Sorry, but this is wrong

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: nim8or
Any chance you could reply to my email or PM sent over a week ago?

I probably missed it - could you please re-send to erikr@matrixgames.com? Things are very crazy here right now.

Regards,

- Erik

[rich12545]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Rich,

ORIGINAL: rich12545
Iain, your post makes no sense mainly because Harpoon patches have been made by volunteers and not by devs.

Harpoon has to sustain full-time developers as well, despite the fact that there are also volunteers working on the project. Please don't make me explain this again.

Regards,

- Erik

excuse me, but I don't recall seeing it the first time. You might have said it but I haven't seen it explained. If the work is being done by volunteers, what do full time developers do? Why are they necessary? How can full time developers (plural) keep busy if the work is being done by volunteers?

[Erik Rutins]

Please see post #38. Harpoon 3 has a development team that includes volunteers but also paid staff. I'm not in charge of how the developer allocates royalties, but I'm sure that Harpoon is not an all-volunteer project. Harpoon itself is a licensed product as well. There is a fundamental misunderstanding on your part about what makes it possible for products like this to exist and continue to be improved and developed. Please read my earlier replies.

Regards,

- Erik

[JudgeDredd]

Well I'm buying now. I want to see what ANW is like and Hertston's comment (damn you again) about seeing the history and evolution intrigued me.

[rich12545]

I've read your earlier replies and my questions continue to go unanswered.

My major complaint is the cost. $35 + tax to continue receiving patches for one game is simply outrageous.

I don't care about the other content.

However, if Ultimate will be on the holiday sale for at least $15-20 off and I would still be able to use my previous owner discount, I'll give serious consideration to buying. I'm not trying to be unreasonable and understand development costs. But $35+ is just too much for a few patches.

[shauny1987]

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

Well I'm buying now. I want to see what ANW is like and Hertston's comment (damn you again) about seeing the history and evolution intrigued me.

Agreed, this was my main reason, ANW I feel is leading on to be my favorite one. I like the interface and more 'complex' nature of it!

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: rich12545

I've read your earlier replies and my questions continue to go unanswered.

My major complaint is the cost. $35 + tax to continue receiving patches for one game is simply outrageous.

I don't care about the other content.

However, if Ultimate will be on the holiday sale for at least $15-20 off and I would still be able to use my previous owner discount, I'll give serious consideration to buying. I'm not trying to be unreasonable and understand development costs. But $35+ is just too much for a few patches.

rich,

as a suggestion, if $35 is too high, why not wait for the patch that brings your current games up to this level, I think I read that was going to ready soon. Then wait until the next patches are out and then decide if it's worth it.

thanks,
Rick

[rich12545]

ORIGINAL: Rick

ORIGINAL: rich12545

I've read your earlier replies and my questions continue to go unanswered.

My major complaint is the cost. $35 + tax to continue receiving patches for one game is simply outrageous.

I don't care about the other content.

However, if Ultimate will be on the holiday sale for at least $15-20 off and I would still be able to use my previous owner discount, I'll give serious consideration to buying. I'm not trying to be unreasonable and understand development costs. But $35+ is just too much for a few patches.

rich,

as a suggestion, if $35 is too high, why not wait for the patch that brings your current games up to this level, I think I read that was going to ready soon. Then wait until the next patches are out and then decide if it's worth it.

thanks,
Rick

Yeah, obviously I'm going to patch to the Ultimate level and see. But Harpoon patches seem to come at least a year apart so who knows if the current buyer discount will still be available when the next patch arrives.

It must be nice to have enough money to plunk down $35 just to see what it looks like.

[shauny1987]

Cry baby.

There are way too many whiners here. Either buy the product or dont. Whether it is fair or not doesnt matter. Whether you like it or not doesnt matter. Whether you think its just a patch doesnt matter.

Either you buy it or you dont, quit whining about it. Any true fan of Harpoon would not whine about shelling out a fair amount of money with a discount for EVERY Harpoon game + patches + further support for the Harpoon franchise.

*and Harpoon is a niche market, it needs die hards not whiners.

[Erik Rutins]

No personal attacks please, let's keep it civil.

Rich, where we disagree is on the point that $35 is an outrageous price. I've expressed my thoughts on this earlier in this thread, but fundamentally, whenever you bought the existing games you will benefit from 3-4 years of additional development post-release provided in the form of free updates that included not only fixes but new features. Through the print-friendly manuals upload, you also have free access to the updated manuals, which were months of work. The package itself with the upgrade coupon offers both games, updated and with continued support for less than half of the previous combined price.

I respect that none of us are floating in cash now, it's not a fun economy. I respect that you may decide this new release is not worth your while. It will not be on sale this year, but it will likely be on sale in next year's holiday sale. With all that said, this does not mean that it's cool for you to cast us as money-grubbing or screwing over our existing customers when the industry standard is to provide much less support than we have and to provide no upgrade coupon whatsoever.

That's not how we do things - we serve a niche market and we do our best to keep free updates coming as long as we can and to offer a discounted upgrade path when that's no longer possible since customer satisfaction and loyalty mean a lot to us. Whether you agree that the release is worth it for you or not, please extend us the benefit of the doubt that making these games does cost money and that maintaining them does also cost money, which means that free updates cannot continue indefinitely. You do not have our balance sheets, so you will have to take my word for that. The customer does have a voice in our company and keeping the customer's interests in mind is always a part of our internal decision-making, but we also can't pay our own bills by giving away everything for free.

Regards,

- Erik

[rich12545]

I downloaded the new manuals. But since I had surgery around my eyes a few days ago I won't be able to read them for at least a week. Then when the patch comes out I'll give the whole thing a run and see what improvements over the last patch. If ANW has improved considerably that will be nice too. HCE was my fifth Harpoon purchase over the years so I suppose I'll end up getting another probably next year.

And I don't worry about personal attacks. It says more about what the poster is really like inside than anything else.

[shauny1987]

I must state, I wasnt being personal, I was just stating that the level of petulant children on the board had dramatically increased since this release. It was not a personal attack on you or anyone else.

[JudgeDredd]

ORIGINAL: rich12545
It must be nice to have enough money to plunk down $35 just to see what it looks like.

Well I work hard 9-5:30 5 days a week and I believe I earn my wage...so I have no problems spending it. I wish I didn't buy games. I seldom play any through. It's a curse - trust me

[rich12545]

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

ORIGINAL: rich12545
It must be nice to have enough money to plunk down $35 just to see what it looks like.

Well I work hard 9-5:30 5 days a week and I believe I earn my wage...so I have no problems spending it. I wish I didn't buy games. I seldom play any through. It's a curse - trust me

Oh I trust you on this. I've had the curse for 30 years. [:'(]

And it used to be where I could just do it too. But now I'm retired on a very limited income. Things change.

[shauny1987]

In this, we are all agreed

[roeddog]

Erik,

AGSI/Matrix Games has done the unthinkable (as interpreted solely by the relatively small group of consistent complainers) ! You have, with the publication of HUE, just stopped dead in their tracks the people who have been complaining for years now. Many of those griping in this thread are lead by one particular narcissistic pied piper gifted with a persuasive silver tongue (or in this case keyboard) and a penchant for fabrication.

By closing the books on 3.9.x and ALL pervious versions the developers and Matrix just vaporized the phantom bug list floating around, it ended once and for any debate of database ownership or scenario creation authorship. In essence you've just elimated the very reason for living for one or two of these folks and sorely hurt their minions; egos have been deflated and prides wounded and, thankfully, soon keyboards of bitching will be silenced. I'd buy you and the devs a beer if I wasn't using my discretionary funds to buyHUE!

So, Erik, grab a brew sit down and lean back put your feet up on the desk turn you monitor so you can see it comfortably and just read and laugh along with the rest of us who care about this game. Watch as that small group of thorns in our side slowly begin to implode. Imagine the look on their faces as they spray their drinks all over their monitors when they fully realize they're not complaining about the 35 dollar price tag, nor the fact that 3.10 is substantially the same as 3.9.X with all those updates/patches/features that have been included over the past for years for the whopping price of zero dollars and the devs on board for future improvements. No, it's not either of those that is the psychological reason for griping If it hasn't yet, it will eventually strike them and strike them hard that they've been SILENCED! In one fell swoop their reign of complain came to an abrupt and bitter end![&o] They can now move on to something else, or choose to comisserate with each other and complain about what was and might have been on some other obscure board or USENET listserv, or shut up and move forward with 3.10 and beyond.

I for one, and doubtfully am I alone in this, sick of the flame wars, personal attacks, FUD campaigns, unsubstantiated and unverifiable phantom bug lists, databases of dubious origins being claimed as authoritative, postings of the umteenth new scenario this year that's not garaunteed to work with the latest official version and then hearing the same scenario designers scream of bug when <gasp>it doesn't work. Bye, adios, ciao, so-long.

[shauny1987]

<=HUE community=>
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[Erik] [:-] -----> [:@] [:@][:@]


[Me] [:D]

[TonyAAA]

[edit

[rich12545]

I've read posts by some of the folks described in roeddog's post. But I never got involved in all that and really didn't pay much attention. Too boring. Maybe I'm missing something. I don't see how Ultimate will solve this problem.

[TonyAAA]

ORIGINAL: rich12545

... Maybe I'm missing something. I don't see how Ultimate will solve this problem.

Without naming names, I believe roeddog was referring to a specific person that would spam nearly every Harpoon thread on many different forums with a "bug" list that mainly consisted of complaints about parts of certain scenarios that wouldn't run under certain versions/databases of Harpoon.

(Like listing problems of a scenario designed for 3.6.3 when running under 3.9.x)

Ultimate "solves" that separate issue as it contains many of those older versions which may run certain scenarios better.

It doesn't solve the problem of charging for patches--which I thought was what this thread was about.