|
but when we setup the tournaments... we set them to even values (so 12.0 or 13.0 rather than 12.4) ; so you will see difference within the label based on that range.
why no British Open & new HD courses:
So... even though we have a deal with the USGA and R&A, it does not mean we also have a deal with the course itself; for example, to secure Congressional... we had to visit the course along with the USGA and give them the full court press showing why WGT would make an excellent partner.
fortunately, in most cases, this has worked and the course partners are excited to participate with us; unfortunately though, it doesn't always happen. as I mentioned before... Pebble was limited to a short-duration; in the case of Royal Lytham, we weren't able to come to an agreement; which -- believe me -- is horribly frustrating and definitely affected our shoot schedules.
As for TruGolf... we have another in the works which we will be announcing shortly; One of our goals is to feature more international courses as well... so TruGolf will help with that.
looking ahead... we have multi-year contract with the USGA and we are very happy with that relationship; but even Merion is still in negotiation. Does this mean we won't get it... No. But it's an on-going process and we are definitely dedicated to get 2 courses for 2013. I love hosting the Virtual USOpen. USGA loves it as well... so we are dedicated to making it happen.
Misc.:
A question from AvatarLee -- Without divulging contractual specifics, what are some of the hold-ups/issues that the course has about being photographed and displayed in stunning HD on WGT?
First... many of the Championship courses are private. Thus, it is up to their board of directors and/or a members vote; they usually have little to no financial interest being featured. it's all about the "reputation". and/or perception of being featured in a "game"; however, on the positive side, WGT presents itself as not just a game... we are the worlds largest community of passionate golfers; and that helps establish us as different from others.
-------
Infiniteo3010 asks "Is it the result of the scores the players shoot in a virtual environment?"
No... the scoring is not the issue. I can circle back to courses... but let's continue:
------
QUESTION 3 -- "Why are there so few Ready-Go's? Can we have more?"
We try our best to keep a healthy number of available RGs in order to ensure they fill. In our experience, if you have RGs remaining unfilled for too long... it can have a definite negative impact. but it all comes down to how many people are willing to play at each level.
-----
QUESTION 4 -- "What features will be added to make the game harder / scores more realistic?"
I love this question because I've been wanting to get WGT to this point for a long time now; a little history... when starting out, we used to get TONS of complaints about the game being too hard, putting too confusing, etc. Some of the factors related to the equipment itself, others to the tools in the GUI...
so put a line in for the available features we wanted to introduce at the start, that said...our physics system is amazingly realistic, and there are slew of things we plan to "turn on" that we haven't yet...
Perhaps Olympic's VUSO was the wake-up call to show us the players were ready; we are not fans of scores in the 50s. So over the next few releases... you are going to start to see new physics features being rolled out that will require a much greater degree of course mgmt.
-----
QUESTION 5: "Why not turn one of the CTTH courses into a stroke play course?"
For a full 18-hole tee-to-green course, we take approximately 110k - 120k individual photos of the course, those are edited down to a few thousand per hole... so a full course is about 30k - 40k photos (on the server). For the CTTHs... we only take about 50 photos per hole and then edit those down to 20 or so - vastly different.
which means... what we feature, that's really about it for those CTTHs.
-----
QUESTION 6 -- "Will there ever be a fix for the swing meter jitter/problem?"
Well... given that I see the same problem when I play online, I would LOVE to say so. Reality is... there are a multitude of issues that affect this: flash itself, your cpu @ the time, video card, apps running, etc. But... we are working on a few optimization solutions that will address some of the most common situations; but it will not address all... simply because of the above list. This is the blessing and curse of being a flash/browser game.
that said... there are definitely things one can do to improve the meter consistency; and I think we'll post something about that in the forums -- as a good reminder.
-----
QUESTION 7 -- "What steps is WGT taking to combat sandbaggers & multi-accounters?"
So... there are things we can do on the backend to check and validate a user, but a vast majority of the players who are in violation we find out from the community itself. So we are implementing a few more tools for you, the community, to judge/evaluate a player prior to entering a match with them.
One of which is their records by tier (are they beating-up on higher players in a way that's uncharacteristic of normal play)? with this new UI element... you'll see a players full breakout of wins/losses by tier; players won't be able to "hide" their wins anymore with this feature.
without going into more confidential info... we are doing some things on the backend as well with our data analysis team. But like all things, as we release a new feature, give us good constructive feedback. We want to give you tools that are useful and informative.
if you are going to be competitive in the game... you want to understand your competition, so ideas are always welcome.
-----
OK... and with that... I think I have gone through all my list of initial questions;
continued on next post...
|