In a word, "No".
The major reasons that nothing has been done on CV in two years are three-fold....
First, CV received five rather substantial enhancement releases over its first 18 months. This made CV a solid, stable, and capable product that had no glaring need for new functionality.
Second, the major thing we want to overhaul and enhance next within CV is the inventory mechanism. Our plan has been to re-work that at the same time that we add inventory capabilities to Army Builder. The timetable for adding that capability to AB has been pushed back due to other higher priority things that were needed for AB (and that we hadn't planned on). It makes a lot of sense for us to re-work the inventory for CV at the same time we add the functionality to AB, since it allows us to concurrently leverage the same new technology for both products.
Third, we're a TINY company. Our development staff consists of TWO people, one of whom also manages all the day-to-day operations of the company (that's me). So we're definitely spread very thin. Yes, our focus was almost exclusively on AB for about 18 months. The same applied to CV when we developed it, as we put AB completely on hold during that period. Right now, we've had an opportunity come up to work on a new project that is time-sensitive. Consequently, our focus is on that project for the moment. After that, we'll be going back to work on the existing products.
With regards to your claim that we are "trying to dump" the creation of data files, you apparently missed similar requests from us when we first launched CV. With AB, users have been doing virtually all data file creation from the very beginning (1988). With CV, we took on that role initially to help jumpstart the product, but we never had any plans to continue that forever. There are two reasons. The first is simply that the time we spend doing the data files is time we CAN'T spend working on product development. Since there are only two of us (one of which is effectively parttime), the time spent on data files represents a non-trivial amount of time that is lost from product development. Secondly, since we don't play all of the games ourselves, a user who plays the game will typically do a MUCH better job in creation of the data files than we can accomplish. Given those factors, if you were in our position, what approach would YOU take?
In answer to your renewal question, there is no compelling need for you to extend your CV license right now. You can continue to use the existing product and continue to have access to all data file updates. You'll find all the updates listed on our website, and there's a convenient link on the Help menu to go directly to the webpage. You can download updates from the website and then import them into CV via the appropriate option on the Tools menu. Or you can extend the license for about $8 and retain the convenience of the integrated Updates mechanism. Either approach is perfectly reasonable, and the choice is entirely yours.
As far as what other programs are out there, I don't believe there are any. We created CV to fulfill what we viewed as a void in the market. Since CV's release, no one else has released a similar product that I'm aware of. There are a variety of freeware tools that are designed for specific games. None of them have anywhere close the level of functionality provided within CV, but you might find one that suits your needs.
Lastly, there is absolutely no reason to draw rash conclusions based on incomplete information, such as you did within your post. If you have a question, we'll be happy to answer it to the best of our ability. Once you have all the facts, you can then make a reasoned decision about how you want to proceed. But to leap to conclusions without the facts serves no one - and some people can interpret it as rather rude.
I hope this answers your questions adequately. If not, let us know what's still unclear and we'll do our best to get you an answer.
Thanks, Rob
At 04:30 AM 5/22/2006, you wrote:
I am looking for a reason to renew my license. I don't see anything being done on CV in 2 years which is an eternity in software.
Also, it looks like LWD is trying to dump their own datafile maintenance onto anyone who will take them which is not a good sign to me. I believe their focus is solely on Army Builder.
Would you renew your CV license? If not, what other program would you choose?
