From: Daniel Evans <evans_daniel_e_nonlilly@lilly.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic,comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.space-sim
Subject: Re: BC3K - History of Mr. Smart's Flame War
Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 09:57:20 -0500

To clarify a point.  In the history it is stated that the flame war was not
significant during the 11/96 to 12/96 period on usenet.  In fact it was
raging and some days represented 80% of posts to the group.  During
that period no one came out supporting DS and there weren't any calls
to stop because the readers of the groups in 96 were aware of DS's
spamming and wanted him out.  His supporters show up later(mostly
in December but a couple were there in November).  DS's supporters
came from readers, who were not reading the group in late summer
and fall '96.  They did not see the horrible behavior DS committed
during this period.  The example I see in the FTHX and Huffman
archive don't pay justice to the mean spirted posts DS made to his
customers who politely asked simple questions about installing the game
(which was the main problem out of the box.  Buyers couldn't even get
the game running to see how buggy it really was).

Many threads such as these dominated the CSIPGS group:

    The review of the box also many vaporware threads

   Which is better the cd or the box(the cd won because it could be used
        as a weapon like a frisbee, but some designs for box weapons were
        presented)

    The class action lawsuit

    The coke files

    DS getting drilled during the late summer and early fall for spamming the
        group with release date promises

    DS getting hammered by programmers because his mythical AI logic
        algorithms didn't make sense(lots of buzz words used incorrectly)

    DS couldn't figure out how to filter the group

    Why was DS posting so much instead of patching the game

Unfortunately Dejanews didn't completely archive the group's postings
until winter '97.

One other interesting point is that the group was overwhelmingly
supportive of DS in the beginning.  We wanted BC3K to be great.
It was a highly anticipated game during a time when alot of games were
looking like vaporware(Dungeon Keeper, Falcon 4.0, etc.).  The soon
to be released BC3K was touted as the most sophisticated game ever
released.  The problem was simply: how good could a game be that
wouldn't even install.  DS single handedly turned the group against him.

Another point is that Lester from Impressions posted in the group at the
same time.  He took it on the chin about the poor track record of Impression's
games from that period.  He took alot of garbage like a man and listened to
his customers.  Now look at the quality of games that Impressions puts out.
Good work David.


Daniel