mpdugas

Sorry, no hidden agenda here; merely responses to direct comments by others.

In the order of your reply, I offer the following: I personally offered to help Al get in contact with people of the U.S. Army that I knew who worked at Fort Hood, Texas so that you might sell your services to them, just as you have with other governments. Of course, that did not happen. I made that offer with no strings attached, as a member of the SB-using community. So I did, even ab initio, have an interest in helping SB grow. As for SB Pro, I have repeatedly acknowledged its presence and customer base, but I think the various objections raised to implementing better graphics because this is first a military training tool simply fails to recognize that this was actually a PC game to begin with. I've re-read your previous answers, but I truly do not see any that address why two versions could not co-exist, if your military customers insist on maintaining the present graphics subsystem. I truly doubt that this is a real issue; if you implemented better graphics, even your military customers would likely embrace them. Perhaps now is a good time to drop the issue about the difficulties of developmental parallelism. As for waiting, and letting eSim have a chance to try to do this on its own, in the next year or so, it would seem that 12 years is an adequate wait. This concern, and customer-requested change about it, has been on eSim's table for that long. I know this to be true: I personally raised the issue when SB was new. I sincerely believe that SB's original graphics engine was a substantial reason why it failed in the consumer market to begin with. To be fair, Al was working alone at the time, and I think he did a marvelous job given his resources. The game itself was, and remains so today, a marvelous and intricate exposition of modern armor combat. It reminds me of TacOps, another truly brilliant work in the same genre. Of course, TacOps enjoys the U.S. Army as a customer, and it is considerably older than SB. By my reckoning, both 'games' enjoy similar levels of authenticity and realism. It was obviously a strong competitor to SB. But it is another breed of cat altogether; no 3D immersion for it! As for my assertion that eSim could ask for community help in a legally safe environment, all the while protecting its ownership of its code, well, that is a path that others have traveled before you quite safely. These are not 'unknown waters'. eSim could control that process through NDAs and the like, releasing its code to the hands of community members willing to help in a controlled and safe fashion. As I have suggested, talk to those who have succeeded and see what options they suggest before you reject the notion outright. If it makes you more comfortable, think of your community base as a subcontractor willing to work for free, or at least under fiscal circumstances that eSim might find acceptable. Just like I did, so many years ago. eSim is no way threatened by the loss of its intellectual property by what I suggest; the only notion that I have brought to the table is the simple idea that SB community members, or others, for that matter, would be willing, under eSim-controlled circumstances, to help. As for BMS requiring that the user of their 'mod' have a legitimate copy of F4 from Microprose first, before the user can use BMS 4.32, my assertion is rested on the foundation that you cannot install the 'mod' without it. So Atari continues to enjoy their copyright even as people enjoy the latest modified iteration of F4. BMS is unique in this regard. Perhaps you were not aware of this. eSim could, among many other available methods, require the continued use of that bit of copyright protection offered by Codemaster. The price of SB certainly encourages the warez crowd. Google that, if you think not. However, please try to be fair: no where have I suggested that Esim release its code as an open-source object. No where have I suggested that eSim risk loss of control of their intellectual property rights. Furthermore, nothing that I am suggesting changes the business environment under which eSim would ordinarily sell this product. Before you dismiss this notion out-of-hand, take a moment to talk to those who have successfully trod this path before you. I truly believe that they will suggest alternatives to you for gathering and employing community support that will address your concerns about maintaining control. Maybe there is a way to do this which might be a bit more effective than your 'shout-out'. I certainly think so. I do suggest this, however: a modern SB, in all of its graphical glory, would make an awesome consumer product! You can thank me later, when you are rich and famous.

As I recall, SB was first a PC game simulating the modern armor warfare environment. It did not have, at the time of its initial release, a military customer base. Nor did it have, on its initial release, such a price tag as it does today, either. You might recall that I, personally, offered to Al to take up your case for using SB as a military simulator with people that I knew at Fort Hood back in the day. So to describe SB as first-and-foremost a military training simulator is not really accurate. Its true roots are found in the PC game arena. It has, however, due to some remarkably successful marketing efforts, evolved to become a significant player in that niche market. So I certainly acknowledge that the military's need is a large driving component of the present eSim success. The latter has become eSims bread-and-butter customer base, and for that I am glad. We are all grateful that the product still exists. However, to bring clarity to this discussion, I think that two issues need to be separated: one is the commercial product of SB as a gaming simulator, where graphics are important, and the other where SB is a military training software, where graphics are less important. There is no practical reason why the game cannot have both simulation accuracy and such graphics realism as is possible today. It is even possible to develop such variations in parallel if need be. I have merely suggested that eSims engage the talents of its users to help develop the graphical component of the simulator, much in the way that Benchmark Sims did with Falcon 4. I sincerely believe that such is possible to do without compromising the ownership of the underlying simulation code; even BMS requires that the user of its product own a legitimate copy of Falcon 4 first. So when you suggest, out-of-context, that I want SB to follow the same tortured path that F4 did, it is really not quite fair. As for your remarks about my concept of 'simulation reality', I believe that F4 was the first to involve an entire campaign, indeed an entire war, in action behind, and affected by, the efforts of the individual player, so in that regard, F4 and SB have remarkably common, and similar, cores. You ask, in a round-about way, what I would really like for SB: I would really like to see SB have state-of-the-art graphics along with state-of-the-art simulation reality. The resources for doing that are available now. I am confident that eSim enjoys an equally devoted and talented user base that is just as competent as that community which brought F4 to a polished gleam! So I suggest, again, that eSim contact the principals of those community-based development efforts to see just how they managed to accomplish such an amazing transformation with volunteer resources alone, all the while protecting the copyright interests of the original owner.

I bought SB when it was originally released for the PC many years ago. It was a complex program to learn, and I never did master it. I still find the concept intriguing, and it draws me back, again and again. Now that I am retired, I have, once again, decided that I will try to learn to use the program, for I sorely miss M1TP2, and would like to explore some of the complexities of modern armor warfare. SB is my only real choice. So I am trying to get the demo to run on my latest PC. Technically, it seems to be quite up-to-date with the realities of the modern armor warfare environment; I do not have any practical experience in this arena, so I trust that the tactical and technical representation is correct. However, SB is 12 years old now. Even when it was first released, its graphics were not exactly state-of-the-art, but they have improved considerably since its inception. In its initial iteration, it had no 3D graphical acceleration at all. From its earliest days, however, users have asked for better visual represention; I was among those requesting such when the game first came out. I see, and have seen, many people continue to ask for improvements in this area, and the general reply, most often from Nils Hinrichsen, seems to be fairly consistent: the company has too few resources to add what is often described as'eye-candy'. eSims prefers to use its resources to develop the technical aspects of the program, meaning the technical accuracy of the simulation itself, as contrasted to its graphical presentation. I think that that decision is partly driven by the need to maintain the satisfaction of its military customers. I understand that the major clients of SB are government agencies who do not really need more than correct mechanical and tactical accuracy for their training purposes. It is obvious that this must be so, for the soldiers who practice their war skills on it later put their very lives at risk when they go into the real world with that training. I can quite easily reconcile myself to the notion that the military does not require graphical 'bells-and-whistles'. I also reckon, without knowing, that the commercial, non-military subscriber base is considerably smaller, given the purchase price of the program, which I presume is designed to cover the cost of the PE version plus some profit margin. SB is unique in this regard; the price of SB is higher, by far, than any of its simulation gaming contemporaries. I think it is a testament to the loyalty of the non-military users that the simulation is so well-supported at this price point. It remains a burden for eSims however, because such a high entry fee inhibits wider adoption of the simulation in its present form. Given that 12 years have come and gone since the inception of SB, with users persistently asking for graphical updates and the slow progress of eSims toward developing the same, I think it is fair to surmise that the wait will continue for a while longer, given the stated priorities of its maker. After all, they run this show; it is their product. It really does not have to be this way, however. With, for example, the DCS series of flight simulators, it is apparent that graphical fidelity and simulation realism can co-exist quite happily. However, the developers of that software have considerably more resources at hand than does eSims. So it is hard for SB to compete in the modern simulation category from that development point-of-view. There is another solution of sorts that seems to be available, however. I am also a great fan of the Falcon 4 series of simulations. It is a testament to the support of its fan base that its latest and best presentation, in both technical accuracy and graphical presentation, is clearly the equal of any modern flight simulator. One only needs to watch BMS 4.32 videos, particularly the one that shows the graphics 'evolution' over the life of the product, to see that the users are quite capable of producing realistic, and beautiful, work. Check this out to see what I mean: . Recall that F4 is even older than SB.So my modest suggestion to eSims is that they permit their devoted fans to help them put SB in the modern graphics era; I think they should find a way to allow their user base to help develop the graphical programming subsystem in the same fashion that the Falcon community did. I am certain that the principals of Benchmark Sims, or FreeFalcon for that matter, would share their techniques (i.e. the "how" of the community development process) with eSims. There is no practical reason why, even for a commercial product like SB, that the Internet community of SB users couldn't be engaged to accomplish this development. Perhaps eSims will be willing to find a way to take advantage of the willingness of their fans to help them create a truly modern simulation. I am sure that they are capable of far more than just re-skinning the SB models. Otherwise, it will remain an expensive, technically superior, simulation. Just saying...