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They meant september of next year!


tavichh

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sigh.  Yep disagreeing is so fundamentally wrong.  We aren't permitted because we are stifling the community or some such.  And for the record I never said anything about whining.  I was quoting the previous poster 

6 hours ago, Thewood1 said:

BFC makes great games, but, outside a cadre of old players and beta testers, they really don't like their customers much …. As long as the games are good, I'll put up with the abuse.

Does anyone here really believe that?  Seriously?  Steve doesn't like to get caught up in posting timelines feeling that it is a losing strategy.  Right or wrong it is his opinion.  That doesn't correlate to disliking BF customers.  Wanting more communication from BF is not in my view whining.  Why wouldn't you want to hear more from what is a hobby for everyone here?  (and just for a moment I do want to point out that even among the beta testers there is no uniformity on the communication issue, we all have our own perspective as you can see from previous posts so please don't allow my view or Ian's come to represent anyone's view of what the beta testers feel.  Hell even when it comes to subject there isn't uniformity.  I would like to hear something on the patch.).

Where I as a customer object is this strident view of some that BF is somehow abusive and disrespectful of their base because they aren't running a twitter feed or a facebook page.  I disagree with it.  As to this -

34 minutes ago, Snake726 said:

The people "whining" are, perhaps quite literally given the size of the community, the only people allowing you to contribute to making these games.

We who spend time on the forum whether it be "whining" or being a fanboy pain in the ass do not represent the people allowing BF to make these games.  If we were BF would be broke.  Nope, we are the folks who get together at the local pub and talk ad nauseum on all the trivia of this game boring the rest of the patrons to death and hopefully still willing to buy each other a round no matter how much we bark at one another here. It is just a game.

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Hell sounds like they just need a PR guy who will work for free🤣

Yeah I get the frustration here not feeling much of it myself, but it's hard to be patient when your young excited and new to something. I say this as someone who is young excited and (relatively) new to combat mission. 

I trust people on the forums who have clearly been around BF longer than me and are saying a missed release date isn't something to get all worked up over with a game like this. 

Eventually the game will be out and we will all forget all the insane hype and just be happy with the amazing product. 

In the mean time I'm still pulling for a September 30 11:59:59 release for the demo.🤣

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3 minutes ago, luke221 said:

Hell sounds like they just need a PR guy who will work for free

I posted something along those lines over a decade ago. When Moon was still on the staff he functioned in somewhat that manner. But he is long gone and so far BFC for whatever reasons has not provided a replacement.

Michael

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2 minutes ago, Michael Emrys said:

I posted something along those lines over a decade ago. When Moon was still on the staff he functioned in somewhat that manner. But he is long gone and so far BFC for whatever reasons has not provided a replacement.

Michael

WILL WORK FOR FREE CM GAMES🤣 

Yeah I've been thinking this ever since I started playing combat mission. After final blitzkrieg before I joined the forums I was pretty certain BF went out of business Lucky I saw their post about shock force 2 by chance when I was looking for mods otherwise I wouldn't even know it was coming out. However I would just credit that confusion to me being an idiot.

In the end is their business and i'm fine with however they choose to run it because their products have given me hundreds of hours of entertainment so far and most likely hundreds of hours in the future. 

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1 hour ago, sburke said:

sigh.  Yep disagreeing is so fundamentally wrong.  We aren't permitted because we are stifling the community or some such.  And for the record I never said anything about whining.  I was quoting the previous poster 

Yes, it does seem to me that you are saying this - that disagreeing is fundamentally wrong. That it is met with a sigh is infuriating.

1 hour ago, sburke said:

Does anyone here really believe that?  Seriously?  Steve doesn't like to get caught up in posting timelines feeling that it is a losing strategy.  Right or wrong it is his opinion.  That doesn't correlate to disliking BF customers.

Doesn't like to get caught up...in running his own business?

1 hour ago, sburke said:

(and just for a moment I do want to point out that even among the beta testers there is no uniformity on the communication issue, we all have our own perspective as you can see from previous posts

Yes, that is one of the issues - since community members help make the games, they - and, I hope you realize, at the moment, you - are acting in place of Steve as PR communication. And, as I pointed out, it is going poorly. Sigh all you want, you are not making any sales here.
 

1 hour ago, sburke said:

Where I as a customer object is this strident view of some that BF is somehow abusive and disrespectful of their base because they aren't running a twitter feed or a facebook page.  I disagree with it.

That's fine that you may disagree, but, in your own words, I would consider that opinion to be wrong.

1 hour ago, sburke said:

We who spend time on the forum whether it be "whining" or being a fanboy pain in the ass do not represent the people allowing BF to make these games.  If we were BF would be broke.  Nope, we are the folks who get together at the local pub and talk ad nauseum on all the trivia of this game boring the rest of the patrons to death and hopefully still willing to buy each other a round no matter how much we bark at one another here. It is just a game.

Interesting - who do you think buys Combat Mission games? Call of Duty fans? Bejeweled players? Farmville players? Company of Heroes players? None of these people have heard of this game.

Please don't try to use the "it's just a game" BS; making games is my career, and playing them makes up part of my off-time. You can choose to not give a crap, and I can choose to in fact care. Although, given your ardent attempts to have the last word, I might chance it and say that I suspect you do care quite a bit.

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Outside this board, there is a relatively strong opinion that BFC does not like their customers.  You can argue that it is an unfair perception, and in your own view you are correct.  Just walk over to grogheads and you will see a pretty fair number of senior wargamers who very much dislike Steve's approach to customer communications.  Even some of the people that defend BFC concede that Steve rarely helps BFC's cause.

This thread is a perfect example.  Not a word from anyone official from BFC.  Less than five minutes is all it would take.  Instead you  have beta testers and and customers flailing at each other to reinforce the perception.  If beta testers really cared, they would stop coming into these threads.  Let them die out once people have vented.  It is the most successful strategy I have seen work.

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5 hours ago, SgtHatred said:

It's important not to paint Battlefront with the same brush as some of their more "dedicated" fans, because it isn't fair to Battlefront. These "super fans" take any criticism of the game, or even sometimes bug reports, as personal attacks. You'll see their kind in any sort of niche community, it's best to ignore them.  

By being over-present and adressing (silencing) pretty much every thread like an inquisition many get the impression that these guys must be directly affiliated with Battlefront and with their behavior they also do the best job to keep this impression up. I honestly don´t know how the truth looks like, however I second this that it is important to make a differentation between Battlefront and these individuals.

Some weeks ago I´ve published a comment (I think it was in this State of CMSF2 thread) regarding about the missed first release date anouncement explaining that while missing release dates or even providing ones isn´t something very important for me but that on the other hand there is no excuse for not not informing us when you know that a release isn´t going to happen.

I stated that I perceived that as somehwat disprespectful as did some of you here too.

I even made the suggestion that taking 10 seconds to write a "guys release date x isn´t going to happen, we´re working on it, stay tuned!" would probably work fine for most of us as we could then adjust our expectation. This post was completely neutral and included nothing offensive.

It didn´t take long and on of these "dedicated" guys here appeared(name starts with a I ends with a L, yes I also can get onto that personal level you prefer so much), uneccessary quoting everything out of my post EXCEPT the suggestion which he conveniently neglected and then proceeded to tell me in a snob way that only me *chose* to feel disprespected, basically telling me that I have a wrong perception, me exclusively being oversensitive, thus my post having basically no value.

My post received upvotes (which is nothing to boast about but it shows that I am not alone with that opinion) and many of the other forum members here recently voiced the exact same thoughts showing that exact the opposite is true. What was especially frustrating was that he instantly tried shifting it onto a low blow personal level. To be honest that is a **** move and saldy I´ve seen it to so many other members with great ideas or constructive thoughts here happening but looks like this is a part of their - concern derailing - strategy.

Furthermore from what I can tell it aren´t the people who voice concerns or negative feedback that are responsible for many threads going down in heat. No, most these people start voice their concerns or feedback pretty mature which is nothing surprising as a complex game as Combat Mission probably draws more sophisticated wargamers in. My observation tells me that most threads go down in heat because this hardcore fanboys not accepting any other opinion appear and instantly start to engage you, often on a personal level while showing off an arrogant even patronizing attitude which makes the anger or frustration of many here understandable and others probably being put of to even try participating another time in order to avoid that stuff. Just because you self-appointed premium moderators spent half of your life in this forum or made billions of posts here doesn´t entitle you exclusively to have an opinion and opress other thoughts.

 

Edited by Mattis
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I can't think of any other PC wargame out there that has the authenticity of Combat Mission.  I have to confess I still haven't played all the content thats already been provided in these titles, so I'm going to have to concentrate on that while I agonise about the next titles (the Russian Front to 1945 is the one I'm drooling for).

I've seen a lot of debate on game forums and one thing I know for sure is the more the game is loved the more anger is generated about developer communications.....

Edited by Majick
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13 hours ago, Thewood1 said:

A simple five minutes to post an update would solve this particular point.  A simple "Its taking longer than expected.   Limited time, overly complex, unexpected challenges, dog ate my homework, yada yada."

This. At the root of it, all anyone is asking for is an update. Some are more eloquent than others however.

@Thewood1 the reason BFC is reserved when it comes to posting updates like this is simple; they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. during the Spring there was not a lot of information coming out and a lot of folks got upset by that. Then Steve posted his Summer updates, and there was considerable backlash to it, both here and on other websites. This kind of behavior is not new. When Final Blitzkrieg came out, a good number of the new threads in the game forum were people complaining that FB was just a reskin of CMBN and other such nonsense. This is what people are talking about when they say that customers can be a burden. The internet compounds that issue. The 2% of morons and agitators have the loudest voices, spewing their extreme and ridiculous garbage. This in turn polarizes the rest of the active and contributing public, resulting in the exchanges you see here in this thread. People are talking past one another because each side is speaking to their expectation of what the other side is supposedly saying, instead of talking directly.

There is a lot more that can be said about this phenomenon, and parallels to current political climates. However I think it best that is all avoided. The fact is, BFC has learned over the years that posting frequent updates opens them up to more of these polarizing discords, and it simply isn't worth the trouble for them. I honestly cannot blame them, and would likely do the same in their shoes.

However, I also think that BFC is smart enough to recognize this whole dynamic, and should post updates anyways and simply ignore the riffraff. Like it or not, this is the reality of dealing with groups of people, whether it be business or other. Sometimes, you just have to accept that monkey's will throw poop, and carry on regardless. 

To be clear @Thewood1, I agree with a lot of what you are saying, and I wish BFC would just give a small update regardless of the inevitable blowback. 

 

6 hours ago, Snake726 said:

I can tell you that the response from beta testers and the like have made me pause on a purchase of Red Thunder. It felt wrong for the moment to be so disappointed in the staff, and then hand them more money. If you're looking for an effect caused by your behaviour, there's a clue.

See this is what I would consider to be an overreaction. I understand your frustrations, I really do. But you're shooting yourself in the foot here. You are denying yourself a product that you know is good (based on previous CM games) because of your frustrations with BFC for not releasing more frequent updates about a title that isn't even out yet. The fact is, if you are interested in the Eastern Front and want a tactical simulator of it, then you should get Red Thunder. I would urge you to look past the few dead, unsightly trees and see the whole forest on this one. 

5 hours ago, sburke said:

Does anyone here really believe that?  Seriously?

Yes. In fact, there are a large number of people who feel exactly that. Unfortunately, everywhere else in the "grogsphere" of wargaming websites, whenever Combat Mission comes up there is always a heated debate that follows. Many people have many reasons for disliking BFC and refusing to buy CM. Personally, I think most of the reasons are absurd and I do not agree with the sentiments. But the fact remains that there is a significant portion of wargamers out there who for one reason or another are allergic to CM and BFC. 

 

For what its worth, I personally wish we got an update from BFC. Not an update on a specific release date, but letting us know that it'll be a bit longer would be nice. I understand that this is unlikely and why, and I'll likely just have to settle back into my hibernation until SF2 finally drops. 

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As a Beta tester let me just address a couple of things.

I don't argue with people about subjects like this. Can't really say anything of substance anyway because of non-disclosure so there's no point.

Secondly, as far as being "directly affiliated", I do the Beta testing because I like the series and want to help make it better. And I have a Mac which puts me in the minority, but useful for testing. There are several of us Mac beta testers but more PC based. But I just do it for the fun and diversion. I don't get anything out of it. In fact it cuts into my recreational gaming time, but I'm an engineer and enjoy solving problems and testing. That's it.

The only time I tend to add something is when I can say something positive like for example for SF2, all the maps being redone - features that have already been disclosed by Steve posting a bunch of our screenshots of the Beta version that clearly show something, or that he has specifically mentioned. (again, I don't want to run afoul of any non-disclosure issues).

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2 hours ago, Thewood1 said:

Outside this board, there is a relatively strong opinion that BFC does not like their customers.  You can argue that it is an unfair perception, and in your own view you are correct.  Just walk over to grogheads and you will see a pretty fair number of senior wargamers who very much dislike Steve's approach to customer communications.  Even some of the people that defend BFC concede that Steve rarely helps BFC's cause.

This thread is a perfect example.  Not a word from anyone official from BFC.  Less than five minutes is all it would take.  Instead you  have beta testers and and customers flailing at each other to reinforce the perception.  If beta testers really cared, they would stop coming into these threads.  Let them die out once people have vented.  It is the most successful strategy I have seen work.

It's my impression that the bulk of the folks at Grogheads have a fairly unrealistic view as regards customer service. I've seen it with other games of similar dev team sizes where they have heaped abused because of "x, y or z."

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2 hours ago, Mattis said:

By being over-present and adressing (silencing) pretty much every thread like an inquisition many get the impression that these guys must be directly affiliated with Battlefront and with their behavior they also do the best job to keep this impression up. I honestly don´t know how the truth looks like, however I second this that it is important to make a differentation between Battlefront and these individuals.

Like an inquisition?  Isn’t that a bit over the top?  From where I sit (and yes this is just my opinion) it seems more like any reaction that doesn’t agree with some of these stated positions (not specifically yours, just in general these threads that becaome a heated debate about BF) is considered an attack  

yes many of my posts have also received up votes.  Personally i’m not much in favor of that.  It just strikes me as weird, then again I have never been a fan of that whole “like” thing on social media  How do I know what and who that represents? It is why people go out and buy followers for twitter  

As to the “low blow” and shifting things into personal   It seems whenever I get caught up in one of these threads my disagreement always gets shuffled off as a BF fanboi or apologist. That my position of disagreement could be a genuine position as a customer with a view that I see little value add to BF telling folks information which is at best a guess anyway is discarded. It is never viewed as being possibly a legitimate position and instead I get called at best an apologist. 

It cuts both ways. 

I admit it bothers me that folks have this perception (or at least @IICptMillerIIconsiders it to be true) that people take Steve’s unwillingness to spend much time communicating schedules as a dislike of customers. I don’t see it that way at all.  Yeah I’d like to hear more from Steve on a host of items, but I don’t feel like I have to have that or that frankly is gonna make me really more informed about when I’ll actually see anything.  I just like the forum and the discussions (most of them anyway ).

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15 hours ago, Thewood1 said:

It would probably be better as a beta tester to not say anything.  Let it go. 

This actually good advice. Advice that I plan to heed. In the future :)

 

Quote

By you guys coming in and trying to ride herd, you are letting Steve and BFC off the hook on their poor business practices. 

People will come in and complain.  So what?  Its not like BFC is going to suddenly change or salvage its reputation in single forum thread.  You guys do more harm then good when you circle the wagons on issues that are legitimate or excuse away BFC's actions/inactions.  You guys, as beta testers seem very frustrated by these conversations.  So why do you involve yourselves?   Let BFC address it, or not.

I came to the place in my life that I recognize that BFC makes great games, but, outside a cadre of old players and beta testers, they really don't like their customers much.  I still play now and then, and I poke my head in now and then, but I tend not to take stuff personally much.  As long as the games are good, I'll put up with the abuse.

My only problem is this kind of stuff. OK I get that you feel that my calling people out for whining and calling them entitled is annoying. Roger that. My plan is to refrain from doing that, if not at all hopefully a lot less. But who's abusing you? People complain about dumb things (like missed dates before the date has even arrived) or complain over and over about lack of communication (anyone who has been here for any amount of time should be pretty clear that there is not a tone of communications). To me it just seems surprising that people get upset about stuff they already know the answer to and then get upset again when someone points out they are being at least silly.

But there I go again pointing out people's entitlement - which is what got you all riled up. I'll sign off on this thread with this simple message: it is not abuse to point out when you are wrong. If you take it as abuse there isn't much I can do about that. Other than not point it out in the future :D

 

10 hours ago, sburke said:

well you are certainly entitled to your opinion and as a customer so am I.  I'll simply say this to keep this from totally going off the rails.  I am also a customer and I flat out disagree with your view and I am certainly entitled to express that opinion. You can call that circling the wagons or whatever you want that makes you feel like you are on some moral high ground.  In my view though you are still simply wrong.

BF has addressed it, more than once yet that doesn't seem to stop anyone. - See Steve's post from August cited earlier in this thread.  Sorry you feel so "abused".  Whatever.

Yep +1

Edited by IanL
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15 minutes ago, ZackTactical34 said:

Unfortunately, the real tragedy at present is that my email inbox is being flooded by the amount of messages from this thread 😂

It's like you got a bunch of fussy grannies waiting at the bus stop. 

"Oh, it's those bus drivers, again. They're always late."

"It's not their fault! The traffic here is always bad."

"Oh? You're in love with them, then? You always defend them."

"No. You're just putting blame on something they can't control."

"Oh, the bus company should at least give us better schedules."

"No, no... Then you would complain about that schedule when the bus is inadvertently late or early."

"Well, I have a right to complain if the bus is late!"

"If it isn't convenient to you, learn to drive!"

"How about /you/ learn to drive! I expect these bus drivers to do that, that's why I buy the tickets."

"It's a busy road, even if you're the best driver you couldn't always be on time."

"Oh, so you're defending them, again?"

Other people waiting for the bus have heard these grannies argue the same points yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that...

If you want to amuse yourself, read these discussions in the voices of John Cleese and Eric Idle.

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Some paraphrasing.

 

"I'm sorry you are such entitled whiners", "All of your concerns are dumb", "There is no middle ground between early-access with daily twitter posts and 1 update every 18-months", "I just point out people's entitlement".

 

If this were a movie, I'd complain that the antagonists are too predictable.

 

 

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There have been a lot of good points made in this thread. 

They're even better when they're kept at a civil level and the ad hominem vitriol is left out.

A game which causes emotional responses is a pretty good game, in my opinion. (Someone mentioned Bejeweled. Yeah, it pisses me off that my wife kicks my ass on that game.)

By definition, beta testers are fans of the game. We are tied to a non-disclosure agreement. That causes stress. I'd like to tell you more, but all I can do is play Bejeweled to vent...and that's not going as well as I'd like. ;)

 

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7 hours ago, Thewood1 said:

Just walk over to grogheads and you will see a pretty fair number of senior wargamers who very much dislike Steve's approach to customer communications. 

LOL. I  read through one thread over there. Nothing but the GS CM Forum 2.0. Same hate, same bile, same environment of constant negativity. Christ, one guy was even wishing for BF to fail. And low and behold an appearance by everone's favorite toxic stalker-troll to boot (still acting the same cancerous way he always has) which was no surprise considering the atmosphere. Yeah, we may have problems here, arguments and what not but at least it isn't constant. If that's your idea of how "senior wargamers" act and the kind of interactions you enjoy, well that's your business. Me, I'd rather not even be on the internet than to hangout in threads like that. I come to forums for fun and laughs and a little bit of discussion, not to read pages and pages of bitterness and hate. And the hilarious part is most of the guys that were really nasty claim they don't even play the game. Same old #$%^ different year and forum.

I agree with some of what you said in this thread, but that was a bad example of why anyone should care what the outside thinks.

 

Mord.

Edited by Mord
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Gee, why would anyone care about what people are saying about a game you want to succeed?  Grogheads gets read by a lot of old-style wargamers.  Look at the views.  

And that right there is the problem.  Instead of trying to salvage a reputation, it just gets written off as a bunch of grumblers.  If BFC is only concerned about what happens in these forums, it will die a very slow painful death as a company.

BFC doesn't like Steam because of all the new people who don't understand CM.  They don't like places like grogheads because they are all old cranks.  That leaves a very narrow sliver of the market.  Those are the people on these forums.  And they aren't making many friends here it looks like.

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6 minutes ago, Thewood1 said:

And that right there is the problem.  Instead of trying to salvage a reputation, it just gets written off as a bunch of grumblers.  If BFC is only concerned about what happens in these forums, it will die a very slow painful death as a company.

That right there is one of the items that leaves me scratching my head. I can understand disagreements about whether BF communicates well, too little or not etc but these predictions that somehow BF will suffer a slow painful death make no sense on the face of fact. BF has always been like this and they are showing no signs that their business is suffering.  I know I  am treading into a danger zone of debate about  BFs potential sales etc, but the fact is Steve and Charles seem quite content with how their business and sales function and at the end of the day if they think their business is continuing to work at the level they require then who is it that somehow knows better and can assume predicting their demise.?

yeah I know that is taking this even further off the path so feel free to ignore, but that is a view that is recurring here on the forum that has never held water on even casual observation for me. 

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So, all the guys that said they'd never play or buy a CM game again and blah, blah, blah. These are the guys I should worry about? These are the guys BF should cater to? Gimme a break, man. One guy even said he hadn't played a BF game in 10 years but he sure had a lot to say LOL.They were only there to puke hate and their bitterness and prove how edgy they were because they dislike a video game. Pretty big waste of time if you ask me. But like I said that wasn't a good example.

To be fair there were level headed people there but the truly angry ones were the same old same old, with the same tired beefs.

EDITED: And yeah, The GS CM forum predicted BF would be outta business back in 2007 because of the new engine. Now it's one guy talking to himself while we are waiting on version 2 of the game they said would kill the company. Meanwhile, one of the original perpetrators had to migrate to Grogheads because there is no one left to listen to his cancer except for the lonely guy that hates him. Even angry people can't stand that kind of toxicity, it kills forums.

Mord.

Edited by Mord
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Just now, sburke said:

 but these predictions that somehow BF will suffer a slow painful death make no sense on the face of fact. BF has always been like this and they are showing no signs that their business is suffering. 

BF have a product which nothing else measures up to in my opinion.  Very few people will be foolish enough to pass up on it just because they are miffed about the comms.

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