Mail Bag

Date Wed, 07 Jan 1998 032618 -0500
From James Lazarus
Subject PCME article

You wrote on your web page

"Quake II -- Worst of the Year?
PCME has an article up called the Worst of 1997, which focuses a lot  of its attention on Quake II, in spite of repeated comments that it's   a great game.   Thanks Darkhand Smacktiyabitchity."

--

the article was very long, and i'd say about less then 10% of it focused at all on Quake2.  i believe you are in error when you said that it focuses alot on Q2.  the only thing it focuses alot on is air sims. also, they never said it was the worst of 1997, which your caption implies.  they simply said it was a dissapointment because it was rushed out for the holiday season, was incomplete and full of bugs.

i believe that post is pretty misleading, you should correct it and make an update apologizing to them for misleading your readers into thinking they called Quake2 the worst game of 1997 and the other things you mention which were false.

Thanks for your time.

I addressed the issue of the phrase "a lot" yesterday, and I'll say it again, though other words might have been better chosen, I stand by the blurb I wrote it with no corrections. Yes there were only three paragraphs about Quake II, but they were the first three. I get the impression the PCME is upset at the amount of negative feedback from Quake/Quake II fans about their piece, and are blaming me for influencing them in that direction. To reiterate, I do not believe I slanted my piece, and I think that blaming me for negative feedback to a piece that obviously was not shying away from tough opinions is giving me too much credit to influence with a few word, and giving the members of the community who shared their feedback with PCME too little credit for having opinions of their own.

Also, though no harm was really done, Marcules felt he wanted to apologize for his letter:

Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 101309 -0500
From: "Marcules"
Subject: An Apology

Upon rereading my letter I am afflicted with some hindsight of my own and would like to apologize for the tone the opening remarks took. They would suggest incompetence on your part and I am not of that opinion in the least (even if I were it would still be inappropriate). As a matter of fact I have found your page very informative and useful (even though you DID axe the vquake section ; ) ) and it is usually my first stop when surfing. I appreciate the effort you, and whatever little elves (hopefully not the ones from Twisted Xmas) help you, make to keep the page going.

While I don't want to get back on the pulpit (and once again not to single out Id, as they are responsible for my love of these games in the first place) I would like to point out that while we have access to the internet making patches readily available to us there are still a great many gamers who still don't.

Again, I apologize and certainly didn't intend my letter to become a public slam. If you wish, feel free to make this a 'public' apology.

Not a problem, as I've said, I welcome feedback, especially the critical kind, and try and use it all as food for thought.

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