Preliminary Note: Please don't take the following as a rant or that I am displeased with anything I've gotten from WWG. I'm just explaining my feelings on the matter and trying to offer some constructive advice. I have nothing but the highest regard for Denny and his crew, and I want them [edit] to have all the success possible.

Now onto the rambling essay.

I can commiserate with Grump regarding frustration waiting for a release. My biggest fear is that delays will cause irreperable harm to WWG's reputation and/or success. I can also commiserate with Denny and crew regarding their desire to keep the customers happy and informed, but having unexpected things come up (I'm currently late on two projects because of a 2 month delay in my prior project).

I worked with a company publishing RPGs that had some great products and a lot of potential, but they had problems with hitting the release schedule. Each missed deadline resulted in all of the following releases getting pushed back due to resource limitations for publishing. The continuously slipping release dates frustrated the customers and the vendors, and you can't maintain the income if you can't get new products out the door. You also risk giving the impression that the system/product not being supported and of losing valuable shelf space (in the case of retail products). Most people are hesitant to buy something if they do not think the supplier can make good on the promises of support, and unfortunately anyone coming into the boards before buying may get that impression.

I'm a professional software developer, and one thing that I've discovered about my own productivity is that I am much more efficient if I can focus on a single project. If two projects take 3 months to complete if working on them simultaneously, then I can probably finish each in 5 weeks of focused work. As a result, the first customer gets their product 7 weeks early (makes them ecstatic), and the second customer gets theirs 2 weeks early. I've also found that getting pulled into more administrative tasks absolutely destroys my productivity. A lot of the creative minds I know that have started small businesses get an office manager/business manager to handle the administrative tasks to free them up for what they do best - creating.

I've also learned that a big factor in customer satisfaction is setting customer expectations. If you tell a customer that something will take 4 weeks and it actually takes 6, then they are upset because you were late. If you told them instead that it would take 8 weeks, they would be happy since you delivered 2 weeks early. A common project management technique is to take your initial time estimates, double them, then add 20%. In practice, this comes out pretty accurate. I also try to never give my customers an estimate until I have had time to put together a well-thought-out list of everything that is going to be delivered and how long I expect each to take, as every missed estimate hurts my credibilty for all future estimates.

My biggest frustration is that I get a product that appears to be the first in a series (Chunky Dungeon & Eye of Capellasis), get excited about them and anxious to pick up the sequel, only to have the sequels turn into vaporware, especially when I see a product released later get its sequel first (First Light and the Retrofit anyone?). The same applies to products that are announced but languish while products announced later of apparently similar magnitude get released first (Streets of Himmelveil vs Streets of Mayhem IIRC), sort of like seeing someone seated after you in a restaraunt get served first.

chriton227, I too am a Software Developer, and a small business owner that has 10 employees. Everything you mentioned is 100% true. I currently have 6 projects on my plate alone, not counting running my business, in fact some days I'm in the office till everyone else goes home, and then my 'programming day' starts. Denny if any of what chriton227
is new to you, please take heed in his words. Product delivery cycles are the life blood of most businesses, as It appears it is for WWG. Please do not take what I'm going to say as advice as to how to run your business, there are many facets of your business I don't know about. I WILL tell you what I as a client would like to see as products the I WILL purchase, and I WILL tell you how I would like to see those products delivered, but it is ment simply as customer feedback from me.

1. I would like to see Monthly releases of something. Be it major releases(something like SoM), or small releases(one building , or one new tile for SoM) I would have the monthly releases for each major line. Fantasy, Modern, Sci-Fi, Adventures. I would settle for every 6 weeks for the delivery schedule.
2. I would pay to have a yearly subscription to have access to those monthly releases. Subcriptions from each line, would be fine with me.
3. Basic sets like, street tiles, cobble stone tiles... you get the idea.
4. I would like to hear about new releases only when they are 3 to 4 months from shipping.

Please take this in the manner it is intended. I am a happy WWG customer and currently have more models to build than I can shake a glue stick at. and thank you for taking the time to read and respond to the boards.

Okay, at this point I will shut up - I have voiced my concerns, and while not exactly happy with the answers I can live with them.

Realizing that it could well end up being more than a year between fantasy building releases was a nasty shock - silence is not necessarily golden, sometimes it is a negative commodity. And after so very many months of 'soon, soon' I was fed up. I would have been happier if you had given anything like a realistic time frame. Or, as I said, simply told us that the restructuring was taking priority.

For goodness sake do not fall back on 'we can't tell you', because sooner or later the response is going to be 'that's okay, we won't buy you.' I was getting pretty close to that point, and even I had not noticed it until I finally had to give it voice. Either tell us or not, don't hint. I was getting seriously peeved.

The Auld Grump

Again, one last and I will shut up - I had stated that I had had my say, and CapnG decided to stir the broth again with his 'not to be confrontational'. I find that an absurd conversational gambit, since the intent without exception is to be confrontational but to hide behind that inaccurate phrase. (You will note that I never claim to be nonconfrontational - what I was not being is hostile, by adding insult CapnG moved from confrontational to hostile, rather pointlessly.)

I have stated multiple times throughout this thread that I do not think that World Works is not busy, nor have I said that the work going on is without purpose or direction, and indeed I did not make any comments about picking a direction or doing to much listening until CapnG said that that is what was going on. He then states that I have changed my arguments when it is specifically his comments that I was replying to - a poor debating tactic.

I made no accusations of dribbling into your beards, and mumbling incoherently 'what to do' until the good Capn decided that I was and made comment to that effect - my argument has been that it would have been more honest to tell people from the start that there was going to be a break in fantasy production for a longer than normal time. From this G has drawn false conclusions, perhaps deliberately since I do not believe him to be that obtuse...

You, being on the inside know what is going on, and what direction the company is taking, from the outside all that we have gotten is 'coming soon'. Which does wear thin. You answered, and while I was not happy with the answer (not unaccepting of the answer, there is a difference, I will take accurate bad news over inaccurate good news any day) I now had a more clear idea of where the company was going.

However, mentally reverse the situation CapnG - I doubt that you would enjoy it, and given your reaction to my query (query and quarrel share a root) I suspect that you would have written a post starting with 'not to be confrontational, but it has been 10 months since the last World Works fantasy release...'

The Auld Grump

At the risk of infuriating Grump further, vis-a-vis that word: Gundam. It's an ancient moniker I've had since the very earliest days of my presence on the internet. Of course then Bandai had to come along and release a new version of SD Gundam that actually features a character called "Captain Gundam". Now people think I'm ripping that off...