F-15E WIP Update Discussion

[Ranucci]

July isn't the issue for me. I think that Razbam should have been more transparent over the release, giving us a date from the start of the pre-order, at least, even if it would be postponed. That would give us an idea on how the development is going and when to expect a release.

If they have said that it would release in August back then, I wouldn't be so disappointed as I am now, considering the release is in July...

[davidrbarnette]

6 minutes ago, Ranucci said:

July isn't the issue for me. I think that Razbam should have been more transparent over the release, giving us a date from the start of the pre-order, at least, even if it would be postponed. That would give us an idea on how the development is going and when to expect a release.

If they have said that it would release in August back then, I wouldn't be so disappointed as I am now, considering the release is in July...

Agree. The issue (for me at least) has never been about the date, the development timeline, etc; It is about setting expectations. I don't believe it to be a good marketing practice, nor particularly helpful, for a company to say something like "the release is imminent" when it is still six months away. I believe most would find this misleading. As recently as two weeks ago, Eagle Dynamics said on their twitter "the Strike Eagle is coming in hot and soon you'll be able to fly this..." and "we are getting close now"... If one of my employees told me those statements, then said we're a few months off, I'd be pissed. 

This really isn't a new thing. I'd advocate for pre-orders to only go live with an anticipated early access release date. 

For those that disagree with me, I appreciate your opinion. I only write this stuff in hopes that maybe Razbam, Heatblur, and particularly ED receive the feedback as constructive and stop saying things like "release is imminent!" when it is still months away. I'm sure they hate seeing all the disgruntled comments on the forums, but I'm not sure they don't feed much of it.

[Rudel_chw]

2 minutes ago, Ranucci said:

.. giving us a date from the start of the pre-order, at least, even if it would be postponed. That would give us an idea on how the development is going and when to expect a release.

 

That's not true, everytime ED or its partners have to postpone a date there is a huge basckslash of community criticism ... and missed dates tells you nothing about the development or its release date. 

I prefer to believe that Razbam encountered more development difficulties than it expected and thus the delays on providing an actual release date, but really I don't care, I waited until the release seemed more certain, so when ED featured it on May 12th newsletter and said that it was close, I bite the bullet and pre-purchased it

.. waiting a month or two isn't a big deal to me, I will spent the time learning more about the Mirage F1

 

[Rodeo]

I’ll say it again.. I am more anticipating the Sinai release happening sooner than the F15E now (and I pre-ordered day one). It’s the start of summer time here in the Northern Hemisphere, my kids are home from college, and outdoor activities (cough cough enjoying adult beverages with friends) takes a lot of my time. I would much rather fly a new map with the short amount of time to myself than try to learn a new aircraft. So I have just accepted it will happen when it happens. 

[davidrbarnette]

2 minutes ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

That's not true, everytime ED or its partners have to postpone a date there is a huge basckslash of community criticism ... and missed dates tells you nothing about the development or its release date. 

I prefer to believe that Razbam encountered more development difficulties than it expected and thus the delays on providing an actual release date, but really I don't care, I waited until the release seemed more certain, so when ED featured it on May 12th newsletter and said that it was close, I bite the bullet and pre-purchased it

.. waiting a month or two isn't a big deal to me, I will spent the time learning more about the Mirage F1

 

You're right, there is always a big backlash when these developers miss dates. Having said that, that is exactly what is driving this backlash. Saying that the release is "imminent" or "very soon" when it is months away is effectively the same as missing a date. It sets an expectation that is then not met. The alternatives are 1) setting a date and sticking to it or 2) keeping your mouth shut until you actually can see a release date that you can execute (i.e. know as a fact that you can release next month because the product is ready to go today, announce the date, open the "pre-order", and release as communicated).

A really good way to do things would be to say "we could release today, and ED agrees, so we'll announce a release date three months from now. We'll spend that 90 days polishing, testing, and adding any "nice to have" features, but ultimately the product is ready to go now, so there can't be any delays."

[Hoirtel]

We are all focusing on the F15E development and well, maybe ED want to get the core engine all nice. This is a huge release for the platform and I would fully respect a decision to get everything working well for this module.

Just wish they could have waited a bit to light the hype fire...

Edited May 24, 2023 by Hoirtel

[falcon_120]

47 minutes ago, Rodeo said:

I’ll say it again.. I am more anticipating the Sinai release happening sooner than the F15E now (and I pre-ordered day one). It’s the start of summer time here in the Northern Hemisphere, my kids are home from college, and outdoor activities (cough cough enjoying adult beverages with friends) takes a lot of my time. I would much rather fly a new map with the short amount of time to myself than try to learn a new aircraft. So I have just accepted it will happen when it happens. 

I like your outdoor activities definition sir, my respect

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

Observing what is happening in this thread...ain't you human amazing?

Setting a hard date of release at this stage is a very, very, very, very stupid thing to do, as pointed by many others and me. Either they hit the date as promised but drop the ball (c.f. Cyberpunk 2077) or miss it entirely, as if the current "expectation management" (or there lack of) using terms like "soon", "very soon" or whatever is not bad enough already. I would rather what they did to Mirage F1, you know it would be close, after watching all the preview/promotion videos, then boom, it was available when an OB was announced.

But I had no problem with whatever that slogan "Year of Strike Eagle" meant. I could always add "Year of Sinai Map" or "Year of Phantom" to it (cough, yeah I may be talking about a musical).

[Ishigami]

The contents of this topic is IMHO self inflicted.

It is caused by conflicting communication or lack thereof. On one hand it is "soon", "very soon", "sooner than you expect", "the year of the Eagle" etc. usw. on the other hand they refuse to communicate any time frame or date at all while at the same time ramp up the marketing.

That the customer who already paid becomes frustrated by this behavior is to me to be expected.

 

All I want is any official time frame or date. That's it.

Maybe it is not up to Razbam and ED wants to, finally, update the stable version and wants to include the Strike Eagle right away in the stable version rather than just the Beta. But then just communicate that. I think people are actually able to comprehend stuff like this.

All this secrecy and uncertainty is annoying. 

[Jayhawk1971]

My 2 cents.

As far as I could piece together from Discord, the F-15E was supposed to be released "early June" (internal EA release date), also made apparent by the start of the pre-release marketing campaign, which was pushed to the 9's ("imminent", "beware the pre-release discount", and sending out EA copies to every YouTuber with more than 10 subs  ). Only for - allegedly - ED asking RB to push back the release date to July at the 11th our, with, according to some mods on the Razbam discord, the F-15E module itself not being the issue.

Should that be the case, there must have been something from ED's side, which we can only guess (like they might want to get another patch in, which would be good, or they want to give another 3rd party module the limelight without it being drowned out by the Strike Eagle release, or, or, or.....)

Apparently, last night some people affiliated with RB "spilled the beans" (presumably out of frustration over this last-minute delay, and completely underestimating the <profanity>storm this would trigger), hence the already rather volatile part of the "community" (I hate that term) was being made aware of the "missed opportunity". Without those "whistle blowers", no one would have been any wiser, albeit some being annoyed that "influencers" get to play with the module publicly, while they have to wait (to which I could only say: start your own popular YouTube channel!).

My unsolicited advice to ED would be to recognize that the cat's kinda out of the bag now, and communicate the reason(s) for this last-minute delay to the "community" (again, hate hate hate that term ).  Otherwise, conspiracy theories will inevitably pop up (already have), and many will be left in a negative mood. 

For example, it would be quite reasonable that ED would want to wait for some core engine patch or fix to be ready pre-release, or wait for another module (Sinai) to be ready for EA. Strike Eagle + Sinai would make for a nice "bundle" release. So no shame admitting to that if that were the case.

In any case, personally, I can wait for another month; got enough on my plate as it is.  

BTW, I finally pre-ordered the Strike Eagle last night.  Just to be contrarian. 

 

Edited May 24, 2023 by Jayhawk1971

[Ranucci]

3 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

That's not true, everytime ED or its partners have to postpone a date there is a huge basckslash of community criticism ... and missed dates tells you nothing about the development or its release date. 

I prefer to believe that Razbam encountered more development difficulties than it expected and thus the delays on providing an actual release date, but really I don't care, I waited until the release seemed more certain, so when ED featured it on May 12th newsletter and said that it was close, I bite the bullet and pre-purchased it

.. waiting a month or two isn't a big deal to me, I will spent the time learning more about the Mirage F1

 

That's why I said "for me", as this may not apply for everyone. This would be my first high-fidelity and modern model, so I was excited to start learning. The way they advertised made me always be like "it's just around the corner, so let's get ready" all these months.

[Rudel_chw]

1 hour ago, Jayhawk1971 said:

BTW, I finally pre-ordered the Strike Eagle last night.

 

+1 ...  I pre-ordered last week  ... got to say that I love your use of ""    and agree with most of your post .. I wish that the delay were to allow the La-7 a release ahead of the F-15E 

[Rocky49]

Well I hope when we do get it we don't end up like the Harrier development.  

[al531246]

>blindly pre-orders without knowing the release date
>gets mad when because release date isn't soon enough

lmao it's entirely your own problem! If you were myopic enough to place a pre-order without knowing a release date, don't complain when a release date is announced. 

[Japo32]

It is easy to say today, but if somone follow my thoughts about release month in discord servers that I am, I alwasy thought of July, or August, if there is a problem with something. Why? because ED usually leave time between DLCs releases to maximize earnings, and Sinai map is comming. Yesterday somone said in Razbam Discord, that there is a surprise helicopter release from ED (the Kiowa? it would be great news!) but I don't think so.

The problem is that The F15 could arrive, as said in August, and that month is bad in my opinion for sales. And Specially for VR use (hot). The best moment would have been June, but then Sinai would not sell so much in comparison once everyone would have spent their money in the F15.

Phantom in November-December maybe?

Edited May 24, 2023 by Japo32

[Rudel_chw]

14 minutes ago, Japo32 said:

ED usually leave time between DLCs releases to maximize earnings

 

I actually like that arrangament, as it allows me to space my DCS spendings    ... I'm currently looking forward to the La-7, the F-15se and the Kola Map .. no interest on the Sinai for now (unless it cames with a large EA discount)  

 

[SmirkingGerbil]

As an Original WWII Backer, when it was run by Ilya, then taken over by ED, got my P-47 about 5 years after that, and still waiting on the ME-262 . . . these "when is it coming!!!" and complaints on the F-15E (coupled with the inevitable "I am a paying customer!!) are amusing.

It will get here, when it gets here. In the meantime, I literally have multiple lovely modules to fly, and new functionality to explore with every Beta.

Welcome to DCS delivery timelines. I say that with affection after more than a decade on this platform. Always worth the wait, nothing else comes close. Buckle up, relax, and enjoy the wait.

[Rudel_chw]

2 minutes ago, SmirkingGerbil said:

coupled with the inevitable "I am a paying customer!!

 

I just love that one  .. even the simplest of WW2 birds can cost upwards of 100,000 US$ to develop, yet someone pays 50 bucks and automatically its entitled to demand perfection and constant updates & upgrades .. how disconnected from the reality can one be? 

[Fromthedeep]

Razbam Japan Twitter account had already posted about this delay days ago, talking about confidentiality issues.

[SmirkingGerbil]

37 minutes ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

I just love that one  .. even the simplest of WW2 birds can cost upwards of 100,000 US$ to develop, yet someone pays 50 bucks and automatically its entitled to demand perfection and constant updates & upgrades .. how disconnected from the reality can one be? 

Same. Like it is an instant "get out of jail" card, as if it trumps everything. Sigh.

I think the worst thing ever created, as far as sayings go, in the English lexicon is "The customer is always right". Worst philosophy ever.

Should be amended, to something like "Treat the customer as if they are right, but don't let them walk all over you, over $80.00".

At least within the price range of DCS/ED titles.

[71st_Mastiff]

when customers where King,

through all the land, 

thought be frugal of labor,

capitalist greed became the moto

owners chagrin no more afford labor

customer was demanded pay my labor 

pay my car, my house and my life,

I cant afford to live with you or with out you.

Me.

$55.99 is great buy!! in my opinion. if they are

putting out for release early access its probably

going to be in open beta 2 weeks...

as the old saying goes.

$80.00 sounds a little low to me..

$120.00 maybe. 

 

Edited May 24, 2023 by 71st_Mastiff

[Beirut]

1 hour ago, al531246 said:

>blindly pre-orders without knowing the release date
>gets mad when because release date isn't soon enough

lmao it's entirely your own problem! If you were myopic enough to place a pre-order without knowing a release date, don't complain when a release date is announced. 

 

Hmmm, bad post on my part.

Edited May 24, 2023 by Beirut

[MAXsenna]

These are marketing statements designed to generate sales, hype and discussion. I doubt anyone knows when it will actually release, since delays are inevitable. ED's closed beta testers will most likely find a lot of bugs, ED will wait for Razbam to fix them and we're very easily in Q4. I have no doubt that the Strike Eagle will be the longest pre order in DCS.

Really? Most of ED's own pre-orders last for a year.

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

[AhSoul]

1 hour ago, SmirkingGerbil said:

I think the worst thing ever created, as far as sayings go, in the English lexicon is "The customer is always right". Worst philosophy ever.

I read somewhere that the full quote is 'The customer is always right in matters of taste'. It's just been simplified to cater for over-entitled people

[Lenux]

I didn't know, there is a pilot / body, in the cockpit view

I thought, they'll release it somewhere in the future