[Tractor]

I've just been writing an unfavorable post in GPGNet regarding Supreme Commander gameplay. In short, i was disappointed by the lack of strategic deepness of the game, which was sold as a keypoint.
The post was really not insulting, no hidden advertisement, no personal attack, just giving an opinion, with some arguments. So really this could have been debated or forgotten in the forum. Just another voice in the crowd.

So what surprised me is the reaction of GPGNet : i was instantly BANNED, my posts erased, no trace, no explanation, just erased from existence.

Eventually, i kept the text of the message, so i'm reproducing it here.
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I've been playing Supreme Commander quite a bit,
and really tried to give it its fair chance to be a great and favorite game.
The game was young, it needed to mature, balance could be improved, mechanisms too, but most of all, players would learn, play better and better, and find new tricks, which would make the game rich and interesting.

Well, after giving it about a hundred games 1v1, i must say i am disappointed.

The game pretends to be "trully strategic" ? This is bold statement, quite far from the truth.

To sum up : its all about scaling. Exponential scaling. Nothing bright, the one who has the most wins, end of story.

It seems now that games have standardized more and more to a single viable strategy :
- Phase 1 : Level 1 swarming : Create as many Level 1 unit (tanks and arti) as possible, try to swarm the ennemy under a more massive number of units
- Phase 2 : Level 1 standoff : if ennemy resists, you end with avoiding some point defenses and building your own at chock points. If good, phase 1 has allowed to get more mass than the ennemy
- Phase 3 : Level 3 Rush : upgrade to 3 as fast as possible, then launch a final attack; You should be first if phase 1 was favorable.

End.

I'm not interested to know that someone, somewhere, had one different game : it's just hiding the very great majority. I've just been witnessing this development in 90% of games, and the more as the level improved, so really, the small amount of different strategy, which eventually are possible only because both players are still newbyes, are not representative.

So this is it. The game has matured, yes, but in a way which standardize the opening, and with only one effect to consider : ressource/army scaling.

Sorry to say, it is really poor.

Let's take the old (no longer sold i believe) Rise of Nations as a comparison example : you've got borders to expand, limited numbers of cities to grow, very effective military counters, many upgrades, choice between fast territory expansion, military spending, research tree. Well, this is choice.

Here there is nothing even close to that.

Where are the counters ?

Nearly nowhere. Interceptor are good counters to ennemy scouts and bombers. That's about it at level 1. Tanks/Arti have no real counter. Sub have no counter. So swarm them.

Wait for level 2, where helicopters give a small chance to produce ground counters, with available counters counters (mobile AA). Or Air-to-submarine units, effective against Sub.
That's becoming interesting.
Only problem is : you don't have a chance to play that. Just skip level 2, go to level 3, and swarm again.

Really really, i'm disappointed, and gonna regreat my investment in this game. This is nowhere near as good as RoN, AoE2, or even TA.

Many will disagree, or provide counter points, but frankly, it doesn't change the core of the argument. Looking around, a lot of other players seem to feel the same, telling about the same story into many different contexts, and this is no surprise. The game has pretty good graphics, yes, but also pretty limited gameplay. And this is a pity.
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As can be witnessed, this hardly can qualifies as an insulting post. So is the content itself considered so unfavorable that it deserve the worst sanction possible in a forum, an erase & Ban ? This announces some strange future for GPGNet.

I'm not pretending the post above to be "upper truth" of everything, but frankly, there was no chance to debate anything : GPGNet just erased the whole thing, banned my account without a word of explanation, and this story is now evolving from a simple debate on SC gameplay towards a more random debate on GPGNet practices.
They must be really in a trouble to react like this. Are they so in disarray ? Is what is said really too true to be left and read on a forum ?
This is not what i was expecting from a public company. As a matter of fact, now I'm waiting very little in matter of game improvements, which is probably detrimental for all players.

[Djinn]

Hehe, they have deleted some of my posts and topics there too, without any notice etc. Some of them weren't even THAT bad...

Wonder why they do that.

[two40]

well written Tractor and definately not deserving a ban. not even an erase imo. pretty piss poor effort on behalf of GPGNet. i despise it when devs/com managers etc try to smother free opinion. i've been a part of a few communities and i've seen it many a time but they only end up in a bad rep for the company at hand.

shame on GPGNet.

[Ender]

That was a well written post to get across your views, although I disagree with some of them thats not the point.

I could see why they might delete it this early after launch as they may feel threatened as potential customers may be checking out their forums before buying the game to make a decision on whether to buy it so they wouldn't want that message which I imagine would have spawned a long thread.

But that is no excuse, as a customer you have a right to express your opinion and Banning you was unfair and out of line. But as two40 said this isn't the first time I have seen it either and it does end up just creating distrust with the company.

[NexXus_]

Yeah, sucks that they erased and banned, that's a little ridiculous, but I guess welcome to corporate-run forums? That's what supcom-live is for

I also disagree with many of your points, but the topic here is more about the response to the original.

[dalvin]

Your post sounded like you weren't interested in anyone with a different opinion to yours really .You just said you are not interested to know that someone has had a different experience.

[Jetro]

The lack of strategic depth proabably has to do with the fairly small map sizes on most maps. SupCom pomised huge 81x81km maps but delivered only 2(and those are heavily reliant on sea power. If they released a map pack that provide more land based 81x81km maps, I'd imagine the stratagies seen now would change significantly. Try tech 1 swarm aeon tanks across 81km of ocean and you get what I'm talking about

Maybe this will change when user tools are released(or maybe with the map pack I believe they are releasing) but there's still alot of potential for supcom to fill.

[Graushwein]

First of all I think it is great that you wanted to express your opinion to others.

That being said I take issue with this, "I'm not interested to know that someone, somewhere, had one different game : it's just hiding the very great majority." The way I read it says something like this, "I'm right and have weighed every aspect of the game and it is not good. Don't bother trying to debate this, you'll be wrong." Thats just the way I read it. There is much I could say about this but I try not to debate with people who don't leave room for others, either their opinions or their preferences. What's the point?

The reason that companies provide forums like that are not just to establish a community. Its also to control publicity. They can provide a central place for people to come to investigate before they buy. Sure you can go other places, but to most the "Official Forums" are the best place to get a feel for the game's strong and weak points. If I were a developer I'd do the same thing. I'm not going to put my faith in people to post responsibly elsewhere when I could moderate it myself.

I would agree that your post is one-sided and not very representative of the game. In short I'd do the same thing they did

Graushwein

PS Here I've responded to you in another thread because you specifically wanted this thread for discussion about the morality of deleting posts. I'll respect that wish. But I will not let you get away with making an argument without due response. There are other people who read the forums and, despite your saying so, I don't find your opinions representative.

[nlgenesis]

"I'm not interested to know that someone, somewhere, had one different game : it's just hiding the very great majority."

That doesn't mean he is not interested in the opinion of someone else. It means that if there is one person who had a great strategic experience, that doesn't mean it is a great strategic game, since almost all other games are straightforward. He was covering for a "counterargument" like:
"I played this game a week ago, it was so amazing! I used every units in the game and had a great strategic experience. Therefore, this is a good strategic game."

And it is a big shame GPG has the guts to pull off something like this. So far for freedom of speech on their forums. My respect for GPG has fallen to rock bottom.

[TiduZ]

It's great you have your opinion, its just too bad that you are completely wrong. Like when people thought the world was flat instead of round, even after people provided evidence it was infact round, they were all entitled to believe what they wanted. Even though it was pretty obvious bullshit.

and ps: I cant wait to see your level 1 rush on a 20x20 map (the third largest, third smallest ie: medium size) map. by the time you get to me I'll have t2 pd and your cookie cutter strategy will fall faster than your words on these forums.