Infogrames official reply

Just a note before you read on: I wrote this letter AFTER the patch was whitdrew from the Infogrames Germany site and BEFORE it reappeared on grandprixgames.com UK.

Now, for you enjoyment mates:
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Dear Paolo,

I am very sorry you feel this way. As you will see by the www.UK.Infogrames.com website and the www.grandprixgames.com website that your problem with the availability of the patch has already been dealt with.

We will be posted an updates FAQ on these sites soon to compliment the patch and offer further assistance. If you could state your exact problem then I will attempt to trouble shoot the issue. Please include all your machine specifications.

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Customer Services Manager Infogrames UK, 21 Castle Street, Castlefield, Manchester, M3 4SW.Tel: 0161 827 80 60(1) Open Mon-Fri 9.30am-5pm. []




-----Original Message-----
From: Paolo F. Selva [mailto:paolofrancesco.selva@tin.it]
Sent: 06 September 2002 00:23
To: infogrames
Subject: GP4: keep up the good work



Sirs,

right now it seems sure, at least so it is said everywhere on the net, that we shall wait months for the official patch for a game like GP4 that you published when it clearly was still just a beta.

But the farce of the fake patch on the german site made clear for everyone that it seems you are not able or willing to address the major bugs this game has: crashes to desktop and its shameful framerate.

For sure I will be wary not to buy one of your games again.

Keep up the good work.


Paolo F. Selva

btw has someone posted R. Hummerich's quote about saying how hard GP4 was to edit? It's vital for the letter I'm sending to Infogrames....



Visit my website [www.mrears.com]

[www.grandprix3.com]

or copy&paste from his GPform in the Williams zip
or ask Ralph himself...he reads our forum

If you could state your exact problem then I will attempt to trouble shoot the issue. Please include all your machine specifications.

Then what should I do? Send him again the buglist?
Ah...the name of the guy is Marcus Bradshaw.

Paolo have you got a full copy of the bug list? I need that too if you have it....

Or of course if Morbid has the time to read this...



Visit my website [www.mrears.com]

Send it to cai@f1central.net if you do. Cheers



Visit my website [www.mrears.com]

Ok dont worry I got it. Btw I kinda forgot 'Morbid' 's real name...I know I'm close with Lasse Fussel though

can somebody help me out lol.

Also what about the letter below. I'm contemplatng sending it to Infogrames Head Office in France....

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To whom it may concern,

My name is Cai Marle-Garcia. I am a keen games player, as are thirty of my good friends, who work together to make our favourite Grand Prix gaming series better. After waiting what seemed like an eternity for Geoff Crammond

Visit my website [www.mrears.com]

Excellent letter Cai. Have you re-read it yourself, i noticed a spelling error, you put "3rd part editors" Change that and this will be great. Remember to keep a record of all e-mails that you swap though

Cai,great job!

We are with you.

I think we must focus our bug list to 10 critical points.They surelly read Morbid list,but they never will take care about 100% of it,so we must fill a list of maximum 10/15 major points to ask for fix.

So this way to act could have greater chance of success,and maybe we could have GP4 playable,at least.

We must find a way to arrange such a list,maximum 10/15 major points.

Do not forget to insert hotseat mode main issues and tcp/ip 2 players ethernet qualifying.

Agree?

Boomey

Good Job Cai!
Just 3 very small issues:

1.

Agree on all points there Paolo.

The 'from Cai Marle-Garcia' bit I only put in instead of all of us just in case they want to reply to someone directly - feel like they're talking to one specific person, but yeah from 'the Grand Prix series community' is cool.

ok I will touch this up some more and get it off



Visit my website [www.mrears.com]

Hmmm, i like the way you say it's there fault, but it's not sort of thing, hard hitting, yet subtle, u'd make a good lawyer lol!! The tone is spot on, as are the points, well done for not moaning /cai, top effort and i'm sure it will get somewhere, if the big wigs dont get it direct, then the letter should persuade a junior (not the symergy team lol) to do somehting productive.

Cheers GLDSW, lets hope it works eh



Visit my website [www.mrears.com]

hmm

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Can't wait to see what IG has to say to this. That is if they say anything at all. Which I of course hope that they do.

Btw, my last name is spelled with an umlaut - like this: Füssel.

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.

lol cheers



Visit my website [www.mrears.com]

Good job Cai, you've summed up the feelings of the community really well there. Let's hope they take some notice of it.



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She says brief things, her love’s a pony
My love’s subliminal

here here

Just to let you know, here is my personal reply to Infogrames:

I thank you for your kind reply, Marcus.
The sad fact is that the patch patched almost nothing. Surely it didn't anyhing for the two biggest issue with this game: very poor framerate and crashes to desktop, especially under Win XP.
This is not just a problem of mine, indeed I suffer from it probably a lot less than many other gamers, just because my hardware is good and up-to-date enough (AMD XP2000+, 512mb DDR 2700 ram, Nvidia Ti4400, SBLive 5.1 running Windows XP pro).
Still my framerate (32 FPS) is not what it should by today current standards, while for other 3d games the average starts from 60 on.
A couple of months ago, the biggest GP4 community (see the forum at www.grandprixgames.org), through the contribution of tens of people, made a buglist for this game with more than 100 issues reported and verified, some funny, some weird, some just very annoying.
The list was sent to someone at your company (don't ask me who, I don't know).
Apparently nobody replied.
Then, after weeks of great anticipation, the patch came out. I think it is easy to understand how delusion and disappointment are widespread now, since this patch doesn't really deal with the most annoying bugs of the game, nor in any way helps with its very poor performances. Yet it was waited like a messiah by the gamers.
Many people even report that crashing frequency actually was increased by the patch, to the point that the majority of us now refuse to install it.
The sensation of this game not being supported is quite strong between gamers. The circumstance that so far Infogrames never really cared to explain on the net what was going on sure did not help to rebuild a badly shaken confidence.
Why you didn't say anything to us on your sites is beyond my understandings.
The question everybody is asking right now is: there will be another more decisive patch? Will be the game under continuos support from you till at least the more important issue are solved?
I would really appreciate if you could answer some me on this.
As I said, your reputation as a game company really suffered from GP4, to the point that on one of the many forums on the net there is even a thread whose topic is "Do you have confidence in Infogrames anymore?"
It is a damn shame because otherwise GP4 is a beautiful game with an huge potential. Too bad to see that many game not as good as this could be, are supported and updated like this one never was so far.
Anyway thanks for your attention, hopefully sooner or later someone of you will listen to the people who love GPx series.
If not we will be forced to look elsewhere, and it would be too bad because this series was great fun till it lasted.
Best regards,

its good imo, thou i think its long for him to read it