RE: The Freetrack poll

[Mutet 10]

I don't especialy want to start a discussion, however...

The poll has been open for 4 months and the results suggest the freetrack

supporters are not a "very small minority"; quite the reverse, the players who

do not support freetrack appear to be in the minority.

It would be nice to have an official reply seeing as so much time has passed.

[bushlurker 46]

Good point... it HAS been a while... and not far off 500 votes now on this "internal forum poll"...

Then of course - lets not forget the customers who aren't registered Forum Members, who chose instead to sign this petition... Another 670 signatures there!

Any Devs care to comment anew at this time???

B

Edited October 14, 2009 by Bushlurker

[ginger mcale 11]

Good question. Excellent posts Mutet & Bushlurker.

[dmarkwick 261]

The poll has been open for 4 months and the results suggest the freetrack

supporters are not a "very small minority"; quite the reverse, the players who

do not support freetrack appear to be in the minority.

The poll was always a waste of time. There is no real reason why anyone would deny extra functionality in ArmA2 and that made the poll unnecessarily biased, or unnecessarily unbalanced, or simply unnecessary.

I tried asking the (not unreasonable IMO) question: "why would people actively NOT wish for Freetrack support" but of course as the thread was always flushed of any kind of discussion, I was forced to do what a logical person MUST do when faced with a poll that made no sense: I didn't vote.

As the poll makes perfect sense for people who are craving Freetrack support, no real surprise about the outcome. And thus a huge waste of time. A poll without any kind of discussion of the issues is indeed a waste of time :)

[Mutet 10]

My understanding was that it was more of a petition than a real poll.

There isn't such a thing as a biased petition.

A comment would be appreciated Devs, now that the poll you have set up has been running so long.

[Indiana 10]

I second this. I just purchased Arma 2 after having OFP and playing it for years. I then purchased OFPDR and hated it. I'm not bashing their game, but that is just my opinion. So I decided to come over and see what Bohemia had to offer.

So far I love Arma2, but I happen to know that there is a large crowd of Freetrack users, as I have played other games with them for years now.

Basicly....if Bohemia decides to ignore the users of Freetrack in favor of OTHER systems that are hugely overpriced, I will permanately withdraw my support for Bohemia. My reason is simply that we should not be FORCED to spend almost $200 in order to have head tracking when there is a free option out there. I can not and will not support a company that takes such a stance. We already spend thousands of dollars on our systems. Being forced to spend more is not my idea of fun. Its all about the choice.

If my opinions cause you to ban me...so be it. I can always spend my money elsewhere.

[Mutet 10]

No response to your own poll Devs?

[metsapeikkoo 10]

And yet another totally pointless thread. Totally waste of time.

[mattxr 9]

And yet another totally pointless thread. Totally waste of time.

Then what are you doing posting in it? In Future dont bother. :mad:

[Mutet 10]

From Placebo's Poll thread:

All replies will be deleted, this is simply to keep the thread calm and open for a long time so everyone's voices can be heard.

Aside from the irony of deleting all replies so that "everyone's voices can be

heard", the most important voice we are not hearing is yours Placebo.

Can we expect a response?

Was the poll just a delaying tactic; does it mean nothing?

[ActionMan 10]

Disclaimer: I voted yes on the free-track poll, I own a Track IR and I'm employed as a game programmer.

To me, it's fairly obvious that BI should support free-track, as BI is only of the only FPS-developers who actually implement head-tracking in their games, and free-track is an open, free alternative to the closed/proprietary solution (Track IR).

HOWEVER, even if BI's staff agrees with this view, adding a new peripheral API is not that simple. They can't just flick a switch, or copy&paste some code to do this!

Before integrating any software in a commercial game, you've got to:

1) Run the license past a lawyer (yes even for free software).

2) Allocate time to train an engineer to do the integration.

3) Acquire a variety of free-track hardware to test the integration.

4) Develop and execute a QA test cycle.

Each one of those steps can cost thousands of dollars, and more importantly, it takes time.

From what I can tell, free-track has become a controversial issue here (e.g. closing free-track posts) because a minority of users were basically flaming BI over their so-called "decision to ignore you". These users obviously have no idea what is involved in their request, because if developers acted on every request like this they would go bankrupt.

Just to put it in perspective, lets say you've got 50 staff, on $20 per hour, doing 8 hour days, 5 days a week (probably doing more hours than that, but overtime is unpaid).

That's $40,000 per week to keep your business running (not including ALL OTHER EXPENSES). Now try running a business that expensive for years at a time without a steady income -- it's a very hard balancing act, and requires a lot of discipline and control by the management.

You've got to realise that making game is a business, and not a very profitable one either. Just look at all the studios that have been forced to close in the last 12 months.

I'm sure there's people at BI who would love to integrate the free-track software, but for all we know, they could be working 12 hour days of unpaid overtime just to get this expansion pack finished by it's deadline, AND working on fixes for the next patch.

In other words, free-track is probably not currently on the list of the 10 most important things to be spending time on.

[W0lle 1050]

Very well said ActionMan. Unfortunately not many understand that developing games is a business and costs more money a year than most of us ever will see. :)

Aside from the irony of deleting all replies so that "everyone's voices can be heard", the most important voice we are not hearing is yours Placebo.

And allowing you to vote in a poll is not making your voice heard or what?

Can we expect a response? Was the poll just a delaying tactic; does it mean nothing?

The poll has been created to make peoples voice heard about that "give us freetrack support", not more not less. There's no delaying tactic either because no one ever said that Freetrack support will be implemented depending on the poll results.

And to be honest, the poll was indeed pointless in my opinion. Simply because no matter about what a poll is started, you can be sure it ends with "Yes". Just because there are people out there who vote yes for the heck of it.

[Mutet 10]

And allowing you to vote in a poll is not making your voice heard or what?

No voices can be heard when words are forbidden.

No one's voice fits inside a tickbox.

Then you call the poll (what you call our voice) "pointless".

What can we, your customers, make of that?

I find it hard to believe that BI has been sincere in this matter.

Actionman:

Whilst I agree with all the points you have made, they do not hold up well in

the case of freetrack support because it is not something the developers

need to add. It is already there, but the dev's valuable time has been spent

disabling it through encryption.

Enabling Freetrack support is only a matter of turning off the encryption, in

the same way that the unofficial and illegal patch to enable Freetrack

support has done.

[iantron 10]

In case anyone feels like puting their time into something more productive, check my post at the FreeTrack forum. I haven't done driver programming before, and it's fairly complex.

The post is at:

http://forum.free-track.net/index.php?showtopic=2074

[Placebo 29]

Can we expect a response?

Was the poll just a delaying tactic; does it mean nothing?

Of course it means something, Ondrej posted some time ago that Freetrack wasn't implemented as he felt that the work involved wasn't merited by the amount of interest in having it implemented, as elements of the Freetrack community were incapable of posting their interest without resorting to attacking/trashing a company we're partnered with I had to come up with some way to allow people on here to give their feedback to Ondrej by means of saying "yes I'm here and I want Freetrack in ArmA2" that's what the polls there for and that's what it does, it's then up to Ondrej to decide as and when he feels it's warranted to implement Freetrack support.

---------- Post added at 15:48 ---------- Previous post was at 15:46 ----------

Enabling Freetrack support is only a matter of turning off the encryption, in

the same way that the unofficial and illegal patch to enable Freetrack

support has done.

Going over old ground yet again, to expect NP to disable encryption in their own API is naive to the extreme. Yes in an ideal utopian world nothing would be encrypted, nothing would cost money, we would all be able to use free solutions for everything, but the world doesn't work that way.

[Mutet 10]

Who is Ondrej? Someone from publishing?

How much interest would merit implementation in his oppinion?

Don't know about the distribution model for the FT API, but are you not at

liberty to use the unencrypted API that NP originally released?

Edited October 31, 2009 by Mutet

[Duma 0]

At least the polls show that there's a number of users interested in using Freetrack in future games, I consider that a worthwhile effort. For my own part I've just purchased ArmA II on budget, and can honestly say I would have purchased it earlier if Freetrack support was officially supported.

Mostly I'm disappointed to read that some Freetrack users were abusive / demanding. It's not as if Freetrack support was an advertised feature of the product. Very disappointing.

[Hyp3rdyn3 10]

Mostly I'm disappointed to read that some Freetrack users were abusive / demanding. It's not as if Freetrack support was an advertised feature of the product. Very disappointing.

People were used to using FreeTrack in ArmA and were surprised to discover it was blocked in ArmA2, so it makes sense that this caused some frustration. The real disappointment lies in NaturalPoint's belief it is necessary and justified to block homebrew head tracking.

[dm 9]

Who is Ondrej? Someone from publishing?

Lol... he's only the lead programmer and co-founder of the whole company... totally unimportant, clearly... :j:

[WH_Propnut 10]

I actually purchased TrackIR for use with Arma (the bundle deal) but I definatly would not have had I been able to use my freetrack system (which I still do in my simpit for Rise of Flight and Il-2).

I joined this forum so I could vote yes on the poll (thanks to Placebo for putting that up).

I have one comment, not intended to incite a Them vs Us type responce...my comment is on the poll as it is configured. I would like to have seen it as more of a petition (as has been mentioned before) as that is exactly what it is. The choice of yes vs no is rather silly. Why would a respondent vote no? In what way would inclusion of Freetrack hurt them if they have the other system? I can hear the no voter thinking "I paid &$%##%! dollars (euro's, pounds, cronars, etc) for this expensive system, no way do I want others to get away cheap, they should pay too gosh darn it!"

I guess my point is, ignore the no responses, there is no concievable (at least to me) reason for them.

Maybe you cannot feasibly impliment Freetrack support in this game, but this gives you something to think about for future games.

Thanks for the game, many of us out there enjoy it, and thanks for considering 'all' of your customer base.

[irR4tiOn4L 10]

Im fairly sure Track IR is at least partially involved in the Freetrack issues. There could be exclusivity agreements or other such machinations on their part to swing support their way. And i doubt they would tolerate support for both

[Contractor 10]

Well a noob to this technology. I've actually been in IT for 23 years.

The discussion has been heated at times from both sides.

I don't wish to add any fuel to any fire from either party.

I would just like to say regardless of the technical investment required I don't understand why this vendor is suporting a commercially available option while shirking a similar open source project.

The only time I have seen this in the past is where there has been an explicit 'partnership' between both vendors. To date I haven't seen this statement.

While I understand and support capitalism, there has to be some reason, whether it be personal or from monatory gain why this open and 'free' technology is being forsaken in favor of a specific and propriortary (sp?) vendor.

I really don't care to be honest. While most Free-Track users have opted to still purchase this title, I have opted to skip it in favor of other vendors who fully support the user community.

Free-track is not really 'free'. People still have to purchase webcams, Bluetooth adapters etc.. If I were to add up my time trying to digest and decypher all the bits and pieces, sourcing and constructing what I need it is far from 'free'. We are still contributing to the global economy but not through one specific vendor.

I can well afford pretty much any technology I want. I prefer to support open source projects for several reasons. Besides enjoying the challenge and satisfaction of participating in these projects, I also recognize that similar types of projects in the past have greatly influenced, in a positive way, the technological landscape as we see it today.

I will support this title/vendor when/if they decide to accomodate the whole user community to move this technology ahead and not just those with specific interests in monopolizing the market.

There are perhaps many people like me who prefer to lurk in the background and not get involved with the 'issue de jour'. Participation in any given forum doesn't demonstrate specific numbers of users. I would propose the numbers here are merely the tip of the iceberg in-so-far as a demographic goes.

Thank you,

Signed,

Just one lost customer. (But no worries.. it's just ONE customer.... )

[-GCA- Salah ad Din 10]

Waaaaait a second. Let me sum this up:

1) For ArmA2 to understand the input of a tracking device, there must be an API incorporated into the game?

2) The currently implemented API for TrackIR is encrypted, so that only TrackIR hard/software can talk to ArmA2?

3) The FreeTrack fanboys want NP to open their API, that they developed, with their money?

Conclusion: Are you crazy? If you want FreeTrack support in ArmA2, the FreeTrack makers need to program their OWN API which they can then give to BIS to put into the game.

Even though I voted yes, I wasn't aware of what it actually takes to have FreeTrack support.

So, basically there are two questions remaining: does FreeTrack have it's own API and is BIS willing to include it into the game?

[Arrowhead 0]

Salah ad Din;1491049']

Conclusion: Are you crazy? If you want FreeTrack support in ArmA2' date=' the FreeTrack makers need to program their OWN API which they can then give to BIS to put into the game.

[/quote']

They have developed their own API, but BIS refuses to implement it citing time contraints and lack of interest. The whole purpose of the poll is an attempt to convince BIS to implement the FreeTrack API by showing that a significant segment of the community is indeed interested.

[W0lle 1050]

And if 10,000 people vote for yes, if BIS can't or want implement the FreeTrack API then they can't/want.

None of us knows the exact reason. Maybe they can't because it takes too much time, maybe they can't because there is a contract with NP which prevents them from implementing it. Or yes maybe they even just don't feel like adding it. Like said no one knows exactly and we will maybe never know.

Besides this, I bet more than 50% of the 'yes' votes were just made by people who don't even own a freetrack device or even know what it is. They voted for yes just for the heck of it. No big difference to other "BIS add this or that" polls which always end up with yes add it no matter what.