I am. Just an apology.

I have just got to jump back in here , because this has got well out of hand !

Firstly - I think it was good Carl came to this thread to listen to the gripes , not many developers would do that , he does not deserve abuse or flaming when rational arguments / discussion are the order of the day .

My initial post - was a knee jerk reation of diapointment re the 2.5 patch being delayed !

My reference to developers oh please do be quiet was not aimed at SSI , Carl , Matt etc per say , it was a general comment to developers - made by me in a dark mood of frustration - and i don't detract it - but i feel i should clarify it as follows

Firstly the simulation community are end users and customers - in this case we have all purchased copies of original boxed Flanker 2 - we don't all have to suck up to sim developers just because there are not many of them left !

Note this relates to any games company - we the customer pays the money for the product , so we have the right to criticise it , we have the right to expect bug free usage , and we have the right to complain if game play features are missing - again not directed at Flanker 2 per say !

Games companies take in general take far too long to develop games , and of course they have to fund salaries , and work to a rigorous game design document !

Everybody keeps saying , games are made for money if they don't sell - the companies fold etc etc - too true - the same rules apply to your local supermarket , so what !

Many web sites ,mine included try to raise peoples interest to buy sims - but at the end of the day you cannot force people to buy the original F2 , if sales are / were poor why ?? i paid for my copy , i am not buying 2 copies just for the hell of it !

Maybe the reason f2 did not sell well original lies in the rational of the product itself , the missing game play features perhaps !
Even 2.5 will not make F2 as alive as f4 , eg still a lack of ground war / moving vehicles etc !

I am not saying any of this to be nasty to F2 , i like it , i paid for it , i want 2.5 , but fact is fact !

Re hype - my point was this - of course gamers want to know that a game is in development - i will use lock on as an example , lock on , of course is already being hyped - specs have been released to web sites re the probable feature list , this is great , but i personally would prefer a news black out hence forth ,on any product until Carl and co , have it done , finished , and wrapped in a box in the warehouse !

Yes issue the odd press release to say yes its progressing nicely, but treat games and sims in particular like the development of say a stealth plane !

This what i think is best , it avoids pissing off and alienating a potential customer base , because if you don't over promise / promise something , people won't hold the developer to account when a deadline is missed !

I could quote loads of examples of pc games of all genres this applies too a few follow -

Duke Nukem forever , daikatana , prey , alien 4 , typhoon ,

my final comment is , if you guys want to buy 2 copies fine , buy 2 , i won't !
I will download 2.5 if is free , or pay for it , if it were a chargeable upgrade !

But at the end of the day , SSI , flanker 2 , whoever, - sinks or swims , based on their products , and if people buy their products !!

I hope they survive , and i wish all sim developers good luck and bon voyage in making their products , hell i am even goNna buy Typhoon for flips sake, and Lock On , and many morer , because sims are my hobby , and a big part of my life , but i refuse to be sucked into this cycle of doom and gloom , and oh we must buy 2 copies , and we must support all companies because sims will die !

Its all Horse shit !! sims will die if the suits decide , because they can't sell the boxes on the shelves of game stores , you can't force people to buy sims , and the quality of any simming product defines its fate !

Hell the amount of sims i own , and the money i have paid out alone should be keeping the simming bizness afloat !

My final comment is , i have never not seen Flanker 2 on the shelves ,in my local EB - hemel hempstead , herts , uk - retails at £20 , its always there !

Troff :-0

Hiya Troff.

I am buying two copies, cos i want to ;-). I want one for a friend, who is unlikely to buy it, and one for myself, cos my manual is 3420 miles away.

But I have to agree with you on many points, saying: buy sims is preaching to the choir here. Most of SimHQ's readership will buy Lock on and Typhoon. Lots will whine and moan, but eventually, they'll all buy it. That means... well not a lot of copies purchased.

I hope Lock On and Typhoon, and indeed the 2.0/2.5 combo sells. I hope lots of casual buyers walk into their local EB and say: hey! that looks cool! and buy it.

And then they can come on here, and we have someone else to fight with. Both online and on these boards ;-)

Gavin

True, although one shouldn't categorise people who can see where the developers are coming from as "sucking up"


If by "too long" you mean they go past deadlines, that is true of some. In the case of the 2.5 patch, judging by Carl's post on the Flanker 2 forum at least, the delay here isn't due to coding issues, as is normally the case, but an unexpected piece of good fortune for the publisher & development team.

I'd argue that it's germane to this discussion because of the reason for the delay, i.e. an unexpected chance for the publisher/developer to make some money from something that otherwise would have been a loss (in monetary terms) to them.

I won't be either - one baby & another one the way being the principle reasons. If people with more spare cash than me want to get another copy, fair enough. Given that the free to download update should appear at the same time as the shelf copy, I'll be waiting no longer than the people that are shelling out for the 2.5 retail pack.


Possibly - the joy of Flanker for me is in it's flight model - maybe that, and other factors mean that it doesn't appeal to enough people. However, perhaps those that read favourable reviews first time round, but were put off by a full price game, might be tempted by an improved Flanker 2 at a knock down price.


If Carl & co. can get that past their publisher's marketing people, they're better men than we

Re: Pissing off etc - the team gave the Feb/March dates in good faith, based on how the project was progressing, and doubtless in response to calls for the info from the community. As Carl has remarked, the EB deal wasn't on the radar when the dates were given. Out of the blue, EB turn up and offer, in effect, to give the team scads of cash, on condition that the free download doesn't go out until the retail pack is one shelves. The community is informed of the delay as soon as the dev team have the EB deal in the bag, and the dev team promise to work on extra content for the release during the month we "have" to wait. I want to fly that MiG as badly as anyone - and I seriously want evadable missiles - but given the above, I don't find myself pissed off or alienated that I'm going another 30 days without them. And this is despite the fact that my internet connection will go pay per minute instead of flat rate around the time of the release...

EB's shifting the inventory of Flanker 2.0 CDs (to make up th 2.5 bundle) will help SSI's bottom line in this particular case though.

I guess Manchester has more fans of Russian aircraft... I couldn't find a copy for love nor money up here recently


------------------
Flt. Lt. Bertie "Binky" Farqhuarson,
No.1 AGHL Squadron
"Nous Sommes Tous Les Singes"
----------------------

[This message has been edited by wildstyle24_7 (edited March 03, 2001).]

Just think i need to clarify my sucking up to developers comment !

I do not mean , that any of you guys who disagree with my opinions are sucking up , hey in democracy i will fight for your counter opinion - hope that clarifies

What i meant was Carl , or any other developer for that matter can't expect an easy ride , just because he comes into a forum , or because he represents a sim developer - and sim developers are disappearing !

He must accept our opinions negative or positive ,in the same way as we must accept and respect his statemants about the free 2.5 patch and download , its a 2 way street !

Troff

Troff,

First, and don't take this the wrong way...providing an upgrade, free or for sale, is not an obligation we have to anyone.

Second, if you think going on these forums is to make my life easier... I have to laugh...you really do not understand. I'm not looking for glory or, despite what some have said, an ego trip; I go online because I feel strongly about my product and want to do what I can to promote it while being a contributing member of the combat flight sim community. The easy way would be to not be reading and posting to these forums on the weekend.

I appreciate your point of view, but I can not agree with everything you state. As for providing specs and detailed information concerning Lock On, all we have provided is the name of the product and what user flyable aircraft are being provided.

I strongly believe that guys like you that have the impression that we are putting out too much hype just don't realize the 99% of the hype is speculation and commentary by the users online, not by the publisher. Go back and read what we've posted about Lock On and show me where we provided specs.

Respectfully,
Carl

Carl , this seems a bit lame to me to be nit picking over what is hype / pr - call it what you like !

Re lock on - you have provided specs - in the form you have stated flyable planes etc -thats fine by me - if you follow my line about not hyping - this info should be sufficient to tide everyone over , until its released , web sites, journos etc !

By stating what planes are flyable - you have committed to these in a form - becoz u have presented to your customer base a spec -

oh my god just think you will be flamed big time - IF one or more of these flyable planes does not appear , you may have made a rod for your own back !!

This is exactly my point - all i want to know is - you are working on lock on cool - basically it has flyable planes x y z - cool that is sufficient - for my purposes !

All i want now - is for you to make it and release it - don't say when - unvail it when it is done finished - is that so hard to understand !

This way i won't put the release date into my diary , i won't save / ear mark my english pounds to buy it at the projected date !
Release it and hype / pr it when its done and finished - surprise us !

Regards

Troff

Well OK, I must admit I agree with a lot of points here, especially Troff's.

Speaking for myself.. after reading the statements issued, I fully expected the free patch/upgrade on the time date that was mentioned, I'm disappointed this has all been changed but recognise it will still be free, and I will have to wait longer than I thought.. no big deal I guess.

Carl has got an attitude problem though, and it's not the first time I have noticed it.
It's great to see sim developer reps on here but they shouldn't be treated like Gods, neither should they grovel of course. Representing your company to the public takes a particular talent as I'm learning in my new job, I do know if I had made a certain post Carl had made in this thread I would be in trouble.

Whatever, I'm fairly new to Flanker and eagerly await the download, even 80 mb is not a problem on my 56k dial up, so long as the servers providing support resume, I think the largest file I've downloaded on my connection is 120MB for a game demo..it can be done.

MD

Ah, much, ta.

Well, my own experience, on these web boards & usenet is that who a poster is can count for a fair bit. If you follow a newsgroup for a while, you get to know the people posting - the ones that are usually right, or that consistently make you laugh, whatever, you give an easier ride, by and large. It's part of a kind of history, through which you filter your interpretation of what they post.

Now I take your point that someone being a developer isn't in and of itself reason to drop your argument, but I'd argue that dependant on who that developer is, that whole history thing comes into it. For me, guys that take the trouble to post to this kind of forum, that try to be active parts of the community, that argue *our* case to their managers (cf. getting the publishers to agree to a free download of 2.5 for exisiting Flanker owners) build up a good deal of positive "history".

What that means for me is that posts from people like Carl are read with that history in mind - and answered with it in mind too. I understand that people are disagreeing with Carl/SSI (although, as I've remarked before, I don't share their views)- I just wish;

a) they'd look at what Carl and the team've done for the community already, and be a bit more civil about it.

b) at least attempt to see Carl & the team's point of view on this. Not directed at you Troff, but I've seen far too many people posting to the effect of "Waah, this sucks and you guys suck" - no constructive opinion at all (how they'd have dealt with the EB deal, how they'd have explained to their managers that they'd blown off the EB deal so as to not upset people that (in the eyes of management) aren't contributing to the bottom line).

Well, I'd agree about accepting reasoned opinions, and presenting a counter argument, but where people just post to the effect of "yuo = SUCK", in Carl's position I'd refuse to accept that



------------------
Flt. Lt. Bertie "Binky" Farqhuarson,
No.1 AGHL Squadron
"Nous Sommes Tous Les Singes"
----------------------

Troff,

We'll just have to disagree about how a product is promoted and marketed.

I respect your opinions, but I just don't agree with them all.

I just flew the latest version of Lock On this morning. So far, I have flown the Su-27. Su-33, Su-39, MiG-29K, A-10, and finally, this morning, the F-15C. The only plane I have not personally flown is the MiG-29 Fulcrum C. We're pretty confident that all of these planes will be flyable in Lock On because they already are flyable. Not hype, just facts.

By the way, the F-15C is very nice. (An opinion)

Cheers,
Carl

[This message has been edited by Combatsim_ssi (edited March 03, 2001).]

On the site itself, it says that these are the aircraft that are "currently planned" - it may be splitting hairs somewhat, but it doesn't say "these are the aircraft you'll get". In every post on the F2 forum, I've seen, the dev team post a disclaimer saying that things could change over the course of the project.

Which is fine for you, but will irritate people that want more info - it'll probably drive the marketing people crazy too. If I can handle the fact that release dates sometimes slip, and read the disclaimers on the progress reports, why should I get less info because others can't?

I'd beg to differ - I may be missing something, but in the face of the provocation, I've not seen anything I'd think out of line, on here or the F2 forum. As ever, YMMV. Carl's post on the F2 forum ("More thoughts from...") was probably instrumental in clearing up a lot of the misunderstanding about what's actually happening - I certainly found it helpful.

BTW, reaction in the comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.flight-sim newsgroup (a tough crowd at the best of times) is overwhelmingly positive so far - check Message ID <97ouh9$1ed4$1@news6.isdnet.net> et seq.
------------------
Flt. Lt. Bertie "Binky" Farqhuarson,
No.1 AGHL Squadron
"Nous Sommes Tous Les Singes"
----------------------

[This message has been edited by wildstyle24_7 (edited March 03, 2001).]

I'd beg to differ - I may be missing something, but in the face of the provocation, I've not seen anything I'd think out of line, on here or the F2 forum.

----

Well that's just tickety boo. I've nothing against Carl or SSI or indeed Flanker, I really enjoy the simulation.

Perhaps he has been provoked at times?
All I'm saying is... the company I represent are far more successful than the company he represents, I know I would be in trouble if I said some of his comments to the consumer.

Lets leave it at that.

MD

Well really all this has come full circle , because regardless of whether feature x or y is in lock on , or whether they are set in stone or not , it boils down to this -

Developers use web sites , pr , journos etc to sell their envisioned game to hopefully an eagerly awaiting market - so i know its unrealistic to expect a news blackout - i was being a little provocative and devils advocatish in stating / expecting this !

So this brings us back nicely back to 2.5 patch , with no malice intended , SSI need too at least appreciate , that they made a mistake in promising / indicating to the f2 community that the patch download would be taking place about now !

Face it you made a mistake , for all the right wrong / reasons - money Eb - whatever !

because you sowed a seed in your customers minds , a seed of a release date / download date , that people have used against you in voicing their disapointment at the extra month wait for the patch !

You cannot deny that your customers HAD pencilled into their diaries and consciuosnesses this approximate time - that they would be downloading the patch !

To conclude my input into this thread , i am gonna say - i can forgive you , i wish you well on any sim , lock on etc - and i will probably buy whatever in the future , because the products are good !!!!

You have made a mistake , an error of judgement - its not a war crime - i am gonna move on - get a life for the rest of the weekend and do some flying , and produce some future site content !

I hope that all of us here can see the others point of view and the other side of the fence / argument ?

I wish Carl, Matt , SSI , F2 & Lock On - all my sincerest best - and hope to be able to download the 2.5 patch in 30 days time !

Sincerely to all

Troffmeister :-)

Troffmeister's Simulation Zone
http://www.daviesr.freeserve.co.uk

Roger " Troffmeister " Davies
Roger@Daviesr.freeserve.co.uk

Troffie:

"So this brings us back nicely back to 2.5 patch , with no malice intended , SSI need too at least appreciate , that they made a mistake in promising / indicating to the f2 community that the patch download would be taking place about now."

As they have already said...they did not know of the EB deal when they gave the info...you can't expect them to pass up on the EB deal. They have two groups of people to protect...the customers and their own team members. They need to pay salaries to their team.

I am sure EB would prefer that SSI not release a free 2.5 add-on (its not a patch). SSI could have done that...

THANKS CARL AND MATT FOR KEEPING IT FREE.

You should have never said anything about it...than you would not have to give it away free and no one would be complaining, and instead we would be posting oh how reasonable $2o is (ral being sarcastic...by the way $20 is very reasonable).

------------------
dogfight.com

I noticed that as well. I would have thought the reverse with the Usenet newsgroup full of flames. Instead, it is very positive. This community is totally unpredictable.

Thanks for your other points.

Cheers,
Carl

Well, I feel the need to jump into this thread again, usenet for the hardcore flight simmer has long been dropped IMHO, sure you still see some of the regulars there, but I've found the flight sim newsgroup is reserved for news group celebrities whose names I wont mention just now, however some of those self elected celebrities cant or wont look forward, consequently quite a lot of the simulation community (along with yourself Carl) have migrated to places like this, if you don't like the negative responses you see hear please don't try to blame the non usenet community for this, Speaking for myself I got fed up of the unmoderated Flight Sim usenet postings some time ago, and switched to boards like this some time ago.

The Flight Sim Newsgroup has been used to guess and calculate the genre before, and more than one flight sim company has fallen by putting the results into practise.

The real Simulation enthusiasts are here, and you should listen to them.

MD

Mad Dog,

I don't blame anyone. I read the Usenet group just about everyday. I do not and will not participate there because it has become too unreasonable. I'e rather spend my time on the Flanker Forum, Combatsim.com, Dogfighter, or here on SimHQ. The overall online combat flight sim community is not the entire population of combat flight sim users out there, they are just the more vocal and hardcore crowd.

While there are many outstanding individuals in our online community, there are also many unfriendly and disruptive folks who do not help our hobby. You'll find that this situation exists in just about any online community.

I sometimes pity the new user who first comes online looking for assistance and is bushwacked by someone who feels he has to be a badass. It happens too often.

We at SSI try to listen, but sometimes the signal to noise ratio can be difficult.

Before anyone jumps to conclusions. I am not talking about anyone specific in this posting.

Cheers,
Carl

Thanks Carl, you've been reasonable, I'm looking forward to my download.

MD

Damn, I knew I wasn't hardcore. Or am I gifted honourary status because I post to web boards too?

I think I know who you mean. To me, that's just usenet - every group has it's big dogs, and the tenor of the group is influenced to a fair degree by them, although your newsreader software can help you fine tune the ambience of the group to your own taste. I treat the flight sim ng like I treat any other - I read the threads I'm interested in, set to ignore the ones that annoy, and post where I can help or I feel strongly about the topic.

I've picked up good tips for making my sims run better, hopefully helped a few folks out with EAW mods, and recieved some useful pointers to some great sims and mods from other posters.

With regard to this specific topic, it appears to me that the flight sim group are more in tune with the financial realities of the decision SSI has taken than the folks decrying the 30 day wait. As ever, YMMV.

I try to be pretty straightforward in my posts - if I was apportioning blame to anyone, I'd say so upfront. Please don't attribute something to me that I have not said.

The comment I made about reaction in the flight sim ng is simply that; a kind of "Go figure" aside, if you will.

As for "liking" the reaction here... I think that's neither here nor there. I think the anger directed towards SSI is unwarranted, and I'm arguing that point.

It's crossed my mind a couple of times - mostly when the group becomes infested with political threads, still, that's why you can set them to ignore... I find both sources useful though - I prefer usenet largely because I can control what I see far more, with the help of a good newsreader. On my connection, usenet is also a far easier way to debate than a web board.

Again, I'm not suggesting that anyone use the flight sim ng as a barometer of popular taste, anymore than I'd suggest this board or any other *singular* source for such a purpose.

Sigh. This reminds me to a scary degree of my mis-spent youth - endless arguments about who was "more punk" usually based on where they hung out, or the shoes they wore.



------------------
Flt. Lt. Bertie "Binky" Farqhuarson,
No.1 AGHL Squadron
"Nous Sommes Tous Les Singes"
----------------------

I don't know where to start wildstyle24_7?, you've dissected my post in true Usenet fashion.

I'm not here for an argument, if I were I'd have went to the Monty Python argument shop and paid for it.

You don't like my opinion, that's fair enough. I've discussed my gripes with Carl on here and I'm cool about this.

Chill out dude.

MD