Bard

aah - i was wondering about decompilation myself. It would be a very good way to get past the "you haven't seen the code so you can't spot bad coding" argument. unfortunately decompiled code is a pain in the butt to read as whitespace characters aren't included - like reading a whole book with no formatting. you can infer a great deal about the code by the difficulties that are occurring when one thing is altered causing a chain reaction that breaks other things, but i don't expect everyone to be able to understand WHY this happens without a long and tiring (and very very boring) conversation about program design and keeping your data structure organised. what's even scarier - is what if there are "other" seemingly unrelated things breaking that aren't being noticed because they were working quite well before? time to cross fingers and HOPE. I don't think posting the source would be a good idea.

it must SUCK to touch one thing and it break another.

in the EU this is already coming to pass. Here in canada we have industry sponsored groups like CAAST who enforce the rights of software publishers and developers, yet there's no body sufficiently versed in software protecting the rights of consumers.

Not to take anything away from the beta testers, but the moderation over at the UBI LOMAC forum stinks to high heaven - whether it's the act of one or many of the moderators the whole lot has been given the reputation. I see the post above as illustration of that. The complexity for beta testing is very reliant on how good the shape the software is in in the first place - and we can see from 1.0 and 1.01 that it wasn't good. Trolling for bugs is a very time consuming way of doing it and i would hate to be in the LOMAC testers shoes - especially trying to test without being able to yell over a partition at devs for immediate feedback. Don't judge the beta testing effort from the forum moderation (if you can call it moderation - it definitely isn't moderate), the two are seperate, even if some people belong to both groups.

i'm glad the problems are being found and fixed. i'd hate to have waited for 7 months only to get a patch that still leaves aspects of the game crippled.

the ladder is for post 1.02 release.

Close but no cigar. We found a big problem today. Still trying to get it out as soon as possible but not with problems like the one we found today. Please be patient. Carl ******* bugger.

... I'm trying not to influence things too much - its a jedi thing you know what, johnny walker?

eew.

i have a few recommendations of my own...

You did.

put up a ladder on our website for 1.02 - http://taipans.dyndns.org - click the ladder link. registrations are open. Will need to put together some simple rules (already have some from and il2 ladder i am running - copy paste ;) ) and then create a few missions. it's a pity LOMAC doesn't allow us to create a mission where players can pick their aircraft and from an included list of loadouts. nor allow you to run the same encounter over and over again (like falcon's matchplay).

well you're in good company ;)

I'm not one to back down from calling a spade a spade because someone's going to start crying in their beer if i do. If asked I will respond. In the end it's my opinion, which can be either ignored by those who don't understand, taken with a grain of salt by those who are skeptical, or thought about by those who have some expertise in what i am commenting on.

Who's saying anything about perfect? we'll never get perfect. My opinion is what I think is acceptable in a retail product. I would find acceptable any product that is developmentally complete. All further work past retail release consisting of bug fixes and additions, not redesigning or rewriting of features that didn't work properly or to replace "placeholder" sections of code. I would find unacceptable any product that required further development to be complete after retail. Of course, just my opinion ;)

indeed. i hope we never see another sim released in such a state from anyone in this genre, not holding out much hope though :(

uh.. i think the general consensus is this is likely going to be the last patch for LOMAC we'll receive for free, not expansions or any other payware. would you agree with that?

thanks skypat.

some of the posts make me wish i could get some of the drugs the posters are using ;)

I don't think you understand the difference between unfinished and broken, and are equating the two. Here is an analogy that might help you understand. 1) You buy a car and there are no doors manufactured for it. 2) You buy a car and a door won't open because the lock is broken. 1 is an unfinished product 2 is broken product Developing software isn't much different. A product can be finished but have bugs - All the features are present but some may not work correctly due to design or programming errors. here's the english language definition of the word patch in relation to computer science: "patch ( P ) Pronunciation Key (pch) n. Computer Science. A piece of code added to software in order to fix a bug, especially as a temporary correction between two releases. " bug <> stuff not implemented yet - ie missing doors. Patches are for fixing stuff already implemented that are not working correctly because of programmatical or design logic errors.

aah... polish. yes - i agree, little things like that which shouldn't require much effort to implement but add so much to function would be great. that's why i like to see software released in great shape from 1.00 - more likely to get some polishing :)

No they won't. You know it and I know it, the next big sim that comes out (regardless of producer), we will rush down to the closest store and buy it, then whine when it doesn't work right again. This has been going on for years and every time we SAY we will wait, but we never do. That's the sad thing about it, the whole system is geared to crank stuff out the door and patch it afterwards. The producers/distributors do it because they know they can, and we have no one to blame but ourselves. :D This goes for just about all software, not just flight sims. ;) Now with that being said, I still think ED is doing the right thing by getting this patch done right and then released, and I am grateful for their dedication on working towards getting it done correctly. There is a ton of good stuff slated in this patch, and while a lot of companies could have just walked away and not tried to get things fixed, they have been working hard to make the sim better for us. Not this little black duck - and i can see from the UBI boards that there are a hell of a lot of other people sharing the same thoughts as I. There's just been a SLEW of incomplete sims pushed out the doors the last few years and i've had enough of purchasing something then waiting a further six months for it to work properly. Not everyone has the money spare to buy games on a whim - you know, married, children, mortgage etc ;)

you're not kidding. luckily there are plenty of boards out there that they don't moderate, and all they achieve by banning someone like zzzspace from their forums is to make them a lesser place to visit. I just wish i had purchased the same version of LOMAC that most of the UBI posters got ;)

I think it's more finishing an unfinished product than anything else. If LOMAC was left in 1.01 state i think there are many people who wouldn't purchase another ED developed product. As it is I think many people are going to be more cautious next time around.

My guess is that the intention is to make this the last patch, all indications are that it will be (the effort being made, matt's statements upon leaving ubi etc.). from the fix list it looks like a lot of work has been done to get the sim in shape and a lot of (in my personal opinion) things that hadn't been completed development wise upon release have been implemented. hopefully we won't NEED another patch after 1.02. It's been a long time coming, but i really hope 1.02 allows LOMAC to live up to it's potential.