Dear MG
 

I am long term customer and lover of the Il2 game series (starting back in dec 2001 with the IL2 demo).

Considering the advertised/release/current state of the game, and what can be really done about it, I consider it is my right to request constant punctual updates regarding the state of the work on the fixes.

A few words once a week in exchange for the money I've already paid for me Il2CoD CE, my patience, commitment and love of the game series, wish to create mods to make it better, helping the community, will to further invest in it (by buying addons) and fact that I am grown-up enough to not demand the impossible (like fixes and patches now! or over-night) seems like a fair trade to me.

What do you say about this, MG, please?

Thank you,
Dan Antonescu

PS: I consider it is my right and a fair thing to talk and ask about this, and I will never stop to do what I think it is right. If this is too much to you and for this board, you can ban me now

PPS: it seems there's a need to explain the fact that punctual updates actually mens a list of exactly what's in work/done for the next patch, and it can not be answered via an "we're working" "update"

agree

Do you want them working on the game or talking about it? Give them a break:roll:

I susect that whatever ones experience, be it good or bad with CoD, everyone would enjoy the opportunity to follow it's progress more closely with regular development news.

After +100 posts requesting more info I think this post did it.
Now 1C will start with weekly info. For sure!

You guys are like stray cats. The more they feed you, the more you want. You just got a post Wednesday. Before long, you'll want one everyday. In my opinion, they shouldn't post anything at all. They're working on it. I know they're working on it. That's enough for me.

+1



@TheEnlightenedFlorist: It would be nice if you know they're working on it (instead of hoping that they do). I have stopped believing because rational thinking (and the facts) lead me to the oposite conclusion. (I do not want to start a conversation here because it is Adonys' thread and our beliefs have nothing to do here).

Agree.
I don't think it's a problem for devs to spend some minuts for week to post news.

A patch monthly since release plus Luthiers last info plus their legacy from earlier IL-2 releases should be enough for most to understand that they are working on it.
U want a personal call or invitation to visit the site?

This happened again. People did not read Wednesday update or did not read it carefully enough to see that it says what the devs are working on.

This only confirms that luthier perfectly knows that some will never get enough like described here http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...0&postcount=96

I agree that more updates would be nice but think that starting a NEW thread EVERY day asking for it can be considered as spam, flood and trolling that is counter productive.

Mods, is it possible to merge all these threads into one as soon as they appear every Friday, Saturday, etc?

why don't you just stop acting like that? you are throwing flames...

Well we petitioned the dev's for more communication and had 80+ people agree to it within an hour of the thread going up, but a couple of people complained and the thread was removed, at the end of the day there has been a clampdown on these forums, the devs obviously dont want to give us any weekly/monthly progress reports, the communtity manager was just rhetoric and the mods are going medieval on any complainers, likewise members are being actively encouraged to report any posts they consider to be whines or moans, like it or not thats the way it is so I guess if you want regular updates then dont come here.

God this forum is becoming incredibly boring, I feel like I am logging onto groundhog day.

Best idea ever since the big red letters on reported posts, it will declutter the place and stop these threads from monopolizing all other discussion without deleting posts: people can still complain if they want to, but they can't take over the entire front page.

I don't know what's worse,the denial of people that say "I'd rather have them working on it that posting updates",to which I would like to answer "hey,it's not some amateur-cottage-farm folks we're talking about,it's a Software House,with professionals working in it and which,like any other business,has well assignes duties and roles. Finding 20 minutes a week to write a few lines on what's going on is no rocket science,so my conclusion is that there are no updates because there is NO updates,they probably can't fix what they have. Speculation? Maybe,but no news and no patches means no success in fixing what's broken. And hey,don't get me wrong,sxxt happens and I'm well happy to wait (we've done it for YEARS),but at least be respectful to the community and explain what's going on"

..or that after so much talking,Luthier doesn't understand the importance of being present and answer the questions of his customers.

...or is a strategic decision, maybe even not decided by Luthier.

Not so long ago the company I was working for (public one) had a serious issue and lot of ink were flowing in the newspapers about it. We knew the issu could cost a fortune to us, and we knew that some guys was clearly feeding the fire in their our interests, so we put ourselves in hands of professionals.

We received an attack everyday in the news, but we never answered to them except for a few concise comunications, always avoiding the direct confrontation. In the meantime, we were working behind the scenes. A year later all was solved and nobody now remembers that, nor the company image received any damage.

Said that I,d like to add that Adonys is and has been a helpful forum member, the same for 335_Grathos. While I dont share his opinion here, I,d never calify him as a troll, and tho I dont like the first page of the forum to be filled with petitions, I understand they have the right to do it while it is a valid option and they do it correctly. With this, the only thing I am trying to say is please no more fights among good fellows.

Good day all!

lol, until people realise they can edit the big red letters out. Great idea.

It's pretty obvious that...

1. They are working on the game.
2. Friday updates/patches etc are a thing of the past
3. Regular communication from Luthier should not be counted on
4. No degree of complaining is going to have any influence on 1, 2 and 3.
;)

Blah, blah, blah..

The professional thing to do in the case of an incomplete delivery, as this one is, is to keep the paying customer apprised of when the rest of his order will arrive!

I am in the custom cabinet business, and when my company misses an install date by a couple weeks, I stay in close contact with my client, the contractor, and any other trades to make sure my inability to deliver a complete order does not lead to frustration and disappointment.

It only takes a minute..

Jeez

Mike

BTW. It's an awesome sim!! Just like my kitchens.. Awesome.. :-D

Wow, some people are really not getting it.

1. You've paid for a license to install and play the game as it is, nothing more.
2. You do not have any right to get updates, information or anything.
3. Demanding and nagging for something that you have no right to becomes annoying for everyone, including the developers.

Luthier have realized that a vocal minority will never be satisfied, in fact they seem to get more rabid for each new piece of info they get instead of the other way around.
Confronted with this it is quite understandable that he has stopped communicating with the community.
So thanks to the whiners for ruining the excellent developer-community relationship for the rest of us!

And let me as, why do you all need to get constant and scheduled information updates?
Do you need it to plan your life or something? :rolleyes:
You will likely get information when a patch is ready. That accompanied by the statement from Luthier that they are working, should be enough for a mature individual to just let go and wait.

It's like some of you keep a child-before-christmas feeling of anticipation just under the surface and that it torments you as you have to hold it in... just let go of that and try to not think about it ;)

This is what I'd like to call a fair assessment of the current situation. Be sure to read number four on the list extra carefully.:)

MG is not who the customers are paying, this is no custom product, the comunication is public in an internet forum, and there are a few more interested in damaging the image of the developer and/ or the game than solving their problems with it.
Is not the same scenery you describe Mike.

Excuse me but I can't help laughing at your delusional attitude!!
When you buy a piece of software,who's selling you the product needs to guarantee for the functionality of it. Say that you bought Photoshop or Dreamweaver, u install it and it doesn't work as it's supposed to,you have all the rights,as a customer,to ask for support and feedback from the seller/producer of the upsaid piece of software,otherwise it's a fraud,because you've been sold for functional and complete something that actually isn't. The truth is that they know this well and they're probably keeping quiet for this reason.
It's not the whiners that made Luthier disappear, it's his deliberate choice,and it's more and more evident that it's one dictated by the fact that they can't quite manage to fix bugs as they hoped. They have all my solidariety and support,but they should give their customers,people that invested in their talent,a roadmap,a situation update that makes sense. We don't need silly hints like "guess what we're working on next",we're not teenagers,we need them to be honest and upfront,or they will lose all of their credibility.

This individual seems to believe...?
That he/she represents Luthier....?

Based upon what is known at this time?
Why would anyone?
Believe differently.....

There are workarounds for anything really, the difference is where you choose to focus. I spend more time finding workarounds that enable me to fly the sim and after a while i've managed to not only have fun myself but also help others do the same. On the other hand, people are free to look for workarounds that enable them to clutter the forums instead of flying the sim.

Tree, you know i'm all for free speech and i've defended your right to have your say in the past, but repeating one-liners is doing nothing for us. We don't get any development updates any faster, same for patches.

What's more, the vocal group's skewed idea of freedom of speech is encroaching on that of the rest. When we can't have a single thread, however far the original topic might be from their preferred issues to talk about, without it descending into the usual sad situation, then it's time to reassess the whole matter and understand that they are detracting from the freedom of speech of others who want to talk about other equally valid issues.

In plain terms, the repetitive one-sided banter ("whiner" and "fanboy" alike) prevents anyone else from having a discussion about anything else. How is this freedom of speech when a vocal minority is effectively deciding what is ok to talk about and what is not, by pulling every thread in the direction they want? It's not, it's just some community members enforcing their beliefs on everyone else by disrupting any discussion that doesn't agree with or doesn't have a direct consequence of furthering their own agenda. It's more like an effort to monopolize the developer's attention and get their preferred set of toys before everyone else than freedom of speech really.

I don't want to have the same things crop up in every single unrelated thread and disrupting discussions that are equally, if not more, important to many people than the lack of AA or the kind of green used in the fields or the tracers. What can i do about it? Well, there are two choices here really: i can either do the same to them and derail their threads for a change to see if they can take a taste of their own medicine, or i can propose different moderating techniques and let the powers that be take it from there.

It just makes people bored having the same issues pop up in a dozen different threads per week and diminishes the signal to noise ratio. If some people had spent as much time reading a few helpful posts as they have repeating the same things for the past couple of months they wouldn't be asking how to solve issues that have been answered since April.

It's well within your rights to present an opinion and well within the rights of others to disagree, challenge and ignore it.

Let's face it, the strategy failed, it might have been annoying to the developers and the most hardcore supporters at first but it still didn't produce any tangible results. If anything, it has caused even the more level headed or even previously uninvolved people in the community to either get dragged down into slagging matches or become bored with it and openly start combating it, like i'm doing now.

Right now it's just an annoyance and the only reason it can't be easily ignored is the sheer amount of volume it takes up in the forums. And just to be clear, i don't mean the message (critical or positive) but the attitude with which it is conveyed.

Still, all it takes to change that is a bit of forum moderation. The mods don't need to delete the offending posts and stifle anyone's freedom of speech. All they have to do is prune and move/merge every such post or thread into a sticky complaint, speculation and arguments megathread that the rest of us can ignore at their own leisure while talking about more interesting things, while the so called "whiners" and "fanboys" are confined to their own private arena.

You see, it's not the opinion i take offence to. It's the aggressive proselytizing that i disagree with. In that sense the so called group of "whiners" is no different than the so called group of "fanboys": different agendas, same tactics, equal amounts of the false sense of speaking for the entire community, plus annoyance and lack of usefulness for everyone else.

Let them argue all they want to, as long as they don't aggressively try to drag everyone else in their feud. If they do, then it's time for the "peacekeepers" or "bouncers" to cordon off area so they can't negatively influence the rest of the community.

Getting the feeling that i'm having my eyes glued open a la A Clockwork Orange while being forced to watch grown men mud-wrestling in thongs every time i browse the forums is hardly synonymous to freedom of speech, it's merely being subjected to endless bouts of boredom against my wishes. And before someone says that it's well within my rights to ignore it, let me just say that i shouldn't even have to get that far if i'm within the forum's original focus: if i'm watching a sports game in a bar and two people come in, throw down an inflatable pool filled with mud, strip to their underwear and start rolling in it, it's not me who should be forced to leave the premises in order to avoid the spectacle but them.

Try reading one of your own posts Blackdog ;)

All those troubles on this forum are, in my opinion, started after luthier or who said him to do, stopped to interact with us. I was very enthusiast when luthier posted the roadmap about the sound to be fixed, about their progress and so on. I remember, before the release, when we were here the friday all waiting for Oleg to post his screenshots. I think that many people here don't ask a patch, but just a more interaction with the customers. As stated by luthier, this is not possible because they don't have the resource to do it. To be honest, if it was me I could find 10 minutes in my day to just write 2 lines. Probably what he would write could make more whiners than now, or probably less... but I saw for sure that everytime luthier wrote something everybody was happy to read it. this is my thought... call me whiner or troll or what do you want... but this is how i see it right now

Again. Why do you need a roadmap and situation updates?
It's not like you have stock in the company, is it?
And I hope you're not planning your life around this...
And while it would be nice, I don't see it as a must to know exactly what they are doing at the moment, I know that they are fixing the game and that's enough.

So tell me, why MG should take time off their work to post in the forum?
Just to appease a handful of people that for some reason feel that they've been cheated and can't play it cool?
And no, it doesn't take just a few minutes, because they have to consider what and how to communicate as it is official communications from developer to customer, they probably don't want to blurp out just anything.

If you really want proper communication you should probably write a letter or at least an e-mail to the publisher, not post on a forum of the developer.

it's called "keep your customers happy"... how it sounds? have you been in business sometimes?

Cheers for the laugh, it's so hard to find in these repeat threads.

MG have already decided that "Luthier knows best".

Luthier, not the users, decides if and when to provide info, if any.

Luthier, not the users, decides if something in the game is broken or not.

Luthier, not the users, decides what fixes to provide, if any.

Some of you may consider it "arrogance", but I refrain from making any such judgments.

You, and not Luthier, decide if u gonna fly while waiting on a patch or moan in the forum. ;-)

Oh i do, i proof read them a couple of times before hitting the submit button :grin:

Obviously you never worked in a professional environment. Any serious team working on a project needs a "to-do" list, tasks assigned to people, and a road map that helps them (and the people they're reporting to) to assess the situation, extrapolating a bullet point list from that is a 10 mins job. And yes, Luthier doesn't HAVE to report here, but it's advisable he would, if anything cos he's been doing it constantly before, often taking the PR role when Oleg was fed up. As I mentioned before, this silence and lack of patches is probably just because they haven't quite managed to fix the important stuff yet, but they never openly admitted that they delivered us an incomplete product, nor gave us a rough estimate of when/how things will be fixed.

It's like buying a new car that promises a lot but that doesn't work properly, and hearing once every three months from the dealer "yeah, we're working on it buddy, don't worry" and receiving pictures of mechanics working on random stuff (like someone else's car).. If you can't see the whole situation as utterly ridiculous then you're probably blind.

This forum is in danger of disappearing into the hole that SimHQ's COD forum was in 3 months ago - no discussion of anything useful, just a continuous battle between defenders and attackers.

I have complaints about the game myself, but it must surely be obvious now after weeks of rehashing exactly the same argument in many different threads that we are just going around in circles. There is NO facet of the argument that has not been covered again and again in the last weeks. There has been no resolution or advance made from any of it. There is justification for expressing your opinion - but after you have expressed it for the 20th, 30th or 40th time it may be clever to conclude that you have got the message across. Some people are behaving like petulant 6 year olds - they'll hold their breath and turn blue until they get an answer...

For whatever reason the devs are not biting. They have obviously made a decision to refrain from commenting in the current climate. I can see both sides here - I'd like some info myself, but I completely understand why Luthier would feel reluctant to post much here because unless he can produce an update that fixes everything in one fell swoop it will just lead to more negativity and attacks.

SimHQ seem to have resolved their issues by splitting the forum in two. Maybe, as some have suggested, the same needs to happen here. But surely, by now, we all can see that the arguing is going around in circles and not achieving anything?

Okay,

You want updates, that's fair enough and I can relate to that.

But come on guys, it's summer. Let the devs have their vacation and go outside for some sun yourselves. Go chase the girls around and ask them if they want to come home and see your model planes.

Then come back when the devs have had a break and are all fired up to get cracking on the next patch.

They'll be back, don't panic.

OP: you were actively whining in another post of exactly the same nature last week.

Jesus Christ, the Devs are aware of your request but can't answer it for whatever reason.

Either move on and stop clogging the forums up with your irritating whinges, or send the Devs PMs so the rest of us don't have to put up with them.

you see Kendo, this is exactly the point. First of all, Luthier himself is the only person responsible for this, since he's the one that went silent and didn't bother listening to the wise bunch of forum members who say "we know you can't fix it all in one go, fair enough, but for pete's sake keep us updated on what's happening, if anything to show some respect to people that have waited for this and supported your work for years".

The reality of software houses nowadays is one of extreme interaction potential: the reach out for info, documents, manuals, pictures etc is virtually limitless, using this potential is something that could achieve great, great results. I personally provided docs to Oleg himself during the early dev stages of CoD, found some more material for a friend at Daidalos, got in contact with museums, found pics, documents, with no need for compensations or recognitions, just for the sake of the sim's quality.

A development team that doesn't interact with the community, esp in the field of simulation, is a team that will make mistakes, which then will take time to fix. Oleg's leaving was already a bad sign, but I thought I'd stop being pessimistic, if anything it was Luthier the one that kept the communication channel opened, but this new attitude of theirs shows only poor managerial skills, it's a true shame, above all the fact that no matter how often we tell them "hey, some of us can help with our competence for free", they simply don't care.

And please remember that I still really really hope to be wrong.

This posting was made July 20, 2011

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=24692

The information provided is the information the devs wanted to provide.

a simple "we're working" and nowhere nearly the information which was requested/needed from them..

One thing is expecting for communication from the developers, other interacting with them, and other very different is that they accept the help of competent people.

In other past discussions like this, finally has arose that some competent veterans are particularly upset because they gave/offered help, and were ignored.

Some of these veterans, (not everyone, and I'd like to stress that IMO, clearly is not your case), have choosen to attack the developer/ game as much as possible.

This last ones are troublemakers, and is very easy for them to flame to forums with the idea of "we need more communication", because a lot of peaceful forum users will join gladly a thread, post or petition wrapped this way.

These users are so confrontated to other users that are fed up of the so called whines etc. , giving the appereance that we are a split community.

In fact, there are only a few troublemakers, and is those what we need urgently to receive attention from the mods if we want to keep this forum to continue as an attractive place for creativity, help and information.


Exactly, and IMO that is why, despite not being satisfied with the interaction, you are not creating trouble and I am fine with your opinions, even when I dont share them.

friday: yes, were working on some bugs
friday: yes, were working on it
friday: yes, its coming along
friday: we said two fridays ago we are working on it
friday: we're making progress
friday: we said last friday we're making progress
friday: we didn't say there would be a patch last friday

thank you LUD, it's good to see that more and more people understand my point. This witch hunt of the whiners, trolls and what not has become a hobby lately, and although there obviously are/were some, other people don't just complain, they just express their perplexity in front of a change of register that has become quite worrying.

The problem is the maturity of the people involved: if I was in an open IL-2 LAN event and heard two teenagers arguing over a silly matter, I would take the age into account and be less caustic or ignore them altogether, because I've been a teenager too and a very hot headed one; but in a forum, where you're just a nickname, everyone turns into a brash, full mouthed keyboard hero, which sometimes goes into very dangerous territories..

As mentioned somewhere else, I have been threatened by a delusional member of this forum, who I suppose has been banned, an (alleged) Australian police officer that started being offensive and threatened me, in pure "I'm the internet hero and I'll give you a good one" style. Now to think that this kind of people hang around armed normally is very worrying, but it gave me an idea of what distorted perspectives and behaviours people can get to in these places..

Anyway, sorry for the OT, let's keep on flying and hoping for good news soon..

I know, and I agree with everything you say. It just seems that Luthier has tired of getting burnt by the responses here (and I know the argument that it is their responsibility, that they're professionals and should be communicating, etc, and that members of the community such as yourself were actively involved in providing info and help). I'd like to hear what the situation is too, but it'll only happen, it seems, when the devs are ready. The situation (both with the game and the communication) is far from ideal, but the constant clamour for news is not working.

It has developed into a bit of a stand-off between some members here and the devs. I think the effect of confrontation here is similar to anywhere else - if people feel they're not being respected they dig the heels in and become less compliant - that goes for the devs too, who despite agreeing that things need to be improved are probably sick to the back teeth of reading the comments here.

This is how it is done at sukhoi.ru and that is why some devs are still visiting it to check out bugreports and questions threads.

LOL :grin: It feels like it!

Poor devs... But fortunately their job description does not include an obligation to read it.

No way they do it every 4 days. We had an update last week, let's hope for one this week or next week or when a patch is ready. It is not reasonable to expect it twice per week. They should not spoil us too much :grin:

LOL and the perfect analogy of the day award goes too.......... :)

this made me laugh at how utterly accurate it was.

well said sir, well said :)

I wish the inflaming and inaccurate posts, like the one quoted in #114, would disappear.

Let's end it here with these scientific facts:

1. A large majority would get a certain amount of pleasure from reading updates on weekly basis (99,2%)
   
2. That request for communication with patches has been posted in these forums many times (41 threads, 2900 posts) and most of the threads (89%) have turned into flame wars
   
3. The likelihood of impacting the dev team's frequency of updates with threads that turn sour is minimal (0,02%)
   
4. The likelihood of raising bad spirit with those threads are huge (99,92%) as people are so tense these days

So do me and resf of humanity a favor: Stop posting them! They're good for no-one! Except virtual forum war-mongers of-course, but who gives a funk about them?!

Yes, 100% spot on!

I always get pictures from my car mechanics working on my car. Also cars are such commodities that they are initially released with a lot of issues then the owners are provided with fixing kits (patches, you know) which they install at home to their cars. Also a flight-sim, just like my car is a very critical piece of equipment which I need on daily basis or it will be almost impossible to manage my mandatory responsibilities.

Oh wait a sec.. it's nothing like that afterall! :rolleyes:

Maybe its the sports car you want to use at the weekend after working hard all week, you have spent lots of funds to get it to work, paid for a very nice garage to keep it in.
Then when you want to use it for a few hours on a sunday.....:(

..bingo.

fortunately now all the sports car sold come with a country/banjo+violin cd collection, EXACTLY what we needed while waiting in the emergency lane for the tow truck.. ;)

How is that old song? "You can't always get what you want..."

" but you can get what you need...(sound, trees and stuff)" :)

lol well that's what i get for thinking i could get away with not being hyper specific and assuming that people would understand that I meant the emotion that you feel in that situation is identical and not the exact amount of money spent or such nonsense :)

just in case there is now a mega ban clause for not being specific enough i better cover my john brown hind part........

My apologies for anyone i confused with my previous statement. I in no way shape or form meant to infer that this game costs as much as an automobile and I also am under no impression that this video game is required for use during normal non gaming daily activities such as but not limited too.......

Going to work,
taking your kids to school,
going to the food mart to pick up food to feed your children,
taking a loved one to the hospital,
picking up your uncle from jail after his parole was granted,
going out on the neighborhood watch when its your turn,
taking food to feed orphans,
taking orphans to there new homes when there bus breaks,

or any other activity that i did not mention above but that also involves driving a car and not playing a video game that simulates flying of WWII aircraft during the years between 1940 and 1945.

Again I apologize for not specifically noting in my earlier statement that I thought Sternjaeger II's statement was completely accurate because to me the emotion that one would feel in the situation described by Sternjaeger II (in my opinion) would likely be of the same type of emotion as a person in the same situation with any purchased product.

I did not mean to draw a connection between playing a video game and actually operating a motor vehicle especially one that is required to do so many things just to keep a family alive and well.

Please forgive my attempt at a SUBTLE humorous exchange and I truly hope that if any offense was taken or confusion caused, that you will again except my most deeply heartfelt sincere and honestly humble apologies for this was not nor ever will be my intention while posting on this forum.

I will strive to better explain in the greatest detail possible all future posts.

:rolleyes:

oh and my lawyer suggested I add this too ......

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cheers :) :P ;):grin::cool::-):!:

Well the attempt at the analogy was such an epic failure in accuracy that I'm not sure if I can let fans of it go without a legal hearing.

But should the community change the whino-fan wars' subject from crying over clod into debate which analogy describes the current situation best, I'm ready to reconsider my stand on legal activities.