Why ignore your beta testers? (too many problems)

[ChrisND]

Originally posted by massive1974:

:eek: wow...wow...I've been reading the exchange between Steve and Dalem...wow :eek: I haven't been around much these forums (only registered a couple of weeks before the release of CMSF) but man, the passion, the love, the hate. it's funny and shocking at the same time. I 've never seen such an exchange between support and customer.and reminds me of the Great Metallica Schism of 1989

i'm amazed at the degree of interaction. It's exciting to see the process. a new paradigm being born, oldschool versus newschool, Trotskyites versus Stalinists, etc.

anyways, as i've already said in another thread before, I'm the example of someone lured by the RT system and the timeperiod. I have played all of the CM1 games and respected them (OK liked them too) for their realism. But the WEGO thing was stuttering a bit for me. Now i'm completely satisfied (well, minus all that will be fixed in a patch) and a prepaying customer.

To fully understand the intricacies of this forum's interaction, you must first read through all of the Peng and Cheery Waffles threads.

But I warn you, the chance of insanity from doing so is high.

[massive1974]

"Peng and Cheery Waffles" whattahell is that? me poor Hungarian no understand...

but it definitely sounds like a family quarrel coupled with a bit of homosion - homousion debate (see if you know this one

http://trushare.com/85JUN02/JN02NICA.htm

[Kineas]

As a fellow Hungarian, my advice to you: do not go there

[Caesar]

What to do about it? It's tough to say. A small "UI Tutorial" is an idea, though it would have to be in text form external to the program itself.

Is there no way you can pop suggestions (not as dialogs but as text overlays) each minute or so during a specific mission. Text files are the same as manuals in this respect - people don't read them. I have written too many of this sort of thing myself to have confidence in their being read

The right-click thing would not have solved the problem for anybody that wanted to play this RT. It would get in the way for sure, which is why even in 2003 we ruled out having a popup menu in the game.

Do you mean that it would occlude the screen? One of the games I have counters this sort of thing by making the menu semi-transparent. It's not perfect but it certainly helps. It still won't get around your problem of having to deal with the two layers of selection though. The problem you have with the panel in the corner is that you need to take your eye off the action to do the clicking. This is a big advantage of right click menus. Hopefully the single key per tab will solve all this.

A couple of other points;

- Is there any way of making the text in the briefing screens a bigger font. I find the small font quite hard to read.

- Will you be able to allow switching between WEGO & RT. Some of the missions are fine played as RT in the slower parts but degenerate pretty quickly when things get exciting. Being able to mix the modes in one game would be quite useful.

- I have observed vehicles driving through each other (and through men as well) at times. Is this a straight bug or just an engine limitation.

- Are we able to get a mode where we can see all the paths and target lines at once. I have made some unholy messes by not knowing exactly where non-selected vehicles are going.

- When you pop smoke, is there a way of directing where (this may be an RTFM problem). Popping it 20m in front of men facing the wrong way is not that useful.

- Bug I think; Sometimes paths partially disappear into the terrain.

Oh yeah, make sure that you give Mad Matt a big pat on the back, the sound on this game is absolutely excellent.

To those who have not tried it, I would recommend that they do so. I would also recommend that you take a look at the hot keys screen. The screen is one of the options under the Menu button.

[massive1974]

Hi fellow Hungarian

I was meaning to ask this for some time, so now is the time: is tim "rune" orosz Hungarian?

[Panzer76]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

From our perspective we created CMx1 to be a leap forward and a break with the past. You joined us because of that vision and in doing so moved on from the games you had loved before that, correct? Now CMx2 is doing to CMx1 what it did to Steel Panthers and other games like it. That is progress, whether you agree with it or not. Staying with CMx1, and not moving forward, is stagnation. Those who emotionally oppose progress and favor stagnation could be called "reactionaries".

No, I would say that there is *movement*. Movement does not equal progression. Progression implies a movement for the better.

The paradigm shift to CMBO et all was a clear progression in my eyes. CMBB is *the* best game Ive ever played due to its realistic modelling of tactical combat, its interesting setting, and its endless replayability features. Which include random gen maps, a huge unit selection, ability to buy your own forces and WEGO TCP/IP multiplayer capability.

Now, CMSF is, in my eyes, a dispersed movement from CMx1. It does somethings for the better, its does something for the worse and it just plain lacks much of what CMx1 such an excellent game for me. Future support and patchng will decide, for me, if this is the end of the road for me or not. But I have to say, that the inability to play WEGO multiplayer TCP/IP is a real stinker for me.

Playing the AI gets old fast (and esp with the tac ai problems that we are experiencing now). Playing humans is what kept me playing cmx1 for 7 yrs. Playing PBEM is not my cup of tea, and playing RT is out of the question with the akward UI that there is now (complicated by rather poor pathfinding).

I hopeing I will be seeing WEGO in TCP/IP mode in the future, but from your previous comments, chances seems slim. Is this correct?

[Steiner14]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

[QB]I do agree with you about the 1 key per tab idea. In fact, we always meant to have it that way and DID at one point, but we redid how the keys were mapped and... well, it got forgotten about. It will be in v1.02.

Great!

One other thing to note. The Commands are grouped the way they are because Commands within a Group can't be used with others within that same Group at the same time. If we had them all laid out in one big menu, not only would that be ungainly and difficult to use, but it would be extremely confusing.

A solution could have been color coding of commands that are part of one group.

[Kineas]

Originally posted by massive1974:

Hi fellow Hungarian

I was meaning to ask this for some time, so now is the time: is tim "rune" orosz Hungarian?

I doubt...I don't even know if he is the same rune who posts on the forum regularly...

[LuckyStrike]

Yes if we get one hotkey per tab that will go a long way

So, no chance of hexes in CMSF then?

[massive1974]

Originally posted by Kineas:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by massive1974:

Hi fellow Hungarian

I was meaning to ask this for some time, so now is the time: is tim "rune" orosz Hungarian?

I doubt...I don't even know if he is the same rune who posts on the forum regularly... </font>

[Kineas]

Maybe he is an n-th generation Hungarian (0 < n < 10)

[rune]

Yes, I am the same rune that posts here, and yes, My grandparents were both from Hungary. No, unfortunately, they never taught it to me. I know more German and Spanish then Hungarian, and I know little of those.

Rune

[massive1974]

Hey Rune,

Thanks for the background info. now i can lay my national pride to rest

István

[Kineas]

Thanks for the update rune, btw, do you know what the "Orosz" means in your name?

[Dirtweasle]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

The people that approach this with an open mind are up and running within a half an hour.

Bull****.

My mind was not right so it took me nearly an entire day to "get it"? Pure unadulterated bull****.

[rune]

It means Russian. Yep, I know.

Rune

[Panzer76]

Originally posted by Dirtweasle:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

The people that approach this with an open mind are up and running within a half an hour.

Bull****.

My mind was not right so it took me nearly an entire day to "get it"? Pure unadulterated bull****. </font>

[dalem]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Maybe it has sunk in but I think it's just plain f*cking stupid, Steve, and I'm trying to figure out what the rationale is behind it.

Dale, the problem is when I tell you (and others) why you can't have these things because of the engine changes, you then say "well, that was f*cking stupd, nobody wanted that crap anyway, so you killed the game for nothing". Which is why this is a continually frustrating experience for both sides.</font>

[Taki]

Another Thing thats making me suspicious is that its getting very Silence on Replys from BFC. Maybe they got lot of things do do right now or they left us somehow.

Im waiting for a Roadmap how they want to Patch this Thing up or what the thought about making that Game in Realtime.

Did they every playtest it from an CMX1 Addicted?

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Taki:

Another Thing thats making me suspicious is that its getting very Silence on Replys from BFC. Maybe they got lot of things do do right now or they left us somehow.

Im waiting for a Roadmap how they want to Patch this Thing up or what the thought about making that Game in Realtime.

Did they every playtest it from an CMX1 Addicted?

How about relaxing for a bit and letting them work on all the things they said they would work on? That includes the roadmap. Yeah, I think they're a bit busy right now.

Many if not most of the beta testers have been with CM from the CM:BO days.

[Darkmath]

Originally posted by Taki:

Another Thing thats making me suspicious is that its getting very Silence on Replys from BFC. Maybe they got lot of things do do right now or they left us somehow.

Errr,IMHO, I've never seen as much as replies from Battlefront than since the release of CMSF.

On the contrary, I wonder how they can have time to fix the issues.

Before, they threw some bones every 2 months.

[J Ruddy]

Anonymous

My job would be a lot easier if it weren't for these damned customers getting in the way!

[J Ruddy]

For what it is worth, it took me around 30-45 minutes to figure out ~80% of the GUI in the demo.

But then I am a freeking geeeenius so I might be skewing the bell curve a little...

[dalem]

Originally posted by Taki:

Another Thing thats making me suspicious is that its getting very Silence on Replys from BFC. Maybe they got lot of things do do right now or they left us somehow.

Im waiting for a Roadmap how they want to Patch this Thing up or what the thought about making that Game in Realtime.

Did they every playtest it from an CMX1 Addicted?

Seems to me that the BFC guys have been very active answering questions the last couple of days.

-dale

[ARFF1Tampa]

The one thing I don't like about the camera controls is it sems that you can only do one camera movement at a time, where in CM1, CMBB, and TOW you can pan (encircle) and move the camera forward/back, ect. at the same time. Which made for a cool effect, and a truly free camera. In CBSF if your panning and you hit the move forward, ect. button, it stops all movement and you have to repress forward to start it moving again and can only press one. I know this is how CMSF is, I just liked it better the other way.