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Subject: Re: CM8000 -- Some news

Author: Chessfun

Date: 20:47:13 10/09/00

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On October 09, 2000 at 17:50:04, John Merlino wrote:

>Chessmaster 8000 is still on schedule to be finished early next week, and be in
>the stores by early November.
>
>Unfortunately, I have some news which some of you will probably find upsetting.
>So, just so you can't say that you weren't warned....
>
>CM8000 IS DEFINITELY going to require a CD at all times, thanks to a mandate
>from "on high". Those in charge of these decisions seem to feel that copy
>protection is rampant (apparently, even more rampant than ever before), and that
>Chessmaster (and all other products) will lose HUGE amounts of sales due to
>piracy. Whether this is true or not will never be known, of course. But, there
>it is.... There will be copy-protection on both CDs, and the program will not
>run unless you have a CD drive in on startup (or can produce one when asked at
>startup).
>
>As for the quality of the current build, there are still many bugs to be fixed,
>but the development team is confident that all "significant" bugs will be fixed
>before the game is released. Unfortunately, as with any game published by a
>major retailer today, the game will go out with a fairly decent number of "less
>significant" bugs, many of which will, of course, be found by YOU, the users.
>Sadly, deadlines are deadlines, thanks to the marketing and sales folks, and
>they are firm believers in patches. So, if you are the kind of person that can
>be HIGHLY turned off by even the slightest bug, AND you can wait, I would urge
>you to consider holding off purchasing the product until the first patch comes
>out (which is usually two months or so after the product is initially released).
>
>The old adage holds true: a program gets more testing in its first 72 hours in
>the public's hands than it does during the entire development cycle. Therefore,
>there will ALWAYS be bugs that only the public can find, and THAT is, primarily,
>what patches are for. Obviously, though, the team wants to make the best product
>possible, and, from what the development team tells me, there are currently a
>TOTAL of less than 40 known bugs (of various "significance" -- from crashes to
>"suggestions") that have yet to be fixed, and the testers are finding only about
>3-4 per day at this time.
>
>I tell you this in the interest of diplomacy and goodwill, and the hopes that
>none of you will send me "hate posts". ;-)
>
>jm


Thanks John you have done CM and the members of this forum a great service
with your updates on the progress of CM8K.

I look forward to finally having a copy when it's released.

Sarah.








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