I feel bad for HB

[Love_Beam]

Having to not only try to solve some hard issues like TWS auto, but having to put out fires that they didn't start with these broken core updates.... I don't see how you guys make any progress.

 

 

Really appreciate your hard work guys!!

[Fri13]

No one forced them to start developing aircrafts that has features they need to do by themselves earlier before ED can get them implemented to DCS SDK....

 

So don't feel sorry.

[Airhunter]

Well I agree, there are new bugs that pop up with every major DCS update and it does suck and slow everything else down. Just the way it is sadly.

[The LT]

Having to not only try to solve some hard issues like TWS auto, but having to put out fires that they didn't start with these broken core updates.... I don't see how you guys make any progress.

 

 

Really appreciate your hard work guys!!

How do you know TWS auto is a "hard issue"? Personal experience?

[Love_Beam]

How do you know TWS auto is a "hard issue"? Personal experience?

 

 

They have stated several times that its a hard issue to get right

[The LT]

They have stated several times that its a hard issue to get right

What makes you believe the statement is true? Assume much?

[Sajarov]

What makes you believe the statement is true? Assume much?

Any evidence of the opposite?

 

Sent from my MiG-29S (9-13S) using Tapatalk

[The LT]

Any evidence of the opposite?

 

Sent from my MiG-29S (9-13S) using Tapatalk

Yes. Plenty. All over these forums. Some of us know better than to blindly trust each and every claim the devs make.

 

Ever owned the Hawk? Prime example right there.

[Thump]

No one forced them to start developing aircrafts that has features they need to do by themselves earlier before ED can get them implemented to DCS SDK....

 

So don't feel sorry.

 

They would be waiting for eternity if they relied on ED to released a bugged out and unusable SDK. They are still working on getting cows right.

[Love_Beam]

Yes. Plenty. All over these forums. Some of us know better than to blindly trust each and every claim the devs make.

 

Ever owned the Hawk? Prime example right there.

 

 

Examples from Heatblur, and why so bitter??

[Sajarov]

Yes. Plenty. All over these forums. Some of us know better than to blindly trust each and every claim the devs make.

 

Ever owned the Hawk? Prime example right there.

If there are plenty of evidence..it should be a piece of cake to post one or two evidences. Don't you think?

 

Sent from my MiG-29S (9-13S) using Tapatalk

[draconus]

Examples from Heatblur, and why so bitter??

 

He got update and found bugs in beta and EA modules.

[RaTzo]

Having to not only try to solve some hard issues like TWS auto, but having to put out fires that they didn't start with these broken core updates.... I don't see how you guys make any progress.

 

 

Really appreciate your hard work guys!!

 

Sadly what you express here is indicative of why so few 3rd party development teams are bothering with DCS.

 

HB is one of the more open development teams I've seen in my 30 years of online gaming experience. They also have released a high quality complete product that they are continuing (too slowly for my taste but still) to improve.

 

If ED treats us - their customers, their bread & butter, the way they do (lying to us repeatedly, promising and then claiming not to have promised, pushing out "beta" code that isn't beta at all but broken shots in the dark hoping it will work - then how do you think they treat 3rd party developers.

 

You think they have us over a barrel because DCS is the only game in town? Imagine how over the barrel HB must feel knowing they can only stay alive so long as they can sell their modules to DCS customers?

[jcbak]

Just curious. What games/sims don't experience similar issues when releasing a beta? Secondly, why do so many of you use OB if you don't want to deal with broken items? Why not stay with the stable version until things get sorted?

[Pikey]

The only issues I found with 2.5.6 were that it brought in a lot of new things, that broke some outside scripting and took a day or two of peoples family time to work out.

 

DCS is a moving platform under continuous development and that's the hard part. ED wouldnt make a change if they weren't trying to better the product. Unfortunately, this makes every product built upon it, have to move too. It also includes us, we have to contend with a new product every once in a while. I think that is a good thing and it is better to accept change and improvement with patience and positivity. Because if we were back in the BS1 days, that product doesn't look as good now and people can clearly see it. Third reincarnation upcoming...

Too many people use the word "broken" as if someone put a foot through the windscreen. Changing the textures to look more realistic, adding game features that need underlying code change, isn't the same thing. Yes, it might stop those textures displaying correctly until the rest catch up, but it's for the better.

[Minsky]

Just curious. What games/sims don't experience similar issues when releasing a beta?

 

Similar like what? Like a totally messed up update with numerous game-breaking bugs that was released to a wide audience, and days later - with a full knowledge that there are numerous game-breaking bugs - to an even wider audience (Steam)?

 

I'm sure I can name aplenty.

 

Secondly, why do so many of you use OB if you don't want to deal with broken items? Why not stay with the stable version until things get sorted?

 

I don't mind dealing with broken items. I got used to them in previous betas, and the vast majority of them were fine (tolerable at worst).

 

2.5.6 doesn't look like a beta to me. A closed alpha? Maybe. But not an open beta.

[Minsky]

DCS is a moving platform under continuous development and that's the hard part. ED wouldnt make a change if they weren't trying to better the product. Unfortunately, this makes every product built upon it, have to move too. It also includes us, we have to contend with a new product every once in a while. I think that is a good thing and it is better to accept change and improvement with patience and positivity.

 

A week or two in internal testing (or with their closed alpha group - yeah, I wasn't even aware they have this group, which makes the whole situation even more frustrating) could have eliminated most of these issues. Why the sudden rush? I mean, they even knew that this update is gonna wreck at least two of their own modules.

 

We waited a month for this update, and another couple weeks wouldn't have killed anybody. Instead they've got a lot of butt-hurted users all over the place.

Edited February 18, 2020 by Minsky

[Minsky]

The problem here is that ED Project Management is a complete disaster.

 

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to see there? If anything, this list should remind us how many work they are putting into this game, and that there is even more work behind the scenes.

 

I can trash their PM and QA all day long, but I have great respect for ED's programmers and artists.

Edited February 18, 2020 by Minsky

[Sajarov]

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to see there? If anything, this list should remind us how many work they are putting into this game, and that there is even more work behind the scenes.

 

I can trash their PM and QA all day long, but I have great respect for ED's programmers and artists.

A list of things uncompleted. Others forgotten during years...What you should see is: The project management is chaotic.

 

 

 

This 2.5.6 patch is a nonsense. It shouldn´t be released into open Beta (its an alpha).

 

 

And dude, everybody respect their work, lack of criticism is the first step of the disaster. They have a problem, they need to identify it in order to fix it.

 

Autocomplacency is a way down to the bankrupcy, and nobody wants that. I spent a lot of money in them.

[Minsky]

A list of things uncompleted. Others forgotten during years...What you should see is: The project management is chaotic.

 

This 2.5.6 patch is a nonsense. It shouldn´t be released into open Beta (its an alpha).

 

And dude, everybody respect their work, lack of criticism is the first step of the disaster. They have a problem, they need to identify it in order to fix it.

 

Auto Complacency is a way down to the bankrupcy, and nobody wants that. I spent a lot of money in them.

 

It's pretty clear that the latest patch was half-arsed, and shouldn't have been released to a general audience in this state.

 

I can agree with most of your statements (albeit I think you are exaggerating a bit), but there's not much we can do, except constantly complaining (and it is not particularly safe to constantly complain around here). ED is a relatively small and closed company with a Russian mindset. It won't change unless the market force them to change (and the absence of a direct competition isn't helping). I just hope this happens before they go belly-up, that's all.

Edited February 18, 2020 by Minsky

[RaTzo]

COMMENT DELETED.

 

Wouldn't want to bother anyone with my expectations as a customer.

 

 

Guys, don't turn this into another discussion about what you think Open Beta is and what it should be.

Edited February 18, 2020 by RaTzo
To remind myself why I haven't purchased the 18.

[Pikey]

Clearly there is miss-information about what Beta and Alpha mean.

 

This patch was not "in an alpha state" Alpha means not feature complete. Beta means feature complete and testing for bug squashing, balance, and the like.

 

This patch was just a bug ridden mess. I've got almost no issues myself, but everyone I know has all kinds of bizarre stuff happening. For once I'm not the one with the oddball problem!! :)

 

Now the difference between an OPEN Beta and a CLOSED Beta is very important.

 

You use an OPEN Beta when you are confident in the code and are testing for interactions in unexpected or unpredictable situations. In this case those testing the Beta don't need to be intensely invested in the success of the product, and don't have to be all that knowledgeable. They just have to get in and play the game and report anything that breaks.

 

You use a CLOSED Beta when you are NOT confident in the code and you need people who are knowledgable and invested in the success of the product to test the code and identify and repeat and report on problems that may be very hard to explain and may break the game.

 

You play an OPEN Beta, but you TEST a CLOSED Beta.

 

The problem with 2.5.6 is that it should have been a CLOSED Beta.

Nope, the more people that tell ED what alpha, beta, live, stable, release blah blah actually are, the harder they will laugh. You get good OB's and you get bad ones. The issue is, people AND server admins are choosing to take the known risk. People AND server admins! Server admins pushed by the people! Anyone could see this happening, I even wrote about it, guessed ahead some of the changes, speculated on scripting issues, offered to help the testing team, and no, they didnt take me up. If you have been around here long enough you've seen bad patches. This is nowhere near the worst one, its entirely playable. We've had unplayable ones on certain modules. Beta means nothing , this is continuous development, it happens, you got a dev branch because of reasons we can make stories about. WE ARE the testers. Get used to it and then you wont be wasting your time being disappointed over your different opinions of what they shoudl be doing for you.

[NineLine]

Guys, don't turn this into another discussion about what you think Open Beta is and what it should be.

[Minsky]

The issue is, people AND server admins are choosing to take the known risk. People AND server admins! Server admins pushed by the people!

 

This issue is far too big for this topic.

 

And by "this issue" I mean the whole ED's PR strategy to promote Open Beta as the primary place to get the latest modules and shiny new features, advertised in their videos.

 

So it's hardly a surprise that a lot of active users and newcomers are using OB as their main DCS version. This scheme is all good and fluffy, until a screw-up like the 2.5.6 happens. Then it's not ED's fault, but a user's fault: "told ya there could be bugs, you should've used Stable." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

WE ARE the testers. Get used to it and then you wont be wasting your time being disappointed over your different opinions of what they shoudl be doing for you.

 

It's a hard pill to swallow, but you are right.

 

I prefer to be constructive instead of stupidly moaning. So I tried to express my concerns on Russian forums, suggesting ED to expand their closed alpha team, or create a Closed Beta branch. You know, just to improve OB's quality and minimize the fallout should bad things happens. Was told that ED knows better. No further explanation, no discussion. This is really discouraging.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Minsky

[S. Low]

Sure, I feel bad to the extent that they might have a tough couple days on the job or something, but this is their passion and DCS is ****ing awesome. They are running their own company and doing their dream, and making money for it.

 

So yeah, I feel bad in the sense that I have empathy for any hard workin person who has a rough day in the office. But they choose to do this and they love doing it, so I wouldn't get too emotional over it.