Does this mean anything?

[Guest KevinShea]

Does it mean I actually got farther when I click the download link and the progress bar actually starts going half full versus when it gives me the 'to many crazy obsessed PMDG customers' on this website message instantly?I guess I am asking if I should wait out the progress bar for a bit and not just hit stop and try again.Kevin

[Guest jase439]

Kevin,Yeah, the progress bar means nothing here. All that's happening is that your HTTP request was sent from your computer and is awaiting a response, but the server never replied to it (the packet was dropped). This is not entirely unlike what you expect trying to connect to a site under attack. In short, PMDG has set themselves up for what effectively amounts to an extended period of denial-of-service. The assertion that this is the intended mechanism of delivery for their software is somewhat disingenuous and a non-starter in my book. I do not personally subscribe to the argument of, "what do you expect for free?". First of all, this is a commercial operation with paying customers. Secondly, time is money. The customer's time is money. Thirdly, all new customers are being denied the ability to download a product they just ponied up $40 for. The fact that I'm in the first group is at best a great annoyance and a waste of time and energy. If I were in the latter group, however, I would be fuming and heads would be rolling and PMDG would be having a dialogue with my credit card company. You could also argue, that this is the best a small company can do. That is absolute rubbish and nonsense. As someone adeptly pointed out - a 300 baud modem in the hands of a six year old could have devised a better execution strategy. Lasty, if money were truly at issue, I think most would have paid a nominal shipping fee to have a CD mailed to them. Wouldn't you? It worked well for the Radar Contact update, for example (and that's only a 2-man operation w/ a customer base as large - if not larger than the 737NG). Personally, I'd rather wait the week on a CD I know I will get as opposed to waiting days on end clicking wading in an endless sea of 403.9's never knowing if I'll even get the download once it starts (should I be fortunate enough to even make it that far).Anyway, Kevin, if you wait long enough, you'll eventually get an operation timed out - it buys you nothing to wait, once the progress bar has stopped advancing. You'd have better luck watching paint dry. If you click on the link again, you'll get the 403.9. Either way you're hosed. You're left with 2 choices: you can join the feeding frenzy and exacerbate the problem for yourself and others by hitting the website thousands of times per minute on the outside chance something different might happen this week, or you can resign yourself to the reality that PMDG bungled it inside the 1 yard line and try again in a week. I'm sure the update is a wonderous technological achievement, by all accounts - but from where I sit, the update isn't done for all intents and purposes . It's not amazing to the customer unless the customer actually has something in hand to be amazed by. Beholding "The page cannot be displayed" for hours on end, is anything but, amazing (incredulous, perhaps - but not amazing). Ironically, this situation really isn't any more or less egregious than if they'd announced their release date in advance and repeatedly missed their dates. To the customer, it's all the same at the end of the day - no product. It's bad execution any way you slice or dice it.Happy clicking ;-) I'm going x-mas shopping. Hopefully by next weekend - or maybe the week after, someone (perhaps the credit card companies) will have introduced PMDG to Apache, Linux, and BitTorrent. Perhaps our friends here at AVSIM might be kind enough to extend a hand to one of its partners by offering to mirror the download for a period of time? Let's hope - because the current situation is on a freight train to nowhere.Cheers,Jason Barlow

[Guest jase439]

I would also point out, that there are a number of those who feel that - new features aside - this update contains fixes/patches to functionality and quality that should have been present from the beginning and that anything other than free would be an ever greater travesty of customer relations.I realize this is frustrating for all parties. Were this a simple freeware op, the complaints would be unjustified (not to say people still wouldn't complain :-). But when you go commercial, you raise the bar for yourself, and you set a precedent for performance and expectation that will be measured and assessed by the customer. However irritating and annoying it may be, the customer is life. Once you cross the line and slap a price tag on something, there's a dump truck of consumer expectations that go along with it. Meet or exceed it you make money. Fall short, and you get flamed and lose money. One can debate the morality of it, but that is the joy of capitalism. I would strongly encourage PMDG to pay heed to what its customers are experiencing and stop beating the dead horse with the same stick and explore alternative delivery mechanisms.J

[Guest Wills402]

I'm considered by all who know me to be a very patient person but I'm afraid that even my patience is wearing thin. I've NEVER had this much trouble downloading ANY product. I've had better luck accessing websites that don't even exist. I'm not so sure this one does either now.William