rec.autos.simulators

Well, congrats Usenet belligerents...you've run off yet another company rep and
undoubtedly those reps that don't participate here but were contemplating it
have now iced their decision.

Proud of yourselves?

I don't care that we criticize the products, but some of this is just getting
out of hand and abusive.  If you guys care about sims nearly as much as you say
you do, perhaps you'd come to your senses and realize:

a) you get more with a carrot than a stick.
b) nowhere in your license agreement is there a commitment from the company to
sit here and listen to your abusive comments
c) most of you would not talk the way you do face to face or on the telephone.
But for some reason you get behind a keyboard and manners and civility are
lost.

This is sort of an open call for people who have engaged in this activity to
drop Dean an e-mail and apologize for being such jerks (and you know who you
are).  I'd far rather have someone here we can negotiate features and
enhancements with than sit here and get the GP2 treatment.  But thanks to the
flamers, we lose another rep and those of us who weren't hostile and immature
get to suffer the consequences  of your actions.

If you think this is somehow justified because it was a Microsoft rep, think
again.  Whatever your opinion of Microsoft the corporation, Dean is just doing
his job (actually probably more than his job) putting himself out here and
dealing with all the abuse hurled his way.  He doesn't deserve a lot of the
***that's being thrown his way.

Learn to criticize without  being personal or abusive, or we'll all long for
the good ole days when reps used to show up here and discuss their products.

Randy

Randy Magruder
Staff Writer
Digital Sportspage
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Randy,

Very well said !!

Scott B. Husted
http://www.racesimcentral.net/~sbhusted

95%+ of the people here do just that. Expecting any more than that
from any public forum is totally unrealistic (and some forums, like
games.action, certinaly have much lower percentages of reasonable
posters).

Game developer's like MS can either live with the reality, and ignore
the occasional flame (just like the rest of us do) or they can wall
themselves away like EA and hope that their isolationist stance
doesn't damage CPR too much. That will be the sole result of this you
know - the one CPR bright spot, good support here, is no longer, and
that only hurts MS. MS also loses the valuable feedback of the vast
majority of experienced and civil auto racing gamers here. Lose-lose
for MS.

Doesn't seem like a really smart decision, but perhaps Dean will
reconsider when he cools down. I find it's best not to make ultimatum
"I'm never coming back" statements when you're mad, because it makes
you feel like an ass if you *do* want to come back. Best just to turn
off the forum for a few days until you cool down.

Joe

Matt.
--
------------------------------
Matthew Birger Patrick Knutsen
(http://www.racesimcentral.net/~matthebk)
"Racing cars is like dancing with a chainsaw"
-Cale Yarborough
Cheek Racing Cars (http://www.racesimcentral.net/~kareknut/)

Please Remove "NoSpam" from my E-mail adress when replying!
-------------------------------

Duh.  

This is bull.  I've seen a lot of people say a lot of negative things about CPR
here in the last few months and Dean has answered most of them in a
constructive and helpful manner.  He's not adverse to a "negative review", but
some of the statements just flat out crossed the line from a "negative review"
to just plain rude.  If you think it was because Dean can't handle a negative
review you're either new here are you're deluding yourself.

That doesn't excuse the actions of those on this forum who cannot figure out
how to be civil.

public forum is totally unrealistic (and some forums, like  games.action,
certinaly have much lower percentages of reasonable posters). >>

perhaps if other people would pitch in and criticize the abusive types instead
of just being silent, Dean wouldn't be of the opinion that the percentage of
flak is too high.

good support here, is no longer, and that only hurts MS. >>

I seriously doubt Bill Gates is losing any sleep over what is written in this
forum.  The only people that are REALLY going to suffer are those of us that
are waiting for a decent CART Sim.   Bill isn't going to live or die based upon
how this title succeeds.

majority of experienced and civil auto racing gamers here. Lose-lose for MS. >>

if you don't think we lose here, you're wrong.

when you're mad, because it makes you feel like an ass if you *do* want to come
back. Best just to turn off the forum for a few days until you cool down.>>

The only thing you've written I agree with.

Randy

Joe

Randy Magruder
Staff Writer
Digital Sportspage
http://www.digitalsports.com/

Who hit with you a stick to force you to buy CPR?  I was unaware
Microsoft had that much power these days.

See my definition of abusive, above.  There are worse things that
people could have said to Dean, sure, but I do consider it abusive
when post after post is nothing more than attack to which there can be
no reasonable reply because there is no "right" answer.  Dean doesn't
talk about the Glide patch, he and Microsoft are damned to hell for
not doing it and accuse them of having an anti-3DFX agenda.  Then he
says they did 3 weeks of work porting it to Glide and didn't get the
desired results, and again he's attacked and the same kind of
*** theories come up.  I know I got tired of reading the same
old anti-MS attacks, and I wasn't even the one who was being attacked!

Perhaps Alison could have tried to get real technical support from MS
with her problems before blasting them to kingdom-come publicly, but
what the heck.

Its undoubtedly been recorded up at MS and engineers are looking at
it, particularly the OS-corruption problem she says she saw.  But for
all we know Dean isn't even aware of that.  Quite often the engineers
leave the PR people deal with the users while they just soak up the
feedback and try to apply what they see for fixes/patches etc.  I for
one would like to see even one other user come up and honestly say
that CPR has corrupted their OS.  In all the time since its been
released, she's the only one, and I have to wonder about a review that
paints a product as an OS-corrupter, when no one else has had that
problem?!  Might she have done something else when installing the game
or run into some one in a million configuration problem that could not
have been forseen and that no one else will likely ever see?  Nothing
wrong with her reporting what happened to her, but it sounds like (I'd
have to hear this confirmed from her) that she made no effort to
resolve technical problems with MS before blasting 'em publicly.  WHen
you do that sort of thing publicly, what do you expect the company rep
to say?

Did he refuse to help her?  On what grounds do you say that?

If you're truly interested, I can go into Dejanews and e-mail you a
nice sampling of some of the salvos fired Dean's way.  I'm surprised
you would even need to ask.

Believe whatever you want to believe.  If that's the way you want to
act because I disagree with what you say, you simply confirm the
things I was saying about some people on Usenet.  I would have hoped
you could come up with something more than a personal cheap shot with
no corroborating evidence, but apparently that was expecting a bit
much from you.  I'll lower my standards accordingly when reading your
replies.

Randy

   I hear that some of the AI cars simply crawl at times on ovals. I
would call it rude to put a product like that on the shelves.

I think the problem is that the voices of those people that say that
are often drowned out by....

from the people making the business decisions.

I'm sure many a purchaser has exercised their right to a refund, as it
should be.  I also think that MS/TR knows they screwed up in releasing
this one in its current state, but from a PR standpoint I don't
seriously expect them to say anything of the sort.  In any event, its
water under the bridge, and I'd just like to work WITH them to get the
missing features and bug fixes in there so that hopefully some months
from now we'll have something which finally causes us all to remove
ICR2 from our hard drives...CPR is not nearly at that point yet.

Give WHAT to Bill, exactly? <G>

Randy

To an extent I agree with you Randy, and what I fully agree with is
that neither Dean nor anyone else should have to accept some of what
has been coming his way. That said, the fact that it does shouldn't
exactly come as a surprise to anyone who has done the recommended
lurking before joining. You've been flamed, I've been flamed, you even
write reviews purely for the benefit of the buying public, without
pay, and get flamed for that too. So why are you still here? Why am I
still here?

I've been in meetings and exchanged communications with
representatives of the top semiconductor companies in the world as a
part of my job, and been shouted at, called a liar, told I was talking
utter BS, hammering on the table, you name it. What do you do? You
were hired to act and react in a professional manner and put in a
situation where you are expected to do just that - you deal with it
and you get the job done. You certainly don't start turning up the
heat on yourself by bringing up other sensitive issues.

If Dean decides to act on his impulse then I have to say that it'll be
a shame not to have his input here, since he has brought a lot of good
information on what is happening with CPR. It is, IMO, totally his
decision though, and I see nothing to suggest that the newsgroup is
any different now in behaviour or character to what it was one week,
one month, one year ago. It is also somewhat ironic considering how
often Dean has pointed out that MS in general and he in particular are
"still posting on r.a.s.", with the implication that they are somehow
better than others for that reason.

I for one would certainly like Dean to remain on r.a.s., but only the
most wild-eyed optimist would expect that some of the posts
questioning people's findings and comparing MS' D3D and Glide could be
made without drawing flames alongside the critical comment. From
reading your own review of CPR it's very apparent that you of all
people know how carefully something of that nature needs to be worded.

Cheers!
John

I for one am really sorry to see Dean leave but I sure dont blame him
one bit, if I had to listen to this same shit day after day, I'd be gone
too :(!

Trev

% See my definition of abusive, above.  There are worse things that
% people could have said to Dean, sure, but I do consider it abusive
% when post after post is nothing more than attack to which there can be
% no reasonable reply because there is no "right" answer.  Dean doesn't
% talk about the Glide patch, he and Microsoft are damned to hell for
% not doing it and accuse them of having an anti-3DFX agenda.  Then he
% says they did 3 weeks of work porting it to Glide and didn't get the
% desired results, and again he's attacked and the same kind of
% *** theories come up.  I know I got tired of reading the same
% old anti-MS attacks, and I wasn't even the one who was being attacked!

Okay, let's talk about the Glide port....  I don't for a moment doubt
Dean's report on their efforts and the results of their port.  However,
it is 'extremely' likely that the basic graphical coding in CPR made it
impossible to port to GLIDE without a major overhaul of the code.
Maybe, must maybe, the way the graphic coding was done in CPR was
crippled due to its dependance on D3D.  The fact that they couldn't get
the performance via Glide over D3D, does not support the fact that D3D
is equal to or superior to Glide.  That is the point people were trying
to make.  As long as Microsoft (not Dean) insists on "controlling" the
market on how Win95 programs access hardware, there will be this kind of
debate.  And there will be those who question findings from a
representitive of a company who is widley believed to be
mega-monopolistic.  I suppose the Justice Department is just making up
their findings on the business practices of Microsoft.  It comes with
the territory.  

% >I guess it would depend on what I witnessed as to how I would
% >respond in person. For example, if I (in person) had seen a
% >Microsoft representative talk to a purchaser of their product
% >as Dean talked to Alison, I would have said or acted no differently.

% Perhaps Alison could have tried to get real technical support from MS
% with her problems before blasting them to kingdom-come publicly, but
% what the heck.

That doesn't matter, Dean had no right to treat her postings as he did.
You complain loudly about how others treated Dean.  Well, the same goes
for how Dean dis-missed some people's concerns and problems.  You can't
have it both ways.

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

--Begin Quote--
Dean:

Alison:
Are you calling me a liar, or just saying I'm stupid?  My machine was
running fine; I installed CPR, ran it once, powered down normally after
exiting the game, and when I powered up again a day or two later, I
could not get into Windows.  I had to restore the registry and
configuration files from a backup to get the machine to enter Windows.
--End Quote--

Dean claimed that the problem wasn't real, and Alison responded
appropriately. I can hardly see support for your claim that her post
was "incredibly accusatory".

Personally, I'm inclined to side with Dean on this particular
(technical) issue. I've seen Win95 machines fail to boot for a variety
of reasons, just like I've seen Linux machines, Suns, DOS machines,
and Macs. I doubt that there's much that CPR had to do with it, but
Alison is free to report the factual account of what happened to
her...

On Dean leaving:
The quote that Dean cites as his "reason" for leaving was from
rrevved, and while it was a bit inflammatory, that's one nature of the
medium and everyone with appreciable UseNet or even e-mail experience
knows that tone is not well conveyed by text, and occasional
grandstanding is to be expected.

I neither fault nor credit Dean for leaving; that's his own
business. If he leaves becauses he doesn't like the tone of posts, or
the volume, or because of a solar flare, it's certainly not cause for
a witch-hunt of everyone who's every participated in a thread with the
characters 'M' and '$' next to each other... (There, see how cleverly
I've excluded this post from the witch-hunt Deja-News search.)

---Jim

So, if I have good experiences with any product, I should feel free to
(publicly) write a review, but bad results, and whoah! boy, I better
check all my facts and call tech support, and inform the White House
before posting. (See, there's some grandstanding like I was talking
about before. :-) )

If that were the case, would people be able to get an honest appraisal
of a new product? No!

And no more than they can currently by reading NextGen and the
like. When's the last time you saw NextGen slam a major product from
an advertiser of theirs?  When's the last time you saw a major product
that deserved to get slammed? I'd wager the latter is WAY more
frequent than the former! Money talks... (but I'm sure you know that)

I don't intend to spend much time on tech support from any game
company. I'll make sure my drivers are updated, think carefully about
the problem, and if I can't get it to work, I'm not going to waste
much of my time on it; back to EB it goes. (It helps that I have a
pretty reasonable technical background, and if I can't figure it out,
it's not likely that I'll get a good result after waiting in a tech
support call queue.)

See the quoted section above. 'If <your problem> "was for real"...'
doesn't feel like helping her to me. (Then again, tone isn't well
conveyed... :-) )

---Jim