Introduction of Community involvement program: http://www.captainsim.com/support/cip.html

Intresting concept, BUT a few questions:

How serious will you take the recommendations of the testers. If a number of people will say "ok, system x on this addon should work differently than it currently does", how serious will you take this.
Do you want active feedback from the testers or just supply them with new version along the developement process.
I'm just asking because - although I GENERALY like your products - I've seen in the past that criticism by the users/simmers hasn't been taken too well by you. You seldomly read any real answers in the forum nor does one see a dedication to the simmers. Mostly the bottom line is "you get what you bought, after that it's not really our problem anymore". Like for instance many users are complaining and wishing about a working trim wheel motor sound on the 727 and 707 which yet hasn't been fullfilled and not alot attention has been give to this detail. One very pro-captainsim user in the forum just answered on one of these topics that he usually doesn't pay attention to it due to other sounds whatsoever so it wouldn't matter. But how serious will you take those things, remarked by the simmers? Because I imagine alot pay attention to little details.

Please take the above written as feedback, in no way meant to criticize you without appreciating the work you do, but ruther as a standpoint from a user wishes for an even better captain sim and wants to point out things so you can improve your service.

To summarize it: If you want to work with the community and get them involved (CIP) THEN it's just intresting to know how serious this involvement is taken by you - because if you say on the one hand you want the community involved but then again don't listen much to the community or don't want to give any gurantees, this is not a good concept for me.

Quoting your gurantees
Quote:


I find this a rather disappointing statement in which you simply relief yourself from any responsibility towards the simmers. As this came apparent in the last weeks in the forum, I'm disappointed how you see the simmers - your future customers. I can understand it from a economical point of view that you don't want to give promises that you might not be able to keep, but then again you should simply not make those promises.

If you plan a product, I expect that a company has a strategy, a developement plan that will go through the whole developement process like a red line. Of course, like in any company, issues may arise during the developement and these have to be coped with and altered. But this should be kept minor and announcing a whole product chain and for example realizing someway through the developement process you're not up to that task or you lost the focus on the product shouldn't happen. In that case you should just offer and advertise what you can fulfill.

Well, this is my opinion. I've been a CS customer for years, I've never been totally happy with CS but on the other hand I've liked much - otherwise I wouldn't be on these forums.

Regards
Johann

Johann,
Thank you for your comments.

Jettrader wrote on Mar 10^th, 2012 at 5:01pm:

Very serious. Actually we always take them seriously.
We'll build a new procedure for the Stage II feedback because we will not use regular support tickets.

Quote:

That's exactly that we are trying to do by our no guarantees statement: honestly make no promises.
Of course we'll do our best, but there are many external reasons that might kill any project. We say nothing new, everyone knows that anyways. But as we release one product and take money in 3 steps we just honestly remind that any step could be the last one. That's why we declare clear and loud upfront: PEOPLE THERE'S A RISK. NO GURANTEES.
But as since 2005 we have announced and delivered 5 products (757, 727, 767, B-52, 707) on step-by-step basis,  you'd trust us another time on another project (the 737).

Quote:

Thank you!

Sounds a good idea in theory, but it does remind me of the airsimmer extended team fiasco, in which users paid for a supposedly beta product, and still dont have the finished product. I vowed to myself after that incident to never again pay for a beta product. Having said all that however, the circumstances are different here, as captain sim are proven developers, while airsimmer were not.  So i think i will take a chance on captain sim and will buy stage 2 of the 737. How do we sign up?

I like the idea and so I'm willing to sign up for it.

I see on the Community involvement program: http://www.captainsim.com/support/cip.html it says The first product with three-step release is 737 Captain.

So does this mean....
1. It will be a Stage II - Experimental release at this time?
2. It means that it is not 100% complete yet?
3. That the Stage 3 v1.0 release could be up to one year away, but we still get to use it in its Experimental form until Stage III?

Thanks in advance.

Mark

Mark,

Quote:

Yes, and very soon.

Quote:

Right.

Quote:

There are going to be several free updates between Step II and Step III. So everyone who bought the Step II will fly the most recent version of the 737 (e.g. 0.5....0.7...0.9) and will receive the 1.0 before public release.

Captain Sim wrote on Mar 10^th, 2012 at 8:22pm:

Thank you. I wasn't too far off, so that makes sense now.

ColinT46 wrote on Mar 10^th, 2012 at 8:27pm:

Pricing
Step I: Exterior - usually priced at 25% of the 1.0 release price.
Step II: Experimental - Usually priced at 75% of the 1.0 price.
Step III: 1.0 - The full 1.0 price.
Note: Payments for the Exterior and Experimental releases are 100% credited towards the 1.0 release.

Mark

Markoz wrote on Mar 10^th, 2012 at 8:39pm:


With No Guarantees and NO Refunds.

Colin.