MuzzUK

Good to know I'll defo pick up the next play test as I'm stuck on having to play BFone at the moment for my WW1 fix. Having played a lot of Steam shooters over the years including Verdun and Tannenberg these games seem to launch and those first few weeks really dictate where the game is going in terms of player base. Verdun came out and struggled the player base peaked around 500 daily after 2 years and during a sale, which is when I bought it but because there were never any others sales and price point it was quite expensive early on. There was no free to play or tier system to entice players so I suspect a lot of the player base stuck to BFone or stayed on WW2 shooters. Verdun now struggles now attracting around 100 per day meaning it's hard to find games in the morning. This means new players are put up against vets and get minced. You don't want to pay £20-£30 for a game thats declining to have your ass kicked by the remaining hardcore player base. I actually think community size and server population dictates these games futures early on rather than game quality, you can have a game that isn't quite polished/finished but still playable and if players join busy games they'll stay committed. It's disheartening to only see 7-8 active games in BFone now for example. I think pricing and release impact heavily affect this especially with a WW1 genre game that's very niche. Verdun was very clean and almost bug free on launch but the advertising and price point killed the game pretty quickly. Savage Resurrection another example of a popular franchise priced badly, when it came out the game was amazing, stable and very good but the £30/£40 price tag in its first year killed the franchise. You are now lucky to find anything other than bot matches. With so many shooters, battle royales and other titles coming out daily on Steam you choice of games in each price range is massive. I know people aren't keen on free to play because of cheaters for example but think the free to play market or at least giving players a trial say 10 hours is a good way to go for new games to fill those servers. I played a lot Dirty Bomb which is one of the most underrated shooters ever. It isn't a WW1 or WW2 based shooter but is a free to play it kept a strong 3000-4000 daily player base for almost 2 years, that game only declined because of poor dev choices and stupidly expensive micro transactions. I know a play tester for Splash Damage who says internal fights over pricing and marketing killed Dirty Bomb, the game is no longer updated now. I really think for a smaller studio/developer that isn't like an EA a free to play model or free to play trial is a great idea. Red Orchestra 2 was a great war shooter and had a long run lots of sales and free weekends. Dirty Bomb launched with almost 7,000 daily players to and kept that number up for many many years. You guys should look pricing this game short term to get players in... maybe a free to play 10 hours or a tier system like free players and paid players having access to certain game modes or maps. I would really love a historically accurate WW1 shooter to survive and keep a strong community. There's so much competition with WW2 shooters and other games on Steam. I love BFone but it's only 50% authentic. At the end of the day I'm just a player and a fan I'm not the dude who needs to make money on this game Wishing you guys best of luck!

I'm a massive WW1 geek and looking forward to playing this! Hoping to finally have a complete WW1 PC experience I can rope my friends and discord into. BFone is nice but not quite historically accurate enough and slowly losing player base and Verdun is fun to a point but becomes a heavy sniper war on some maps and lacks depth as there aren't a lot of explosion, gas attacks, arty or large scale engagements as player numbers are limited. Verdun has suffered due to pricing and being very linear and BFones superseeded by newer games. How are you devs going to price the game and keep the player base engaged? Have you thought about a free2play model thats limited to get people through the door and then allow them to play before buying the game. I think a lot of games like this would benefit from giving the players a taster. It's hard to commited £20-£30 to a game in a market so full. You're competing in a market that's full of massive shooters... Battlefield, Call of Duty, and many other WW2 games. This game needs something to pull in some of those punters and many people don't know much about the WW1 era. I am loving the screenshots and the visual look really authentic and atmospheric. America joined the war in 1917 which makes their story more limited than say a game about England, France and Germany. Really looking forward to seeing how you approach this whilst keeping things realistic and accurate.

As a WW1 geek I'd say the following: Beneath Hill 60 - True story about Aussie miners in WW1 one of the more famous known stories from the war era. Good to mixed reviews lots of action and a good biographical account of Captain Oliver Woodward. The miners story is quite unique these guys weren't often in the face of the enemy but suffered loses and had to deal with life below the ground trying to outsmart enemy miners. WW1 mining is such a unique tactic that was deployed for obvious reasons as direct engagements caused a lot of loses. The Lost Battalion - True story about American troops that were surrounded due to mix up in command orders. Good reviews fairly accurate account of what happened with lots of real character biography here. It's a good true story some action as well. It's not your standard trench warfare story. 1917 - Big fictional film out recently that everyone knows about, as you'd expect as a big Hollywood thing lots of explosions and effects but filmed in a unique way gives a nice view of how WW1 looked and some very authentic visuals. Story follows the path of a young solider as he travels through battlezones and towns to deliver important orders. I work with someone who dates one of the cameramen and it was shot in a very different way to a lot of films you follow the main actor really closely and its cool to know that the whole film was laid out as almost one long obstacle course meaning 95% of the film set was setup all in one go. No idea if this was a true story or not I doubt it. Passchendaele - Loosely based on true events and is a tribute film to main actors grandfather based on WW1 stories. This one has real mixed reviews but I really like it though it is fictional! Sad story/love story but it shows the emotional and personal side of WW1 as one of the Canadian characters has a German father. Mixed reviews but the battlefield scene near the middle and end of the film is very authentic. You kind of forget about people have dual nationality and families were forced to choose loyalty. Journey's End - One the more famous stories based on a theatre play/book deals more with relationships and personal stories than the war so if you're looking for combat and explosions this might not be for you. This hasn't got much action but good reviews. Testament of Youth and War Horse are good WW1 era films but they don't really deal with WW1 as the main topic but are stories set in that era effected by the conflict. War Horse does have some great looking battlefields and some cool WW1 scenes... so I guess it's got quite a bit of WW1.

As a WW1 geek I'd say the following: Beneath Hill 60 - True story about Aussie miners in WW1 one of the more famous known stories from the war era. Good to mixed reviews lots of action and a good biographical account of Captain Oliver Woodward. The miners story is quite unique these guys weren't often in the face of the enemy but suffered loses and had to deal with life below the ground. The Lost Battalion - True story about American troops that were surrounded due to mix up in command orders. Good reviews fairly accurate account of what happened with lots of real character portrails. 1917 - Big fictional film out recently as you'd expect as a big Hollywood thing lots of explosions and effects but filmed in a unique way gives a nice view of how WW1 looked and some very authentic visuals. Story follows the path of a young solider as he travels through battlezones and towns to deliver important orders. Passchendaele - Loosely based on true events and is a tribute film to main actors grandfather based on WW1 stories. This one has real mixed reviews but I really like it! Sad story/love story but it shows the emotional and personal side of WW1. Mixed reviews but the battlefield scene near the middle and end of the film is very authentic. Journey's End - One the more famous stories based on a theatre play/book deals more with relationships and personal stories than the war so if you're looking for combat and explosions this might not be for you. Testament of Youth and War Horse are good WW1 era films but they don't really deal with WW1 as the main topic but are stories set in that era effected by the conflict.