My solution

[Buddha]

Restructure the whole Virtual Pool (vp) paradigm:

1) Strip out the AI players and make it online only.

Companies are making big money by having a captive audience;
we're living in a service industry now so I would suggest looking at
vp as less of a product and more of a means to aqcuire a user base.

2) Consider dropping gamespy and building your own servers

If vp becomes an online-only option for two-player mode (let's face
it if people buy the download version then they're online!) then
the whole structure of how people play each other needs changing,
fundamentally because there will be far more players of differing
abilities. Some kind of progressive league system would be essential.

Also, with your own servers you can either charge people each year
like gamespy does or use ad-placement - or a combination.

3) Employ me and I'll make you rich (email me for further details - reverse spam!)

It's early and I'm bleary eyed, these ideas are just off the top of my head.

However, I'd like to suggest that the DL version has killed the online
community, first because many people had the perspective that they
were paying for an update (I bought it) and second because there are
now two incompatible versions being used at the same time. Clearly this
isn't Celeris's fault and they should be applauded for trying to breathe
fresh life into virtual pool, although at the same time perhaps an equal
amount of effort needs to be put into an online community as is put
into developing the game - see 1) and 2).

Finally, at between 20 and 30 users on a typical night now and fewer and
fewer tournaments by the day (week) the lobby is in cardiac arrest - I
enjoy chatting in the lobby but most of the players there hardly type at
all, perhaps because English isn't their first language. When the die hards
start leaving (they have) then drastic action is needed.

Good luck with whatever direction you choose, but please choose one.

Brian (BA English, MSc in Computing)

[mocochoco]

Try employing someone with some business sense Celeris, because you are absolutely useless in every way.

Or just lazy.

[zwylle]

Lately I'm wondering if we have more 'web-developers' or people 'being in sales' in this community.

1) Working as a bag boy in the local supermarket doesn't qualify as 'being in sales'.
2) Having your own my-space site doesn't make you a web developer.

[zwylle]

wow, is that a shot at me? All I was trying to do was help.

Not at you.. lol
Hey, everyone is "just trying to help".

If Celeris were such idiots as some people here seem to think, they'd never even got that far.

[mocochoco]

You think Celeris have got somewhere lol?

With the physics that they have managed to produce in this game...... i believe it could be huge, they have done a great job.

Unfortunately, these days, just having good game play, and word of mouth, does not sell games.

If you believe otherwise then you're pretty dumb.

[deraltefritz]

How many people are employed at Celeris? Does anyone know?
I doubt that they (Steve) can pay people a regular salary with a few sold download copies. At least that would explain why everything is taking so long...

[jbrother]

It's called research and development. Unfortunantly unless you already have working capitol to spend in this process good luck getting loans for it, but it is the risk any high market software or hardware firm takes. You develop a good product after investing in good research and hope that your demographics and other data was right.

Ok now everyone open their wallets...

[AlinVille]

I'm amazed this topic has 2480 views.

[polomint77]

I'm amazed this topic has 2480 views.

Me too...