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Disgusted beyond belief... - 7/6/2001 1:32:00 PM

Flashfyre

Posts: 330
Joined: 10/6/2000
From: Waynesboro, PA, USA
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I just finished reading the posts in some of the "conflict" threads, and i must say I am disgusted and dismayed by what I've read. The name-calling, sniping, back-biting, and low blows....the use of "undocumented" historical data to uphold one's opinion...the rounds of griping, whining, and flaming over "supposed" errors in the Oobs and the game system....the demands for fixes, adjustments, and "tweaks", to satisfy each and every player's fancy. At one time I thought the majority of the "regulars" who posted here actually enjoyed the game, and wanted to make it better for all....now I'm beginning to believe that all the rants about "upgrades" are self-serving, and not for the good of the game or the community. It seems that, for many of you, "historical" means what you saw in a movie or read in a fiction novel...and I have to believe that this is where most of the so-called "data" on weapons, unit usages, and troop quality comes from. Personal opinion, favoritism, bias, call it what you will...it means the same thing: changes that one person wants at the expense of others. "My rifles don't kill as many as the other guy's".....change it. "My tank doesn't survive like I think it should"....change it. "My squads aren't elite, and I think they should be"....change it. "My favorite nation doesn't have units that the other guy has"...change it. Why? Why should a change be made, just because some fans of that nation or that unit say it should? Is it historic? Where is the hard data supporting the contention? What effect will this have on other units in the game? Will the game still be historic, or will it now become a fantasy-world? My opinion: If you don't like what's in the Oobs, change them yourself. But don't blame me if your game crashes, or you can't play PBEM games, or weird stuff happens....that's the risk you take when you mess with the Oobs. I'd like to see them fixed; I'd like to see them historic in nature, with the hypothetical allowed. But the way things are going, there won't be much "historic" left, other than the timeframe. Oh, yes...the war DID happen from 1939 to 1945. Not that you'd notice, what with everyone clamoring for 'prototype' units to be added. Too bad this had to happen....there was a light at the end of the tunnel, but too many moths have smothered it.....

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- 7/6/2001 7:19:00 PM

gators

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I teach history, and I sympathize with some of your points. I feel some people are firmly attached to their digital troops and want to get any (a)historical advantage possible. Some posters do flame one another regularly usually because someone has the bad tate to disagree with the latest data from whatever source. I try to cite sources when I involve myself in on-line debates, but I sometimes get drowned in vitriol. I just consider it a part of free speech..Then I go and play another scenario! :cool:

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- 7/6/2001 7:34:00 PM

Jasper

Posts: 174
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From: I am from Mars
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The recent crashes in PBEM games is due to too many changes in too short a time. In only a month time, the game goes from ver 5.0 to 6.0 a total of 4 changes. Partly due to people complaining about their rifles...etc etc now it seem people are complaining about MMG too deadly etc etc ... In fact, the game should goes on the line where equipment used should be on production and not experimental equipment. There indeed a lot of experimental equipment but they are not impacting on the war rather then a small battle. ;)

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- 7/6/2001 8:14:00 PM

sven

Posts: 10293
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From: brickyard
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Flash if I have hurt your perception of the community allow me to apologize. The battles that were fought were at least partly my fault. I was a tad overzealous in my defense. apologies, sven

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- 7/6/2001 8:42:00 PM

Mark Ezra

Posts: 340
Joined: 12/29/2000
From: Jasmin Ranch, Acton CA
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All Hail Marx and Lennon

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- 7/6/2001 9:44:00 PM

AmmoSgt

Posts: 1002
Joined: 10/21/2000
From: Redstone Arsenal Al
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Could be that part of the Problem is that folks who Play PBEM often surface issues that only really effect PBEM..and folks who only play the AI and have all the settings to change whatever the issue maybe simply don't understand the need for accuracy and balance the same way that PBEM'ers do ... Both are valid ways to play SPWAW .. but PBEM .. doesn't have the adjustments available so you can make the game comeout however you happen to personally feel the way it should ... I think that trying to improve the AI is a fine and noble effort.. but i am also afraid that some other company is going to see the true potential that is offered by the Internet, and is going to make a game almost as good as SPWAW ,but that is supportive and tailored to PBEM or online ..and folks are going to have to go with what gives the player the best contest instead of the best wins ..... Don't get me wrong, anybody that plays SPWAW has a horse in the race and should feel comfortable posting , and should post their thoughts.. But it does cause some PBEM'ers to dispare at times ..

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Post #: 6

- 7/6/2001 9:52:00 PM

Paul Vebber

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From: Portsmouth RI
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Well, it may require some wrangling between players, but tere is no reason why PBEM players can't agree to change a pref or two here and ther and agree to use modified OOBs. Back when i was heavy into pbem I kept a folder for each game I was playing andin it kept teh OOBs and steel.prf file that went with that game. You don;t even need to exchange steel.prf files ,since they "stick" with the game now. It takes a little bit of organization, but its easier now than ever since if you screw up, the game security doesn't lock you out. PBEM'ers who don't take advantage of modified pref settings and OOB's simply don't want to bother. If there is a bug preventing it ... no onehas reported it?

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- 7/6/2001 10:02:00 PM

darroch

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This board, in general, is bright, thoughtful, inventive, and funny. There are times we forget ourselves, rage endlessly over some pet theory we hold near and dear. The argument about OOB's is endless and goes on in every wargame. There are people out there that enjoy to stir up things. When those threads start up I have found it best for me to not participate too much and certainly to avoid personal attacks. Sometimes it's hard to resist. Somebody recently started a sub-forum with an "anything goes" format. Fine idea and I hope those gamers who just love to argue, piss and moan, go there and stay there. This forum is deveoted to discussions of the work in progress called SPWAW. To me that work is or is near completion from the standpoint of what Matrix should add, change, or create. As a simple policy Matrix should review bug reports and bug reports only. If we gamers want a new OOB, tweak combat stats, or "fix" some other ahistorical, non-playable, "how could they miss this", that has been over-looked these last five years of dedicated reasearch and programing, fine. Knock yourselves out. The game is completely open ended. Allow Matrix to concentrate on the future of gaming for us, please. Yeah, What Mark Said. I guess I'm just a yutz because I look at SPWAW and I remember when I started this addiction to wargames with a game called Panzerblitz... Anyone remember Panzerblitz??? Cardboard pieces, every playing piece visible, no suspense, everything black-n-white - i.e. if you put a tank in the open near a big enough AT gun it was dead.. No richochets, flank hits, vulnerable location hits, no morale check for the guncrew... No unpredictability... Anyone remember those days? No Matrix folks and Wild Bill, et al, cranking out new wonders every flipping week.... Anyone want to go back there? My point? Hmmmm... If you start from perfect and contrast to what you have I will guarantee your unhappiness... If you start with nothing and THEN look at what you have I can assure you will feel a whole lot better about your circumstances... Playing SPWAW: Some will be filled with varying degrees of delight and pleasure and can't wait to get a few more hours to play Some genuinely feel some aspect of WW2 isn't emphasized enough - OK, tweak your own copy all you want. Lord knows Matrix has built enough flexibility into the various editors for anyone - it's almost absurd: you could buy a Maus, put a 305mm cannon on it, max out its experience and morale and go hunting for JSIIIs in every conceivable terrain....!! But when it comes to making changes to the game fundamentals, a compromise is the optimal solution even though everyone walks away from a compromise a little miffed about what they didn't get...because we all got most of what we want.. And some will bitch no matter what because it has become a habit to be vaguely dissatisfied with everything (I suspect it comes from having everything handed to you but who knows)- to me, these tedious people merely represent the cost of having a vibrant and dynamic community of SPWAW fans.. Oh yeah, back to my point....(as an over-40 person I am entitled to certain amount fo pointless geezing so deal with it! And it's gonna get worse!) SPWAW represents the culmination of massive amounts of hard work and brilliance and sacrifice - as an achievement, it deserves respect from everyone.. The overwhelming number of comments on these boards are respectful and thoughtful Those unfortunate times when the whining gets a bit much are just unfortunate... Don't let the whiners get to you - they lose if we ignore them... SPWAW 6 is not perfect. CL/CA will not be perfect and because it is a different "take" on reality, "better than" will be a irrelevant (but inevitable) concept. But it will be even more exciting and challenging than SPWAW because of Matrix's experience with SPWAW...and I will keep my SPWAW 6 around mainly because it is the best treatment of this level of WW2 tactical action I have seen. The Matrix folks are the only ones IMO who can pull off CA/CL...we will benefit if our energies are more focused on supporting the next stage of evolution... Personally, I'm looking forward to belaboring unhappy newbies with stories about when we only had SPWAW6 to play on 2-D screens without virtual reality plug-ins and physical sensation interfaces and what-not.... Then I'll bore them with some Panzerblitz geezing!!! Until then, I've got to play SPWAW 6 some more... ....my Maus company has to wipe out a battalion of Tortoise and Black Prince heavy tanks that have managed to break out of the Allied beachhead in Portugal...you'd think after the Fall of Moscow in '43 they would have sued for peace, but Noooooooo! Gotta give 'em some more of that bad old Nazi juju... Cheers... nullThis board, in general, is bright, thoughtful, inventive, and funny. There are times we forget ourselves,

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- 7/6/2001 10:12:00 PM

Warrior

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quote:

Originally posted by Casper: The recent crashes in PBEM games is due to too many changes in too short a time. In only a month time, the game goes from ver 5.0 to 6.0 a total of 4 changes.

I haven't had any PBEM problems despite the upgrades.

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Post #: 9

- 7/6/2001 10:15:00 PM

Warrior

Posts: 1808
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From: West Palm Beach, FL USA
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quote:

Originally posted by Flashfyre: I just finished reading the posts in some of the "conflict" threads, and i must say I am disgusted and dismayed by what I've read. The name-calling, sniping, back-biting, and low blows....the use of "undocumented" historical data to uphold one's opinion...the rounds of griping, whining, and flaming over "supposed" errors in the Oobs and the game system....the demands for fixes, adjustments, and "tweaks", to satisfy each and every player's fancy... "My rifles don't kill as many as the other guy's".....change it. "My tank doesn't survive like I think it should"....change it. "My squads aren't elite, and I think they should be"....change it. "My favorite nation doesn't have units that the other guy has"...change it...

Absolutely right, Flash, and if anybody disagrees with you I'll punch them in the nose and call them a bad name! :D :D

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Post #: 10

- 7/6/2001 11:26:00 PM

Jasper

Posts: 174
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From: I am from Mars
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quote:

Originally posted by Warrior: I haven't had any PBEM problems despite the upgrades.

Pls read "Online UNPLAYABLE in ver 6.0 and 5.3"

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Post #: 11

- 7/6/2001 11:32:00 PM

SAMWolf

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PanzerBlitz! I started on Tactics 2 and Gettysburg. I remember my first Computer war game was Tanktics, It loaded from a cassette into my Apple II+, it was part "Computer game" part board game. It sucked big time. We've come a looooong way since those days. [ July 06, 2001: Message edited by: SAMWolf ]

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Post #: 12

- 7/6/2001 11:45:00 PM

Paul Vebber

Posts: 11430
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From: Portsmouth RI
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PBEM and online are two different things...we have tried very hard to get pbem as stable as we can, and all indications are that v 5+ and 6 have steadily increased in pbem stability. Online play since SP3 has been problematic, and while we have improved a good bit over sp3online, we are still at the mercy of the internet infrastructure. Disconnects we can do nothing about, if you use a phone line connection you will likely have trouble with any dynamic online game. The "game divergence" problem is one of older architecture designed more for LAN than internet play. We will look into the curent problems and do our best to fix them.

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Post #: 13

- 7/7/2001 1:25:00 AM

Nikademus

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my introduction to WWII tactical combat was "Kampfgruppe" back in the 80s. heh, all i have to do is reminice back to those days and I become all the more appreciative of Matrix and all the hard work they've done They've taken the all-time best tactical wargame for armored combat ever and made it even better, and continue to listen to the players suggestions, rants and complaints and make tweaks to the game. No other company i've bought products from has ever been even half as attentive as these guys. Now....i'd say its nearly perfect. I'm particularily impressed with the revised infantry combat. I'm personally very happy with the MMG and SMG's finally being more effective vs rifles vs the old system which always favored rifles because of the magnifying effect of the slot 1 code. Now if only Matrix had been in charge of Fighting Steel. :) I'd still love to see what the gang could do with Warship and Battlecruiser. :D If just for SP:WAW alone, i'll be a loyal Matrix supporter forever.

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- 7/7/2001 2:04:00 AM

Les_the_Sarge_9_1

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Ahhhhhhh hey Darroch yeah I remember Panzerblitz as well. I have a copy upstairs. I also have PanzerLeader as well and have owned Arab Israelis Wars as well. I loved the simple elegance of those games (seemed simple to me at least). It was like Squad Leader with bunches of tanks that were easier to manage than in Squad Leader itself (my buddy could never play Squad Leader with "just a few tanks" and he made playing DYO in ASL a real piece of hassle. I like Steel Panthers 3 for the same I like Steel Panthers WaW. They almost copy those two old favourites. My buddy always hated how he had trouble sneaking has panzers past me. Would grumble and gripe about this, that or the other thing heheh (unless he was doing it to me that is hehe). I dont tend to much like computer games tooooo much, but I like how they remove from the game the "godlike information" quality of board games where you can see the counters even if they ARE sitting under a counter that says nothing is there. I can share a bit of sympathy with Flashfyre though. There might be just a bit to much insistence on petty design change here. Perhaps the Matrix people need to tell us spoiled fans we have spent our allowance or something. I sure have never seen a more over indulgent company before. If Flashfyre wants to see silly, he should wander over to the A3R mailing list heheh. Now thats an experience in fussy rants. Whether a map symbol should be there or not, specific wordings of specific sentences. Applicable or not applicable houserules. Steel Panthers can be fixed with a wave of the magic wand and some software editing heheh (hmm maybe that is essentially the problem, the fixes are all so easy to make, or that is how you Matrix guys make it look to this observer). I am patiently waiting for Mega Campaign to come through its trials by fire. I will perhaps want it in a year or so. If it aint there, oh well I will survive. But I am an old grognard. Its no big deal. I am used to being made to wait months to years for a game add on in my board game realm. I cant even grasp the need to "pre order" a game. Just not in my experience.

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- 7/7/2001 2:43:00 AM

Brummagem

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Anybody remember Pong.......now there's a game!! Remember how the paddle would get smaller and smaller and the ball would move faster and faster...boy I hated that. LOL Now if Matrix does a new build of Pong that would be great. With their desire to let everybody tweak everything I could make that baby perform just the way I wanted...LOL :D Every day things get better and better for those who love to stare at a flickering (yes they still flicker) monitor. Heck I can remember getting in line in high school for computer time so I could hook up to the HP mainframe. Had to save the chess game I was programing on a paper tape. Ha beat that story... :eek: Sven, you don't need to apologize to anybody. Last time I checked this was still a free country and your posts are a crack-up.Yes, I still want my Land Cruiser. :)

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- 7/7/2001 3:09:00 AM

darroch

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Les the Sarge - Didn't mean to knock P-Blitz - loved it - lived it - in those days we started at 8pm and played all night until dawn then had breakfast and kept going until we dropped... [stares wistfully into distance....] ...and simple is good when you're in the mood for simple what I was trying hard to do was agree with both flash and mark and I got diverted... let me try simple for change: 1) SPWAW6 + Free = As perfect as it gets on this earth Suggestions for improvements are constructive input - complaints about not getting the desired combat result is whining - we're hearing a lot of whining lately and it is getting REALLY annoying and its mainly because there's nothing left to fix on the SP engine that wouldn't be better handled with a new game.... it's all tweaks and nudges from now on. And the whining will continue no matter what... 2) IMHO, Matrix has gone way beyond the call of capitalist duty (i.e making a buck) into the realm of art and passion - and that is the way to make a lasting statement in the world and to redefine what excellence is... My real concern is that all this whining somehow convinces DH, PV, MW and the others at Matrix to go make real money without all the bitching and snivelling... Then we all lose. For that reason I sometimes wish they'd shut up unless there's something constructive to say.

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Post #: 17

- 7/7/2001 3:18:00 AM

panda124c

Posts: 1692
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quote:

Originally posted by Brummagem: Anybody remember Pong.......now there's a game!! Remember how the paddle would get smaller and smaller and the ball would move faster and faster...boy I hated that. LOL Now if Matrix does a new build of Pong that would be great. With their desire to let everybody tweak everything I could make that baby perform just the way I wanted...LOL :D Every day things get better and better for those who love to stare at a flickering (yes they still flicker) monitor. Heck I can remember getting in line in high school for computer time so I could hook up to the HP mainframe. Had to save the chess game I was programing on a paper tape. Ha beat that story... :eek: Sven, you don't need to apologize to anybody. Last time I checked this was still a free country and your posts are a crack-up.Yes, I still want my Land Cruiser. :)

Pong! lets get real do you remember Waterloo by A/H that's pre punch tape. Oh how I hate 'snake eyes'! :cool: :D :D :D

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- 7/7/2001 3:30:00 AM

Nikademus

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quote:

Originally posted by Brummagem: Anybody remember Pong.......now there's a game!! Remember how the paddle would get smaller and smaller and the ball would move faster and faster...boy I hated that. LOL Now if Matrix does a new build of Pong that would be great. With their desire to let everybody tweak everything I could make that baby perform just the way I wanted...LOL :D Every day things get better and better for those who love to stare at a flickering (yes they still flicker) monitor. Heck I can remember getting in line in high school for computer time so I could hook up to the HP mainframe. Had to save the chess game I was programing on a paper tape. Ha beat that story... :eek: Sven, you don't need to apologize to anybody. Last time I checked this was still a free country and your posts are a crack-up.Yes, I still want my Land Cruiser. :)

better, remember Combat? heh, back then that was as close to Steel Panthers as one could get. Maybe Matrix could introduce a new ammo type that bounces off multiple surfaces to hit that enemy tank from behind! or better still!.......put invisible tanks into the OOB's :D

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Post #: 19

- 7/7/2001 7:30:00 AM

MacCready

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My first computer wargame was Empire Deluxe by New World Computing... 1994

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- 7/7/2001 10:10:00 AM

Alby

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quote:

Originally posted by Casper: Pls read "Online UNPLAYABLE in ver 6.0 and 5.3"

PBEM and online games are 2 different animals I have had many online problems, but none in PBEM, and from what David says, an update soon, will try to address the online problems. What other company would get to work fixing bugs the very day they are reported?! Thanks for all the great work matrix!! :) [ July 06, 2001: Message edited by: Alby ]

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Post #: 21

- 7/7/2001 11:17:00 AM

Paul Vebber

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I just tested teh new online build with Rusco and it went well nigh flawlessly - a couple strange shot behaviors and a wrong sized crew, but that was it...a bit more testing and we will get it out to you guys

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