Re: I don't understand pre-orders. Do you preorder?

On Mon, 10 Feb 2025 10:07:11 -0600, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
wrote:

On Mon, 10 Feb 2025 09:54:06 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>

Come to think of it, there are two more instances:
>
"Wing Commander III" and "Ultima IX: Ascension".

>
Ultima 9? Okay. Now, I understand why you soured on pre-orders. :^T

Ultima 9 was a game I _so_ tried to love. It wasn't a game without
merit. It had a great soundtrack, and at times it was absolutely
gorgeous (those sunsets, oh my!). It had a fairly large open world
(still an impressive feature back then), and --for all its other
flaws-- it was nice to be back in Britannia again. I played through
the game multiple times, as if trying to prove that --if I just kept
at it-- it was a game I could actually fall in love with.

But that was a difficult ask. Right from the start, it was obvious
this game wasn't going to live up to its predecessors. Forget all the
betrayals of its legacy, there were just so many other things wrong
with the game. Its 3D models were awful (it was too early for
characters and monsters to have anything but the bare minimum of
polygons, and the animations were limited and choppy). The technology
just wasn't there yet, and --despite a few occasional moments of
glory-- overall the visuals looked worse than 1992's "Ultima 7". The
combat was dull. There weren't enough characters, and the few that
were there didn't have any real personality. The world was flat and
lacked the franchise's customary interactivity. The quest --harshly
cut back by the game's rough development-- was nonsensical. The open
world was stupidly bounded by too many invisible walls. The engine ran
poorly, and there were innumerable bugs. It just wasn't a fun
experience.

I actually don't regret that I pre-ordered the game because of how
poor the game was. I regret pre-ordering the game because it was
promised that the exclusives to fans who pre-ordered would remain just
that: exclusive. Seeing the exact same box, with all the same
contents, on store shelves at the retail release, was what really
pissed me off.

At least Origin didn't do the same thing with the "Wing Commander III"
pre-order. As far as I'm aware, the film-canister edition never was
sold in retail.