Razbam/ED please clarify - Is the Harrier out of EA and consequently complete?

[Hawkeye_UK]

It get's better, Razbam's own bug tracker that has been on their own site for what the last year or more has now been taken down. It was there literally yesterday when i reviewed it again prior to making comment.

 

Make an objective point on something, it vanishes.

 

There has to be transparency ED and we cannot trust Razbam currently given their approach and actions, its been nothing short of an abuse of trust.

 

I look forward to whatever system you bring in so that we know bugs reported have been handed over. Again can i recommend, in the interests of community transparency and trust that at this stage that any ability they have to move or delete posts from these forums is removed until we have progress on these issues.

 

Many thanks and thanks for getting involved today.

[Hawkeye_UK]

PS - sorry wowbagger i had already hit reply and don't type fast - just seen your comment and yes i've noticed the same hence my post saying it get's better, you beat me to it!

[NineLine]

We are having one of our testers help out, and report the bugs through our internal testing solution, now while you guys cant review that, we hope to do a better job of noting things that are reported, etc on the forums as well.

 

I would assume that is why the bug tracker was taken down, so report any and all bugs as you would for ED products. Please and thank you.

[statrekmike]

NineLine, I appreciate your replies and the time you have spent doing this thus far. I do have one question. When the internal bug tracker does start generating some results and all that information gets to where it needs to go, what should we (as the community) do if things don't really change for the module itself (via updates and the like)? What can we reasonably expect ED to be able to do?

 

I don't ask to be a downer or anything. I guess I am just at a point where I struggle to even have cautious optimism about the module. I hope that there is a way to get everything on track again.

[mr_mojo97]

As long as Razbam don’t go the way of VEAO, then I don’t know what ED can do. Tell them to pull their socks up?

[Cornelius]

Tell them to sell their stuff on their website, that would be a start.

But sure, the first visible action after this meltdown, was to close the Community Bug Tracker thread. What a statement. Bravo!

[NineLine]

NineLine, I appreciate your replies and the time you have spent doing this thus far. I do have one question. When the internal bug tracker does start generating some results and all that information gets to where it needs to go, what should we (as the community) do if things don't really change for the module itself (via updates and the like)? What can we reasonably expect ED to be able to do?

 

I don't ask to be a downer or anything. I guess I am just at a point where I struggle to even have cautious optimism about the module. I hope that there is a way to get everything on track again.

 

The way our internal system works is this.

 

• A tester reports and the Issue assigns it to the appropriate person.
  
• That person makes the fix and then submits it to the game.
  
• Then the report is assigned back to the Tester, he verifies that the fix is in the Release Candidate for OB, and then, and only then, is the bug closed.
  

 

If its verified, its in the RC, if it's in the RC, there should be no reason why you wouldn't see it in the sim.

[viper2097]

The bugs and handling of those is one thing, but what about the fact that it is out of EA silently but, by far, being not feature complete?

[=37.Sqn= Mjugen]

malo je pet zvezdica

[ChickenSim]

I got banned on their discord today for calling them out on their public excuse that the Harrier is feature complete, and that anything incomplete is either because the Harrier is so realistic that pilots have approached them asking them to fudge it or is merely a bug.

 

For the record, that's a lie. I wrote their tutorials for them and I know that there was no design document or directive scope and I have about 3 years of experience dealing with their inability to take constructive criticism.

 

@Nineline, please factor this into your guys' conversations with them. The issue isn't just that bugs have gone 3+ years without being acknowledged in some cases, or are being erroneously marked complete.

 

There's a whole other element to this that they're actively trying to deflect by deleting messages and banning people (even contributors like me), and that is what constitutes "highly realistic modeling" of aircraft subsystems and what is considered "feature complete." The disparity between what they consider these things, what ED considers these things, and what the public considers these things is the problem.

 

When expected or advertised features are missing and not merely broken, how can that be "feature complete"?

[NineLine]

Can someone Start a new thread with what people feel are missing features, I am not so much concerned with broken, in that those should be reported and we can get them fixed. But someone give me a complete list of what is missing. If you feel better PMing it to me, then do so.

 

We are talking to them about comms with the community, but we have no say over anyone Discord but our own.

[amalahama]

I've been banned from their discord as well and I've been really gentle expressing my feelings, they tried push this under the radar, failed miserably and now they go berserk in their server, banning as crazy

[Jester2138]

They have delivered, and product sustainment will continue.

 

If you are not sure of the refund policy please read the EULA

 

Thanks

 

I like you BigNewy, but man, this is a load of crap. And I think you know it.

 

Razbam has lost another customer in me.

[Flagrum]

About the community tracker,

(...)

The post was closed so bug reports can be made in the usual manner, one bug per thread, it makes it easier to manage. You know how we do it on our ED forum sections, if bugs are mixed into a single thread it becomes chaos. (...)

The thread was only a tool to help bkthunder managing the Community Bug Tracker. The Community Tracker is only listing bug reports that are already posted here on the forums and the thread was sometimes used to help focussing on what is going on on the forums. No bugs were (exclusively) reported directly in that thread.

 

 

That said, if now proper handling of forum bug reports will take place, then this might not be much of an issue (time will tell, I guess), but it would also not do any harm if the thread could be reopened again.

 

 

 

(PS / OT: thanks & BIG props to bkthunder for putting so much efford into this! VERY much appreciated!)

[Fusedspine33]

I've been banned from their discord as well and I've been really gentle expressing my feelings, they tried push this under the radar, failed miserably and now they go berserk in their server, banning as crazy

 

 

Nick, Kate and the mods should inquire how many complaints Razbam has hidden by banning customers from discord and Facebook. They don't respond well to criticism, treat customers poorly and hide issues.

 

The community tracker isn't some list of gripes pulled from thin air, it is a compilation of reports made on the forums, some acknowledged by RAZBAM, and others not acknowledged due to the developer refusing to actively participate in community management here on the forums. Why would this not be used as the table of contents moving forward? The work is already done to assist the developer in responding to bugs by customers that really want to see the module and them succeed.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[NineLine]

Lets also talk about what is classified and what isnt.

 

So we cant assume because we (ED) can model something that RAZBAM can. The best example of this is Redfor aircraft, Wags said that it would be better suited for a 3rd Party to do a Redfor aircraft as they don't have the same restrictions applied to them based on their location.

 

This can be the same thing for what we have access to vs what a 3rd Party might. We might get unprecedented access to model a system, but by no means does that make it ok to share that with anyone else, except in the form of the sim itself. And that doesn't mean that its easy to copy and past into another module.

 

If RAZBAM is working with the French Military or a specific person or group in the Marines, they may have different limitations and accesses to certain aspects.

 

Now I am not saying this is the case on everything, I just wanted to lay out that its not so cut and dry as ED can do it, so can everyone else, if that makes sense. Thanks.

[ChickenSim]

Lets also talk about what is classified and what isnt.

 

So we cant assume because we (ED) can model something that RAZBAM can. [...]

 

If RAZBAM is working with the French Military or a specific person or group in the Marines, they may have different limitations and accesses to certain aspects.

 

Now I am not saying this is the case on everything, I just wanted to lay out that its not so cut and dry as ED can do it, so can everyone else, if that makes sense. Thanks.

 

This does make sense and this isn't in dispute.

 

What is in dispute is that an as-yet-undetermined amount of missing features and bugs are being swept under the rug using classification as an excuse not to model something appropriately, simply because the truth of this claim is almost entirely unverifiable but is often accepted as a sufficient answer out of hand.

 

Actual missing features like dive-toss delivery modes, ARBS wind correction, and MGRS/GRID coordinate entry (nowhere near an exhaustive list), all subsets of "realistic weapons" listed on the store page for Mk 80 series ordnance and GBUs, aren't things that I think fall behind that curtain.

Edited September 8, 2020 by ChickenSim

[Hawkeye_UK]

I got banned on their discord today for calling them out on their public excuse that the Harrier is feature complete, and that anything incomplete is either because the Harrier is so realistic that pilots have approached them asking them to fudge it or is merely a bug.

 

For the record, that's a lie. I wrote their tutorials for them and I know that there was no design document or directive scope and I have about 3 years of experience dealing with their inability to take constructive criticism.

 

@Nineline, please factor this into your guys' conversations with them. The issue isn't just that bugs have gone 3+ years without being acknowledged in some cases, or are being erroneously marked complete.

 

There's a whole other element to this that they're actively trying to deflect by deleting messages and banning people (even contributors like me), and that is what constitutes "highly realistic modeling" of aircraft subsystems and what is considered "feature complete." The disparity between what they consider these things, what ED considers these things, and what the public considers these things is the problem.

 

When expected or advertised features are missing and not merely broken, how can that be "feature complete"?

 

I had a similar experience about a month ago, with asking on where we are with certain issues and why they are not replying to threads on the official forums, nothing was personal, nothing was anything other than factual in its statement. I noted I can no longer access their discord which unfortunately was the only source of information available to me due to them refusing to comment on these forums.

 

As i said they need to look internally and reflect whether EA is for them, not vice versa. They need to recognise that feedback is for their assistance, not a personal insult. If they cannot learn, encourage and engage with constructive customer assistance and feedback on their modules, they shouldn't be selling EA products.

Edited September 8, 2020 by Hawkeye_UK

[Eldur]

Out of early access does not mean no bugs, just so we are clear on that.

 

thanks

 

But it does mean feature complete, doesn't it? As it's not, so it's clearly still an Alpha.

 

There will always be some bugs. Even the Ka-50 still has a few (laser dead after 30 shots, SAI totally off after like half a minute worth of straight and level flying, just to name the most obvious), and that probably also goes for the A-10 and many other modules. And if circumstances allow for, they might geht fixed or not, depending on their gravitational impact on the overall experience. And that's the part where in the Harrier things are quite heavy still.

[Hawkeye_UK]

This does make sense and this isn't in dispute.

 

What is in dispute is that an as-yet-undetermined amount of missing features and bugs are being swept under the rug using classification as an excuse not to model something appropriately, simply because the truth of this claim is almost entirely unverifiable but is often accepted as a sufficient answer out of hand.

 

Actual missing features like dive-toss delivery modes, ARBS wind correction, and MGRS/GRID coordinate entry (nowhere near an exhaustive list), all subsets of "realistic weapons" listed on the store page for Mk 80 series ordnance and GBUs, aren't things that I think fall behind that curtain.

 

PS As for classified. Do you honestly think even if they were granted access to classified material that this would then be released in a public available simulator. So for example part of the paperwork that they will have been signed IF they have at all been privy to classified material is that this is not released publicly and this would only be included within the software available to the French Air Force. Its a nonsense to insinuate this is the reason for missing systems, we are not talking about classified aspects, we are not talking about bands within ECM, we are not talking about current intercept WEZ tactics in the manual. We are not talking about encryption systems or asking for them. Lets get a grip and get back to reality please - also i'm not aware of any contract with any military for the Harrier. Either way its a pointless argument, no one is asking for classified aspects.

 

Why they have brought that up when it relates to the Mirage is beyond me.

 

They lose credibility with each statement. The best thing they could do is take 24 hours, and release a well considered statement of what has happened.

 

I agree with the OP chickensim on this one, utter nonsense if they are using that as an excuse.

[Eldur]

The FLIR hotspot thing, at least they mentioned why they can't currently do it and will wait for the new FLIR model to do, fine.

 

To be fair with them, I was under the impression they'd not do it at all since that was their reasoning a few years ago when we were asking for it - as with the current DCS IR implementation it would definately show targets, but no false positives at all, literally making it something like an arcade cheat radar. Given that, they said they won't model it at all. Just now I read they'd be going to do it after ED will have done their new IR implementation, which is a great thing to hear. I literally wasn't expecting to get that at all.

 

The module is considered feature complete and into a sustainment phase by RAZBAM, we are looking at users concerns and trying to communicate this back to their team. Give us some time to work on this, please.

 

I think it's literally just a comms issue. As I've taken the example of the Hornet roadmap already, displaying it will come out of EA without actually being feature complete, but the missing features to be added afterwards anyway. That felt a bit weird as per the definition of EA, Alpha and Beta versioning, but was clearly communicated how it's going to be.

 

Now the difference is, RAZBAM took the step the Hornet is going to take at the end of '20 (as planned, subject to change), without talking at all, and without a serious bunch of improvements on the module while they did it. It just happened and some guys here noticed and were like "WT*? Have I missed something?".

 

RAZBAM should have went ahead, go tell us a nice fix list for the upcoming update and their intentions to exit EA with that, for any given reason, of course explained. And if it's literally just for the sake of meeting that "We won't release any modules while the others are still in EA" thing they put themselves on the plate. That would at least have been honest. I mean, I can perfectly understand if they need to get another revenue to continue working, and as the Mirage has shown, they do quite some stuff still late on. I always was under the impression that they're waiting for some things coming from ED's side to implement into the Harrier as the Hornet, Harrier and also the Strike Eagle literally share a lot of avionics. That being said, I wouldn't mind having to wait for some pages until they add them to the SE and also the Harrier at the same time. It's kind of a situation we've had and still have with the Hornet and the Viper. Shared tech, being used for both modules. It's literally very much similar in case of the Harrier and the SE, so with the development of the latter, they can take things back to the Harrier and get two birds with one stone. If they had told us so, it probably would be perfectly fine for most of us. Now without them having done so, we can just assume the best and many tend to expect the worst, which is totally understandable, but could have been prevented with clear comms by the devs in the first place.

Edited September 8, 2020 by Eldur

[FoxOne007]

Its a nonsense to insinuate this is the reason for missing systems, we are not talking about classified aspects, we are not talking about bands within ECM, we are not talking about current intercept WEZ tactics in the manual. We are not talking about encryption systems or asking for them. Lets get a grip and get back to reality please - also i'm not aware of any contract with any military for the Harrier. Either way its a pointless argument, no one is asking for classified aspects.

 

Now there’s the thing, you and me and everyone else here on the forums and discords don’t know what is classified and what isn’t, and we’ll never know. If RB doesn’t have some form of contact with the USMC we can only expect their knowledge if pages to be much more than what you van publicly find on the internet. So yeah you might find it nonsense but in the end the USN/USMC decides what ie classified and yes that could even be a BIT page

[Hawkeye_UK]

Now there’s the thing, you and me and everyone else here on the forums and discords don’t know what is classified and what isn’t, and we’ll never know. If RB doesn’t have some form of contact with the USMC we can only expect their knowledge if pages to be much more than what you van publicly find on the internet. So yeah you might find it nonsense but in the end the USN/USMC decides what ie classified and yes that could even be a BIT page

 

This post or conversation is nothing to do with classification. Lets get back on point and not divert it from what the thread is about.

[ChickenSim]

Now there’s the thing, you and me and everyone else here on the forums and discords don’t know what is classified and what isn’t, and we’ll never know. If RB doesn’t have some form of contact with the USMC we can only expect their knowledge if pages to be much more than what you van publicly find on the internet. So yeah you might find it nonsense but in the end the USN/USMC decides what ie classified and yes that could even be a BIT page

 

Not important, but in point of fact the BIT page isn't classified. The lines were written in the script for Tutorial M02 and to this day have a big "NOT MODELED YET/NEEDS TO BE MODELED" flag on them, along with 15 other items from that mission alone including JPTL tests, igniters, MFS tests, fuel panel BIT, MPCD DAY/NGT and brightness function, UFC BRT function, DC Test, SAAHS logic testing, DP testing, RJPT/RHOV testing, and Antiskid testing.

 

How many of these things have since been fixed from a single tutorial mission, I couldn't even begin to say. I'll try to use them to inform which functions are missing but some may legitimately be out of scope.

[NineLine]

This does make sense and this isn't in dispute.

 

What is in dispute is that an as-yet-undetermined amount of missing features and bugs are being swept under the rug using classification as an excuse not to model something appropriately, simply because the truth of this claim is almost entirely unverifiable but is often accepted as a sufficient answer out of hand.

 

Actual missing features like dive-toss delivery modes, ARBS wind correction, and MGRS/GRID coordinate entry (nowhere near an exhaustive list), all subsets of "realistic weapons" listed on the store page for Mk 80 series ordnance and GBUs, aren't things that I think fall behind that curtain.

 

Well and that's why me and Big are here trying to help out and sort this all out, I just wanted to set the baseline for discussion, if you know what I mean.