Ä Area: F Trade Wars ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
  Msg#: 6991                                         Date: 05-11-93  16:23
  From: Joel Downer                                  Read: Yes    Replied: No 
    To: All                                          Mark:                     
  Subj: Notes From Mr. Martin
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
This afternoon, surprisingly enough, Gary Martin called me.  He feels
hurt and angry about some of the recent posts on the echo, and he wanted
to clarify the status of version 2.0 and to respond to some of the
criticism he has received here.

We talked for quite a while, and while I don't think either of us came
out quite satisfied with the other's position, he said some things that
bear repeating.  He specifically asked me to pass along a few things,
and had no problem with my summarizing anything else I felt appropriate
from the conversation.  Apparently, he is continuing to have trouble
installing Fidonet support on his board, so using an intermediary is the
only convenient way he can post here.  I will do my best to summarize
his remarks fairly, and to indicate where I am describing my reaction
to what he said rather than what he said.

First of all, Gary asked me to pass along my apologies to the users of
the echo for the delays in the 2002 development process.  He let me know
one reason that for the unexplained delays, which is that he has been
developing a MBBS port of TradeWars over the past year in conjunction
with another software firm.  Apparently, he was not permitted by his
non-disclosure agreement to mention this fact to his customers during the
development cycle, but that game is now ready to be announced.  He also
noted that the demands of family and career, neither of which were an
issue during the original development of 1.0x, have often left him in
"a couple beers and veg out all evening" condition rather than in shape
to work on the game.

Gary noted that he does occasionally read TRADE_WARS on a local VBBS
board; he noted that he sometimes replies here, but was not sure if his
replies were getting out.  His reaction was ambiguous when I told him that
the last message I had seen from him here was the message (about three
months ago) when he announced the March 1 release date for the beta.  I
found this entire part of the exchange very confusing.

He also told me emphatically that he is *pleased* rather than
uncomfortable with the fact that another quality TradeWars game is
currently in development.  (I was probably a bit insensitive in the way I
effused about Greg Watts's enthusiasm and energy, but I can be a klutz
sometimes. <g>)  While Gary was (perhaps understandably) defensive about
the progress of his own beta cycle, he said that he was more concerned
about the welfare of the TW community and of the game than he was about
his competitive position or profit from the game.  He reminded me several
times during the conversation that he had priced 2002 with a "low cost,
minimal support" strategy in mind and that the registration money he has
made from the game does not amount to a very substantial income over the
time had taken to write it.  As far as I could tell, he repeated this
point (a) to clarify why this game rates behind projects like his MBBS
system and the MBBS port among his priorities, and (b) to deflect some
of the criticism he has received about his support of the game.

For my part, I did my best to help him understand why many customers
(including me) are upset with his support of the game.  I acknowledged
that $15.00 is an exceptionally low price for a game like 2002, and I
tried to give him a feeling for how much the game has meant to me.  I
let him know that the points that turned me into an unsatisfied customer
have nothing to do with the price of the game:  they have to do with
promises he has made and broken, and with minimal support (i.e., bug
fixes) that he has refused to provide.  I acknowledged that the planned
new features sound exciting, but noted that many enthusiasts would have
preferred a prompt bug fix to a promise of new features.  I told him that
while I do not speak for everyone, I would have preferred if he had
announced that he was abandoning the game after version 1.03 rather
than make and break repeated promises for two years to upgrade and fix
the game.

He acknowledged that he has a problem with making commitments he can't
live up to.  It's hard for me to know what to make of an admission like
this, but I appreciate the fact that he didn't try to deny it.  With the
preface that he wasn't trying to make excuses, he told me repeatedly
about the demands of his schedule and the scarce time he had to devote
to the game.  To be blunt, I *did* come out of the discussion with the
feeling that he was making excuses (especially for the broken promises
and for the scanty effort he has made to keep his customers informed)
but I also came out of the conversation with a better feeling for his
schedule.  He's a very busy man, and I don't envy him his
responsibilities.

He had detailed remarks about two specific points.  First of all, he
answered my complaint about the Castle Ravenloft policy of deleting
messages asking about the release date for version 2.0.  Apparently,
for the past several months, Mary Ann *has*, as I thought she should,
begun to reply using a stock note rather than deleting the messages
unread.  My remarks on that point were out-of-date and inaccurate, and
I retract them.

Second, he made some remarks in reply to the complaints about the shape
of the 2.0 beta.  He acknowledges that the game currently in testing is
closer to an early alpha than to a beta product.  He agreed with me that
the promotion of the beta on this echo and elsewhere -- which, according
to him, was an idea of the testers and not something he approved -- was
premature and probably a mistake.  He seemed to understand why a user
who waited over a year for 2.0 or called long distance to play the beta
might be disappointed in the game that is currently available.

However, he was very sharply defensive about his approach to the testing
and about the current state of his code.  His approach is to begin with
a skeleton of code to make sure that the large universe module works,
and then to add additional features one by one.  He told me that he has
a great deal of code already written that he has simply not linked in
yet because of this approach.  Many of the crashes and some of the
strange behavior (e.g., the fact that a user was not being punished when
busted) are a consequence of code he was waiting to link in.  He
emphasized that with the MBBS port now done, he would have much more
time to devote to the 2002 project, and he seemed optimistic about its
prospects.

The conversation left me with mixed feelings.  He left me with little
doubt that he was committed to finishing 2.0, but my previous experience
with his commitments leaves me skeptical about how much this commitment
is worth.  He was more receptive than I expected to criticism about the
game and his support of the game.  However, I still don't get the feeling
that he understands the reasons for a lot of the hostility and frustration
he encounters every time he appears on public echoes.

Anyway, I hope my ramblings have been of interest.  I've done my best to
be thorough and balanced.

Take care,

Joel

 * OLX 2.1 TD * Time and distance are out of place here.


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