CompuServe Messages

Mike – He was speaking English, although I did want to try my Russian out on him – but he kept switching back to English (must be a comment on my quality of Russian) What he specifically said is that it was literally a year-long exercise by a group of 8 to 10 programmers who originally worked in defense in Russia (under the Soviets), and now needed guidance to move into the private sector. From what I saw of the product, it is very powerful, but he definitely said that this was an "experiment" and that there were no immediate plans to continue development. He said that he (as the chief of programming) and his staff are primarily directed at game development. He added that the development cycle on this project was partly intended to make clear to his programmers what the west expected in terms of product development and release quality, so that they would be ready to move to other work. I am not exaggerating here. Bob