rec.autos.simulators

Shane and all,

I am extremely puzzed by your mail indicating that you were told that an
update for network ability was in progress.  This has never been so.  The
complex 3d engine that GP2 uses will not allow network support to be an
option.  We would have liked to include this but never indicated before the
game was released that network play would be an option or indicated
afterwards that any "update" to allow this would be worked on.  Our
programmers and testers have never sat down and looked at any update for
GP2 as all the program code is owned by Geoff Crammond.

The support departments of the US and Europe have all been in sync with
this information and I simply do not understand why you beleive, or was,
told otherwise.

Bringing out expansion discs is not a simple case of changing the graphics.
 We would need to negotiate a licence to use a years data.  This is not
possible because as I said before the previous years licences have already
been taken.  One would then need to gather together all the car performance
data to re-program the cars, gather driver data - each driver behaves
differently too, redesign the cars, collect track data and create new
tracks and then somehow intergrate all this new data into the existing
program code where these are not all seperate components - everything is
linked.  This would take a very long time to do - one of the reasons the
game was delayed twice in the first place.

I'm sorry if this is not what you wanted to hear by this has always been
and will contiune to be the official line on this program.

To re-confirm for and others, there is no GP2 patch available or being
considered and there is no GP3 under development.

Regards,
Mark Rich/MicroProse-Europe

Complex 3D engine!!!!  hehe, Right, Played Quake lately?
No Gp3, thats to bad, I was all ready to copy it.
GP2 sucks, Microprose Sucks, And Crammond should go back to programming
school, The 80's are gone.
Microprose and Crammond lost many customers over this game.
You are all going down.
Papyrus seems to be following your lead, ICR2 got 1 patch, so will N2,
someday.
Time for some new *** and companies to emerge I think.

Mr Bill
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Oh, One more thing Mark J Rich, Say off this group, you guys never helped
us out
before with anything so why start now.
***off.

Mr FU Bill

Perhaps its a late April fools joke and the people here that have paid
for an unfinished product(GP2) are the fools that were stupid enough to
believe in CUSTOMER SUPPORT from MPS ?

asking for help/answers for GP2 starting around Jan 97.

NOT one reply back - and its now April.

Im disappointed to say the least that this issue on GP2 was only
addressed now.

How could the company that u represent simply not mention this months
ago ???

My best guess is that profitabilty stood in the way of it.

There are some people here that will not purchase another product from
your company because of the poor service that MPS has provided for GP2.

I will be one of those.

Perhaps you pass this on to the MPS marketing dept:

Customers ARE entitled to get what they paid for. NO EXCEPTIONS.
I never got that.
Think about that when the next MPS release comes out and I happen to
like the game.

BTW - Mark, nothing personal but as a customer that had suported MPS
from as far back as Red Storm Rising, Pirates, Pirates Gold, Tank
Platoon, F117A, Civilization, Knights of the Sky, Strike Eagle III,
Falcon F-16(HoloByte), Fleet Defender F14..etc etc...

Im sure you can agree that customer loyalty has its advantages...
Just check out some of the patches or complete upgrades that came out
for the classics your company had put out.

Jude R.
1996 AC Cobra(590hp)
1995 SHO(225hp)
1997 Windstar(It carries the kids and the spare parts)

This is a factually untrue statement.  A few months ago, I called MPS
U.S. and requested information about whether there was an update for
GP2 in the works which would enable 3D accelerator support, and I was
told that there WAS such work going on, but that no release dates were
known.

I'm sure other customers have gotten other kinds of answers as well,
but for you to say that MPS has been "in sync" with the information
you just gave is simply untrue.

Randy

This is also the information I have heard, not only from MPS people but
from other sources as well. In fact talk of a follow-up patch for
networking had started by MPS people even before the initial release. The
initial plan seems to have been for a game with networking, and when it
became obvious that wasn't going to happen anytime close to the licensed
'94 season, the networking was relegated to a follow-on patch.

Now AFAIK networking was never officially promised by MPS so I personally
have no beef with them about "delivering unfinished products" or anything
of that nature, but support people HAVE spoken confidently of patches being
worked upon so obviously these things were not well understood or
controlled within MPS.

Anyway, I'm glad we are now getting official confirmation of what we always
suspected.

So why do other games have this option AND a "complex 3d engine" AND run
in SVGA....SMOOTH ? For example: NASCAR 2 runs in IPX networks. AND it
is running very well on my Pentium 133! EVEN in SVGA! We are able to play
with 8 cars in the network WITH TWO 80486 in it! It runs fine!

Why can I run NASCAR 2 with ALL DETAILS ON IN SVGA very smooth, while I can
run
F1GP2 (with SAME RESOLUTION) only as a DIA-SHOW?

Hmmm....the F1GP2-FAQ in your BBS in Germany tells about NETWORK, WEATHER,
etc. :

Maybe there will be an update!

So it is easier to release F1GP (part 1) with some new graphics, menus and
car-features
as F1GP2 with NO NEW OPTIONS !?!?????

New Options could have been:

I can hear other cars, NOT ONLY MINE!
IPX NETWORK SUPPORT for at least 4 players!
Where is the rain? In the .EXE I can find the option, but where is it?
Where are the speech samples? In the files I can find them, but where are
they?

Maybe if you guys would have left those things OUT OF THE GAME it would run
a little bit faster...
instead of leaving it in the game, but leave them disabled!

Its shure NOT, what (at least I) we wanted to hear....dont misunderstand
me:
F1GP2 is a fine piece of game, but it could have been much better. Even if
you
would have released it six months later, I WOULD HAVE BOUGHT IT (hope I
spelled this right...hmmpf)!
But there are some points, that do NOT satisfy ME! Next time before I buy a
sequel to a MICROPROSE
GAME, I take a look at ...aeehhm...I mean.......I borrow it from somewhere!
I am not willing to pay 100,- DM
for something like this again

HOMEPAGE: http://members.aol.com/dbx501/homepage.htm

           - DBX501 * DS9BBS -
          - Alsdorf - Germany -
            - Loc.: JO30BU -

At least MPS has come back to us and told us the truth rather than let the
'Frenzy' of an update rumor carry on, which could be very lucrative indeed!

I think that as more sims come out with all the glittery bits etc...and the
buyers start buying these games instead, MPS will have to bring out at
least an update or even a GP3, touring car etc.....until that day there
isn't much I believe we can do!

Craig Brock

That is good since a lot of us wouldn't support Microprose by buying a GP3
anyway after the experience with GP2.

finally someone from microprose showed up...Where have you been since
the game was released. Well thanks for letting us know...

I take that to mean me as well.

I can take the "no update disk"-policy, cause I realise that it is
indeed impossible to do this due to contractual matters.

I can even take the "no network support"-policy, cause it really
wouldn't work with the graphics engine, it'd be too slow. However,
you *could* improve the 3D engine. Financial suicide though, so
that's why I can sort of live without a network patch.

What I can not, however, take is a "we will not fix bugs"-policy.
This is absolutely unforgivable and in any business but computer
software business you would be sued shirtless for selling defective
products to customers even after the defects have been found.

Therefore, I consider pirating GP3 (if there ever will be one)
justified. You will not receive one single Finnish mark from your
Formula One Grand Prix family of products ever. I'd still buy
a sequel to Stunt Car Racer though, but NOT without network
support.

The Rusty Wallace Miller Lite stock car, awsome when opened up!
GO#2!

        Mullins Motorsports Inc.
        http://www.***tron.com/~ddmj

Grand Prix 2 is the fastest selling CDROM game ever and is close to 1

Regards,
Mark Rich/Microprose-Europe

First off Mark I would like to thank you for replying to my e-mail since
nobody else bothered to from MPS.

I don't recall, however, from my previous e-mail, typing about network
concerns.

In fact I have no interest whatsoever about network play w/ GP2.

What my concerns were about was the playability of GP2.
I could type them out but since MPS has confirmed that it has no
intention to do fixes/upgrades, I guess writting them to you would be a
moot point.

Despite my extreme disappointment on customer relations with the company
that you represent, the game GP2 is by far the best F1 sim out there
since there is no other real competition to challenge it. Call it
winning the marketplace by default I suppose.

As you have quoted "expansion discs" not being a viable option for the
GP2 customer base( I assume what you mean by this are upgrade/fix discs)
this indicates to me and perhaps others here in this newsgroup that MPS
had NO intention whatsoever to support GP2 after it was released.

This is what customer/software support is all about or should I say LACK
OF IT.

Can you honestly say to me and to this newsgroup that MPS(I might as
well add Mr. G.Crammond since he has been absent as well in supporting
GP2 fixes) believes that the game did not need further modifications
after it was released to the paying customers at large?

BTW it is not only my opinion that GP2 has its flaws, if you havent
already, why not monitor the traffic here(r.a.s.) for a while and find
out what other customers complain about GP2.

Ohh !! your quote about "GP2 being the fastest selling CDROM game ever
and is close to selling 1 million units worldwide.

You sure you have your figures straight on that ??? I believe C&C Red
Alert(Westwood Studios) sold over 1.5m in the first month that it was
out and hey ! they even have a support/tech line that e-mails back ! ;-)

As far as selling well(GP2) despite its shortfalls. I can only say thats
its partly due to the reduced price point that the software is at now at
the major software/computer outlets and that there are unsuspecting
consumers that read the back of the box and think that on SVGA mode the
game will play smoothly w/ their Pentium P200 machines - not.

As the back of the GP2 box says: Real Drivers... Real F1 cars - There

Monaco...No Real Customer support.

l8Ter !

Jude R.
1996 AC Cobra(590hp)
1995 SHO(225hp)
1997 Windstar(It carries the kids and the spare parts)

P.S. if anyone else would like to add there say either way to MPS:

-8>}

-DG-

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Oh...absolutely BRILLIANT statement!  Most constructive.
--

Bruce #31
JPS-Vegemite: http://www.netspeed.com.au/brucek/vegemiteracing/index.htm
Stunned Mullet: http://www.netspeed.com.au/brucek/StunnedMullet/index.htm

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color=3D"#000000" face=3D"Comic Sans MS">Oh...absolutely BRILLIANT =
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#31<br>JPS-Vegemite: <font =
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