rec.autos.simulators

by **John Brown** » Tue, 16 Dec 1997 04:00:00

Yes, it's true that Dean Lester had to pack it in. He actually has a lot of
products to worry about, not just CPR. I, OTOH, only have to worry about CPR
and Monster Truck Madness. So let me try to set a few expectations:

1) We're working on a patch. It is totally a response to some of the
comments made on r.a.s., many of which we agree with. A list of items
addressed in the patch has been forwarded up to this ng, and most of them
will indeed be in the patch. A couple of items may not make it.

2) The patch won't make the game perfect. But it will make it better. We
think it's a pretty good game right now, and we're all jazzed at the
improvements in the patched builds.

3) CPR is version 1: our competition (all games you folks love) are further
along. They've had longer to work out the bugs and problems than we have.
While I don't expect you to cut us any slack because of that, it might help
you understand where we're at. Whenever you decide to enter a mature
category, you have the daunting challenge of trying to catch up. You can
either spend years developing a product, during which time your competition
also matures and raises the bar you have to meet, thus sending you back to
the drawing board repeatedly, or you can get something out on the street and
revise it like crazy. In reality neither plan is optimal but the latter is a
little more doable than the former here at MS. This doesn't mean you can
ship an inferior V1 product, because you still have to compete on your own
merits against the competition, but it does mean you sometimes have to stage
your development process and goals into long-term milestones.

4) I've worked at MS for almost 11 years, and in all that time (working on a
variety of products from C++ compilers to Excel to the Handheld PC) I've
never seen any of the corporate dominators that MS is supposed to be full
of. I've seen, instead, groups of really dedicated people working lots of
hours to ship great products. Nobody deliberately sets out to hose your OS
or munge your registry. As far as I know, CPR does none of those things. If
we do bad stuff like that, we get deluged in support calls and it comes back
to haunt the product group. We actually have a config lab with lots of
popular and weird hardware, including beta hardware, and we have lots of
dedicated testers, who try every way they can think of to break stuff. They
take real pride in it.

5) Observing a bug is different from finding one and finding one is
different from fixing it. Sometimes you see or hear of people who see
something which is weird but no matter how hard you try you can't get it to
happen again. Not much you can do with that until you can get a repro
scenario. Even if you can consistently repro a bug, it doesn't mean you can
fix it. It might be that the problem is in someone else's code (drivers, for
example). It might be that the only fix will break something else. It might
be something else. I don't believe any piece of code from any vendor in the
world ever got shipped with zero bugs and ours is no different. We sweat
every bug and don't take any of them lightly.

6) I hope I'm not astonishing anyone on this newsgroup when I point out that
engineering is the science of tradeoffs, and that nothing comes for free.
Given unlimited time, resources, and intelligence anything is possible but
no one wants to wait that long <g>. So we wind up looking sometimes at hard
choices.

7) I will monitor this ng and will be happy to post replies to questions as
time permits. Unfortuantely (or fortunately) it's a very large and active
newsgroup and sometimes the signal to noise ratio is not ideal. But I'll do
what I can.

8) We didn't pay any of the CART drivers to say any of the things they said
about CPR. I've never known racers who told you what they thought you wanted
to hear as opposed to what they felt. If those guys think the game drives
like the real thing, I think that's a pretty good endor***t.

9) If, after reading this, you want to continue to bash Microsoft or CPR,
that's fine with me. It's a free country (or internet, as the case might be)
and no one will censor this ng for controversial postings. I'd like to spend
my time discussing things that are based in fact, rather than paranoia or
fantasy. If you want to stoop to that, feel free, just don't expect to see
me join in.

--
Cheers,
John Browne
MS CART Team

by **Tim** » Tue, 16 Dec 1997 04:00:00

Yes!!! THANK YOU JOHN!!! Now if everyone could just stop ***in' about
"Dean said this, Alison said that, blah, blah, blah,....." It's a wonder
anyone had time to go racing with all the belly-achin' going on!

My $.02 worth (and I haven't even bought the product yet)

>Yes, it's true that Dean Lester had to pack it in. He actually has a lot of
>products to worry about, not just CPR. I, OTOH, only have to worry about
CPR
>and Monster Truck Madness. So let me try to set a few expectations:

>1) We're working on a patch. It is totally a response to some of the
>comments made on r.a.s., many of which we agree with. A list of items
>addressed in the patch has been forwarded up to this ng, and most of them
>will indeed be in the patch. A couple of items may not make it.

>2) The patch won't make the game perfect. But it will make it better. We
>think it's a pretty good game right now, and we're all jazzed at the
>improvements in the patched builds.

>3) CPR is version 1: our competition (all games you folks love) are further
>along. They've had longer to work out the bugs and problems than we have.
>While I don't expect you to cut us any slack because of that, it might help
>you understand where we're at. Whenever you decide to enter a mature
>category, you have the daunting challenge of trying to catch up. You can
>either spend years developing a product, during which time your competition
>also matures and raises the bar you have to meet, thus sending you back to
>the drawing board repeatedly, or you can get something out on the street
and
>revise it like crazy. In reality neither plan is optimal but the latter is
a
>little more doable than the former here at MS. This doesn't mean you can
>ship an inferior V1 product, because you still have to compete on your own
>merits against the competition, but it does mean you sometimes have to
stage
>your development process and goals into long-term milestones.

>4) I've worked at MS for almost 11 years, and in all that time (working on
a
>variety of products from C++ compilers to Excel to the Handheld PC) I've
>never seen any of the corporate dominators that MS is supposed to be full
>of. I've seen, instead, groups of really dedicated people working lots of
>hours to ship great products. Nobody deliberately sets out to hose your OS
>or munge your registry. As far as I know, CPR does none of those things. If
>we do bad stuff like that, we get deluged in support calls and it comes
back
>to haunt the product group. We actually have a config lab with lots of
>popular and weird hardware, including beta hardware, and we have lots of
>dedicated testers, who try every way they can think of to break stuff. They
>take real pride in it.

>5) Observing a bug is different from finding one and finding one is
>different from fixing it. Sometimes you see or hear of people who see
>something which is weird but no matter how hard you try you can't get it to
>happen again. Not much you can do with that until you can get a repro
>scenario. Even if you can consistently repro a bug, it doesn't mean you can
>fix it. It might be that the problem is in someone else's code (drivers,
for
>example). It might be that the only fix will break something else. It might
>be something else. I don't believe any piece of code from any vendor in the
>world ever got shipped with zero bugs and ours is no different. We sweat
>every bug and don't take any of them lightly.

>6) I hope I'm not astonishing anyone on this newsgroup when I point out
that
>engineering is the science of tradeoffs, and that nothing comes for free.
>Given unlimited time, resources, and intelligence anything is possible but
>no one wants to wait that long <g>. So we wind up looking sometimes at hard
>choices.

>7) I will monitor this ng and will be happy to post replies to questions as
>time permits. Unfortuantely (or fortunately) it's a very large and active
>newsgroup and sometimes the signal to noise ratio is not ideal. But I'll do
>what I can.

>8) We didn't pay any of the CART drivers to say any of the things they said
>about CPR. I've never known racers who told you what they thought you
wanted
>to hear as opposed to what they felt. If those guys think the game drives
>like the real thing, I think that's a pretty good endor***t.

>9) If, after reading this, you want to continue to bash Microsoft or CPR,
>that's fine with me. It's a free country (or internet, as the case might
be)
>and no one will censor this ng for controversial postings. I'd like to
spend
>my time discussing things that are based in fact, rather than paranoia or
>fantasy. If you want to stoop to that, feel free, just don't expect to see
>me join in.

>--
>Cheers,
>John Browne
>MS CART Team

by **Marc Collin** » Tue, 16 Dec 1997 04:00:00

Welcome, John.

I am sure you are prepared to be barraged and can hold-up under the heat.
Just hang-in there!

I would like to say that I am very please that MS has chosen to step into
the (this) fray. As much as many people like to demonise MS, I do not
believe that Office97 and Windows got to where they are today without a lot
of listening to consumer input. In some ways, there is still a long way to
go, but, hey, you're on the right road at least. None of us can ask or
expect more. If there is some company out there willing and able to do more
and better, well, look out. The fact that there is not and MS still tries
to incorporate a wide range of new features and improvements in every
product means a lot to me. Btw, I am not an MS disciple and if you guys
screw-up non-US language proofing in Word 9.0 (after messing it up in one
way or another in 2.0, 6.0, 7.0 and 8.0), I'll personally blow my stack all
over you.

As for CART:PR. Track editor: 11/10. Patch support: 10/10 assuming it
appears soon and accomplishes said goals. One point I would like to make,
however (you may have read it in an earlier post), involves replacement CDs.
If (that's IF) the patching process becomes cumbersome with huge downloads
and time-consuming multiple patch procedures, will MS support those of us
loyal customers who bought v1.0 (some of us knowing that it was a
work-in-progress) by replacing or exchanging the CD-ROM with one that would
enable a straightforward install. I know a lot of the hacker-types on here
probably enjoy installing patches, but for the average consumer it is a
pain.

I really believe that if MS is willing to support loyalists and early
purchasers in this way, then there can be no room for anyone here to
complain. All other sims. have needed patches (I am still waiting for a GP2
patch), none other has provided one so quickly, none other has provided a
free (useful) track editor, and none other has demonstrated the willingness
to hang-in there and continuously (within reason) improve their product.
Prevent the patching/upgrading process from being a nightmare for the
average consumer and you have done far more than has been the market
standard to-date.

Thanks again for joining us.