So a few thoughts and questions:
It's my understanding that the CF and derivatives have no support for string-type blades and scrolling ignition/retraction effects, is that correct?
With a lack of that, and no ability to change the sound fonts (which I thought was the entire point of spending the extra money and effort to get a CF-style board in the first place, especially with them costing more $$$ than a MR board -or even a complete MR saber- off ebay does), I'm having a hard time understanding exactly what the point of these boards is? The integrated LED driver for luxeons? What are the selling points of these boards (i.e. why would I want to buy one, as opposed to, say a 2010 Hasbro toy board and a TCSS constant current driver board - I'm asking for the sales pitch here!)
I think part of the contention over the fixed font choice is that it's a deliberate crippling of the design - code had to be *added* to the vanilla CF code to restrict it; I would presume this is so they do not eat into Erv's market/margins/profit, which is understandable (after all, computer CPU and video card makers do the same thing all the time)... but it does beg the question: If Erv is licensing one of his designs for outsourced mass production to increase the supply, why not license the CF board itself, instead of a cut down version? They could still sell the license-built CF boards for the same price as Erv sells his, with part of the cost going directly to Erv as a license fee for each unit sold - that way he still makes his profit (and without the hard work of him having to hand-make every CF board - more time for the bakery!), it cuts out the stupid reselling on ebay for ridiculous prices, and everyone who wants one can have a real CF board... (and there's even still a place for the PC in that scheme, since many sabersmiths would still get them as a cheaper alternative to the CF for sabers that don't require all the features of the full model...)
In regards to the contention over whether the LM/DM fonts are better/worse than the stock FX fonts, I think a less contentious path would have been to just use cleaned up and expanded remakes of the stock MR light/dark fonts (with the extra clash/swing/blaster sounds added, of course), rather than forging entirely new territory. At the least, people wouldn't be complaining it "sucks more than the FX" sounds because it would essentially be as close to them as possible, just cleaned up
(and not that the hard work in making them isn't appreciated, either)
Just some thoughts I've had about it, since I recently had a discussion over which card to use in my 'extra-fancy, cost-is-no-object' high end saber commission someone's making for me, and we both finally decided that, given the wide open option of using any of the currently available sound cards (at the time of a few weeks ago, at least), including CF and PCU, for what he's building, the only option that does what we need is the same old MR boards we've been tearing out of sabers for years now... depressing
Bookmarks