Nick Grey - thank you very much sir

[Gierasimov]

Thank you very much for your involvement, openness and reassuring attitude towards your faithful customers. What you (NSSGrey) have posted on the reddit forum was the best example that you (Eagle Dynamics) do in fact listen to customer feedback, that you care about our opinions and that you are actively engaged with the community.

 

With that attitude, I am sure ED will continue to deliver the best in the class product, and with that level of communication you will definitely improve community trust and faith.

 

Thank you!

[rrohde]

(a link to that post, or even better, a copy/paste here would be nice)

[VirusAM]

(a link to that post, or even better, a copy/paste here would be nice)

 

 

 

I agree....what did he wrote?

[toilet2000]

 

Here's what it says:

 

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your very detailed message.

I am the Founder of ED with my good friend Igor Tishin in 1991. We released our first product in 1995 with a 3 man dev team. It has been a labour of love ever since.

 

Today we have some 125 programmers in the team, all dedicated men and women who are committed to doing their very best. Each and everyone of them can find jobs which pay significantly more but stick with ED for the love and passion. Since Igor passed away last year from septicaemia post cancer treatment, Katia has taken the job of CEO with both hands and is doing a fabulous job. This is a first class team of guys and gals on a level I have yet to meet in my 37 years of business.

 

Your post is very insightful and we appreciate its content and the tone is honourable too. Please know this:

1. without early access we would spend 50% more time and money to engineer the products as developers work better and faster with direct user feedback and when they see their product in the market.

2. we would not be profitable.

3. we would be vulnerable to customer 'fade' as they switch to other products or genres.

4. we would not enjoy the 'right' to imperfection

 

You have very cleverly identified some of the above along with other realities we face such as the need for permanent innovation and engine renewal. Boyond daily bug fixing, the fundamental issues such as new graphics challenges (Vulkan, effects, mutli-threading etc), network improvements, sound improvements, new damage engine, dynamic campaign, web RTC, new game statistics engine, new weather engine, etc etc are all part of our roadmap and more than 50% of our staff work on these elements which are not directly module related. Without 'early access' few of the these could be done and yes you are right, we only have this avenue to finance ED as well as my personal investment. I wish we had 'office or IOS' to make life easier believe me.

 

Needless to say, I welcome all community input, in fact I read all community messages in order to help me guide our small company to a level where we can do a better job for you, our faithful community. I apologise if we don't live up to your expectations but believe me we are really doing our best to satisfy our customers in good faith and with honesty.

 

Thank you for your faithful involvement and for your continuing support and thank you all for your help in making us a better company but please do keep us loving our job... in the words of Abraham Lincoln: 'A drop of honey gathers more flies than a gallon of gall'.

 

 

Respectfully yours

Nick Grey TFC/ED

 

It is in regard to a post (closer to an essay, both worth a read) made by a hoggit user. It was clearly laid out, generally respectful and I think he put on words what the general feeling was for a lot of people, but in a well worded and constructive manner.

Edited September 23, 2019 by toilet2000

[rjetster1]

And with that I just purchased the F-16. I was going to do it anyway, but after reading Nick's post it felt like the right time. I have been a customer since 1991. I love honesty and when people put their hearts and souls into trying to make things better for everyone.

[Mars Exulte]

He very politely summarised a lot that has been mentioned around here before, unfortunately people have short memories. Interesting to hear about the company size and how many are on modules vs engine dev, though.

[The Falcon]

Long live ED :)

[StandingCow]

This also seemed to bring the ED PR team (Community Managers) back to hoggit, which is a good thing.

[QuiGon]

This also seemed to bring the ED PR team (Community Managers) back to hoggit, which is a good thing.

Not if that means that they will spend less time on the actual product forums (here).

[StandingCow]

Not if that means that they will spend less time on the actual product forums (here).

 

 

I am sure we won't notice any difference. The more social media they can be involved in the better for ED. It's no difference than them being active on facebook.

[BIGNEWY]

Dont worry, I will still be around here :)

[QuiGon]

Dont worry, I will still be around here :)

I would never doubt that :D

[Mule]

I read the message posted on Reddit and I have to admit he made some great points that made me think about stuff I have posted. He has changed my mind on a couple of points too.

 

It's really worth a read.

 

Great to see the reply.

[rjetster1]

I'm proud to say I have been a fan since day #1 do I get a DCS pin?

[icemaker]

I have been a fan of DCS since day -1 (SU 27 Flanker) until Viper anouncements!

Now i wait from ED to finish the F/A 18 until i buy any other plane or module.

I feel betrayed, and don't tell me early access please!

 

 

PS: Nick you are the one of the gus who did the most in Simulation world, and i really want to trust you when you say ED will do his best to satisfy us.

Thanks for all the job done so far.

[psycho]

I have been a fan of DCS since day -1 (SU 27 Flanker) until Viper anouncements!

Now i wait from ED to finish the F/A 18 until i buy any other plane or module.

I feel betrayed, and don't tell me early access please!

Same here.

And many of my wingmens will also wait until they have an F18 finished before buy any other module.

[Jester986]

Mr. Grey,

 

Thank you for your reddit post. It goes a long way to generate good will from me. While I'm not carrying a pitchfork or an apologist, I'm sure you can understand why many of us experience frustration with ED and third party developers some times. I can only imagine your frustration in trying to run this machine, deal with employees, and deal with sometimes unreasonable customers is exponentially more.

 

It was great to hear though that about 50% of the developers are working on core improvements. I did not expect that that much effort was going into it versus module development. I love this game and look forward to seeing it grow. I wish you success with it and will continue to support ED as long as a reasonable pace is kept towards finishing EA modules. I'm fine with the Hornets pace, but smaller modules like the NS 430 and Yak 52 have been falling behind the curve.

 

Best Regards,

Jester

[=37.Sqn= Mjugen]

Long live ED !

[HC_Official]

Same here.

And many of my wingmens will also wait until they have an F18 finished before buy any other module.

 

same here

 

 

But it is good to hear from Nick, but a bit sad how bad things are going at ED :(

Edited September 25, 2019 by HC_Official

[Drach25]

I have been a fan of DCS since day -1 (SU 27 Flanker) until Viper anouncements!

Now i wait from ED to finish the F/A 18 until i buy any other plane or module.

I feel betrayed, and don't tell me early access please!

 

 

PS: Nick you are the one of the gus who did the most in Simulation world, and i really want to trust you when you say ED will do his best to satisfy us.

Thanks for all the job done so far.

 

+1

[Ala13_ManOWar]

Wow, didn't know about that. Although runt OP (quite respectful but still a runt) post make some fair points, I think Mr Grey answer is great and despite the (huge) difference in length it makes also a strong point in clearing things up over some spots in ED business.

 

I don't think ED is that opaque with regards to development, though they could of course always be a bit more open. But recently I talked to another member here about that, and in the end I have to admit I get why they don't do it more often due to some people "excessive enthusiasm" with the smallest news and the consequent constant demand for more news, release dates, and everything. So what they do and why they do it is quite understandable.

 

Then the other face of that, the runt post say lots of things, but while some maybe legit questions, others are already answered by ED, sometimes quite a time ago, and short memory in people also makes real harm. Not to mention when people start inventing their own "answers" to things nobody said with the "no answer is a confirmation" policy, that's a real plague, and forum admins can't be there all of the time like firefighters. I don't know if sometimes I myself do look like one of those "apologists" he mentions just because I try to be positive about ED's product, but what I'm not for sure is the kind of hater-trolls many of those seems to be in the end.

 

 

S!

[Gierasimov]

Information flow is so nice!

 

Some nice follow ups by Nick Grey as well.

Not only excellent display of professional attitude towards customers but also interesting facts about workload and priorities.

[Donut]

Excellent post by Nick Grey and very much appreciated. It is very informative, honest, and transparent. His words make me want to support ED even more. This is all a very important hobby for me and I am very thankful that ED is around to provide DCS for us.

Edited September 26, 2019 by =BJM=

[Outlaw24]

Outstanding post by Nick Grey, well worth the read it gave me a small insight in the the company and the reasons why they do certain things. A single post can go a long way and answer many quetions. Keep up the good work and communications!

[aileron]

Where is the original post... that caused NG to respond. I can't find it.