Yes, some have tried and sentenced to death BoS and the dev for not fitting their principles and ideal vision of what a combat flight simulation should be and how a perfect dev should behave, definitely.

Some prefer hanging on dreams than on reality... that's life.

so the devs don't deserve our support or sympathy? Death threats, threats of violence against their families, they are getting what they deserve. Wow, just....wow.

I do however fully support withholding any further financial or marketing/promotional support for this crew/product until they show they are interested in addressing the many concerns about this product's usability.

Sure, it'll be nice if I can tweak the graphics settings a bit, but really, will you get up and walk away simply because you are "pre-set" to 4x MSAA and you want 8x MSAA? Or because the sun is too yellow? If these things bother you more than the enemy fighters bearing down on you, maybe you're in the wrong sim.

2. This specific dust up was about the Freetrak hack no longer being updated by the freetrak hackers and being broken with the latest update to Trakir. The Russian side of the forum went full bore nuclear. Loft received death threats and threats of violence to his family. How long would you last before you pushed back?

Ghost, I did not say "support the flight sim dev no matter what." I am saying support them if they make a good product. If I am too busy immersed in the flight sim, I don't care if they have public meltdowns because they can't take criticisms from rivet-counters or if they react to stupid threats over a simple set of code designed to simulate combat flight in a WWII setting.

Like I said, there's blame to be had on both sides and we rarely see a good portion of the entire story so such "meltdowns" are just the tip of the iceberg. I'd rather vote with my wallet and let the product guide my purchases.

I do echo what mike1997 said..... I like this community (SimHQ) for the maturity of the members, and while I see this on the other sub-forums, the DCS and IL2BoS sub-communities do leave a bit to be desired. Sure, we'd like a good game, tweaked to our specific way of playing, but just because the devs chose to go a different path doesn't mean they deserve all the vitriol I've seen flung about.

I find Don/DBurnette's post a bit ironic though. He talks about deal breakers, yet lists Cliffs of Dover as one of the games he is having a blast with. What that tells me is that even broken things can be fixed in time. If all we're complaining about is XP/grinding, graphic and difficulty presets, and SP progression, then I have high hopes for BoS. Are the aircraft FMs wrong? Do the guns seem overpowered or are not exhibiting the behavior or correct ammo count? Is take-offs/landings too easy/difficult? These are the things I look for in a sim. Sure, it'll be nice if I can tweak the graphics settings a bit, but really, will you get up and walk away simply because you are "pre-set" to 4x MSAA and you want 8x MSAA? Or because the sun is too yellow? If these things bother you more than the enemy fighters bearing down on you, maybe you're in the wrong sim. I would say, however, that they seriously dropped the ball on no tri-screen support.

[ps -- when I say "you," I'm not referring to Don/DBurnette in particular but rather to the people who voice such complaints]

Largely irrelevant...for obvious reasons....this was not an isolated outburst but the culmination (for the moment) of a pattern of behavior and actions showing open contempt for their customers....and everyone saw this "apology" for what it was......a politically correct fig leaf that could not disguise the fact that 1C had a number of developers on this project who are contemptuous of their core market that provided early access funding and if they could......would kick that market to the curb...in favor of a more pliable, and less demanding market of XP seeking "gamers"

This guy is a Strelnikov...and he is driving...or is he merely riding?...his Red Express

.....into Oblivion

I honestly don't see how anyone, anywhere, can defend the very public statements and behavior of the 1CGS. They ought to be a case study in how to destroy a business venture.

I honestly don't see how anyone, anywhere, can defend the very public statements and behavior of the 1CGS. They ought to be a case study in how to destroy a business venture.

The only thing that destroy a business venture is customers not buying the products.
If the customers don't buy the product because some kind of unperfect human behavior shown in dev communication is more important than the product itself and so is a deal breaker, then it clearly means there's no real interest in the product itself.
If there's no real interest in the product itself, then the only real error of the dev is to have started to develop the product in the first place.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

Aside from all of that, if the game was just made to the satisfactory standards that the majority of the community was expecting, then this sort of conflict wouldn't have ever happened in the first place.

[quote=AbortedMan]
The real question is why the product isn't satisfying some of the customers. Part is maybe the dev's responsability with some ankward decisions, but another part may also be unrealistic expectation of the customer in the first place.

The real question is why the product isn't satisfying some of the customers. Part is maybe the dev's responsability with some ankward decisions, but another part may also be unrealistic expectation of the customer in the first place.

Well, I have to step in here. I've been gone for awhile dealing with some personal issues, but boy did I ever pick a great day to check the forums. You see, '777', in his ultimate self destructive wisdom, decided to throw me under the bus, and toss around a whole new batch of straight up lies. I am the one who invited him to my Boys birthday. Its me. We were friends, but over time I noticed things about him and his behavior that ultimately led me to no longer continue the friendship. Simple as that, I didn't need any extra stress, so I just walked away from the game, the community and the drama. I come back today to a lie that I released private emails to the community. This is a TOTAL LIE. Aborted Man and '777' kept at it for a few more weeks, but I had nothing to do with any of it. Though I did speak with AB from time to time about the drama, I told him I wanted nothing to do with the drama. So once again. '777' is trodding out some "woes me" BS story to further validify his hatred for the very community that he apperantly finds so repulsive.

My thoughts about him and his behavior are confirmed. Sorry '777', but you don't get just toss lies about me or anyone else about to garner sympathy.

How many here have been threatened with violence over doing your job to the best of your ability? Over a game? Over doing business with foreigners? Or how many here have had private emails you wrote at work blasted out on the internet by someone who invited you to their kid's birthday party? And then have blogs and articles written about such private comments? Or how about being called a liar, a thief or a scam artist on a weekly basis for only trying to make a product you yourself want to play? Or how about being threatened with a boycott or legal action when something is accidentally broken and out of your control due to another company's code? Or being called deceitful and evasive even though you have thousands of posts and emails communicating with your customers and dozens of developer diary entries and live streams explaining what you are going to do? Or how about someone trying to alter search results and Wiki entries to purposely harm your product and the company you poured your life savings into and years of your life building because you deleted a disrespectful post that breaks the rules of the forum? Or how about being forced to moderate a post or thread designed solely to embarrass or harass the developers and then only having the perpetrator cry censorship or call you a Nazi when you finally take action after the 900th negative post that says the same thing as the previous 899?

This is some of the kind of stuff myself, Loft, Han, Zak and everyone else on this marvelously dedicated team has to deal with and have been dealing with for half a decade now. It get's old and sometimes we've had enough. If you want just a PR dick who occasionally speaks to you from the balcony of the ivory tower with flowery language we can arrange it. But if you want us in here talking to you like regular people who deserve answers then you're going to have to deal with our frustrations as we have to deal with yours. Sometimes I think we have spoiled you by being too accessible and you know you can get our attention with the right amount of anger and disappointment. What other commercial sim team has ever been this close to it's customers? There is literally two dozen of us (half of which don't speak English) on one side and thousands and thousands of you on the other. Hardly a fair fight and unfortunately this is what sim development for us has come down to after so many years of hard, dedicated work. A God damn fight... how sad. We never, ever say anything rough to our customers unprovoked and without cause. We do push back sometimes because we are fighters and neither ROF nor BOS would be here if we weren't. Even if you don't like our design choices we should have a friendly relationship and no matter how hard we try to keep things civil, the tone of this community becomes adversarial and vitriolic towards us. The harder we try to keep things civil the angrier the community gets. If we delete angry posts we are #%&*$# censors, if we toughen up the forum rules we are dictators, if we ban obvious troublemakers we are branded anti-customer, if we ask for more positive, helpful attitude on the forum we are subversive, if we show the slightest amount of frustration with those that constantly criticize us we are abusive jerks. A lose-lose situation for us no matter what we do so why even try any more? And the worst part is when friendly users ask for more civility and positive vibes on the forums they are branded sell-outs, traders and "fanbois" and attacked.

We continue to make these products for the great silent majority that do enjoy our work and privately send us their suggestions, support and gratitude. Reasonable critiques are welcome and our forums are full of them, but the over the top stuff like I have posted above has to stop or guys from the team will eventually want to take their talents to another genre. No one wants to think their hard work is unappreciated and wasted time. This kind of stuff happens to other game developers too, but a lot of those guys can cry into their piles of money from that shooter they made or that F2P flying game no one seems to like but makes millions!?!?

Threads like this do nothing for the community except continue to divide it and stir the pot and blame us for whatever drama of the week. So I am closing it. I have chosen to give you a taste of what it is like on our side since there is so many posts about us as people. We just want to make a sim/game and sell it to you. Buy it or don't buy it, but don't try to ruin our lives over a game. For you, this is a hobby, albeit a passionate one, but for us it is our livelihood. We are paid to take it very seriously. Let us be the ones to lose sleep over bugs and missing content, everyone else go fly and have fun with your friends.

Jason

LukeFF, how is loki's post history relevant to the discussion/fact that Loft and Jason just damned the whole community to a future of poorly made products in an Internet temper tantrum of company destroying proportions?