Fresh stuff from sukhoi.ru (Discussion)

[BlackSix]

I thought that it will be interesting to you to know news about the sequel and asked the chief of information at all times. I was mistaken. Everybody is interested in CloD in the first place. However, if I don't have news on the progress of work on CloD now, you'll have empty Friday, as on March 16.

[furbs]

Cna you ask Luthier to make a post himself about CLOD? im sure people would welcome it.

We know you are trying your best Black6 and nobody here including myself blames you.

Keep going.

[CWMV]

Of course, but you do understand how it could very easily be seen as trying to pull a snow job on those of us disturbed about CoD don't you? Dangle the shiny new object in front of us while the product we have is kaput.

Personally I'm happy to see the updates on anything, as its what we all wanted before you came about here as the community manager. No sense in being angry about what we asked for. I only hope for more information pertinent to the repair of our defective product.

Many thanks.

[BlackSix]

Originally Posted by furbs

Cna you ask Luthier to make a post himself about CLOD? im sure people would welcome it.

Yes, I'm asking. But Luthier can not give me the information is always, in every situation.

Originally Posted by CWMV

Of course, but you do understand how it could very easily be seen as trying to pull a snow job on those of us disturbed about CoD don't you? Dangle the shiny new object in front of us while the product we have is kaput.

I understand. But we did not want such a reaction. I'm sorry that all this happened.

[kendo65]

Originally Posted by CWMV

Of course, but you do understand how it could very easily be seen as trying to pull a snow job on those of us disturbed about CoD don't you? Dangle the shiny new object in front of us while the product we have is kaput.
...

I think it was very unfortunate that this view took hold. Personally I was pleased to see news about the sequel. The problem was that it didn't have to be an 'either/or' situation - the discontent arose because of the repeated lack of comment on the patch and future plans for COD despite numerous requests.

If they'd have been responded to earlier there wouldn't have been any oxygen for the 'they're trying to distract us' fire to grow.

It's really unfortunate. I believe the news about the sequel was given for very genuine reasons. But in the current situation it couldn't compensate for what seemed to be a needless lack of openness about the current game.

I really don't want to comment on all this any more, but some people are still misrepresenting the views of people like myself as being about either demanding the patch NOW, or about being told when the patch will be released. That isn't the case. Most of us recognise the difficulties in finalising the patch for release and the danger in promising a release date.

Instead, what has been requested (repeatedly!) is news about development progress in the areas of: FM, AI, comms, DX11, etc, etc. This could be given in the context of a 'looking forwards in 2012' piece written by Luthier giving the view forward as he sees it now (along the lines of what has been done for ROF by Jason see:

http://riseofflight.com/Blogs/post/2...lans-2012.aspx )

This could cover the envisaged sequence for how the features will be implemented after the graphics engine rewrite is completed, and could include plans for tree collision detection, use of the various crew animations, etc.

Blacksix, I hope that with this example you may have a better idea of what would please some of us to see here on the forum.

I recognise that any decision on this would have to come from Luthier. Thanks for your patience and your attempts to keep us informed. They are appreciated.

[mazex]

Originally Posted by Insuber

Dear BlackSix - I refer to your post in the locked thread, where you complain about the users negativity and you link this to the absence of a Friday update.
As an experienced manager in the services business let me give you a very friendly advice: closing the communication channels with your customers will not improve a tough situation, on the contrary it will worsen it. I already see - in this very forum - some long-time, faithful and disciplined users turn into angry terrorists. And your company needs prophets and apostles, not terrorists spreading negativity about your product. The success of Il2 Sturmovik was very much due to this "word of mouth" positive publicity. As I see it now you are setting up the stage for a completely opposite result: angry ex-customers telling to their friends to keep away from this product. And I I BELIEVE THAT MG DOESN'T DESERVE IT, BECAUSE OF THE HUNDRED THOUSAND HOURS OF DEDICATED AND PASSIONATE WORK which went into CloD.

In the customer-supplier relationship you have only one option: tell the customer the bad and the good news. Silemce is never a solution.

Cheers,
Insuber

+1 on everything in your post, and I hope you count me in as one of the formerly disciplined users that has turned "to the dark side". I also work as a manager in the software development business and I work a lot with process development for service support and delivery using ITIL as a framework like most other large companies. Customers can take a LOT if you communicate with them and many times you get amazed with the things they can accept if they get a fast response and regular updates on their reported incidents. What does NOT work is blaming others and failing to communicate back that their problem unfortunately is not solved yet.

One can also be amazed at the bad-will that can happen if a user that has an annoying problem with your software files an incident and it gets stuck in the system so the user even doesn't get a response in weeks. Suddenly you make the first page of some major newspaper and then the situation is out of your control... Modern media where all newspaper articles are also posted on websites with public blogs attached to each article makes this even worse. Suddenly the bad publicity article about your company gets a thread with hundreds of other users that whine about the problem that never should have been up for public discussion in the first place. That's a fact with the new communications channels available now.

For a product like this forums are a major communication channel. If you fail to acknowledge that and the irritation among your customers gets as bad as it is here now you have a major problem. Starting to hint that the reason your disappointed customers wont get updates is because they are too irritated about the lack of communication is really not that good of an idea? Kind of like the death penalty... The society says you can't kill people so now we kill you to set an example.

Just as you say, last week many former supporters like myself had enough and joined the irritated group after the over-moderation here combined with the statement that we won't get any updates as we are so irritated... If I was the manager at MG I would take this dead serious and do the only thing possible to correct it by spending an hour posting here this Friday, and then spend 30 minutes each week for the regular Friday updates... But that's my opinion and it seems like the management of MG think another way about how to spend their time. They are really far down the trust road with their most loyal customers - and that is serious business where you have to accept that even if you are dead tired of the childish attitude of them - you have to bite the pillow and respond in a polite manner! That's how it works unfortunately...