Bailing out and have been refunded

[R0adki11]

I think alpha/beta games are classed as pre-order games so you are entitled to a refund. It is under these terms that Steam allows refunds.

They aren't classed a pre-order games. its a beta at the end of the day. Steam has it own rules, im not sure they apply here.

[ScareYa]

[...] but compared to very popular kickstarter campaigns I feel we treat our users much better: there all you get is words for your money.

There is one difference, though: From a Kickstarter project I don't expect anything else. When I am investing a such a project then I positively know that the whole thing might perish even if I it was successfully funded. I do not expect that from a well introduced and recognized company as Bohemia Interactive. If BI (in this case Carrier Command’s Executive Producer Jan Kunt on the CCGM website) tells me "Even though the game is already a blast to play, we welcome every suggestion that will help us to fine-tune the game’s balance and polish it as a whole", then I expect my suggestions to be taken seriously (which might have been the case, but it is not transparent nor verifiable to me) and I expect some kind of feedback (which would be transparent and verifiable, but did not really happen).

I for one did hope the dev team would interact with the users much more directly but that still does not make the program a failure in any sense. [...] That said, I am also not happy that the team did not take more active and agile approach and I am trying to understand it and hopefully improve.

Well said! And thanks for listening.

And don't get me wrong: I am eager to play CCGM. I did a lot to spread the word and I will continue to do so. AND I am glad to be a P&C Club Member. I will NOT call for any refund whatsoever!

[Dajunka]

They aren't classed a pre-order games. its a beta at the end of the day. Steam has it own rules, im not sure they apply here.

Kick it around any which way you wish, but they must be obliged to give refunds otherwise they would not.

[Appogee]

Kick it around any which way you wish, but they must be obliged to give refunds otherwise they would not.

Not so. Perhaps they are just being nice. It happens.

For my part, I was disappointed that the interaction with the devs has been poor to non-existent. But I'm still looking forward to the final game, and even feel I got my money's worth even out of the beta.

So, I won't be asking for a refund.

[Dajunka]

Not so. Perhaps they are just being nice. It happens.

Not to likely. There are reports upon statements all over the net, where refunds have been requested for other full titles, yet all come away disappointed. But you never know.

[Anticept]

I do not know. Maybe it is not ideal, but compared to very popular kickstarter campaigns I feel we treat our users much better: there all you get is words for your money. We provide you with a lot of information from very advanced version of the game and also fully playable alpha. Yes, it is a way to collect money and feedback which was even more important than money, but is it cynical? I for one did hope the dev team would interact with the users much more directly but that still does not make the program a failure in any sense. Also, all contributors will get finished game with reasonable discount, I am not sure why out of sudden this is a bad thing for anybody.

That said, I am also not happy that the team did not take more active and agile approach and I am trying to understand it and hopefully improve.

I have suggestions for the future. Every week, have a "Meet the Devs" session in IRC, where people can directly ask you guys about issues and plans. I strongly, STRONGLY believe you would see an -overwhelming- support of getting the path finding fixed, which is the most game breaking issue above all else right now in pretty much all of your games.

Next, being an alpha, REGULARLY build and release. Even if it's small fixes. People love to see progress, even if it's slow. Hell, when there isn't much contact with the Dev team, people *love* patch notes and lots of patches, it's that feeling that SOMETHING is being done. This alone would have made the P&C go much smoother for us.

On that note, your Arma release cycles are too slow; we would have regular beta releases every couple of weeks, but why wait so long for a new official version after 6 months? Many of us use mods and the game built on day one of beta releases anyways, so what's the harm in more rapid release cycles?

I also felt like the bug tracker was not being updated enough. There are those of us out here that really want to help, you could hand out some direct lines to the dev team, be it through a skype conversation, etc, so that those moderators can get feedback and help keep the tracker clean. Let the devs tell the mods what they are thinking of doing, and the moderators can put it in writing, acting as their liaison.


tl;dr More contact with the community, even if it's brief. You need MUCH faster release cycles, even with tiny bug fixes, and let some of the community help moderate the bug trackers and forums so you guys can focus more on your work.

[rundll.exe]

On that note, your Arma release cycles are too slow; we would have regular beta releases every couple of weeks, but why wait so long for a new official version after 6 months? Many of us use mods and the game built on day one of beta releases anyways, so what's the harm in more rapid release cycles?

While I generally agree with you, this doesn't really make sense. I think you underestimate the overhead BIS has with creating an official patch. I't really needs to be stable without any regressions. Testing that simply takes time (by the community or BIS themselves). I think the current pace is just right, and buys them some time to squash a few more bugs in the progress.

[JM0N]

I do not know. Maybe it is not ideal, but compared to very popular kickstarter campaigns I feel we treat our users much better: there all you get is words for your money. We provide you with a lot of information from very advanced version of the game and also fully playable alpha. Yes, it is a way to collect money and feedback which was even more important than money, but is it cynical? I for one did hope the dev team would interact with the users much more directly but that still does not make the program a failure in any sense. Also, all contributors will get finished game with reasonable discount, I am not sure why out of sudden this is a bad thing for anybody.

That said, I am also not happy that the team did not take more active and agile approach and I am trying to understand it and hopefully improve.

A lot of people are mentioning the pathfinding issue as being the most critical one and I completely disagree. For one - I've played the game (both beta versions) in excess of 30+ hours a piece and although the pathfinding is not perfect it works. Worse case scenario I've experienced is a little babysitting that I have to do when a Walrus goes astray or a Manta flies into danger. However, the game goes on.

The issue that I've brought up and been very vociferous about is the "Game crashing on save" fatal bug that causes the game to either hang indefinitely or crash to the desktop. What doubly sucks about this particular bug is that it only seems to happen after I'm on the last couple of enemy islands and have invested 20 hours or more over the course of days and weeks. I've brought this issue up in the feedback tracker multiple times and been called out for my over use of CAPS owing to my inestimable frustration in regards to this bug. I stopped playing the first version of the beta because of this bug. And I played the second version of the Beta with the false hope that this bug was fully quashed. However, the game saving crash cropped up late in the game and I wasted so many hours trying to find a way past it with no success. So I stopped playing the second version of the Beta and eagerly awaited the 3rd version.....which never came ?!?!

While I'm not pursuing a refund.....yet....I do remain disappointed we haven't seen 2 or more (refined) versions of the Beta since version#2 debuted back in May.

All this being said - if the game ships with this game saving bug crash it will be a critical flaw that will ultimately doom the success of Carrier Command for Bohemia Interactive .

[Dajunka]

I do hope they are working on CCGA in secret or this is going to be one extremely buggy release scoring a whopping 2 out of 100 on GameSpot.

[Anticept]

While I generally agree with you, this doesn't really make sense. I think you underestimate the overhead BIS has with creating an official patch. I't really needs to be stable without any regressions. Testing that simply takes time (by the community or BIS themselves). I think the current pace is just right, and buys them some time to squash a few more bugs in the progress.

This is outdated thinking. Unless some huge gamebreaking problem comes up, you only need a little bit of testing, then release it. Any problems that have cropped up since the patch, or those which were accidentally created during patching, can also rapidly be fixed by the next short release cycle. This way no bugs are left un-squashed for any length of time, and less time can be spent on QA and more time on fixing more bugs.

It is FEATURES that must be thoroughly tested.