On Tue, 25 Nov 1997 13:41:09 -0500, Doug Burg <doug.b...@mail.wdn.com>
wrote:
>Well this seemed pretty clear to me at the time ...
<snip>
>a month or two would have been between early November and early
>December. Now they are saying next year... I'll believe it when it
>runs ...
If you've read anything else I've posted to the newsgroup, you'll know
that I firmly believe that a company should only commit to delivering
on a date it is 100% sure it can meet. Once that commitment has been
made it must be adhered to.
In this case the users were looking for a 3dFX patch, and an idea of
when it would be released. "A month or two" does not consitute a
delivery commitment, it consitutes someone guessing at a date to be
helpful. The sort of help messages like yours will ensure we never get
in future. It'll be back to the "it'll be finished when you see it on
the store shelves" scenario of ID. Software companies will be better
off, they don't gain anything by giving us release dates. We'll be
worse off.
>Frankly, I'm darn glad I didn't buy the game expecting the
>3dfx patch to be quickly forthcoming. Because it'll be a while. Which
>is typical of big-who-gives-a-crap-about-the-customer software houses.
>And Papy/Sierra ain't the worst .. not by far. They are working on
>something else and SODA's 3dfx patch has been relegated to 2nd or 3rd or
>33rd priority ... forget all the people who already bought it and can't
>adequately run it.
The vast majority of people still have no idea that a 3dFX patch is in
the works, so if they've bought it and can't run it that is due to
them not researching the specs carefully enough or poor reviewing. You
can't pin everything on software companies.
So SODA was relegated to second place because something else took
priority? If that is shocking to you then I suggest you wake up and
take a look around - decisions like that happen several times per day
in the company I work for. Everything is needed _now_ and every
customer is important - sometimes you've got to decide. In an ideal
world we would have enough capacity to give every customer everything
that they want, but there are realities that need to be faced. Coding
3dFX is a specific knowledge, so it doesn't take a genius to figure
out that perhaps the particular guru working on SODA 3dFX was required
for N2's patch? The point is that whichever project he is working on
and whichever fire he is attending to we are the ones going to
benefit. Short of asking Papyrus to take a vote on the newsgroup every
time they need to reallocate resources I'm not sure what you would
have them do.
The project was delayed, and THAT is a problem. It should have been
estimated correctly from the outset. That's all fine and well and we
can get upset about that, but remember too that your life changes, as
does theirs, and so adjustments need to be made and decisions taken. I
think that's a far more likely scenario than the "big bad
multinantional is out to screw all my money out of me" analogy. That's
an ongoing corporate objective rather than a day-to-day decision.
>but the point is this. Two months ago they were saying it would be out
>by now. Now its not even close ...
Two months ago I thought a huge number of things would have happened
in my business, almost none of which have through factors I simply
cannot influence. I can sit and bitch about it or I can accept the
realities. A customer doesn't get their order because a machine breaks
down, there's only one guy who can fix it and he has an illness that
has flattened him. You've got to deal with these things. If Papyrus
are sitting there in their office saying "Oh forget the customers,
let's play on NROS a bit more" then they deserve to go out of business
and they will. You and I both know that's not the case.
>Well the tech guy (Yanaiah) posted on the Motorsports support message
>board @ www.sierra.com that they were definitely not going to do a patch
>and he has repeatedly said the same thing. It is only recently that he
>has acknowledged that 3dfx Inc was doing the patch with Papy's
>permission. So I again, say, if it was up to Papy we'd have to buy a
>new game to get it ... how can you argue with that?
I'm not, you are. I'm quite happy with N2 and said in previous posts
that I would far rather see N2 left alone and the programming
resources going toward making GPL and NASCAR3 even better. At one time
GPL and NROS were on-time, and there was no N2 or SODA patch. Now we
have 3dFX patches coming for both _and_ both of the other products are
delayed. There's a pattern here but I just can't quite put my finger
on what it is...... On top of that, instead of getting excited about
N2 and SODA in 3dFX, we all bitch about how late they are. Amazing.
>Look, if you are telling me that there are not areas where ICR2 could be
>improved, then it's not worth arguing over. I think the non-accelerated
>version is very weak in the graphics version and most people with 3d
>cards can't run it in an accelerated mode because they don't have
>Rendition cards, they have 3dfx.
Doug, _any_ product could be better. You've got to release it at some
time though. ICR2 runs very well on a P-133 or below, so I don't see
that anyone can argue that it "needs" 3dFX. The only reason it got
Rendition support was because Rendition wanted a racing showcase and
paid Papyrus to do so. Even the graphics of the non-3D version were
groundbreaking at the time, remember it is a two year old product.
Just because I've bought a 3dFX card doesn't mean I can demand DOOM
patches for it. If you bought a TV two years ago would you expect Sony
to come to your house and retrofit a wide-screen tube to it? Of course
not, because it works fine without it. If you now decide that you want
wide-screen instead of the TV you paid for and were happy with, then
that's whole new product and you need to pay for it. So why expect
anything different from the software you buy?
>They must have a CART license or they would not have been able to change
>the box. That being the case, why are they not improving the game and
>releasing a new version (call it ICR3 if you will)... ?
You'd need to pay for that you know...? Papyrus have said that they
have not withdrawn from "US open wheel racing", but if there is no
comment from them on what they are doing, can you really blame them?
>The only answer
>is that they have abandoned the product and there will be no ICR3 --
>just like there will be no GP3 (or so we are lead to believe...).
- They're working on a product but don't want to make an announcement?
- They're negotiating a license and don't want to predjudice it?
- Waiting for current licenses to expire to allow a re-entry into the
CART/IRL market?
There are lots of possibilities, you need only look beyond that which
supports your argument. To say that Papyrus have willingly abandoned
the product is to say that they have abandoned makingmoney - not a
likely scenario. Like it or not software companies are here to make
money - that's it, plain and simple. I'm sure all of the people
working there actually want to creat great sims, but the bottom line
is no money = no job = no sims. If insufficient numbers bought ICR2
then it would make no sense at all to make ICR3, when you could devote
the time to making something more popular and more profitable (NASCAR
series for example). We may not like that, I certainly wouldn't were
it the case, but I know that complaining about it isn't going to help.
It's a commercial decision that has to be made.
>I didn't buy N2 -- I won't buy a game that needs acceleration that
>doesn't support 3dfx.
>And I won't buy it until the patch is reportedly working as seen here in
>RAS.
NASCAR2 doesn't "need" 3dFX, it runs fine without it, a view upheld by
the vast numbers who have bought it already and are running it with no
frame-rate problems. Perhaps you do have a frame-rate problem and
can't run it to your liking, but in that case the only sim you can
have bought in the last couple of years is ICR2, since no other sim
has a better frame-rate than N2 on equivalent hardware. Then again,
you mentioned ICR2 is also slow, so what can you have been doing? No
GP2, no N2, no CPR, no ICR2, nothing.
>I don't buy it -- if they had time to do BGN they have time to do the
>patch ...
Both projects? At the same time? And GPL? And NROS? Remember that BGN
was on the schedule - an N2 patch wasn't. That they even managed to
squeeze the N2 3dFX patch in without delaying BGN was pretty nice
work.
>N2 folks are left high and dry if it was not for 3dfx inc ...
And Papyrus, who supplied code, knowledge, willingness to help and
whatever else we don't know, but in current frame of mind I wouldn't
expect you to acknowledge that.
>Well I'll agree to disagree. I've played it without acceleration and I
>don't like it.
I doubt that a 3dFX patch will make an iota of difference in that
case. N2 is already faster than N1, so if you happily played N1 I fail
to see what the problem is. If you didn't play N1, then why the big
hullabaloo about getting a patch for a game you don't like anyway?
I'm boggling again, ahhhhhhh! :)
Cheers!
John
