I just sent this email to the CMBO people

[Moon]

DOUBLE POST

[ August 25, 2003, 10:49 AM: Message edited by: Moon ]

[Becket]

$35??!!!!!!

Wow. That's incredible. Beyond a fair price, that's a huge bargain.

[Dandelion]

- Can you please direct me to the CMAK demo? I must have missed it.

> I am sorry but I can't. There isn't any, to my knowledge. Of course, I am not following news on the topic very closely and I fear the risk of my missing the release is infinitely greater than You doing the same.

- Your feeling does not change the facts.

> Games, demos and pricetags are all speculative as they have yet to materialise. The only detectable fact present in this debate is that the engine is the same for all games. A fact that You declare irrelevant below in view of Your feelings, in this case about the differences in Your experiences of CMBO and CMBB if I am not misreading You. Obviously the fact is not felt irrelevant by all, and not all men share Your feelings on this.

Oh Boy. Do you actually check on something you write before you do so?

> Generally only occasionally. But my questioned claimed fact in this debate - that volounteer mods are sold sans compensation to concerned modder - does not warrant research nor proof, as nobody is denying it. Nor do You, I note.

- I am one of the people who happily gives up his private time for no reward to help BFC.

> I know.

- BFC always asked for my agreement before providing my scenarios as part of their new ways of distributing their product. Do you have any proof that they did not do the same with the modders and other scenario designers? If so, please put up, or shut up, on this issue.

> Andreas, my claim - as You will note when rereading my post - was that they charged people for the products of volounteer modding. How is that challenged by Your information? I did not claim it was done without permission.

- Foolishly - more like it. If you want to be taken seriously, it really does help to get your facts right.

> Why would it be desirable to be taken seriously on the Forum? I find it perilous. Look what it is doing to You.

> Strikingly unhelpful is to make bold claims that are completely untrue.

- Again declaring which subjective experiences are true and which are false. Correct line should read "I disagree, the debating climate does not strike me as unhelpful". This should be put before Your "shut up" and "baloney" comments to reinforce Your point.

- To claim that pulling Reinald up on a very silly mistake that gives the completely wrong impression about BFC's product policy is Talibanesque is immature.

> Well, again, You obviously feel it is, while I instead feel the harbouring of an attitude of believing oneself justified in 'taking people up' in this manner is in itself in want of more than a trifle reflection. Having said that, I might reveal I was rather pondering the poo-poo post than Yours when writing the taliban joke. Though not entirely made clear, a lead to this my intent might be found in the fact that it is posted well below the post adressed to You.

- I know a number of people who no longer touch CMBO. I de-installed it a long time ago. Whether it is the same basic engine or not is completely irrelevant.

> Correct line should read "I feel it completely irrelevant". Others, quite apparently, do not.

- To all intents and purposes, it is a different, much improved game.

> Quite apparently, not to quite all intents and purpouses.

- Are you sure you are not Lt. Hortlund?

> I'm in a phase in life where I am seriously pondering my personal identity and character quite generally, and their content. Though I have no idea of who this person is, I couldn't tell You for sure.

- I agree that there is a very problematic climate in this forum when people like you feel they can just throw out random claims without checking their facts first.

> I couldn't help noticing your position on this topic. Can't say I'm the only human noticing either. These last months have seen some puzzling posts from you. I'm not sure where all this rage and agressiveness is coming from. I suppose it will pass.

- To then try to hide the boo-boo behind some balooney about Taliban is just plain stupid.

> You are not giving Yourself enough credit Andreas. You would never spend this amount of rage on something stupid now would You? Because that would be really stupid You know.

- I had thought a bit more of you Dandelion. Oh well, goes to show I am not the greatest judge of character.

> I find it intriguing to ponder what on earth you were expecting of me Andreas.

That I'd write abusive posts on the Forum like you do? Telling people to shut up? Telling people that they have crap ideas? Telling people that they lack concepts? Telling them that they post baloney? That their subjective experiences are wrong and mine are right?

Like you do?

Tell me, I am dying to know. What did you expect of me?

Greetings

Dandelion

[Andreas]

That you check your facts. And that you do not go around comparing the criticism of silly posts to one of the more obnoxious and repugnant regimes that this planet has seen lately. And that is where my anger comes from. To now claim it is a joke - well, whatever.

If you think that is amusing, you'll get into the troll shelf, as far as I am concerned. Not that this will bother you in the least, I am sure.

The 'facts' of pricing are in this thread by the way.

Enjoy this phase of your life Dandelion.

[Cabron66]

Good point, Dorosh, and funny, too. I was being a bit facetious and didn't expect to get called on it. My point really related to prepared defensive positions which became quite elaborate. Especially in the Atlantic Wall, but as everybody knows, GIs became almost artistic about their foxholes whenever they had to use them for more than a day or two. The ability to simulate at least some of this would have been nice. As far as sandbags in particular, well, I guess you're right, but they are great at stopping floods. Lots of floods in Normandy.

[rune]

Dandelion,

Fine, I will challenge you on the issue of making people pay for mods from volunteer modders. The people pay for the game, and it was agreed by all those involved to include the mods, and scenarios, etc. for FREE. The mods and scenarios were then made available to all on the internet, basically because no one expected the amount of interest it generated.

It was also stated in several threads here, from BFC that if you owned CMBO, you did not need to purchase the new available CMBO, as the mods were all available online.

Can post the links if you like. Bottom line: You are wrong for saying that.

Rune

[mobear]

Originally posted by Moon:

Nothing wrong with being critical about our games. (If you take some time to search the forums, you will find that anytime somebody has to say something meaningful (more meaningful than "this suxx" that is), we listen. Sometimes we cannot change the issue because of an underlying fundamental problem, but often enough we do.)

OK, I don't want to pour fuel on the fire in this discussion - and frankly I don't really care about this particular discussion - but that statement is blatanty false.

I would direct your attention to a previous topic of mine, dated 29Sep02 entitled, 'CMBB Small Error', from the Combat Mission: Tech Support forum.

In that topic, I pointed out that the Play/Pause button is reversed in CMBB. Here's what I wrote, quote:

The Play and Pause buttons are reversed. (I have the American version.)

To which you (Moon) answered, quote:

Hmm, srange, they work as intended on my end. They show the current state, ie. when the action phase is playing, it shows play, when the game is paused it shows pause. Or do you mean something else? How about a screenshot?

This was the only official response from BTS on this matter in that topic. The rest of the responses were just the typical banterings of the cheerleaders, although I'm happy to say that there were also several people who agreed with me.

I again brought up this issue in a topic dated 06Nov02 entitled, 'Add This To The Patch...', in the Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin forum. This time, there was no official response from BTS at all, just the usual bellowing from your Amen Corner, as well as a few sarcastically-worded

suggestions of how I should fix the problem myself.

Now, just to jog your memory, here's the problem, once again.

Presumably you have a VCR at home, or at least a tape player, DVD player or similar media-playing device, so let me ask you this: When you first turn on one of these devices to play the media, which button do you push? I would guess, judging from my own experiences using these types of devices, that you would push the *PLAY* button. Thereafter, if you wanted to pause the media, you would naturally push the *PAUSE* button, right? (Let me know if I'm losing you here.)

Why is it then, that after I load a CMBB movie file, the button I have to push in order to play it says *PAUSE*? Consequently, once the CMBB movie is playing and I want to pause it, I have to push a button that says *PLAY*.

Why on God's earth would I want to push a *PAUSE* button to play the movie and a *PLAY* button to pause it?

Do you see anything wrong with this picture in CMBB?

In case you, or anyone else at BTS has trouble understanding this, I would simply direct you to your other game, CM Beyond Overlord, because in this game the buttons are correct, *PLAY* to play the movie and *PAUSE* to pause it.

I understand, of course, that this issue is probably not as critical as many other issues in the game, but consider this: If a new player who has just purchased CMBB sees this, and he undoubtedly will, he might wonder what else is wrong with this game, considering BTS can't even get the Play/Pause buttons straight.

As I have shown, I raised this issue twice before issuance of the presumabbly final patch (1.03) for CMBB (the first time was even before issuance of the first patch, I think), yet it was not fixed after three patches (why not?).

So, in CMBO BTS got it right, in CMBB they got it wrong, and I'm eagerly awaiting CM Afrika Korps for them to make up my mind.

This issue belies the opinion of yours that "anytime somebody has to say something meaningful (more meaningful than "this suxx" that is), we listen."

Please consider my criticism to be constructive, rather than destructive, so that you might further improve your product.

[Dandelion]

- That you check your facts. And that you do not go around comparing the criticism of silly posts

> You appear to forget that I didn't find it silly, and You are possibly forgetting that Your post was abusive and far from anything that would pass under the label "criticism" in a learned environment. Well, at least at the University I attended. I certainly do not feel You are justified in categorically stating that it was "silly", nor Your flattening of Reinald doing it. You asked me, now I ask You - Who are You? Why would Your opinion be of greater public interest than anyone elses? Like that of Reinalds, for example. Why would it be up to You to inform people how insufficient and inadequate they and their opinions are in Your eyes? Why do You take the liberty of using abusive language to people? Had Reinald insulted You? Said of You that You lacked concepts? I know I never told You to shut up, never called Your texts baloney - or Bologna - regardless of how I felt about them.

- If you think that is amusing, you'll get into the troll shelf, as far as I am concerned. Not that this will bother you in the least, I am sure.

> It might had I known what the Troll shelf was. But seeing as I am already here, I won't need directions. Meaning, I do understand this is probably just another insult, so don't bother clarifying, I get Your message anyway.

- To now claim it is a joke

> The smiley placed at the beginning would appear to be an indicator for joke wouldn't You agree? Reading further, the "Seriously though" might indicate to the receptive reader that I am changing from a joking to a serious text. It is not "now" claimning it was a joke, it was always a joke, but of course a joke with an edge pointing at a problem I feel exist, which I then went over to discuss.

- The 'facts' of pricing are in this thread by the way.

> I noticed.

Think how constructive this might have been, if we could have just concluded that the BFC agreed fullpricing was not warranted, and that mine and Reinalds fears of them intending to do it anyway were uncalled for. But we can't now can we. We can't even agree upon what we disagree about at this point.

- Enjoy this phase of your life Dandelion.

> I see it as a Rit de Passage, and am hoping for something more and better at the other end.

Greetings

Dandelion

[Dandelion]

Originally posted by rune:

Dandelion,

Fine, I will challenge you on the issue of making people pay for mods from volunteer modders. The people pay for the game, and it was agreed by all those involved to include the mods, and scenarios, etc. for FREE. The mods and scenarios were then made available to all on the internet, basically because no one expected the amount of interest it generated.

It was also stated in several threads here, from BFC that if you owned CMBO, you did not need to purchase the new available CMBO, as the mods were all available online.

Can post the links if you like. Bottom line: You are wrong for saying that.

Rune

Rune, I don't want to argue with you, if for no other reason than that I've got my hands full already. First off we agree

- Mods were packaged with author permission and

- CMBO owners, and anyone else I suppose, were informed via the Forum that these mods were available for free and thus not enticed into buying the retail game for this reason.

But your reasoning - while quite reasonable for an honest mod enthusiast - suggests that it was of zero value to the BFC to have your products shipped with the game, either in raw sales revenue or in marketing value. This might have been the case, but again I am caught being sceptical.

Having said that, I can aid your cause too, by discrediting my earlier statement that no compensation was paid. Money might not have been paid, but everyobody knows that being published at all is a window of opportunity. Just look at Moon and - if I am not misinformed - Fernando. Might concern MadMatt too, I never really understood if he was in it from the start or pulled out from our ranks. Anyway, display of ambition and skill often pays even if not immediately evident as cash in hand. Who knows where these modders, who got published, end up as a result?

I needed an example to show Atomic were not deplorable ruthless people, simply surviving realities of business, so I used the Mod case. I still think its a good example of greyzone ethics to commercially use idealist produced material speaking principles, but I am aware that this is completely irrelevant in the specific stated case, as I know of nobody who felt maltreated or cheated, including two of the modders I know who got published and the people buying the game. Well, I only know one who did the latter, as most my friends already had it, but he didn't feel cheated. One can just as easily see this as, say, a movie theatre choosing to show a shortstory before the main movie, charging nothing and paying nothing, so that the maker of the shortstory can have a shot at becoming recognised. Or indeed a newspaper allowing layman columnists in for no pay on one-shot opportunities.

So you see we are not really in disagreement in the moral issue.

Regards

Dandelion

[rune]

We are in agreement, I wanted my work used by more, and it was/is. I just think the example you gave was unintentionally misleading, and we can agree to disagree. You did modify your statement, and I thank you for that.

Madmatt and Fernado both became members of BFC for the work they did with mods. You memory isn't failing.

I think most mod authors/scenario designers got their works distributed more, and it certainly didn't hurt BFC. It was an agreeable situation for both.

Rune

[Dandelion]

Dan,

- That is true... however, even though CMBO and CMBB share the same engine, that certainly doesn't make them the same.

> Agreed. My line and the way I interpreted Reinald was that the distance between CMBO and CMBB is not comparable to that between nothing and CMBO. Probably not comparable to that between the CM engine to the CMII engine - but that's just a guess. Thus could not warrant the same pricetag as these. Assuming the same was true for the distance between CMBO and CMAK, argument was tested wether or not this pricetag should also be reduced. But that neat setup was kind of torpedoed by the fact that it turns out there never was any intention of charging fullprice.

- So, given that, what makes you think CMAK will not be unique.

> I just said it will be using the same engine, not that it would not provide any unique features.

- Your posts seem to say that BFC is going to just slap CMAK together and chuck it on the store shelves. BFC has never shown a tendency toward that, so I fail to see where you would get that impression.

> Dan, I'm not native English. Reading your text with this limitation it says that the BFC produces a game and then sells it. Then that they haven't behaved like that before and I shouldn't get such an impression. I am confused. If I try and guess what you mean I'll probably get it wrong so I might as well ask. What do you mean?

- "have a little faith, baby."

> I believe brother I believe. Just felt bad about Reinald being slapped about and felt an uncontrollable urge to lend him a hand. It was the same in school and probably dictated my line of work. Not sure I did help but it wasn't that bad an argument. It held for an evening's debate before it snapped. If Martin hadn't appeared here with a lot of facts killing the argument it would have lasted us until the morning too.

Well I suppose this will be morning, someplace.

In the end I make a rather pathetic critic don't I, with a CD from the very first batch ever sold still in the PC. Simply not credible.

Regards

Dandelion

[Dook]

Dandelion,

You don't make a bad critic at all. IMHO, Reinald's initial post presumed too much and was phrased rather indelicately. You took the underdog's side and made a respectable argument.

I should add that Martin's and Rune's replies were model responses to well-intentioned criticism.

It would be nice if we could maintain that level of debate more often.

[Panzertruppe]

It seems that some feel that the mods in the retail version and the added scenarios are not worth the 30 dollars? What about the new player to CM who just happened to see it in the store? Should he spend hundreds of hours downloading the mods and extra scenarios to save...what? What does CM cost now if we order it from Battlefront?(without the mods and the extra scenarios).

30 dollars for CM-SE is a steal for the new and old player(with a 56K modem). I also thank all the scenario designers and modders who contributed to CM-SE. Battlefront and CDV should be commended for working together and keeping the price low.

Bill

And if Battlefront wants to send me CMAK early I'll pay twice the price and both my nuts!!!(sorry honey)!

[ August 25, 2003, 06:22 PM: Message edited by: Panzertruppe ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by mobear:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Moon:

Nothing wrong with being critical about our games. (If you take some time to search the forums, you will find that anytime somebody has to say something meaningful (more meaningful than "this suxx" that is), we listen. Sometimes we cannot change the issue because of an underlying fundamental problem, but often enough we do.)

OK, I don't want to pour fuel on the fire in this discussion - and frankly I don't really care about this particular discussion - but that statement is blatanty false.

I would direct your attention to a previous topic of mine, dated 29Sep02 entitled, 'CMBB Small Error', from the Combat Mission: Tech Support forum.

In that topic, I pointed out that the Play/Pause button is reversed in CMBB. Here's what I wrote, quote:

The Play and Pause buttons are reversed. (I have the American version.)

To which you (Moon) answered, quote:

Hmm, srange, they work as intended on my end. They show the current state, ie. when the action phase is playing, it shows play, when the game is paused it shows pause. Or do you mean something else? How about a screenshot?

This was the only official response from BTS on this matter in that topic. The rest of the responses were just the typical banterings of the cheerleaders, although I'm happy to say that there were also several people who agreed with me.

I again brought up this issue in a topic dated 06Nov02 entitled, 'Add This To The Patch...', in the Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin forum. This time, there was no official response from BTS at all, just the usual bellowing from your Amen Corner, as well as a few sarcastically-worded

suggestions of how I should fix the problem myself.

Now, just to jog your memory, here's the problem, once again.

Presumably you have a VCR at home, or at least a tape player, DVD player or similar media-playing device, so let me ask you this: When you first turn on one of these devices to play the media, which button do you push? I would guess, judging from my own experiences using these types of devices, that you would push the *PLAY* button. Thereafter, if you wanted to pause the media, you would naturally push the *PAUSE* button, right? (Let me know if I'm losing you here.)

Why is it then, that after I load a CMBB movie file, the button I have to push in order to play it says *PAUSE*? Consequently, once the CMBB movie is playing and I want to pause it, I have to push a button that says *PLAY*.

Why on God's earth would I want to push a *PAUSE* button to play the movie and a *PLAY* button to pause it?

Do you see anything wrong with this picture in CMBB?

In case you, or anyone else at BTS has trouble understanding this, I would simply direct you to your other game, CM Beyond Overlord, because in this game the buttons are correct, *PLAY* to play the movie and *PAUSE* to pause it.

I understand, of course, that this issue is probably not as critical as many other issues in the game, but consider this: If a new player who has just purchased CMBB sees this, and he undoubtedly will, he might wonder what else is wrong with this game, considering BTS can't even get the Play/Pause buttons straight.

As I have shown, I raised this issue twice before issuance of the presumabbly final patch (1.03) for CMBB (the first time was even before issuance of the first patch, I think), yet it was not fixed after three patches (why not?).

So, in CMBO BTS got it right, in CMBB they got it wrong, and I'm eagerly awaiting CM Afrika Korps for them to make up my mind.

This issue belies the opinion of yours that "anytime somebody has to say something meaningful (more meaningful than "this suxx" that is), we listen."

Please consider my criticism to be constructive, rather than destructive, so that you might further improve your product. </font>

[lcm1947]

Thank God somebody else agrees about the buttons. Now back to the comment about switching Bmp's to correct it. Which numbers do you switch? I gotta know those button do drive me crazy. Oh and Hi Dandlion. Boy you just can't leave some people alone for a month without them going and getting themselves in trouble. I knew you should have come over to the CMBB forum when I did. Now look what you've done. Hehe. Take care Dandlion and stay out of trouble if you can. Hehe.

[ August 30, 2003, 12:53 AM: Message edited by: lcm1947 ]

[Herr Kruger]

Originally posted by mobear:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Moon:

Nothing wrong with being critical about our games. (If you take some time to search the forums, you will find that anytime somebody has to say something meaningful (more meaningful than "this suxx" that is), we listen. Sometimes we cannot change the issue because of an underlying fundamental problem, but often enough we do.)

OK, I don't want to pour fuel on the fire in this discussion - and frankly I don't really care about this particular discussion - but that statement is blatanty false.

I would direct your attention to a previous topic of mine, dated 29Sep02 entitled, 'CMBB Small Error', from the Combat Mission: Tech Support forum.

In that topic, I pointed out that the Play/Pause button is reversed in CMBB. Here's what I wrote, quote:

The Play and Pause buttons are reversed. (I have the American version.)

To which you (Moon) answered, quote:

Hmm, srange, they work as intended on my end. They show the current state, ie. when the action phase is playing, it shows play, when the game is paused it shows pause. Or do you mean something else? How about a screenshot?

This was the only official response from BTS on this matter in that topic. The rest of the responses were just the typical banterings of the cheerleaders, although I'm happy to say that there were also several people who agreed with me.

I again brought up this issue in a topic dated 06Nov02 entitled, 'Add This To The Patch...', in the Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin forum. This time, there was no official response from BTS at all, just the usual bellowing from your Amen Corner, as well as a few sarcastically-worded

suggestions of how I should fix the problem myself.

Now, just to jog your memory, here's the problem, once again.

Presumably you have a VCR at home, or at least a tape player, DVD player or similar media-playing device, so let me ask you this: When you first turn on one of these devices to play the media, which button do you push? I would guess, judging from my own experiences using these types of devices, that you would push the *PLAY* button. Thereafter, if you wanted to pause the media, you would naturally push the *PAUSE* button, right? (Let me know if I'm losing you here.)

Why is it then, that after I load a CMBB movie file, the button I have to push in order to play it says *PAUSE*? Consequently, once the CMBB movie is playing and I want to pause it, I have to push a button that says *PLAY*.

Why on God's earth would I want to push a *PAUSE* button to play the movie and a *PLAY* button to pause it?

Do you see anything wrong with this picture in CMBB?

In case you, or anyone else at BTS has trouble understanding this, I would simply direct you to your other game, CM Beyond Overlord, because in this game the buttons are correct, *PLAY* to play the movie and *PAUSE* to pause it.

I understand, of course, that this issue is probably not as critical as many other issues in the game, but consider this: If a new player who has just purchased CMBB sees this, and he undoubtedly will, he might wonder what else is wrong with this game, considering BTS can't even get the Play/Pause buttons straight.

As I have shown, I raised this issue twice before issuance of the presumabbly final patch (1.03) for CMBB (the first time was even before issuance of the first patch, I think), yet it was not fixed after three patches (why not?).

So, in CMBO BTS got it right, in CMBB they got it wrong, and I'm eagerly awaiting CM Afrika Korps for them to make up my mind.

This issue belies the opinion of yours that "anytime somebody has to say something meaningful (more meaningful than "this suxx" that is), we listen."

Please consider my criticism to be constructive, rather than destructive, so that you might further improve your product. </font>

[Herr Kruger]

Originally posted by lcm1947:

Thank God somebody else agrees about the buttons. Now back to the comment about switching Bmp's to correct it. Which numbers do you switch? I gotta know those button do drive me crazy. Oh and Hi Dandlion. Boy you just can't leave some people alone for a month without them going and getting themselves in trouble. I knew you should have come over to the CMBB forum when I did. Now look what you've done. Hehe. Take care Dandlion and stay out of trouble if you can. Hehe.

I poked around a bit in the CMBB bmp folder and I think the BMPs in question are 2015 - 2018. I'm sure with a little experimenting the correct renaming can be discovered. Until I read this post, I had not noticed this. But I've only played about 5 games of CMBB.

[lcm1947]

Oh cool Herr Kruger and thanks for the help. I can't believe you hadn't noticed them being ass backwards though as it was one of the very first things I noticed when first getting the game and even got a laugh out of it wondering what in the world BFC was thinking or should say what were they drinking that day. Anyway I do thank you for the BMP's and I'll sure try switching them in hopes that this is all it'll take to correct. It's not a really big deal I guess but everytime I use them I always hesitate before clicking them due to this error and it's just weird looking.

[SuperSulo]

Found this thread by accident, and saw someone having the same "problem" I had with the play/pause buttons. Switching the bmp's wont help (not an ultimate solution at least, I think there was some problem with that), so I redrew them in photoshop and posted them for people to download way back in 2002 (in your own thread mobear, "Add This To The Patch...", shame on you for not reading it ).

As fate has it, that download link is no longer valid as of yesterday, but just for you, mobear, I uploaded it to my new site, here:

http://home.swipnet.se/supersulo/ss_play.zip

Hope you read this thread again, I'm not sure I will post it a third time.

[lcm1947]

I don't know about Mobear but I for one sure appreciate it and if you don't mind I will be the keeper of this closely guarded secret in case future need of it comes about inwhich case I can come forth like a white knight like you just did and render this gift to the needy. Thank you kind Sir and may you die and be in heaven an hour before the devil knows you're dead.

[SuperSulo]

hehe my pleasure. Maybe I should upload it to that cmmods site? That way maybe you dont have to put on that clunky old metal suit...

[Herr Kruger]

Originally posted by SuperSulo:

hehe my pleasure. Maybe I should upload it to that cmmods site? That way maybe you dont have to put on that clunky old metal suit...

Uploading it to cmmods would be a good idea, IMO.

[Cabron66]

Nice to see some good came out of this post. Gee, maybe things aren't so bad after all.

[Darwood]

Guys all the esoteric arguments aside, if you are a pc game enthusiast I urge you to support this company and others like them. They are the underdogs. Most companies like this one, with even moderately successful (in terms of sales) products sell out to the big boys like UBI or Sony as quickly as possible.

If you havn't had the 'pleasure' of dealing with companies like these let me give a couple examples of real problems in games: SWG an MMORPG based on star wars was recently released by Sony despite the fact the the development team (a conglomeration of development companies sucked up by sony) said they needed at least 6 more months to finish the product. What did the consumer get? A completely unbalanced game riddled with bugs. And I don't mean bugs like the pause and play buttons are reversed hahaha. I mean bugs like the character you spent a month developing just vanished or your entire clan just got disbanded. Or how about warping a 30 minute walk from where you were on a regular basis? Sound fun?

Shadowbane is another example. I was a beta tester for this mmorpg and Wolpack, the development studio, needed more time to finish the game. But once again, UBI soft said it has to be released. On release it had a nasty bug that the community refered to as "rubber-banding". You run 20 yards and poof you go back 10 yards over and over. This effected everyone and most people had this problem all the time. Spells lag was another huge problem. Everyone esle could swing their weapons etc but as a caster you might have to wait a minute to cast something that should take 5 seconds. And when you could cast, the graphical spell effects went crazy. A swirling white effect that continully grew until it took over the whole sky. Everyone could see it and considering there were at leat 10 casters in any given area my screen was constantly flashing.

Last but not least, there is Global Ops (an FPS). This is another gem by UBI. This game actually caused irreversable corruption on my hard drive. Now THAT's a bug!

Sorry for the diatribe but I just think that when a company comes along and releases a basically bug free, high quality and balanced product in the gaming industry they deserve praise and support. I will gladly hand over $35 just on principle, not to mention I am sure I will be getting many months worth of new material to enjoy.

By the way, for those of you that play FPS games: Most of the games out there are based off of just a few 'engines'. Medal of Honor, for example is built on the Quake 3 engine. Half life, the biggest fps to date, was based off of the quake 1 engine. And many other games actually were based off of Half life's modification to the quake 1 engine. It goes on and on....

[ng cavscout]

Excellent post Darwood. I have bought many computer games, starting way back with M1 Tank Platoon, actually, I think we bought the Starship Troopers game on cassette for our trs-80 back in the mid-80's. And there are only a few that stand out as actually being worth the money I shelled out. The CM games are two, Operation Flashpoint, TacOps, TOAW, a couple of others that I can't think of. If a small company like BFC can be helped by my purchasing an upgrade, or CMAK, then by all means, I will support them as much as possible.

If you want continued quality releases, then I advise you to support BFC as well, and recommend it to your friends.

If you want crap like GIC and WW2OL. then don't