My two cents, for anyone that cares

[jdevlin]

Chazman is the anti-shill. or the bizarro-shill, depending on your tastes.

[Smoke]

M Hofbauer: In the case of one of the posters (Billybob) there was a threat of violence. Sounds bannable to me. As for the others, I think there was a clear pattern of abuse. I'd read all their posts before judging too harshly. As a long time lurker, I've seen some heated debates but it appears that the demeanor of these posters was unusually harsh by Battlefront standards. I'm not sorry they're gone. They were given PLENTY of rope.

[AnoMecha]

Whats really funny to me is when a company thinks that selling a lot of there game in the first month or two is a sure sign everyone loves it. I.E. totally bypassing the possibility that the earliest consumers are your most loyal fans and or those who eagerly bought the hype. Many people will load a game, play it, and never touch it again because they dislike it and not even utter a sound. Sales in the short run are a measure of reputation and marketing, sales in the long are a measure of quality.

And, I must agree there is the distinct impression from the more defensive members that if you don't like it either your not giving it its proper dues or your just defunct.

The game has potential and i continue to tinker with it but it is in my opinion lacking in some important departments, and I hope that the over zealousness being shown here in these forums by its defenders does not hinder the best possible outcome for this games future.

[Chazman]

"What does shill mean in your usage? I honestly have never heard the word before."

shill [shil]

n (plural shills)

1. pretended customer or gambler: somebody who pretends to be an interested customer or gambler in order to lure others into buying or gambling

2. self-interested promoter: somebody who promotes somebody or makes a sales pitch for something for reasons of self-interest

Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

[Moon]

Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

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

but it does not apply to Krull and a couple others which were banned since yesterday (including Billybob). Krull admitted in at least a couple of posts that he's only posting here for the fun of stirring up trouble, and Billybob went completely ballistic this morning and showed his real motivation.

These guys have NOTHING to do with the majority of other customers, and their motivation for posting here was entirely different. Maybe not from the start, but it evolved into downright trolling. Hence the ban.

Even though I have always spoken out for the right of BTS/BF.C to ban people for whatever they deem banworthy on what is after all their private board, and still stick to that, I *do* however take note that these latest bannings seem unusual given the very conservative application of this last resort over the last years. For years I was able to count all people I witnessed banned so far using my fingers, ISTR (Mabye toes, too). And then, it was for real BIG reasons. </font>

[Pvt. Ryan]

You know the definition of the word but you don't seem to know what it means. I haven't seen a single example of a shill on these boards. No one here is a "pretend customer." Most everyone here has a self-interest - making the game better than it is. Some people are interested only in repeating themselves like a broken record that has been heard too many times.

[Chazman]

"No one here is a "pretend customer"

How would you know or not?

Some of the more rabid defenders of this game could quite possibly be, if not, then they are just sycophants instead.

[Hassen]

Originally posted by Ghost1:

Quote by Rune...

"Show me ONE person from Battlefront who is posting under another name not speaking the truth.

So you would agree that people from battlefront ARE posting under a different name...

Game set and match I believe??????...ban away if you must..TRUTH HURT DOES IT ?????????????

It would require an (and) between 'name' "AND" 'not' to be what your trying to say it is smart guy. :/

But hey, All of the post you have done have been real smart, so I don't blame you.

[ChrisND]

SHow, me with post quotes, the "rabid" defenders of the game (And I do mean RABID, not merely supporting it or liking it.).

[Hassen]

The more I read, the more I am seeing that the disgruntled customers (ie lunatics, cry babies, maniacs) are out numbering the fanboys, shills, and sycophants three to one.

"I'm sure they will start censoring us off the board real soon with that rate.

I just hope that Battlefront doesn't produce a flawed product like this one, it was bad enough that they lent their name to it, which has damaged their credibility, if their developed products are going to be of the same ilk, I will never buy a Battlefront product again, as it is, I will never pre-order or buy one of their games without playing the demo again."

Well if they only censor you, then I will be happy.

[Hassen]

hrrmmm... I hear people talking about realism... Last time I checked realism wasn't in 2D... poor CC.

[Moon]

Originally posted by Chazman:

"Wow, you seem to care a lot about our problemos.

Martin"

I have been a big time fan of CM ever since it came out, I have all the versions of it and spent hundreds of hours playing it.

If I didn't care about Battlefront, I wouldn't be so upset, I would just write you off as yet another bogus game company putting out incomplete crap.

Fair enough, it just struck me as odd that in your posts you don't focus much on the game at all. Instead, half of the posts from you are about how the game is completely beyond hope, and about trying to convince others that the game is crap. You even predict how *future* problems won't ever possibly be fixed.

In the other half of the posts you speak only about the companies involved, how we all sold out and what not. In the few posts about the game you actually don't sound like you every played it, since you keep repeating the same two or three "issues" over and over.

Your viewpoints simply struck me as odd as they do not seem to match with what a regular player would care about (the game, mostly).

Martin

[Moon]

Originally posted by Chazman:

"No one here is a "pretend customer"

How would you know or not?

Some of the more rabid defenders of this game could quite possibly be, if not, then they are just sycophants instead.

I explained already to ghost1 why we would never allow anybody to pretend to be someone else. The backlash if there was the tiniest proof would more than offset the benefits.

It is most curious that you are making the exact same accusation out of thin air as ghost1.

Martin

[Moon]

Originally posted by AnoMecha:

Whats really funny to me is when a company thinks that selling a lot of there game in the first month or two is a sure sign everyone loves it. I.E. totally bypassing the possibility that the earliest consumers are your most loyal fans and or those who eagerly bought the hype. Many people will load a game, play it, and never touch it again because they dislike it and not even utter a sound. Sales in the short run are a measure of reputation and marketing, sales in the long are a measure of quality.

And, I must agree there is the distinct impression from the more defensive members that if you don't like it either your not giving it its proper dues or your just defunct.

The game has potential and i continue to tinker with it but it is in my opinion lacking in some important departments, and I hope that the over zealousness being shown here in these forums by its defenders does not hinder the best possible outcome for this games future.

We must be reading different forums then because the only over zealousness shown is by a few people who are racking up impressive post counts quickly by posting their limited viewpoints over and over and trying to convince everyone else that the game is defunct. Even accusing those who like the game of being paid for promoting the game out of thin air.

Your theory about sales would be correct if we were selling regularly through shops. Day one sales make up for 50% of total revenues more often then not (which is why you see so much pre-release hype from the traditional publishers). Not so with us. The demo is out there for everyone to download (many ten thousand people have done that already since mid April) and make their own opinion, and if we have a few hundred people buying the game each day, then it's not because they think BFC has a cool logo.

This doesn't mean that the game is fine and finished as is. Nobody ever said that, or at least I have not seen any single post to that effect on this forum. There are many like you on this board, on the fence for one reason or another. And then there are a few others whose motivations about their postings are at least somewhat dubious.

Martin

[panzer mike]

Yeah, I am one of those who are on the fence. Judging by the reactions on the forum (not the trolls) and the experience with the game of a guy at work who has bought it, the game has high potential, but is not quite there yet.

If the patch (patches) get it right, I will surely buy TOW. But for now, I am on the fence.

[Thomm]

Originally posted by Hassen:

hrrmmm... I hear people talking about realism... Last time I checked realism wasn't in 2D... poor CC.

I faintly remember the outcry on the CC forums upon the release of CC3: tank fest, crawl-of-death, spinning tanks, ...

Back then there was no indication that the 10 year old CC would once be preferred to a brand new 3D WW2 wargame

Best regards,

Thomm

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by Rollstoy:

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

hrrmmm... I hear people talking about realism... Last time I checked realism wasn't in 2D... poor CC.

I faintly remember the outcry on the CC forums upon the release of CC3: tank fest, crawl-of-death, spinning tanks, ...

Back then there was no indication that the 10 year old CC would once be preferred to a brand new 3D WW2 wargame

Best regards,

Thomm </font>

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by Moon:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

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

but it does not apply to Krull and a couple others which were banned since yesterday (including Billybob). Krull admitted in at least a couple of posts that he's only posting here for the fun of stirring up trouble, and Billybob went completely ballistic this morning and showed his real motivation.

These guys have NOTHING to do with the majority of other customers, and their motivation for posting here was entirely different. Maybe not from the start, but it evolved into downright trolling. Hence the ban.

Even though I have always spoken out for the right of BTS/BF.C to ban people for whatever they deem banworthy on what is after all their private board, and still stick to that, I *do* however take note that these latest bannings seem unusual given the very conservative application of this last resort over the last years. For years I was able to count all people I witnessed banned so far using my fingers, ISTR (Mabye toes, too). And then, it was for real BIG reasons. </font>

[Moon]

There have been a total of three bannings. If anything, it's less than when compared to the old times

Martin

[Bloodstar44]

Originally posted by Moon:

There have been a total of three bannings. If anything, it's less than when compared to the old times

Martin

Bannings on BFC forum is cool

Because there is always some good one liners by Moon, Maddmat or Steve LOL

Think of it like quotes... you can putt them later into MTW 2 instead of those medieval quotes you read while game is loading...

Cheers

PS. banning is last resort but if nothing else helps then... and suddenly air is cleaner.

[Thomm]

Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

While we're at it, did you take a look at ToW yet? What's your impression, rollstoy? I'ld be really interested to hear.

Well, I am still playing the demo, so presumably I do not have more possibilities for judging the game than you have.

Furthermore, you have to be aware that I considered "Squad Assault" as being a good game that was more challenging than CC. I am sure that makes my opinion suspicious to many people!

Basically I do award more points for 'technical merit' than for grog-ness, so here our tastes may differ.

That being said, I think that ToW is a great game, that entered the market in 'caterpillar' condition (I do not mean that too harshly, though) and will end up as a 'butterfly' fairly soon, as more balanced missions will be developed and maps will be edited to provide more concealment.

It is incredible what you can do with a single squad in this game, see the initial phase of the 'Command and Control' training scenario. I am sure that we will see many new scenarios on this scale, with tanks being reduced in numbers (hopefully).

To sum it up: great engine with tons of possibilities, great atmosphere, lots of ways to micromanage almost every aspect of the game.

That is from the demo. I do not have the full game yet. Nevertheless, I am very enthusiastic about this game and its future in the hands of the resident scenario designers and modders!

Best regards,

Thomm

[Mannheim Tanker]

Originally posted by Rollstoy:

To sum it up: great engine with tons of possibilities, great atmosphere, lots of ways to micromanage almost every aspect of the game.

That's interesting, actually, because I guess that's the #1 problem that most detractors have cited: you must micromanage the game to accomplish anything. It's always nice to be able to take over the reigns if you so choose, but it really does take away from the gameplay when the AI is so dense that you have no choice but to micromanage everything.

I saw a lot of promise in the game when I first tried the demo, and later bought the game. My big mistake was chalking my problems up to not understanding some nuance of strategy or tactics. After several games, especially in one of the scenarios that involved mostly infantry, it dawned on me that the game wasn't all that nuanced...I was supposed to micromanage my orders in order to acheive my goals. At that point I continued to try to enjoy the game, realizing that I was already on top of the learning curve, but to no avail.

I'm waiting for the patch to see if it resolves some of these problems; if it doesn't ToW is coming off my hard drive.

[Moon]

You might have come closest I guess as yet to the core of the problem some people might be having with the game. They're playing with the mindset of a company commander, ordering his squads and platoons around, whereas the scale of the game really is at the platoon level.

It shouldn't really be a surprise though, in a game featuring skills for each individual soldier on the battlefield, allowing you to micromanage even the type of ammo each one is using.

I can see where this is not to everybody's liking. If you are using to move companies around as one "unit" or, at best at the scale of CM, whole squads, then the transition to the individual soldier might be difficult.

Tastes are different. For my part, I am usually bored to death by operational level games, but love the small scale, and I am starting to suspect that most people here enjoying TOW have a similar preference.

Martin

[Chazman]

"It is most curious that you are making the exact same accusation out of thin air as ghost1.

Martin"

Are you thinking that maybe I'm really ghost, I'm a shill?

Check out my member #, I have been around since 2002.

I am very active in golf forums (have my own) and maybe I'm just a little suspect, since the golf forums are infested with shills for golf clubs and swing methods.

Where ever there is a buck to be made, I suspect the possiblity of shills is almost a given.

[Dennis50]

I guess that makes the whole world one big shill ..cause everyone wants to make a buck. You must spend a lot of time looking over your shoulder.

Regards,

Gunz