Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

The emperor's return

245 views
Skip to first unread message

eddys...@hotmail.com

unread,
Nov 10, 2010, 11:26:07 AM11/10/10
to
Hi,

Yup, after months and months of not a peep, JR suddenly posted again
on GameSquad

The full extend of his post :

"thewood:

Would it cheer you up if I told you that your biggest complaint about
our games was about to vanish? "

-

Now, some overly optimistic person might think he caught onto the fact
that the biggest complaint everyone has is his 7-days-and-your-game-is-
dead DRM system, but I'm somewhat more inclined to believe that he
thinks the number #1 complaint is unrealistic waves or something.

Anyway, it's showtime again :)

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx


Vincenzo Beretta

unread,
Nov 10, 2010, 11:47:30 AM11/10/10
to
> Now, some overly optimistic person might think he caught onto
> the fact that the biggest complaint everyone has is his
> 7-days-and-your-game-is-dead DRM system, but I'm somewhat

> more inclined to believe that he thinks the number #1 complaint
> is unrealistic waves or something.

They say that you cannot commit suicide by holding your breath indefinetly,
because it comes the moment when unvoluntary reflexes take over and you are
forced to take a breath. Given the recent grasping for air ("Last
opportunity to buy SES products at a discount - honest! We don't sell like
Doom!"), let's see if it is true.

Ray O'Hara

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 1:07:08 AM11/11/10
to

<eddys...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2c1f54fe-325a-4857...@j18g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...


yup.those waves are bogus.

Gifty's hero the Chimpler in his memoirs admitted the low point of his
Presidency was when Kanye West said Bush didn't like Black People.
it wasn't 9/11 when he was warned but still allowed 3000 to die.
or attacking Iraq on false pretences.
or the Wall Street banking crises that almost took down the worlds economy.
or letting Bin Laden get away.
or taking a surplus and creating the largest deficit any govt ran up in
world history.
or doing nothing while one of the busiest ports in the world was destoyed.
nope
it was when a two-bit rapper said mean things about him.
that's the Republicans for you


Vincenzo Beretta

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 3:21:59 AM11/11/10
to
> nope
> it was when a two-bit rapper said mean things about him. that's the
> Republicans for you

Don't forget the loud, vocal supported who defended him like an Holy Cow(R)
during the extended debacle called 2000-2008. Even today those who accuse
Obama to be "out of his depth" or "not up to the job" painstakingly avoid to
mention who dug "the depth" or created "the job" in the first place. I don't
see a reason why poor Bush should realize, all of sudden, how having no one
at the White House for 8 years would have been better.

Giftzwerg

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 5:32:05 AM11/11/10
to
In article <2c1f54fe-325a-4857-999a-
5e1206...@j18g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>, eddys...@hotmail.com
says...

> "thewood:
>
> Would it cheer you up if I told you that your biggest complaint about
> our games was about to vanish? "

> Now, some overly optimistic person might think he caught onto the fact


> that the biggest complaint everyone has is his 7-days-and-your-game-is-
> dead DRM system, but I'm somewhat more inclined to believe that he
> thinks the number #1 complaint is unrealistic waves or something.

Nah. He's probably going to remove the complaint the traditional SES
way - by banning the poster who keeps mentioning it.

--
Giftzwerg
***
"Given that there are now 60-plus defeated Democrat House members
urgently seeking jobs due to Nancy Pelosi's failed leadership, we
welcome her decision to run for House Minority Leader based on her
proven ability to create jobs for Republican lawmakers."
- Ken Spain

Holdit

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 5:55:58 AM11/11/10
to
In article <2c1f54fe-325a-4857-999a-
5e1206...@j18g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>, eddys...@hotmail.com
says...
> Hi,
>
> Yup, after months and months of not a peep, JR suddenly posted again
> on GameSquad
>
> The full extend of his post :
>
> "thewood:
>
> Would it cheer you up if I told you that your biggest complaint about
> our games was about to vanish? "
>
> -

He's retiring?

;-)

Holdit

---
"Madame, they told me you were ugly; they did not exaggerate."

- Napoleon

Vincenzo Beretta

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 6:20:45 AM11/11/10
to
> Nah. He's probably going to remove the complaint the traditional
> SES way - by banning the poster who keeps mentioning it.

Sadly, of all companies, Matrix Games is taking the same route:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2614828&mpage=4

...Which, IMHO, would mean a little bit sadder world.

Giftzwerg

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 6:45:31 AM11/11/10
to
In article <ibg93a$hes$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, reckal...@hotmail.com
says...

Yeah. Whew. I'd hate like hell to be back in the fix we were in in
2006 when the Democrats took over Congress. Five percent unemployment,
five percent GDP growth, interest rates low, deficit at $160 billion ...
man, when I contrast that awful period with the Garden Of Eden that the
Democrats built in only four short years ...

What! An! Achievement!

In only four years, Democratic control of the purse strings has give us
10% unemployment, 2% growth, and a $1.6 *trillion* deficit! The only
thing they haven't managed to to is close Gitmo and stop the vile
depredations of the Patriot Act!

HermanH

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 7:03:45 AM11/11/10
to
On Nov 11, 4:20 am, "Vincenzo Beretta" <reckallNOS...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

Looks like Matrix is learning a valuable lesson from AGSI/SES in the
art of "De-bugging by Banishment".

It's their funeral.

Vincenzo Beretta

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 7:26:44 AM11/11/10
to
> Looks like Matrix is learning a valuable lesson from AGSI/SES
> in the art of "De-bugging by Banishment".

> It's their funeral.

No, not yet a funeral. But for sure it is a heart attack.

eddys...@hotmail.com

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 8:55:06 AM11/11/10
to
On Nov 11, 11:55 am, Holdit <holdi...@SPAMindigoPLEASE.ie> wrote:
> In article <2c1f54fe-325a-4857-999a-
> 5e1206f7b...@j18g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>, eddyster...@hotmail.com

> says...
>
> > Hi,
>
> > Yup, after months and months of not a peep, JR suddenly posted again
> > on GameSquad
>
> > The full extend of his post :
>
> > "thewood:
>
> > Would it cheer you up if I told you that your biggest complaint about
> > our games was about to vanish? "
>
> > -
>
> He's retiring?
>
> ;-)

ROTFL - good one sir :)

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

eddys...@hotmail.com

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 9:12:43 AM11/11/10
to
On Nov 11, 1:26 pm, "Vincenzo Beretta" <reckallNOS...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

Look at the very low forum activity of the "new" Harpoon game. Looks
like they milked that cash-cow until it was dead.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

Briarroot

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 9:57:24 AM11/11/10
to
On 11/11/2010 6:45 AM, Giftzwerg wrote:
> In article<ibg93a$hes$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, reckal...@hotmail.com
> says...
>
>>> nope
>>> it was when a two-bit rapper said mean things about him. that's the
>>> Republicans for you
>>
>> Don't forget the loud, vocal supported who defended him like an Holy Cow(R)
>> during the extended debacle called 2000-2008. Even today those who accuse
>> Obama to be "out of his depth" or "not up to the job" painstakingly avoid to
>> mention who dug "the depth" or created "the job" in the first place. I don't
>> see a reason why poor Bush should realize, all of sudden, how having no one
>> at the White House for 8 years would have been better.
>
> Yeah. Whew. I'd hate like hell to be back in the fix we were in in
> 2006 when the Democrats took over Congress. Five percent unemployment,
> five percent GDP growth, interest rates low, deficit at $160 billion ...
> man, when I contrast that awful period with the Garden Of Eden that the
> Democrats built in only four short years ...
>
> What! An! Achievement!
>
> In only four years, Democratic control of the purse strings has give us
> 10% unemployment, 2% growth, and a $1.6 *trillion* deficit! The only
> thing they haven't managed to to is close Gitmo and stop the vile
> depredations of the Patriot Act!
>

Why is it that those who blame the Bush administration for the problems
confronted by the Obama administration fail to do the same for the
problems that originally faced the Bush administration? If Vinny and
Ray's feeble-minded rationalizations were actually logical, then Clinton
must be responsible for 9/11. And since the collapse of the sub-prime
mortgage market caused the recession, and that market was strongly
encouraged and abetted by the Clinton administration, shouldn't we be
blaming Clinton for the recession?

Or maybe these simpletons are just full of shit.

--
"In 2010, Americans awakened to the fact that their financial future is
much more precarious than they had understood. They realized they owe
trillions for unfunded government employees' pension and medical
benefits. Thus there suddenly emerged an issue that may dominate this
decade's debate - how the collaboration between government workers'
unions and elected officials has looted state and municipal
governments." - George Will, The Washington Post

Giftzwerg

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 10:39:11 AM11/11/10
to
In article <h7udnYWJF67BmUHR...@posted.toastnet>,
bria...@gmail.com says...

> > In only four years, Democratic control of the purse strings has give us
> > 10% unemployment, 2% growth, and a $1.6 *trillion* deficit! The only
> > thing they haven't managed to to is close Gitmo and stop the vile
> > depredations of the Patriot Act!

> Why is it that those who blame the Bush administration for the problems
> confronted by the Obama administration fail to do the same for the
> problems that originally faced the Bush administration? If Vinny and
> Ray's feeble-minded rationalizations were actually logical, then Clinton
> must be responsible for 9/11. And since the collapse of the sub-prime
> mortgage market caused the recession, and that market was strongly
> encouraged and abetted by the Clinton administration, shouldn't we be
> blaming Clinton for the recession?

I'd say if you're looking for cause and effect, it's pretty clear that
the current bad economy began in late 2006.

Huh. I wonder what happened in late 2006. Almost like something
changed.

> Or maybe these simpletons are just full of shit.

Well, that goes without saying.

Ray O'Hara

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 10:48:04 AM11/11/10
to

"Giftzwerg" <giftzw...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.274595892bb3dc05989cfc@localhost...

in 2006 we were out of control and heading for the ice berg ,it's on Bush.
you asses think everything reset to zero.
Bush had veto power and he used it.
Pelosi and Reid worked with Bush and basically let him have his way.
your Fox fueld propaganda won't fly


Ray O'Hara

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 10:52:21 AM11/11/10
to

"Briarroot" <bria...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:h7udnYWJF67BmUHR...@posted.toastnet...
> ahh yes, ignore everything Obama's done.
what is basically the most productive first two years any President has had
and pretend nothing happened.


oh yeah, GM made a $2 billion profit last qtr.
Obama redid the TARP so that we are getting most of the money back.
there has been HC reform
he actually got the combat troops out of Iraq.
he has taken out more Al Qaeda than Bush did and has driven them from
Afghanistan.

yeah what a failure.
you and the giftztain are divorced from reality.


Ray O'Hara

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 10:53:12 AM11/11/10
to

"Giftzwerg" <giftzw...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.2745d82e57a97025989cfe@localhost...

> In article <h7udnYWJF67BmUHR...@posted.toastnet>,
> bria...@gmail.com says...
>
>> > In only four years, Democratic control of the purse strings has give us
>> > 10% unemployment, 2% growth, and a $1.6 *trillion* deficit! The only
>> > thing they haven't managed to to is close Gitmo and stop the vile
>> > depredations of the Patriot Act!
>
>> Why is it that those who blame the Bush administration for the problems
>> confronted by the Obama administration fail to do the same for the
>> problems that originally faced the Bush administration? If Vinny and
>> Ray's feeble-minded rationalizations were actually logical, then Clinton
>> must be responsible for 9/11. And since the collapse of the sub-prime
>> mortgage market caused the recession, and that market was strongly
>> encouraged and abetted by the Clinton administration, shouldn't we be
>> blaming Clinton for the recession?
>
> I'd say if you're looking for cause and effect, it's pretty clear that
> the current bad economy began in late 2006.
>
> Huh. I wonder what happened in late 2006. Almost like something
> changed.
>
yeah the effects of 2000-2006 hit.


Vincenzo Beretta

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 11:44:36 AM11/11/10
to
> there has been HC reform

Don't forget how those who patriotically fought UHC so that taxpayer money
would have been available to bail out big institutions are still
patriotically fightning UHC so that next time taxpayer money will be
available again to bail out big institutions. With this base, it is easy to
be elected and get support for an invasion of Slavonia next time Slovenia
does something bad.

Vincenzo Beretta

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 11:52:20 AM11/11/10
to
> Look at the very low forum activity of the "new" Harpoon game.
> Looks like they milked that cash-cow until it was dead.

Belive it or not, I found about Erik "fingerwagging" towards me only today.
Not only my post was complimentary of what Matrix did (with TOAW III), but,
of course, the whole reason is detached from reality: the buglist uses the
official Harpoon ANW database, as underlined every time we talk about it.

Which leads to the big one: one more patch and then the support for the
older products ends. HCCE is a nice, good game and, some wrinkles aside,
actually works. But ANW is broken.

And you can easily see through the scheme: for four years they failed to fix
a broken game, and now they claim that publishing "a new product" is only
fair, since the old one "was supported for four years".

What makes me sad is that Erik is falling for it. I still remember when he
nailed down the first big bug in TOAW II in his review of the game:
airlifting capability dropped almost immediatly, making scenarios like
"Desert Storm" unplayable. This is an heart attack, as I said.

Alan_Bernardo

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 3:38:05 PM11/11/10
to

>
> Well, that goes without saying.
>
> --

I say, if it goes without saying it, then why are you saying it?

Oh, sorry, I forgot that 80% of the things you say have already been
said before.

And the rest is pure junk. God, I'm so happy there are people like
you (and your little lackey) hanging about.


Alan

ERutins

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 4:47:20 PM11/11/10
to

> Sadly, of all companies, Matrix Games is taking the same route:
>
> http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2614828&mpage=4
>
> ...Which, IMHO, would mean a little bit sadder world.

The only banished poster violated the rules we set due to past abuses,
which were clearly set out and understood. We didn't ban him for
reporting bugs, as you know. With that said, if you are seriously
going to claim that Herman's motives are purely altruistic and that
all he has done is try to help Harpoon, I'm sorry but you will not be
able to convince me of this any longer. We accept bug reports and
feedback from all kinds of customers and I'm sure if you look through
our forums you can see many examples of the fact that we do not ban
people just for being negative or posting reports of issues.

Unfortunately, it seems to be part and parcel of the Harpoon community
that nothing is simple and every story has as many layers as an
onion. That's the case here too. I think that what you see from us
on every title should be considered our policy and we're responding to
any and all issues reported by customers with H3ANW and HCE.
Exceptions do not make the rule. Herman's position and the history
leading up to his ban has nothing to do with our support for the
product as a whole or our policies towards our customers as a whole.

Regards,

- Erik

eddys...@hotmail.com

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 5:49:07 PM11/11/10
to
On Nov 11, 2:55 pm, "eddyster...@hotmail.com"

Stone the crows.

He's now actually hinting at them removing the DRM, you know, the one
which was "etched in stone". Now, I wonder what possibly could have
triggered that 180 degree change - support costs of that ridiculously
fiddly system outpacing revenue perhaps ?

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

Giftzwerg

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 5:56:21 PM11/11/10
to
In article <900ca1f5-ef5e-4e43-b9d2-33e69bb4b200
@o29g2000vbi.googlegroups.com>, eddys...@hotmail.com says...

> > ROTFL - good one sir :)
>
> Stone the crows.
>
> He's now actually hinting at them removing the DRM, you know, the one
> which was "etched in stone". Now, I wonder what possibly could have
> triggered that 180 degree change - support costs of that ridiculously
> fiddly system outpacing revenue perhaps ?

Huh. He'll get my money. Nice looking game(s).

HermanH

unread,
Nov 11, 2010, 6:48:58 PM11/11/10
to
On Nov 11, 2:47 pm, ERutins <er...@matrixgames.com> wrote:
>
> We accept bug reports and
> feedback from all kinds of customers and I'm sure if you look through
> our forums you can see many examples of the fact that we do not ban
> people just for being negative or posting reports of issues.

Which, of course, explains why Matrix needed to issue a warning for
someone who simply pointed out how ANW/HUE remains consistently buggy
even after all these so-called 'patch' releases.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=2617270

The absurd condition that only 'acceptable' bug reports are allowed is
quite clearly stated:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2498107


> I think that what you see from us
> on every title should be considered our policy and we're responding to
> any and all issues reported by customers with H3ANW and HCE.

Nonsense. Only HCE has ever attempted to address reported problems.
All ANW customers ever hear is, "It doesn't happen." When
screenshots, crash reports, and test files are posted in rebuttal to
these denials, only stony silence follows from AGSI.

Once again, I'll ask: "Which bug reports are AGSI unable to replicate?"

Dimensional Traveler

unread,
Nov 12, 2010, 12:03:33 AM11/12/10
to

You're wasting your time. This is reminding me of when I was trying to
submit bug reports to Matrix for War in The Pacific. On one hand they
were telling PBeM players that a given save game will always generate
the same turn results because the random number seed is part of the
save, then telling players reporting bugs that the save they sent didn't
generate the same turn results each time they ran it.

Heck, I remember spending several days going back-n-forth with one
Matrix rep trying to get an answer to a simple yes or no question. When
I pointed out that he was being evasive his response was how annoying I
was because I wanted him to actually answer the question.

As I recall there were some bannings over bug reports then though most
of the players trying to get things fixed left in disgust IIRC. And
that was four?, five?, years ago, I can't remember. Though technically
I suppose they were banned for expressing their displeasure with the
company's lack of effort rather than for reporting bugs per se.

--
"There's something that doesn't make sense. Let's go and poke it with a
stick."

Ray O'Hara

unread,
Nov 12, 2010, 12:07:32 AM11/12/10
to

"Vincenzo Beretta" <reckal...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ibh6hi$jgv$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

true.


Vincenzo Beretta

unread,
Nov 12, 2010, 5:16:11 AM11/12/10
to

"ERutins" ha scritto nel messaggio
news:24281028-56ee-4b79...@x4g2000pre.googlegroups.com...

>> Sadly, of all companies, Matrix Games is taking the same route:
>
>> http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2614828&mpage=4
>
>> ...Which, IMHO, would mean a little bit sadder world.

> The only banished poster violated the rules we set due to past
> abuses, which were clearly set out and understood. We didn't
> ban him for reporting bugs, as you know.

Just to clarify, I was referring to this:

"Vincenzo,

I believe you've read the forum guidelines regarding non-constructive posts
and bug reports based on third party databases. Consider this a warning.

Regards,

- Erik"

I.e.: I got a warning for COMPLIMENTING how they are working on another
product published by Matrix (TOAW III) while commenting on bugs in ANW
found and reported USING THE OFFICIAL DATABASE.

As we said here. As we said on Matrix's forums. As anyone who bothers to
check the current iteration of Harpoon ANW vs. the buglist using the
official database can see.

Pick someone you have faith in. Giftzwerg, Eddy, someone I don't know,
anyone. Give him a copy of Harpoon ANW and ask him to check the buglist
using the official database shipped with the game. Or ten randomly picked
bugs. My guess? 99% of the bugs will check.

This while Matrix officially announces that "one more patch and ANW will not
be supported anymore".

> With that said, if you are seriously going to claim that Herman's
> motives are purely altruistic and that all he has done is try to help
> Harpoon, I'm sorry but you will not be able to convince me of this
> any longer.

Could you point me a thing Herman did to damage Harpoon? I'll put a caveat:
"Always telling the truth" doesn't count as a damaging act.

Want to see a stunt where they tried to smear Herman with me, and how it
went badly wrong? Just ask and I'll send you the details in private. And you
*will be able to check everything independently*. No need to take my word
as gospel.

> Unfortunately, it seems to be part and parcel of the Harpoon
> community that nothing is simple and every story has as
> many layers as an onion.

Actually no. There is only a layer, and it is easy to check. The rest are
smoke screens, chaffs & flares, and covering wildshots. It usually takes
me 10 minutes to see where the truth lies.

One last thing. Regarding "non-constructive posts", if a post pointing to a
comprehensive list of bugs still present in ANW under the official
database (while praising another Matrix's effort in the same field)
is labeled "uncostructive" please, explain me what "constructive"
means. Because I honestly don't know anymore, at least not on
Matrix's forums.

eddys...@hotmail.com

unread,
Nov 12, 2010, 9:21:59 AM11/12/10
to
On Nov 12, 11:16 am, "Vincenzo Beretta" <reckallNOS...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> Just to clarify, I was referring to this:


>
> "Vincenzo,
>
> I believe you've read the forum guidelines regarding non-constructive posts
> and bug reports based on third party databases. Consider this a warning.

That's what made me "upgrade" Matrix to be equally guilty in this sad
tale.

> Could you point me a thing Herman did to damage Harpoon? I'll put a caveat:
> "Always telling the truth" doesn't count as a damaging act.

Are you kidding ? That *is* the damaging act

Sure, he's the biggest PITA I ever witnessed and I'm pretty sure he
does it on purpose :)

That's a bannable offense in every forum out there, been there - done
that.

> Actually no. There is only a layer, and it is easy to check. The rest are
> smoke screens, chaffs & flares, and covering wildshots. It usually takes
> me 10 minutes to see where the truth lies.

Let's recap. What's the current "official AGSI/Matrix history" on Mr
Hum ? That he openly posts nothing but the verifiable truth but that
behind the scenes he's the mastermind behind dirty machinations that
smear AGSI and Matrix ? But for those to have any effect on the buying
public, mustn't they then become visible at some point ? So where is
this bad pr thingie he masterminded ?

Apart from a very public buglist a mile long I'm not seeing anything.
I guess that when the truth is damaging enough, there's no need for
shady moves in the background. Oh, but there are shady moves and
verifiable machinations ... only, they're directed *at* Mr Hum in
order to damage him. Too bad AGSI is just as incompetent there as in
their general progamming skills.

> One last thing. Regarding "non-constructive posts", if a post pointing to a
> comprehensive list of bugs still present in ANW under the official
> database (while praising another Matrix's effort in the same field)
> is labeled "uncostructive" please, explain me what "constructive"
> means. Because I honestly don't know anymore, at least not on
> Matrix's forums.

We both know "unconstructive post" is slang for being a PITA, the
beauty of it is that *anything* can be construed unconstructive and
that it's a handy excuse for a mod to give someone a slap on the
wrist.

<shrug> it's their forum, they can do as they please.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

eddys...@hotmail.com

unread,
Nov 12, 2010, 10:01:19 AM11/12/10
to
On Nov 12, 3:21 pm, "eddyster...@hotmail.com"

<eddyster...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Too bad AGSI is just as incompetent there as in
> their general progamming skills.

Just an example - posted by the HC programmer half an hour ago
answering the question of open issues in Harpoon :

"In both cases not even close to every known issue is resolved. Nor
can I imagine every issue ever being resolved but that's not what you
asked. I can say with certainty since I'm the HC programmer, that in
HC the answer of when is most assuredly NEVER. I have zero incentive
to spend say 500 hours fixing an issue that doesn't impact my
enjoyment of the game at all (and some of the items are individually
500+ hour endeavors plus any unintended side-effects that pop up). "

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=2620546

If it would take me 500 hours to fix a bug for which I have a
documented way of reproducing it I'd seriously consider a career
change or take up a "Hello World" progamming class.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

eddys...@hotmail.com

unread,
Nov 12, 2010, 10:04:54 AM11/12/10
to
On Nov 11, 5:52 pm, "Vincenzo Beretta" <reckallNOS...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> Which leads to the big one: one more patch and then the support for the


> older products ends. HCCE is a nice, good game and, some wrinkles aside,
> actually works. But ANW is broken.
>
> And you can easily see through the scheme: for four years they failed to fix
> a broken game, and now they claim that publishing "a new product" is only
> fair, since the old one "was supported for four years".

Iain McNeil, one of the new bosses :

"I'm no expert n Harpoon but I am pretty sure the vast majority of
changes have been to improve the game, not fix game breaking issues,
or to fix issues in the upgrades that were issued. "

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=2620430

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

Briarroot

unread,
Nov 12, 2010, 12:59:18 PM11/12/10
to
On 11/12/2010 12:03 AM, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
> On 11/11/2010 3:48 PM, HermanH wrote:
> ...

>> Once again, I'll ask: "Which bug reports are AGSI unable to replicate?"
>
> You're wasting your time. This is reminding me of when I was trying to
> submit bug reports to Matrix for War in The Pacific. On one hand they
> were telling PBeM players that a given save game will always generate
> the same turn results because the random number seed is part of the
> save, then telling players reporting bugs that the save they sent didn't
> generate the same turn results each time they ran it.
>
> Heck, I remember spending several days going back-n-forth with one
> Matrix rep trying to get an answer to a simple yes or no question. When
> I pointed out that he was being evasive his response was how annoying I
> was because I wanted him to actually answer the question.
>
> As I recall there were some bannings over bug reports then though most
> of the players trying to get things fixed left in disgust IIRC. And that
> was four?, five?, years ago, I can't remember. Though technically I
> suppose they were banned for expressing their displeasure with the
> company's lack of effort rather than for reporting bugs per se.
>

All of which illustrates why Usenet must continue, even if with much
lower numbers of readers and posters. Freedom of speech is alive and
well here!

Frustrated web forum posters should remind their comrades that we exist
and, if they need it, assist them in setting up newsreaders and finding
free servers. Bring your discussions to Usenet and you won't ever be
censored again.

--
"What too many in the media have refused to recognize is that Tea Party
members are not calling for a revolution - they're calling for a
restoration. They take the U.S. Constitution seriously. They prefer the
system of government designed by the Founders to other options now on
offer. That does not endear them to those who fancy themselves
"progressives." - Clifford D. May

Briarroot

unread,
Nov 12, 2010, 1:16:09 PM11/12/10
to

It has nothing to do with money. We don't want UHC because we don't
want to become wards of the State. *You* may be comfortable with such
an arrangement, but I hope America never will. Italians have a history
of subservience, Americans have a history of independence. Our resolve
to be free may be weakening but it's not dead yet.

eddys...@hotmail.com

unread,
Nov 12, 2010, 1:33:22 PM11/12/10
to
On Nov 12, 6:59 pm, Briarroot <briarr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> All of which illustrates why Usenet must continue, even if with much
> lower numbers of readers and posters.  Freedom of speech is alive and
> well here!

I'm sure you won't believe this, but many, many gamers actually prefer
the comfortable forums where mommy moderator is always there to make
the nasty people (that's us) go away. It also saves their bacon if
they write something incredibly stupid. Here you're laughed at and
your precious beliefs get torn to shreds, in a company forum the
moderator makes everyone "play nice"

I'm not bashing company forums, they serve a very usefull purpose of
getting all the fans of a particular game in one spot, so you get all
the info you need on a game including AAR's, nifty tactics, MP
opponents and all that, but they're simply not the place for the harsh
truth. Also making people "play nice" is a Good Idea (tm) if you're
running a company forum because that way also the shy and bashful feel
they're welcome there and feel safe because let's face it : wargamers
are on average rather introvert people. Scare them away and they won't
spend their dollars on your games.

So, yes, I can understand why companies want to keep the troublemakers
out and any way you look at it - that's us. And Mr Hum is King
Troublemaker :)

Anyway, it's also pretty clear the smarter companies out there also
appreciate there's still a bunch of troublemakers somewhere in the
outbacks of Usenet, so they get a honest, no-nonsense point of view.

Case in point : where would SES be today if they actually had listened
to us, instead of to their fanboys ?

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

Vincenzo Beretta

unread,
Nov 12, 2010, 1:55:57 PM11/12/10
to
> Sure, he's the biggest PITA I ever witnessed and I'm pretty sure
> he does it on purpose :)

If Herman were a paparazzo we would be waiting for the next weepy press
conference by Linsday Lohan, about how she promises to stay clean and avoid
drugs, while already sitting on her latest DUI arrest pictures :^D

However, both AGSI and Linsday have an easy way to foil Herman's evil
efforts. Hmmm... Make that an hard climb towards responsible behaviour.

> Let's recap. What's the current "official AGSI/Matrix history"
> on Mr Hum ? That he openly posts nothing but the verifiable
> truth but that behind the scenes he's the mastermind behind
> dirty machinations that smear AGSI and Matrix ?

You forgot the best one: his ability to hide his interest in all of this.
Since he spends a lot of time, doesn't make money and doesn't work for a
rival company (just ask for a profile of Mr. Hum to the guys behind "Red
Pill") for sure his motivations must be deeply hidden and devious.

Amazingly enough, the only accusation I never heard leveled against Herman
is the most obvious one: that he is quite mad :^D

Alan_Bernardo

unread,
Nov 12, 2010, 2:10:08 PM11/12/10
to

> Heck, I remember spending several days going back-n-forth with one
> Matrix rep trying to get an answer to a simple yes or no question.  When
> I pointed out that he was being evasive his response was how annoying I
> was because I wanted him to actually answer the question.
>

Well, I don't know. The Matrix people are probably swamped, with
things going on everywhere. You never know what would prompt a person
to say what he says. There is a lot going on I'm sure.

I've always had good experiences with the Matrix people, and, if the
money is there and the game looks appealing, I would never hesitate to
buy a game from them.


Alan

Alan_Bernardo

unread,
Nov 12, 2010, 2:20:44 PM11/12/10
to

> Why is it that those who blame the Bush administration for the problems
> confronted by the Obama administration fail to do the same for the
> problems that originally faced the Bush administration?  If Vinny and
> Ray's feeble-minded rationalizations were actually logical, then Clinton
> must be responsible for 9/11.  And since the collapse of the sub-prime
> mortgage market caused the recession, and that market was strongly
> encouraged and abetted by the Clinton administration, shouldn't we be
> blaming Clinton for the recession?
>

You are a fool if you think that Bush didn't screw things up,
economically and militarily. Everyone wants to blame someone else;
but it is silly to think that after eight years of Bush's disasters,
Obama is going to set things right in two years. And don't tell me
there aren't right-wingers out there that blame Clinton for 9/11 and
the economic melt-down-- yourself probably being one of them.

The Bush years were a total joke. I know, with your thinking only
able to cover a few days forward and backward, that you'd like to
forget the past eight years, and concentrate not on fixing things but
on getting a Republican back in the White House, so the party can
screw things for another decade or so.


Alan

Dimensional Traveler

unread,
Nov 12, 2010, 3:34:00 PM11/12/10
to
I had asked him the question because he had indicated that he already
knew the answer.

This wasn't an isolated incident. He was evasive about providing real
answers to every question. Too many times we were told the game worked
one way when it was clearly and repeatably demonstrable that it didn't
work that way. One big victory was when we got them to admit that there
was an undocumented range limit on the ground attack air mission.

HermanH

unread,
Nov 12, 2010, 4:13:44 PM11/12/10
to
Alas, I seemed to have missed my own coronation. :-)


On Nov 12, 11:33 am, "eddyster...@hotmail.com"

HermanH

unread,
Nov 12, 2010, 4:31:02 PM11/12/10
to
On Nov 12, 3:16 am, "Vincenzo Beretta" <reckallNOS...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
>

> As we said here. As we said on Matrix's forums. As anyone who bothers to
> check the current iteration of Harpoon ANW vs. the buglist using the
> official database can see.
>
> Pick someone you have faith in. Giftzwerg, Eddy, someone I don't know,
> anyone. Give him a copy of Harpoon ANW and ask him to check the buglist
> using the official database shipped with the game. Or ten randomly picked
> bugs. My guess? 99% of the bugs will check.

Herein lies the crux of the matter. I've lost track of the number of
times Don Gilman, president of AGSI, has posted, "Everyone I ask
says...." Er, that's the basis of the problem right there in a
nutshell; folks who refuse to do their own investigation and
thinking. Everyone in Harpoon officialdom is relying on someone
else's opinion instead of doing their own digging.

Notice how Iain McNeil and other newcomers to the Harpoon maelstrom do
the same thing?

"I'm no expert n Harpoon but I am pretty sure the vast majority of
changes have been to improve the game, not fix game breaking issues,
or to fix issues in the upgrades that were issued. "

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=2620430

Don Gilman relies on one or two guys for his advice. Unfortunately,
they pretend that they cannot confirm the problems because to do so
would mean that they actually have to admit they fell down on the job
and introduced hundreds of bugs into their own game. That's just not
going to happen. The only real solution is to do everything in
public. I'm always available to show how every published issue is
both verifiable and detrimental to the game (in between my conferences
and planning sessions on how to take over the world of wargaming.)

Vincenzo Beretta

unread,
Nov 12, 2010, 4:57:37 PM11/12/10
to
> And don't tell me there aren't right-wingers out there that
> blame Clinton for 9/11 and the economic melt-down--
> yourself probably being one of them.

Interestingly enough, it was Clinton who gave one of the strongest hits to
the dam, when he signed (with the bipartisan support of the Republican-led
Congress) the "Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999”. It is
interesting because no one avid to blame Clinton and Obama (withewashing the
intercourring eight years) does seem able to actually remember something
that Clinton did *for real* to contribute to the mess.

The FSMA was widely regarded as a disgrace and as the lead-in to the 2008
crack – already in 1999! Some weeks ago I posted here a link to an op ed
published on the World Socialist Web Site that described in painful detail
(*) how “the financial rules for the new era!” would have lead to a Great
Depression-like crash late in the 2000s (the context of that post was
different: it was about how Bushanians had to eat two dishes of shit: one
served by the French and one by the Socialists; it must be nice to have such
faithful supporters: even SES cannot boast the same).

Anyway, Clinton did it, but you didn’t exactly saw Bush Jr. giving fire to
itself in fron of the Withe House to repel that disgrace – not even after
Enron showed where “the financial rules for the new era!” were leading.

(*) "The proposed deregulation will increase the degree of monopolization in
finance and worsen the position of consumers in relation to creditors. Even
more significant is its impact on the overall stability of US and world
capitalism. The bill ties the banking system and the insurance industry even
more directly to the volatile US stock market, virtually guaranteeing that
any significant plunge on Wall Street will have an immediate and
catastrophic impact throughout the US financial system.

The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which the deregulation bill would repeal,
was not adopted to protect consumers, although one of its most celebrated
provisions was the establishment of the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation, which guarantees bank deposits of up to $100,000. The law was
enacted during the first 100 days of the Roosevelt administration to rescue
a banking system which had collapsed, wiping out the life savings of
millions of working people, and threatening to bring the profit system to a
complete standstill.

As a recent history of that era notes: "The more than five thousand bank
failures between the Crash and the New Deal's rescue operation in March 1933
wiped out some $7 billion in depositors' money. Accelerating foreclosures on
defaulted home mortgages—150,000 homeowners lost their property in 1930,
200,000 in 1931, 250,000 in 1932—stripped millions of people of both shelter
and life savings at a single stroke and menaced the balance sheets of
thousands of surviving banks" (David Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, Oxford
University Press, 1999, pp. 162-63).

[...]

The Wall Street Journal celebrated the agreement to end such restrictions
with an editorial declaring that the banks had been unfairly scapegoated for
the Great Depression. The headline of one Journal article detailing the
impact of the proposed law declared, "Finally, 1929 Begins to Fade."

This comment underscores the greatest irony in the banking deregulation
bill. Legislation first adopted to save American capitalism from the
consequences of the 1929 Wall Street Crash is being abolished just at the
point where the conditions are emerging for an even greater speculative
financial collapse.

[...]

And there is a much more recent experience than 1929 to serve as a
cautionary tale. A financial deregulation bill was passed in the early 1980s
under the Reagan administration, lifting many restrictions on the activities
of savings and loan associations, which had previously been limited
primarily to the home-loan market. The result was an orgy of speculation,
profiteering and outright plundering of assets, culminating in collapse and
the biggest financial bailout in US history, costing the federal government
more than $500 billion. The repetition of such events in the much larger
banking and securities markets would be beyond the scope of any federal
bailout.

Martin McLaughlin
1 November 1999

http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/nov1999/bank-n01.shtml

eddys...@hotmail.com

unread,
Nov 12, 2010, 8:04:08 PM11/12/10
to
On Nov 12, 10:13 pm, HermanH <herman...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Alas, I seemed to have missed my own coronation.  :-)

<snort> too busy hatching out evil plans no doubt :)

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

ERutins

unread,
Nov 12, 2010, 11:47:05 PM11/12/10
to

> You're wasting your time.  This is reminding me of when I was trying to
> submit bug reports to Matrix for War in The Pacific.  On one hand they
> were telling PBeM players that a given save game will always generate
> the same turn results because the random number seed is part of the
> save, then telling players reporting bugs that the save they sent didn't
> generate the same turn results each time they ran it.

WITP, as another highly complex game, certainly had some bugs.
Including PBEM bugs. It was nevertheless extremely playable and
provided hundreds of hours of enjoyment for the average customer.
Popular demand resulted in a sequel, which improved it greatly, and
yet there are still bugs because any sufficiently complex program that
has as much variability built into its results as a wargame is almost
impossible to make 100% bug-free. That does not change the fact that
many of the all-time greatest computer games were phenomenal games,
and yet still had bugs.

> Heck, I remember spending several days going back-n-forth with one
> Matrix rep trying to get an answer to a simple yes or no question.  When
> I pointed out that he was being evasive his response was how annoying I
> was because I wanted him to actually answer the question.

This doesn't sound typical of our staff, though we did have some
volunteer moderators helping out on that forum.

> As I recall there were some bannings over bug reports then though most
> of the players trying to get things fixed left in disgust IIRC.  And
> that was four?, five?, years ago, I can't remember.  Though technically
> I suppose they were banned for expressing their displeasure with the
> company's lack of effort rather than for reporting bugs per se.

No one was banned over bug reports. We have never banned anyone from
our forums for posting a bug report or complaining about one of our
games. One player that I recall was banned for persistent trolling,
similar to what Herman did,

Regards,

- Erik

ERutins

unread,
Nov 13, 2010, 12:13:25 AM11/13/10
to

> I.e.: I got a warning for COMPLIMENTING how they are working on another
> product published by Matrix (TOAW III) while commenting on bugs in ANW
> found and reported USING THE OFFICIAL DATABASE.

As far as I could tell, you were referencing Herman's infamous list
which is no longer welcome on our forums. That's why you got the
warning.

> Could you point me a thing Herman did to damage Harpoon? I'll put a caveat:
> "Always telling the truth" doesn't count as a damaging act.

Ok. Point me to another "fan" of a game who is "helping" it by
creating a list of "bugs" which contain both real bugs, issues that
are based on the subjective view of the list creator, issues related
to unsupported databases and scenarios and issues that are simply
differences in design choices. Then that same person posts that list
to as many places as possible while repeatedly pointing out that the
game is hopelessly broken and that the developer isn't worth spit.
When the list is evaluated and feedback sent that indicates a
significant chunk of the list should not be reported as "bugs" that is
feedback is disregarded. When opportunities are offered to work
directly with the developer and to report issues into the official bug
tracker, those are refused. Whenever a new official update comes out,
the list of "bugs" grows, even if he has to add "bugs" that have
existed since the first release just to pad out the list and make sure
that it keeps growing and reinforces the perception that the game is
broken. You may tell me that Herman has resolved some of these issues
now, but last I checked that was a pretty accurate description of his
list and his behavior.

There's no question that H3ANW had bugs and still has bugs and that
some updates have introduced new ones as well as fixing old ones.
Despite that, it is far from an unplayable bug-ridden mess and based
on personal experience, the game is now more stable and problem-free
than ever, despite Herman's list. It is an extremely complex and
fairly old piece of code that will never be fully debugged. This can
be said about many, many other games that many people play and enjoy.
Herman lost me when I saw his response to the good faith effort we
made to really work with AGSI and the community to find and fix as
many reported issues as possible throughout the 3.9.x series leading
up to 3.1.0. I realized during that experience that no matter what we
did, Herman's tune would not change and there would always be more
issues in his list with each update we released.


> Want to see a stunt where they tried to smear Herman with me, and how it
> went badly wrong? Just ask and I'll send you the details in private. And you
> *will be able to check everything independently*. No need to take my word
> as gospel.

I no longer have time to check anything else when it comes to the
Harpoon community and the three or four sides to every story. Perhaps
next year. Right now, I'm spending time I don't have replying to this
because I respect the folks here too much to give up the idea that
they will someday see what has really happened here.

> Actually no. There is only a layer, and it is easy to check. The rest are
> smoke screens, chaffs & flares, and covering wildshots. It usually takes
> me 10 minutes to see where the truth lies.

I'm glad it's so clear to you. When I look around, I see plenty of
blame to pass around overall. The initial H3ANW release was
definitely buggy and that was both our and AGSI's fault. The initial
support on the forum was also questionable at best. I understood how
all of that exacerbated the existing fractures in the community and
turned alot of people off. If you go back beyond the recent past,
there are plenty of mistakes. The thing is, once those problems were
fixed and the game started improving, the damage to the community was
already done. As you know, while part of the problem was the release
itself and our support of it, part of the damage to the community also
involved Herman and the PlayersDB and more recently the ever-expanding
list of issues and the repeated bashing of AGSI that went along with
it.

> One last thing. Regarding "non-constructive posts", if a post pointing to a
> comprehensive list of bugs still present in ANW under the official
> database (while praising another Matrix's effort in the same field)
> is labeled "uncostructive" please, explain me what "constructive"
> means. Because I honestly don't know anymore, at least not on
> Matrix's forums.

The behavior that got Herman banned went beyond posting his list of
bugs, as you know. However, while bug reports are welcome, Herman's
list is not because of our past experiences with it. My warning to
you was because it looked like you were about to bring that up again.
I know you and Herman get along well, but based on my experiences I
believe he has his own agenda and at this point is much more negative
than positive overall in his effect on the overall community and the
game itself.

Regards,

- Erik


Scott

unread,
Nov 13, 2010, 12:16:23 AM11/13/10
to
What do free Usenet servers get out of it? I am concerned as I am on one
and it seems like my local ISPs no longer carry Usenet as one of their
services.

HermanH

unread,
Nov 13, 2010, 1:34:53 AM11/13/10
to
On Nov 12, 10:13 pm, ERutins <er...@matrixgames.com> wrote:
> > I.e.: I got a warning for COMPLIMENTING how they are working on another
> > product published by Matrix (TOAW III) while commenting on bugs in ANW
> > found and reported USING THE OFFICIAL DATABASE.
>
> As far as I could tell, you were referencing Herman's infamous list
> which is no longer welcome on our forums. That's why you got the
> warning.


So, the most detailed and comprehensive list of ANW problems along
with documentation on the various bugs is no longer welcome on
Matrix. It's just another sign of Matrix' active and deliberate
collusion with AGSI to hide its problems. It's not as if users aren't
going to run into those bugs simply because they don't know of them
beforehand.

Other players seem to find the CTDs just fine even when I am not
present on the forum. Imagine that. Who gets the blame, now?

Unknown Exception Crash in Ultimate ANW
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2614706

>
> > Could you point me a thing Herman did to damage Harpoon? I'll put a caveat:
> > "Always telling the truth" doesn't count as a damaging act.
>
> Ok. Point me to another "fan" of a game who is "helping" it by
> creating a list of "bugs" which contain both real bugs, issues that
> are based on the subjective view of the list creator, issues related
> to unsupported databases and scenarios and issues that are simply
> differences in design choices.


If there is simply a difference in design choices, then all AGSI has
to do is say, "Behaviour XXX is *supposed* to happen _exactly_ as
described." End of story. The bug report will be removed from the
list and placed on the "List of Acknowledged behaviours" and labeled
-- Working As Designed.

It doesn't matter if this is a CTD or something else. If AGSI says
that the game is supposed to crash when you press XYZ, then that is
the end of the matter. Users can complain all they like. As long as
AGSI acknowledges the behaviour as deliberate, then they are the final
arbitres (regardless of how silly they look telling folks that CTDs
are supposed to happen.)

The underlying problem, again, is that AGSI won't even acknowledge
CTDs and other serious matters when their own crash logs, screenshots,
and saved games all show the problem. Like a small child, AGSI hides
under the blankets in hopes that if it doesn't see the problem or
monsters, they'll just go away on their own. Everyone else seems to
be able to crash their game when they follow the detailed replication
instructions _except_ for AGSI.


Then that same person posts that list
> to as many places as possible while repeatedly pointing out that the
> game is hopelessly broken and that the developer isn't worth spit.
> When the list is evaluated and feedback sent that indicates a
> significant chunk of the list should not be reported as "bugs" that is
> feedback is disregarded.

Cite? When was the List of Issues supposedly 'evaluated'? I'm pretty
sure I would have remembered getting feedback. Except for outright
denials of the behaviours every occurring (I don't think that counts.)


When opportunities are offered to work
> directly with the developer and to report issues into the official bug
> tracker, those are refused. Whenever a new official update comes out,
> the list of "bugs" grows, even if he has to add "bugs" that have
> existed since the first release just to pad out the list and make sure
> that it keeps growing and reinforces the perception that the game is
> broken. You may tell me that Herman has resolved some of these issues
> now, but last I checked that was a pretty accurate description of his
> list and his behavior.


The List grows because of the additional problems every "patch
release" adds. Once again, blaming users for problems created by AGSI
is ridiculous. I still have not heard a Matrix denial that the
reported problems do not exist. So, once again, I'll ask, "Which
*exact* problems are you denying occur?"

The only 'offer' I am aware of was to shut up in public about the
problems and only report bugs to AGSI's secret web-tracking system so
that no one would see the extent of the bugginess. Needless to say,
this 'offer' was rejected.


>
> There's no question that H3ANW had bugs and still has bugs and that
> some updates have introduced new ones as well as fixing old ones.
> Despite that, it is far from an unplayable bug-ridden mess and based
> on personal experience, the game is now more stable and problem-free
> than ever, despite Herman's list. It is an extremely complex and
> fairly old piece of code that will never be fully debugged.


This inability to fully de-bug is especially true when all AGSI does
is add more bugs without fixing previous problems. Did you really
expect your septic tank to empty itself?


This can
> be said about many, many other games that many people play and enjoy.
> Herman lost me when I saw his response to the good faith effort we
> made to really work with AGSI and the community to find and fix as
> many reported issues as possible throughout the 3.9.x series leading
> up to 3.1.0. I realized during that experience that no matter what we
> did, Herman's tune would not change and there would always be more
> issues in his list with each update we released.


Cite? What "good faith effort" are you claiming? I saw a few
messages asking for clarification on some bug reports. The additional
information was posted and then nothing more. Discussing five bugs
out of 200 is less than 3% of the problems. I doubt anyone would call
that a 'good faith effort'.


> I'm glad it's so clear to you. When I look around, I see plenty of
> blame to pass around overall. The initial H3ANW release was
> definitely buggy and that was both our and AGSI's fault. The initial
> support on the forum was also questionable at best. I understood how
> all of that exacerbated the existing fractures in the community and
> turned alot of people off. If you go back beyond the recent past,
> there are plenty of mistakes. The thing is, once those problems were
> fixed and the game started improving, the damage to the community was
> already done. As you know, while part of the problem was the release
> itself and our support of it, part of the damage to the community also
> involved Herman and the PlayersDB and more recently the ever-expanding
> list of issues and the repeated bashing of AGSI that went along with
> it.


I'll have to disagree completely with this line of thought. The
*only* damage done to the customers and community was the abysmal
quality of the release and subsequent 'patches'. The only thing that
has changed is Matrix and AGSI's handling of the reported problems.
Instead of forcing AGSI to address its bugs, Matrix is now an active
accomplice in trying to hide these issues from the public. AGSI and
Matrix have done all they can to obfuscate, deny, and silence their
critics. Now, if only they spent that effort in actually *Fixing
Problems*, then this game would have been functional two years
earlier. Instead, you continue down the same path hoping for a
different outcome.

However, at least you are able to honestly acknowledge the bug-
infested initial release of ANW. Although this took over FOUR years
to recognize, it can still be regarded as 'progress' (even if on a
geological scale.) Maybe in another four years, Matrix and AGSI will
be able to admit that the List of Known bugs was right on target, too.
[when the _next_ version of Harpoon is released ;-)]

The problem remains. If this game actually worked in any way, shape,
or form, then there would be no problems and no dissent from the
community of players. So long as the game continues to functions so
poorly, these complaints will never cease. The policy of De-bugging
by Denial just doesn't work for ANW.

eddys...@hotmail.com

unread,
Nov 13, 2010, 3:32:30 AM11/13/10
to
On Nov 13, 6:13 am, ERutins <er...@matrixgames.com> wrote:

> I know you and Herman get along well, but based on my experiences I
> believe he has his own agenda and at this point is much more negative
> than positive overall in his effect on the overall community and the
> game itself.

Sure he has his own agenda, a dual one even in my opinion

1) Help other Harpoon players - the open one - the one which came
first and foremost until he got screwed over and added point
2) Make AGSI, and now by extention Matrix, look like dolts

... and he's brilliantly succeeding at both.

Matrix choose to pick sides with AGSI on this one, now they'll have to
live with that choice. This sucks for all parties involved and it
pains me to see my favourite publisher acting so uncharacteristically
against the best interest of their gamers and community.

Nothing personal, I know it's your job to be the public face of Matrix
and defend whatever policy they choose, but I've also seen you go
above and beyond dozens of times to help gamers out and I know this
sorry heap of fail is not what you and Matrix stand for.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

eddys...@hotmail.com

unread,
Nov 13, 2010, 3:36:41 AM11/13/10
to
On Nov 13, 6:16 am, Scott <fujispamsonyspamjvcspaml...@nospamhere.com>
wrote:

> What do free Usenet servers get out of it? I am concerned as I am on one
> and it seems like my local ISPs no longer carry Usenet as one of their
> services.

In general : nothing, that's why they're dropping it.

Google Groups keeps the archives and also acts as a free gateway and I
guess it's both a pr & goodwill thing and a bit for ad revenue

The day they finally kill off Usenet, we'll probably all migrate to
some other forum - looking forward to the whole debate of moderation
or not coming up again - I'm still in the "we don't need no stinkin'
moderator" camp :)

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

ryand...@yahoo.com

unread,
Nov 13, 2010, 7:15:04 AM11/13/10
to
You see, if Herman's list could be objectively demonstrated as not
being bugs, you wouldn't have to resort to attacks on character and
motivation. Simple really.

ERutins

unread,
Nov 13, 2010, 10:46:20 AM11/13/10
to
> So, the most detailed and comprehensive list of ANW problems along
> with documentation on the various bugs is no longer welcome on
> Matrix.  It's just another sign of Matrix' active and deliberate
> collusion with AGSI to hide its problems.  It's not as if users aren't
> going to run into those bugs simply because they don't know of them
> beforehand.


I should probably reconsider that, but that list has unfortunately
become much more than just a list. It's no longer entirely trusted
because of how it has been used and maintained and some of the issues
we've had with your reporting in the past. The fact is that we still
have access to it, we just don't want it used as a bashing tool
against AGSI on the official forum as has been done many times in the
past because we do not consider it to be representative of the state
of the game. The key point here is that if you didn't mix trolling
and bashing with your bug reporting, there would be no issue. Any
valid bugs on your list or any list are still on our list as well, we
just don't agree with your agenda or the comprehensiveness of your
list as a whole.


> Other players seem to find the CTDs just fine even when I am not
> present on the forum.  Imagine that.  Who gets the blame, now?
>
>  Unknown Exception Crash in Ultimate ANWhttp://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2614706


As I said, we welcome bug reports and we will fix reported issues.
Note that this report is actually a crash because of an installer
issue with a mis-registered DLL, it's not a bug in the game itself.
We've already fixed it here and it will be resolved in the first
update, which is already in testing. Meanwhile, where are all the
other reports on constant crashes that should be there if your
characterization of H3ANW were correct?


> The underlying problem, again, is that AGSI won't even acknowledge
> CTDs and other serious matters when their own crash logs, screenshots,
> and saved games all show the problem.  Like a small child, AGSI hides
> under the blankets in hopes that if it doesn't see the problem or
> monsters, they'll just go away on their own.  Everyone else seems to
> be able to crash their game when they follow the detailed replication
> instructions _except_ for AGSI.


You're right, originally this inability to recognize and acknowledge
issues was a real problem, but that is not a continuing problem and
hasn't been for a while. You also highlight another point. When AGSI
takes the time to try to replicate one of your reported issues and
either report it as a design issue or that they cannot replicate it on
the official databases and scenarios, I have often seen you respond as
you did here - that if they can't replicate it, they are small
children who should be ignored and it stays on the ever-expanding
list.


> Cite?  When was the List of Issues supposedly 'evaluated'?  I'm pretty
> sure I would have remembered getting feedback.  Except for outright
> denials of the behaviours every occurring (I don't think that counts.)


I'm assuming you never even looked at the public bug tracker when it
was setup and populated with your issues, which were then
investigated?


> The List grows because of the additional problems every "patch
> release" adds.  Once again, blaming users for problems created by AGSI
> is ridiculous.  I still have not heard a Matrix denial that the
> reported problems do not exist.  So, once again, I'll ask, "Which
> *exact* problems are you denying occur?"


Right, I'll just stop what I'm doing now and go through your list
point by point... sorry, we already did that and for the most part you
ignored us. I don't like to repeat past mistakes. If you'd wanted to
know which reported problems we had issues with, you were offered an
open invitation many times to be part of the process, with every issue
available to and viewable by the public. There were also exchanges on
the forum where the developer responded after investigating an issue
and you simply refused to accept the result of the investigation.


> The only 'offer' I am aware of was to shut up in public about the
> problems and only report bugs to AGSI's secret web-tracking system so
> that no one would see the extent of the bugginess.  Needless to say,
> this 'offer' was rejected.


This is false. There was never a request to "shut up" regarding
reporting bugs, though there was certainly a request to stop
trolling. In fact, as you may recall when we started the whole 3.9.x
series and turned over a new leaf, I discovered that you had been
banned from the forum for a minor issue that turned a two week ban
into a permanent one. I immediately rescinded that, apologized and
did my best to get you and the AGSI team to put aside past differences
and work together. We spoke on the phone at length so that I could
get your side of the story to make sure that I understood what had
transpired, both as far as the origin of your database and in terms of
your behavior on the various public forums. There was just a request
to use the public (could be seen by all) bug tracker for your issue
reporting as this would save our developer a lot of time and allow you
to participate and respond to our comments as we tried to replicate
each issue. You did participate to some degree on the forum, but your
stubborness regarding your list was on full display. You know as well
as I do that you have some design issues on there that go back beyond
the H3ANW release, that have been considered "accepted behavior" by
the bulk of the Harpoon community. Because you disagree with that, it
becomes AGSI's fault. I recall one case where after acknowledging
that this was they way things had always worked, you insisted on
keeping it on your bug list because AGSI ought to do better. When you
respond like that and then use the same list to repeatedly bash AGSI,
it serves to destroy any sense of trust in the objectivity of your
reporting or in your agenda.

> This inability to fully de-bug is especially true when all AGSI does
> is add more bugs without fixing previous problems.  Did you really
> expect your septic tank to empty itself?


I expect new updates to cause some issues in extremely complex games.
That's not a surprise. I also know that despite the increasing list
of issues on your list, the game is more stable and plays better than
at any point since the H3ANW release. There's a disconnect between
your list and reality, in my experience.


> Cite?  What "good faith effort" are you claiming?  I saw a few
> messages asking for clarification on some bug reports.  The additional
> information was posted and then nothing more.  Discussing five bugs
> out of 200 is less than 3% of the problems.  I doubt anyone would call
> that a 'good faith effort'.

This is really a lot of false information. There were months spent
going over your list. Much of this was documented to the public both
via many forum threads and the public bug tracker which we kept up for
a while in the hope of getting reporting through that system. Based
on my recollection, I would say it was more like 70% of the list that
was investigated and of that probably half were not bugs, but rather
subjective or database-specific reports that would not have been in a
fairly compiled list. The 3.9.x series fixed many of your reported
issues, not just five.

> accomplice in trying to hide these issues from the public.  AGSI and
> Matrix have done all they can to obfuscate, deny, and silence their
> critics. Now, if only they spent that effort in actually *Fixing
> Problems*, then this game would have been functional two years
> earlier.  Instead, you continue down the same path hoping for a
> different outcome.

There is a difference between giving up on one particular person (you)
because of your insistence on bashing and trolling and any actual
attempt to silence our critics. I agree that the behavior immediately
post-release was remarkably bad, though I understand it was also par
for the course in the Harpoon community at that time, which was fairly
poisonous in its atmosphere. What I'm talking about is your behavior
since the time 2 years ago now when repeated efforts were made to
openly discuss and address issues. Disagreeing with you on some of
your reported issues and how you use them does not constitute
obfuscation and denial. We don't disagree with bug reports, but we
disagree with your list as an accurate representation of H3ANW and
with the way you have used it over and over again to bash the
developer instead of working with the developer. We have given up on
trying to get past your issues with us to work constructively
together. It takes a while to run through my patience, but that's
where we are now.

> However, at least you are able to honestly acknowledge the bug-
> infested initial release of ANW.  Although this took over FOUR years
> to recognize, it can still be regarded as 'progress' (even if on a
> geological scale.)  Maybe in another four years, Matrix and AGSI will
> be able to admit that the List of Known bugs was right on target, too.
> [when the _next_ version of Harpoon is released ;-)]


I've always acknowledged that actually and AGSI and the team as a
whole has acknowledged that for more than two years now since the
3.9.x series got started. This is another mischaracterization.


> The problem remains.  If this game actually worked in any way, shape,
> or form, then there would be no problems and no dissent from the
> community of players.  So long as the game continues to functions so
> poorly, these complaints will never cease.  The policy of De-bugging
> by Denial just doesn't work for ANW.


We simply live in different realities. There is a regular good faith
effort here to listen to and address reported issues and there are a
lot of people playing H3ANW without issues. For the Ultimate Edition
release, the most severe issue since release was an installer DLL
registration issue, not an issue in the game itself.

Regards,

- Erik

ERutins

unread,
Nov 13, 2010, 10:58:15 AM11/13/10
to
> Sure he has his own agenda, a dual one even in my opinion
>
> 1) Help other Harpoon players - the open one - the one which came
> first and foremost until he got screwed over and added point
> 2) Make AGSI, and now by extention Matrix, look like dolts

1. Promote the PlayersDB
2. Help other Harpoon players, especially by getting them to use the
PlayersDB
3. Make AGSI and Matrix look like dolts by banging away at an ever-
growing list of issues that serves to show that the only game in town
is the PlayersDB if you want to play H3ANW without bugs. The only
problem is that this is not an accurate assessment, but it's brilliant
as a way to perpetuate #1.

I don't think you are aware of how much the "history of the databases"
really matters in the Harpoon community. I certainly did not,
originally. The amount of personal ego tied up in each of these
databases is unbelievable and the "database wars" did more to damage
that community than any other event, as far as I can tell. Herman is
smack dab in the middle of that, as the person that half the community
believes stole his original database without credit from another
community author. That other author and his team ended up leaving to
work on Red Pill. Herman continues with Harpoon, but mainly to
promote the PlayersDB, as far as I can tell.

All other points aside - I could accept that Herman originally started
out altruistically and I also believe that there is blame to pass
around to AGSI and to us as far as the initial H3ANW release.
However, at this time I believe that Herman is mainly interested in
self-promotion and tearing down AGSI and their official releases
serves that purpose for him. The point where Herman and I diverged is
after I got very involved in trying to sort out the issues with
Harpoon and I came to realize that no matter what we did, Herman had a
script which would not change.


> Matrix choose to pick sides with AGSI on this one, now they'll have to
> live with that choice. This sucks for all parties involved and it
> pains me to see my favourite publisher acting so uncharacteristically
> against the best interest of their gamers and community.


I approached this game and this community just as I do with every
other. I'm telling you that it is unlike our other games and
communities. This community really has issues beyond what I've seem
before and Herman is part of the problem. The fact that he doesn't
get more push back from the community is mainly because he's outlasted
them, most who disagreed with him have moved on and realized that
arguing with him is futile. You end up with a "last man standing"
version of the "uncontested truth". If my own experience with playing
H3ANW since the 3.9.x series and in the HUE 3.10 release were that is
was a buggy mess, I would be in agreement with Herman and continuing
to attempt to engage him further in the process. However, that is not
my experience or that of many other gamers. When I add to that the
way that Herman uses this list, his agenda becomes pretty obvious.


> Nothing personal, I know it's your job to be the public face of Matrix
> and defend whatever policy they choose, but I've also seen you go
> above and beyond dozens of times to help gamers out and I know this
> sorry heap of fail is not what you and Matrix stand for.


Thanks, hopefully others will also realize that I have not "sold out"
but that I have simply given up on Herman for the reasons I've
described. I have my convictions here based on my own honest
experience with all the involved people, not based on the company
line.

Regards,

- Erik

ERutins

unread,
Nov 13, 2010, 10:59:59 AM11/13/10
to
On Nov 13, 7:15 am, "ryandyl...@yahoo.com" <ryandyl...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

> You see, if Herman's list could be objectively demonstrated as not
> being bugs, you wouldn't have to resort to attacks on character and
> motivation.  Simple really.


I agree completely and that is how any bug list should be handled.
The thing is, we did that and it had no effect, at all. Many, many
issues were fixed, the game includes the fixes, but Herman keeps on
going as if nothing had changed

Regards,

- Erik

eddys...@hotmail.com

unread,
Nov 13, 2010, 11:29:48 AM11/13/10
to
On Nov 13, 4:46 pm, ERutins <er...@matrixgames.com> wrote:

> We simply live in different realities.  

And back in the real world you should be celebrating your birthday
instead of trying to fix what simply isn't fixable - happy birthday :)

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

eddys...@hotmail.com

unread,
Nov 13, 2010, 11:46:01 AM11/13/10
to
On Nov 12, 7:33 pm, "eddyster...@hotmail.com"
<eddyster...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Case in point : where would SES be today if they actually had listened
> to us, instead of to their fanboys ?

... and here's yet another example of what happens if someone *proves*
design errors in Jutland by quoting Campbell, Massie and Brown - it's
called a "fantasy" by that sycophant SES employee called BulletHead
and the poster is labelled a "troll".

http://forums.gamesquad.com/showthread.php?96323-Re-activating&p=1329886&viewfull=1#post1329886

If they ever drop the DRM I wish everyone who then buys their games
thinking everything is ok lots of luck - they're going to need it.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx


Briarroot

unread,
Nov 13, 2010, 12:53:51 PM11/13/10
to
On 11/12/2010 1:33 PM, eddys...@hotmail.com wrote:
> On Nov 12, 6:59 pm, Briarroot<briarr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> All of which illustrates why Usenet must continue, even if with much
>> lower numbers of readers and posters. Freedom of speech is alive and
>> well here!
>
> I'm sure you won't believe this, but many, many gamers actually prefer
> the comfortable forums where mommy moderator is always there to make
> the nasty people (that's us) go away.
>

Actually, I do believe you, given what I've seen from *some* posters in
this forum. ;-)


> It also saves their bacon if
> they write something incredibly stupid. Here you're laughed at and
> your precious beliefs get torn to shreds, in a company forum the
> moderator makes everyone "play nice"
>

Yep, and that inevitably means less truthfulness.


> I'm not bashing company forums, they serve a very usefull purpose of
> getting all the fans of a particular game in one spot, so you get all
> the info you need on a game including AAR's, nifty tactics, MP
> opponents and all that, but they're simply not the place for the harsh
> truth.
>

Company-run sites are a reasonable attempt to act as collection points
for all things related to their games, but I've seen fan sites that do a
far better job. See, the company sites are quite often run by
*publishers* who just "don't get it." They don't play the games
themselves and don't really understand the why the fan base has such an
intense interest. At least that's my take - admittedly based on a very
small sampling.


> Also making people "play nice" is a Good Idea (tm) if you're
> running a company forum because that way also the shy and bashful feel
> they're welcome there and feel safe because let's face it : wargamers
> are on average rather introvert people. Scare them away and they won't
> spend their dollars on your games.
>

Shy and bashful wargamers??? ;-)


> So, yes, I can understand why companies want to keep the troublemakers
> out and any way you look at it - that's us. And Mr Hum is King
> Troublemaker :)
>
> Anyway, it's also pretty clear the smarter companies out there also
> appreciate there's still a bunch of troublemakers somewhere in the
> outbacks of Usenet, so they get a honest, no-nonsense point of view.
>
> Case in point : where would SES be today if they actually had listened
> to us, instead of to their fanboys ?
>

Good question!

--
"As an American, I am embarrassed that the U.S. House of Representatives
has 220 members who actually believe the government can successfully
centrally plan the medical and insurance industries. I'm embarrassed
that my representatives think that government can subsidize the
consumption of medical care without increasing the budget deficit or
interfering with free choice. It's a triumph of mindless wishful
thinking over logic and experience." - John Stossel

Briarroot

unread,
Nov 13, 2010, 1:37:45 PM11/13/10
to
On 11/13/2010 12:16 AM, Scott wrote:

>
> Briarroot<bria...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> All of which illustrates why Usenet must continue, even if with much
>> lower numbers of readers and posters. Freedom of speech is alive and
>> well here!
>>
>> Frustrated web forum posters should remind their comrades that we
>> exist and, if they need it, assist them in setting up newsreaders and
>> finding free servers. Bring your discussions to Usenet and you won't
>> ever be censored again.
>>
>>
> What do free Usenet servers get out of it? I am concerned as I am on one
> and it seems like my local ISPs no longer carry Usenet as one of their
> services.
>

There are still several businesses who generate income by selling
subscriptions to their professionally well-run news servers; and as you
know, there are also a small handful of places, usually associated with
universities, that offer free access. What do the free servers like
aloe.org "get out of it?" Perhaps they hold the philanthropic point of
view that free communication has a civilizing influence on the world, or
empowers the poor - or something <g>. Certainly *somebody* is paying
for the 'free' servers, quite likely an unsuspecting group of taxpayers!

Usenet is not profit-driven, and that may be its chief trouble. Anyone
can set up and run their own nntp server (network news transfer
protocol) provided they adhere to long established rules and procedures,
but doing so is not considered a good way to make a lot of money. In ye
olden days (80s & 90s), every ISP was expected to have their own
in-house news server, and there were hundreds of news servers connected
to the internet, scattered all around the world. In recent years that
number has shrunk considerably along with the number of independent
ISPs. The big ISPs, now almost exclusively owned by cable and
telecommunications giants, don't maintain their own Usenet servers
anymore because only a vanishingly small percentage of their subscribers
want access to newsgroups. Subscribers who do want Usenet are usually
old timers like myself who can easily find a news server regardless of
our ISP's policy. Large corporations don't care about Usenet because it
doesn't generate income; it's text-based rather than graphical meaning
there's no convenient way to sell the kind of advertising that supports
web forums. That fact combined with the massive influx of non-tech
savvy internet users who think the WWW *is* the internet has had a
negative impact on the amount of traffic and on the long-term
sustainability of Usenet. One bright spot (if I can call it that! <g>)
is Google which now runs it's own news server making it easy for the not
so technically proficient WWW user to access Usenet newsgroups.

Briarroot

unread,
Nov 13, 2010, 1:47:32 PM11/13/10
to

You don't understand the questions I asked which leaves you unable to
answer them - or even attempt to address them. It's plainly evident why
you so often suggest that I must be watching Fox News; you aren't
capable of analysis yourself, you merely regurgitate what *you* hear
which leaves you unable to even consider that my thinking may be
original. You simply have no experience with that kind of thing!

Briarroot

unread,
Nov 13, 2010, 1:59:05 PM11/13/10
to
On 11/12/2010 4:57 PM, Vincenzo Beretta wrote:
>> And don't tell me there aren't right-wingers out there that
>> blame Clinton for 9/11 and the economic melt-down-- yourself probably
>> being one of them.
>
> Interestingly enough, it was Clinton who gave one of the strongest hits
> to the dam, when he signed (with the bipartisan support of the
> Republican-led Congress) the "Financial Services Modernization Act of
> 1999”. It is interesting because no one avid to blame Clinton and Obama
> (withewashing the intercourring eight years) does seem able to actually
> remember something that Clinton did *for real* to contribute to the mess.
>
> The FSMA was widely regarded as a disgrace and as the lead-in to the
> 2008 crack – already in 1999! Some weeks ago I posted here a link to an
> op ed published on the World Socialist Web Site that described in
> painful detail (*) how “the financial rules for the new era!” would have
> lead to a Great Depression-like crash late in the 2000s (the context of
> that post was different: it was about how Bushanians had to eat two
> dishes of shit: one served by the French and one by the Socialists; it
> must be nice to have such faithful supporters: even SES cannot boast the
> same).
>
> Anyway, Clinton did it, but you didn’t exactly saw Bush Jr. giving fire
> to itself in fron of the Withe House to repel that disgrace – not even
> after Enron showed where “the financial rules for the new era!” were
> leading.
>

Why didn't the Democrats take up the cudgels to repeal the act when they
gained control of Congress in 2006? Why is everything always "Bush's
fault?" The answer is that *nobody* saw what was coming. Blaming
somebody for "not doing something" to solve a problem that nobody
recognized until *after* it had been demonstrated to have been a problem
is a fool's game.


> The Wall Street Journal celebrated the agreement to end such
> restrictions with an editorial declaring that the banks had been
> unfairly scapegoated for the Great Depression. The headline of one
> Journal article detailing the impact of the proposed law declared,
> "Finally, 1929 Begins to Fade."
>
> This comment underscores the greatest irony in the banking deregulation
> bill. Legislation first adopted to save American capitalism from the
> consequences of the 1929 Wall Street Crash is being abolished just at
> the point where the conditions are emerging for an even greater
> speculative financial collapse.
>

(Of course, Vinny isn't reading this, but...)

Do you realize that in a matter of a few months after the 1929 Wall
Street Crash, the stock market had *regained* most of what it had lost
on Black Tuesday? If the Crash of '29 was actually responsible for the
Great Depression, why didn't the depression begin immediately afterward?
Why is it you government control freaks never look closely at what
government did to cause the Great Depression, and how government actions
actually deepened, broadened and lengthened the Depression?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

"There were multiple causes for the first downturn in 1929. These
include the structural weaknesses and specific events that turned it
into a major depression and the manner in which the downturn spread from
country to country. In relation to the 1929 downturn, historians
emphasize structural factors like massive bank failures and the stock
market crash. In contrast, economists (such as Barry Eichengreen, Milton
Friedman and Peter Temin) point to monetary factors such as actions by
the US Federal Reserve that contracted the money supply, as well as
Britain's decision to return to the Gold Standard at pre-World War I
parities (US$4.86:£1).

Recessions and business cycles are thought to be a normal part of living
in a world of inexact balances between supply and demand. What turns a
normal recession or 'ordinary' business cycle into an actual depression
is a subject of much debate and concern. Scholars have not agreed on the
exact causes and their relative importance. Moreover, the search for
causes is closely connected to the issue of avoiding future depressions.

Thus, the personal political and policy viewpoints of scholars greatly
colors their analysis of historic events occurring eight decades ago. An
even larger question is whether the Great Depression was primarily a
failure on the part of free markets or, alternately, a failure of
government efforts to regulate interest rates, curtail widespread bank
failures, and control the money supply. Those who believe in a larger
economic role for the state believe that it was primarily a failure of
free markets, while those who believe in a smaller role for the state
believe that it was primarily a failure of government that compounded
the problem.

Current theories may be broadly classified into two main points of view
and several heterodox points of view. First, there are demand-driven
theories, most importantly Keynesian economics, but also including those
who point to the breakdown of international trade, and Institutional
economists who point to underconsumption and over-investment (causing an
economic bubble), malfeasance by bankers and industrialists, or
incompetence by government officials. The consensus among demand-driven
theories is that a large-scale loss of confidence led to a sudden
reduction in consumption and investment spending. Once panic and
deflation set in, many people believed they could avoid further losses
by keeping clear of the markets. Holding money became profitable as
prices dropped lower and a given amount of money bought ever more goods,
exacerbating the drop in demand.

Secondly, there are the monetarists, who believe that the Great
Depression started as an ordinary recession, but that significant policy
mistakes by monetary authorities (especially the Federal Reserve),
caused a shrinking of the money supply which greatly exacerbated the
economic situation, causing a recession to descend into the Great
Depression. Related to this explanation are those who point to debt
deflation causing those who borrow to owe ever more in real terms.

Lastly, there are various heterodox theories that downplay or reject the
explanations of the Keynesians and monetarists. For example, some new
classical macroeconomists have argued that various labor market policies
imposed at the start caused the length and severity of the Great
Depression. The Austrian school of economics focuses on the
macroeconomic effects of money supply, and how central banking decisions
can lead to over-investment (economic bubble). The Marxist critique of
political economy emphasizes the tendency of capitalism to create
unbalanced accumulations of wealth, leading to overaccumulations of
capital and a repeating cycle of devaluations through economic crises."

eddys...@hotmail.com

unread,
Nov 14, 2010, 10:47:17 AM11/14/10
to
On Nov 13, 6:53 pm, Briarroot <briarr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > Also making people "play nice" is a Good Idea (tm) if you're
> > running a company forum because that way also the shy and bashful feel
> > they're welcome there and feel safe because let's face it : wargamers
> > are on average rather introvert people. Scare them away and they won't
> > spend their dollars on your games.
>
> Shy and bashful wargamers???   ;-)

Yup - they all are - compared to me that is :)

Seriously : I do think that computer wargamers are on average more
introvert, more the type that sits quietly in the corner doing his own
thing and figuring things out than your average person. The people who
type up stuff in the forums are the exceptions, but remember that
they're just a tiny minority compared to the lurkers. Creating a
friendly and safe environment is what company forums strife for and
are good at.

> > Case in point : where would SES be today if they actually had listened
> > to us, instead of to their fanboys ?
>
> Good question!

It's the one I hope Norm Koger dares to ask himself

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

eddys...@hotmail.com

unread,
Nov 14, 2010, 10:53:44 AM11/14/10
to
On Nov 13, 7:37 pm, Briarroot <briarr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> What do the free servers like
> aloe.org "get out of it?"  

??? A quick Google doesn't turn up anything.

> That fact combined with the massive influx of non-tech
> savvy internet users who think the WWW *is* the internet has had a
> negative impact on the amount of traffic and on the long-term
> sustainability of Usenet.  One bright spot (if I can call it that! <g>)
> is Google which now runs it's own news server making it easy for the not
> so technically proficient WWW user to access Usenet newsgroups.

.. or for the lazy - I do have XNews and an account with my provider,
but rarely use it. Google Groups is good enough for me

As to the point of the long-term sustainability : nothing lasts
forever, but we've had a good dozen years so far :)

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

Vincenzo Beretta

unread,
Nov 14, 2010, 11:29:22 AM11/14/10
to
> Seriously : I do think that computer wargamers are on average
> more introvert, more the type that sits quietly in the corner
> doing his own thing and figuring things out than your average
> person.

I.e.: the recipe for a Postal episode :^D

Dimensional Traveler

unread,
Nov 14, 2010, 2:34:23 PM11/14/10
to

Nah, shooting up an office is small potatoes. We want to CONQUER THE
WORLD! *mwahahahah*

Briarroot

unread,
Nov 14, 2010, 5:15:16 PM11/14/10
to
On 11/14/2010 10:53 AM, eddys...@hotmail.com wrote:
> On Nov 13, 7:37 pm, Briarroot<briarr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> What do the free servers like
>> aloe.org "get out of it?"
>
> ??? A quick Google doesn't turn up anything.
>

Ack! That was a typo. Should read: http://www.aioe.org/


>> That fact combined with the massive influx of non-tech
>> savvy internet users who think the WWW *is* the internet has had a
>> negative impact on the amount of traffic and on the long-term
>> sustainability of Usenet. One bright spot (if I can call it that!<g>)
>> is Google which now runs it's own news server making it easy for the not
>> so technically proficient WWW user to access Usenet newsgroups.
>
> .. or for the lazy - I do have XNews and an account with my provider,
> but rarely use it. Google Groups is good enough for me
>
> As to the point of the long-term sustainability : nothing lasts
> forever, but we've had a good dozen years so far :)
>

For the moment, there's still a need for text-only forums like ours, but
that moment is passing which, for the reasons previously mentioned, I
think will be a Bad Thing. But we felt the same way about FidoNet. It
didn't actually die, it just became irrelevant.

--
"Recall that not long ago, the first item on the bill of indictment
against the Bush administration was that it was 'exploiting' 9/11 to
enact its agenda. Well, now we have the president, along with his chief
aides, admitting - boasting! - that they want to exploit a national
emergency [the recession] for their preexisting agenda, and there's no
scandal. No one even calls it a gaffe. No, they call it leadership." -
Jonah Goldberg

ryand...@yahoo.com

unread,
Nov 14, 2010, 6:56:15 PM11/14/10
to
> I agree completely and that is how any bug list should be handled.
> The thing is, we did that and it had no effect, at all.  Many, many
> issues were fixed, the game includes the fixes, but Herman keeps on
> going as if nothing had changed

Have you published your refutation to his buglist somewhere? That
should help sort this out.

Alan_Bernardo

unread,
Nov 14, 2010, 11:51:52 PM11/14/10
to


>
> You don't understand the questions I asked which leaves you unable to
> answer them - or even attempt to address them.  It's plainly evident why
> you so often suggest that I must be watching Fox News; you aren't
> capable of analysis yourself, you merely regurgitate what *you* hear
> which leaves you unable to even consider that my thinking may be
> original.  You simply have no experience with that kind of thing!
>
> --

Wow, you are so far gone it's hard to believe you are even alive. The
junk you spew is coming from FOX news: whether indirectly through some
other source or directly. You go on and on about the same stuff,
saying the same things, and then claim someone else is doing exactly
the same thing as you do.

I'll bet that of the thousands of posts you write each day that the
whole gist of what you're attempting to say would come down to a small
paragraph, with even that being something that someone else has said
somewhere else.

But go on ahead and pretend that what you say is somehow original. If
it makes you happy to lie to yourself that is no business of mine.
The why of it all is for you to mull over, not me.


Alan

HermanH

unread,
Nov 15, 2010, 1:19:11 AM11/15/10
to
I didn’t know it was so blazingly obvious to the general public. :-D

On Nov 13, 1:32 am, "eddyster...@hotmail.com"

HermanH

unread,
Nov 15, 2010, 1:19:24 AM11/15/10
to
On Nov 13, 8:59 am, ERutins <er...@matrixgames.com> wrote:
> On Nov 13, 7:15 am, "ryandyl...@yahoo.com" <ryandyl...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> > You see, if Herman's list could be objectively demonstrated as not
> > being bugs, you wouldn't have to resort to attacks on character and
> > motivation. Simple really.
>
> I agree completely and that is how any bug list should be handled.
> The thing is, we did that and it had no effect, at all. Many, many
> issues were fixed, the game includes the fixes, but Herman keeps on
> going as if nothing had changed
>
> Regards,
>
> - Erik

And you’ll be able to cite where you did this, of course.

As an honest person, I have reported that every patch release does fix
some bugs. And this is all included in the various List
announcements.

http://forums.gamesquad.com/showthread.php?73424-Patch-for-Harpoon-ANW-3.9.0
http://forums.gamesquad.com/showthread.php?67385-Patch-for-Harpoon-ANW-3.8.0-now-available

The first thing reported is all the fixes (immediately followed by all
the new bugs created.)


On Nov 13, 8:58 am, ERutins <er...@matrixgames.com> wrote:
> > Sure he has his own agenda, a dual one even in my opinion
>
> > 1) Help other Harpoon players - the open one - the one which came
> > first and foremost until he got screwed over and added point
> > 2) Make AGSI, and now by extention Matrix, look like dolts
>

> 1. Promote the PlayersDB
> 2. Help other Harpoon players, especially by getting them to use the
> PlayersDB
> 3. Make AGSI and Matrix look like dolts by banging away at an ever-
> growing list of issues that serves to show that the only game in town
> is the PlayersDB if you want to play H3ANW without bugs. The only
> problem is that this is not an accurate assessment, but it's brilliant
> as a way to perpetuate #1.
>
> I don't think you are aware of how much the "history of the databases"
> really matters in the Harpoon community. I certainly did not,
> originally. The amount of personal ego tied up in each of these
> databases is unbelievable and the "database wars" did more to damage
> that community than any other event, as far as I can tell. Herman is
> smack dab in the middle of that, as the person that half the community
> believes stole his original database without credit from another
> community author. That other author and his team ended up leaving to
> work on Red Pill. Herman continues with Harpoon, but mainly to
> promote the PlayersDB, as far as I can tell.


Actually, no. Anyone who works with me knows how much I hate DB work,
but it is a necessary evil given the current dysfunctional state of
the ones distributed by AGSI. As with all things ANW, *if only* the
official game and databases actually worked, there would be no
complaints and everyone would be happily playing. Unfortunately, this
is just not the case. In order to get the barest function out of ANW,
players must use a third-party mod like the PlayersDB just to have
basic weapons fire.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=2551144

Personally, I would have been happy never needing to create the
PlayersDB if others had not been so actively sabotaging their own:

Unannounced Database changes
http://forums.gamesquad.com/showthread.php?23874-Unannounced-Database-changes


>
> All other points aside - I could accept that Herman originally started
> out altruistically and I also believe that there is blame to pass
> around to AGSI and to us as far as the initial H3ANW release.
> However, at this time I believe that Herman is mainly interested in
> self-promotion and tearing down AGSI and their official releases
> serves that purpose for him. The point where Herman and I diverged is
> after I got very involved in trying to sort out the issues with
> Harpoon and I came to realize that no matter what we did, Herman had a
> script which would not change.


The script will change just as soon as the bugs are eliminated. I’ll
be telling everyone how wonderfully the game runs. Until such time, I
can only tell them how it currently is – both the good and the bad.
Unfortunately, there just seems to be more bad stuff than good.


Actually, that’s the traditional AGSI modus operandi: Ignore problems
in hopes that the complainants move on to other games and projects.
In this sense, it has worked wonderfully.

But, as with most things associated with Harpoon, motives are
irrelevant. Bugs don’t care about motivations. They either exist or
they don’t. And these ANW bugs are simply gargantuan. Matrix can put
up all the smokscreens they like and try to lead the discussion
astray. The *only* matter of relevance is dealing with the gigantic
number of ANW bugs.


On Nov 13, 8:46 am, ERutins <er...@matrixgames.com> wrote:
> > So, the most detailed and comprehensive list of ANW problems along
> > with documentation on the various bugs is no longer welcome on
> > Matrix. It's just another sign of Matrix' active and deliberate
> > collusion with AGSI to hide its problems. It's not as if users aren't
> > going to run into those bugs simply because they don't know of them
> > beforehand.
>
> I should probably reconsider that, but that list has unfortunately
> become much more than just a list. It's no longer entirely trusted
> because of how it has been used and maintained and some of the issues
> we've had with your reporting in the past. The fact is that we still
> have access to it, we just don't want it used as a bashing tool
> against AGSI on the official forum as has been done many times in the
> past because we do not consider it to be representative of the state
> of the game.


> The key point here is that if you didn't mix trolling
> and bashing with your bug reporting, there would be no issue.

Actually, the key point is that if they FIXED THE BUGS there would be
no key issue. Anyway, nice to see that it's the tone you dislike, not
that the buglist is false. I hope that Matrix's customers, in the
future, will enjoy games full of bugs, as long as the tone is “right”.


> Any valid bugs on your list or any list are still on our list as well


Knowing that you actually *have* your own list is even more worrisome.


> we just don't agree with your agenda or the comprehensiveness of
> your list as a whole.


Let's talk about this “agenda”? Because not only isn't there one, but
there isn't also an apparent one.

What would the “agenda” would be? Promoting the “Players Database”? To
what end? First, the PlayersDB is first and foremost “promoted” by the
bugs still in the game. Bugs that buyers find and for whom they seek a
solution. A Google search or a simple asking around can show them how
the PlayersDB is able to go around *some bugs*, and that's it.
http://tinyurl.com/2wyubnz

The Player's Database isn't touted as "the silver bullet" against ANW
problems - mostly because such a bullet is impossible. The PlayersDB
never claims to be the panacea for ANW. The only claim ever made is,
"It will give ANW users the *LEAST* number of problems." That is
hardly an overwhelming endorsement of the game. A lot of scenarios
are written for the Player's Database, courtesy of the scenario
writers. No one forces them to use it. The fact that they prefer it
over databases distributed by AGSI speaks volumes.

Vincenzo pays out of his pocket for the main site where the Database
and the scenarios are hosted. He gets nothing in exchange, except the
occasional "thanks". He can speak for himself, but I wouldn't label
him as someone "looking for recognition thanks to the Players
Database" - mostly because a lot of people don't even know about his
material contribution to the project. His efforts are, however,
insulted on a weekly basis and derided on Matrix' fora. He doesn't
throws tantrums. He doesn't invoke bans. He also doesn't see a
moderator clamping down on these childish behaviours, either.

What else? Money? No one makes money from the PlayersDB, thank you.
Exception: I *guess* AGSI and, by inference, Matrix, make maybe a
little bit more money thanks to the additional _free_ content provided
by the community.

Fame? Along with the "thank yous", we get defamation, bans, and
slander. Speaking for myself, I'm happy with the positive recognition
of those whose opinion I respect. There: here is your "fame" as far as
the Players Database is involved.

No, the key point here is that the mere existence of The List of Bugs
is sufficiently damning in and of itself.

And where, *exactly* is ‘your list’? AFAIK, the only one publicly
available is at http://www.harplonkhq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=47#p47


> > Other players seem to find the CTDs just fine even when I am not
> > present on the forum. Imagine that. Who gets the blame, now?
>

> > Unknown Exception Crash in Ultimate ANWhttp://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2614706
>
> As I said, we welcome bug reports and we will fix reported issues.
> Note that this report is actually a crash because of an installer
> issue with a mis-registered DLL, it's not a bug in the game itself.
> We've already fixed it here and it will be resolved in the first
> update, which is already in testing. Meanwhile, where are all the
> other reports on constant crashes that should be there if your
> characterization of H3ANW were correct?


You've missed the point in its entirety. The problem is not that the
bug is easy to fix and doesn't involve the game code. The problem is
the inherent and ongoing lack of even the most rudimentary testing
from AGSI. Most people turn on the light after changing a bulb just
to check. Evidently, such basic testing regiment is absent from AGSI
protocols when a new user can find such a bug within 30 mins of
starting the game and trying basic functions.

Flashback to a game shipped with broken tutorials, if you wish.
http://tinyurl.com/2wyubnz


> > The underlying problem, again, is that AGSI won't even acknowledge
> > CTDs and other serious matters when their own crash logs, screenshots,
> > and saved games all show the problem. Like a small child, AGSI hides
> > under the blankets in hopes that if it doesn't see the problem or
> > monsters, they'll just go away on their own. Everyone else seems to
> > be able to crash their game when they follow the detailed replication
> > instructions _except_ for AGSI.
>
> You're right, originally this inability to recognize and acknowledge
> issues was a real problem, but that is not a continuing problem and
> hasn't been for a while. You also highlight another point. When AGSI
> takes the time to try to replicate one of your reported issues and
> either report it as a design issue or that they cannot replicate it on
> the official databases and scenarios, I have often seen you respond as
> you did here - that if they can't replicate it, they are small
> children who should be ignored and it stays on the ever-expanding
> list.


Well, I’ve already asked for a citation on your previous claim and it
hasn’t been answered. So, I’ll ask it again. Cite. Where is the
evidence that a bug report is actually a deliberate design issue and
working as intended?

And, I’m not the only one asking these questions:

Giftzwerg:

> Whenever a new update is released, you show up within a day or less
> with a long list of new issues that AGSI has created. The issues
> created are always greater than the issues fixed and this is often
> accompanied by a series of derogatory comments from you on AGSI and
> the latest update. It doesn't seem to matter to you that some of the
> issues are differences in design between you and the creators of the
> game, they still go on the list.

Can you point out an example - or several examples - of issues that
Hum
identifies which are just differences of opinion between Hum and AGSI?

> It also doesn't seem to matter to
> you if they can't be duplicated. In fact, when the developers say
> they can't duplicate an issue you've reported, you seem to assume they
> are either lazy, stupid or conspiring against you.

Example?

http://tinyurl.com/2d2zoxz


Every AGSI request for additional bug information has been met with a
blizzard of information. For example, http://tinyurl.com/5hmwtv

> > Cite? When was the List of Issues supposedly 'evaluated'? I'm pretty
> > sure I would have remembered getting feedback. Except for outright
> > denials of the behaviours every occurring (I don't think that counts.)
>
> I'm assuming you never even looked at the public bug tracker when it
> was setup and populated with your issues, which were then
investigated?


You mean the Public Bug tracker that has, yet again, disappeared after
AGSI promised that it wouldn’t?

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=1799684

Guess I predicted correctly on that matter, too.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=1802928


> > The List grows because of the additional problems every "patch
> > release" adds. Once again, blaming users for problems created by AGSI
> > is ridiculous. I still have not heard a Matrix denial that the
> > reported problems do not exist. So, once again, I'll ask, "Which
> > *exact* problems are you denying occur?"
>
> Right, I'll just stop what I'm doing now and go through your list
> point by point... sorry, we already did that and for the most part you
> ignored us. I don't like to repeat past mistakes. If you'd wanted to
> know which reported problems we had issues with, you were offered an
> open invitation many times to be part of the process, with every issue
> available to and viewable by the public. There were also exchanges on
> the forum where the developer responded after investigating an issue
> and you simply refused to accept the result of the investigation.


Again, Cite? Where did you do this in the past? If you “already did
it”, it should be easy for you to post a link. If it exists/existed,
where is it?


Sorry, I have the e-mail from Don Gilman himself asking me to take
down the Lists of Issues and can make it available to anyone who sends
me a PM.

I declined to participate on the bug tracker because I knew that it
would, once again, disappear in the future at the whim of AGSI. Been
there and done that with AGSI and won’t waste time repeating the
farce. Instead, I answered *every single question* posted publicly on
Matrix forum.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=1802928

and I defy anyone to find a request for bug clarification that was not
answered within hours of it being posted.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=1803972


> > This inability to fully de-bug is especially true when all AGSI does
> > is add more bugs without fixing previous problems. Did you really
> > expect your septic tank to empty itself?
>
> I expect new updates to cause some issues in extremely complex games.
> That's not a surprise. I also know that despite the increasing list
> of issues on your list, the game is more stable and plays better than
> at any point since the H3ANW release. There's a disconnect between
> your list and reality, in my experience.


Evidently, you haven’t bothered to try any scenarios recently or any
MP. Exactly which scenario have you tried, in your experience?


> > Cite? What "good faith effort" are you claiming? I saw a few
> > messages asking for clarification on some bug reports. The additional
> > information was posted and then nothing more. Discussing five bugs
> > out of 200 is less than 3% of the problems. I doubt anyone would call
> > that a 'good faith effort'.
>
> This is really a lot of false information. There were months spent
> going over your list. Much of this was documented to the public both
> via many forum threads and the public bug tracker which we kept up for
> a while in the hope of getting reporting through that system. Based
> on my recollection, I would say it was more like 70% of the list that
> was investigated and of that probably half were not bugs, but rather
> subjective or database-specific reports that would not have been in a
> fairly compiled list. The 3.9.x series fixed many of your reported
issues, not just five.


Another unsubstantiated claim. Cite the specific example and I’ll be
more than happy to clarify how the problem continues to exist or else
remove it as an inaccurate report. Bad reports do occur and they are
corrected immediately – not four years later. This is how honest
people handle problems. I am certain that everyone can see the
difference.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=2142896


> > accomplice in trying to hide these issues from the public. AGSI and
> > Matrix have done all they can to obfuscate, deny, and silence their
> > critics. Now, if only they spent that effort in actually *Fixing
> > Problems*, then this game would have been functional two years
> > earlier. Instead, you continue down the same path hoping for a
> > different outcome.
>
> There is a difference between giving up on one particular person (you)
> because of your insistence on bashing and trolling and any actual
> attempt to silence our critics. I agree that the behavior immediately
> post-release was remarkably bad, though I understand it was also par
> for the course in the Harpoon community at that time, which was fairly
> poisonous in its atmosphere. What I'm talking about is your behavior
> since the time 2 years ago now when repeated efforts were made to
> openly discuss and address issues. Disagreeing with you on some of
> your reported issues and how you use them does not constitute
> obfuscation and denial. We don't disagree with bug reports, but we
> disagree with your list as an accurate representation of H3ANW and
> with the way you have used it over and over again to bash the
> developer instead of working with the developer.


Again, cite these repeated efforts to openly discuss issues. If they
were so extensive and prevalent, it shouldn’t be hard to find a link.
All I remember reading was one fanboi (not a developer) who kept
screaming that the bugs didn’t happen only to end up with a face full
of fish when it was revealed *he* was actually the one who did not
know how the game worked.
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=2135562


> We have given up on
> trying to get past your issues with us to work constructively
> together. It takes a while to run through my patience, but that's
> where we are now.


And therein lies the difference between us. Even after all
irresponsible behaviour from both AGSI and Matrix, I am still willing
to post bug clarifications and help out new players.


> > However, at least you are able to honestly acknowledge the bug-
> > infested initial release of ANW. Although this took over FOUR years
> > to recognize, it can still be regarded as 'progress' (even if on a
> > geological scale.) Maybe in another four years, Matrix and AGSI will
> > be able to admit that the List of Known bugs was right on target, too.
> > [when the _next_ version of Harpoon is released ;-)]
>
> I've always acknowledged that actually and AGSI and the team as a
> whole has acknowledged that for more than two years now since the
> 3.9.x series got started. This is another mischaracterization.


Good to know that Matrix and AGSI fully acknowledge they knew of the
bugginess in ANW yet continued to release it in its current state and
asking customers to pay *full price* for it. The only difference is
that the last two years were pretty much the same as the first two.


> > The problem remains. If this game actually worked in any way, shape,
> > or form, then there would be no problems and no dissent from the
> > community of players. So long as the game continues to functions so
> > poorly, these complaints will never cease. The policy of De-bugging
> > by Denial just doesn't work for ANW.
>
> We simply live in different realities. There is a regular good faith
> effort here to listen to and address reported issues and there are a
> lot of people playing H3ANW without issues. For the Ultimate Edition
> release, the most severe issue since release was an installer DLL
> registration issue, not an issue in the game itself.


The only difference in reality is the fact that I can back up all my
statements with evidence that is publicly available for independent
verification. No one needs to 'trust' me. You, on the other hand
have been evasive and obfuscatory at every instance and been unable to
provide a single link to corroborate your opinions. So, to re-
iterate:

Where did you you deal with the reported bugs? Cite
Which bugs can you not replicate? Cite

Citations - It is as simple as that

eddys...@hotmail.com

unread,
Nov 15, 2010, 3:19:51 AM11/15/10
to
On 15 nov, 07:19, HermanH <herman...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I didn’t know it was so blazingly obvious to the general public.  :-D

... and it would be blazingly simple to take the wind out of your
sails if I ran things

1) Take next item on the buglist
2) Recreate bug while stepping through the code
2) Fix it
3) Repeat x times
4) Release patch

In my professional programming life I've encountered thousands of bug
reports. Most of them of the type "uh, the program crashed and there
was an error message, but I'm too stupid to figure out that the text
of that error might have been important to the programmer so I didn't
bother taking a screenshot or writing it down, nor do I know what I
was doing at the time"

So when someone comes along with a buglist and *instructions* on how
to re-create them I'd kiss the ground he walks on.

If AGSI can't fix that sort of bugs they've got no business trying to
write (or sell) software.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

Frank E

unread,
Nov 15, 2010, 8:27:09 AM11/15/10
to
On Sat, 13 Nov 2010 07:46:20 -0800 (PST), ERutins
<er...@matrixgames.com> wrote:

>> The List grows because of the additional problems every "patch
>> release" adds.  Once again, blaming users for problems created by AGSI
>> is ridiculous.  I still have not heard a Matrix denial that the
>> reported problems do not exist.  So, once again, I'll ask, "Which
>> *exact* problems are you denying occur?"
>
>
>Right, I'll just stop what I'm doing now and go through your list
>point by point... sorry, we already did that and for the most part you
>ignored us.

Ya know, that's exactly that the fuck you should be doing. Given all
the time that's spent by Matrix/Slitherine either bashing Vinnie and
Herman or protecting the sanctity of the Matrix forums from the
disruptive influences of 'The List', why not just put an end to it
instead?

Go through the damn list, put a note by each entry and show whether
you consider it a bug, a database issue, working as intended or
whatever. It's a radical approach but actually discussing the
(possible) bugs instead of attacking people and whitewashing the
forums might give you some credibility.

Rgds. Frank

Briarroot

unread,
Nov 15, 2010, 11:58:43 AM11/15/10
to
On 11/14/2010 11:51 PM, Alan_Bernardo wrote:

>
> Briarroot wrote:
>
>> You don't understand the questions I asked which leaves you unable to
>> answer them - or even attempt to address them. It's plainly evident why
>> you so often suggest that I must be watching Fox News; you aren't
>> capable of analysis yourself, you merely regurgitate what *you* hear
>> which leaves you unable to even consider that my thinking may be
>> original. You simply have no experience with that kind of thing!
>>
>
> Wow, you are so far gone it's hard to believe you are even alive. The
> junk you spew is coming from FOX news: whether indirectly through some
> other source or directly. You go on and on about the same stuff,
> saying the same things, and then claim someone else is doing exactly
> the same thing as you do.
>

"Wow" indeed! <chuckles> As I note previously: Those who are incapable
of original thinking are unable to recognize that faculty in others.
Having themselves no means of analysis, they invariably suspect their
debating opponents are handicapped by the same disability. Since their
own arguments consist of half-understood regurgitated statements and
ill-thought-out emotional babble, it follows naturally that they think
their critics must be doing likewise.


> I'll bet that of the thousands of posts you write each day that the
> whole gist of what you're attempting to say would come down to a small
> paragraph, with even that being something that someone else has said
> somewhere else.
>

"Thousands of posts?" <laughs> And oh, by the way: "the whole gist"
is a rhetorical tautology. What subject did you say you taught?
<chuckles> You're not a teacher!


> But go on ahead and pretend that what you say is somehow original. If
> it makes you happy to lie to yourself that is no business of mine.
> The why of it all is for you to mull over, not me.
>

My job here is to point at idiots like you and snicker. That's all I
do. It's worth the minimal effort required if it incites a response
revealing just *how* stupid, ignorant and childish the particular idiot
may be. With you, I've succeeded beyond all expectations! <rubs hands
together gleefully>


--
"Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are
shocked and offended to discover that there *are* other views." -
William F. Buckley Jr.

Mike Kreuzer

unread,
Nov 15, 2010, 4:36:34 PM11/15/10
to


Frank's angry, real angry. Must be a day with a y in the name. <g>

He has a point however - Is there a list available from when Matrix did
this the last time?

Regards,
Mike Kreuzer
www.mikekreuzer.com

Frank E

unread,
Nov 15, 2010, 3:55:25 PM11/15/10
to
On 16 Nov 2010 07:36:34 +1000, Mike Kreuzer
<mi...@FIRSTNAMEkreuzer.com> wrote:

Gimme a break, it was Monday morning! <g> ... and I was looking
forward to a meeting here at work that was going to play out much like
this thread. People looking to shoot the messenger or just looking for
someone to blame instead of actually addressing the problem. My rant
at Eric was just a practice run, the people I really was angry at got
a more polished and fleshed out version. :p

Rgds, Frank

Scott

unread,
Nov 15, 2010, 8:20:10 PM11/15/10
to
I see. Kudos to the philanthropic NNTP server owners.

Were you referring to Google Groups or does Google offer NNTP access to
newsreaders?

Mike Kreuzer

unread,
Nov 16, 2010, 3:41:06 AM11/16/10
to

LOL, fair enough!

Regards,
Mike Kreuzer
www.mikekreuzer.com

eddys...@hotmail.com

unread,
Nov 16, 2010, 4:14:52 AM11/16/10
to
On 15 nov, 21:55, Frank E <fakeaddr...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Gimme a break, it was Monday morning! <g> ... and I was looking
> forward to a meeting here at work that was going to play out much like
> this thread. People looking to shoot the messenger or just looking for
> someone to blame instead of actually addressing the problem. My rant
> at Eric was just a practice run, the people I really was angry at got
> a more polished and fleshed out version. :p

If you're going to continue to use this ng as a business practice
ground we're going to have to charge you for it :)

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

Briarroot

unread,
Nov 16, 2010, 12:23:07 PM11/16/10
to
On 11/15/2010 8:20 PM, Scott wrote:
> I see. Kudos to the philanthropic NNTP server owners.
>
> Were you referring to Google Groups or does Google offer NNTP access to
> newsreaders?
>

Google Groups. As far as I know, Google doesn't run a standard nntp
server.

WWW access attracts those who have never heard of Usenet as well as
making life easy for those who have but are daunted by the alleged
'difficulty' of setting up a newsreader and locating a news server.
Google Groups effectively camouflages the text-based format of Usenet,
and some of Google's users remain completely unaware of its distributed
nature. These people can be identified when they refer to a Usenet
newsgroup as "this site," or when they threaten to "report" the behavior
of another poster <g>. They think Google owns the forums as they would
with a ordinary web site.


--
"In 2010, Americans awakened to the fact that their financial future is
much more precarious than they had understood. They realized they owe
trillions for unfunded government employees' pension and medical
benefits. Thus there suddenly emerged an issue that may dominate this
decade's debate - how the collaboration between government workers'
unions and elected officials has looted state and municipal
governments." - George Will, The Washington Post

Miowarra Tomokatu (aka Tomo)

unread,
Nov 16, 2010, 1:54:02 PM11/16/10
to
On Tue, 16 Nov 2010 01:14:52 -0800 (PST), "eddys...@hotmail.com"
<eddys...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>If you're going to continue to use this ng as a business practice
>ground we're going to have to charge you for it :)
>
>Greetz,
>
>Eddy Sterckx

Yeah - I had to put up with enough of that distributed commercial
excrement when I still had to work for a living that I want a cut of
the takings if you're going to bring it here!! (g)

Mike Kreuzer

unread,
Nov 17, 2010, 2:48:44 AM11/17/10
to

Yes, is there a link?

Regards,
Mike Kreuzer
www.mikekreuzer.com

0 new messages