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View Full Version : Call me when your program truly works. I'm done for now.



VegasMikee
09-26-2008, 05:16 AM
HOLDEM MANAGER TRULY IS AKIN TO THE BETA VERSION OF WINDOWS VISTA

Preemptive qualifying statement: I own two state-of-the-art desktop computers and a laptop that would be the centerfolds of the months in a computer geek magazine. I know my way around computers, servers, programs, and their associated hardware as well as most any I.T. guy. I have used Postgre and PT2 for several years and now use PT3, as well. I make my living playing online poker. I am by no means a newbie as pertains to computers or poker or the various software programs available for my profession. I use both XP Pro and Vista Ultimate on all of my computers. They run smoother than a baby's ass and faster than lightening. That said, I shall begin.



After posting numerous questions that "fabio" decided to combine with others' questions into one space and thereby negating the effect of giving the forum the opportunity to view each question as a separate event and profit from such a method of posting, I have my answer: Your program is not yet ready for primetime.


To not be able to perform a function as basic as a simple means by which to search on a given day is absurd, but not nearly as absurd as the answer from "fabio." To wit: It caused problems for some people.
Okay, well, fix it.

Everything in a software program causes problems at some point, but competent companies who market their product as such, fix the problems or lose customers. How about letting customers who never had a problem using the specific day search function have access to rolling back the updated version? Pretty simple approach to basic customer service. I know I would have lost my mind if I didn't have a way to revert back to the "working" version of some programs. The option to revert back to previous versions because you don't agree with a programmer's "vision" is standard and typical in the marketplace.


Can't use HM while offline without "verifying the registration code" once a week. Seriously? You're kidding. What program on this planet becomes a brick just because it doesn't have Internet access for a period of time? Absurd. There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for not being able to use a program because it wants to check in with mommy and daddy to let it them know it wasn't kidnapped. No, sir, you can't use that spreadsheet program today because it hasn't phoned home for a week. Nice.


Can't remove players added to the Cash Games Reports section. What? How on God's green Earth did you manage to incorporate a parameter that, in essence, you're punished for using? Wait, don't select that player because if you do, you're stuck with them in the pop-up scroll menu for life! Absurd.



Your response to the vacuum/analyze database management of "it works for some people" is Plaintiff's Exhibit 1 of why your program has no substance and the marketing is misleading. If the vacuum/analyze function only works for some people, then fix it. Oh, wait. I'm sorry. You're "focusing on bigger things." (Your words.) Really? What could be "bigger" than getting parts of the program that you already put out on the market for people to download and try out to finally work correctly? I mean, really, what is "bigger" than making the existing parameters function properly?
Oh, no, never mind about that function, sir. We have "bigger" things that we're working on that will hopefully distract you enough that you'll forget about the other parts of the program which don't function properly. Quick! Look over there! Ignore that. Look! Oooooo, shiny.

Oh, wait. Perhaps you're trying to get your epileptic hand replayer to finally function on a level of par to that of your competition. That would be nice.



Can't add or delete stats in the "Players" section right now. Well, okay. I guess. I mean, it's not an egregious and pitiful error like the hand replayer or inserting information into a drop-down menu and being stuck with it for life. When using PT3, I can insert or delete tons of parameters in their equivalent of your Players page. You should probably think about incorporating that functionality to stay current.



My Q: "It's very useful to be able to see at a very QUICK glance what villian won which hand while viewing your own stats and past hands. Is there a way to add player names to the columns in the Cash Games "Reports" window while I'm viewing past hands?"
Your A: "What about the "vs. Players" Tab?" Followed by a smily face to indicate here's a smart response to an absurd question.
Actually, you missed the point of the Q which was "see at a very QUICK glance" ...
There is nothing quick about having to exit one window and go to a different tab to look up the information that could be answered with the addition of one more column. Your competition provided the feature from day one in their programs. Seems easy to implement. Thanks for the smart response.


Print reports? Okay, you told me how. You perhaps misunderstood my Q. In nearly every program I use on a daily basis, there is a one-click way to print what I'm looking at. Your program requires too many steps and you wouldn't know it existed if you didn't right click on certain panes. Again, pretty standard and easy to have.


You didn't even answer my question about how to get a flopped set report. Instead, you inserted a link to one of your FAQ pages. Thanks. That didn't answer my question. Sure, let me send you $80.00 AND spend my time sifting through your page that still doesn't answer my question. Thank you. Great service.



Auto update doesn't work. Oh. Gosh. Thanks for letting me know that before I sent you $80. Check in once a week for updates? Sure. I mean, it's not like I have anything else to do but go to your forum to see if I'm missing out on things other people may already have because you couldn't find a way to implement something as basic as auto update. My daughter's "Barbie's Country Pony Adventure" knows how to check for updates. And it works, too. Without glitches. As advertised.


I have dealt for weeks now with your program doing nebulous and vague "hiccups" while working with it. Pop-up balloons get stuck on the screen and won't go away. Oftentimes, the HUD stats will freeze for various reasons. On more than one occasion it has locked up both the desktop and laptop it is installed on. Oh, and it has the same problems whether running XP Pro or Vista. And yes, I know I'm not the only one with these many basic functionality problems. I see many of my same complaints posted all through the forums, dating back several months.



Sidebar scroll functions do not work properly on one of the most critical pages: the "Cash Games" reports page.
Apparently you did not understand what I was referring to in my Q regarding that function and that is my fault for not being clear. I am talking about the scroll bar to the right of every page in a Windows environment that you use to slide the page up and down. The glitch in that particular section is frustrating and has been complained about long before I did. Apparently my $80 didn't go towards the labor cost of curing that glitch because when I read about it long ago while "scouting" out your program and forum, I thought to myself, oh, they'll fix that right away, certainly before I send them $80. Of course they will.




Your program has promise, but you have a long way to go for you to deliver and live up to the hype that you have created. Your home page is very nice and flashy and pretty and, oh, good for you, you're endorsed by some of those nice young men over at Deuces Cracked. But you should have done better on the critical areas before release. By critical, I would define a function as important as a useable hand replayer as critical. By critical, I would also include the ability to erase data that I've entered into a certain menu that offered me that option to begin with. (Seriously, try to imaging typing a response into these forums and not having the ability to erase what you just typed. Absurd.)
Also, by critical, I would define that as a program that does not randomly flash things on my screen or lock up my computer or take inordinate amounts of time to navigate just to find the answer to a really simple little question about a player or stat.

Oh, and lest you think I'm slamming only on your program, I was equally harsh and critical of PT3 when it first came out and I just fired off a complaint as recently as last week regarding a feature that used to be in PT2 and they have yet to implement in PT3. So, you're not alone in delivering to the marketplace something that wasn't ready quite yet. It's just that both of the popular iterations of PokerTracker have features that many of us long-time pros have come to rely on, and so we expect those features to be implemented in a USEABLE manner in the competition's version, as well.




Lastly, with the exception of some flashy and quasi-glitchy things that happened on my screens quite often using both XP and Vista, your HUD IS THE ABSOLUTE NUTS!! I have never found so much information so easy to set up on a table. It is obvious why so many rave about your HUD. It really does live up to all the hype. Sadly, and I REALLY do mean that it makes me sad, most of the rest of the program does not live up to the hype. It needs some major fine tuning and ironing out of quirks before it's useable as a main poker database.


I will check back in approximately three or four months and download the latest revision (since auto update doesn't work) and see if the bugs are worked out. You're so close. Vista was complete garbage for a year. Now it's useable. Your product is good, but YOU COULD BE GREAT! I wish you and your product well.

Rvg72
09-26-2008, 11:50 AM
Hi,

It does come down to priorities and also I'm pretty sure you are not seeing the depth of features that the program has to offer since we do have a large number of enthusiastic supporters including many top pro's but most of your points are valid - those things you mentioned are things that need to get done.

HM is constantly evolving and we are all working very hard making it better and better and everything you mentioned is on the list of things we are working on. Other people could make their own lists of things that we don't have and it could look quite different than yours. This is the nature of software, especially complex software like this. What we're trying to do is address the most important items based on customer feedback. For example, right now the two big things we are working on are tourney support and multi currency. Many items on your list are near the top as well, some are pretty minor and nitpicky and not as quick to fix as you might expect so for now I try to use my time in the best way possible tackling the bigger important issues and the smaller quick fixes.

To summarize, I have no false assumptions that we are close to being "finished" in case anyone is worried about that. Just look at the revision lists and see what we are doing. I haven't even taken a half-day off (including weekends) since very early this year because I'm not going to be happy with it until every important item on my todo list is finished and every fixable bug is fixed. And this isn't complaining :) I love doing this and I actually appreciate the fact that you spent so much time writing all of these posts.

Thanks,

Roy

itsavest
09-26-2008, 01:22 PM
Even though Mikee's critique is a bit harsh, I must agree. And if you love somebody you can be more straightforward in your criticism. :)

Especially the following things annoy me bigtime (and Mikee has brought some of these up already).

1.The replayer needs to be more handy (navigation by streets for example) and more beautiful. Reviewing sessions with the replayer is no fun at all and PT is way ahead in this regard.
2. Selecting multiple sessions with Ctrl+Click!!!
3. It is very useful to see the winning hand and the player that won in the sessions, hands and report tabs (like in PT2)
4. You should be able to select "Last x hands" from the report and session tabs. What if if want to review the last 10k hands.. It is very complicated to do this by date.

And 5. I have not found a way that I get only the hands displayed that belong to the selected session. Instead all hands are displayed. This is not good! :mad: Do I miss something here?

Thanks and keep up the good work! If you fix these things fast, HM really is the number one..

EN09
09-26-2008, 02:21 PM
guess i don't get that deep into HEM but i can say this with certainty, i was a long time user of PT and finally gave up after the 17th beta version on a paid program. i can deal with most of HEM but i could no longer deal with PT3 crashing and locking up... not too mention all of the 'soon to come' schtuff.

but like i say to the folks who hammer stoxpoker on DRM and pricing issues - two words - free marketplace.

i dig HEM over PT any day of the week... flaws on both sides accounted for.

fwiw anyways... :)

Lucky Stiff
09-27-2008, 11:40 AM
i dig HEM over PT any day of the week... flaws on both sides accounted for.

+1

Sean314159
09-27-2008, 12:06 PM
+1. Please make the re-player a priority.