Beiträge von Chuikov

The good news: The email exchange didn't explode in a fireball.
The bad news: Ssnake just plays the blame game, insists that it is impossible to clear up the points, and without explanation blames me for that. Claims everything I complained about was a matter of interpretation, which is a lie. He isn't replying to my follow-up email, where-among other things-I ask why it is impossible to clear up the points. I sent the email via eSimGames' contact form, and it just landed in Ssnake's inbox. I told you emailing Ssnake was likely to be pointless, Hoover. There's no way to appeal over the head of Mr. "Play the Blame Game", and there's no hope for the community, which is a zombie for the most part, consisting of the same old people who delude themselves into thinking their community isn't on life support. By labeling me as a spreader of "dispeace", you just show yourself as one of Ssnake's sycophants. Where were the rest of you when KITT was falsely accused of racism on the steelbeasts.com forums? Why didn't you do anything? I thought I had friends here in this community. I was wrong.

To quote the Youtube comment, "Just an English comment passing through..." Merry Christmas to all (that includes everyone at eSimGames)!!!

The bad news: The email ended up in Ssnake's inbox.
The good news: The exchange between us hasn't exploded in a fireball so far.

Hoover, I do thank you for being open about what you think I should do. I am thinking about it, but am not confident that writing an email to Ssnake would have a point. We did not get along at all back when I was still on the steelbeasts.com forum, and because of this I fear that writing an email to him will merely result in a self justifying rant being sent to me in reply. That is why I have posted in this forum, not to spread dispeace, but to protest his behavior in a manner which is not pointless. You assume that most of the people here do not have the slightest problem with Ssnake. I wonder what they think of him now after my posts?

Edit: After much thought, I have decided to send the email, but to eSimGames directly via their contact form.

And once again, Ssnake shows what an inconsiderate person he is by declaring KITT's experience with OpenGL to be "idle speculation" http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbf…php?p=223847&postcount=51 I'd send in a complaint to eSimGames via their contact form, but odds are it would just go to Ssnake's email. Even if it didn't, Al Delaney condones Ssnake's misbehavior, or else Ssnake would have been fired years ago. So sending a complaint would be pointless.

Silberwise's post here (http://www.steelbeasts.org/showthread.php?6079-Grafikproblem) showed to me that TS3Overlay could work with Steel Beasts, I just didn't know how. After some trial and error with the latest TS3Overlay version 3.7.10, I got it working with Steel Beasts.

Here's how:
Go to Plugins and enable TS3Overlay.
Click Settings.
Select the SBPROPECM.EXE profile from the drop down profile menu.
Go to the Extended tab.
Check the box "Use ID3DDevice::Present hook (instead of ID3DDevice::EndScene)".

Enjoy TS3Overlay working with Steel Beasts in full screen.

And it was a false alarm: http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbf…php?p=223583&postcount=45 Ssnake admits that he messed up about the new rendering engine using OpenGL. His technical incompetence sure had us going. He admits that

Zitat

While I don't want to say that these technical matters are entirely irrelevant, I am not ashamed to say that I leave details like that to the lead programmer and the engine developer.

So why didn't he confirm the technical details with those people before mentioning them?

Edit: he also said that it is a game from 1999, and that it is receiving its second graphics engine. No, if he is counting the original Steel Beasts, then this new engine is the third: http://www.simhq.com/_land3/images/steel_beasts_timeline.jpg

As we most likely know, the next version of Steel Beasts will use OpenGL instead of DirectX. I've looked around, and after thinking about it, I believe that it makes sense. DirectX 11 may be backwards compatible with DirectX 9 hardware, but not Windows XP, which to my knowledge the majority of military computers running Steel Beasts Pro still use. OpenGL ensures compatibility with Windows XP and every Windows version that has come out since, securing the future of the simulator in its primary work environment.

Or does it? OpenGL has a troubled past. For a time, it lagged behind DirectX. Microsoft's dirty tactics didn't help, but the rise of DirectX fueled a vicious cycle which led to more programmers being available for DirectX and more developers using it, which led to more programs using it, which led to graphics card drivers being improved, which led to more developers using DirectX and more programmers being needed. What Microsoft's haters miss is that Microsoft had help from OpenGL's own mistakes, the most prominent being the OpenGL 3.0 debacle. Khronos Group, the consortium that develops OpenGL, had promised that OpenGL 3.0 would be a radical upgrade from OpenGL 2.1. At first, they kept developers informed. But then, they suffered delays and instituted a media blackout. Thus, they did not tell anyone about what was to come. When OpenGL 3.0 finally arrived, almost all of the major improvements had been ripped out, and a dependency on DirectX 10 capable hardware had been inserted. Developers rioted at what they saw as lies about major improvements and dependency placed on hardware that would only be used on the bad, not-yet-revised Windows Vista, and it proved a fatal blow, as DirectX 11 made its rise after the failure that was DirectX 10.

In my looking around, I came to a disturbing realization: when Ssnake said that

Zitat

What may not noticeably affect the frame rate on one machine may have a bigger impact on another. So we need to find a balance, obviously.

he did not mention that this variation in performance was because of this switch to OpenGL. Given his lack of competence in computer matters, I'm inclined to believe that this omission was accidental. What do I mean by the variation in performance is because of OpenGL? Remember when I said that DirectX's rise resulted in improved graphics card drivers for it as the result of a vicious cycle? OpenGL's fall has resulted in the opposite cycle, and graphics card drivers being not as good with OpenGL as they are with DirectX, offsetting OpenGL's power advantage and resulting in inconsistently good performance across platforms. AMD graphics cards are the worst case of this that I know of, with one OpenGL-based graphics engine that I know of being at first completely unable to run on AMD graphics cards. The engine was improved, but AMD graphics cards still cause more bugs than Nvidia cards.

Personally, I think Steel Beasts should have stuck with DirectX 9 until enough military computers upgraded to Windows 7 to justify updating the graphics engine to DirectX 11. At least Ssnake would not have had the opportunity to demonstrate dissonance by declaring that "we can't ignore the improved capabilities of modern graphics cards" while eSimGames demonstrated that deliberate ignorance (for a good reason: to maintain compatibility with old hardware) by using DirectX 9.0c, which has been around since 2006.

Dr.Thodt(911) schrieb:

Dear Chuikov,

I tried to understand your post and I'm not sure, if i found out what your point is (if there is any?). It seems to me that you're very dissatisfied about some social interaction inside the community, especially in the SB.com forum and also the interaction between eSim Games and the Community!? Well, I am administrator of the german Steel Beasts site, but not talking for the whole german community here but for myself and my own point of view. I can't comment any of your links, because I'm not involved in that discussions nor I can't or want comment your personal problems with Ssnake.

I surely disagree with some decisions of eSim Games, such as making nearly no marketing at all for Steel Beasts or publishing new vehicles instead of fixing major bugs (the flying tanks while towing bug exists since years!). But I think the community have learn to cope with such decisions. On the other hand I'm very glad for Ssnake's detailed insights in the development process, making me understanding some (not all) of the decisions.

Yes, his insights are detailed, that is not in question. However, it is his behavior that is not tolerable and could drive people away. KITT was just one example: others could follow in the future.

Zitat

That can't be the communities goal at all, don't you think? The community will never have ANY control over pricing or marketing. We are talking about a commercial product developed and merchandised by a company. The only way we (the community) can control anything is to buy or not to buy. Easy as that.

Of course we have no control over those. I'm saying that we should should take advantage-after all these years-of what control we do have to get the word out.

Zitat

But I don't think this is your intention. I read your post in the way your are asking for support to push Steel Beasts popularity. Am I right?

100% correct.

Zitat

In this case I can tell you that I'm putting my shoulder on the wheel. I actualy spend a lot of time for a new community webpage. It's not done yet but hopefully still this year. I wrote some lines about in this Thread at SB.com some time ago. I also established the twitteraccount "@SteelBeasts" (also the hashtag #steelbeasts is not in use!) and a YouTube channel.
Well, my commitment in the german community takes a lot of time and finally I have to earn money. My day has only 24 hours. Good marketing need manpower and if you don't have it, it needs time to gain knowledge and time to try out things.
The german community is planning an open day in january next year. For this I have wrote advertise posts in german game forums with hundreds of thousands registered users. If we can gain 10 interested people and 1 or 2 of them stays with us and with this peerless software, I'll count that as success. As a side-effect Steel Beasts will gain more popularity. By the way Ssnake (read as eSim Games) is supporting this event with some licences to borrow and I'm pretty sure, if we gain more than 10 people Ssnake will do this again.

Fantastic! I was aware of the open day, but didn't know about your marketing efforts. Things like this are what I was thinking of. I've personally been waiting for screenshots and videos of the next major version, so that the beter graphics can make the product look even better, before I start my own marketing efforts.

Zitat

So calm down, it is not as bad as it seems. I see progress in the development side and as long as we have some committed users in our community everything will be fine.

The progress of the development side was never in question, I just didn't see much in the SB.com community.

I ask this question because as it stands now, it doesn't seem that way. The only way our community can get past the luring newbies in followed by implicit newbie-bashing on the SB.com forums, cobrabase's ripping off dpabrams' mission (who did not give him permission to release the modified mission as his own), dpsbrams himself being a jerk to someone pointing out how a topic is starting to break a rule, and elitist comments on Rock Paper Shotgun articles falsely implying that interest is always correlated with monetary commitment (if that were so, browser games would not exist) is if the simulator receives far more attention and the new players that come with it, so that the coffee clique culture is broken as more people stand up against this bad behavior, and if necessary create their own separate general SB communities that treat people right, or migrate to the VU communities to make them even more relevant.

This just isn't going to happen without the current marketing director and future director of eSim Games Deutschland GmbH going out of the picture and being replaced, or us taking our own action. Those of you who remember me in my far less mature days will know that there's bad blood between me and Ssnake, but in recent months he's managed to drive me up the wall even when I've made a conscious effort to avoid interacting him for the past 3 years. Whether he's falsely accusing KITT of racism (how could KITT be racist if he was referring to a political group, rather than an ethinic group? It's possible he did just that, but he wasn't specific, so we don't know what he meant), screaming at rasputin for try to be helpful by finding something Ssnake could have found in 10 seconds with Google, getting defensive at Apocalypse31 for requesting a little more love for the non-military opportunities (most of the time we're still getting no love compared to his precious military contracts, by his own figures of 5-10% sales for Pro PE, that still means 90-95% for the military contracts), oozing butthurt in the "The new graphics engine" topic that he has to change his precious engine (he puts out so much of it in his tone that you can taste it), and acting xenophobic toward any business opportunities outside of his beloved military contracts, it's clear that this sim will never be relevant even within a genre that's bordering on irrelevancy as long as this xenophobic manchild is in charge of resales and driving forum lurkers away from our passion, and as long as we stand by and say nothing. Which is why I'm speaking up here, where Ssnake is present but has no cronies he can depend on and no sheep to be bludgeoned into sycophancy with tl;dr rants. (And for those of you who remember my last post on the SB.com forums, I'm a man of my word, which is another reason I'm posting this here)

This peerless simulator deserves a wider audience, xenophobia about COD kiddies aside, and it's time we realized and acted on this reality: Since we have no control over pricing and eSim Games' own marketing of Steel Beasts Pro PE, it's time we "Ask not what marketing eSim Games can do for us, ask what marketing we can do for eSim Games."

P.S. Ssnake's spreading of technical misinformation, such as declaring the K in Intel Core ix-xxxxK processors to designate quad cores in daskal's system requirements topic, and implying that Shader Model 3.0 made its debut with DirectX 11 (it made its debut with DirectX 9.0c) doesn't help his case either. If I were Al Delaney, I would be concerned about his technical knowledge.

Yes, perhaps that was all he saw. And yes, I do have to share MVP with Hedgehog, no question. I'll show up at the next event.:cool:

I myself am happy with my work, but am also quite unhappy with Gibsonm's review of my recon work: http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbf…php?p=222366&postcount=67 The first 2 BRDM-2s were used by me to move to low positions from which they could watch N and S of Monkeberg, and in the process of doing so intercepted the first enemy forces. They died, but took 1 Fuchs with them. Of the remaining 2, the S one provided plenty of intel about enemy movement S of Monkeberg until Ricopico's CV90 platoon found it and killed it. But I immobilized one of his CV90s as I went down and finished it off later with the dismounted Panzerjaeger. The N one remained hidden, while its Panzerjaeger provided vital intel on enemy movement N of Monkeberg, including an ICM strike that was on target but failed to hit as there were only 3 tubes. Then, I remembered that I still had 1 vehicle, and took the BRDM-2 NE in order to ambush rear echelon units. It died too, but not before it destroyed 1 Eagle IV, 1 SX45, and damaged 1 SX45.

I've played with Gibsonm before. He's sharp and abrasive, and doesn't seem to tolerate any show of initiative. Edit: I wish to add that I didn't hear anyone else complain about my work as recon.

Glorious, will download. :p

Someone needs to try this in real life.

Dr.Thodt(911) schrieb:

That's even better. Thanks Chuikov!

Glad to help. 8-)

http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbwiki/index.php/Lemur

There was a failure of some sort, but the IPs Falli typed are different: the TS3 Server IP begins with a 83, and the Game Server IP begins with a 89.

Thank you very much. Your English is good, I've seen far worse from native English speakers who can't be bothered to spell correctly. I'm looking forward to using the UAV. 8-)

One problem: the TS3-Server and Game-Server IPs in the LNDP_Flyer are different from the TS3-Server and Game-Server IPs under "Connection information". The German version of this topic has the same problem.