sail selection. I wonder if the sail repair kit will take care of the 5% wear damage we can accumulate if we have to use the same sail for an extended period of time? What's next hull damage repair kit for those times we park against an island?

16 Comments

Post by zezo | 2012-01-12 | 00:54:57

Yes, it was there right from the start. At least there are no invisible islands like the last time. But they forget one really exciting feature - broken masts ;)

Post by PatH | 2012-01-12 | 00:58:43

Lunacy... but I guess they need to get you to up your credit consumption somehow. You can't say that it adds any realism to the game.

Post by Moderation | 2012-01-12 | 04:37:33

Do we dare start thinking of all the ways the game can be made to be more realistic? Those thoughts may end up in the game! Like having to actually throttle back in very heavy winds, the wave heights having an effect on the boat speed, floating objects, having to give your candy bars to pirates since you don't have smokes! And broken masts as Cvetan suggests ... could be very interesting to see what we end up with by the end of this race in July!

Post by zezo | 2012-01-12 | 09:47:06

VirtualRegatta had a Caribbean pirates themed game a while back. You had to fight opponents with cannonballs ;)

The game is a compromise between realism and availability for the general public. Adding tides/currents/waves will make it more realistic, but will make it totally incomprehensible for someone without sailing background.

It's also a commercial enterprise, so maximizing the profit is also thrown in the equation, and it may or may not help the realism.

Post by pgfiore | 2012-01-12 | 17:51:55

I feel it is nothing about realism... but just credit card! ;)
VORG and any long regatta has nothing to do with realism. The game is "reading" forecast", routing and course planning.

If you like realism give a chance to the free Virtual Skipper 5. It's great and you can play online too.

Post by PatH | 2012-01-14 | 01:56:22

Agree, this is not about realism. It's a revenue generation line. Calling it a "feature" is rather humourous. :-)

Post by Flag_em | 2012-01-14 | 07:34:37

If they want realism, maybe they should also reduce crew energy for sail repairs too! Well, somebody's gotta fix 'em, right?
So, you buy three sails for 150 credits. But to repair those three sails just once, it costs you 300 credits! Who knows how many sail repairs will be needed for just one leg?

I can see the outcome of this race is going to be governed by whoever pumps more money in to keep their boat's efficiency up. When you consider how close the finishing times have been, a 1% loss of speed could cost the race. So, to remain competitive, one would have to repair sails (spend 100 credits)every time they dropped off the 100% efficiency. By the end of the next 7 legs, that could add up to a lot of credits if one has to repair a number of sails.

It's a shame that I only found out about Zezo half way through the second leg (after the doldrums). Up until then, I was relying totally on manual calculations to determine choice of course. I was looking forward to the possibility of being far more competitive in this leg. But now, due to the uncertainty of total costs involved, I cannot see much point in carrying on with the race.

I wish you all the best of luck.

Post by zezo | 2012-01-14 | 08:41:47

For me personally spending $5/month is OK. After all the game is commercial enterprise and has to be profitable.

The problem is that they don't fix the bugs and don't implement really useful features. But it's always like that - you have techs and bosses/sales. And it'not usually the techs who decide what the priorities are.

Post by GeorgeBest | 2012-01-14 | 09:16:35

I agree with zezo. Five dollars is not a lot to play this game. I think that a lot of effort has gone into the development of the game and the game has to be maintained and monitored during play. A lot of man hours to be accounted for. If the game gets too complicated by implementing wave height, currents and tides, people will go away and so does the income. It's a pity though that at the moment it looks like the focus is more on the income side (bosses/sales) than the bugs (techies) ..

By the way, they still owe me an autosails for being stranded for an hour while the rest was doing 12 kts ..

Post by zezo | 2012-01-14 | 10:19:20

I don't think they are making a terrible amount of money out of it. You have to account for development, support, hosting, bandwidth and so on. The game company also pays for the rights to do a real race. On the other hand that popup DHL/Volvo ad in the beginning probably covers most of it, but it's still very far away from the millions Zynga and the like make while selling you virtual cows on Facebook.

Post by wedoarc | 2012-01-14 | 11:56:57

The person that is not satisfied, should not play the game, there is enough to win, less to lose ! And when you can't affort to pay 5$ ask your mom or dad or someone else for it.

Probably the ones that complain the most, own a house, have a wife,imac or macbook, iphone, ipad, a dog, 2 children, a sailing boat and drive a volvo ?

( i do not own a volvo, i'am not father of 2 children unfortunately, but the rest yes, and i added more then 25$ already into my account for full options).

United has also to win something back from all the investment for providing this game. I'am glad you have to pay for special features ! Life and winning trips/ prices isn't without costs......

Happy trip to Sanya everyone !

Post by zezo | 2012-01-14 | 13:18:10

Problem is that you don't get much for your money. You can spend money on waypoints just to discover that they hold your boat back between 0 and 10 minutes. Which is insane if you're serious about racing. In the end you would gladly spend some $ if that gave you a good night sleep, but you don't have the choice.

Post by Moderation | 2012-01-14 | 17:25:37

Here is something I did not think about. If you use auto angle then be prepared to top up the crew energy every once in a while! I am not sure how long it takes to get from 120% to 100% but if it does - be prepared for a drop in speed!

Post by zezo | 2012-01-14 | 17:46:46

Auto angle does not use crew energy. You lose energy points only when changes are made via the user interface. Using auto angle can actually save energy, compared to frequent adjustments.

Post by PatH | 2012-01-14 | 20:34:15

I think you lose crew energy though for sail changes caused by Auto Sail. I've been bitten by this a couple times when I was right at a transition point for sail selection.

Remember in the Virtual Regatta format how you could program a turn (either heading or TWA)... that feature is really missed and causes me to lose more sleep than I need to. If they would only implement something like that I would pay some credits for it. That would be a "feature"!