3rd Parties - confindence in

I am starting worrying about 3rd parties activities when talking about their product quality and how are they evolving or not.

I am not referring here to anyone specifically because all of them (maybe except Razbam for now) have internal collaboration issues which are actually affecting their customers through the quality of their products.

I know there are not much to be done either by us nor by ED, still this message is supposed to be just a signal for them to start be more selective during their initial setup process because the customer confidence will go down rapidly and people will stick only to ED/Belsimtek products sooner or later.

The fact that none of these teams are actual full time businesses creates, or exacerbates, most of the issues that they are having. A group of hobbyists rarely make good business partners.

Indeed, you are right! But we are paying for them to become a business and not a freeware mod. I think they are missing somehow this part :)

The whole idea of early access in its current form needs to die.

The weekend warrior developers get all there money from early access and have no motivation to continue support because the bulk of sales have happened already.

Early access should be a maximum of $15 buy in. The $15 is awarded as in store credit that can be applied to the module when released.

And ED also needs to disallow 3rd parties from starting other aircraft when they don't even have the previous one out of early access or its in horrible shape. Fix the one you have before you start doing the next.

You guys can control that yourselves. If you wont want or trust early access, don't buy in. Wait till final release before you invest your funds. Early access isnt for everyone, things can be in rough shape when you get them, you have to keep that in mind.

 

I dont agree though with the thought that there is no motivation to support products, and while some teams have had big stumbles, I havent seen any that show signs of not wanting to support their products.

Thats a pie in the sky way of thinking as human nature shows time and time again.

There is almost always a sizable group that will take something regardless of its state/quality. They are the drones that prevent any meaningful sanctions against bad behavior. Hell they also end up being part of the complainers, go figure!

You want examples of no motivation? Then explain how the Huey navigation light switch has been inverted for so long and reported numerous times.

Its literally this easy a fix! Swap the two.

If DIM_SWITCH_STATE == BRIGHT {
 brightness_gain = 0.5
} else {
 brightness_gain = 2.0
}

And third parties also need to be gag ordered from talking about features that will only come from future updates. If the feature is not part of release you should not be able to wave it around as a selling point for the module. Yeah again looking at the Huey.

Indeed, you are right! But we are paying for them to become a business and not a freeware mod. I think they are missing somehow this part :)

My post wasn't meant as an excuse for the issues. It was meant to point out the root of where/why they are going about things the wrong way.

Most people seem eager to get it early, so if you are one of them, you cant come back and complain about it not being complete.

How long, would you say, is a reasonable time span for expecting something to become feature complete with respect to the original announcement (not bug free but containing all of the announced features)?

Or some people are ok with early access. SO what can you do, you dont like it, so get rid of them all? I dunno.

 

 

 

I can handle it, if I buy a module and its not quite ready for me, I dont have an issue setting it aside and revisiting it later. But as I said, its not for everyone. Most people seem eager to get it early, so if you are one of them, you cant come back and complain about it not being complete.

I did not state early access was a bad idea so please stick to the points given.

Nobody is complaining about in progress items being incomplete.

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The fact that none of these teams are actual full time businesses creates, or exacerbates, most of the issues that they are having.

Hmm, source? Always had the impression, that at least key members in companies like Razbam, Heatblur or Veao are working there full time.

But so far, no 3rd party company (apart from Belsimtek) has actually finished a module. And none of the current early access modules look like it will be out of beta any time soon. That's worrying,

Sure, complaining of no motivation.

The Huey and an inverted switch. I dont fly the huey much because I am a terrible helo pilot. I will look into it and see if its been reported. But I have never heard of this bug.

 

Is there a bug report on the forum somewhere?

 

In this case I doubt its motivation that is the problem, more likely its a matter of either priority or a small enough bug that its fallen through the cracks.

 

THAT SAID... I would not in my wildest dreams crap too much on what BST has put out, nor would I call them unmotivated... that is just crazy... those guys are wild animals, and I am seeing it now with the Hornet internally... they are very motivated.

This all from the first page of searching the BST forum for "dim"

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=176978&highlight=dim

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=153570&highlight=dim

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=155226&highlight=dim

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=149677&highlight=dim

And your last statement only reaffirms a very big reason so many are frustrated with 3rd party developers. Product released and forgotten about by and large when it comes to maintenance and fulfilling promises for future feature updates. Grats on the Hornet wheres my multi-crew Huey after these years?

Its not developers intentions and what they do behind closed doors that matters. Its what they do openly that defines who they are by the customer.

The Mirage just left early access didnt it?

There are some full time people for sure. The Mirage just left early access didnt it?

Hmm, was there any announcement about that? Can't find any, and it is still marked as "beta" in my 1.5.6 DCS installation, but indeed it is not marked as early access in DCS store.

There are still secondary items missing, some big changes in weapon systems planned and the manual is hopelessly outdated, though the devs admit M-2000C is not their priority any more: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3071866&postcount=4454

I hope not. Still a lot of work to go on that one.

Well, it is not labeled 'Early Access' in the eshop but then neither is the F-5, or the Gazelle. The Hawk and the Mig-21 still carry that label though, after how long?

Well, it is not labeled 'Early Access' in the eshop but then neither is the F-5, or the Gazelle. The Hawk and the Mig-21 still carry that label though, after how long?

Both M-2000 and Gazelle are still labeled BETA under their respective icons in DCS menu. MiG-21 is not, but it's still Early Access in the store.

It's a mess. At least with Belsimtek we got an official announcement in the newsletter.

I think you are way off base, saying anything BST has done has been forgotten is just wrong. Just because a feature hasnt made it in that you want doesnt mean its been forgotten. The multi-crew thing has numerous challenges, and I am sure once they work it out with the Huey it will be available as stated on the product page.

 

I see bug fixes for numerous modules all the time. I am not sure how thats forgetting their products. You are doing what I said shouldn't be done, throwing a blanket over everything...

I'm sorry but if anyone is throwing a blanket over anything its you. You're lumping all 3rd party developers under the same umbrella and using everything they do collectively to counter argue. They are all different from each other.

Right now the F-14, Mig 21, Mirage and Harrier developers should be looked at for how a 3rd parties should communicate development updates and issues. Anyone not acting like those mentioned 3rd parties I'm going to toss under the buss of X-File like non-existent developers.

BST exist in the forum in one place, the Russian forums for the MI8. That is probably why that Dim bug has existed for 3 years.

I think these are some valid complaints. Sithspawn, you may have some points, but defending to such great lengths just looks like bias. Particularly legitimate are the complaints of persistent bugs not being fixed... the 3rd party forums are littered with them. Some are fixed but the vast majority of legitimate complaints are not addressed or fixed. For my part, I'd like to say that I don't think ED isn't selective about 3rd parties, I just think they sometimes select very poorly. That said, even the best groups that have surfaced so far are running into problems.