Horns
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Wondering if there be an f-14D in the near future.
Horns replied to jamse's topic in Heatblur Simulations
As good a reason to go to war as I’ve seen! Where do I sign up? -
If the module is as far advanced as we’ve been led to believe, even if Razbam leave the good news is it’s not unimaginable that another dev might acquire it and complete it.
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If the contractors don’t produce anything that can’t be sold separately, it’s not close to the same thing. Really not much point talking about it if you see that as having anything to do with third parties making discrete products. FWIW I applaud your employer for taking the approach he does, it just doesn’t translate here. Development can’t be stopped optionally at any time. People can and should take it up with Razbam, as that’s the company responsible for honoring agreements for the mudhen. For the record that’s not meant to sound glib; I think it’s shocking that a company has simply decided not to honor their obligations - and I say ‘decided’ because if they can’t afford to meet their obligations they should be in some form of administration. I really hope they get nailed for that too. I believe the business model for MSFS is roughly analogous (I’m no expert on the MSFS marketplace, if anyone knows major differences please post and say so) and it seems to work fine for them. Clearly we have a fundamental disagreement about just how consequential the Razbam situation will be for DCS, and that’s fine, neither of us can see the future, I hope and believe things will be ok here given a little time. Here’s hoping the sim and this forum is still healthy in five years and we can argue about how much difference this situation made.
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With the example of your employer and the way he deals with contractors, are those contractors selling discrete products in their own names, or are they contributing something which is sold as part of a greater 'whole' (eg they are working on a construction project ultimately sold under your employer's name)? I take it from your Star Citizen comment that you feel that people do go into Early Access purchases understanding what they are getting - in that case they understand the choice they are faced with, and they can already choose to stick to products developed by ED. If the guarantees (or lack thereof) offered for EA products, or the parties offering them, aren't sufficient for a customer to be satisfied, buying a mature module offers terms where the guarantees are much more concrete. Personally, I don't think ED commissioning all modules is an answer. For ED to retain ownership of what's produced they would have to cover all development costs, therefore we'd be limited to the number of modules ED could afford to develop and accept risk for - I don't see a reason to think that number would be greater the number of modules ED produce themselves currently. I prefer seeing a situation where third parties expand the pool of available capital, and leave it up to the customer to decide which dev - if any - they are prepared to take a risk with and under what terms they will do so. This situation has come up twice in fifteen years. I guess we'll see whether there is enough of a dip in sales for long enough to force a change of business model, but I hope this is more like a bump in the road.
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I accept that some people may not have understood before the Razbam situation that buying into EA may not end with them receiving a completed module. Do you see a solution? Between ED not being in a position to offer completion guarantees and Early Access being necessary in order to generate positive cash flow during our long development times, I don't see a lot of room to move, but both of those are assumptions on my part, so fair enough if you disagree with either or both. The only other thing I can think of is maybe adding an extra checkbox when people purchase a preorder or EA product confirming that they understand they are buying under the terms of the EA policy, and the features list is aspirational rather than a statement of the module's current or ultimate state. It's not a solution to what you mention, to be sure, but at least it would be an extra invitation to people to inform themselves about what exactly they're paying for...
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Everything official is in the first post. If it’s not in the first post it’s not official,. @NineLine is better placed than I am to talk about moderation, but I believe when people have been moderated it’s because they claimed to have inside information (first-hand or otherwise) or a source within one of the parties, @Mizzy did not do either.
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Re the AV-8B, I recognize that Razbam claimed on their Discord that they would do the update you refer to. I find it extremely difficult to believe that, more than three years after calling the module feature complete, Razbam were really going to go back and add features which should have been delivered after they argued for so long that the module was complete. I do recognize that you feel differently and will never know now, so we can agree to disagree. Other modules are delivering features under ‘product sustainment’, but at least two years after its release the M2K still has basic issues with the radar and aerodynamics - these weren’t peripheral features, they went to the heart of the module’s function. I think it’s reasonable to say two years after a product leaves EA if it still lacks important features it’s incomplete. YMMV.
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I probably should have qualified what I meant by outdated, what I was saying was that modules have to be kept in a state where they function with the current version of DCS, so the fact that the M2K continued to be maintained was nothing to be grateful for, that was done so that the module could continue to be sold. If modules can still be sold when they no longer work with current DCS versions please correct me. Re the M2K, I was simply saying that when we judge what Razbam have offered DCS customers as ‘complete’ modules, we should judge the M2K based on what was delivered as complete in 2017, before Razbam had to upgrade to score the AdA contract. My overall point was that Razbam have passed off modules as complete when they have been ‘basic’ in the case of the M2K and flat-out incomplete in the AV-8B, so I don’t believe there is any reason to believe they will do better with the F-15E. There are some good things about the module and it could become something worthwhile, which is why I was saying it would be better for it to be in the hands of a different studio, where it would stand a better chance of actually being finished.
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The F-15E has some great features, no doubt, and I didn't say otherwise. The level some of its systems might reach has got nothing to do with whether the module as a whole would have been completed or not. I agree that no one knows what the future held for the F-15E, all we can do is look at the past. No one should have trust that Razbam can deliver anything, and as you say, if they don't have trust in what can be delivered by the company developing it they shouldn't buy it. Hopefully the F-15E will change hands and wind up with a dev who is worth putting some faith in.
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The M2K was basic compared to the other aircraft in DCS at the time. An outdated module can't be sold, don't pretend Razbam's doing any charity here.
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I'd like people to remember that the policies we accept when we buy EA modules mean we are putting a lot of trust in devs to deliver something close to what they promise. I'd like people to consider the state the Harrier was in when Razbam reclassified it as 'feature complete', and I'd like them to consider the missing parts of that module right up until this dispute began. I'd like people to remember how basic the M2K was before the AdA got involved. I'd then like them to consider what the chances ever were that the F-15E would actually become something like the module Razbam promised, given their track record. I would like Razbam to sell their modules to a dev who actually seeks to meet their commitments to customers, and then I would like Razbam to leave DCS.
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Yes understood, and perhaps I should have made it clearer that I wasn’t suggesting you could make official comment. I had just thought I remembered you commenting at some point about what the contract change post-Hawk entailed.
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Please note the comment in the third to last post "Although we offered to support their product, they declined to make the files available to do so". In that case, ED presumably considered that the cost of supporting these modules for free while not earning from them was more acceptable than the obvious questions about the long term viability of third party products. They would not be obligated to provide this support, but having the source code would position them to do so if/as long as they they wished. Cheers. I heard that too, it wasn't listed in the official statements though so I didn't include it. I will add that I haven't seen anything said by anyone official to refute it either, FWIW. Edit: I'm not addressing the ownership thing because I have never seen anything from either ED or a third-party that said, implied or hinted at any transfer of ownership for modules third parties no longer want to support. If you can show me something to the contrary I'll happily do some more digging, but I'm not going to try to refute a suggestion that, as far as I can tell, has never been made. In the statement in the post I linked above, it would have made much more sense to say "we offered to take over their product" if that was the case. @SkateZilla might be able to speak further to this.
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When the previous dev dropped out of DCS I believe ED wanted to do exactly that, support the module simply so that existing owners could continue using their modules with future versions of DCS. The barrier to that was not having the source code, that’s why they changed arrangements. Those modules were not in a state to sell. So in short yes, they did indeed want to support a module they couldn’t sell. Again, take official comments over mine. Edit: Please note that I’m not saying ED would be obliged to support modules if they had the source code for a module when the developer left DCS. Having the source code would simply give them the option.
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Please take official word over mine, I'm giving you my own inferences here. I don't believe there has been any suggestion that ownership of a module would wind up in the hands of ED if that module is abandoned. I think that what was said was that new contracts would stipulate ED would have access to the source code, so that they would have what was needed to maintain a module if the developer was unwilling or unable to. I think the conjecture is regarding whether ED are in fact in possession of the source code, there has been a claim that they are not and people have speculated that it might be because Razbam were operating under an existing contract (without the stipulation regarding source code) instead of having to sign a new contract (with the stipulation). Having the source code for a piece of software does not have any bearing on ownership rights as far as I'm aware. I believe the actual ownership of the F-15E module is going to be something that has to be determined later. I think the blunt answer is that, even if Razbam leave DCS, the existing F-15E module will be their property unless and until something changes. I think what, if anything, happens with further development is also something that can't be answered currently. Edit: TL;DR: Neither old or new contracts gave ED ownership of abandoned modules. They may or may not have the source code, but that doesn't mean they do or could own the module. Ownership of the module will be decided later, and whether it will develop further probably after that.
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There is a reason we don't see advertisements that say a product "comes with a complete manual" - the word 'complete' would be redundant, because something called a manual must be complete. Until this module has, dare I say it, a complete manual, it's fair to say it doesn't have a manual in the generally understood sense. I do agree with the sentiment that Baltic Dragon shouldn't absorb the blame for the situation. I believe he only got handed the task of writing the manual quite some time after the module entered EA, so the fault doesn't lie with him.
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I guess the second paragraph of the above quote, taken from the first post, defines the scope of the commitment that was made to try to keep Razbam modules working - I do see that it's clear that after speaking about the F-15E, ED has committed to do their best to keep the "other modules" (ie Razbam modules other than the F-15E) working. Is that accurate? I'd missed that in the first post, I'd assumed ED wouldn't do any Mudhen maintenance for fear of breaking something else (given it's EA) but I hadn't realized there was anything more specific said about it.
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Whether EA is a factor in the need for this maintenance or not is irrelevant. The quote from NL you quoted contains the answer, they aren't doing maintenance on the F-15E, only RB's feature complete modules.
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Again, not my word choice, was that of the quote I was replying to as quoted above.
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I think I remember someone saying that one of the devs has said they have lost their access now, as a result of the declaration by Zambrano that they wouldn’t be providing support. To clarify, I’m not saying that they could necessarily just log in tomorrow morning and do like before, but I am saying that RB choose to cease support (ie they weren’t locked out) and I believe they would be welcomed back and have their access restored if they informed ED they are going to resume support - while they aren’t supporting their modules, there is no reason for them to have access.
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Fair enough that you feel that way - it remains, however, that it was their decision to ‘punish’ users, in the words of the post I was replying to.
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The effect on customers is the lack of support for Razbam's modules. ED didn't ban Razbam from supporting their modules, Razbam chose to do that - that is the only reason that this has affected DCS customers. I believe ED would still welcome Razbam resuming support while the dispute is resolved - NL/BN please correct me (if you're at liberty to do so) if I'm wrong about Razbam still being welcome to resume support.
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Since you got to looking at the campaign I guess you may have got past the tutorial issue. If not and you are a French speaker, the DCS Downloads page seems to have a couple of cold start tutorials available. Otherwise, all I can suggest is YouTube.
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I disagree. The 'updates' you mention for older modules are generally just compatibility fixes. ED have stated they will maintain compatibility for the Razbam modules from the DCS side, since they wouldn't be maintained from the dev side if RB fold or leave. A feature complete module has indeed finished its development, because there is no further obligation to expand the scope of the module. A dev always has the option of adding to a module, that doesn't mean it isn't finished before that happens. Think of it like a movie, the original theatre cut is complete when it is at the release stage, it is not 'incomplete' or unfinished because of the possibility a Director's Cut will come out. Overhauls are particularly a can of worms when we talk about Razbam, but as you didn't go into them I won't either.
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This is just my best guess/expectation, so please consider any comments to the contrary and disregard my comment if there is an official comment from NL or BN: Anything due to RB from sales would be recorded as such. The cash will not flow to them immediately, but once the legal issues have been resolved to the point where there is a dollar figure for amounts owed to each party, the cut Razbam would have received from your purchase will go in their favor (as with the other sales made while payments to RB have been withheld), either reducing the amount they must pay or increasing the amount they receive. In short, Razbam would gain revenue from your purchase, but they won't immediately receive cash from it. I know that's a complex answer, but I don't think there's a simpler one.