Aveare age of DCS Pilot

[MTFDarkEagle]

Sry PeterP I can't pos rep you again.

Same here.. Shame Tyger, I thought more of you than such a negative comment.

PeterP is exactly on topic!

[Napa]

25 here.. 26 in 3-4 months

[MemphisBelle]

wowowo...guys, calm down. Tyger only wanted to know the average age of the guys within this community, no more no less. Peter´s post might be on topic (somehow) but in fact it hasn´t answered the basic question, which is ...how old are you. Therefor is no need to post a massive statistic about somethings which is actually not importatnt according to the topic theme. So please just answer the question and stop messing around.

[aaron886]

So please just answer the question and stop messing around.

 

What is this, the Spanish Inquisition? :D It's a discussion forum!

 

[PeterP]

the basic question, which is ...how old are you.

MemphisBelle,

it is very questionable what the real question is.

 

Did you read posting #1 at all ?:

 

DCS - Digital Combat Simulator, a series of fantastic high fidelity and accurate advanced flight modelling study simulators, of the KA-50 Blackshark and the A-10C Thunderbolt II Warthog. It is the best there is available right now, of that there is no doubt. It has it's graphical glithces (particualry on the ground) that the community in general put up with because the former outweighs the later by a huge margin; that of the flight modelling to graphical anomolies. Of all the 'games' on the market, none come close.

 

Sadley, the DCS Series commands but a tiny proportion of the market. Tiny proportion = less revenue; it is a specialised area. The reason for this is simply the complexity of the sim and the sheer tenacity required to become 'fairly' good at it all. To become good takes days, to become a master takes weeks, to become a demigod at it all takes months, to become a Tyger at it.....................ok,ok, no hate mails please.

 

Fact of the matter is it requires a certain type of person to take to the DCS Series. The sort of person who isn't after a quick fix before he zipps off out to the youth club to snort bleach and shag his bird under a óne way'sign. It is a 'study sim' and as such commands that time and effort be presented to it, like some form of sacraficial presentation to maya gods on the steps of the Mayan Temple Pyramids!

 

Not that we're complaining. Hell no. I'm over 40 and certainly don't frequent Youth clubs anymore nor snort bleach. As for the shagging, Well, i've been married 20 years so that went out of the window in week 3!

 

This means that the average age of the DCS Series 'pilot' is a 'mature' age. It is also fair to assess that their lifestyle (and in most cases career) is as a professional, and is such that their time at home in the weekends and weekdays, is exactly that; at home, giving them the time they need to master the sims.

 

What does this all mean? It means that a really small community support ED by purchasing their products. It means that the community are mature (although you wouldnt bloody believe it sometimes by our behaviour on ED's forums - posters and moderators alike) and professional. It means that the smallest of errors or instability with the sim is exacerbated into a huge monster by virtue of the small crowd that frequent the metaphorical 'grown up club' and the almost immediate reporting (neigh, whining?) of instability or glitches that we post on ED forums. As a former Tester i can assure you that no sooner have you compartmentalised a problem to find and pinpoint a specific 'trigger' that leads to the bug, then there are 10 more reported. It's a continual battle.

 

When you Consider that a commercial organisation such as ED rely so heavily upon their testers to ensure that each patch released is 'the one' and that 11 patches later we have a product that is álmost' unplayable in MP and randomly CTD's in SP, and that the Testers are unpaid and selected by virtue of their ED Forum presence, content of posts made and their visibility; it is no wonder that the ever elusive stable version eludes us all.

 

That's not to take anything away from the Testers. I'd buy them all a beer as would any of you, they try their utmost best but sadley, and more often than not, their efforts and logical approaches to identifying and compartmentalising the bug's for the attention and subsequent actions by the dev's, are no more founded than the majority of you could do. Some of them are coding and programming experts. some. Most of them are like us. Lovers of the DCS series, who are driven to try and make the whole thing better for all of us. For that, I and you, say fairplay and thanks.

 

But is it enough?

 

Why doesn't ED go extreme left or extreme right? Why not hire a company to bug fix (they do exist) so as to reach 'the one' or release versions on Open Beta to the community?

This would raise the profile of the product by virtue of word of mouth, websites, new vfs's, youtube, etc etc and increase sales. Certainly not the case right now. Open up a donations area to help fund finding these bugs. you may well be surprised!

 

Some may argue that it would take far too long to sift through the niff naff and trivia and identify those reports of bugs that demanded further investigation toward resolution, by using an open beta forum system. I suggest that this is the case anyway in the closed Testers forums and on ED's own bug tracking system and was certainly the case during the initial Open Beta phase or 'pre-release' as ED referred to it. Nontheless, valid and vital bugs were identified by the community during this time, reported and then confirmed by Testers and fixed by Dev's, before the RC was released.

 

Where are we now?

 

The bottom i believe. The very Bottom. VFS's and talented pilots are leaving the scene, opting for the reliability and relative stability of CLOD and BMS above and beyond that of the DCS series and it's future offerings. They'll pop back for sure to take a look at DCS Fighter or even the P-51 (what in gods name!), but once óne' bug rears it's ugly head, they'll be off again based on their experiences with FC2 server Hack, BS2 patch cost and the ridiculous 1.1.1.1 A-10C. Whomever was responsible for releasing that should engage more with their testers. They would not have advised against it being released, of that,.......i have no doubt.

 

fact is, if there was somewhere else to go, most of us would.

 

Thankfully for ED, most of us arn't.

 

 

 

Are you really sure he only want to know the average age of the user-base ?

I think he just want to use this poll as a hook to transport his massage that ED shouldn't treat us like Kids... or something like this...

To be honest: - I don't get what this poll has to do with his posting at all. (please enlighten me!)

 

I just wanted to help by giving some results without having to wait for a reasonable number of voters.

 

And looking at his reply at my posting is really confusing.

[MemphisBelle]

EDIT:

MemphisBelle,

it is very questionable what the real question is.

 

Did you read posting #1 at all ?:

 

Well, I´ve to admit that I haven´t went through the whole first post at all. I only wondered why he wrote so much for just the question about how old one is, that was stupid, I should have reade all of this...havent cared about that later:doh: ...actually and honestly now by reading through all of this...I agree with you. And even dont see the reason for the poll anymore....that´s a strange feeling...

 

But in most points he´s right and should´ve choose another name and reason for this topic.

 

EDIT:

[...]I think he just want to use this poll as a hook to transport his massage that ED shouldn't treat us like Kids... or something like this...

To be honest: - I don't get what this poll has to do with his posting at all. (please enlighten me!)

 

Dont expect enlightenment by me...I lost it at all :D.

I furthermore think that this poll has totally turned the focus away from the content of post #1. by reading the most replies now, I think many of the users havent went through the first post as well (I might be wrong)...it also seems that not even Groove did (sorry if I am wrong)...he just answerd as I did...and I havent read it. Too bad actually. I think Tyger said important things there.

Edited February 21, 2012 by MemphisBelle

[PeterP]

 

Dont expect enlightenment by me...I lost it at all :D.

I furthermore think that this poll has totally turned the focus away from the content of post #1. by reading the most replies now, I think many of the users havent went through the first post as well (I might be wrong)...it also seems that not even Groove did (sorry if I am wrong)...he just answerd as I did...and I havent read it. Too bad actually. I think Tyger said important things there.

 

Thanks for your response MemphisBelle, and trying to answer my qestions....

 

That's also what bugs me the most- my answer was really on topic on his agenda and this is his reply:

 

The average age of the typical DCS pilot (surprise,surprise! ) has a bell-shape pattern centered on the average.

 

Here are some numbers for you:

 

Video :

 

Views Total of registered youtube members: 4.146

 

Timespan : 2 years and 8 month

 

77 % of all views are generated by this thread:

Put DCS at the top of the Shelf! and help ED to to produce more DCS titels

 

and this are the demographic numbers of the 10 country's with the most viewers.

 

 

There's a thing. I can't neg rep for being a thread hijacker. again!

 

So I ask you, Tyger - what's your agenda ? BTW: really nice poll! but...:) - I don't get the real connection to your first posting!

Please enlighten me !

Edited February 21, 2012 by PeterP

[sobek]

In your own interest, i'd suggest following the Community Managers advice

 

Please stick to the topic of the thread, the age.

 

Next time he's going to bring a horde of starved pigs and you bet it won't be pretty. :D

[Prolixite]

Sobek, Groove,

 

With all due respect, maybe your reaction is a bit over the top. PeterP added some interesting info that was on topic if you ask me... And the long first post opens the way for a very open ended discussion.

 

First off, he is also complaining about QA missing the mark with content release - from what i understand at least.

 

To say that, a person must have a very limited understanding of game development. QA'ing a game such as the DCS series is enormous., and to be quite honest, i'm very surprised it has come out with so few bugs.

 

Keep in mind that PC game dev is way more complex than console.

 

I have no idea how many testers worked on the project. But just as an example: I was QA Lead on SW: The force unleashed. We had 25 PS3 tester, 25 xbox testers, 20 Wii and 20 PS2. That was external ressources only. LA had a smaller internal QA team.

 

The game came out with a great number of bugs that were closed as "will not fix" (I'll keep the number secret, but it's in the thousands), as the team was unable to fix everything in time for launch. DCS is ten times more complex to QA than anything I ever touched. I salute them for their great work.

 

I also believe that outsourcing bug resolution is a bad idea.

 

Outsource QA, not bug fixing.

 

Makes no sense to have someone else fix the code that you wrote. Well, to the very least, it will not improve the process.

 

Not everyone writes clean code, imagine if your the 10th person in line trying to fix the flaws. Hacks will be everywhere. At least the programmers were I work think that would be pretty bad.

 

also - i'm 35 ;)

[sobek]

PeterP added some interesting info that was on topic if you ask me...

 

Yes he did, my reminder was in regard to the last bits of his post.

 

And the long first post opens the way for a very open ended discussion.

 

Be that as it may, this thread is about the age of community members. If you want a constructive discussion about ways how to improve QA, please feel free to open a thread on that topic. I'm sure ED are the last to frown upon input from professionals, as long as the discussion is kept constructive.

[MemphisBelle]

this thread is about the age of community members.

 

Please dont get it wrong Sobek, I did as same. I got appalled by the poll which clearly leads to the question...how old are you? But the initial post #1 doesn´t do this anymore.

What does the poll has to do with the first post? I still don´t know what it is supposed to be.

 

I agree with you if that the post should actually start a discussion about the sense and absurdism about certain things, this was the wrong way.

Edited February 24, 2012 by MemphisBelle

[Bolt-1]

Ok I need to split my vote between 40-50 and 50-60. soi i haven't entered the poll yet. :unsure:

[Krebs20]

Ok I need to split my vote between 40-50 and 50-60. soi i haven't entered the poll yet. :unsure:

 

Do you feel younger or older today? :smilewink:

[Buckram]

17 years old. Loving every second I fly in the Warthog and Black Shark

[Heli Shed]

For the love of god.

The purpose of the poll in relation to the first post is to highlight the average age of the dcs pilot. It's not 14 is it! Fact is, most are between 30 and 50 denoting a mature but relative small audience than lets say, arma, cod or other less time consuming games / sims.

 

 

Now, re-read, move on, or bring it to the 74th's.

[MemphisBelle]

For the love of god.

The purpose of the poll in relation to the first post is to highlight the average age of the dcs pilot. It's not 14 is it! Fact is, most are between 30 and 50 denoting a mature but relative small audience than lets say, arma, cod or other less time consuming games / sims.

 

 

Now, re-read, move on, or bring it to the 74th's.

 

At some point I dont see any relation between the post and the poll, because the content within the post is about 1/8 about the age of DCS Pilots and 7/8 about somethings else (i don´t want to point it out now). May be you edit the first post and directly ask for the avarage age. By that you´d get the relation back to the poll and it make sense again.

 

About the content of pot #1. As I mentioned already. I think you said some important things there, but you´d do that in another way, it shouldn´t look like subversive critics, as it does at the moment. And because I agree with you in some points, I´d like to please you to put that into another, more proper thread.

[EvilBivol-1]

Given the continuing OT of the thread, and the lack of a better solution outside of deleting the starting post, which seems to be confusing or misleading readers, we are closing the thread. Understand that we have nothing against user age polls. Feel free to open a new thread to conduct such a poll, but take care to keep it focused on the subject line.