a call for more variety in the WWII CMx2 game

[MikeyD]

Would adding barbed wire to the foritication REALLY have made you people happy? Or surrendering prisoners? Or four different types of civilian car instead of two? Or a couple pages of penetration tables in the back of the manual? In another thread someone was ranting on and on about the game's endless flaws, then ended by saying he would refuse to purchase CMSF. Er... what game was he complaining about if he had never actually played CMSF? Sometimes this board reads like an OCD convention.

[Code13]

Very true MickeyD, it would then be onto the next perceived flaw that made the whole game unplayable...

People surrendering might be cool, but I am not that bothered.

The only think lacking really for CMx2 is more modules (give me my Brits for heavens sake ) and the little rules that were in CMx1 such as move to contact etc

[Childress]

dp

[ March 05, 2008, 10:05 AM: Message edited by: Childress ]

[Childress]

Originally posted by Childress:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Code13:

[QB] Very true MickeyD, it would then be onto the next perceived flaw that made the whole game unplayable...

Lol. Kvetching is just in the nature of sim forums. This one is neither better nor worse than the rest. Check out some of the flight or auto racing fora.

People surrendering might be cool, but I am not that bothered.

Surrendering is not just fluff. Including hovering Apaches is fluff. Processing POWs exerts a drag on combat operations. I'd even settle for some abstractions in this domain. </font>

[Big Poppa Pump]

I agree surrendering is not just fluff. It can be abstracted if needed. A little white flag icon instead of the routing exlamation point or the red cross for a wounded soldier.

Close assualts on tanks and hand to hand combat would also be welcome additions. As far as I'm aware close assaults do not occur without an area target command near the tank. If the tank moves (particularily in WEGO) you end up throwing grenades at nothign for 60 seconds. Again I do note need to animations of infantry crawling on tanks just an icon to let me know it is occuring.

All this being said I am amazed at the improvement 1.06 and 1.07 have brought. The gameplay is very strong now and I look forward to future improvements and modules.

[Childress]

Originally posted by Big Poppa Pump:

I agree surrendering is not just fluff. It can be abstracted if needed.

One hands in the air animation needed, a la CM1. Then a guard can be assigned from the squad. After an appropriate delay, guard and POWs are removed from the battle and entered into the post-game stat column. Voila

[Battlefront.com]

Peter,

With the depth and variety in CMx1 let alone the better texture in CMx2, a simulation of just the basic stuff should keep most people happy for years.

Obviously we agree

If I represent a problem for you ( other than being Mac only) it's that I might not buy many modules if the basic game meets my needs, although I'd probably buy British Paras.

Which is exactly why we're doing content the way we are. There is no point killing ourselves to put in tons of stuff that most people won't use or use very often just so the minority, who aren't paying a penny more for it, get to have it all. This is an unsustainable business model for us and it's why we're never going to do that again. Whining, complaining, threatening, etc. won't have any effect on our strategy because we value continuing on in this business more than striving to please the unpleasable Since that is ALSO in the best interests of the people whining, complaining, and threatening us... ironically we're doing what's in their best interests too.

Dorosh,

In CM, infantry are severely undermodelled which I think may lead to some of the true boredom - were some of these capabilities in the game there would be far more to do than just advance, shoot and duck, which is basically what it is now. I've posted at length on the inability to engage enemy armour realistically with infantry, for example, or the absence of prisoners/surrendering. It's all very sterile. In CMX1 you could at least image the close assault against an enemy tank as it was actually depicted, so were surrendering units.

Well, for the most part I think you're just being narrow minded.  CM, be it the first or second series, purposefully gets away from niggly little details because almost NOBODY on the face of this Earth cares about them.  The level of micromanagement in ASL/SL is it's biggest weakness, not its strength. It is why 10 years ago Charles took his stack of ASL/SL Modules (he had a 6' high stack IIRC), read through them, then put them back in his closet and forgot about them on purpose. They were sold on eBay years later without having been touched since.

Obviously you can disagree with that, and no doubt will since you're about the groggiest ASL/SL guy I've ever met, but you would do yourself some credit if you would concede that your concept of "fun" is relative to you and not necessarily meaningful beyond that.  Truth is that 99.56% of the game market thinks all wargames are boring and painfully difficult to play. If you really want to get into a peeing match about what defines fun, let's get a thousand randomly selected gamers together in a room and see how many move towards us in support and how many move aside as if we have a touch of the Bubonic Plague

The fact that there is absolutely no campaign system in the game now

I know you strive to make the most ridiculous, meaningless, over the top comments as possible from time to time, but man you have gone way over the line of "rational line of argument" to "childish rant" on this one.

A campaign, by definition, is nothing more than a series of battles within a greater context.  That's it, simple as that.  In CMx2 the campaign system allows you to take units from one battle to the next, have the effects of the previous battle impact the next, and to semi-dynamically choose which battle you move onto based on the performance of the previous battle.

Now, as I've already said, there's a couple dozen different ways to model a campaign. Also as I've already said a couple dozen times, many of those ideas are diametrically opposed to one another. Anybody that doesn't grasp this truth indicates, to me, a tenuous grasp of reality. Or at least intellectual honesty.

What I mean by that is CMx2 most absolutely definitely has a campaign system.  You may not like the system we chose, but it's completely and utterly childish (and I do not use that word lightly) to suggest it doesn't exist at all as you have a couple of times already.

Because you love my car analogies so much, here's one.  I think the Hummer 3 is the biggest waste of resources of any car manufacturer on the face of the planet.  It's expensive, got the 2nd worst rating of ANY vehicle in 2007 by Consumer Reports, and it's mostly purchased by people for conspicuous consumption (i.e. status symbol).  As horrid as a vehicle as it may be, to say it "isn't a SUV" or "it isn't a vehicle" would be rather asinine to state simply because I don't like it, would it not?  So maybe you should consider your words more carefully next time and look less silly.

Otherwise, I think I can relate to what you are saying - variety is the spice of life - but I would say the problem isn't lack of units but the number of ways in which those units can be used. Even the limited number of vehicles are hampered by the "sameness" of the terrain in CM:SF though a good scenario designer like George can cure that. Trouble is, scenario designs are running to two hours, and I don't have time for that

Bull  How many hours did you take to complete a 30 turn game in CMx1?  2 hours at least I suspect.  In CMx2 you can play a 30 minute game in 30 minutes if you use RealTime, which is what Rollstoy commented on.  In WeGo it takes about the same to do a 30 turn game in CMx1 as in CMx2.  Obviously scenario designers can make huge or small scenarios that take more or less time to play out.  Rune made some notorious scenarios in CMx1 that took 10-15 minutes for each turn to crunch, which meant a 30 turn game took about 5+ hours of sitting around staring at the infamous blue bar, not to mention what time was spent actually playing and watching the game itself. So take off the jaded glasses and try to look at the facts better next time.

You also had more ways to use the vehicles, what with seek hull down commands and a much more vibrant Tac AI that would keep the enemy doing interesting things.

Narrow minded thinking produces narrow minded opinions.  There are more things to do with any unit in CMx2 than in CMx1.  The urban terrain alone makes things far more spicy.  CMx1 battles, especially built up areas, were boringly monotonous due to the extremely crude and simplistic approach to buildings.  Open terrain is also far more varied and nuanced than in CMx1, which to me makes it more fun.  In CMx2 you can stack Commands together to produce behaviors not possible in CMx1.

Oh, and remember that TacAI is the lowest level behavior, such as ducking, firing back, altering paths, etc.  What you're talking about is OperationalAI, not TacAI.

Add to that the fact we have 1:1 modelling but no individual tasks. Anyone every see an entire squad do sentry duty? I haven't but I've done my fair share of sentry duty as an individual or at most in pairs. Would add variety to the kinds of missions you can portray. Putting out sentries on an airfield is a natural, but even out in the field, a two-man listening post connected by wire back to a company HQ would be a beautiful thing. 

For the 102 people that would be interested in purchasing such an abomination, sure. However, we'll never ever in a billion years make something along the lines of ASL/SL so it's not a productive line of argument to take with us. Might as well try to convince us that we should make a highly accurate computerized version of the game Hungry, Hungry, Hippos. It ain't going to happen

MD82,

Steve, your arrogance is breath taking.

What arrogance?  You guys are completely and utterly impossible to please.  If we tried to do 1/2 the things you claim we have to do we'd be out of business.  It's a fact.

I'm amused to see that others in your company (perhaps Charles?) just ignore your public put downs of your customers as ignorant whiners who "just don't get it", and put such items as the space bar command menu, and fixed waypoints finding and other "CMx1" features in the patches. This being done despite your insistence that they were not needed, were the old way,etc.

Whoever is working behind the scenes, keep it up. Keep Steve on a leash and away from the customers and you might get some success from your current efforts.

heh... the funny thing is that I'm in charge of PR because I'm the only one that can hold my temper with you lot  Charles hasn't been involved in discussions on these Forums for about 6 years because even during the supposed "CMx1 is perfect" days there was so much complaining, whining, abuse, etc. coming from our customers that he got fed up with it and swore off the Forums pretty much forever.  Once upon a time we didn't understand why Keith Z (Atomic Games) lots his temper so much with his customers.  We found it it was simply because we hadn't been doing it as long as he had  At least I keep my temper in comparison.

Code13,

Personally speaking, CMx2 is pretty good, ok, I havent been playing it for too long, but it is a lot of fun.

If I want anything more from it is is to see more force choice, i.e. I want more than US Mech Inf or MOUT vs Syrian regulars or UNCONs.

British, French, German forces, Russian etc would all be great to see.

Thanks!  Well, that's exactly what we're doing.  It's just that (for the reasons I've mentioned) it's not going to happen as one packaged product.  Modules will give you those other choices, therefore over time the options will be there.

Rollstoy,

In all fairness, you forgot to mention the buddy aid system, which adds a whole layer to the game for me, as I actively seek to administer aid to injured soldiers which, at times, is as difficult as killing the enemy soldiers.

You're speaking to a man that says there isn't a campaign system in CMx2, so of course he's not going to notice the finer problems of his line of thinking when the big, huge gaps between his perception and reality exist.

Steve

[ March 05, 2008, 12:53 PM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[abneo3sierra]

I would like to sum up my experience with BFC.

1st. I purchased, happily, Strategic Command and Tacops. Being very pleased with them, I then noticed this forum. That was followed up with purchases of CMBB, TOW, and CMAK.

I continued mostly reading the forums for CMx1, and was very happy with this company. Then one day I ventured looking at this game, and in the process, stumbled across what seemed to be BFC slamming their customers. I was outraged a company would do this. That was last week. Now, I have watched and read on this forum the past week, and I must say I have seen the light. I am now amazed at how fickle the basic customers are in this genre. On review, I have even seen pieces of that in myself. I have to say now, it is amazing that BFC or anyone else puts up with what they do on a regular basis, it must indeed be out of a love for the games themselves, when each thing gets praised by some and slammed by others. So my input here is simply this..guys, keep doing what "floats your boat" as someone before said...without that, I am sure this business would drive you crazy. You put out a good system, anyone who wants perfection, last I looked, we were still looking for recruits

[Battlefront.com]

Childress,

Lol. Kvetching is just in the nature of sim forums. This one is neither better nor worse than the rest.

Yup! The funny thing is we know this and accept it for what it is. Unfortunately, too many of the people kvetching think they aren't. Then when I point out why it is we're doing what we are doing, and not what some want us to do, I get called "arrogant", "abusive", etc. People who honestly think their rants and raves are productive hate having it pointed out that they aren't. Oh, and such customers hate even more when they are told "no" regardless of how it's done or how it is justified. Not that most developers try to explain themselves. Most just ignore the customers completely, which of course takes the complaining into a different realm

More things will be added to the game engine as time goes on. With each release we focus on the things that are most important to simulate first, then on other aspects after. Taking the extremely complex reality of combat in smaller bites is just the way it has to be if you guys really want a realistic simulation. Otherwise we'll give up on this sort of game completely and go with something that isn't concerned about reality nearly as much.

Steve

[Omenowl]

Ok, I am one of those people who played the demos to death. Then I bought 3 versions of CMBO (one for myself, one for my father and another one on sale for 5 dollars a little over a year ago).

I think what attracted me the most is it was fairly realistic compared to other games. The WEGO option of rewinding was so cool and the game was completely different than anything else out there. I admit I was bad and never bought CMBB and CMAK (I should have bought CMAK as I played the demo for hours).

I preordered CMSF and despite all its problems it is the only game from last year I still have on my computer. It is still one of my favorite games beating out Dawn of War and Total War. In fact a lot of pathing problems I noticed with CMSF had similar problems in those two games.

I would like to see some more terrain types and textures. I would like to see different forces (Russian, Chinese, etc.). Make sure you include more scenarios. A better map editor and triggers. That is worth the price to me for the game. I dont expect it all, but if each module adds onto the current game it is a major plus.

[Battlefront.com]

abneo3sierra,

On review, I have even seen pieces of that in myself. I have to say now, it is amazing that BFC or anyone else puts up with what they do on a regular basis, it must indeed be out of a love for the games themselves, when each thing gets praised by some and slammed by others.

Bingo... you hit the nail on the end right there. The day we fall out of love with wargaming is the day we stop making wargames. Why? There are plenty of things that we could do with our time that we care about that we could probably make more money at with less aggravation.

I think every wargame developer in the history of this business has said the same thing at some point or another, very frequently in public. It's also why so many wargame companies sprout up and then fade away very quickly. Besides HPS we are probably the longest lived wargame company still around. That should tell you guys something about how lucrative this wargame thing is for us developers.

Steve

[Mord]

What a lot of dudes on here seem to forget is that Steve is pretty damn gracious when people ask questions or have gripes which are posed in a civil manner. You are treated as you treat others.

Secondly, they seem to forget he answers questions/concerns pretty straight forward the first 800 times...it's after that that he tends to degrade as people ignore everything he says and start harping their points louder and louder because they don't like the answer they are getting. It's like talking to bricks in here sometimes. I don't blame him if he gets pissed or snappy.

Poster; Steve, why can't we have/do X/Y/Z?

Steve; Because X/Y/Z (Insert long post addressing said issue)

Poster; But Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Steve; (Insert lengthy explanation again.)

Poster; (Repeat every blah, blah, blah for six more posts.

Steve; (insert explanation for 6 millionth time)

Poster; You are mean and don't like me and never give me what I want! You suck! Chuck's brain jar sucks! Your game sucks! The world sucks and I hate car analogies!

Steve; *SIGH* I should've taken that Door Greeter job at Walmart....

Mord.

[ March 05, 2008, 01:37 PM: Message edited by: Mord ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

Would adding barbed wire to the foritication REALLY have made you people happy? Or surrendering prisoners? Or four different types of civilian car instead of two? Or a couple pages of penetration tables in the back of the manual? In another thread someone was ranting on and on about the game's endless flaws, then ended by saying he would refuse to purchase CMSF. Er... what game was he complaining about if he had never actually played CMSF? Sometimes this board reads like an OCD convention.

It's unfortunate you lack the ability to read comments in context, MikeyD. Perhaps you'd like to comment on the underlying statement that barbed wire and prisoners was illustrating - if you were able to grasp it, that is. I can see at least four people who did.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

heh... the funny thing is that I'm in charge of PR because I'm the only one that can hold my temper with you lot [/QB]

Ahem. Dan Olding (Kwazydog) is the best thing BF.C has going for it as far as PR; a true gentleman to the core who has always, always kept his temper even when being insulted personally and directly - which is rare since he is probably the most inoffensive person I have ever seen. I have yet to see him say an unkind or rude word, and it isn't as if he hasn't been in the middle of some ugly scrums here on the forum. He's held his own amidst some truly ugly accusations, held up under vicious and unwarranted criticism of both his own work personally and that of the company's, whose interests he has always held in high regard, and of course has shown himself adept at accepting praise in a respectful and gracious manner.

I know Dan isn't the type to take offence, but it certainly hasn't passed unnoticed by others that you have insulted him by not even acknowledging all the great work he has done for you here on the public forums. What could be more embarrassing than watching someone you know rushing in to assume credit for work that someone else does far better than he is capable of? The only trouble with lobbying for Dan to be the public face of the company is that he would probably be too smart to accept the job if offered. :eek:

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Big Poppa Pump:

I agree surrendering is not just fluff. It can be abstracted if needed. A little white flag icon instead of the routing exlamation point or the red cross for a wounded soldier.

Close assualts on tanks and hand to hand combat would also be welcome additions. As far as I'm aware close assaults do not occur without an area target command near the tank. If the tank moves (particularily in WEGO) you end up throwing grenades at nothign for 60 seconds. Again I do note need to animations of infantry crawling on tanks just an icon to let me know it is occuring.

All this being said I am amazed at the improvement 1.06 and 1.07 have brought. The gameplay is very strong now and I look forward to future improvements and modules.

We can argue back and forth about this feature and that feature all we want; the underlying point which seemed to resonate, and which I had wanted to emphasize, was that there are currently fewer ways to employ the units at our command than in the old engine. Player fatigue, or boredom, or whatever you want to call it, will be alleviated by one of a few conditions:

a) greater variety in units

greater variety in terrain

c) greater variety in types of scenarios

d) greater capabilities of the units

We've already been told, by the creator no less, that the games will be limited in scope, so a) and are by default low. c) is in the hands of the scenario designers, but are also a function of d), in particular, as well as a) and .

In short, the more things you can do with the units, the more types of missions you can create, and the less essential it is to include 80 types of AFVs, squads, small arms, etc.

An actual campaign, which CMX2 does not have, would be an extension of scenario design. Lacking a true campaign model, there are always manual systems which were popular for CMX1 - haven't seen any crop up yet for CMX2 with the exception of something Adam was cooking up IIRC? I think Kip mentioned something about the Ukraine also - but the number of manual campaigns that get planned have always outnumbered those that actually get played through to completion by an order of magnitude...

Anyway, the point isn't to lobby for this feature or that feature (previously revealed faulty understanding of the thread notwithstanding), the point is that the sum total of unit capabilities is what will increase replayability and add variety to what at some point will become a sterile experience.

Not to discount the draw of good visuals and nothing more; I've played through the Medal of Honor series three times despite the fact it has a weak "campaign" model and limited unit set, solely because I felt engaged by the storyline and mostly was overcome by the visuals. I think it would be unfortunate for CM to be marketed in that manner, as most other game series do that.

[Childress]

Agree with Dorosh. Personally, I find the variety of troops and vehicles more or less adequate. Are people really hankering to play with British kit? I prefer that Battlefront concentrate on 'd' for future updates and modules.

[76mm]

Dorosh,

Many good points raised about unit capabilities, I fully agree with the thrust of your arguments.

[YankeeDog]

Well, this train is probably already careening off the tracks, but for Dorosh & Co's call for more "unit capabilities," I think you can be encouraged that a lot of the very basic modeling work has been done for CMSF, so BFC should be able to spend more time adding more "special stuff" to CMx2:WWII.

I imagine it took a lot of time and effort just to code the basic stuff like getting infantry to walk properly, the fundamentals of the ballistics modeling, etc. All that root-level stuff can be translated right into the WWII game. Indeed, this is one of the reasons why I eventually came around to the idea of the WWII game coming out second. I'm enjoying CMSF, but I'm still very much looking forward to the return to WWII.

So I'm hopeful that we'll see some expanded "unit functionality" for CMx2. I don't think it's realistic to expect more esoteric capabilities like infantry scaling cliffs with grapnels (what's that good for? Maybe 1-2 scenarios before the novelty wears off?), but I'm hopeful some other fun stuff will make it in. Some specific tactical engineering stuff like use of demo charges, bangalore torpedos etc. to clear paths through minefields and obstacles would be great, for example.

Heck, I've been just playing the Demo of CMSF for the past two weeks, and it will probably take me another two weeks to finish playing all the scenarios in the demo through, both sides. If the demo can last me for a month, the full game should last me quite a bit longer. While in a best-of-all-possible-worlds it would be great to have a laundry list TOE like CMBB in CMx2, I really think I can live with somewhat fewer units, more completely and realistically modeled.

But maybe I'm unusual amongst wargamers in that I have a life and wife and friends and a career, and can only spare maybe an hour or two a week for wargaming. . . so I don't have time to get into playing with esoteric things like the Turan-3 and assaulting over cliffs with grapnel and line. Not that I wouldn't love to have more time for it, mind you. I'm jealous of all of you who have the time to get into this stuff. But not jealous enough to give up the other stuff in my life. I guess it will have to wait for retirement. I really hope BFC is still putting out quality product at that point!

Cheers,

YD

[Omenowl]

I think snow (it does snow in Jerusalem), lower temperatures and amphibious assaults with a few new units would make me happy with the marine module.

Other areas I think would be interesting is some hand to hand combat and triggers so you could design newer missions. I definitely think expanding the scenario editor would help.

I would also like to see the old sound contacts, misidentifying tanks and fog.

[YankeeDog]

Snow? Really?!

I mean it snows once every few years in Jerusalem, and then it stays on the ground for usually just a few days. They all run out and take pictures of it to sell for tourists for the next few years, until it snows again. Some of the higher peaks in the have snow cover more often, but these are not likely areas for ground combat.

Of all the things to model in a land combat game in Syria, this would be somewhere way down the list for me.

Not so sure how realistic a contested amphibious assault is in modern US Marines vs. OPFOR conflict, either. Current USMC doctrine in a real shooting war is to thoroughly recon, and then completely own the battlespace within LOS of the beachhead. Anything in that zone gets bombed or shelled to hell and back before anyone other than small force recon teams and SEALs go feet dry. And the Navy has the ability to do this ten times over, no problem.

The interesting stuff comes as the Marines try to expand inland, transitioning beyond the ship-based fire support to their own organic land-based support.

But misidentified vehicles, more scenario flexibility and fog would all be lots 'o fun.

Cheers,

YD

[Omenowl]

There is still enough for snow. Damascus is further north than Dallas, TX and the temperatures drop colder than what I experienced in Frankfurt, Germany. Admittedly, the game time frame does not assume the invasion would be at the proper time, but I am always for different terrain conditions.

[Carbon-14]

I spent a winter in the Golan Heights. When it snowed on the Syrian side it would only last on average a couple days. Not enough to really be relevant to the game

[Huntarr]

Don't even get me started about Dallas. We had 80 degrees monday and then was hit by snow and 30's Tuesday in March. Crazy as hell.

[LongLeftFlank]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

I think the limited amount of things we can do with infantry is the real culprit here, not the limited array of vehicles.

This is absolutely right. As of 1.07 CMSF is a very satisfying AFV vs. AFV game for the most part, and I'm OK with abstraction of the fire support.

However, infantry -- the true heart of this game -- still acts very clumsily and requires continuous micromanagement to not get itself massacred whenever it moves. And this isn't a "modern battlefields are lethal" issue, it's a "why the hell did half my squad prance out into the open 20 feet left of where I ordered them to go?" issue.

The complete inability of infantry to perform infiltration even in heavy cover is an added frustration (this was a notable gap in CMX1 too). Again, this is a behavior issue, not a "modern optics and night vision renders this tactic obsolete" issue... even when crawling, some troops betray their presence by suicidally leaving their cover.

ELOS was a big step forward, and I'm sure we'll be seeing some refinements to the terrain and buildings models over time. But infantry still doesn't use cover like it should, even with careful micro.

[Battlefront.com]

Dorosh,

What could be more embarrassing than watching someone you know rushing in to assume credit for work that someone else does far better than he is capable of?

Dorosh, give it a rest. You can view what I say any way you want to, that's your choice. I don't give a rat's ass about credit going to me. I do enough that I don't have to take credit for things other people do. Sure, Dan does chime in and yeah he is astoundingly polite. Actual beta testers also chime in too and have a lot of positive things to say in positive ways. So yeah, all of that is PR. But it's not their primary responsibility, whereas it is mine. That's not a statement of anything other than fact. And because I am the #1 face of the game and most people know that I am largely responsible for its design (good, bad, and otherwise), therefore the majority of the monkey feces are thrown at me and not at Dan. Plus, he can better pick and choose which scraps to get involved in and email me when he sees one he doesn't want to get involved in (and yes, that does happen).

The funny thing is that you're already aware of this when you posted:

The only trouble with lobbying for Dan to be the public face of the company is that he would probably be too smart to accept the job if offered.

Duhhhhhhh... why might that be Dorosh? Because if I weren't around to piss all over he'd find himself the primary one people vent their frustrations and abuse on instead of me? Yup, that's right.

As I said, you're making my point for me. Instead of you saying "Gee, if Steve just went away and Dan took his place all these endemic problems with wargamers, which stretch back decades before Battlefront ever existed, would just melt away". But in truth you know that's BS and Dan would become a target for everything I have outlined in previous posts and would sooner, rather than later, either become jaded like me or quit. Thank you for recognizing that.

Now, how about all the BS you tossed out that I called you on and you're neatly dodging? Nice try, BTW, but it was kinda obvious

Steve