🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <111900102@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> sapg0386@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>Judging by the mail I recieved, bad disks are a big problem.
>Almost all my mail says to just take the disk back
>and don't gripe.  Many people were outraged and insulting.
>This defensiveness makes me think that it really will take
>legislation to solve the problem.
>
Boy, there is nothing like killing a knat with a bazooka!

>That is just the kind of attitude that is eroding public enthusiasm for
>home computers.  

I don't thing there are any bad attitudes other that yours.  Bad floppies
are something that occurs in life because of various inherent problems in
making this type of media.  Dust, temperature changes and numberous things
can make a disk go bad AFTER it leaves the factory and even the software
company.  Making diskettes is not like making cars where if someone makes
a mistake the car suffers.  Diskettes are very fragile and I think that
legislation to SOLVE the problem is making a mountain out of a molehill.

>If that disk had worked I probably never would have got around to reading
>their warranty--which turned out to be one of those "sold AS IS" things.
>This is another practice that is chilling the public.

Most (and I have not deal with one that hasn't) companies have no problem
taking back a piece of software that is defective.  The warranty which
your claim is so asisine is a legal document which is required by
FEDERAL & most state laws to be there.  The 'sold AS IS' clause as
you put it is there so the software will not be modified or changed.
This could be read as 'you bought, you own it and we won't deal with
you anymore' but most companies are discernible and will help you out
because helpng you will help their image. 

>Their documentation was bad too-- in particular it didn't describe what
>was actually happening on my screen.

Reading this one comment, I was wondering if you were reading the same
documentation as myself.  The task that was taken when writing a manual
especially on a subject of which has to take into account political,
enviromental and social-economic structure of our society is a monumental
achievement.  I have read the manual through a couple times and have even
look at some other the other books that they suggest and have found they
not only where they through with the game but with the subject.  I must
admit that there are little holes but I think those were not left out
by omitted to make the game more challenging.

>I took it back and got a disk that worked.  I can only say that
>the sometimes so-called simulation and sometimes so-called game
>is as disappointing as the so-called warranty.  A bug surfaced
>in the very first city I ran (after a tornado took out part of
>an industrial square it proved impossible to bull-doze away the 
>two little undestroyed sub-sectors that remained).

I cannot even begin to answer your opinions of the game because even
has there own personal opinions.  I have found the program more of a
simulation that a game.  It is a program which makes learning fun but
I don't think it was writting to provide hours of pure, gaming fun.  It
a challenging and thinking program and I think that how it should be 
look at.

>But it is the childish simplicity and baby-talk interface
>that really turned me off.  I would never have known that this
>thing was aimed at not so bright high-school age kids or lower 
>from the reviews I read.  I guess those reviewers have to write
>happy-talk hyperbole to keep their jobs.

Yet another comment for imflammanation.  I find it very hard to believe
that as popular as this game is and of all of the wonderful comments and
reviews that it gets, that you can add insult to injury and make a
sweep like that.  

>Something as simple as an alarm that goes off whenever your popularity  
>falls below a certain level would have made it twice as much fun.

I'm sure Mr. Mike Dukakis would agree with that.

>There must be dozens of little trivial improvements like this that they
>over-looked or what is more likely, cunningly left out in anticipation
>of simcity II.

What... do you think Rome was built in a day?

>they already offer me the chance to buy a terrain editor -- and given
>the really poor quality of their automatically generated terrains,
>a lot of people probably do.

I myself have the terrain editor, but it was not because 'of their auto-
matically generated terrains' it was because I want to try building on
islands, different enviroments and to see how a city would be affected
by different things.

>Well, I got a disk that worked, but I should have got my money back.

>- steve pax

I'm sure alot of people on the net would have to agree that you should have
got your money back, therefore you wouldn't be bothering us with these
inflammatory comments.  This is not an aspersion on to you, but I feel that
if you have such strong comments about something you should seek other
opinion.  One man's junk is another man's treasure...


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