Umm...

[rjw 47]

. 

 

Erik, from the moment it was announced I felt the move of the 'official' OFF website to SimHQ was a very, very, VERY bad idea.  Not only was it a direct insult to you and the excellent services you had been providing, (and still provide), but it divided an already dwindling community.  I voiced my opinions as an individual but with no results other than to be told this is how it was going to be.  After stopping by the OFF forum at SimHQ to make my presence known I stated that I would still look to these forums as the true OFF community gathering place regardless of what the Brass Hats did.  I don't really visit the 'official' forums at all since shortly after they opened, and truth be told I don't post here much anymore either as we don't appear to be any closer to seeing WOFF released then we were when the devs moved the forums.  The comedy/tragedy is that the reason the devs gave for moving said forums in the first place was because they couldn't afford a lapse of a week at a point when they were so close to releasing their latest project.  Hmmmmm ... how long ago was this brouhaha?  Proof yet again that Einstein was correct; time is relative.

 

Two weeks everyone. 

 

Oh, and HELLOOOOOOOOOO Siggi!  Nice to see you mate.  Noticed you've been recently frustrated, (again), by the other WWI combat flight sim whose name must n'er be spoken in these halls.  If we could just take the best both have to offer and meld them into one super sim ... well ... if wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets in the sea.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

 

.

Hi Lou;

 

It's also good to see you are still here. It's been quie some time since I've seen your posts. Hope all is well with you and yours. Cheers mate!

 

p.s. Do you thinks my suggestion re: petition is worth an effort or likely be ignored by OBD?

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

Hello Robert,

 

Life is good and all is well around the family manse, thanks for asking.  Hope the same is true for you and yours as well Sir.  To the petition, I believe such action is always worth a try.  That being said, I equally believe it will be dismissed by OBD.

 

.

[JFM 18]

"Siggi sorry I hijacked your thread. Bad form, I should be ashamed."

 

What you should be ashamed of is using your unfortunate health situation for guilt and/or ammunition against OFF/OBD. "When struggling to survive my pulmonary embolism last year OFF moved during the downtime that happened while I was in a coma." That you survived that crisis is wonderful, and if it had been bilateral you probably wouldn't be here, but come on, man. That spin is almost on a political scale.

 

Please help me, because I'm ignorant (I use the word as it is defined, not as some low-rent "insult" it's devolved into): is this debate over the use of "home"? Because OFF is still here. I'm here typing this, and you are here reading this. I go here every day to look for info. Has there been some move of files or a database or something tangible? That's not rhetorical, I just don't know. OFF is at SimHQ, too, but so are a lot of sims. I don't "follow" any sim anywhere. SimHQ is one of several sim sites I hit during the day. My routine changed not at all. The thought of "flight sim board exclusivity" is absurd. 

 

Erik, have you contacted the devs lately about your concerns? Or are you just passive-aggresively using this forum, knowing the devs will wander in and see it? Because if this is a business consideration, this isn't the way to conduct it. And if it's an emotional consideration, this isn't the way to conduct it. It's coming across as a bit of whining. Head-on is the way.

 

Personally, I have no dog in this hunt and care not at all where "home" is. OBD could declare flightsim.com home and nothing would change, I'd still be checking the OFF forum here every day.

 

(Edited for typo)

Edited June 12, 2013 by JFM

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

Hi ya Jim, glad to see you are back online Sir.  Must have gotten your computer ills sorted out.  I for one still see this place as home for OFF and will continue to maintain that the snap move of the official website over to SimHQ was far more detrimental to the OFF community than it was good for it.   Just my opinion, and we all know what those are worth.  One of them and $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee at Micky Dee's.

 

.

[Siggi 10]

Heya Louvert! I just came across your avatar at SimHQ while researching "does pat wilson's campaign generator have medals?". Why yes, it does, and I found your thread with your beauties on display.

 

I'm afraid I'm abandoning OFF. I installed Lothar's OFFice (full package) and him and me spent a while last night getting it working. He supplied three bug-fixes for me on the fly (1.0.6) and we got it all going finally. Unfortunately...wow, the graphics really are...hmm, how to be polite...damn it...they suck huge wad. And I was getting as low as 18fps with the graphics settings and sliders as they should be (OFF recommended). I have a pretty powerful PC. Then the incredible porpoising of the planes. And a bunch of other stuff.

I have no idea if these woes were caused by OFFice or the game not working so well with W7-64 and modern hardware. I couldn't even configure key-strokes to my joystick from within the game, my joystick (Cyborg Fly 5) wasn't recognized and it locked up the game when I tried.

 

Did I mention the graphics? Holy mother of god, what happened to my memory? I never remembered them being that bad compared to RoF. Detail sliders on 4 or 5, so it's not that. It's just...old. Very very old. So I'll be giving WOFF a miss I'm afraid. Oh, I forgot, it's vapour-ware anyway.

 

Meanwhile Pat Wilson's generator for RoF may be the game's salvation for me. It has some issues, namely the DH2s of 24 Sq losing a few planes into the hangars on take-off. The planes start off facing them and the two or three on the left of the line-up don't try to avoid them on take-off. Bloody AI morons.

 

Anyway, thanks for the splendid medals for RoF old chap! Spiffing, what what!

[+Erik 1,731]

Erik, from the moment it was announced ... 

 

RAF good to see you and everyone for that matter, reminds me of the days I enjoyed a stroll through the halls of OFF. I wish I had time this morning to respond to everyone personally because you deserve it, sadly I'm pressed for time. I appreciate hearing everyone's views, even the not so flattering ones, they are what make this community great even though keeping it together is a fight and half. All things worth having usually are.

 

 

"Siggi sorry I hijacked your thread. Bad form, I should be ashamed."

 

What you should be ashamed of is using your unfortunate health situation for guilt and/or ammunition against OFF/OBD. "When struggling to survive my pulmonary embolism last year OFF moved during the downtime that happened while I was in a coma." That you survived that crisis is wonderful, and if it had been bilateral you probably wouldn't be here, but come on, man. That spin is almost on a political scale.

 

Please help me, because I'm ignorant (I use the word as it is defined, not as some low-rent "insult" it's devolved into): is this debate over the use of "home"? Because OFF is still here. I'm here typing this, and you are here reading this. I go here every day to look for info. Has there been some move of files or a database or something tangible? That's not rhetorical, I just don't know. OFF is at SimHQ, too, but so are a lot of sims. I don't "follow" any sim anywhere. SimHQ is one of several sim sites I hit during the day. My routine changed not at all. The thought of "flight sim board exclusivity" is absurd. 

 

Erik, have you contacted the devs lately about your concerns? Or are you just passive-aggresively using this forum, knowing the devs will wander in and see it? Because if this is a business consideration, this isn't the way to conduct it. And if it's an emotional consideration, this isn't the way to conduct it. It's coming across as a bit of whining. Head-on is the way.

 

Personally, I have no dog in this hunt and care not at all where "home" is. OBD could declare flightsim.com home and nothing would change, I'd still be checking the OFF forum here every day.

 

(Edited for typo)

 

A well deserved toothy lashing. I deserved that in all honesty.

 

However let me respond to some of this. When you've poured as much blood sweat and tears into a place, things are always personal, no matter how hard you try to separate them. Was my response a bit over the top, yes. Is it a big deal that Hasse informed Siggi that the "new official forums for OFF are now at the competition", no. I see these posts often and I usually ignore them it's simply business as usual. Doesn't mean I like them, but it's business as usual. Yesterday was just one of those days I guess. I work hard keeping things together for everyone including the OFF community, always have still do. It's no secret that Doug from SimHQ has had long standing issues with us, it's a mission a personal grudge to see us tarred, feathered and taken into town. Why? Because CombatACE was built by and on the separation of some of the lead guys from SimHQ, they were the inspiration that built this place. So is it personal when our traffic goes there? You bet.

 

Yesterday as I mentioned was one of those blood sweat and tears days. I had just spent the last exhausting week pulling many 25 hour days upgrading our forum software and redoing the entire SF2 download section for the guys. A huge undertaking. I'm sitting back watching files get moved into the new library I just finished building and I just happened to see SimHQ Doug, "guod" and Polovski downloading files. 1500MB worth of files to be exact, at our expense. Does this sit well with me? No. Did Polovski share a Hello, did Doug say thanks? Not that I've seen.

 

So yes we're the anti-christ when it comes to things site related, and yes we're the ones that caused so much of a problem that the Devs avoid us, but they have no problem using our services. Hence the insult.  It's like two competing gas stations on opposite corners but one's been around longer and the other has a bathroom. So the folks stop at one to use the restroom and buy their gas at the other, then around lunch time the guys working for the other station across the street come over to use the facilities. I voice my concern about it, mention maybe I should close the bathroom, and I'm the asshole. Go figure.

 

So did that six days a year ago matter? Probably not. Am I using my health situation as guilt, a resounding fuck no. It's what happened. If I wanted the sympathy because I was shallow I'd have shared the unpleasant side of things, but instead I shared the fact I survived it all. Is any of this a basis for a debate? Not really. You say I should take things head on, well I have, and I do. I've stated very clearly my intent, I want the community back together, it's time. Am I beating around the bush or putting on some half arsed email campaign? No, I'm keys down letting it fly right here in black and white.

 

Like you I probably have no dog in this hunt either, I just think I do, when in reality he's back at the kennel shagging a beautiful red haired retriever. I'm in a hunt with an absent dog, such is life. Thank you for coming, thank you for keeping up with me, thank you for being part of what I love about this community. You can fault me for many things, you can disagree with every word I've written, and you can say I'm foolish for fighting the windmills. But not one of you will ever fault me for not caring enough to save this community or support it which to me is a far better crime than turning my back, extending a right handed central digit, and walking off.

 

So that gentlemen is the picture of the gentle blonde tucked tightly behind the bezel of my RPM gauge. It's the reason I'm in the fight and the reason I'll be returning home from it.

 

Be well and let's stay in touch.

[+Polovski 414]

Wow..er thanks guys. Yep everyone has an opinion.

Well as we said at the time we had NO IDEA what was going on, 6 days it turned out to be sure,  we didn't put up a finger - we couldn't contact anyone at the time. But after 2 or 3 days  ... with no info we were very worried.  No messages and the whole combatace domain was down so no replies to our emails.

 

WOFF is not vapourware but yes our very small team is working hard to get it done improving all aspects and adding features not seen anywhere before. As we said before, we moved, not because WOFF was "a week away" but if the whole site was down and no info for days which again it could coincide with a release, or important update whatever.

 

It so happened that we had just released a new movie to show WOFF at the time the site went down too which gave us more to think about.

 

We said several times were very grateful for CA's support and MK2's and Erik's, and no it wasn't planned or whatever super secret plot specialists think. We are happy for people to post anywhere they like no one of forcing anything.

 

MK2 CA owner at the time understood after the 6 days or whatever it was;

 

"MK2: sorry Sorry about all the craziness, I just posted this in the thread:

Hey guys big apologies from CA, Combat Ace will be back up and running. The outage is purely technical and we are working to get it back to the exact place it was before . The individual who is our technical heart and soul has been out of the country with very little access to the web. This has impacted the recovery time.

That being said SimHQ is a wonderful place to land . Being a long time member here I speak from experience when I say that.

As far as the files, I do not anticipate anything being wrong with them and they should be up and running the moment we solve all these issues. I wish I had an exact time frame but I do not . I also do not anticipate taking much longer."

Edited by MK2 (May 20, 2012 17:18)

 

 

">Originally Posted By: Polovski

>Thanks MK2 as I said in PM we hoped it was nothing permanent and it is great you can be back running soon. We wanted to thank you for your kindness and support over the years.

You guys are the best and we look forward to hosting your mod files in the future and as I said before SimHQ is an awesome place. Glad you guys are OK and up and running.

Edited by MK2 (May 20, 2012 17:53)"

 

We are too small a team to manage a forum fully or politics, and so for WOFF we will likely have no official forum, and handle announcements via our website, and support via our existing support channels.

[+Winder 32]

Just to confirm what Pol has said - we are a very small team and have decided not to endorse an 'official forum' outside of our normal OBD website which exists for Official Announcements, Updates, Statuses, Downloads and Support channels.

 

We will be opening new WOFF oriented content on our Official OBD website in due course.

 

Sincerely

 

OBD Software

 

 

[+Erik 1,731]

Check please!

[Olham 164]

Erik, like the OBD-Team I had not known about the reasons of your troublesome time in hospital.

As far as I know, at least two from the small OBD-Team also had some very bad times recently.

Maybe it all came together in an unlucky mix, like "The Perfect Storm"

(a book I really recommend, by the way).

 

I guess the decision was made on a straight business kind-of level, since no contact could be made

(which is now, with knowing the whole story) understandable, and such a sad fact.

Maybe OBD are sad about it themselves, but don't want to jump forth and back? I don't know...

 

What I do know is (and I won't keep it a secret) that I always liked CombatAce and all the great services

it offers, and the easyness with which it all works fine. I still feel more at home here, cause here's where

it all started for me. Here's where I meet the majority of friends. Here is where I have an endless PM

running with some of my friends. Here's where I hang my pilot's cap.

 

Your service has always been great and immediate, Erik, except for that one black-out, that might have

killed you - I guess we are no machines.

Edited June 12, 2013 by Olham

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

NOOOOOOOO!  Say it ain't so Joe, say it ain't so.  

 

.

[Von Paulus 8]

I guess this is then goodbye.

Oh well...

[Olham 164]

My English seems to fail me here - didn't get it???

[MudWasp48 3]

I'm new to OFF and this site and I'm confused as to what the future of this site is. Didn't know anything about the dual site squabble.

SimHQ is ok, but they don't have squatt for a D/L library.

Hope this place stays open. I noticed the page background graphics changed

[RAF_Louvert 101]

My English seems to fail me here - didn't get it???

 

Olham, I was responding to Erik's "Check please!", which is an American colloquialism used to indicate that something is finished.  I am hopeful it's not really finished around our old digs here.  That would be very sad indeed.  

 

.

 

.

[Olham 164]

Oh no! ...

[MudWasp48 3]

yeah, that's what has me concerned...

[Olham 164]

I just tried to post a new thread, but I wasn't allowed anymore.

Is this just an error on my end, or is it the end of our OFF community here at CombatAce?

[MudWasp48 3]

No clue Olham, but I can read your reply in this thread.

Hey Olham,

 

On the main page of Combat Ace, there is only one section listed, general forum, and the topic is OFF forums temporarily closed for maintenance.

[+Erik 1,731]

No this is a good thing.

 

The community will remain, the files will remain, but there will be some changes now that OBD is no longer part of its everyday welfare.

 

Simple enough, but requires some time to reorganize. 

 

See you on the backside.  

[Olham 164]

Ah, that's good to hear, that we won't get "kicked out" of this great place completely, Erik - thank you!

Edited June 13, 2013 by Olham

[Siggi 10]

I'm sorry but I'm with Erik on this and understand exactly where he's coming from. Seeing the competition and the OFF dev leeching files without so much as a by your leave would have made me see red and I'd have pulled this entire forum. It simply takes the piss. And if it was being done in complete ignorance of Erik's feelings...that level of ignorance is beyond contempt. One point Five terabytes of frikking data? Really? And at no point did either of you think "Hmm, this is a bit...cheeky...a bit...parasitic..." ?!

 

Six days, during which no release was even remotely on the cards, and you decided to jump ship? You assumed what, that it was more likely CA was gone forever vs a server fire or something? Really?! REALLY?! Pull the fucking other one, it was simple self-serving expediency.

 

There's a thing called honour, fucking look it up.

[gaw 5]

heavens.....what turmoil!  simple misunderstanding on several levels probably............I hope.  haven't been around for a few months and am sad to see our house divided.....yikes!

[JFM 18]

Erik, thanks for the response.

 

To all, I'm never going to see the big deal about flight sims on different fora. Ever. As far as some sort of effort by SimHQ to eradicate CombatAce--not all of us knew about that. To me that's like Fox and CNN fighting--looks silly and I really don't care. But, meanwhile, as Pol posted, CA talked highly of SimHQ and led OBD by the hand straight to them. Seems CA shot themselves in the foot by doing that. But, really, what ship was "jumped"? The website was still at CA. I literally noticed no difference after SimHQ was declared "home." What's the big deal? You only seek one source for flight sim information? I'd never limit myself like that.

 

I cannot see how a community is "divided" when these websites are, literally, one click away from each other. What ship was "jumped"? The forum is still here. And the last time I checked (that's not some phrase, I mean literally just a moment ago) there were five people viewing the OFF forum at SimHQ. Five. Yesterday, I saw ten. Assuming--based on zero fact or research--that none of these five or ten people also come here, ten people is a "community divided"? If so, then this furor is over twenty people.

 

As far as downloading files, this is provided and allowed to happen and then it's complained about when it does?

 

I don't know. I think flight sim boards and games occupy much more time and importance in other lives than they do in mine, thus people are much more emotionally involved. I'm never going to care that words in one forum are also on another forum that's one click away. I just can't get angry about any of this.

[Hellshade 110]

I am sorry to see that everyone - Erik, Forum Members & the Devs, have found so much frustration over all of this, although I can see from the point of view of each why.   (Except JFM - who we all know is as heartless as a Star Trek Vulcan and so won't do much more than raise an eyebrow - j/k buddy)

 

At any rate, for what it is worth, which is probably nothing...I have to agree with the Vulcan....err, JFM.   The Forums are still here, thanks to Erik.  OBD has stated there will no longer be an official Forum anyway, so the SimHQ vs CombatAce thing will sort itself out in short measure since neither one will be the "official forums".  That means that folks will probably go where ever they feel they get the best service.  (Hint: Erik, don't throw out the bathroom in your gas station just yet).  

 

I think alot of the frustration also comes down to the fact that WOFF still hasn't shipped yet and so a lot of people have decided it never will or whatever.  In this regard, I have to say that my sympathy goes to the Devs.   You may say that's because I'm a rabid fanboy, but the problem with that accusation is I haven't really flown OFF in quite some time for various reasons.   So why does my sympathy go to the Devs?   It's because they know they can't release any details or Features about what WOFF will do without concerns of them being hijacked by another, larger, company or potentially facing outrageous accusations as have been made in the past.  So while they work their asses off in secret to try and bring the best possible WWI flight sim / air war experience to life that they can behind closed doors, they have to watch their fanbase slowly drift apart over the years and also endure accusations of every type imaginable.  Not to mention personal crises that have popped up from time to time.  All to eventually ship a product to a small niche market (WWI flight sims) within another small niche market (flight sims in general) that will probably never compensate them financially for the amount of time they have had to invest.   It must be hard for them to keep their motivation going, yet somehow they apparently do. 

 

Are the Devs perfect?  Of course not.  Have I agreed with every decision they have ever made?  No.  But I do believe they are doing their damn best to ship WOFF when it's ready and filled with the features they want to provide.  I don't believe Erik is perfect either, but I have no doubts that he is doing his damned best when it comes to providing a high quality forum for OFF.  But not everything is under these guys control.  Shit happens and everyone will just have to deal with it in their own way.  If people have to vent their frustrations, go right ahead.   But I would only ask this:  When venting frustrations about others (Erik, OBD, Forum members, whomever), ask yourself if it turns out that you happen to be wrong if you plan on putting the same amount of vocalization in admitting it to everyone.

 

Hopefully someday soon we will be able to face one other in the WOFF skies and settle all such disputes with virtual lead.

 

(For the record though, I stand by my accusation that JFM is, in fact, a Vulcan.) 

 

Hellshade