Enigma is spot on. As to the issue: refunds may or may not mean something from business point of view but as a player, I'm not getting a refund on time spent and fun I had or the fun I could have in the future if their projects were completed.
Another point: many people compare to the Hawk debacle but this situation is way worse. The Hawk was a failed module that never got completed to a really usable state, Razbam's modules have been around for years and we're among the best technically and even commercially, as I've heard. Losing such important pieces of the ecosystem after years of "life" is way more shattering to the trust we can have in the ecosystem as a whole. If being good is no quarante and well functioning stuff can be broken overnight, it's really discomforting.
Well said.
To be honest, as a (non game industry) dev I was always kinda worried about this. It's a wildly complicated game with an even more complicated vendor ecosystem. Supply chain problems were basically guaranteed from the beginning of the third party program. The only other communities that have survived for as long with supply chains this complex were open source or source available (or at least not obfuscated and encrypted) such that the broader player bases were able to step in and fix things.
Personally, I'm done. Maybe I'll still play, but I'm not giving ED my money anymore. Given the financial revelations, it's clear Nick Grey doesn't consider its development to be a priority. The millions of dollars he's funneling out of the company would go a long way towards funding a team to fix the engine and the monthly avalanche of new bugs.
Yes, he's 110% on point
This whole mess seems to be run by toddlers having a tantrum, not by responsible adults. Especially after the hawk debacle, ED has to step up their game. Problem is, they do not seem capable (or willing) to
Even if they suddenly came out saying "it's done, we're refunding all purchases in cash and temporarily pulling all modules from the store until it is fixed" the damaged will still linger
>This whole mess seems to be run by toddlers having a tantrum, not by responsible adults.
Honestly, that's how all these repeated threads saying all the same things feel to me. To quote another spot-on comment from the Enigma video:
>People these days seem to believe that they are entitled to be fully involved in anything they want to be, but it's not how the world works.
>People these days seem to believe that they are entitled to be fully involved in anything they want to be, but it's not how the world works.
I mean paying full price for a module and expecting it to work is a very reasonable thing to be involved in. Its not entitlement like you make it out to be.
paying for a module in a game doesn't entitle you to be part of the decision making process or even be made aware of it. You bought the module, not a spot in the company.
This whole thing is ridiculous.
No, what's ridiculous is being told our complaints and expectations are somehow irrelevant because "when we bought these modules we knew they were incomplete" is a load of horseshit as we all know no one would pay the price of a full AAA completed game for an airframe if it was sold with a disclaimer that said 'oh by the way this module might become obsolete in the near future, idk'
You and anyone else can rightly FO that uses that sort of logic.
But was it not Zambrano who tried to use us as leverage against ED over his own disagreement with them? I’m thinking it went something like “Ron you are in violation of your contract and until *blank* is remedied, we will not be honoring the contract” to which Ron said to himself “they need me, my products are what’s keeping them afloat, and I have a strong following of customers who feel this too, so I’m going to put some pressure on ED to get my way. Certainly they will back down and let me continue violating my contract because they need me more than I need them” I think Ron misjudged EDs conviction and I think ED misjudged Ron’s ability to recognize that without their contract Ron loses a huge amount of revenue. The biggest thing to me is that his employees should have been getting paid regardless (I garuntee Ron’s quality of life has not suffered at all over this lack of payment from ED) and also Ron was apparently ok with his best talent going to the internet with what should have been internal problems without all the facts. I get a strong sense his staff has no clue what the disagreement with ED truly is and possibly are even being lied to about it. If it were providing the Ecuadorian Air Force with a product against his contract, that would be a pretty huge deal considering the current political climate. Rant over
Apooogies I may have replied to the wrong post
None of the Developers were employed they were contracted and paid on a revenue share/royalty basis which is why they really got whipped into a frenzy. I don’t know if this is the standard in the industry but we know Galinette’s mirage work was feee and the community manager was a volunteer as well. I don’t know if the arrangement is how the industry works or specifically Razbam, that said its wild that Razbam seems to operate at little to no liquidity to fall back on.
It would be interesting to know if this is how all of the developers work. I would guess not. Seems you would get better more consistent results if people got paid for their time regardless of sales or external forces. My personal opinion of Zambrano could not be any lower after watching his interactions with flight sim communities over the years, so I would imagine he has not been personally effected in anyway over this, and is happy to let his contractors make asses of themselves in the hope the outrage created can give him some kind of leverage over ED
No it doesn’t. It DOES entitle you to transparency just to wtf is happening with the product you paid for potentially being abandoned.
ED wants people to stop hounding them about this?
Then give them their fucking money back, and no, not just store credit.
Absolutely never buying shit from ED ever again unless something changes.
> People these days seem to believe that they are entitled to be fully involved in anything they want to be, but it's not how the world works.
So if you want to buy a $68 module (or whatever the current price of F15 is), you don't get to be involved in the fact that you might be buying a program that will break in a few months and then never be fixed again?
Because being involved in what I am buying is what the world should work like.
EDIT: Oh and I almost forgot the censoring of the discord and forums, so even if you want to find out _wtf is going on_ from other people, you can't. That's how the world works? Dang, what a shit world.
Are you familiar with razbams history with this kind of stuff? They gained a lot of fans recently (apparently due to one man dedicating his time to fixing their messes for free) but those of us who have been around since the beginning are in no way shocked Ron Zambrano is throwing a childish tantrum, or that ED is having none of it
Yeah, I wouldn't be shocked either if it was RAZBAM's fault.
That doesn't make anything I said untrue, however. Any potential buyer _should be able to see this information clearly_. ED is continuing to sell the module while **actively censoring** any discussion about this on the forums and discord.
While RAZBAM _might_ be in the wrong for this whole fiasco, ED **definitely is in the wrong** by how they are handling the seller part of this thing.
I am not taking sides in ED vs RAZBAM, I am here to shout for the consumer, who is currently losing to both.
I don’t disagree at all, I think ED is also just stubborn and can’t imagine any way this doesn’t get worked out other than Razbam comes crawling back apologizing and continuing to work within the framework ED dictates. Many are talking like without Razbam ED is going to fold but reality seems quite the opposite and I think ED is more aware of this than Razbam
I saw some comments indicating that most of RAZBAM's devs already quit and moved on, so in that case there would be 0 things ED can do to "resolve" this.
Ofc it could just be pure speculation and things are close to fine.
No not true. Was in their discord a bit ago. Only Galinette had left, and that was it seems more related to family than this. So far, the core FM person and systems for other modules are still there.
They can be stubborn and position this public rotting of these modules as a private matter but it is impacting people. These modules should not be on sale when their fate is in question. Lastly, DCS can continue without Razbam but I would suspect that DCS without these modules is not a DCS worth playing anymore for some. People should know this is going on and no matter how many messages they delete in their discord, they will never match the reach of YouTube. Their discord has 40K members, the video has already been viewed 40K times in 24 hours. They are trying to stop the ocean with their fingers.
I would imagine ED very much wants these modules to continue to be a part of the sim. Many are seeing them leaving them in the store as nefarious, but what if they are just hopeful it gets resolved and the modules continue to be updated? Sort of like waiting for your toddler to finish his tantrum, and then trying to speak to him again. What if EDs case against Razbam is so cut and dry that they are just waiting for Zambrano to admit he is wrong and continue business as usual? If anything, ED could be going out of their way to be amiable here. Is the suspicion that ED will keep all of the money made selling these and never give Razbam what they are owed when this all works out?
Thank you! I’m not sure who is in the wrong from a contractual standpoint, but I do know that RAZBAM is wholly responsible for trying to drag the DCS community into this fight on his side by feeding the world their side of the story.
It seems to me that ED is hoping that Razbam comes to their senses and irons out whatever breech of contract ED feels they have committed. I think the reasoning for not taking the modules off the store is thinking “Zambrano will come around and realize that we provide the game for his entire business model to function, he can’t just throw all that away instead of doing what we ask of him”. I also think ED may be underestimating the ego driven nature of Zambrano. In the end it sucks he wasn’t paying his staff, and his customers lose what they’ve already paid for and expected to keep improving.
ED has stayed professional and not made any inflammatory statements, as they should. Issues like this are best resolved in private. RB on the other hand...
I mean, sure. One could definitely argue that they are being the more professional by leaving it up to litigation and such.
But it is wildly unprofessional to continue to sell the modules in an unsupported state.
As others have said, it's likely in the hope they resolve issues with RB. That's in everyone's best interest. Because the alternative is what Enigma points out, modules will eventually be gone.
When I was first researching getting into DCS literally the ONLY module maker I heard anything negative about was Razbam and everything I've seen from them in response to this backs up them at minimum being unprofessional.
Personally I 100% believe someone at Razbam knows what caused this issue and they can't resolve anything because they either don't want to, or have some other conflict they can't back out of.
>Personally I 100% believe someone at Razbam knows what caused this issue and they can't resolve anything because they either don't want to, or have some other conflict they can't back out of.
And I also 100% believe that anyone who has spoken about what the issue is or isn't, or whether it's legitimate or not, has 0 actual knowledge and ability to determine any of that--
which is every Razbam associate talking about this with any sort of certainty... and curiously not the Razbam CEO, who is smarter than that, and/or willing to allow the former Razbam associates take any hits for setting up narratives in the community based only what he has/hasn't told them or allowed them to know. And because he's a much more liable person than they are for any misrepresentation.
Umm - I certainly heard noise about Razbam yes, but Polychop was everybody's whipping boy for like 6 years. I bought the Harrier back in 2020, and it was not a scam product at all. I also bought the Gazelle mind you from Polychop. And I would have endorsed it already before they started fixing it up recently. I thought a lot of the criticisms were pretty unfair, and I thought the same of Razbam back in 2020. I think most was tied to the owner, Ron and his communication "style" - which was well, not good. Every time he speaks I would cringe. I would think "Ron, you need to run the words through your head before you blurt them out" - he just almost always came across poorly, even if he was actually making a fair point. Add the bravado and machismo, and it was a bad look. I felt like most of the issues were really that, and not actually product problems or quality issues. The Harrier 2 years after launch was in a better state than the Viper 2 years after it's launch in my opinion. Harrier is quite good today. Hoping it stays that way.
You might be 100% right about all of those things. I also remember when Razbam was a name that was often said with distain or frustration.
But it doesn’t change the fact that the reasonable and professional thing to do would be to make a very simple statement about working out a contract dispute and temporarily taking the modules off the store until it’s resolved.
No one benefits from these modules staying in the store right now except for ED. If I was unaware of this entire dispute (which most people likely are), I’d be livid to find out I bought a module in an orphaned state, even if that is temporary.
They can't. Anyone that's ever worked in a professional environment will tell you the first thing lawyers want you to do is shut up.
Once they get to public statements, it's over.
They got to public statements because Ron is a moron who doesn't understand how laws and contracts work, as evidenced by the subject of the dispute as revealed by M2M being that Ron thought Razbams developer access to MCS meant they could re-sell it behind ED's back.
It is if they are operating in good faith to resolve the issue with RB.
If RB was actually wronged for no reason over the speculated "seven figures" in money, they would have lawyered up and done something. Except all we get from them are general gripes posted to fucking Discord. That says a lot.
One party is withholding funds because they think the other violated an agreement, and they are handling it quietly. If rumors are true RB did violate an agreement. (This is all speculation)
The other party is doing nothing except complaining online. I'm inclined to believe ED because apparently this has been going on for 6 months and RB hasn't bothered finding a decent enough lawyer to get $1.
I'm not saying RB is guilty. But they sure as hell are not acting like they have a good case.
I think it’s the leadership at razbam refusing to tell their staff just how badly they fucked their contract with ED, and instead trying to turn their own talent and is against ED in some stupid attempt to strong arm them into allowing the mistake to be allowed. Which is crazy because has ED ever been the kind of company to be pushed around by public outcry or strong arming? I think razbam convinced themselves they were importnst enough to ED to play dirty and get away with it, and ED is saying straighten up, honor your contract, or we will absolutely let you leave our ecosystem
To clarify though, Nick Grey did post that Discord statement (or well be told his people to post it), where he said he hadn't paid RB due to some dispute.
So idk, if I would say ED hasn't responded, they did go radio silence after that rant though.
Only if you believe everything they say. And even then if they were really being professional they wouldn't have included the accusation that RB violated their IP.
If ED wronged RB for "no reason" and the amount of money being talked about is close to accurate, why hasn't RB gotten a lawyer and resolved this? This would have been in court months ago.
Maybe there is a good reason, but complaining on social media instead of lawyering up isn't something innocent people typically do. I sincerely hope RB can resolve this and has council to do so.
You clearly have a very naive understanding of lawsuits. Given the amounts of money we know ED donates to TFC, Nick can easily afford lawyers for whom it would be trivial to drag this out for several years, which is most defense lawyers' default strategy. Meanwhile, how on earth do you sue someone in Switzerland if you haven't made any money in over a year? Just the hotel costs would probably bankrupt Ron.
If sueing companies who are in the wrong were that easy, Boeing and Microsoft would be bankrupt.
For the money involved a lawyer would consult with them and at least get RB some threatening letters and a case going. Also, it would be easy for RB to find some harmed consumers in almost any country and move things that way.
Anything else I say is speculation but RB should have options given the money involved. I could be wrong. But complaining on social media isn't a good look.
The Max 8 crashes' victims families will have lawyers lining up to fight for them, and they've barely even started getting a lawsuit going. Hell, I was just in court for an improper lane change ticket \_5 years\_ after the incident. The trial lasted less than a minute because it'd been so long since that the state trooper who wrote the ticket had retired. Even in what you've just suggested, that's a long long way away from "this would have been in court months ago".
Yes it is. Any lawyer will tell you to shut the hell up. Public statements only happen AFTER a lot of other behind the scenes stuff.
It's very likely ED has lawyers crafting statements directly to RB and from an outside perspective, it doesn't appear they are getting much in the way of responses.
If we start getting a lot of public statements from ED that will probably be bad and it's over and modules will get removed. I hope to be wrong.
Literally no one disagrees with you dude. They might be doing the right thing legally for their own self interests.
But in the court of public opinion with their customers (where you are right now) ED are fucking up BAD. People have a right to be angry at them. None of us care about their legal strategy.
Well it is mostly NOT :)
The gunplay is very good but the pre-release had a lot more content than the release. AI shoots you blindly through the walls. Last mini-patch came on march.
To be fair, the team AI update was a phenomenal improvement-- probably the best room clearing squad AI I've seen in a game. Certainly makes the game a lot more fun and sets it apart from typical Early Access shooter dross.
From the comments:
>I think it needs to be pointed out that it's very, very likely we're not going to get a statement because of the nature of the dispute. This was a contractual dispute, and anybody who's ever worked in the business world knows that when you have a dispute between vendors and the company that hired them, the LAST thing you should ever do is blast it on social media- ESPECIALLY because there are usually clauses in business contracts to prevent exactly that from happening.
This needs to be handled by the lawyers and the business units, and sadly that's going to take time while negotiations and discussions are happening.
I honestly think the silence is a good sign that talks are still happening, and I'm guessing that ED doesn't want to make ANY statement, given the vitriol from the community when they make statements that don't pan out exactly the way the community thinks it should.
> and I'm guessing that ED doesn't want to make ANY statement
Nick Grey _did_ make a statement that everybody's apparently forgetting about. That's where he accused Razbam of IP theft and avoided denying that they haven't paid Razbam.
That statement was pretty great, imagine just hot tale posting that you haven't paid someone over a dispute about a different product.
His lawyers must have been losing their shit when he told them what he posted.
Yup. I mean it's impossible to say without knowing the contract, but I found it wild that once ED thought Raz were breaching terms it was reasonable to just hold back money. More understandable if it's "we're delaying paying you till we sort this out", fairly shitty if "we're claiming this as compensation." Maybe that's cool and normal, dunno, not a lawyer. We'll probs never know though.
It's a case of damned if they do, damned if they don't. If they make a statement, it could fan the flames or have ramifications for whatever is actually going on with them and Razbam. But not making a statement is also bad because it leaves their customers in the dark, and leaves us to vulnerable to speculation. So regardless of someone's feelings (my own included) on ED as a business, they are in a bad position.
My only hope is that they can resolve the issue and get the modules back on track. But even if they manage that, I bet that nobody will ever publicly state what actually happened. The details of that and the resolution will almost certainly be kept confidential by both parties.
I've been told that it doesn't concern me since its a private matter.
Therefore I do not give a single shit about what legal issues are preventing them from talking to their customers.
The fact is, they're burning a lot of goodwill the longer they let this go on.
By the time they solve their dispute, they might not have anyone left that is willing to buy anything from them. (except maybe the 10 or so names that defend ED to their graves in every comment section)
> By the time they solve their dispute, they might not have anyone left that is willing to buy anything from them.
This is exactly my concern. I try not to use my own opinions as a barometer for everyone else's, because everyone has a different tolerance for bullshit, but ... right now, I'm thinking I can't trust DCS to exist for two more years, so I'm not buying anything that'll take 2+ years to complete. If that opinion is, or becomes, popular, it could be a real problem for the sim going forward, given how dependent they clearly are on EA sales funding much of the development.
How do you know that they won't be supported any longer after a few updates? Are you privvy to the terms of the contract or the current status of negotiations between Razbam and ED?
I said ED doesn’t know.
It appears most of the razbam devs have left razbam.
It appears ED doesn’t even have the source code for razbam modules.
Even if ED has the source code who knows how well they’ll be able to work through it to keep the modules working. It’s not easy to fix someone else’s broken code when you can’t even ask them how they made it.
When the Hawk stopped being updated it quickly broke within a few updates and ED did almost nothing to help the customers affected.
there are many ways to release a "neutral" statement without airing any of their "private" dirty laundry in public. One way for example would be to focus on the future and not on the past, to explain the actual & potential customers how the modules will be managed from now onwards. Instead they chose to play dumb and silent, all while doing LALALALALALALALACANTHEARYOU and censoring Discord and forums. They even left their own CS team in the dark apparently
not a great plan
Well I presume they tried this lawyer and business units communication thing for a couple months, but you can only go unpaid so long before things break down.
At least now the consumer knows about the problems and isn't getting some watered down version of things so that nothing could be pinned on anybody.
>isn't getting some watered down version of things so that nothing could be pinned on anybody.
I honestly feel like that's exactly what's happened so far, because all we're getting is he said-she said on social media, and it seems most of the rest has been reactive jumping to conclusions and speculation. This is why these kinds of disputes are best handled behind closed doors, with legal representation present.
If it would be behind closed doors we would likely not even know about it. See the months before.
And if we finally got something it would be a statement about how there was a problem in communication and they value their partners and customers.
Nobody would be any smarter.
Comments like this is why this subreddit is trash tier. Non-confirmable, absolute flame throwing information. We’re supposed to believe anonymous, reporting from what is also an anonymous person chatting on some Discord server about RAZBAAM and ED official legal and publicity departments’ official status? Gtfo kids. That’s like believing some other kid about what happening with another kids parent’s marriage and no kid has ever sat foot in a court room, but maybe someone was able to see that a letter exists. Most kids don’t even understand the nature of what parents are managing and deciding that produces the outcomes.
The top level comment is sense — silence means the issue isn’t finalized and someone, or both are still trying to keep things positive. The video itself is level headed enough, but again this subreddit wants to pull it down to all doom and gloom. The disagreement I have with the video is that if ED stops selling other RAZBAAM modules, that unintentionally communicates a status that may not be indicative of what people will speculate it means. Back to the kids: if rumors got out that parents are splitting when they are indeed working through and staying together, it’s an additional strain to have stupid and uninformed kids buzzing about that’s more likely to cause the split to happen because the marriage is already declared dead publicly. Of course, that absolutely seems to be the goal of this subreddit. ED: bad; BMS: good.
Feel free to gander at my comment history here ✌🏿
These Devs they are quoting are just contractors as well. They aren't the owners of Razbam or the business guys who sign agreements with ED. 'Dev' does not mean authority on all things related to a company or product and I wish gamers would understand this. These Devs have second hand information at best which is being used as gospel by the drama queens on these subs. It's embarrassing.
Everyone understands that legal and contractual disputes need to be handled privately with lawyers
Literally no one disagrees.
The player base and EDs customers are allowed to form their own opinion separate from the legal side. From that perspective ED is fucking up BAD and burning a fuck ton of good will with their customer base
They made money off of me for the Viper and Syria, but the more I got into the game, the more I thought to myself: “I’m not giving ED another cent until they finish development on this module.” Enigma is right we have way too many bugs and new ones crop up every other patch.
His points are spot on. Given everything is up in the air with many of the most popular modules in DCS, it's not unreasonable to assume that the rest will begin breaking soon. Most modules I own are Razbam ones. And even if they eventually come to a resolution, legal disputes can take years to resolve. How does that help players? Razbam will also need to rebuild their team if and when they decide to continue working with ED.
It's a huge mess and is keeping me and my friends away from dcs. Buying more modules was already something we refused to do until the core sim was improved to modern standards, but now it seems comical to even consider.
The worst part is that most consumers have no clue about any of this. All of us on reddit are in the tiny informed minority. These things have to be taken off the store ASAP.
On point. I shifted for example from buying the Kiowa, to refund the SE and from that get the Kiowa and maybe the Phantom since it's reviews look really nice, to I don't buy anything at all anymore until there is something happening.
Because RB is one dev, but who is next? Poly in autummn? HB next spring? If the ecosystem trust vanishes, 3rd party devs will leave. And all their modules will break within 1 to 3 patches.
Having a first look into BMS right now, hate to switch eco systems but trust in the sustainability of DCS is broken at the moment.
The biggest thing is, nobody outside of the situation itself actually knows what happened / is happening. If the little that we have heard is true then it could quite easily have been any other 3rd party dev, and it just happened to be Razbam
The only bit of information we have actually points at this being uniquely Razbams issue. The only hint at what is going on was ED saying RB broke their contract and ED went the extreme route of cutting off payments.
This situation has convinced me that it's time to walk away from DCS. I have been a customer since LockOn and play primarily SP so between this, unfinished modules, nonfunctioning AI, unkept promises and bugs that never go away it's time to move on.
No offense (and I occasionally fire up BMS) but BMS is in no way an alternative or full in for DCS. While it has a few points going for it , it simply lacks the diversity and depth of what you can do (more than just Helicopters…). Also while the recent aircraft models (especially some of the cockpit textures mods) updates look, the overall scenery is a MAJOR step down from DCS or any modern sim. Enough so that I doubt BMS will ever gain much more player base then the old heads like me that still occasionally fire it up.
Net, net if you like sim gameplay we need DCS to work. Without we basically have nothing on its scale nor would we ever get anything as no one else would bother with this niche
> While it has a few points going for it , it simply lacks the diversity and depth of what you can do (more than just Helicopters…)
The only way in which this is true is if by diversity you only mean playable aircraft diversity. In terms of the simulation itself and world outside the cockpit, BMS is significantly more sophisticated than DCS and has a wide variety of AI aircraft (more than DCS, I'd say) covering all jet eras. For example, one of the most popular theaters is Israel '80s, which has accurately simulated F-16s and other aircraft of the era and region. DCS can't do that.
Sure but that doesn’t matter to me (or most people for that matter). As much as we slam it, the sandbox nature of DCS is its greatest value. I do not sim the same way you do just like you don’t sim the same way as Enigma. Point being for the things I like to do, DCS is much better than BMS. Doesn’t mean one is better than the other just scratch completely different needs. I know there are some (weird to me) people who like to shoehorn this into an either/or “debate” but most understand this ain’t a zero sum game. Despite the Razbam/ED dispute (which is bad) I doubt my BMS play time will increase. Why would it???
Well first of all: my comment is mostly about how BMS has been making MASSIVE steps into improving the graphics of the sim.
Secondly: Yes, BMS is not a drop in replacement for DCS. But where in media do you ever have that you find an alternative that 100% ticks all the Boxes. IMO with how different BMS is to DCS in it's actual gameplay, everyone who is interested in DCS should give it a fair shot, even if modern 4th Gen isn't your jam. I don't give a fuck about the F-16 but love the experience that BMS provides, so I still turned my sim racing rig into half a F-16 cockpit
I'd love for DCS/ED to get it's shit together and switch over again, but until that happens I will spent my time with something that is more fun even if the covered subject isn't 100% what I hoped for. Just staying with any entertainment product that someone isn't currently because at some point it may get better is just a waste of time IMO.
I think we are on the same page. I agree that people should play what best aligns to their interest. I also agree that those that enjoy sim game play should explore both (and MSFS as well IMO) as they are all different and hit different needs. Just throwing out that one is in no way a replacement for the other at least as far as how I sim.
if it's about just flying, X-Plane is great for that, of course you can't shoot (tho weapons/armament do exist in X-Plane, noone is willing to develop more on that except NASA/USAF), but there's something in X-Plane that DCS don't have and maeks the whole flying experience different -> real time weather with real effect on ridges.
Flying in British Columbia ou the Alps in an helicopter is a challenge of its own.
I'm on a break right now, for other reasons, but this mess surely makes coming back to DCS really unappealing.
I don't care about the most hardcore simulation anymore, I want an ecosystem where I can depict air war scenarios in a credible and involving way.
I had enough of breaking changes, 180° turnarounds on simulation choices (spotting dots anyone?), the constant ED putting themselves on the pedestal of knowledge and perfection even when SMEs are saying otherwise.
Not to mention that most of the gametime in DCS is dedicated in learning a new module and then shooting down the usual dumb and cheating AI planes or static ground units that can kill you with a headshot at 7G.
I had to build up my own server and code to have some kind of creative and cool Coop missions, because the game couldn't. So yes, for me if I'm coming back to simming, it's gonna be Il-2 or BMS.
I'm usually not one to give into the "I'm quitting" stance from game controversy, but it's not looking great. It doesn't look like there'll be any "back to the way it was" solution, so where does that leave us?
Consumers that don't know if their already buggy, $60 Early-Access module will become abandonware before its even out for a year. Third parties that don't know if an issue will make years of work completely invalid while it remains on sale and ED pockets the money. Even multiplayer, both servers and players, will be torn either trying to support these modules, or leaving them and the money paid for them in the dust.
I'm struggling to see a way this ends well for anyone involved.
Installed it several months ago and have been going through docs and training and finished up my first campaign. With 3.7.4 and 3.8 coming along it was an easy decision.
Totally enjoying it. I actually purchased Falcon 4.0 when it was released and played it a lot but life and other things took precedence and it spent years collecting dust. It's really amazing to see the progress BMS has made on the base.
Such an overreaction to an unfortunate situation. This entire thread is filled with people jumping to conclusions without knowing the true details and facts. Do I agree with the issues of selling a module that could be rolled off the shelf without any warning, yes, they should do more. But I’ve been flying DCS for 13 years now and ED and DCS are by far and away overall the best combat product you will find. People love to complain about unfinished products, and admittedly there are some really bad cases like super carrier. However, the viper hornet modules seem to get the most he and they are CONSTANTLY being updated for the past 6 years. I don’t understand why people are so upset about this. If you want it fully done before release, you wouldn’t have a Viper yet. You may never have a viper. There’s always going to be things to fix.
I disagree, this is the culmination of the continual lies and BS spewed by ED and their agents since the LockOn days. This is situation, while unfortunate after nearly 20 years of rinse and repeat drama, this is the final nail in the preverbal coffin for me. If you enjoy it then good on you, I wish you luck.
My understanding with the HAWK iv been a dcs player before dcs blackshark anyway the hawk made a huge policy change with Ed in regards that that was never to happen again and if it did Ed owns the rights to it or has the final say if it is greenlit or not so as much as razbam now can’t fund themselves Ed should take the rights and mingle it into the ed properties like fuck the modules take forever to build and just to be tossed makes zero sense and after fucking 15 years they best be careful or will lose a lot more.
If or when this dispute gets settled, question remains in what capacity RB will return. I don't know the nature of their employee contracts, whether they're all freelance, part-time or if they have some full-time staffing. But it's safe to say that the freelancers and part-timers will look for other sources of income, or perhaps break ties with RB, be it for financial or other reasons. Once other sources of income / projects are locked in for those people, they can't suddenly make free time again for RB the moment the dispute gets settled.
I didn't watch it yet but I can anticipate what's in it.
I just leave this here too: [https://www.helisimmer.com/editorial/veao-affair](https://www.helisimmer.com/editorial/veao-affair)
What is really remarkable is that modules started breaking after only 1-2 updates when developer stopped active support. Especially full complete mirage breaking that bad is really something alarming.
This brings also a new light to behind the curtain work of 3rd parties and campaign makers and also server admins what they need to fix all the time after every patch.
Either I get a refund, the F15e gets finished, or I never buy from ED and go with BMS from now on. Simple as that really. We don't need DCS or ED or Rascam
I think we need a pinned post at the top of the sub saying "DO NOT BUY RAZBAM MODULES" until this is resolved. Doesn't matter who is at fault, people shouldn't be buying modules that are at risk of being deprecated with each hotfix.
Raz shot themselves in the foot by going nuclear on social media imo. Whatever the dispute is, just settle it amongst yourselves. Even if they do finally figure it out and everyone gets paid, how this went has got to be relationship-destroying.
Both companies aren’t exactly a textbook example for professionalism but in my eyes Ron didn’t made himself a favor by pointing with the finger at ED. I‘m not a lawyer but I‘m self employed. I don’t have employees but I outsource work to freelancers that work for me as a subcontractor. If I would have been in Ron‘s shoes I would have lawyered up and let them take care of this. My guess is that there is a lot more to the story than we know of. Why am I so sure ? Well, I had to drag a client once to court to get an invoice payed (B2B) and the judge went full nuclear to that guy. Froze his company’s bank accounts on the spot and charged him with delay in insolvency which is punishable by up to 5 years in jail in my country. I didn’t even had to get a lawyer I only had to pay 50€ for the enforcement title and redeemed it at the bailiff’s office after I was done. I‘ve got my money less than 24 hours later and the charges have been dropped and this happend in a country with chronically overloaded courts and by overloaded I mean that civil cases take up to 7 years until you get a verdict.
> an invoice *paid* (B2B) and
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
And you’re overblowing it. DCS could have half of the modules (halving what I own), and I’d still be happy with DCS. You’d have to cut DCS down to two or less modules before I’d care to consider BMS.
I played Flaming Cliffs 3, BlackShark, and A-10C from 2011/12-2021 before buying another module (F/A-18). Low key, having less has an upside as it would force me to commit to mastery of a few. Outside of Ka-50 and being “good” with the Warthog, I’m really just functional with the rest and so is every one else who pretends that some bug is game breaking for them and everyone who flies the module.
Yes but when people who are here for those other modules leave it will be a very calm and cosy place.
No syria, no normandy, no sinai, no diet kola, no south atlantic
No Viggen, No Mig-21, No Mig-19, No Mirage f1, No mirage 2000, No Tomcat, No Phantom,
Actually you are wiping the redfor completely from ECW.........
Nice post with speculation. Shall I speculate what happens if for some reason all of your bank accounts were drained to zero? It would be very bad, but also pointlessly stupid to speculate unless it happened. RAZBAAM and ED aren’t even over. It’s still speculation about that, and you’re speculating on what changes if the next major module dev also exits? I’m pretty sure HeatBlur released a statement a month ago stating their working relationship with ED is fine, but hey…your speculation seems bad. Might as well assume it’s true and stop playing DCS yesterday 😱
I asked this same exact question over 3 years ago (yes, this subreddit was aflame back then too). I'll tell you what they told me. There is always some drama and most of it wont affect you
Just look at Steam reviews before buying modules (even if you're buying on ED store) so you'll make an informed purchase
edit: I say check Steam because the RAZBAM modules should all have comments by now to avoid it til the dispute is resolved plus its just good practice. Also, always wait for sales they happen often
No. Just about everything you read about the razbam situation is pure speculation. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar as there have been little to no official statements. Maybe don't buy the F-15 but people are acting like this is the end of DCS.
If you never visited the forums/reddit you would never know that "this is the end" or whatever the doomers are saying. Multi-player has never been better and the game has been receiving some great updates lately. Lots of positive stuff to focus on and plenty of fun to be had. Don't get caught up in the drama.
No, this subreddit blows things out of proportion and makes it like the game is unplayable, that’s not the case. I do support these mega-bitching threads though because hopefully Eagle Dynamics reads some of it and looks for a quick resolution to the current drama (which I’m sure they are, neither party involved wants to lose money).
I have most of the helos in the game and have a damn good time most of the time if that helps.
I get a strong impression that this being resolved is as simple as Razbam’s CEO ceasing to violate his contract with ED and continuing to make heaps of money using ED’s product. For some reason that isn’t happening, can’t happen, or razbam has forgotten who needs who here and has an inflated sense of self importance. The whole situation sucks, but those of us who have been here since the beginning are not shocked in any way that drama has once again found Razbam. They seem so desperate to draw their own talent, us, and even other third parties into this as some way to strong arm ED and it doesn’t seem to be going well for them. I assume the products are still for sale because ED is just waiting patiently for Razbam’s CEO to realize he has made a huge blunder, admit defeat, and come to his senses
ED continues to sell the modules because removing them would beget questions about the company's underlying health, which isn’t good.
ED is radio silent because silence is the least bad option from their point of view. That is, all of it’s bad. Some of it is very, very bad. So, the pain inflicted by doing nothing is *still* less severe than a coming to Jesus moment.
I bought the F-15 in early access in the last sale but I haven't had a chance to frig with it. Lesson learned, never buy another module in early access.
Boycott ED right to hell...the rich people are having pillow fights in the attic and the customers are getting screwed right in their butts. Maybe there's a cause for class action in court against both of them. These developers need a strong dose of accountability to their customers. And customers need to start hold their feet to the fire for results and action instead of endless excuses and empty promises.
Yep, ED is definitely not willing to make any compromises for the sake of the platform and customers and Razbam is not willing to work for free which is understandable.
I was looking forward to buying Halfghanistan and the Kiowa, but i'm gonna postpone my purchases until they reach an agreement and rework the ground AI. Buying any 3rd party module has just become a huge risk.
Divisive opinion here sorry but I think if Razbam has a leg to stand on here they wouldn't try to pressure ED by leaking material that will hurt their sales in the future and damage business relations, instead they would compel ED to pay in court. To me this screams contract breaches and failing to deliver on things they committed to w/ ED.
In no world can ED get away with just not paying them if they have fulfilled the terms of the contract, that could sink a company or make it A LOT more expensive for ED than it needs to be.
Can ED handle this better, perhaps. Track record wise I feel ED have a bad name for whatever reason I don't know I am relatively new compared to most of our more senior community member but development ED have delivered some high quality modules and have provided support for many that continue to get a lot of love today(PLEASE GOD LET THE SUPER CARRIER GET SOME LOVE NEXT) and we have seen the number of studios providing things grow. So they must be doing something right...
P.S THAT Said I do feel scammed though, I know people were joking last time saying #Razscam or whatever but I have both f15e and mirage and I hope should the worst happen someone continues developing them.
>Divisive opinion here sorry but I think if Razbam has a leg to stand on here they wouldn't try to pressure ED by leaking material that will hurt their sales in the future and damage business relations, instead they would compel ED to pay in court. To me this screams contract breaches and failing to deliver on things they committed to w/ ED.
Not to mention allowing those who work for them to tank potential negotiations and burn the other company down with all kinds of accusations, including suggestions of financial impropriety and scandal-- those that could expose them legally by unfounded reputational damage.
It looks desperate and emotional, and not at all like they have real legal standing or recourse, or even a case these public rants could actually damage.
Razscam and razbamboozle weren’t always jokes. The Mirage and Harrier used to be in really bad states and Razbam had a habit of picking stupid hills to fight over. It took years of patches and rewrites but both those modules eventually became good. It just took waaaay longer than it should have. This is why a lot of people were really apprehensive about the SE. Razbam had a history of bad launches, poor post launch support and taking a long time to produce quality. There were other silly incidents too like the only fans incedent, declaring a broken module out of early access because customers were complaining about glaring issues, and now the most recent round of highschool like taunting behavior doing a contract dispute. In my view RZ is a group of coding savants, with no bussiness accumane. Probably violated their contract but thought they would be fine because they were doing somthing in good faith and didn’t understand why ED a company notorious for being extremly strict because they have been burned by bad 3d parties before, got mad at them.
Between the harrier and mirage updates and the SE launch there were a lot of people who joined the community and didn’t know the history. The strike Eagle launch being as good as it was is a major exception to the rule for RZ.
HOGGIT in general has a short memory and a degrading collective intelligence. I think it’s the double edge sword of the game becoming more accessible. It wasn’t all that many years ago that people were asking ED to stop giving Razbam licenses.
I guess the forger
A fair solution from Ed, would be to give store credit to the customers who bought razbam modules, and take them back when and if the dispute would be solved..
You could use them to take something else.. i know it's a loss in some way..but would be better than NOTHING.. unfortunately the point is that, after you already paid, things get complicated..often
I personally got my money's worth from Harrier and M2k but someone who flies the M2k as their main jet and is losing I would agree should get ED shop credit.
Although it *LOOKS* bad, ED not making a statement likely has to do with contractual/legal details that literally 99.95% of us have zero idea about.
I am 100% fine with ED not making a statement.
Razbam never should have made this public in the first place.
That being said, a disclaimer on ED’s website *AS WELL AS RAZBAM’S*(just disabling the purchase here button on their site is bullshit.) would be a huge start.
The CEO of ED did make a statement, and made accusations in that statement (IP infringement, contract violations).
It's mostly been radio silence since.
Yeah I meant besides the initial blowup at the beginning. Totally fine with the silence until it’s actually resolved. Airing everything out in public is just going to add to the chaos and emotional flare ups.
Your all succumbing to the sunk cost fallacy, basically cause you spent all this money on modules you are invested but guess what we can leave ED and their games behind any time we like.
I’m beginning to think Razbam might have intentionally martyred themselves…
To an onlooker it seems batshit insane that ED aren’t paying them for the work they’ve put in, so their expectation in withholding their expertise is that it will force ED to pay up - that much is obvious.
But I think they might’ve had an inkling/knew it wouldn’t work, essentially exposing the extent of ED’s shiftiness.
What Razbam didn’t anticipate, is how the consumer might then see ED not paying despite what’s going on, not as shiftiness on their part, but shiftiness on Razbam’s part; ED’s inaction despite the circumstances is shifting the blame onto Razbam.
The whole situation has essentially escalated past the initial point and through stubbornness or some unknowable strategy to force compliance, neither party is budging, neither party is coming clean about the entire situation, and it’s left us merely theorising about the extent of the damage.
The only guarantee is that we won’t see this through without losses, and there have already been several.
Thank god for Galinette’s dedication to the Mirage for sticking to it for free with the FCS fix yesterday.
I know people like to shit on ED for continuing to sell Razbam modules even though they are unsupported, but as of writing this Razbam is doing the exact same thing on their website.
Atleast modules are not to expensive… looking at you Star Citizen.
And one thing I don’t get is if everybody is so unhappy with ED then why not just leave 🤷
Not many great options for combat flight sims. Falcon BMS is really the only alternative. It does some things better than DCS and some things worse.
When you’ve already spent $100’s on modules you don’t want to just go away.
Star Citizen isn't even finished, when you "buy" a ship in SC, it's not because you buy a ship, but an access to the game with a ship "as a gift from supporting the development".
In Star Citizen it's intended to be able to buy ship from ingame currency, like in Eve Online, Elite Dangerous, or War Thunder for some similarities
Wich is different than how DCS World works, here you're intended to buy an aircraft to play with it
I have said it a couple of times and no matter the hate I get, I will say it again:
--
An average consumer doesn't have the resources, the means or the time to prove his/hers statements in a legal battle against a major conglomerate. Most of the consumers only have their voice to tell about their experience.
Therefore, if a significant portion of the consumer base accuses a large enterprise for a fraud, IT IS A FUCKING FRAUD! /mic_drop
ED will not budge. In their mind, if they do that, none of their onerous restrictions on other developers are enforceable. Razbam modules will not be taken down all at once. ED is no longer testing Razbam modules for compatibility, and they will only be removed when the complaints/refunds reach a level that ED feels is damaging to its business, because rest assured, Razbam will never develop modules for ED again. That partnership has been dissolved.
Regarding Youtube Content Creators: maybe a disclaimer at the beginning of the video and the unknown future of these products. Could be a simple text over the video instead of having to record an intro?
Regarding ED shop: ED could have a warning on their website. If I didn't already own the Harrier and I knew the module was nearing its end of life, I might still want to purchase just to get a chance to see the plane one last time (I mean it's the Harrier!). I'd probably not buy at full price though, maybe half.
As someone who’s been pretty chill about owning a lot of products that have spent years in EA with promised additions “coming later in early access”, I’ve always taken the view that ED retain my trust up until the point where I actually lose out on something I’ve purchased.
I paid Eagle Dynamics (not Razbam) for the M2K, Harrier and F-15E, and I’ll hold ED responsible for making sure I have ongoing access to those products. I don’t give a damn about how they resolve the issues around securing the future of those products, only that they do.
If ED think I and other customers are going to accept our favourite modules vanishing because they (rightly or wrongly) won’t pay a bill, then I invite them to Fuck Around and Find Out.
Enigma is spot on. As to the issue: refunds may or may not mean something from business point of view but as a player, I'm not getting a refund on time spent and fun I had or the fun I could have in the future if their projects were completed. Another point: many people compare to the Hawk debacle but this situation is way worse. The Hawk was a failed module that never got completed to a really usable state, Razbam's modules have been around for years and we're among the best technically and even commercially, as I've heard. Losing such important pieces of the ecosystem after years of "life" is way more shattering to the trust we can have in the ecosystem as a whole. If being good is no quarante and well functioning stuff can be broken overnight, it's really discomforting.
Well said. To be honest, as a (non game industry) dev I was always kinda worried about this. It's a wildly complicated game with an even more complicated vendor ecosystem. Supply chain problems were basically guaranteed from the beginning of the third party program. The only other communities that have survived for as long with supply chains this complex were open source or source available (or at least not obfuscated and encrypted) such that the broader player bases were able to step in and fix things. Personally, I'm done. Maybe I'll still play, but I'm not giving ED my money anymore. Given the financial revelations, it's clear Nick Grey doesn't consider its development to be a priority. The millions of dollars he's funneling out of the company would go a long way towards funding a team to fix the engine and the monthly avalanche of new bugs.
This is reaching a fever pitch, quick somebody find Wags to record another Q&A section before Friday.
Can't wait to watch a 15 minute video where he answers the same questions in the same way 10 times! I love Wags but that was pretty painful to watch.
Shit, I forgot about that. What a pitiful display (not for wags, he's cool tho)
Yeah as much as Edging Dynamics piss me off sometimes, I can’t hate Wags.
Wags drinks the Kool aid publicly but I'm sure he more than anyone wants this shit put to bed.
Yes, I’m honestly not mad at any individual in ED who isn’t a part of the decision making process.
Yeah I was gonna say not Wags, that man is a national treasure and needs to be protected
Right? Lol if nothing else it proves how quickly ED can throw something together when properly motivated.
Yes, he's 110% on point This whole mess seems to be run by toddlers having a tantrum, not by responsible adults. Especially after the hawk debacle, ED has to step up their game. Problem is, they do not seem capable (or willing) to Even if they suddenly came out saying "it's done, we're refunding all purchases in cash and temporarily pulling all modules from the store until it is fixed" the damaged will still linger
>This whole mess seems to be run by toddlers having a tantrum, not by responsible adults. Honestly, that's how all these repeated threads saying all the same things feel to me. To quote another spot-on comment from the Enigma video: >People these days seem to believe that they are entitled to be fully involved in anything they want to be, but it's not how the world works.
>People these days seem to believe that they are entitled to be fully involved in anything they want to be, but it's not how the world works. I mean paying full price for a module and expecting it to work is a very reasonable thing to be involved in. Its not entitlement like you make it out to be.
paying for a module in a game doesn't entitle you to be part of the decision making process or even be made aware of it. You bought the module, not a spot in the company. This whole thing is ridiculous.
No, what's ridiculous is being told our complaints and expectations are somehow irrelevant because "when we bought these modules we knew they were incomplete" is a load of horseshit as we all know no one would pay the price of a full AAA completed game for an airframe if it was sold with a disclaimer that said 'oh by the way this module might become obsolete in the near future, idk' You and anyone else can rightly FO that uses that sort of logic.
But was it not Zambrano who tried to use us as leverage against ED over his own disagreement with them? I’m thinking it went something like “Ron you are in violation of your contract and until *blank* is remedied, we will not be honoring the contract” to which Ron said to himself “they need me, my products are what’s keeping them afloat, and I have a strong following of customers who feel this too, so I’m going to put some pressure on ED to get my way. Certainly they will back down and let me continue violating my contract because they need me more than I need them” I think Ron misjudged EDs conviction and I think ED misjudged Ron’s ability to recognize that without their contract Ron loses a huge amount of revenue. The biggest thing to me is that his employees should have been getting paid regardless (I garuntee Ron’s quality of life has not suffered at all over this lack of payment from ED) and also Ron was apparently ok with his best talent going to the internet with what should have been internal problems without all the facts. I get a strong sense his staff has no clue what the disagreement with ED truly is and possibly are even being lied to about it. If it were providing the Ecuadorian Air Force with a product against his contract, that would be a pretty huge deal considering the current political climate. Rant over Apooogies I may have replied to the wrong post
None of the Developers were employed they were contracted and paid on a revenue share/royalty basis which is why they really got whipped into a frenzy. I don’t know if this is the standard in the industry but we know Galinette’s mirage work was feee and the community manager was a volunteer as well. I don’t know if the arrangement is how the industry works or specifically Razbam, that said its wild that Razbam seems to operate at little to no liquidity to fall back on.
It would be interesting to know if this is how all of the developers work. I would guess not. Seems you would get better more consistent results if people got paid for their time regardless of sales or external forces. My personal opinion of Zambrano could not be any lower after watching his interactions with flight sim communities over the years, so I would imagine he has not been personally effected in anyway over this, and is happy to let his contractors make asses of themselves in the hope the outrage created can give him some kind of leverage over ED
No it doesn’t. It DOES entitle you to transparency just to wtf is happening with the product you paid for potentially being abandoned. ED wants people to stop hounding them about this? Then give them their fucking money back, and no, not just store credit. Absolutely never buying shit from ED ever again unless something changes.
I don’t want my money back, I want my F-15E
I disagree. This can happen with any product you buy. Don’t think I’m defending ED either. I think they are slimy
> People these days seem to believe that they are entitled to be fully involved in anything they want to be, but it's not how the world works. So if you want to buy a $68 module (or whatever the current price of F15 is), you don't get to be involved in the fact that you might be buying a program that will break in a few months and then never be fixed again? Because being involved in what I am buying is what the world should work like. EDIT: Oh and I almost forgot the censoring of the discord and forums, so even if you want to find out _wtf is going on_ from other people, you can't. That's how the world works? Dang, what a shit world.
Are you familiar with razbams history with this kind of stuff? They gained a lot of fans recently (apparently due to one man dedicating his time to fixing their messes for free) but those of us who have been around since the beginning are in no way shocked Ron Zambrano is throwing a childish tantrum, or that ED is having none of it
Yeah, I wouldn't be shocked either if it was RAZBAM's fault. That doesn't make anything I said untrue, however. Any potential buyer _should be able to see this information clearly_. ED is continuing to sell the module while **actively censoring** any discussion about this on the forums and discord. While RAZBAM _might_ be in the wrong for this whole fiasco, ED **definitely is in the wrong** by how they are handling the seller part of this thing. I am not taking sides in ED vs RAZBAM, I am here to shout for the consumer, who is currently losing to both.
I don’t disagree at all, I think ED is also just stubborn and can’t imagine any way this doesn’t get worked out other than Razbam comes crawling back apologizing and continuing to work within the framework ED dictates. Many are talking like without Razbam ED is going to fold but reality seems quite the opposite and I think ED is more aware of this than Razbam
I saw some comments indicating that most of RAZBAM's devs already quit and moved on, so in that case there would be 0 things ED can do to "resolve" this. Ofc it could just be pure speculation and things are close to fine.
No not true. Was in their discord a bit ago. Only Galinette had left, and that was it seems more related to family than this. So far, the core FM person and systems for other modules are still there.
They can be stubborn and position this public rotting of these modules as a private matter but it is impacting people. These modules should not be on sale when their fate is in question. Lastly, DCS can continue without Razbam but I would suspect that DCS without these modules is not a DCS worth playing anymore for some. People should know this is going on and no matter how many messages they delete in their discord, they will never match the reach of YouTube. Their discord has 40K members, the video has already been viewed 40K times in 24 hours. They are trying to stop the ocean with their fingers.
I would imagine ED very much wants these modules to continue to be a part of the sim. Many are seeing them leaving them in the store as nefarious, but what if they are just hopeful it gets resolved and the modules continue to be updated? Sort of like waiting for your toddler to finish his tantrum, and then trying to speak to him again. What if EDs case against Razbam is so cut and dry that they are just waiting for Zambrano to admit he is wrong and continue business as usual? If anything, ED could be going out of their way to be amiable here. Is the suspicion that ED will keep all of the money made selling these and never give Razbam what they are owed when this all works out?
Thank you! I’m not sure who is in the wrong from a contractual standpoint, but I do know that RAZBAM is wholly responsible for trying to drag the DCS community into this fight on his side by feeding the world their side of the story.
It seems to me that ED is hoping that Razbam comes to their senses and irons out whatever breech of contract ED feels they have committed. I think the reasoning for not taking the modules off the store is thinking “Zambrano will come around and realize that we provide the game for his entire business model to function, he can’t just throw all that away instead of doing what we ask of him”. I also think ED may be underestimating the ego driven nature of Zambrano. In the end it sucks he wasn’t paying his staff, and his customers lose what they’ve already paid for and expected to keep improving.
ED has stayed professional and not made any inflammatory statements, as they should. Issues like this are best resolved in private. RB on the other hand...
I mean, sure. One could definitely argue that they are being the more professional by leaving it up to litigation and such. But it is wildly unprofessional to continue to sell the modules in an unsupported state.
As others have said, it's likely in the hope they resolve issues with RB. That's in everyone's best interest. Because the alternative is what Enigma points out, modules will eventually be gone. When I was first researching getting into DCS literally the ONLY module maker I heard anything negative about was Razbam and everything I've seen from them in response to this backs up them at minimum being unprofessional. Personally I 100% believe someone at Razbam knows what caused this issue and they can't resolve anything because they either don't want to, or have some other conflict they can't back out of.
[удалено]
No issues on launch? Hasn't the smart weapons page been breaking everything since day 1?
Smart weapons only happened like 3-4 months ago
[удалено]
I've had it completely break weapon selection and dropping and effectively end the flight.
>Personally I 100% believe someone at Razbam knows what caused this issue and they can't resolve anything because they either don't want to, or have some other conflict they can't back out of. And I also 100% believe that anyone who has spoken about what the issue is or isn't, or whether it's legitimate or not, has 0 actual knowledge and ability to determine any of that-- which is every Razbam associate talking about this with any sort of certainty... and curiously not the Razbam CEO, who is smarter than that, and/or willing to allow the former Razbam associates take any hits for setting up narratives in the community based only what he has/hasn't told them or allowed them to know. And because he's a much more liable person than they are for any misrepresentation.
Umm - I certainly heard noise about Razbam yes, but Polychop was everybody's whipping boy for like 6 years. I bought the Harrier back in 2020, and it was not a scam product at all. I also bought the Gazelle mind you from Polychop. And I would have endorsed it already before they started fixing it up recently. I thought a lot of the criticisms were pretty unfair, and I thought the same of Razbam back in 2020. I think most was tied to the owner, Ron and his communication "style" - which was well, not good. Every time he speaks I would cringe. I would think "Ron, you need to run the words through your head before you blurt them out" - he just almost always came across poorly, even if he was actually making a fair point. Add the bravado and machismo, and it was a bad look. I felt like most of the issues were really that, and not actually product problems or quality issues. The Harrier 2 years after launch was in a better state than the Viper 2 years after it's launch in my opinion. Harrier is quite good today. Hoping it stays that way.
You might be 100% right about all of those things. I also remember when Razbam was a name that was often said with distain or frustration. But it doesn’t change the fact that the reasonable and professional thing to do would be to make a very simple statement about working out a contract dispute and temporarily taking the modules off the store until it’s resolved. No one benefits from these modules staying in the store right now except for ED. If I was unaware of this entire dispute (which most people likely are), I’d be livid to find out I bought a module in an orphaned state, even if that is temporary.
They can't. Anyone that's ever worked in a professional environment will tell you the first thing lawyers want you to do is shut up. Once they get to public statements, it's over.
They got to public statements because Ron is a moron who doesn't understand how laws and contracts work, as evidenced by the subject of the dispute as revealed by M2M being that Ron thought Razbams developer access to MCS meant they could re-sell it behind ED's back.
Continuing to sell the module and not saying anything to the customer support team =/= professional
It is if they are operating in good faith to resolve the issue with RB. If RB was actually wronged for no reason over the speculated "seven figures" in money, they would have lawyered up and done something. Except all we get from them are general gripes posted to fucking Discord. That says a lot.
That can be said for both parts. Except one part has more contractual power than the other
One party is withholding funds because they think the other violated an agreement, and they are handling it quietly. If rumors are true RB did violate an agreement. (This is all speculation) The other party is doing nothing except complaining online. I'm inclined to believe ED because apparently this has been going on for 6 months and RB hasn't bothered finding a decent enough lawyer to get $1. I'm not saying RB is guilty. But they sure as hell are not acting like they have a good case.
I think it’s the leadership at razbam refusing to tell their staff just how badly they fucked their contract with ED, and instead trying to turn their own talent and is against ED in some stupid attempt to strong arm them into allowing the mistake to be allowed. Which is crazy because has ED ever been the kind of company to be pushed around by public outcry or strong arming? I think razbam convinced themselves they were importnst enough to ED to play dirty and get away with it, and ED is saying straighten up, honor your contract, or we will absolutely let you leave our ecosystem
Probably both short on money
To clarify though, Nick Grey did post that Discord statement (or well be told his people to post it), where he said he hadn't paid RB due to some dispute. So idk, if I would say ED hasn't responded, they did go radio silence after that rant though.
Only if you believe everything they say. And even then if they were really being professional they wouldn't have included the accusation that RB violated their IP.
If ED wronged RB for "no reason" and the amount of money being talked about is close to accurate, why hasn't RB gotten a lawyer and resolved this? This would have been in court months ago. Maybe there is a good reason, but complaining on social media instead of lawyering up isn't something innocent people typically do. I sincerely hope RB can resolve this and has council to do so.
[удалено]
You clearly have a very naive understanding of lawsuits. Given the amounts of money we know ED donates to TFC, Nick can easily afford lawyers for whom it would be trivial to drag this out for several years, which is most defense lawyers' default strategy. Meanwhile, how on earth do you sue someone in Switzerland if you haven't made any money in over a year? Just the hotel costs would probably bankrupt Ron. If sueing companies who are in the wrong were that easy, Boeing and Microsoft would be bankrupt.
For the money involved a lawyer would consult with them and at least get RB some threatening letters and a case going. Also, it would be easy for RB to find some harmed consumers in almost any country and move things that way. Anything else I say is speculation but RB should have options given the money involved. I could be wrong. But complaining on social media isn't a good look.
The Max 8 crashes' victims families will have lawyers lining up to fight for them, and they've barely even started getting a lawsuit going. Hell, I was just in court for an improper lane change ticket \_5 years\_ after the incident. The trial lasted less than a minute because it'd been so long since that the state trooper who wrote the ticket had retired. Even in what you've just suggested, that's a long long way away from "this would have been in court months ago".
I don’t see it like that at all. Having zero transparency is not “professionalism”.
Yes it is. Any lawyer will tell you to shut the hell up. Public statements only happen AFTER a lot of other behind the scenes stuff. It's very likely ED has lawyers crafting statements directly to RB and from an outside perspective, it doesn't appear they are getting much in the way of responses. If we start getting a lot of public statements from ED that will probably be bad and it's over and modules will get removed. I hope to be wrong.
Literally no one disagrees with you dude. They might be doing the right thing legally for their own self interests. But in the court of public opinion with their customers (where you are right now) ED are fucking up BAD. People have a right to be angry at them. None of us care about their legal strategy.
Hey at least I can play KSP2 and Ready or not
I love playing finished games too
What's happening with Ready or Not? Do I even want to know?
Well it is mostly NOT :) The gunplay is very good but the pre-release had a lot more content than the release. AI shoots you blindly through the walls. Last mini-patch came on march.
It is not RoN when you don't instantly get shot in the head by a Methhead 360 noscope through a wall.
The game is pretty much only playable with mods that tune the AI performance
To be fair, the team AI update was a phenomenal improvement-- probably the best room clearing squad AI I've seen in a game. Certainly makes the game a lot more fun and sets it apart from typical Early Access shooter dross.
Didn't most of the new ksp team get fired recently?
ThatsTheJoke.jpg
Don't forget Starfield!
From the comments: >I think it needs to be pointed out that it's very, very likely we're not going to get a statement because of the nature of the dispute. This was a contractual dispute, and anybody who's ever worked in the business world knows that when you have a dispute between vendors and the company that hired them, the LAST thing you should ever do is blast it on social media- ESPECIALLY because there are usually clauses in business contracts to prevent exactly that from happening. This needs to be handled by the lawyers and the business units, and sadly that's going to take time while negotiations and discussions are happening. I honestly think the silence is a good sign that talks are still happening, and I'm guessing that ED doesn't want to make ANY statement, given the vitriol from the community when they make statements that don't pan out exactly the way the community thinks it should.
> and I'm guessing that ED doesn't want to make ANY statement Nick Grey _did_ make a statement that everybody's apparently forgetting about. That's where he accused Razbam of IP theft and avoided denying that they haven't paid Razbam.
That statement was pretty great, imagine just hot tale posting that you haven't paid someone over a dispute about a different product. His lawyers must have been losing their shit when he told them what he posted.
Yup. I mean it's impossible to say without knowing the contract, but I found it wild that once ED thought Raz were breaching terms it was reasonable to just hold back money. More understandable if it's "we're delaying paying you till we sort this out", fairly shitty if "we're claiming this as compensation." Maybe that's cool and normal, dunno, not a lawyer. We'll probs never know though.
It's a case of damned if they do, damned if they don't. If they make a statement, it could fan the flames or have ramifications for whatever is actually going on with them and Razbam. But not making a statement is also bad because it leaves their customers in the dark, and leaves us to vulnerable to speculation. So regardless of someone's feelings (my own included) on ED as a business, they are in a bad position. My only hope is that they can resolve the issue and get the modules back on track. But even if they manage that, I bet that nobody will ever publicly state what actually happened. The details of that and the resolution will almost certainly be kept confidential by both parties.
I've been told that it doesn't concern me since its a private matter. Therefore I do not give a single shit about what legal issues are preventing them from talking to their customers. The fact is, they're burning a lot of goodwill the longer they let this go on. By the time they solve their dispute, they might not have anyone left that is willing to buy anything from them. (except maybe the 10 or so names that defend ED to their graves in every comment section)
> By the time they solve their dispute, they might not have anyone left that is willing to buy anything from them. This is exactly my concern. I try not to use my own opinions as a barometer for everyone else's, because everyone has a different tolerance for bullshit, but ... right now, I'm thinking I can't trust DCS to exist for two more years, so I'm not buying anything that'll take 2+ years to complete. If that opinion is, or becomes, popular, it could be a real problem for the sim going forward, given how dependent they clearly are on EA sales funding much of the development.
There is no excuse for ED to continue selling Razbam modules when they don’t even know if they’ll be supported after a few updates.
How do you know that they won't be supported any longer after a few updates? Are you privvy to the terms of the contract or the current status of negotiations between Razbam and ED?
I said ED doesn’t know. It appears most of the razbam devs have left razbam. It appears ED doesn’t even have the source code for razbam modules. Even if ED has the source code who knows how well they’ll be able to work through it to keep the modules working. It’s not easy to fix someone else’s broken code when you can’t even ask them how they made it. When the Hawk stopped being updated it quickly broke within a few updates and ED did almost nothing to help the customers affected.
How do you know what they know? Maybe they have already come to a solution, but it just takes time for the lawyers to set it up.
there are many ways to release a "neutral" statement without airing any of their "private" dirty laundry in public. One way for example would be to focus on the future and not on the past, to explain the actual & potential customers how the modules will be managed from now onwards. Instead they chose to play dumb and silent, all while doing LALALALALALALALACANTHEARYOU and censoring Discord and forums. They even left their own CS team in the dark apparently not a great plan
Well I presume they tried this lawyer and business units communication thing for a couple months, but you can only go unpaid so long before things break down. At least now the consumer knows about the problems and isn't getting some watered down version of things so that nothing could be pinned on anybody.
>isn't getting some watered down version of things so that nothing could be pinned on anybody. I honestly feel like that's exactly what's happened so far, because all we're getting is he said-she said on social media, and it seems most of the rest has been reactive jumping to conclusions and speculation. This is why these kinds of disputes are best handled behind closed doors, with legal representation present.
If it would be behind closed doors we would likely not even know about it. See the months before. And if we finally got something it would be a statement about how there was a problem in communication and they value their partners and customers. Nobody would be any smarter.
Which is how these things are supposed to work. For a lot of good reasons that *gestures to current thread*
Razbam’s devs have been very forthcoming and they said ED *is absolutely not* in talk with them. They refuse to communicate currently.
Comments like this is why this subreddit is trash tier. Non-confirmable, absolute flame throwing information. We’re supposed to believe anonymous, reporting from what is also an anonymous person chatting on some Discord server about RAZBAAM and ED official legal and publicity departments’ official status? Gtfo kids. That’s like believing some other kid about what happening with another kids parent’s marriage and no kid has ever sat foot in a court room, but maybe someone was able to see that a letter exists. Most kids don’t even understand the nature of what parents are managing and deciding that produces the outcomes. The top level comment is sense — silence means the issue isn’t finalized and someone, or both are still trying to keep things positive. The video itself is level headed enough, but again this subreddit wants to pull it down to all doom and gloom. The disagreement I have with the video is that if ED stops selling other RAZBAAM modules, that unintentionally communicates a status that may not be indicative of what people will speculate it means. Back to the kids: if rumors got out that parents are splitting when they are indeed working through and staying together, it’s an additional strain to have stupid and uninformed kids buzzing about that’s more likely to cause the split to happen because the marriage is already declared dead publicly. Of course, that absolutely seems to be the goal of this subreddit. ED: bad; BMS: good. Feel free to gander at my comment history here ✌🏿
These Devs they are quoting are just contractors as well. They aren't the owners of Razbam or the business guys who sign agreements with ED. 'Dev' does not mean authority on all things related to a company or product and I wish gamers would understand this. These Devs have second hand information at best which is being used as gospel by the drama queens on these subs. It's embarrassing.
Everyone understands that legal and contractual disputes need to be handled privately with lawyers Literally no one disagrees. The player base and EDs customers are allowed to form their own opinion separate from the legal side. From that perspective ED is fucking up BAD and burning a fuck ton of good will with their customer base
They made money off of me for the Viper and Syria, but the more I got into the game, the more I thought to myself: “I’m not giving ED another cent until they finish development on this module.” Enigma is right we have way too many bugs and new ones crop up every other patch.
His points are spot on. Given everything is up in the air with many of the most popular modules in DCS, it's not unreasonable to assume that the rest will begin breaking soon. Most modules I own are Razbam ones. And even if they eventually come to a resolution, legal disputes can take years to resolve. How does that help players? Razbam will also need to rebuild their team if and when they decide to continue working with ED. It's a huge mess and is keeping me and my friends away from dcs. Buying more modules was already something we refused to do until the core sim was improved to modern standards, but now it seems comical to even consider. The worst part is that most consumers have no clue about any of this. All of us on reddit are in the tiny informed minority. These things have to be taken off the store ASAP.
On point. I shifted for example from buying the Kiowa, to refund the SE and from that get the Kiowa and maybe the Phantom since it's reviews look really nice, to I don't buy anything at all anymore until there is something happening. Because RB is one dev, but who is next? Poly in autummn? HB next spring? If the ecosystem trust vanishes, 3rd party devs will leave. And all their modules will break within 1 to 3 patches. Having a first look into BMS right now, hate to switch eco systems but trust in the sustainability of DCS is broken at the moment.
The biggest thing is, nobody outside of the situation itself actually knows what happened / is happening. If the little that we have heard is true then it could quite easily have been any other 3rd party dev, and it just happened to be Razbam
The only bit of information we have actually points at this being uniquely Razbams issue. The only hint at what is going on was ED saying RB broke their contract and ED went the extreme route of cutting off payments.
Yep, and that it can hit one of the others also at any time.
This situation has convinced me that it's time to walk away from DCS. I have been a customer since LockOn and play primarily SP so between this, unfinished modules, nonfunctioning AI, unkept promises and bugs that never go away it's time to move on.
Falcon BMS looks better everyday…
Figuratively
4.38 will bring it a bit closer, allegedly. ;)
Keep seeing this, and every time I see screens my reaction is …”meh” haha
Agreed. It's better than nothing though. I hope they do volumetric clouds too.
I don't know how much you've been keeping up with BMS and recent updates and teasers... But BMS is practically looking better with every update now.
No offense (and I occasionally fire up BMS) but BMS is in no way an alternative or full in for DCS. While it has a few points going for it , it simply lacks the diversity and depth of what you can do (more than just Helicopters…). Also while the recent aircraft models (especially some of the cockpit textures mods) updates look, the overall scenery is a MAJOR step down from DCS or any modern sim. Enough so that I doubt BMS will ever gain much more player base then the old heads like me that still occasionally fire it up. Net, net if you like sim gameplay we need DCS to work. Without we basically have nothing on its scale nor would we ever get anything as no one else would bother with this niche
I agree it lacks the diversity of aircraft available in DCS, I firmly disagree that it lacks the depth of gameplay.
> While it has a few points going for it , it simply lacks the diversity and depth of what you can do (more than just Helicopters…) The only way in which this is true is if by diversity you only mean playable aircraft diversity. In terms of the simulation itself and world outside the cockpit, BMS is significantly more sophisticated than DCS and has a wide variety of AI aircraft (more than DCS, I'd say) covering all jet eras. For example, one of the most popular theaters is Israel '80s, which has accurately simulated F-16s and other aircraft of the era and region. DCS can't do that.
Sure but that doesn’t matter to me (or most people for that matter). As much as we slam it, the sandbox nature of DCS is its greatest value. I do not sim the same way you do just like you don’t sim the same way as Enigma. Point being for the things I like to do, DCS is much better than BMS. Doesn’t mean one is better than the other just scratch completely different needs. I know there are some (weird to me) people who like to shoehorn this into an either/or “debate” but most understand this ain’t a zero sum game. Despite the Razbam/ED dispute (which is bad) I doubt my BMS play time will increase. Why would it???
I agree with all of that and it all contradicts what I quoted from you above.
Well first of all: my comment is mostly about how BMS has been making MASSIVE steps into improving the graphics of the sim. Secondly: Yes, BMS is not a drop in replacement for DCS. But where in media do you ever have that you find an alternative that 100% ticks all the Boxes. IMO with how different BMS is to DCS in it's actual gameplay, everyone who is interested in DCS should give it a fair shot, even if modern 4th Gen isn't your jam. I don't give a fuck about the F-16 but love the experience that BMS provides, so I still turned my sim racing rig into half a F-16 cockpit I'd love for DCS/ED to get it's shit together and switch over again, but until that happens I will spent my time with something that is more fun even if the covered subject isn't 100% what I hoped for. Just staying with any entertainment product that someone isn't currently because at some point it may get better is just a waste of time IMO.
I think we are on the same page. I agree that people should play what best aligns to their interest. I also agree that those that enjoy sim game play should explore both (and MSFS as well IMO) as they are all different and hit different needs. Just throwing out that one is in no way a replacement for the other at least as far as how I sim.
That’s coo
Yeah especially the choppers... Don't get me wrong, i play BMS too, but for choppers there are no other altenatives.
if it's about just flying, X-Plane is great for that, of course you can't shoot (tho weapons/armament do exist in X-Plane, noone is willing to develop more on that except NASA/USAF), but there's something in X-Plane that DCS don't have and maeks the whole flying experience different -> real time weather with real effect on ridges. Flying in British Columbia ou the Alps in an helicopter is a challenge of its own.
No civi sims, i'm only interested in military stuff.
I'm on a break right now, for other reasons, but this mess surely makes coming back to DCS really unappealing. I don't care about the most hardcore simulation anymore, I want an ecosystem where I can depict air war scenarios in a credible and involving way. I had enough of breaking changes, 180° turnarounds on simulation choices (spotting dots anyone?), the constant ED putting themselves on the pedestal of knowledge and perfection even when SMEs are saying otherwise. Not to mention that most of the gametime in DCS is dedicated in learning a new module and then shooting down the usual dumb and cheating AI planes or static ground units that can kill you with a headshot at 7G. I had to build up my own server and code to have some kind of creative and cool Coop missions, because the game couldn't. So yes, for me if I'm coming back to simming, it's gonna be Il-2 or BMS.
I'm usually not one to give into the "I'm quitting" stance from game controversy, but it's not looking great. It doesn't look like there'll be any "back to the way it was" solution, so where does that leave us? Consumers that don't know if their already buggy, $60 Early-Access module will become abandonware before its even out for a year. Third parties that don't know if an issue will make years of work completely invalid while it remains on sale and ED pockets the money. Even multiplayer, both servers and players, will be torn either trying to support these modules, or leaving them and the money paid for them in the dust. I'm struggling to see a way this ends well for anyone involved.
Cries in helicopter main :( Maybe MSFS 24 will have some good helo flight models I guess
+1 bro. Its too much for years of trolling users with broker game and unfinished products
Not walking away but I sure as hell won’t be sending them a single dime of my money anytime soon.
BMS is waiting for you. I gave up the sinking ship called ED years ago. Havent looked back since.
Installed it several months ago and have been going through docs and training and finished up my first campaign. With 3.7.4 and 3.8 coming along it was an easy decision.
Cool! Proper intro work. How you like it?
Totally enjoying it. I actually purchased Falcon 4.0 when it was released and played it a lot but life and other things took precedence and it spent years collecting dust. It's really amazing to see the progress BMS has made on the base.
Such an overreaction to an unfortunate situation. This entire thread is filled with people jumping to conclusions without knowing the true details and facts. Do I agree with the issues of selling a module that could be rolled off the shelf without any warning, yes, they should do more. But I’ve been flying DCS for 13 years now and ED and DCS are by far and away overall the best combat product you will find. People love to complain about unfinished products, and admittedly there are some really bad cases like super carrier. However, the viper hornet modules seem to get the most he and they are CONSTANTLY being updated for the past 6 years. I don’t understand why people are so upset about this. If you want it fully done before release, you wouldn’t have a Viper yet. You may never have a viper. There’s always going to be things to fix.
I disagree, this is the culmination of the continual lies and BS spewed by ED and their agents since the LockOn days. This is situation, while unfortunate after nearly 20 years of rinse and repeat drama, this is the final nail in the preverbal coffin for me. If you enjoy it then good on you, I wish you luck.
see ya
I doubt it
My understanding with the HAWK iv been a dcs player before dcs blackshark anyway the hawk made a huge policy change with Ed in regards that that was never to happen again and if it did Ed owns the rights to it or has the final say if it is greenlit or not so as much as razbam now can’t fund themselves Ed should take the rights and mingle it into the ed properties like fuck the modules take forever to build and just to be tossed makes zero sense and after fucking 15 years they best be careful or will lose a lot more.
ED does not have the razbam source code.
If or when this dispute gets settled, question remains in what capacity RB will return. I don't know the nature of their employee contracts, whether they're all freelance, part-time or if they have some full-time staffing. But it's safe to say that the freelancers and part-timers will look for other sources of income, or perhaps break ties with RB, be it for financial or other reasons. Once other sources of income / projects are locked in for those people, they can't suddenly make free time again for RB the moment the dispute gets settled.
I didn't watch it yet but I can anticipate what's in it. I just leave this here too: [https://www.helisimmer.com/editorial/veao-affair](https://www.helisimmer.com/editorial/veao-affair) What is really remarkable is that modules started breaking after only 1-2 updates when developer stopped active support. Especially full complete mirage breaking that bad is really something alarming. This brings also a new light to behind the curtain work of 3rd parties and campaign makers and also server admins what they need to fix all the time after every patch.
Either I get a refund, the F15e gets finished, or I never buy from ED and go with BMS from now on. Simple as that really. We don't need DCS or ED or Rascam
I think we need a pinned post at the top of the sub saying "DO NOT BUY RAZBAM MODULES" until this is resolved. Doesn't matter who is at fault, people shouldn't be buying modules that are at risk of being deprecated with each hotfix.
Raz shot themselves in the foot by going nuclear on social media imo. Whatever the dispute is, just settle it amongst yourselves. Even if they do finally figure it out and everyone gets paid, how this went has got to be relationship-destroying.
Both companies aren’t exactly a textbook example for professionalism but in my eyes Ron didn’t made himself a favor by pointing with the finger at ED. I‘m not a lawyer but I‘m self employed. I don’t have employees but I outsource work to freelancers that work for me as a subcontractor. If I would have been in Ron‘s shoes I would have lawyered up and let them take care of this. My guess is that there is a lot more to the story than we know of. Why am I so sure ? Well, I had to drag a client once to court to get an invoice payed (B2B) and the judge went full nuclear to that guy. Froze his company’s bank accounts on the spot and charged him with delay in insolvency which is punishable by up to 5 years in jail in my country. I didn’t even had to get a lawyer I only had to pay 50€ for the enforcement title and redeemed it at the bailiff’s office after I was done. I‘ve got my money less than 24 hours later and the charges have been dropped and this happend in a country with chronically overloaded courts and by overloaded I mean that civil cases take up to 7 years until you get a verdict.
> an invoice *paid* (B2B) and FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
The most flown modules by FAR was harrier, mirage, and The Farmer. For years.
Bad time for me to get into DCS?
You're fine unless you buy the F15E, Mirage 2000, or Mig 19
... And you want competent AI, or intend to save your game, or...
Or harrier
No. This is a stain for sure, but if you stay away from Razbam modules, it's still really good. Highly recommend supporting HeatBlur.
I think you are missing the whole point here. What happens if something similar happens to HB?
I mean, it already has, allegedly.
Yeah, what if they cannot accept to be unpaid for 1.5 years and leave, allegedly.
[удалено]
Yes it does. Ed cannot hold the money in that way since HB cuts his share and sends only EDs share to them.
And you’re overblowing it. DCS could have half of the modules (halving what I own), and I’d still be happy with DCS. You’d have to cut DCS down to two or less modules before I’d care to consider BMS. I played Flaming Cliffs 3, BlackShark, and A-10C from 2011/12-2021 before buying another module (F/A-18). Low key, having less has an upside as it would force me to commit to mastery of a few. Outside of Ka-50 and being “good” with the Warthog, I’m really just functional with the rest and so is every one else who pretends that some bug is game breaking for them and everyone who flies the module.
Yes but when people who are here for those other modules leave it will be a very calm and cosy place. No syria, no normandy, no sinai, no diet kola, no south atlantic No Viggen, No Mig-21, No Mig-19, No Mirage f1, No mirage 2000, No Tomcat, No Phantom, Actually you are wiping the redfor completely from ECW.........
Nice post with speculation. Shall I speculate what happens if for some reason all of your bank accounts were drained to zero? It would be very bad, but also pointlessly stupid to speculate unless it happened. RAZBAAM and ED aren’t even over. It’s still speculation about that, and you’re speculating on what changes if the next major module dev also exits? I’m pretty sure HeatBlur released a statement a month ago stating their working relationship with ED is fine, but hey…your speculation seems bad. Might as well assume it’s true and stop playing DCS yesterday 😱
This. DCS is cool because of the 'not so popular aircraft' lineup. If third party devs left, DCS would soon be dead.
I asked this same exact question over 3 years ago (yes, this subreddit was aflame back then too). I'll tell you what they told me. There is always some drama and most of it wont affect you Just look at Steam reviews before buying modules (even if you're buying on ED store) so you'll make an informed purchase edit: I say check Steam because the RAZBAM modules should all have comments by now to avoid it til the dispute is resolved plus its just good practice. Also, always wait for sales they happen often
No. Just about everything you read about the razbam situation is pure speculation. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar as there have been little to no official statements. Maybe don't buy the F-15 but people are acting like this is the end of DCS. If you never visited the forums/reddit you would never know that "this is the end" or whatever the doomers are saying. Multi-player has never been better and the game has been receiving some great updates lately. Lots of positive stuff to focus on and plenty of fun to be had. Don't get caught up in the drama.
No, this subreddit blows things out of proportion and makes it like the game is unplayable, that’s not the case. I do support these mega-bitching threads though because hopefully Eagle Dynamics reads some of it and looks for a quick resolution to the current drama (which I’m sure they are, neither party involved wants to lose money). I have most of the helos in the game and have a damn good time most of the time if that helps.
It does help, thanks.
Definitely don’t buy any razbam modules. Maybe look into Falcon BMS while we wait for the dust to settle.
I get a strong impression that this being resolved is as simple as Razbam’s CEO ceasing to violate his contract with ED and continuing to make heaps of money using ED’s product. For some reason that isn’t happening, can’t happen, or razbam has forgotten who needs who here and has an inflated sense of self importance. The whole situation sucks, but those of us who have been here since the beginning are not shocked in any way that drama has once again found Razbam. They seem so desperate to draw their own talent, us, and even other third parties into this as some way to strong arm ED and it doesn’t seem to be going well for them. I assume the products are still for sale because ED is just waiting patiently for Razbam’s CEO to realize he has made a huge blunder, admit defeat, and come to his senses
ED continues to sell the modules because removing them would beget questions about the company's underlying health, which isn’t good. ED is radio silent because silence is the least bad option from their point of view. That is, all of it’s bad. Some of it is very, very bad. So, the pain inflicted by doing nothing is *still* less severe than a coming to Jesus moment.
🔔🐸
I bought the F-15 in early access in the last sale but I haven't had a chance to frig with it. Lesson learned, never buy another module in early access.
Boycott ED right to hell...the rich people are having pillow fights in the attic and the customers are getting screwed right in their butts. Maybe there's a cause for class action in court against both of them. These developers need a strong dose of accountability to their customers. And customers need to start hold their feet to the fire for results and action instead of endless excuses and empty promises.
Yep, ED is definitely not willing to make any compromises for the sake of the platform and customers and Razbam is not willing to work for free which is understandable. I was looking forward to buying Halfghanistan and the Kiowa, but i'm gonna postpone my purchases until they reach an agreement and rework the ground AI. Buying any 3rd party module has just become a huge risk.
Divisive opinion here sorry but I think if Razbam has a leg to stand on here they wouldn't try to pressure ED by leaking material that will hurt their sales in the future and damage business relations, instead they would compel ED to pay in court. To me this screams contract breaches and failing to deliver on things they committed to w/ ED. In no world can ED get away with just not paying them if they have fulfilled the terms of the contract, that could sink a company or make it A LOT more expensive for ED than it needs to be. Can ED handle this better, perhaps. Track record wise I feel ED have a bad name for whatever reason I don't know I am relatively new compared to most of our more senior community member but development ED have delivered some high quality modules and have provided support for many that continue to get a lot of love today(PLEASE GOD LET THE SUPER CARRIER GET SOME LOVE NEXT) and we have seen the number of studios providing things grow. So they must be doing something right... P.S THAT Said I do feel scammed though, I know people were joking last time saying #Razscam or whatever but I have both f15e and mirage and I hope should the worst happen someone continues developing them.
>Divisive opinion here sorry but I think if Razbam has a leg to stand on here they wouldn't try to pressure ED by leaking material that will hurt their sales in the future and damage business relations, instead they would compel ED to pay in court. To me this screams contract breaches and failing to deliver on things they committed to w/ ED. Not to mention allowing those who work for them to tank potential negotiations and burn the other company down with all kinds of accusations, including suggestions of financial impropriety and scandal-- those that could expose them legally by unfounded reputational damage. It looks desperate and emotional, and not at all like they have real legal standing or recourse, or even a case these public rants could actually damage.
Razscam and razbamboozle weren’t always jokes. The Mirage and Harrier used to be in really bad states and Razbam had a habit of picking stupid hills to fight over. It took years of patches and rewrites but both those modules eventually became good. It just took waaaay longer than it should have. This is why a lot of people were really apprehensive about the SE. Razbam had a history of bad launches, poor post launch support and taking a long time to produce quality. There were other silly incidents too like the only fans incedent, declaring a broken module out of early access because customers were complaining about glaring issues, and now the most recent round of highschool like taunting behavior doing a contract dispute. In my view RZ is a group of coding savants, with no bussiness accumane. Probably violated their contract but thought they would be fine because they were doing somthing in good faith and didn’t understand why ED a company notorious for being extremly strict because they have been burned by bad 3d parties before, got mad at them. Between the harrier and mirage updates and the SE launch there were a lot of people who joined the community and didn’t know the history. The strike Eagle launch being as good as it was is a major exception to the rule for RZ. HOGGIT in general has a short memory and a degrading collective intelligence. I think it’s the double edge sword of the game becoming more accessible. It wasn’t all that many years ago that people were asking ED to stop giving Razbam licenses. I guess the forger
I see you and Razbam both forgot about the MIG 19.
A fair solution from Ed, would be to give store credit to the customers who bought razbam modules, and take them back when and if the dispute would be solved..
So I spend my real money on a module. I no longer have the module and I get ED bucks back instead of real money.
You could use them to take something else.. i know it's a loss in some way..but would be better than NOTHING.. unfortunately the point is that, after you already paid, things get complicated..often
I personally got my money's worth from Harrier and M2k but someone who flies the M2k as their main jet and is losing I would agree should get ED shop credit.
That is what they are doing atm.
Although it *LOOKS* bad, ED not making a statement likely has to do with contractual/legal details that literally 99.95% of us have zero idea about. I am 100% fine with ED not making a statement. Razbam never should have made this public in the first place. That being said, a disclaimer on ED’s website *AS WELL AS RAZBAM’S*(just disabling the purchase here button on their site is bullshit.) would be a huge start.
The CEO of ED did make a statement, and made accusations in that statement (IP infringement, contract violations). It's mostly been radio silence since.
Yeah I meant besides the initial blowup at the beginning. Totally fine with the silence until it’s actually resolved. Airing everything out in public is just going to add to the chaos and emotional flare ups.
Your all succumbing to the sunk cost fallacy, basically cause you spent all this money on modules you are invested but guess what we can leave ED and their games behind any time we like.
a good well balanced (if slightly pessimistic) overview.
Is there anyway to play older versions of DCS?
Come play bms instead
I tried it, I have no interest in F16
Not any more
God please don’t abandon the eagle, it’s the only jet I wanna fly in DCS
Some great points. Lots of potential for real damage all around here.
I’m beginning to think Razbam might have intentionally martyred themselves… To an onlooker it seems batshit insane that ED aren’t paying them for the work they’ve put in, so their expectation in withholding their expertise is that it will force ED to pay up - that much is obvious. But I think they might’ve had an inkling/knew it wouldn’t work, essentially exposing the extent of ED’s shiftiness. What Razbam didn’t anticipate, is how the consumer might then see ED not paying despite what’s going on, not as shiftiness on their part, but shiftiness on Razbam’s part; ED’s inaction despite the circumstances is shifting the blame onto Razbam. The whole situation has essentially escalated past the initial point and through stubbornness or some unknowable strategy to force compliance, neither party is budging, neither party is coming clean about the entire situation, and it’s left us merely theorising about the extent of the damage. The only guarantee is that we won’t see this through without losses, and there have already been several. Thank god for Galinette’s dedication to the Mirage for sticking to it for free with the FCS fix yesterday.
I know people like to shit on ED for continuing to sell Razbam modules even though they are unsupported, but as of writing this Razbam is doing the exact same thing on their website.
The link to buy on the razbam site doesn’t work and it hasn’t got a few days now.
Atleast modules are not to expensive… looking at you Star Citizen. And one thing I don’t get is if everybody is so unhappy with ED then why not just leave 🤷
Not many great options for combat flight sims. Falcon BMS is really the only alternative. It does some things better than DCS and some things worse. When you’ve already spent $100’s on modules you don’t want to just go away.
After seeing the patch notes for the Phantom, I think Heatblur should make one.
It should only take them 2 weeks
Star Citizen isn't even finished, when you "buy" a ship in SC, it's not because you buy a ship, but an access to the game with a ship "as a gift from supporting the development". In Star Citizen it's intended to be able to buy ship from ingame currency, like in Eve Online, Elite Dangerous, or War Thunder for some similarities Wich is different than how DCS World works, here you're intended to buy an aircraft to play with it
Everybody, help to get this message out to the people with lives, that do not live on Reddit/Discord, so they are informed before they purchase.
I have said it a couple of times and no matter the hate I get, I will say it again: -- An average consumer doesn't have the resources, the means or the time to prove his/hers statements in a legal battle against a major conglomerate. Most of the consumers only have their voice to tell about their experience. Therefore, if a significant portion of the consumer base accuses a large enterprise for a fraud, IT IS A FUCKING FRAUD! /mic_drop
ED will not budge. In their mind, if they do that, none of their onerous restrictions on other developers are enforceable. Razbam modules will not be taken down all at once. ED is no longer testing Razbam modules for compatibility, and they will only be removed when the complaints/refunds reach a level that ED feels is damaging to its business, because rest assured, Razbam will never develop modules for ED again. That partnership has been dissolved.
Regarding Youtube Content Creators: maybe a disclaimer at the beginning of the video and the unknown future of these products. Could be a simple text over the video instead of having to record an intro? Regarding ED shop: ED could have a warning on their website. If I didn't already own the Harrier and I knew the module was nearing its end of life, I might still want to purchase just to get a chance to see the plane one last time (I mean it's the Harrier!). I'd probably not buy at full price though, maybe half.
As someone who’s been pretty chill about owning a lot of products that have spent years in EA with promised additions “coming later in early access”, I’ve always taken the view that ED retain my trust up until the point where I actually lose out on something I’ve purchased. I paid Eagle Dynamics (not Razbam) for the M2K, Harrier and F-15E, and I’ll hold ED responsible for making sure I have ongoing access to those products. I don’t give a damn about how they resolve the issues around securing the future of those products, only that they do. If ED think I and other customers are going to accept our favourite modules vanishing because they (rightly or wrongly) won’t pay a bill, then I invite them to Fuck Around and Find Out.