15 replies to this topic

[alanwescoat]

Still Waiting for MechWarrior 5

Okay. You’re on this forum because a new MechWarrior game is finally sort of out, and maybe you are even wondering if it will ever get out of beta. There are a lot of great things to say about MechWarrior Online, especially since it can be played for free, but let’s face it, it ain’t the MechWarrior 5 we’ve all been waiting for. With the current state of computing technology, it is finally time to get the MechWarrior engine right once and for all.

Eighteen years ago, Activision unleashed Mechwarrior 2: 31^st Century Combat upon the world, and a benchmark was set for fantasy combat simulators. Version 1.0 was playable on some 486 systems with as little as 4MB of RAM and a halfway-decent VESA local bus graphics accelerator. A fast Pentium with 16MB of RAM and a PCI 3D graphics accelerator made it shine in all its glory. It had a genuine 3D environment, and the gameplay was out of this world! (What was super cool is that if you had the very first DOS release, you could toggle wireframe mode, making it into a vector-graphics game that relieved your CPU of much of the work of rendering the graphics.)

MechWarrior 2 was followed by two excellent sequels, but after MechWarrior 4, simulations seemed doomed. Console gaming had taken over, and PC gaming dwindled. Eventually, everything needed to be set up so that a standard gamepad could handle all aspects of gameplay, which almost totally screwed over simulation.

Now, computer gaming is making a comeback, but the legacy of dumbed-down controls is evident with MechWarrior Online. Let’s consider some features that Activision coded into their releases designed for computers sporting RAM in terms of megabytes instead of gigabytes, single-core CPUs sporting megahertz ratings instead of multi-core CPUs sporting gigahertz ratings, and graphics accelerators hardly more complex than the old-style VGA D-SUB connector that until recently came pre-installed on most motherboards. In short, Mechwarrior 2 gave amazing simulation using about 0.2 % of the power that a typical modern gaming computer supposedly has.

Of course, MechWarrior 2-4 in terms of graphics leave a whole lot to be desired in comparison to what modern gaming has to offer and in comparison to MWO in particular. In terms of gameplay, some things are superb with MWO, and some things are a bit amiss with it.

One thing I am particularly pleased about with MWO is allowance for independent movement of the pilot’s head within the cockpit, a feature likewise included with MW2 but reduced merely to glancing in MW4. The sad thing is that while MW2 allowed the pilot view to remain fixed, MWO automatically returns it to center. I have long been expecting such simulators to enable fully independent X and Y axes for pilot view separate from the turret, but this has so far never materialized in any MechWarrior game, which is truly sad, especially with the Occulus Rift slated for release this year. However, in MechWarrior 2, one could have the legs walking in one direction, the turret aimed in a second direction, and the viewpoint of the pilot locked in yet a third direction simultaneously, something that MWO cannot quite handle.

The targeting computer for MWO is total junk compared to MW2’s targeting computer. With MWO, we have dumbed-down one-button targeting. MW2 allowed target enemy, cycle through enemies left and right, target friendly, cycle through friendlies left and right, target navigation points, cycle through nav points left and right, and target whatever was under the reticule. That was a proper targeting computer for a mech. Why MWO has failed to emulate this simple and essential feature is a genuine mystery (unless of course it has been intentionally dumbed-down for players used to console gaming).

MW2 featured a scalable radar. MWO’s radar is locked at a single scale. What gives with that?

MW2 had a proper reverse toggle. When you pressed that key, the throttle worked in reverse until you pressed it again. MWO has a reverse toggle, but the moment you change speed, you’re right back to moving forward. Fortunately, we can chalk that glitch up to it still being in beta. Default analog support forces one to place the throttle in a middle position for full stop, which is nonsense. The proper way to set up a throttle is for full stop to occur when the throttle is all the way back with a toggle for reverse. Previous MechWarrior games allowed for that, but so far MWO has not quite got it right, possibly because they are trying to force CryEngine 3 to be a simulator engine when it was never cut out to be a simulator engine.

MW2 had gradual zoom in and zoom out. MWO only has 1x, 1.5x, and 2x which just cycles with no way for the cycle to go backward.

In MWO, where is the rear-view mirror? Its absence is absurd. With the resolution of modern monitors, rear view should simply be part of the HUD.

Something great to see with MWO is that quality support for analog joysticks is back. I found the move from keyboard and joystick to keyboard and mouse to be quite mysterious and weird with the move to gamepads to less weird but even worse than the mouse. A sad thing that has happened over the years is that many gamers have become convinced that KB&M is objectively better than a good HOTAS. The fact of the matter is that peripherals can at best only be as good as the software that supports them. The horrible fact of the matter is that game programmers for a wide variety of reason have simply refused to properly support sticks. Perhaps the most obnoxious example of this came when Crysis could be played with a gamepad but ONLY if it was an X-Box controller.

A modern gaming system supposedly has 500-2000 times as much power as systems that could minimally run MW2, but the simulations have become less simulative. Apparently, the PC gaming paradigm is still screwed over by the console-gaming paradigm.

The thing about MechWarrior fans is that they do not WANT a console-gaming experience. We want a simulation of what it would be like to sit in the cockpit of a truly fantastic piece of military hardware. Such a piece of hardware is not going to be operated with a keyboard or a mouse or a stupid gamepad. At the very minimum, it is going to be operated by a HOTAS and pedals. Anyone who wants a mech-like experience in a console-gaming format can just play Hawken. Hawken rocks for what it is meant to be. MechWarriors want to go into the mech lab and weigh the pros and cons of whether adding C.A.S.E. or a Beagle Active Probe is going to be worth it. A properly simulated mech simply cannot be fully operated on a gamepad, which is what MWO appears to be trying to do. That is what games like Hawken are for. MechWarrior programmers should strive for what the developers at FASA strove for in making BattleTech, simulating what it would be like to actually engage in warfare with mechs.

In MWO, jump jets cannot be angled. If you are at a dead stop and try to use jump jets to get over an obstacle, you’ll just land right back where you were stuck. This leaves much to be desired.

MW3 allowed independent aiming of the arms separate from the torso. MWO makes an effort to partially simulate this with arms moving faster than the torso, but they are not genuinely independent of one another as they were in MW3. This is probably due to limitations of CryEngine 3, but it would be great to have that going in MW5.

MW2 also let the driver tilt the mech left or right a little bit. That appears to be missing in MWO.

The MWO experience system is awesome. The potentially unlimited cost of the game is not.

I find myself stuck with a vexing question. Considering how fabulous Activision’s MW2 engine was, why has no-one simply taken THAT engine, tweaked it, updated the graphics, and made a new MechWarrior game? There has always been something seriously wrong with that. There were only three things wrong with that engine: pilot perspective relied on the same keys for movement, the independent arm aiming was absent, and mechs could not crouch. Tweaking these things should be a snap. (And I grant that completely overhauling the graphics rendering is an entirely different story, but here I am concerned with how the mechs operate rather than how the game looks.)

Here is what I am hoping for with MechWarrior 5:

1. Genuine simulation of pilot and mech movement (8-10 genuinely separate axes):

8]a. Two independent axes for pilot perspective (joystick hat switch or motion sensor for something like the Occulus Rift)

8]b. Two independent axes for mech torso control (joystick)

8]c. Ten-speed and analog throttle with reverse toggle along with analog and digital turning (throttle, button, and pedals or twist on joystick)

8]d. Two independent axes for arm movement (hat switch or mouse, such as the mouse stick on Saitek’s X-65f)

8]e. A way to tilt the mech slightly right or left (buttons)

8]f. A way to make the mech squat, preferably analog (buttons)

2. Scalable radar
3. A targeting computer at least as good as the one in MW2
4. A rearview screen as part of the HUD
5. Scalable zoom in and zoom out
6. Multi-monitor and Occulus Rift support
7. Training missions at least as good as the ones in MW2
8. At least one full single-player campaign
9. Regular quarterly releases of single-player expansion modules (for a fee)
10. Unlimited online gaming

8]a. Allow players to host their own servers just like MWLL and MW4 did.

8]b. Provide an SDK so that the fans can program their own maps and forms of play. Glean from the best, and pay the players for those elements used in the quarterly module releases.

11. Full access to the mech lab in the single-player version with separate c-bills and XP for online
12. Single-player combat simulator as in MW2-4
13. The experience system of MWO
14. One price. Hey. If it’s a hundred bucks, it’s a hundred bucks.

8]a. Give a discount for MWO players who spent money. Half the cash you spent on MWO while waiting for MW 5 applies to MW5. You spent 200 bucks? MW5 is free to you. You spent 300 bucks? MW 5 and the next two quarterly modules are free to you.

8]b. Transfer the MWO accounts as MW5 accounts. All XP and c-bills earned transfer over.

15. Arm-lock toggle (NOT holding down the left shift key) – press once for on; press again for off
16. Integrated voice chat with tuning (and possibly hacking scrambled channels)
17. In-game sensitivity tuning for each axis
18. A way to turn the graphics way, way down (Properly coded, anyone with any dual-core processor, 4GB of RAM and pretty much any old GPU should be able to get 60FPS with the understanding that the speed comes at a massive sacrifice of graphics quality.)
19. Windows independent (My God! Give us a Linux kernel streamlined for nothing but online gaming that can boot off the DVD or be installed to its own partition. Why the hell hasn’t that happened already? Each individual game could be an addition to the GRUB menu so that at boot time, players can chose to boot directly into particular games. Of course, it should run in Windows, too.)
20. Genuine 7.1 24-bit/192Khz HD surround with separate support for chat (in line with many contemporary gaming motherboards)
21. Slightly larger fonts on the HUD – Because of the prevalence of large HDTVs, methods of game playing are changing from sitting up close to the monitor to kicking back on the couch with the TV across the room.
22. Take a clear hint from MWLL and include all sorts of vehicles other than mechs. There is no reason that mech warfare should be limited only to walking tanks. It is okay to have ground troops, regular tanks, hovercraft, airplanes, etc.

Here is how I am imagining playing MW5. I sit down with a firmly mounted HOTAS and pedals. I put on an HMD, earbuds for the radio, and 7.1 headphones for the game sound along with a split in the analog LFE cable for the subwoofer resting under my bucket seat.

My controls:
Pilot perspective: actually move my head with the HMD while enjoying the game in stereoscopic 3D
Torso X and Y: Joystick
Analog Turn: Pedals
Jump Jets: Toe brakes with a four-way switch for WASD
Throttle: One-way throttle with reverse toggle
Arm Aiming: Throttle mouse stick
Crouch/Stand/Tilt Left or Right: four-way switch

To reiterate, it would be nice if someone simply got the gameplay portion of the MechWarrior engine right once and for all so that we could just enjoy it for all time with regular modules to come after.

If Smith and Tinker (or whoever) released MW 5 as a proper simulator at $100 with modest quarterly modules at $25 each, I would be totally down with it. I would subscribe to that.

Happy gaming!

Edited by alanwescoat, 16 August 2013 - 08:27 AM.

[General Taskeen]

Basically everything you mentioned and stated from previous Mech Warrior titles is exactly why I say MWO isn't even close to the 'simulation-esque' rich features that existed in previous Mech titles.

Part of a Simulation game is what I call, MBM (Multiple Button Management), which is what Mech Warrior games have simulated to make it "seem" like a Simulation, even though they aren't truly hardcore simulations like flight simulators or submarine simulators, etc. (IL-2, Silent Hunter, DCS A-10, DCS Blackshark).

MWO currently is missing many of the features you stated to make more simulation-esque like previous Mech titles. One of my biggest gripes is how weapons are aimed, as the arms and torso aiming don't allow for true independent aiming, such as having your Mech facing forward while firing, and aiming an Arm 90 degrees to fire at something else... "Advanced Targeting" basically.

Edited by General Taskeen, 16 August 2013 - 09:28 AM.

[kuangmk11]

General Taskeen, on 16 August 2013 - 09:27 AM, said:

One of my biggest gripes is how weapons are aimed, as the arms and torso aiming don't allow for true independent aiming, such as having your Mech facing forward while firing, and aiming an Arm 90 degrees to fire at something else... "Advanced Targeting" basically.

Free Look moves your arms

[General Taskeen]

kuangmk11, on 16 August 2013 - 09:36 AM, said:

Free Look moves your arms

No, you have no idea what I'm talking about do you so I am assuming you have not played past Mech Warrior games.

Using "Ctrl" to freelook let's you aim in a very limited fashion if a Mech has arms, but can't reach 90 degrees if full actuators are present. Furthermore, Ctrl doesn't UNLOCK it permanently from torso, you have to HOLD it down.

Thirdly more, "freelook" is tied directly to aim, rather than indepently moving the pilot's head from the cursor.

[Mechteric]

If you haven't already, read this: http://mwomercs.com/...10/2-dev-blog-0

When you come back you'll see that they wanted to make MW5, but it couldn't happen because nobody was wiling to fund it. Perhaps in a few-several years if MWO can keep active enough maybe, just maybe, it can happen.

[Johnny Z]

I like some of what the OP said.

I am happy with the game in its current state though as a beta alot will change.

I cant stand to much HUD. Being in the cockpit the hud should be mainly on the cockpit side not in my face ruining what I think is a great looking sci-fi game.

The combat is great. I remember my first time in was awsome, the sound effects were a large part of that.

As a beta they have removed some features, which i am sure they will add back in time. Having to do with making at least one involve pilot skill i think.

Again as a beta i am sure they are focusing on balance and mechanics and so on before adding in-depth missions and faction wars and much more i am hoping.

The addiditions I am hoping for are:

-AI enemies and allies
-Mechtech (mechanic) to lvl up in the mech bay for timely and cost effective repairs and so on.
-Aerotech
-First person mech bay and other areas/zones
-Tons of new missions like base defense/offense, factory searching for "lost tech" ,possibly risky salvage missions.
-The list goes on...

[Shifty Eyes]

alanwescoat, on 16 August 2013 - 08:20 AM, said:

Still Waiting for MechWarrior 5
<snip>

I agree that MWO leaves a lot to be desired, but I think some of the things you are asking for are:
a ) small things that could be added in easily, and probably will be
b ) small things that may or may not be added for pvp balance purposes or simplicity/realism
c ) impossible things to add into a widely-available computer game

Among easy things they will probably add in are reverse toggle, crouch, arm-lock single-hit toggle, rear-view, and a bunch of other things.

Some small things, like scale-able radar and better targeting, are probably the way they are to simplify gameplay balance. They are attempting to allow players to play "sneaky" if they want to. In previous titles, mechs showed up on your radar as soon as they were within range, regardless of whether there was line of site or 5 megatons of solid lead wall between them. I think this has been discussed before on the forums. As far as jump jets go, I kind of found it silly in MW2 when mechs flew up into the air and darted away in different directions like airplanes or helicopters. These are multi-ton battle machines... lifting of the ground at all should be an accomplishment in itself. I don't necessarily agree with these design decisions, but I can see the logic or goal behind them.

As far as all of your wishes for independent axis for pilot head, arms, torso and legs, that's a lot to deal with if you want to make your game accessible to people with standard peripherals (keyboard + mouse). I mean, all of that would be awesome, but you can't expect every player to have top-of-the-line joysticks, pedals, and whatever else you'd need to accomplish that. I also don't remember having a lot of axis freedom in MW2. I'm personally satisfied with ctrl-hold head movement (I use this all the time to check around me) and PGI's independent arm movement. The only thing I think they really need to add is 90-degree arm twists to get pot-shots off as you are running past an enemy, which they sort of clumsily had in MW4.

A lot of improvement needs to be done in MWO, and a lot of those ideas sound fantastic, but some just can't realistically be done without giving obvious advantages to people that buy expensive peripherals. BattleTech lore is even lacking in a solid explanation as to how 'mech pilots control arms independently (many are shown jutting their arm forward while firing like a man with a pistol) or control the legs, head, and torso all at once. You can't really expect developers to get so complex when they have to consider the fact that their average Joe customer is using a keyboard + mouse, and maybe a joystick.

EDIT: snipped the giant quote

Edited by Shifty Eyes, 16 August 2013 - 11:14 AM.

[alanwescoat]

Wow! Lots of nice, positive comments overnight.

Specifically @ Shifty Eyes: Your comments about the need for a HOTAS are noted, but I think the keyboard and mouse are sufficient for all that I want from MechWarrior 5 as a simulation. There are plenty of keys that are left unused, and the shift, ctrl, and alt keys are improperly implemented for exploitation of multiple functions from the same keys.

Here are a few examples:

Let's get all of what I want for the targeting computer out of one key. We'll use the R key.
R - Target nearest enemy. Press again to target next enemy.
Shift + R - Target previous enemy.
Ctrl + R Target nearest friendly. Press again to target next friendly.
Ctrl + Shift + R - Target previous friendly
Alt + R - Target nearest navigation point. Press again to target next nav point.
Shift + Alt + R - Target previous nav point
Ctrl + Alt + R - Target what is under the reticule.

That gives us the entire targeting system using one key.

Z - Zoom. Hold to zoom out more.
Shift + Z - Zoom in. Hold to zoom in more.
Ctrl + Z - Zoom out full.
Alt + Z - Zoom in full.

That gives us a maximally functional zoom using only one key.

Pilot Perspective:
Home - Look up.
End - Look down.
Delete - Look left.
Page Down - Look right.
Insert - Reset pilot perspective.
Page Up - Return to previous pilot perspective.

Alternative Visualization:
H - Toggle night vision on or off.
Shift + H - Toggle thermal vision on or off
Ctrl and Alt could be reserved for other vision enhancements (such as headlights)

The possibility of angling the vents of jump jets for steering has been implemented in previous MW games.

While all of this would be best done on a HOTAS, I do not find the expense to be a terribly significant objection. A decent joystick was necessary for previous versions of MechWarrior. In addition, the way that games are currently coded necessitates enormous expense for GPUs. Yes, using an expensive HOTAS gives a certain kind of advantage. Likewise, using dual SLI-linked Titans gives a player a huge and decisively superior advantage over me and my relatively puny GTX 560. I run along at minimum settings with about 45fps right up until I am engaged in combat with several mechs who are pelting me, at which time my fps drops to about 17, which essentially ends the game for me. I certainly do not need the beautiful effects generated by CryEngine 3 as much as I need the capacity to speedily respond to what is happening to my mech in the game.

Regarding the scalable radar, I LIKE the sneaky aspect and the fact that enemy tracking does not work even remotely close to as well as it did in previous incarnations. That being said, the scalable radar is no so much for enemy detection as it is about gauging relative distance from various targets by scrolling through the various radar scales. Activision did an awesome job with this.

Also, as far as pilot-perspective freedom, it was an undocumented feature of MW2 that I discovered quite by accident. The arrow keys controlled turning and torso Y axis. Holding down the Ctrl key allowed the arrow keys to be used for change in pilot perspective, and there was a quick way to reset the perspective to center as well, but if you wanted to keep your eyes on the left while shooting at a target in front of your turret, you could do it. That was for a game coded when the 486 was still king and RAM cost $50 per megabyte.

@ Johnny Z: A user-configurable HUD would be a nice feature that I had not thought about. Unlike you, I really like a sophisticated HUD.

EDIT:

Edited by alanwescoat, 16 August 2013 - 09:01 PM.

[James The Fox Dixon]

You missed MW 1 from your list of when the simulation started. It was also done by Activision. As such, I give this thread a fail.

[Ridersofdoom]

Quote

I am happy with the game in its current state though as a beta alot will change.

ITS NOT BETA, the state is gamma or delta maybe coma.

[alanwescoat]

James The Fox Dixon, on 17 August 2013 - 03:06 PM, said:

You missed MW 1 from your list of when the simulation started. It was also done by Activision. As such, I give this thread a fail.

Since I never played MW1, I felt unqualified to discuss it.

Anyone else notice that this thread got jettisoned from the forum about the future of MWO to "off-topic discussions"? Pretty irritating. Apparently, nobody with the licensing wants to talk about finally harnessing the technology and doing a proper MechWarrior simulation.

[James The Fox Dixon]

alanwescoat, on 18 August 2013 - 06:28 AM, said:

Since I never played MW1, I felt unqualified to discuss it.

Anyone else notice that this thread got jettisoned from the forum about the future of MWO to "off-topic discussions"? Pretty irritating. Apparently, nobody with the licensing wants to talk about finally harnessing the technology and doing a proper MechWarrior simulation.

You can actually play it now if you can find it or contact the people at GarageGames about getting a copy. Just do a search for MechWarrior 1 and you'll find it easily enough. You'd have to use DosBox in order to play it, since modern cpus are light years ahead of the old 286's. I remember trying to play it on a Phenom cpu and didn't use DosBox. My Locust went so fast that it smashed into a mountain and exploded. LOL

Edited by James The Fox Dixon, 18 August 2013 - 11:01 AM.

[Egomane]

James The Fox Dixon, on 18 August 2013 - 09:23 AM, said:

You can actually play it legally now since it's classified as Abandonware.

Actually, that is not true!

Abandonware just means, that it is no longer available on the market and no longer supported. You can also say, it is now ignored by the manufacturer. This doesn't mean it's legal to get yourselfs a copy from shady sources. In most cases, abandonware is still under copyright and this can be enforced. There is no law around this world, that I know of, that acknowledges the term abandonware or anything similar to it.

I admit, that there are a lot of games out there, where the developer and distributor no longer provide any means of aquiring it. They also often seem to forget that those games even exist and will not follow any copyright violations. But with the rise of platforms like Good old Games, I wouldn't bet on it staying that way.

[James The Fox Dixon]

Egomane, on 18 August 2013 - 09:39 AM, said:

Actually, that is not true!

Abandonware just means, that it is no longer available on the market and no longer supported. You can also say, it is now ignored by the manufacturer. This doesn't mean it's legal to get yourselfs a copy from shady sources. In most cases, abandonware is still under copyright and this can be enforced. There is no law around this world, that I know of, that acknowledges the term abandonware or anything similar to it.

I admit, that there are a lot of games out there, where the developer and distributor no longer provide any means of aquiring it. They also often seem to forget that those games even exist and will not follow any copyright violations. But with the rise of platforms like Good old Games, I wouldn't bet on it staying that way.

Thank you for the correction. However, abandonware is the computer software version of orphan works. I was also wrong on who owned the copyrights to MechWarrior 1. It was Dynamix that owns the copyrights. Many of the people at Dynamix when on to form GarageGames that has the Torque Engine licensed as open source. I doubt that they would go after anyone for getting a copy of MechWarrior 1 and haven't to my knowledge given their stance on open source licensing.

[Pht]

Actually, you really don't even need a ton of controls to simulate basic battlemech combat. Not at the entry level - you might need ten commands - joystick/mouse, throttle (fwd & reverse) turn left/right - maybe torso twist (the mech my very well auto-rotate when you put the reticule on the far edge of the main hud), jump jets, and your triggers - those are the basic controls in the lore, outside of the neurohelmet (which we don't have an analog for).

The extra commands in a MW game would, however, be there, for those who wanted to mess with them.

[alanwescoat]

Pht, on 18 August 2013 - 10:43 AM, said:

Actually, you really don't even need a ton of controls to simulate basic battlemech combat. Not at the entry level - you might need ten commands - joystick/mouse, throttle (fwd & reverse) turn left/right - maybe torso twist (the mech my very well auto-rotate when you put the reticule on the far edge of the main hud), jump jets, and your triggers - those are the basic controls in the lore, outside of the neurohelmet (which we don't have an analog for).

The extra commands in a MW game would, however, be there, for those who wanted to mess with them.

Of course, BASIC controls can be simulated on a gamepad, and MWO does that well, and I'm actually fairly happy with the suport for analog HOTAS. What we have with MWO is a game that is pretty close to as good as it can be in terms of a control paradigm that is crippled by the notion that everything must fit on a gamepad. My point is that computer technology has matured to the extent that a truly proper MechWarrior simulation engine could now be really done up right along with superb modern graphics. The "bottleneck" for sim development is refusal of the industry to move beyond the gamepad. MechWarrior is the natural game for that, and it is disheartening that the developers are not trying to break the crippling contemporary paradigm.

We have a legacy of superb games in the MechWarrior series. What I found truly amazing about MechWarrior 2 was the interface. As I previously mentioned, the only things MW2 needed were: the ability to make the mechs crouch (was it there already and I'm forgetting?), truly independent arm targeting given in MW3, and separate controls for locking pilot POV instead of using a toggle to share controls. I guess there would also need to be a four-way set of controls added for jump-jet angling.

Even in the controversial case of 3PV, MW2 was awesome in this regard. Pilots could launch an external camera. That camera could be raised, lowered, swung 360 degrees around the mech, and zoomed in an out. This is all from a game that was released eighteen years ago before you could even get a USB joystick and just before "3D" graphics accelerators hit the market. In terms of breaking paradigms, it was versions of MW2 that were specific to particular chipsets that made the 3D graphics accelerators really shine. In that case, there would be no problem with sharing controls since in 3PV, things like pilot perspective and zoom controls would not be useful.

Also, it appears that this thread might be more heavily moderated than I thought. I have in my email inbox a response from GoManGo that was completely absent from this thread by the time I got around to checking my email. Does anyone know whether that post was deleted by moderators or the poster?