SoW Reddog

Another quarter of a year on, and still nothing? Let me guess, the team's still really busy?

I've come to the conclusion that ED cannot fix the problem, they're clearly incapable. We're beyond it not being a priority, we're beyond it not being reproduced and allegedly we can discount "can't be arsed" so that leaves only one conclusion at this point doesn't it. Unless of course fixing things people have already paid for and continue to buy in a broken state is less important to ED than pushing the latest sale and the latest module.

We are long past asking when a fix might be made. Its pretty clear the fix will never be made. The question remains, how long is it reasonable to expect to wait? You can avoid giving a straight answer as much as you like, the question will keep getting asked and will no doubt increase in volume as more bugs are left unfixed across the growing portfolio.

If you were a customer and were unable to use a product you'd bought, what would you do? Because it seems to me that the Big Newy way of dealing with complaints/bugs in this plane's forum, is simply to close the offending thread. As the paying customer this it feels to me that is the forum equivalent of treating the problem as if you were a dog, peeing on it and then walking away. I don't think its unreasonable for us, as the ones who are left with a product which is not fit for purpose, to expect remediation given the length of time these issues have been reported, and known about by ED. Do you think that is unreasonable? Is it unreasonable to ask WHAT you have bumped and what you expect to happen as a result of that bump? Are you expecting a change to the guns to occur, or another denial that the problem exists to be the end result? Do YOU believe there even IS a problem? If this was a flagship new module, the errors we're experiencing would have been fixed by now. Are we really saying that ED are stretched so thin that they cannot support their old modules? If that is the case, your business model is doomed and it's only going to get worse as you release more broken modules isn't it?

Sorry Rafa, I disagree entirely and I think if you re-read your own post you might see the contradictions yourself. ALL maps are "no longer versatile" Inherently a map needs to be geographically correct, or it's fantasy right? So we're agreed it needs to be of a particular area as you say. But that area has changed through time, so you need to decide WHEN that map represents in order to get the geography, topology, terrain features correct, or we're back to fantasy land again. Would you accept a map of Europe using a heightmap from Pangaea? I doubt it. Once you've got the where, and the when, there isn't really anything else to discuss. Either the details present are right, or they are not. That's not to say that a map has to be valid for only the few minutes that match the map being drawn in history but I think (hope?) you'd get my point. I'm absolutely with you that DCS maps aren't very flexible (and I argued that point right back when Normandy 1 was being developed that with the ALG's already on it, there was about 5 days that the map actually made any sense whatsoever given the dates and the theatre action), and I can completely agree with you that it would be fantastic if we could have a single map for a particular area, and depending on the season, and the date, the topology and features reflect that. So the Normandy/channel map might have a series of times represented, maybe a 1940 map (to cover the Battle of Britian, a 1944 (to cover Normandy campaign), a 1960 map (to cover the early cold war) a, 1990's map etc. More granular time slices would be preferable but I doubt the technology or the desire exists to do even that basic optionality, but that's what we as consumers would want. ED would obviously prefer to charge us 4 times for that example.

Classic DCS, make something purporting to be historical but do it wrong. (and charge people again for it).

Did this ever go anywhere? Such a shame that the main purpose of this aircraft is so badly hobbled.

Of course it's an important issue. That's why it's taken such a very very very very very long time to get anywhere with it(by which I mean NOWHERE with a series of locked threads and vague "we're reviewing" "I've asked someone to look at it" comments) , it's absolutely not got anything to do with ED having to cope with spaghetti code they don't understand or admit that they're wrong.

Just out of interest what do you think will make a WW2 pacific island map "incredible for WWII lovers to fly"? Incredible in the sense that it stretches credulity?

it'd just be so much easier if they actually fixed the bug that causes the issue...

Sure. But having worked in and around technical and project teams for the past 20 years, I'm pretty sure that in any of those teams we would have had a project manager, or product manager who was chomping at the bit to tell the world what their bit of the team was doing or had achieved. Even now, I sit in meetings most of my week where a large portion of the time is spent telling me/us what the plans are, what the progress is, and what the blockers are. We aren't talking about a bunch of people chained to keyboards, seeing only 1s and 0s (or at least we shouldn't be) here. There are undoubtedly plenty of people who could gain and share the detail I'm talking about without adversely impacting on any delivery. Of course I'm not advocating anything that would delay anything. I'm simply saying there is a perception that the core is not being actively worked on within some of the community, and while some (many) are happy to trust in ED in patient silence, others could be aided by sharing some more information. At the end of the day, this is the wishlist channel. I'm simply suggesting something I personally would wish for. Bignewy et al are free to do whatever they want with the suggestion and most assuredly will. We all want ED to not only survive but thrive.

Oh absolutely agree. I'm enjoying the free core game with it's obvious limitations and issues described above and the free A4 for what they are. I bitterly regret buying into the hype of the paid modules that I've bought in the past and won't ever do that again following your own advice until they are demonstrably out of Early Access, and bug free/feature complete. How that helps ED in the long run I'm not sure, but you certainly are well placed to know best. In the meantime I look forward to the fabled day when the AI rewrite, the multicore support, the dynamic campaign and the game play changes happen as patiently as I can. Btw, did you see my direct question above? If not, I'll quote it here. I do think that this might help quantify and illustrate the hard work your team are doing on these issues. Anyway, it's just a suggestion.

Someone recently pointed me towards a quote from ED regarding a dynamic campaign which was "going to come later". The quote was from 1999 and related to Flanker 2. I know they say things take time but... If the "updates" as shown by the absolute wall of text and links posted by dragon that I couldn't be bothered to go through item by item were just "this is being worked on, it will come later", then I'd put it in the same category as unicorns and faeries until it eventually arrives. All we can concretely discuss is by what HAS been delivered. Since we're talking wishlists, I'd like a roadmap. Sadly we already have that asked, answered and final.

I can absolutely see why ED are defensive about this. They have updated a lot of the visual aspects of the core over the years and what they've done generally deserves praise (love the clouds). But I suspect that's not what the OP, and others commenting elsewhere are talking about. The gameplay loops within DCS haven't really changed very much, the AI is still somewhat dodgy (being generous) in many different scenarios and as a result, while the IN AIRCRAFT experience is great, the external experience can get old quite quickly. Once you've mastered a given aircraft's start up, which buttons to press in which sequence etc, and systems, there's not a whole lot to do with it that isn't frustrating to do. BN, could you maybe give an example of what a week in the shoes of the core team looks like at some point. How much of their time is spent reviewing bugs, how much developing new engine capabilities, how much is spent on new models or whatever. Doesn't have to be what they are doing next week, I mean just a representative "average" week to understand better what they're up against?

Thats because you don't play MP, and are happy to buy whatever ED put out. Other's do, and aren't respectively. It splits the MP community unnecessarily. There was zero need for the assets pack in the first place, if ED wanted to have monetized their efforts, they could have bundled the assets with the Normandy map and increased the price if they really needed to grab every last buck. As for asking the mod community to donate models to a commercial enterprise...that's just laughable. In the same vein then Nineline, why don't you release the map SDK so that the community can make the so desperately needed and wanted maps?? No? I'm with Rob on the one hand, I hope that the assets pack never gets another asset because it should never have been a thing. On the other hand, it wasn't value for money when I bought it, its certainly not going to be value for money if it never actually gets finished.