Power Chess
Izya Yagolnitser
The problem with Power Chess is much more serious than just its
inability to export to PGN files, or not having the printing capability
of any kind. The software itself sucks. Among some common problems (and
I mean problems reported by more than 10 different people with different
computer configurations) is unability to connect to SIGS, their Internet
server, crashing Windows when taking back moves in games with the Queen,
crashing when viewing their library game of Paul Morphy after move 4.
And, worst of all, incredibly poor technical support. I did not get an
answer in 2 weeks!!! Many people experienced their silence and spoke up
as well.
Now to the fun part. Sierra has a Bulletin Board for comments about
Power Chess, so they can display references from other people to assist
in their sales. I went there to see if anybody experienced the same
problems I did and noticed that some articles and even entire thread
were removed - pointers to the still existing, but no articles!!! And
the titles of those were like "Chessmaster 5000 is much better", "Power
Chess sucks (stinks)" Sierra was removing the most negative responses!!!
So I posted some articles with similar Subjects to see what would
happen. The next day I get a letter from their "moderator" informing me
that all my posts were removed and I was banned ("blacklisted") from
their Bulletin Board. Clearly, they did not want me to share my opinion
about the product. But there is Usenet, and here I am. I returned my
copy of Power Chess for a refund and urged many users whose E-Mail
addresses I acquired from their posts on Sierra Bulletin Board to do the
same to turn Sierra's attention to customers they ignore. Power Chess as
it is now is a Beta. And if Sierra wants free testing efforts it should
give the software away, not make us pay for it and their lack of testing
personnel.
Do not buy Power Chess - buy Chessmaster 5000 instead.
brucemo
Izya Yagolnitser wrote:
> Now to the fun part. Sierra has a Bulletin Board for comments about
> Power Chess, so they can display references from other people to assist
> in their sales. I went there to see if anybody experienced the same
> problems I did and noticed that some articles and even entire thread
> were removed - pointers to the still existing, but no articles!!! And
> the titles of those were like "Chessmaster 5000 is much better", "Power
> Chess sucks (stinks)" Sierra was removing the most negative responses!!!
> So I posted some articles with similar Subjects to see what would
> happen. The next day I get a letter from their "moderator" informing me
> that all my posts were removed and I was banned ("blacklisted") from
> their Bulletin Board. Clearly, they did not want me to share my opinion
> about the product. But there is Usenet, and here I am. I returned my
> copy of Power Chess for a refund and urged many users whose E-Mail
> addresses I acquired from their posts on Sierra Bulletin Board to do the
> same to turn Sierra's attention to customers they ignore. Power Chess as
> it is now is a Beta. And if Sierra wants free testing efforts it should
> give the software away, not make us pay for it and their lack of testing
> personnel.
> Do not buy Power Chess - buy Chessmaster 5000 instead.
I sent email to Sierra asking for clarification. When I was poking around on
their web site, I came across this:
http://www.sierra.com/messages/rules.html
"We strongly discourage "slam" postings to our boards. By slam postings, we
mean ones which make statements such as, "This product is horrible. No
one should buy it." Almost any product has areas which can be improved,
but simply stating that a title is terrible is not constructive in any way, and
won't help us build better products. Those postings will be removed from
our site, as will any posting which refers to your fellow board users, our
moderators, our developers, or even our competitors in a derogatory
manner. (If you disagree with something that someone has said or done, you
are more than welcome to state that you disagree, but nobody likes being
called "stupid" or an "idiot" because they don't hold the same opinions as
someone else. Please respect this.)"
Could this have been the reason your post was deleted?
bruce
Komputer Korner
Izya Yagolnitser wrote:
>
snipped
"Power
> Chess sucks (stinks)" Sierra was removing the most negative responses!!!
> So I posted some articles with similar Subjects to see what would
> happen. The next day I get a letter from their "moderator" informing me
> that all my posts were removed and I was banned ("blacklisted") from
> their Bulletin Board. Clearly, they did not want me to share my opinion
> about the product. But there is Usenet, and here I am. I returned my
> copy of Power Chess for a refund and urged many users whose E-Mail
> addresses I acquired from their posts on Sierra Bulletin Board to do the
> same to turn Sierra's attention to customers they ignore. Power Chess as
> it is now is a Beta. And if Sierra wants free testing efforts it should
> give the software away, not make us pay for it and their lack of testing
> personnel.
> Do not buy Power Chess - buy Chessmaster 5000 instead.
I agree with all of your comments, but unbelievable to you as this may
sound some non tournament players love its audio analysis and the fact
that the pieces move by themselves in the analysis and the fact that
it will weaken its play on its own to maintain no more than 75% against
the user. That said. You are right. It is still a beta.
--
Komputer Korner
The inkompetent komputer.
Steve Bieler
> Izya Yagolnitser wrote:
> >
> snipped
> "Power
> Chess sucks (stinks)" Sierra was removing the most negative responses!!!
> So I posted some articles with similar Subjects to see what would
> happen. The next day I get a letter from their "moderator" informing me
> that all my posts were removed and I was banned ("blacklisted") from
> their Bulletin Board. Clearly, they did not want me to share my opinion
> about the product.
> snipped
For the record: Mr. Yagolnitser was banned from our boards for spamming,
not for content. He posted numerous duplicate flames to multiple threads
and boards.
Steve Bieler
for the Power Chess team
Sierra On-Line
Ed Schroder
From: Izya Yagolnitser <vi...@netkom.kom>
: brucemo wrote:
> I wrote a fairly polite piece of email to "sup...@sierra.com", asking
> them what the heck was going on, and included this post in the mail.
: I wrote a dozen more than polite letters. And very brief too: stating
: the nature of the problem, a copy of windows dump, sequence of events
: to duplicate the problem. And you are right - those responses are
: automatic, and if a robot replies to me I never get it, because my
: address simply needs to be changed from vi...@netkom.kom to
: vi...@netcom.com - people do it all the time, robots do not.
: It is easy to put a robot to automaticly answer mail, I would expect
: to get a reply like "we are working on it and will get back to you"
: from a person, if you know what I mean.
> Meanwhile I looked at the BBS and noticed that there were a fair
> amount of complaints in there, and appropriate responses from people
> who were attempting to resolve the complaints.
: The important thing there is to read the last post on every topic. It
: goes like this. First, a problem is posted; second, a standard reply
: from tech. support suggesting to check the drivers, download this, patch
: that, which everybody who got on the BBS already did, since they read
: previous posts, and if those suggestions were helpful they would never
: post their problem over and over. After those standard suggestions there
: is quite a number of posts saying "it did not help" (of course it did
: not - Power Chess is crap, there is nothing strange with your computer)
: and then not a single response from Sierra. They NEVER have any
: suggestions beyond blaming your computer.
[snip]
This is a problem related to the success of the Internet and it's not
easy to solve in my opinion.
What is going on?
Companies go on the Internet and are bombed by email.
This touches the heart of a huge problem every company on the Internet has
to deal with, now and in the future.
It's so easy to contact everybody on the Internet, the threshold is so
incredible low. In the past :)) you had to write a letter or type and
print a letter, search for a stamp or buy one on the post office, go
through the rain to put it in the mailbox. These days we type and just
click on "send".
This I noticed myself, I have a home page for 16 months now. In the
meantime I receive in one week at least 50-100 Rebel related emails I
have to answer.
Some people (if you don't answer quick enough) kindly remind you of the
existence of RGCC. I am speaking general now Izya, this subject is not
related to you and your problems with Sierra.
Well I am not Sierra, but I can imagine the number of emails they get.
Now how do you handle this email problem?
If you don't respond at all or you don't respond in a decent way the
company gets a bad name.
Now how do you solve this problem since the number of emails doesn't
justify to put an extra employee on the payroll.
I am sure Sierra is meaning well and so do I but is it manageable?
Well, I see problems as a challenge to solve them... :)
But in this case I don't have seen the light yet... :))
Just some thoughts...
- Ed Schroder -
Peter W. Gillgasch
Ed Schroder <rebc...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
> Now how do you solve this problem since the number of emails doesn't
> justify to put an extra employee on the payroll.
Just an idea...
Set up 5 email addresses, something like:
e...@rebchess.nl
in...@rebchess.nl
b...@rebchess.nl
sup...@rebchess.nl
sa...@rebchess.nl
Address 1 is your problem :) Private stuff and big deals.
Address 2 responds automatically with some info stuff to the sender.
Don't forget a pointer to your web site.
No work required.
Address 3 is free, unlimited and requires manual work, but it is of your
own benefit. Set this up in such a way that people are required to fill
out a bug report form found on the discs of your products and have a
program that rejects all emails that are not based on this bug report
form. This will keep Rolf out 8^) Set this up in such a way that the
sender receives an automatic message that explains that he may or may
not hear from you.
Address 4 is limited to (say) 4 emails/questions per registered
customer. Tell them about that limit in the user's manual. The "don't
get on my nerves" barrier.
Address 5 is for people wanting to buy a copy of your stuff for personal
use.
-- Peter
May God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to choke the living shit out of those who piss me off,
and wisdom to know where I should hide the bodies...
Komputer Korner
Ed Schroder wrote:
>
snipped
>
> Some people (if you don't answer quick enough) kindly remind you of the
> existence of RGCC. I am speaking general now Izya, this subject is not
> related to you and your problems with Sierra.
>
> Well I am not Sierra, but I can imagine the number of emails they get.
>
> Now how do you handle this email problem?
>
> If you don't respond at all or you don't respond in a decent way the
> company gets a bad name.
>
> justify to put an extra employee on the payroll.
>
>
> Well, I see problems as a challenge to solve them... :)
> But in this case I don't have seen the light yet... :))
>
> Just some thoughts...
>
> - Ed Schroder -
Ed,
Surely you are doing well enough with sales of Rebel 8 that
you can afford to hire somebody to come in 1 or 2 days a week and/
or find them something else to do Ex: read this newsgroup and report
to you on anything to do with Rebel. Perhaps they also could dream up
more Rebel contests. Perhaps they could analyze all the autoplayer
game results pointing out the largest blunders to you or do you already
have a massive automated reprt on this? Perhaps they could fill in at
the
office. Perhaps they could test for positional problems with Rebel.
Perhaps they could look over all the competitors and list all the
features for you that you could implement in Rebel 9. I know I know
Ed (WORK AROUND THE CLOCK SCHRODER) is already doing this and doesn't
need another employee. Only the emails isn't getting done. Ed,
your problem pales with Marty's problem of not enough sales. Besides
Ed, I know you. You like to read what your customers have to say.
If they are asking questions that are already being answered by the
REBEL FAQ, perhaps automated responses would cut the load. You spend
enough time on the r.g.c.c. but I know that you would feel left out
if you didn't read most of the posts here. We love you Eddie, and
rest assured that we will never let anybody savage your programs
on the r.g.c.c.
The RGCC ROYAL (armed with flames and cancel.bots) POLICE
CONSTABULARY
This message has been posted to the r.g.c.c. by a lowly Purolator
komputer.
Skip Thompson
brucemo wrote:
<snip>
Meanwhile I looked at the BBS and noticed that there were a fair amount
of
complaints in there, and appropriate responses from people who were
attempting
to resolve the complaints.
<snip>
BBS? Is this an internet site or a newsgroup? I would be interested in
checking it out if I knew how to get on it.
Thanks
Skip
Komputer Korner
It is usually a special local number to call, but in this context
is just another web site that handles customer complaints and
feedback. Check out the Sierra site for info if you have Power Chess.
Izya Yagolnitser
Well, it's me again. This time to clarify the situation with Power
Chess.
First, I want to personally thank Chris at Sierra for the time spent
helping me figure out what the problem was.
[drum roll]
My computer is a 486!!! Power Chess requires Pentium not for performance
reasons, but because some co-processor instructions are handled
differently by Pentiums. I still have to return the game to Sierra, but
at least I now know that it is my fault it does not work - apparently
the requirements WERE on the box as Chris correctly pointed out. I
bought my game from Sierra's Web cite and did not see the requirement
there, but what the heck - I'll probably just buy Extreme instead.
To all of you who still have 486 and not Pentiums that and Chessmaster
5000 seems to be a better solution.
Sorry, Sierra, for laying so much on you when I was simply too blind to
READ THE INSTRUCTIONS :-)
Jack Nerad
I thought Chessmaster was written for the Pentium as well...
At least Gambitsoft's webpage says that the chess engine for it is
Pentium optimized.
Izya Yagolnitser
Jack Nerad wrote:
>
> I thought Chessmaster was written for the Pentium as well...
>
> At least Gambitsoft's webpage says that the chess engine for it is
> Pentium optimized.
"Equal time" setting = 2000
--
vi...@netcom.com
Dave Gomboc
In article <332245...@netcom.ca>,
Komputer Korner <kor...@netcom.ca> wrote:
[snippage]...
>office. Perhaps they could test for positional problems with Rebel.
>Perhaps they could look over all the competitors and list all the
>features for you that you could implement in Rebel 9. I know I know
>Ed (WORK AROUND THE CLOCK SCHRODER) is already doing this and doesn't
>need another employee. Only the emails isn't getting done. Ed,
>your problem pales with Marty's problem of not enough sales. Besides
Do you *really* mean to say this? Or do you refer to the allegation that
MChess is being sold, but Mr. Hirsch isn't always receiving the money for it?
>--
>Komputer Korner
>
>The inkompetent komputer.
Concise, to the point. I wouldn't advertise it though. :-)
P.S. Chris Whittington ==> You'll note that I didn't include my chess
rating with my post. I do this when I contribute some analysis so that
other people may evaluate my understanding (or lack thereof :) of chess,
and take my analysis for what it's worth. I don't add it just to make
me look cool or anything. :-)
Komputer Korner
Yes, CM5000 works on pentiums as long as you have WIN 95.
r...@kinesis.com
messages (20+) appeared on the board with titles telling us how
crap PowerChess was and urging us to buy CM5000 instead.
It was annoying. I was glad to see them go (after being there
for several days). They contributed nothing to any debate.
I have had my problems with PowerChess, but overall I'm
fairly satisfied. I also own CM5000 and Extreme Chess, and
each one has its good points.
Rob
--
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HLong123
How Can I download a chess game ?
Respectfully,
HLong123