What is the issue Mag?...

" if Herman should of never been allowed to review the game, who is this Kondor to tell us why? FAIR?"

Got it!...

But what is the issue about Herman?...A guy @ Subsim, that never posted much before, Had an issue against Herman and it's review.

Besides most people that are criticizing his review did not purchase the game.

I bought the game, thinking it was something solid, and I canceled the charges on my CC yesterday, as it appeared to me, when it comes to Torpedoes, that there are pre-set and unrealistic calculations -one size fits all- type of approach. Then the developers skipped the issue and was dismissive of other people's work, especially of Tom Clancy's work. Not skilled PR! Those are my findings, nothing to do with Herman.

So what is the issue with Herman Mag?

This is just too easy. From the review:



The review made no mention of Merged Range Rings whatsoever. It's simply not there. It was correct to exclude them since they played no role in the congestion or decongestion of the map display.

The only reason they are even being discussed at this point is a false claim that they would somehow help clarify the map clutter. They do not do so. They are irrelevant since the discussion is on Inability to Turn-off Graphic Features and range rings can be turned off.

Again, I notice that the fact that the target is smothered in Red, Yellow, Green, and White bars is, once again, ignored because it actually shows how cluttered the map can get due to the user's Inability to Turn-off Graphic Features.

Exactly what "Graphic Features" are you wanting turned off?

Also, look at the example screen cap you used in the review.

If you weren't trying to highlight the effect of the range rings, why do they figure so prominently?
Why did you activate every single possible label for every single platform, when no one would ever play that way?
Why did you use such a low (800x600?) resolution with non-standard, cartoonish symbols?
If you weren't trying to mislead, give us an alternative explanation. I'm listening, but all I hear is further entrenchment.


And are you even able to accept that many people might find things like the merged range rings useful? That they might be quite useful to declutter the display? That you were wrong to not even mention this or all the other ways you can easily Clutter and De-clutter the display before you listed this as a big problem?

Sigh, so easy to disprove everything in that statement.

The Graphic features that cannot be turned off are things like Time of Contact, Number of Targets, Health Bars, and In-Bound Weapons.

The range rings are there simply because they are a normal part of the game. The review never claimed that the range rings were ever part of the congestion and clutter. You will never find it, because it doesn't exist.

Your claim that every possible label is activated is, as usual, false. The only datablock activated is the one for the single aircraft. That's ONE single, solitary aircraft on the entire map, not an unreasonable expectation. No other label is activated, had you bothered to look.

As noted, the Contact Emissions can be turned off so that the 'snowstorm effect' is no longer present. Instead, it is replaced by the Green/Red/Yellow/White cloud of bars.

The image is the same 1280x720 as all images attached, despite your repeated denials to the contrary.

What the #%&*$# is your problem Gunny... read some threads before you post will ya... I've never had a issue with Herman, don't know him, and don't care. So don't "Mag" me... you've got the wrong person(s) hating on herman.


I'm letting these 2 "experts" duke it out with counter-and counter-counter post to get to the truth.

I think they mentioned that in the documentation. It is in the DLZ section. Perhaps the AI is focusing more on NEZ when it comes to torpedoes? I.E., "The enemy ship can evade my torpedo by going in the opposite direction of the torpedo at top speed once it detects it, so let me get in close enough so that even if he does attempt this it will have a high chance of hitting." In this situation you can have a 20 mile range with a weapon, but the actual range is dependent on the speed of the weapon and the speed of the target. The entire section is on pages 130-2. Or maybe it is a detection issue? Your ship hasn't detected said enemy for instance, something else did.

Agreed TankHunter.

They are different type of vessels and different type of torpedoes.

All vessels don't detect torpedoes at the same distance, don't evade at the same speed as all the torpedoes don't run at the same speed or at constant speed, make the same noise, cover the same distance, etc.

Not all vessels evade, especially Subs.

Each case can be unique.

The lack of reference to unique situation turned me off.

Unfortunately that documentation was not available before I purchased the product.

I agree the game is a bug filled mess with a terrible UI. I can hardly wait to see how he counters the snowing at the equator crap?

Even Herman did not come anywhere close to describing the game in this language. You're expressing your opinion as fact and doing it obnoxiously. You've been here a month, with 8 posts. Use better manners and sounder judgement, please.

Love the "He played it the wrong way!" argument which, of course, translates to, "He didn't play it MY way."


You said it best, yourself:


Exactly. Range Rings were never mentioned in the review nor were Merged Range Rings. They were discussed in the 'counter-review' so they are mentioned and dismissed. They were left out of the review since they were not a problem.


Bottom line, if one player can find these problems, any player can encounter the same problems. 'Counter-reviews' written by authors who felt embarrassed because someone disagreed with their MP ideas should probably be taken with a grain of salt.

Below is a para that is part of another post in a different area. Moderator, I hope I'm not violating a rule by excerpting it here; seemed as if it might be relevant here:

If I may make a more general observation, the danger that concerns me here is the tendency for game forums and I guess online forums in general to reach a boiling point that can bring the whole thing down. SimHQ has been generally free of the sort of vitriolic flaming virtual hatred that has burned up some excellent forums in the past. My sense is that the spark gets lit in the tinder when we lapse into personal insinuations and motive-seeking. The nature of writing online itself lends itself to these sorts of blow-ups that would be far less likely to happen sitting around a living room in person, discussing and arguing about the fine points of entertainment. I am seeing this currently in an observational astronomy forum I am a member of. Tremendously intelligent, creative scientists and lay technicians, some ex military...virtually screaming at each other no longer over fine points of math or tech, but over whether one guy really insulted another even if he didn't do so - simply by asking the question, he *might* have been THINKING an insult! Partisans develop, and now one group has left in a huff and spends their time in a private forum squealing and raging over bits of text from the original forum.

I would hate to see the same thing happen at SimHQ.

Eugene

What does Herman's opinion have to do with mine? I own the game its a FACT its full of bugs and saying so isn't obnoxious unless you have some connection to the product. My judgment of the game is just fine so I'll say it again its a bug filled mess with a terrible UI, deal with it.

Could you be more specific on which bugs are the most vexing for you? I encountered some freezes, CTDs, weapons unable to fire, etc. during the course of the review (even though I did not mention any of them within the article.)

Don't fall into the same trap as the 'counter-reviewer' by posting claims that simply do not stand up to scrutiny.

I've been writing them down and I'm going to double check as I'm sure some might be errors om my part. So far 1/2 are UI and 1/2 bugs many are the same as what you stated above. Don't have lots of time on the weekends so it'll be a few days. In the mean time just head over to their site and have a good read. Over all this "Premium" game IMO could have used another year just for polishing and bug hunting to make it truly a "Premium" title. I do think the devs are stand up guys and will honestly try to fix it but for the money it should have been better out of the gate especially if you're going to call it "Premium" and charge 80.00 to 120.00 (depending on where you live and tax).

I played ,I believe, first contact last night and either those Vikings kick ass or those Russian are pussies. I sank all their ships, with guns, and they never fired a single weapon at me, change course or do anything other than let me bombard them. BORING! I know I'm not that good so something has to be wrong with the AI.

Herman, where in the world did you get those "Health Bars" from? The damage are in the right hand side of the screen. What do you hate so much about NTDS that you had to replace it? Konrad has a valid point. you request so much information that you drown in it, and then you complain that you're drowning. Then you declutter the display and then complain that you're not drowning in it...

The health bars (I don't know the official MNO term for them) are the Red/Yellow/Green bars you see over the target icons along with the white ones under the aircraft.

I do not understand what you mean by 'you request so much information'. I have turned off as many items as possible. The game simply does not allow me to turn off more. And, that is the crux of the matter. The information is good! However, forcing a player to always have it displayed on the map when it may not be needed is not a good thing. Players should be able to control their flow of information. Your needs are going to be different than mine. Vive la difference! Range rings, Datablocks, Contact emissions can be turned off. This is excellent. I am criticizing the inability to turn off other information details.

I do not use NTDS symbols because I approach Harpoon and MNO as games. They are meant for fun and not work. I do not want to worry about remembering symbols when I'm trying to have fun. The fact that Harpoon allows you to switch between symbol sets with a simple click while MNO requires a user to hunt down third-party mod files is significant. I use the Stylized icons both for the ease of my reference and for anyone watching either the video or reading the review. Most people can recognize a boat or airplane symbol, even if they do not know the NTDS equivalent.

I do not know what you are talking about: "Then you declutter the display and then complain that you're not drowning in it."

I was not asking you for a definitive list of every bug you may have encountered (like http://tinyurl.com/AGSIs-Known-ANW-Issues.)

I was simply curious if you would like to share some of them. After all, you admit that some of your perceived bugs may, in fact, be due to your own errors.

I agree that the First Contact 1973 scenario is a total walk-over by the Norwegians. Just bring in the big guns and pound the enemy to dust. Not much of a challenge.

Well I certainly didn't want to share one that may not be correct however I'm pretty sure they are all bugs just wanted to confirm first.

Many are UI related the biggest one so far. And this might be a UI + Bug, is that if I up the time to 30 minutes to 1 sec and if shooting breaks out you can't do anything.. By that I mean, you can't go back to 1:1 time you can't pause the game you can't do anything until sometime after the shooting stops (note it doesn't start working again as soon as the shooting stops but can take up to 30 seconds or longer after it all settles down.) This goes for key presses, menu items, mouse clicks, nothing works and the battle rages on, hopefully you're winning because if you aren't your ships will be sunk before you can ever get control back. If this isn’t bad enough after that the menus don't seem to work properly either, for example if you right click and try to select "attack" the menu closes as soon as you try to move the mouse to the "attack" menu item. So basically you can open the menu via right click but if you move the mouse the menu closes, it’s very frustrating. (Note sometimes you don’t even have to move the mouse it’s as though something is refreshing the screen and the refresh closes the menu) This problem doesn't seem to happen if I run the game at slower speeds and I haven't tested it on times over 30 minutes to 1 sec however it is constant whenever I use 30min:1sec.

So give it a try and see if it’s just me and my PC. I have a fairly high end PC so I'm sure it’s not that my PC can’t handle the game , or at least it shouldn't be, as I'm well within the specs for the game.

The "First contact" I played was for the later years and I would at least think those Russians would defend themselves or turn tide and run. I am close enough to ID them with mk1 eyeball so I'm sure they know I'm there, not to mention the fact I am firing on them, but they just keep on going on their normal course letting me blast them to the bottom of the sea.

I know games like this have bugs and I somewhat expect them however in this case the bugs + the UI IMO makes the game very frustrating and, to me at least, unplayable and for the price it’s downright wrong to release a “Premium” title in this condition.

For a “Premium” Title we shouldn’t have to have users add pictures to the data base because the Devs didn’t want to deal with copyrights. I shouldn’t have to edit folders so I can switch symbols, etc etc. It’s great the game is mod able but it shouldn’t be up to users to make it “Premium.”

I've played “Alpha early access” games that were in better condition.

PS and why no data base for weapons?