No, it wasn't clear once you muddled the waters with your $3,000 hardware, which was apparently part of the reason you felt the black shark 2 addon was unjustified.

Now as far as bugs go, I can safely say that every ED product, like just about any other software product, the vast majority of which are far less complex than our sims, always had and will continue to have some bugs. And none of our products will include free patches to the point of eliminating all bugs. If this isn't acceptable for you, we understand and of course you are free to exercise your right not to purchase our products. Having said that, we always have been and continue to be comitted to quality releases, which are traditionally followed by a number of free patches that not only fix bugs, but typically add significant new gameplay features as well. There are times, however, when development of features and the progression of code reaches a point where it is no longer feasible to provide a free patch release and a payware product is deemed justified and/or necessary. Once again, you obivously don't have to buy it if you don't feel the product justifes the cost.

Clearly this is an agree-disagree situation.

Hopefuly the unsatisfied customers will speak with their wallets, which really is the best way to show support or non-support of a business.

I for one will continue to support ED if I think the product deserves it. I didn't buy P-51 because I have no interest in the aircraft.

There isn't one piece of software that has eliminated all bugs. But when you have eliminated some bugs, and then charge for them, it's a different story. Maybe it would be different if BS1 wasn't the least supported product in the series. If the same thing happened with A-10, it would be more understandable because there have been multiple patches for that title. BS1 customers got the shaft...that bad taste in my mouth caused them to lose a customer forever. I do have "disposable income" of sorts for my hobby, but I don't hand it over to bad practices. It's not the price really, it's the principle.

That was in response to the tired old "movie theater" debate.

The patching philosophy at the time was different, instead of small and faster patches, ED at the time opted to do big patches with great intervals between them, but they contained one hell of a lot more fixes and improvements, all of which seem to have been lost on you, for example, one of them being the new sound engine that was introduced with 1.0.2. Your above statement is seriously misguided, IMO.

Alright, well at least I feel that we reached a more amiable position of disagreement, which I am satisfied with if it is indeed the case. As I said, really I only got involved on somewhat of a personal cause. Outside of that, I've already posted the complete list of black shark 2 new and improved features, which I think speaks for itself to any user trying to decide whether it is worth a purchase or not.

Thanks.

A quick observation regarding "patch":

Release dates:
DCS: Black Shark - Oct 2008
DCS: Black Shark 2 - Nov 2011

A timespan of 3 years.


MSFS 2000 - Fall 1999
MSFS 2002 - Oct 2001
MSFS 2004 - July 2003
MSFS X - Oct 2006

Timespans are 2 years, 2.5 years, 3 years.

Someone explain to me why it's okey for MicroSoft to take full payment for big upgrades to a product, but not ED?

This "discussion" is just plain weird to me. If you held pretty much all software developers on the planet to the standards you appear to be holding Eagle Dynamics, you wouldn't be purchasing any software at all, but rather have your Linux box set up with Flight Gear. Have fun.

+1

Hi bogusheadbox,

What makes you feel like you are not being treated as a customer?

Comparing a survey sim to a study sim is apples and oranges. In MSFS, if there is a plane that has bugs there are 18 others you can fly (or hundreds if you count the user made ones). In a study sim, you have one flyable....if it has bugs, the whole game is affected. Does that clear things up a little?