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Cruachan

BM Support discussion

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1 hour ago, SteveW said:

Mike, "I would be expecting a refund for the balance of my entitlement." - you already said you were happy to pay up front for support. After your period is ended you had what you paid for. So I'm confused exactly what refund is entitled.

Hi Steve,

In fact I believe I was referring to those instances where, and for whatever reason, support for a product was withdrawn before your purchased support ended. I think we can agree that situation should attract a refund for the outstanding balance of your period of entitlement.

Regards,

Mike

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Of course Mike, that certainly would be unfair if you had not received your agreed allocation - time or tickets.


Steve Waite: Engineer at codelegend.com

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2 hours ago, SteveW said:

However, we're not talking about something that actually needs support, rather something like a DB system for a warehouse maybe would require paid-for support on a contractual basis. If we have to ask how to install a product into the sim, if that product invokes further input from the user, if that product alters the way other products work or the way the sim works - then that 'support' should be include in the price. Let's say they change to a different system, two support issues instead of a time limited deal. Imagine coming back to the product in a few months and find it requires 'massaging' to work and the support is ended.

Hi Steve, 

I think I can help to put your mind at rest on this one. It's a shame the Developer of Black Marble is unable to reply in person on these forums as his posting priviledges are currently restricted (hopefully this will soon change), but I can quote the following from Chris:

"We do provide periodic updates to our worldwide vector DB.

We also provide enhancements to Black Marble features as we develop and further enhance the line. 

This is just the first iteration of BM; we have a lot of updates planned ahead"

Whatever lies ahead for Black Marble, including any interactions it may or may not have with certain other Addons, in my mind one thing is certain: I believe we can trust Chris to do the right thing by us. IMHO Black Marble richly deserves to succeed. His enthusiasm knows no bounds! In the very unlikely event that it does not then I have every confidence that Chris will ensure we are not left out of pocket. 

Regards,

Mike

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Thank you Vic for helping to keep this topic alive. It's greatly appreciated.

We should all be proud of the fact that, on this occasion, we were able to discuss this matter again without allowing it to descend into unnecessary unpleasantness.

Persuasive argument has been presented from both sides so perhaps there is little need to continue this exchange of views much longer and I apologise to Aaron for appearing to hijack his original topic in the General Forum. Hopefully he can understand why this has occurred.

If I may, I would like to take this opportunity to mention one last point. When Black Marble was released to market there was an outcry as it soon became clear that there had been little or no testing with ORBX Vector in place. This is not altogether unusual as many new products are usually subjected to testing with the vanilla simulator and little else. Chris was very quick to put his hands up and accepted there was an urgent need to correct the situation. During this period much unnecessary ire was expressed on the forums which must have been very distressing for the Developer who may have been fearful of the impact all this expressed negativity might have had during the rollout. Chris took it all on the chin and promised everyone that every effort would be made to find and implement solutions. To date he has gone a long way towards fulfilling that promise and understands there is still some more work to be done. 

It has always been clear that Chris would refund anyone who purchased the product and subsequently became dissatisfied. Some were quick to jump in and have taken up his generous offer. A few have had a change of heart and rejoined the party. Ask yourself how many other Developers would be prepared to offer a refund following the purchase and installation of a product? To me this demonstrates an evidentially high level of belief in Black Marble and commendable trust in customer honesty which, in my book, is deserving of enormous respect and, in turn, our reciprocal support and encouragement.

Regards,

Mike

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Mike,

 

I'd like to reply again, now as the topic has separated and some of your arguments are still... no arguments.

 

Of course it is not unusual to test a new product with a vanilla installation. But it is also not unusual to test that addon with that configuration the most customers will have. And ORBX is with Global and Vector still market leader. And if not ORBX, the people use UTX as not many rely on a vanilla installation today.

A vanilla sim is the basic where it has to run. But developing a product ignoring the leading Vector Addons is still ... a bit stupid, sorry. And it has been a while till Chris answered the question and admited that he hasn't tested it with vector. Meanwhile the first customers have destroyed their installations.

So, this is not customer support in my opinion.

 

And it is also not unusual that companies give refund. Flight1 and Lockheed Martin give you a refund without any question. But you can get it also from A2A and some others if you have good arguments - not as unusual as you say.

And giving a refund after his products have destroyed the customers installation due to the incompatibility of its untested products is not generous, it's his duty to avoid a shitstorm.

 

I do not take much care about his products (even, the screenshots look nice) and I do not much take care if one buys it or not.Everybody as he likes.

But Mike, I'm sorry, many of your arguments are simply plain wrong and I just wanted to give another opinion. 

 

 

(btw.: why can't Chris post on this forums but give you reputation points for every post you make??)

 

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Guenter Steiner
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Betatester for: A2A, LORBY, FSR-Pillow Tester
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@guenseli

you say you don't care about our work?
continue to not care and move on please!
bring forward a single person our installation destroyed his Sim,
till then take your ill informed opinion elsewhere!
stop badmouthing honest people work!

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I'm running over £4000 addon in various tests.


Steve Waite: Engineer at codelegend.com

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Hi Guenter,

Thank you for taking the time to rejoin this discussion. I appreciate reading your views and learning about your experiences. Clearly you share a burning passion for this hobby and when things go wrong, and they will, it can be upsetting, sometimes very upsetting!

One thing we can agree upon is that we are all Beta testers and to a varying extent that beta testing often continues throughout the life of any particular product. Constructive feedback is always vital if worthwhile improvements are to be made and, with Black Marble, this situation is no different.

I note you are a Beta tester for several other Developers so I have to assume you have achieved a certain level of expertise which may be lacking in the more casual user. Consequently, I am puzzled by your use of the word "destroy" to describe your experiences with Black Marble and, as you interpret it, the negative effects it has had on your existing installation. 

As I understand it, Black Marble is composed of a collection of Vector data and Exclusions. These are contained in two folders: CDSBMV and CDSEXX. Both folders are installed under their parent folder CDS in Prepar3D v4 root. To be visible in the sim the position of these folders in the Scenery Library is important to ensure they have priority over other 3rd Party Vector products like ORBX or UTX. Generally this means these folders should be positioned at the top of the library. During the Black Marble installation several Black Marble entries are added to terrain.cfg as is the creation of a backup of the original file: terrain.cfg.BlackMarble. If Black Marble is uninstalled then that file will be restored to recover the installation setup as existed prior to Black Marble. The Black Marble Manager is a user friendly GUI allowing configuration of what you wish to see displayed in the sim.

Now, I'm not trying to imply that it has all been plain sailing. I think all the early adopters, myself included, encountered some issues. These issues primarily centred around conflicts with ORBX Vector and Lighting and poor performance in certain situations. I reported my own experiences to Chris and they were all quickly resolved. Also, I received a lot of very helpful advice from another user, 'jjaycee1' whose input proved invaluable in helping me optimise my experience.

For me, this experience has been positive and working through the process has taught me a lot. Like you, at first I had doubts and misgivings, but never for a moment did I consider asking for a refund. What Chris and his Team are attempting here is truly remarkable. Yes, there have been teething problems and yes, maybe the product should have been subjected to more rigorous testing before the decision was made to release. However, there is no escaping the fact that it works and, with a bit of effort, can be made to work very well.

I think it is fair to say that very few products released to market will be free of issues, some more than others. There are many reasons for this, not least being the financial pressures being brought to bear before a product is ready. However, exhaustive testing can be very time consuming and even then you may not be able to snag all the bugs. To be fair to Chris there were other factors involved. ORBX have always been very protective of their products and methods of operation, so it came as a very pleasant surprise when we learned they were willing to cooperate with Chris by helping to find ways of ensuring both products could coexist as seamlessly as us currently possible. This, I think was the key to making further progress towards satisfying their respective customers, us. I think ORBX have recognised the importance of Black Marble and the enormous contribution it brings to Flight Simulation.

Black Marble is an evolving product and I'm sure Chris won't mind when I say that I am aware that further improvements are in the pipeline, including ways to facilitate ease of use and integration with our existing installations. 

Guenter, I do understand your introduction to Black Marble was not what you would have wished for. This was unfortunate, but the finger of blame can be pointed in many directions, not just at Chris or his Beta testing team. His enthusiasm for the product is beyond dispute and he does seem very determined to work out all the issues. I do believe he will. 

We now understand the workings of Black Marble far more than we did shortly after its initial release. Should you have a change of heart, and I hope at some point you can feel persuaded to give it another try, then I know you won't be disappointed. A lot has happened and user knowledge has accumulated since your original experience. It's very unlikely that you will suffer a repetition and, even if you do, help is at hand.

As far as the arcane workings of the AVSIM forums are concerned my understanding is that Chris has suffered some sort of selective ban whereby he is currently unable to post while still being able to do some other things. It is perhaps unfortunate that Chris' communication skills occasionally fall short and sometimes his responses can be open to misinterpretation or difficult to understand. However, this is often a problem when posting on the forums and can not be considered as being unique to Chris. I am not aware of the circumstances surrounding his 'ban'. We all make mistakes and regret those mistakes afterwards. The trick is to find ways to recover the situation and move on.

Regards,

Mike

 

 

 

 

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8 minutes ago, Cruachan said:

We all make mistakes...

True. The busier the dev, the more likely they might miss or repeat a comment in a discussion, as well as simply leaving out a few words that make suggestions feel far more courteous. I would be careful to suggest these simple mistakes are real discourteous postings.

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Steve Waite: Engineer at codelegend.com

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8 hours ago, Chris Bell said:

@guenseli

you say you don't care about our work?
continue to not care and move on please!
bring forward a single person our installation destroyed his Sim,
till then take your ill informed opinion elsewhere!
stop badmouthing honest people work!

 

Glad I'm allowed to move on or not as I like ....

Come on, in the beginning there where several cases (I know some personally) which had a mess up with Vector products. Or why is there a reason for you to make a patch for it?

Maybe you misinterpret when I say "destroyed" what means of course not a real destroy. But files got messed up with ORBX Vector. And it is also no problem, it is not the point.

The point was, that Mike stated, a developer has only to care about a vanilla installation, where I have a different opinion (and many of your customers obvisiously)

 

 

I find it very rude to call my opinion an "ill opinion". 

 

Black Marble really looks interesting, but paying for support and now getting rude answers makes me feel happy to support other developers with my money.


Guenter Steiner
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Betatester for: A2A, LORBY, FSR-Pillow Tester
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Mike,

 

just wanted to reply and thank for your detailled answer.

 

The initial discussion here was just about that I find it absurd to pay for support - even a few dollar - when I pay 160$ for a complete product.

I wouldn't also say nothing if you have say about two years of free support and then there's a little fee for new simulators or whatever.

 

I also do not say that Black Marble is a bad product - the opposite it is I think. Looks very promising.

 

So, hope you enjoy his products and your flight sim.

Have a nice day

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Guenter Steiner
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Betatester for: A2A, LORBY, FSR-Pillow Tester
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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All efforts toward flight sims is good effort. The guys doing the work are top of the class. Most addon products are worth more than we pay, including BM, some much more, because they are made with a passion that promotes the skill and genuinely puts more un-affordable man-hours into what is a very difficult niche for a product.

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Steve Waite: Engineer at codelegend.com

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19 hours ago, Cruachan said:

It has always been clear that Chris would refund anyone who purchased the product and subsequently became dissatisfied. Some were quick to jump in and have taken up his generous offer. A few have had a change of heart and rejoined the party. Ask yourself how many other Developers would be prepared to offer a refund following the purchase and installation of a product?

Mike,

There's the white hats and the black hats in every society. The flight sim add-ons market is made up from a small group with a larger than normal proportion of white hats, I'm sure.

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Steve Waite: Engineer at codelegend.com

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Hi Steve,

It is to be hoped you are right about that. I like to believe that most people are basically honest and their behaviour is reflected by a sincere desire to remain true to themselves. Sadly societies always harbour the few miscreants who will take advantage and threaten to ruin it for everyone else.

My point was more to do with drawing comparisons with some Software houses that choose to lock you in as soon as you download a purchased item. No refund and no backing out of the contract. You install the software, try it out for a short period and then decide to reject it only to find the terms of conditions preclude any prospects of recompense. You uninstall the software, you delete the installer yet it makes no difference, you will not receive a refund. From their point of view this is perfectly reasonable and Is a perfect example of how the behaviour of the few can make such transactions difficult for those who make the honest decision to change their minds and simply want their money back. Chris' willingness to trust us to do the right thing in the event we are dissatisfied speaks volumes about the man and is a vindication of our moral standards as a community.

Regards,

Mike

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