Designing must be tough these days

[CODY614 6]

May I ask a basic question,not wanting to start a fight...As this thread does pose some interesting comments.Why then it is o-kay for friends of the dev's to coming roaring into a thread and "Have their buddies back?"When you have a good wholesome thread going on and you are discussing problems with some new payware...These 'Buddies' can turn a good thread into an all out fight......Remember....I'm asking a question....I too for the most part sit back and watch these threads go south all of the time.If you release a product and then continue to say there is nothing wrong...then there is something wrong with that...yes?Now take into account that no 2 customers are the same...computer wise and such,some of the problems can stem from add-on's and other things.Some times people don't even read "FSX with Acceleration needed" then go off half cocked in a support forum because the $30.00 add on they just bought doesn't work and they don't have Acceleration installed!So given that...Why don't dev's take a harder look at "Beta Testing" more...I know they won't catch everything...But lately some of the products offered are lacking in the QC department.The statement "The VC looks like a cartoon! " is what grabbed me the most...Now understand,please...But it does! And when you say to several customers/potential customers.... "We may indeed produce a wartime scratched, faded baked texture look at a later date but the decision was taken to go with the look we see in the real thing as per the restored examples."That just seems wrong...To me any way...Why not include PSD's for the cockpit?I am re-painter at heart!And when you go and try and do a re-paint and start running into panel lines that don't line up or mesh/UV Mapping errors these are the things that drive me nut's! Sometimes just looking at a beta model from a painters view would be nice!The dev's cant' be all things to all customers...I get that...And for the most part the majority of the companies turn out excellent products and customer service.Sometimes they have to take the heat..to a point yes...but they have to go into it knowing there are going to be problems.Some deal with it only by e-mail and you must have all your purchase info in the e-mail ,some do it in forums...and then some don't answer at all...I can count on one hand the companies I know I can trust for solid payware. And yes certain companies keep raising the 'Bar' I only wish others would. Good heavens...there are people doing 'Freeware' that should be payware,and vice versa.I almost deleted what I said here 3 times...but every body here has made some good solid comment's! And this is just my 2 cent's from a painters view....So I'll get off my soap box and go stand in the paint booth....Jeff

[N400QW 205]

As for that locked thread, there is absolutely nothing wrong with what was said. For the reasons the disappointed customers specified and I suspected, I will not be purchasing that product either.

Ha Ha, the mods here obviously disagree with your opinion that "there is nothing wrong with what was said."The beauty of the marketplace is that potential customers have many choices and they have the right to make those choices without coercian from others.The often humerous issue within the FS Community is that folks make purchase decisions based on what "joe blow" posted and never find out for themselves whether a product is suitable for their own taste or system.This, in itself, could be construed as a form of coercion. :(

[WarpD 824]

When someone posts about a product, truth and honesty is the most important aspect. When someone refuses to maintain truth and honesty when they are posting, then things go bad. Horribly bad. At that point the individual or individuals are persuing an agenda which serves absolutely no one in a positive fashion. However, they rarely care because they're not concerned with offering anything positive to anyone at all.As for those who think one developer 'sets the bar' for all others... might wanna back off the 'goof juice'. Seriously. There isn't a single developer out there that works under that premise. Not one.

[yellowjack 28]

Ha ha, and the resolution is amazing. :(

So is the Cost! :(

[mjrhealth 820]

Oh yes, i must thank all the developers out there for the wonderfull work they do, none of us are perfect, wouldnt it be nice if all these complainers would try desigining a plane fisrt and making it work on every conceiveable variation of hardware software, well it wont happen. Our society is getting more and more selfish, they want to buy a car and beable to drive it wothout putting fuel in the tank, it is always " everyone elses fault first", and they refuse to accept that they might have done something wrong, even if the product works on everyone elses pc. S oagain i thank all you developers. only ever bought one plane i thurughly diliked, just deleted it off my pc. FSX is so much more than FS9 and only getting better.Thanks guys.

[FLighT01 3]

The internet contains a lot of hostility and child like actions by many. It doesn't matter if it is FS related, review of a lovely Caribbean Resort or cell phones, computers and anything. Some can never say good comments and I have learned to take a holistic approach when reading reviews and comments on forums. There are bullies, jerks and just those who may have had a bad experience often of their own making. Remember this is a world that loves McDonald's, isn't able to read a newspaper and frequently don't even know how their government works. Read forum comments as if you were walking in the park. Most of the path is clear but there are places where a dog's poop lies in wait. Just don't walk there. :(

How true. The thing about bullies is they tend to be cowards when stood up to in person, eyeball to eyeball, and are afraid of the smell of their own blood.

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Further to the point, those who steal and are denied support often run off to public forums with their thinly disguised agendas and you have a community that not only stunts its own growth but actually attempts to eat its own young.

IMO, anyone who steals payware products (ie. downloads illegal copies from the internet) can't be considered to be part of the FS community.

[kerosene31 349]

I think simply as prices have gone up, and selection has gone down, that irritability has gone up and patience has gone down. I'm not justifying either side, but clearly there is frustration over the state of our hobby right now. While our add-on developers do great work, we could use a few more great devs in addition to the ones we have now. That said I think there is a sub-set of flight simmers who jump on products the nanosecond they are released. They jump in the pool without dipping their toes in first and then are mad when the water isn't quite the temperature they were expecting. Not that people shouldn't expect value for their dollar, but I think some could greatly benefit from waiting a day or two and letting others test the waters. I usually wait on most add-ons. Waiting a day or two at the most (even a few hours) usually gives you a great picture of what it is about. Honestly I think in all my years of buying add-ons I've used Flight1's great return policy once. I've been buying add-ons since FS98 so I think that says a lot. This hobby simply would not exist without the great work of add-on developers.

[ryanbatc 12,836]

I think simply as prices have gone up, and selection has gone down, that irritability has gone up and patience has gone down. I'm not justifying either side, but clearly there is frustration over the state of our hobby right now.

Well said. This is sometimes how I feel...

[stevem72 10]

I absolutely agree - to me its not only prices going up etc etc, but my disposable income going down, for what is a hobby in the economic climate.I not only expect value for money, but i now DEMAND it and in order to meet that need, I feel that the onus is not only on the devs to produce quality work, its also very much on me to "research" a potential purchase to ensure it "fits the bill" in terms of quality/support/reputation etc.I also try and bear in mind how much more likely we/people are to complain about a product than to praise it - think about it, when was the last time you (and yes that includes me!!) posted on a support forum just to say nothing else other than how fantastic/flawless/great that add-on you just purchased was??? :(

[oldbear 33]

I also try and bear in mind how much more likely we/people are to complain about a product than to praise it - think about it, when was the last time you (and yes that includes me!!) posted on a support forum just to say nothing else other than how fantastic/flawless/great that add-on you just purchased was??? :(

Ah, well 'tis human nature to gripe more than praise. But remember - people often slip in how good certain products and developers are, usually by way of comparison when they're slagging someone else off!! The good guys get a lot of praise indirectly...Welcome to Avsim, Steve.Ian

[trisager 2]

- think about it, when was the last time you (and yes that includes me!!) posted on a support forum just to say nothing else other than how fantastic/flawless/great that add-on you just purchased was??? :(

I remember doing that for the last two PMDG releases for FSX - the MD11 and the JS41. Both great products that delivered on the promises made by the developers and with very few issues. And I still feel that way about those purchases.

[stevem72 10]

Ah, well 'tis human nature to gripe more than praise. But remember - people often slip in how good certain products and developers are, usually by way of comparison when they're slagging someone else off!! The good guys get a lot of praise indirectly...Welcome to Avsim, Steve.Ian

Thanks Ian - I might add that I also trust my own judgement in these matters, and when I get it wrong (hey shoot me i'm human :( ) then I vote with the wallet and don't go back.

[ryanbatc 12,836]

I also try and bear in mind how much more likely we/people are to complain about a product than to praise it - think about it, when was the last time you (and yes that includes me!!) posted on a support forum just to say nothing else other than how fantastic/flawless/great that add-on you just purchased was??? :(

The Lotus L39 comes to mind ;)

[=Hollywood= 0]

Interesting thread...There's a whole gamut of different scenarios we can all talk about...Some dev's are releasing stuff as sub standard, while at other times user expectations can be totally unrealistic... I loved the post about being nerd-bullied first thing in the morning...There's been times where the 'few' have made me question if it's worth continuing development for the masses...There's the occasional one customer who incessantly emails every couple of days, when is this going to be released, what's happening now, over and over again, no matter that we blog every detail we're able to discuss publicly... One guy was so demanding about the beta process happening that very minute and was very rude in his emails as if it was all about him, that I ended up refunding all his purchases and said thanks but no thanks...Over the last 20 years I've seen many developers come and go, a lot of the good developers leave because they do have a life to lead and don't need the drama of insatiable demands of some users who have unrealistic expectations...The one thing in photoscenery I see a lot (regardless of which developer it is) is...a) I want my neighborhood completely covered in photosceneryB) I want every airport lined up correctly to match the photosceneryc) I want the download to be less than 1GB for the entire productd) I want to have completely evenly colored photoscenerye) I want no building lean on all imageryf) I want no terrain shadowsthe answer to those is...a) That is in process but will take time due to the sheer volume of data, we're talking hundreds of TB of source data, let alone render dataB) With over 24,000+ airports in FSX and the majority being in the USA and Europe that is a task that is next to impossible to do without the contributions of freeware fixes by the communityc) There's only so much you can compress the data until it becomes a blended mess of color blotchesd) Not even the U.S. Military or other Top Military in the world have that type of data, the data simply is not available at this point in historye) See d)f) See d)I remember something one major global software developer once said..."We can't spend 90% of our energy on 5% of a product that will make little difference to the end sales figures."If every single bug or issue were to be fixed, products would never ever ship, and we simply don't live in a perfect world.Should we try and give 100-150%, of course, but at the end of the day nothing is ever perfect...As for the devs who release commercial products but are really just 'hacks' the market does dictate whether they fail or fly in their ventures...Just my 2 cents...