Responses to your questions from Blade

[reddevil6663]

I think it's ridiculous if you ask me. It's all very well making games that use the latest technology, but they should also have backward compatibility as well.

i cant remember where i read it but they were on about making everything cross platform, so xbox ps3 pc's could all play on one platform lol, that'll be fun

[Welshsteve]

i cant remember where i read it but they were on about making everything cross platform, so xbox ps3 pc's could all play on one platform lol, that'll be fun

That'll never happen. They make too much money. Persoanlly I think play.com should pay for me to upgrade my graphic card, because even now there is nothing on their website to suggest what graphic card you need.

[reddevil6663]

That'll never happen. They make too much money. Persoanlly I think play.com should pay for me to upgrade my graphic card, because even now there is nothing on their website to suggest what graphic card you need.

http://mikecs.net/prodigeek/category/video-games/

[Welshsteve]

So do Blade Interactive have any plans to make the game Pixel Shader 2 compatible?

[The_Welsh_Potting_Machine]

I hope they release a Patch for the PC version for support for online play!!

[Welshsteve]

I've now sent play.com and Blade Interactive an email regarding this. Nowhere on play.com, or any other online vendor for that matter, gives any information regarding the graphic card compatibility required to run this game. Even Blade Interactive's site does not give details. I feel cheated and annoyed about this to be honest.

[The_Welsh_Potting_Machine]

I just spotted a bug in the Pool mode now.

When you pot a Ball you either hear the Pool Pocket "Sound" where the ball enters the pocket or you hear the "Snooker" Sound the ball runs down the "rails"

Anyone back me up on this?

[DavisFan76]

Thank you for all your feedback on WSC Real 09, both positive and negative. Blade has always, and will continue to work hard to accommodate fan feedback into the production of the WSC series. Since returning to the studio on Monday morning we have been looking into some issues and processing feedback from players, which we would now like to respond to.

• Website

Due to large volumes of traffic, the site is temporarily offline. The website will be back online very shortly. In the meantime you can email support enquiries to esupport@bladeinteractive.com.


• PS3 Online Disconnections

We have identified an issue in the game which causes a loss of connection when bandwidth is limited, which unfortunately was not picked up during testing on high-bandwidth networks. We will be releasing a patch to rectify this issue very shortly, and would like to apologise to players for the temporary disruption in online play on PS3.

In the mean time users should make sure they have all the correct ports forwarded. The list of used ports can be found by visiting the Sony Ps3 website (http://uk.playstation.com/help-support/ps3/).


• Trophies

Unfortunately there will be no trophy support on the PS3 version of the game this year.


• Removal of shot aids in online play

It is possible to remove the aiming aids for your own player when playing online and as soon as the other player takes a shot you are able to see exactly what aids they are using. Players should agree beforehand what aids are to be used in the game.

• Number of seasons able to play

You are able to play an infinite number of seasons.

• Lack of online play on PC

We conducted an extensive period of market research which concluded that the number of users who would play online on PC was small. As a result we decided to focus our resources on more fundamental elements of the PC conversion.

• Commentary

We improve the commentary with each version of the game. Since we recorded a lot of new commentary with the previous version, we devoted more resources to improving the technical side of the commentary this year. For example the commentary in WSC Real 09 has been tied into the stats system so commentators will refer to the strengths and weaknesses of players, and these will change over time as your stats upgrade. In addition commentary is more responsive to pressure situations and more reflective of changes in the balance of a match. We also implemented a feature to allow players to change the commentary frequency in the options to make commentators more or less “chatty”, as some players felt they talked to much while others felt they didn’t talk enough.

• Ball / cushion collision sounds

All ball impact sounds are recorded samples from WSA tournament balls on WSA tournament tables. The physics engine automatically assigns the correct impact sound based on the velocity, angle and contact type.

Thanks again for all your feedback, which we will continue to monitor and respond to as promptly as possible.

Blade

Firstly, thanks for the reply. However, that last bit about the cushions is BS. I've played on a full size table, have seen the sport live and on TV and there is hardly any noise at all when the ball hits the cushion, even if it hits very hard.

As for removing the aiming aid completely? It makes the game far too hard! What's wrong with this as an option?



This game (Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker) nailed the aiming all those years ago. Blade, please implement this as an optional aiming aid for those of us who want a more realistic challenge that involves more skill than lining up an aiming arrow! Any chance of your views on this, guys?

Edit: Here's a link to the game, if anyone's interested:

http://www.abandonia.com/en/downloadgame/676

[DavisFan76]

i cant remember where i read it but they were on about making everything cross platform, so xbox ps3 pc's could all play on one platform lol, that'll be fun

Unified gaming. Perfect, but I doubt if it'll ever happen. I'd love to be able to play Smackdown v Raw, Fight Night and many others on PC...

Imagine the modding possibilities!

Edit: @Blade: Does the PC version look like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mD6G...eature=related

If not, why not? And don't start doing an EA and feeding us the BS that the PC can't handle it.

[RGCirencester]

OK, done some research now and it appears that my graphics card does not support pixel shader 3. It would have been nice for this information to made available by all online vendors of this game at the time of purchasing, unfortunately it wasn't by play.com who I bought this from. With it virtually impossible to find most games on the high street these days more and more people buy online, so the least we can expect is for the full minimal requirements to be made available to us. I am now one VERY p'd off customer

I think you have to be fair to blade here, having seen the screenshots of the graphics it is fair to assume that the game will not run (will not run well anyways) on such an old card as the x1200. I do agree hoever im finding it difficult to find the system requirements for the game.

Message to blade
In regard to the physics in game, in future additions of the game you could include 2 settings on physics levels, say a real and arcade type mode. I think vp3 had the physics very nicely down years ago. Certainly from a PC perspective, with the technology available these days with physx built into graphics cards, and multi core processors, enough processing power is surely available for a realistic snooker experience? However i understand purely from the feedback on this site that many of the people buying this particular game may that much into the gaming scene compared with the target market on other genres of games.
As for online play on PC, i personally feel put out by this, as i have been waiting a while for this game to come out and do not own a console.

[SnookDude]

So ... in WSC 2009 ... there is no SKILL points???

Because in WSC 2008 for Wii, there is SKILL POINTS which can influence how long is your aim aids!

I cannot believe they took this out for WSC 2009 ...

Firstly, thanks for the reply. However, that last bit about the cushions is BS. I've played on a full size table, have seen the sport live and on TV and there is hardly any noise at all when the ball hits the cushion, even if it hits very hard.

As for removing the aiming aid completely? It makes the game far too hard! What's wrong with this as an option?



This game (Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker) nailed the aiming all those years ago. Blade, please implement this as an optional aiming aid for those of us who want a more realistic challenge that involves more skill than lining up an aiming arrow! Any chance of your views on this, guys?

Edit: Here's a link to the game, if anyone's interested:

http://www.abandonia.com/en/downloadgame/676

[DavisFan76]

I think you have to be fair to blade here, having seen the screenshots of the graphics it is fair to assume that the game will not run (will not run well anyways) on such an old card as the x1200. I do agree hoever im finding it difficult to find the system requirements for the game.

Message to blade
In regard to the physics in game, in future additions of the game you could include 2 settings on physics levels, say a real and arcade type mode. I think vp3 had the physics very nicely down years ago. Certainly from a PC perspective, with the technology available these days with physx built into graphics cards, and multi core processors, enough processing power is surely available for a realistic snooker experience? However i understand purely from the feedback on this site that many of the people buying this particular game may that much into the gaming scene compared with the target market on other genres of games.
As for online play on PC, i personally feel put out by this, as i have been waiting a while for this game to come out and do not own a console.

Very good post. As I said before, racing games already do this with an option for arcade/sim handling. The same could be done with WSC's physics and aiming system.

[Welshsteve]

Ok, so I have to be fair to Blade Interactive, but as somebody who is not "up" on things such as graphics cards and how old they are, when you buy a new PC (i've had my PC less than 6 months), you don't expect it to come with an "old" graphics card. And other people like me would have no idea about these sort of things. I just find this typical of the gaming industry. In addition, it is in my experience, and I'm sure many others, that games like this are not targetted, or aren't popular with the "normal" gaming community (Far Cry etc etc), so chances are people buying this game are not going to have the latest "kit". I know this is not Blade's problem, but my main gripe is the fact that no specifications are available for this game online, so anybody buying online is unable to see if their machine can cope with it before buying. To say the screenshots suggest a fairly new graphic card is required is not good enough I'm afraid. I have played games on this very PC that are able to show graphics in the detail shown in any screenshots I have seen of this game, it's just that these games allow you to play the game with slightly less intensive graphic settings, which doesn't take away the playability of the game.

[RGCirencester]

i understand where your coming from and really cant find the specifications anywhere. And i did mention in my post that this game might not be targeted at the same audience as, as you mentioned far cry for instance. Have you tried the game on the lowest settings possible? Its strange being able to load the game but not get to the menu.

[Jobe]

Skill points are included in WSC Real 09, relax. Regarding the cushion sounds, I see no reason why Blade would BS us. It's far more likely that what has occured here is TOO much attention to detail. I'll bet that the cushion sounds are indeed what was genuinely picked up by their microphones. I think the problem has occured because their collision sound engine which is based on the energy (speed)/angle of the ball impact is too sensitive and as a result is playing the cushion sound too loudly. Personally I don't mind it. You can bet that if casual gamers (who are probably used to hearing cushion sounds when they play pool down the pub) did not hear any sound when striking the cushion then blade would be receiving snotty complaints about this. I guess the old saying "you can't please all the people all of the time" applies to this and a lot of the other comments Ive read on this forum.