rec.autos.simulators

No I'm not assuming anything other than we live in a world were
marketing claims should be meet with a large amount of
skepticism.  Please tell me why you think that assumption is
incorrect both in general and with respect to your company.

Very well, I can certainly grant that any endeavor that requires
lawyers is prone to end up in disappointment.  Unfortunately,
you have done little to answer the many comments/questions
I have made/raised about things that are directly under your
control.

 - George

But of course.  Unfortunately it wasn't much a challenge to dig
deep and find faults with AMA Superbike Racing.  The problems
with the physics (the bulk of my post) are readily apparent.  I
listed them, if you find them in error please comment on them,
if you think they aren't requisites for a game claiming 'realistic
physics' then please say so.  However comparing AMA Superbike
to GPL or AMA Superbike to WSBK of GP500 isn't something I'm
interested in doing.  Comparing AMA Superbike Racing to the
actual AMA Superbike series is.  In that comparison (for me
at least) the game currently fails.

 - George

If you and I met offline I'd probably agree with most of your comments, and
could explain in detail why a lot of things ended up as they did. In this
forum, though, I must exercise "restrained candor." I hope you can read
between the lines here.

    -MSM

--
__________________________________________________________________________
Mark S. Miller                       "Be regular and orderly in your life,
Director of Design                    that you may be *** and original
Motorsport Simulations                in your work."

http://www.racesimcentral.net/

I only made one assumption and that assumption was in reference
to a conversation I had with the V.P. of your company - a person I'm
far more likely to associate with marketing than I am development.

Additionally, you seem to be living in a perfect world where marketing
has little to no impact on the work developers do (yet you hint the
very opposite at the end of your reply).  As a customer I am not
dealing with one or the other, I am dealing with more than both.  In
the reality of that arrangment your game is on the shelf selling for
$39.95 and my comments were made about the contents of
that game independent of whether it may or may not improve in
the future with promised upgrades.

If it does, great - I'll amend my 'review' of AMA Superbike Racing.
If not I won't.  Regardless, that is the future and I can only deal
with the present and past.  Likewise a customer who buys the
boxed version has a limited amount of time he/she can take it
back to the store for a refund, in light of that waiting for an
upgrade may not be the best thing for that customer to do.

I'm not looking for explanations, I'm looking for acknowledgement.
So far the only responses I have heard are along the lines of we
like are physics, our physics are better than game X, our suberb
physics are hamstrung by a player friendly input model, and so
on.

Can't you see how these defensive responses are disheartening to
someone who is looking for improvement?  To that person, the
promise of change is rather empty since the problems they
perceive as being there aren't even being openly acknowledged.
There are problems in your physics model, they are real, I have
listed them in great detail, in my opinion fixing them will do
nothing in the way of making the game truly harder for the
neophyte who just wants to race online against his buddies  It
isn't an attack on your company, it isn't meant to defame you
or your abilites.  I simply want to see a product out there that
does the AMA series justice.

 - George

Would you prefer that we insist that the game is perfect and any slight
problems will be addressed in a version update some number of months down
the road? I don't think so. We're being very direct about what's going on
here. As direct as is possible, I think. We have a version update coming for
the weekend which addresses a bunch of stuff you mentioned earlier. More
will come later.

I merely took exception to the assumption that we weren't committed to the
product long-term. We spent big bucks on this T3 line to support our online
players. We spent big bucks on Castanet technology to allow us to update our
customers as frequently as possible. So, sitting from my seat it's kind of
hard to accept your statement - because I see all the work that went into
building the infrastructure to *constantly* improve the game.

I understand why you'd be skeptical. More than you know.

Well, until you see what our "full difficulty" model felt like, it's kind of
hard to make that call. Seriously - people would have freaked and been
frustrated very quickly. If you think GPL has a razor's edge, you ain't seen
nothing. It was *not* easy for us to put limits on things, or disable other
things. We didn't want that.

Same here.

    -MSM

--
__________________________________________________________________________
Mark S. Miller                       "Be regular and orderly in your life,
Director of Design                    that you may be *** and original
Motorsport Simulations                in your work."

http://www.racesimcentral.net/

I think I have it... ;)

I think it was pretty hard for the guys working on Trans
Am Racing to accept that their project was cancelled
and that they could now look forward to working on
The Dukes Of Hazzard.  Likewise I'm pretty sure the
guys working on Babylon 5 really had a hard time
accepting that their game will never see the light
of day and their services were no longer required.
Certainly it would be hard for you to accept that the
game could fail and all that spent money could add
up to nothing - your job depends on it.  Mine doesn't
though, so I'm free to take such unpleasant realities
into account.

Not that I wish such a fate on Motorsims nor am I
advocating it.  I'm just pointing out that from the
perspective of a consumer promises of upgrades
and continual improvement should be meet with
skepticism regardless of the source.

Looking forward to an upgrade,

 - George

MSM, I think we're all impressed with you're efforts here on RAS.
However, the harsh buisiness reality is that I and many other motorcycle
race fans purchased a Motorsims product for $39 which promised a
"State-Of-The-Art Realistic Physics Model" which sure doesn't feel very
realistic.  You're in a tough position here having to be a company rep and
an objective developer but I've heard enough "restrained candor" and
defensive explanation. It's time to acknowledge, fix and deliver.  The
main thing I would like to see acknowledged is that Motorsim's current
development process involves the customer after the sale way to much.
There's nothing wrong with a company using the customer to help develop -
it's called a DEMO... with a "use at your own risk" readme and a request
for feedback.  The expectation that people will provide constructive
criticizm after the box is opened will put Motorsims into the wall faster
than Matt Waite at the RA kink (sorry Matt).  Your marketing dpt is sawing
through the limb your standing on - stop bouncing up and down.

Rich

Whoa. Our intent was *never* to have customers test the box they paid for.
You think I'm *happy* that we shipped without replays? You think I'm
enjoying these kinds of discussions?

Look, here's the way we work. With most companies, you go buy a racing game
and there it is. There are *always* problems ... be they bugs, be they eye
candy that doesn't measure up, be they whatever. Always. No one makes a
perfect game (GPL came as close as I've seen in this genre, but we all know
it's shortcomings by now). So you ... the customer ... have to wait. Wait
for a patch. Wait for the next version ... which you have to pay for. And
most game companies you buy racing games from these days have been around a
while.

Now then, our model says you buy *or* download one of our games and you're
in. Period. You get upgrades forever for free. We have in place the best of
breed online update technology to make this so. We did this because we know
up front that game technology does not stand still. That good ideas are
always available. No matter how much we do right, there will always be
things to improve or add. *That's* what we mean by "work in progress." We
had to make some very, very difficult decisions coming down to the wire -
some made people here very unhappy too.

Now I've stated right up front that we f'ed up by not getting the demo out
in time. I've also said up front that I wasn't going to argue with anyone
who returned the game, or who would wait until they could download it first.
You think I *don't* want us to have good box sales? Of course I want
Motorsims to make money. But because the customer *is* king, my position
here has been that if you folks aren't happy we'll try to fix it. The most
I've asked for is that people not give up on us right away.

But please, do not buy into the *** theory that these posts are some
bizarre marketing strategy. Or that we intended to deceive anyone. That just
ain't so.

    -MSM

--
__________________________________________________________________________
Mark S. Miller                       "Be regular and orderly in your life,
Director of Design                    that you may be *** and original
Motorsport Simulations                in your work."

http://www.racesimcentral.net/

What recourse does a boxed version customer have if after 30,
60, 90, 120 days the upgrades still do not bring the level of the
game up to what they were expecting?

I realize your business model is slanted towards a pay-per-play
online service where the downloadable online only version of
the game is free but it seems to me that that strategy has
some fairly serious downsides to a boxed version customer.

 - George

And George, what recourse does one have after 30, 60, 90, 120 days of N3?
When N3 is STILL based on an old driving engine of N1?

At least AMA...after 120 you have a much better chance of getting an revised
driving model or an improved one thats been tweaked.

Maybe, maybe not, my question still remains - what recourse is
left to the consumer if, after X number of  upgrades, the game
still fails to meet their expectations?

 - George

It did?  If I remember right, it was supposed to come with updated physics
[not GPL, so don't go there].  I don't feel I got my money's worth with
their updated physics...so of course its relevant.

Same recourses as any other game that may or may not be completely finished
and polished.

The other thing though, is if they don't like it...return it.  Don't wait
around.  You can always get the online version if at a future date you wish
to "check it out" and see if they have made improvements to it.

If it's not much good after a couple of years of development and a
release decision I don't hold out too much hope now.

Cheers!
John

Please point me to a store that accepts software returns after 30+
days with no questions asked.  If you can't find one please point me
to the Motorsims no questions asked money back guarantee.

Thank you for making my point for me.

 - George