Eh… did you mean Clutch?! 
I don’t own the Yak so I’ve got no say.
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Oops, sorry! 
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Somebody buy that man a Yak! This discussion needs more participants!
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I am not so sure about that
My view is pretty simple. If you don’t agree with EA, or have been burned by it in the past, then wait until the module is released. I bought the Viper during EA (does anyone other than me always translate that to Electronic Arts?) to show support for ED and the module. I have not set (virtual) foot (arse?) in it, as I am waiting for it to be completed enough to meet my needs. I do not regret my choice, nor the time that the Viper is spending in EA, but that is just my view. Yeah. I could get burned by that, but I will also get the Hind and Apache when they come to early access.
I have not felt the need to comment here. I tend chastise people for posting negative comments in threads where others are talking about the fun/enjoyment that they are having with a product.
I also see the other side where posting criticism or concern is valid and good feedback for the developer. I just don’t appreciate hyperbole one way or the other and enjoy a good discussion.
I appreciate Mudspike for those discussions and wanted to move this thread here to keep the conversation going without drowning the other thread
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Egggs-zactly brother!
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Don’t eat all those cookies that @schurem sent, all at once! 
He is most welcome to do whatever he likes.
I have never said that an abandoned module isn’t cause for complaint. I think there are instances where long EA periods may be understandable, though.
I have said is that I have a hard time understanding why there should be a minimum entry level of development to enter into EA. I have also stated that I think that the fact that EA modules are unfinished shouldn’t come as a suprise.
My only advice is;
If you don’t like playing with unfinished modules, don’t.
If you want to make sure the module has reached a level of development that you can consider paying for, wait until and if it’s finished.
That’s common sense, not Stockholm syndrome
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It is, but sort of only retrospectively. If you boiled down your advice, sort of like reducing an equation, it would be ‘Don’t ever buy EA’. That’s good simple advice I guess, but if the conditions that make it the reason to not buy only come after you’ve already bought then it’s less useful.
A lot of the discussion here has been about the changing understanding of EA and what it is (post releases), while you always circle a wagon that it’s a constant or is something that just inevitably happens. For the Yak you are ok with a ‘EA can take a long time’ but not ‘abandoned’, but semantically they are sort of overlapping and hard to see which is which when purchasing; it’s a sort of contradictory position a bit.
If we’re dishing out advice, like I said above (I won’t requote myself ), but letting people complain without rebuttal is fine too. They aren’t attacking you or your purchases, they are just wanting to talk to ED so something might change. Common sense I guess.
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It’s a very hard balance to get right, and one I’ve personally struggled with for years - we’ve certainly seen it go overly-negative and be no fun. That’s the very crux of my involvement here (plot spoiler, for those aghast with me right now) with this topic. At least for nothing else but to make sure it’s still up for some debate how positive/negative people can be.
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I bought the F-16C on day one and really enjoyed it ever since. Its development may have had some relatively dry periods (exactly a year ago us viper drivers were anxiously waiting for those mavericks which would end up not showing until very late or just after the summer). Despite that, I found that it was well equiped to do combat with straight out of the box. It had active radar guided missiles, high off-boresight missiles, helmet mounted cueing, a (very placeholder) TGP and laser guided bombs. None of which were present on the hornet when it hit early-access. I wouldn’t want to have had it a day later. Especially because I believe it would not have made any difference what I would be flying today, regarding the completion state of the F-16. It likely would have been much in the same state regardless if it was released or not. The only difference would be whether we could take a seat in one or not.
As a contrast, we have the rightfully so much appraised release of the Tomcat, 2 years after “2017, no exceptions”. I absolutely do not disagree that the state at release was great, but where are we now? It it still in early access, we only just got our hands on the A, jester still can’t guide a LGB and we still don’t got the Forrestal. So it looks like a good release is still no guarantee for fast development. However, rather than halting the release indefinitely, I would have been that guy that would have enjoyed trapping a Chromecat back in 2017, and see all the great stuff that was to come be implemented as the years passed.
I feel like criticism on ED is always a little one dimensional. Not many people seem to think that what they make is really bad, or really ugly. It’s just the pace at which things are happening that is so upsetting for many. I feel like early-access, in a way, is an answer to that. Rather than waiting a long time to get something new (remember when we had just the Su-25T, FC3, the Huey, the A-10C and the black shark?) We got to wait a little less but it comes with a price to pay. An incomplete unit that is once again taking longer than is hoped to finish. As if the moment the frustration starts kicking is the only thing that really shifted.
I also often hear that people start to feel less inclined to buy new modules as they now have their favorite 4th gen or something. But there’s still dozens of planes I hope ED or one of the 3rd parties will put their magical touch on. Decades worth of naval aviation, from banshees, panthers, cougars, skywarriors and the like to just before what we have now. Early and late war planes, from hurricanes to griffon powered Spitfires and Tempests, some actual bombers and many things more. I’d love for DCS to go a mile wide but while still maintaining its depth. That is what I had hoped DCS would become.
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My major complaint with EA isn’t the state whatever product is initial offered in, it’s work on modules seeming to very quickly taper off and a module languishing in EA for a very long time.
I would like ED to have an agree’d upon set of features for each module (that is module specific), that determines when a module is official out of EA. This information would be public. Then and ONLY then can a developer offer a new module for EA. For example Jenrick’s House of Aircraft development releases the AH-1 Cobra into EA. Only when the Cobra is officially cleared by ED as feature complete enough, can I then offer the A-1 Skyraider for EA . Modules that are at “release” standards however may be released even with an EA module in progress. This does several things:
- It maintains the early access period as exactly that, early access to a product still in development. It is up to the Devs on how early to offer it.
- It prioritizes advancing the development of modules that have been paid for by EA buyers, to an agreed upon set of features that ED considers “release worthy.”
- This de-incentivizes having too many modules in development/EA as there is no way to gain any monetary benefit from new modules until the current EA module(s) are complete enough to be “release” standard.
- For larger dev houses that have the resources to do so, they can choose to have one complex module in EA to fund it (say a F-111), while releasing another module as “complete” (say an MD-500) for traditional revenue generation.
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I’ll say this, you can always wait until a module has reached a sufficient level of completion that you will be satisifed by.
I tried the F-16 during one of the free weeks early after release, and I decided it had not reached a level of completion that I would find enjoyable yet. So I didn’t buy it.
I did buy it a couple months ago though, because I saw that it had come far enough to be a functional aircraft which I find fun. The VR experience in it is amazing, and I’m enjoying flying it the way it is while I wait on more features to be added.
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Maybe the answer is to have a free weekend when a module is released to early access. That way people can try it and decide if it is complete enough to put their money on the table.
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No. It could also mean ‘if you bought it but didn’t like it because it’s unfinished, wait until it is’. But sure, if the fact that you get upset about something you bought, isn’t finished, then yes, don’t buy products that the developer states is unfinished.
Well, yes. But what constitutes ‘long time’, ‘finished’ and ‘abandoned’? The Yak has reached a level that is quite enjoyable. No, it’s not finished because there are bugs. Is it abandoned? Perhaps, but not abandoned like DCS WWII was after the Kickstarter. People complained about that and ED listened. I was one of them.
So, I’m not saying people shouldn’t complain when things are wrong.
But I don’t think that unfinished modules being unfinished, is wrong.
There’s a lot of that going on, at a forum. Seeing a reply as a rebuttal and other debaters as opponents is a bit harsh, I think. But that is often a case of expression and interpretation.
Of course. Nobody is censoring anybody here.
But there are always sides in any debate. In any good debate, all sides should be heard.
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I can’t speak for anybody else, but I’m not…aghast…with you. Not even a little bit! 
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Good discussion or not, we have a conflict here I would say.
At least in case we are talking about some EA standards. Because we have a people who wants to fly the thing very early in the dev phase and then we have a people who want the thing to be released into EA only it reach some level of completes.
For example the Hind. We saw lots of pictures already, we saw videos of it flying. Why can we get the EA already? Because it isnt in certain state!? We saw it flying, WE WANT TO BUY IT NOW!
And the latter group will say JUST WAIT A BIT MORE AND IT WILL BE MORE COMPLETE!
These two groups of customers just cant profit at the same time I guess.
And I would put it this way. Customers who would like to keep the module unreleased because it is not yet in certain state of development directly attacks the possibility for the others to buy it early to play with it.
Only possible solution is to release it into EA as soon as possible… 
…hopefully Hind’s EA launch is this Friday.
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There’s a solution to all of this. If ED makes sure that the state the module is in is properly documented, people can decide for themselves if the particular EA module is for them. Everybody is happy (except the people with no self restraint who then blame ED for what is really their own fault, but honestly, who cares?).
It adds work, but to be honest, if it adds so much work that you rather p*** off (parts of) your customer base on a regular basis, your project management needs work. That may seem harsh but that’s just the reality of software development in 2021.
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In theory, yes.
The problem is people are already upset about features being broken later, what features should be focused on next and why this feature wasn’t in the release in the first place. This will not change because of proper documentation. All we would achieve is a tool to hit them on their head with.
Maybe release every new EA for free, for the first week? But maybe that would put too many people off from paying for the module…? A lot of people buy the EA on the first day because they are curious. Me included. Perhaps these sales would be postponed?
Perhaps every module could have a 24h trial period, before it’s locked and you have to pay for it?
Some early sales would be postponed, but as you say, probably less complaints to deal with and less dissatisfied customers.
But I’m afraid the problem is still a mindset. People would still want their pet features to be first on the list, and their bugs squashed first.
You can’t please everyone…
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Well, I would say that if EA was consistent enough that would not be necessary to have a free-EA trail period, as everyone except new players (more or less) would know what to expect, especially with improved documentation.
Documentation in general needs to improve because feature lists may not be detailed enough and even the changelogs can be lacking descriptive detail and the translations don’t cut it in many cases. We often find bugs on things that weren’t listed as changed in the logs either - which is frustrating, to a degree.
Do I like the idea of an EA trial? Well, I don’t think it would hurt. How exactly to go about it I am not sure but it wouldn’t be a bad idea although the EA flag would need to be bigger and brighter for sure.
As a customer, I have a right to gripe, complain and make sarcastic jokes! However, I try to keep that outside of the ED boards as it’s not productive or helpful to them. People need to vent, too. I just want my extra Hornet flares already!! 
No two people play the game the same so it’ll never be smooth running there.
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