<html>
<body>
<font size=3><br>
A Tiger never changes it's stripes.<br><br>
Surprised? Why? Metal Of Honor. Nuf
said.<br><br>
We still have no BF2 server up, and the disappointment<br>
has turned it's focus on me, the multi-game clan founder,<br>
to anger at the game flaws. But gamers have short
memories...<br><br>
With COD2 in pre-sales now, and Day of Defeat H/L Mod going<br>
in to Pre-sale for Summer 2005 release, BF2 will be quickly<br>
forgotten. Not even to mention the MMRPG that are sucking people<br>
from the Genre. WOW, Guilded, Matrix , and one popping up<br>
daily, How long before someone sees the light and says:<br><br>
"Damn, look at the WWII FPS, Imagine a MMRPG where you are<br>
a soldier in the overall wars of WW2, and Realm's are campaigns,<br>
you have a career, skill". Honestly, I would dump the clan
thing<br>
in a second and Jump at this. A recent poll on {TRv} website<br>
was almost unanimous. It could be awesome!<br><br>
Geez, this is a really good business idea come to think of it.<br>
Which in my life, since I am always late on execution, it is<br>
already in development somewhere and not yet announced.<br>
I am always a step too late... Great strategic vision, as
that<br>
is what I do for a living, and being right is what they pay me for.<br>
But late on any entrepreneurial execution. Damn.<br><br>
Anyone heard anything like this?<br><br>
<br>
Mark J. DeFilippis<br>
{Trv}Team-Ravage<br>
<a href="http://www.team-ravage.com/" eudora="autourl">www.team-ravage.com<br><br>
<br>
</a>At 05:56 PM 7/22/2005, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>> Let *us* test them. Admins are
the best front-line guys to funnel problem<br>
> reports and filter out the chaff from their users. Look at the way
UT2004<br>
> handles this.<br>
><br>
> Are they paying attention to the bug reports and RFE's on the
technical<br>
> wiki?<br><br>
I think it's safe to say at this point that Dice and EA have some
serious<br>
issues with communication. EA also has a particularly nasty habit
of not<br>
thinking things through which almost certainly means that they not
only<br>
aren't paying attention to the bug reports on the wiki but they also
don't<br>
care one whit about them either. One would think that common sense
would<br>
drive them to the same conclusions we have reached about testing new
code<br>
yet here we are receiving the mushroom treatment once again.<br><br>
Sadly, this isn't the only issue being ignored. Many here have made
other<br>
very simple and reasonable requests that have yet to be even
acknowledged.<br>
After all, how hard would it be for someone to actually respond to
questions<br>
like whether or not we can expect documentation on the python
interface? It<br>
literally takes 10 seconds to say something like, "I'll check on it
and let<br>
you know next Thursday. I'm really swamped right now." or
"EA won't allow<br>
me to reply to that question." or simply "No, we aren't going
to release<br>
that information." Instead we are forced to rely on
second-hand information<br>
from people who are in EA's inner circle of ranked server providers
(thanks<br>
to you guys for helping spread the word) and occasional replies to only
a<br>
few selected messages from the Dice crew. The rest of the time we
get<br>
nothing at all and are left to fend for ourselves. The fact that
nobody has<br>
addressed some of the valid issues that have been raised is nothing short
of<br>
insulting. This lack of communication is undeniably deliberate as
well as<br>
completely unprofessional. What I find most unusual is that both
Andreas's<br>
aren't more engaged. We all know them to be reasonable people who
care<br>
about this product yet they are conspicuously absent. Why they are
not<br>
taking the time to sound off on these issues is quite puzzling
indeed.<br><br>
If true accountability ever becomes part of the equation we will be able
to<br>
expect better results. Until that happens, I wager we can expect
more of<br>
the same unresponsiveness we have been getting so far. EA has no
incentive<br>
to do anything other than what they're doing right now which equates to
zero<br>
motivation for change. I just hope that someone proves this theory
wrong<br>
and actually takes the initiative to start working with the community
to<br>
make things better.<br><br>
<br>
Shockwave</font></blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<tt>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
Mark J.
DeFilippis
defilm@acm.org<br>
defilm@ieee.org<br><br>
<br>
</body>
</html>