posted 03-05-99 12:17 AM ET        

Dear Firaxis,

Did you or did you not design your game to work under the Windows environment?

To say, "Oh, yeah, THAT crash. Well, that's a Windows problem" seems odd considering my Windows wouldn't crash (at that specific moment at least) unless I were playing SMAC would it?

True, Windows absolutely sucks and programming for it must be a nightmare, but that's your job: To program under Windows so it doesn't crash. Our job is to pay your salary. If you don't do your job, we can't really do ours.

I truly do appreciate that there is even such a person as Jeff here to read what we have to say, but why not just suck it up and say, "O.K., we'll kill the bug" and then fix it? Blaming Windows is extremely lame.

[Jeff's personal reply to my e-mail account]

Hi yin. I've got to ask what your problem is. Feel free to have
discussions about the game, even if you're not the biggest fan. But
please don't interfere with my ability to troubleshoot problems. If you
disagree with my suggestion, and have another that might solve the
problem, let me know. But don't purposelessly stir up trouble just to be
a pain. If it continues, I'll have to restrict your access to the forum,
which I REALLY don't want to do. Can we work this out?
--
Jeffrey Kennedy Morris
Firaxis Games
QA Director/Programmer
[email protected]

[my reply]

Dear Jeff,

If I misunderstood your post, then I apologize. But from what I could tell, people were reporting a crash (which I have also encountered) and your response was something to the effect of "That's a Window's problem not a SMAC problem." If you didn't mean to say that, then your post was ambiguous. How could it NOT be a SMAC problem when so many people encounter the same problem? If it's not a SMAC problem, then why does my system lock-up only when I play SMAC at certain stages in the game?

This IS clearly a problem between SMAC and Windows, but your response seemed to put the blame on Windows without admitting, "Yeah, we should have worked around that. It will be in patch 3.0"

For the record, you have been very helpful to many people, which is more than I can say for any other company I've dealt with. So don't get me wrong, I think you're doing a GREAT job. You would move to STELLAR status if you never blamed Windows (we all know Windows sucks) and didn't threaten to ban people for bringing up a valid point that you don't agree with.

Anyway, I'd be very interested in hearing your Windows v. SMAC perspective. If you clear this up for me, I'd appreciate it.

[Jeff's final(?) reply]

I'm afraid I don't have the time to spare. Some other time.

--
Jeffrey Kennedy Morris
Firaxis Games
QA Director/Programmer
[email protected]

[my final(?) two cents]

I'll be the first to admit that I don't even begin to understand the challenges of programming a game for the Windows environment, but it is WORTHLESS to tell me "Oh, we didn't forsee that Windows configuration when we started, so that's not a SMAC problem. Fix your hardware."

So, Mr. QA Director/Programmer, it seems like they left out something in your quality assurance training:

Don't deflect blame. Don't threaten to ban your fans for being rightfully (even ignorantly, if that's your opinion) angry that their game doesn't work. And never forget to let people know you are honestly doing your best to fix the problem.

So, Jeff, if this seems like I'm just being a pain, feel free to ban me. I can just sign up again anyway (and I do have IP address work-arounds).

And next time, if you threaten to ban me, at least have the courage to enlighten me first.

Loyal (believe it or not) Firaxis Fan,

Yin