RAF_Louvert

. Dej! Hi ya stranger. I hope life is being good to you Sir. .

I am reminded of a handful of lines penned by perhaps the world's greatest war poet. Hear the words I sing, War's a horrid thing, So I sing sing sing, Ding-a-ling-a-ling. Aaaah Baldrick, you simple-minded genius. .

. I am going with 28 June 2014. That would be 100 years to the day when Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry. .

. Well, since it seems we are passing round the talking stick let me have a go. As a business person with a limited base of customers, (ambulance sales and service in the upper midwestern US is the archetypal niche market), I completely understand Erik's frustration over the sudden move to SimHQ. I am heavily invested in every squad/town/hospital I supply my goods and services to and my company takes great pride in providing the best to all our customers. I have left at 2:00am on a Sunday morning and driven ten hours to get a loaner ambulance to a service whose main rig was knocked out of commission in an accident; worked 36 hours straight to get a rig delivered so that the town receiving it could have it there for their 4th of July parade; carried a squad for several months while they scraped together enough money to pay off the used ambulance they bought from us; and on and on. So when one of my longtime customers suddenly buys a rig from my competition without so much as a phone call letting me know they are shopping I take it very personally. "What the F**K!" is what I want to say to them, but instead I politely ask them to explain what happened. If it's something I did wrong I want to know so that I can correct it for the future, but usually it boils down to someone just making a snap decision. What really pisses me off is when, after the fact, my old loyal customer comes up with some excuse to justify the move. "Remember that time last year when we needed a light bulb for one of our dome lights and you were out of stock and couldn't ship it right away." Forget the hundreds of times over the years we sent them parts next-day UPS, or the time we let them use a loaner free of charge while theirs was in the shop. I understand sometimes folks simply want to try something different and I would have far greater respect for them if they would just come right out and say that rather than cook up some flimsy excuse to justify their actions. Man up, dammit. But then that is the way of business and human nature I suppose. Doesn't mean I have to like it though and so to repeat, I totally get where Erik is coming from on this. Now then, I do understand the devs were chomping at the bit to post new information about their project of love and can fully get the anxiety they were experiencing when CA was down for several days with no word as to when things might be back online. That being said, I still maintain that making the a decision on the fly to permanently move the OFF community forums to SimHQ was detrimental to our little cadre. A temporary forum somewhere would have been a far better way to go IMHO. I for one was gutted by the whole affair, to the point where I lost the desire to stop in and catch up with the day's OFF events. My life is crazy busy and there are many days where I don't have time to visit even one forum for more than a few minutes, let alone two or three or more. And, from a business point of view, splitting an already small base of "customers" even further is never a good thing. It can put folks off, (some pun intended), cause confusion and mixed loyalties, drives some to other markets, and is just generally bad for business. KISS is a great model to follow, (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Not the case here with our old "Pilot's" forum at CA, the "Dev's" forum at SimHQ, the official OFF website, and now a soon-to-be official WOFF website. Maybe I'll just go for a walk instead. Let me end this rambling on a high note though: I am confident things will change for the better when WOFF is finally released. Hell, I might even start posting new episodes of Paul Blum's story again. hee hee, Jim as A Vulcan. Fascinating. .

Pol, you know how much I appreciate all the time and energy you and the rest of the devs have put into OFF/WOFF over the years, and I will be one of the first in line to claim the gem when you all release it. But I also tend to find humor in most things, (myself more than anything, truth be told). If I have hurt your feeling my apologies, it won't be the first time I've come off like an SOB when I was not intending to. And family always comes first. But it is funny ... a bit ... .

. Great idea Erik, except I posted at the end of last year when WOFF would be released: Can I still have a guess anyway? Lou .

. Erik, would $20 help speed up the maintenance? I'd be willing to kick in to aid the budget. .

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. . .

. Erik, here's hoping the 'maintenance' does not take too long. .

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

. 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. .

. 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. .

. 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 .

. That's too bad MW, it's a fun little vid to watch, even if I do say so myself. And I do. .

. Yuppers, same here. The scrambles are completely unrealistic, in particular when you are in a B/R unit. And Robert, you are now in my most favorite of favorite regions to serve at the virtual front - the Alsace. B-E-A-U-tiful. .

. I agree completely with Hellshade. HITR will give you the full OFF experience Scram, and it is phenomenal. .

. Tamper, my mother was an English major, and while announcing that still conjures up hilarious images in my tiny brain what was not hilarious was growing up with her constantly correcting my grammar. It has, however, left me with a relatively firm grasp on the English language and its 'proper' use. To your point about fast storage I agree completely, even though I am still running dual platters in my current flying rig. Those components will be the next on my upgrade calendar. But for now I am making improvements to the mobo, CPU, and RAM, all of which was initiated by the acquisition of another matching GTX 460 SC that I will now be able to set up in an SLI configuration with my current card. For reference, the items I am replacing are an E8400 3.0ghz Wolfdale CPU, Asus P5QL mobo, (not SLI capable), and 8gb of DDR2 PC2-6400 800mhz RAM. I am quite certain that I will see a marked improvement in performance even with the older HDs in the mix. The best part, at least for me, is that I've spent slightly more than $600 total for all the component upgrades, which is a bargain in my book. Again, for point of reference, here is what my flying rig will look like with these latest changes: CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core CPU Fan: Arctic Super Cooler Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16gb (4 x 4gb) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Mobo: ASUS Sabertooth P67 Hard Drive: 2 Western Digital 640 GB Caviar Black SATA Opti Drive: LG 22X DVD+/RW Dual Layer SATA Rewrite Video Cards: 2 EVGA GTX 460 SC 1024mb cards in SLI configuration PS: Corsair HX 850 Watt Windows XP Pro 64-bit OS LG 22" flat screen LCD monitor, 1920 x 1080 native resolution Three large case fans, plus the PS, CPU, and card fans Saitek AV8R joystick Saitek Pro Flight rudder pedals Track IR4 with IR5 software .

I once went to see a doctor, with a dangling participle. .

. The above ad proudly sponsored by Lothar of the Hill People, maker of OFFfov, OFFice, OFFbase, ENBOFF, OFFJSGMENSIS, and other fine acronyms for the discerning OFFer. .

. Shiloh, they alter the pan speeds and rates and can make for a more realistic 'feel' when moving your head about in the sim. Most of it boils down to personal taste more than anything. .

. Well then, for my next number, I will now proceed to boldly split infinitives whilst misplacing only adverbs. hee hee, I crack myself up .

. That tail down spin is a killer, followed closely by the true flat spin. As you've noted the best practice is to not get into either in the first place, because once there it works out to about 10% skill and 90% grace-of-God-Almighty as to whether or not you pull out of it. But then, what are the fates there for if not to tempt. .

. Yes, they should Sir. I am running a TIR4 set-up with TIR5 software and they work well for me. .

. Glad you enjoyed it Robert. On a slightly unrelated note: How's the OFF Camel working for you? I'll bet you have her subtleties and nuances sorted out by now and have become quite the terror with her. .

. You didn't lead it off-topic MW, I was far more responsible for that. Besides, a good discussion, regardless of the venue, is never something you need apologize for. . . (and before the grammar police come down on me, yes I know I ended that last sentence with a preposition) .