Hi ripsnort.......
I have read your posts, both at AGW and here. I really enjoy the passion and excitement you and others express for on-line sims in general, whether they be WB, AH, or WWII On-line. It has helped rekindle my enthusiasm from time to time. I do understand your sensitivities to their reaction at AGW about your AH posts and particularly the Macboy (MG) material. I'm sure the dynamics of what's happening is not lost on you.
The WB community is particularly defensive of late, especially with the arrival of AH as a "flat rate" reality and a "flat rate" WWII On-line looming on the horizon. They are wedded to an older software product, ironically developed by the same people who have given us AH. I get a kick out of seeing the "noise" about the FM's being so bad in AH as compared to WB, when in fact the code is written by the same individual in both cases.
Hitech is a smart guy, both technically and in a business marketing sense. I believe if you spoke to him, he'd probably tell you he learned one heck of a lot about both while writing the WB code, including the good, the bad and the downright ugly. The AH code has benefited from the second time around and is probably better structured to be highly scaleable and replicable for growth into new hardware and graphics card genres, whereas, I would bet the WB code requires more of a "forklift" upgrade to accomplish this. Hence, the need to develop what in essence has been called WB 3.0.
To do this, they brought in a completely new guy (Hotseat) from my neck of the woods, who's been tasked to move WB competitively forward from a development (programming) point of view. I admire his vocal leadership and courage, walking onto "Omaha" beach last year and being expected to not only maintain existing code he never wrote in the first place, but also dynamically grow it for the future. He was expected to accomplish all of this with very limited resources given their financial condition at the time. I can only presume he's in it for a substantial "upside", in being given a good piece of a successful and fiscally viable corporation down the road. The problem iEN has with him is that he really needs a good filter PR guy in front of him. In some cases, his bluntness and direct opinions about the product, the WB community, and even his own management "food chain" have been provocative, to say the least. Ironically, with the odd exception, I have agreed with most of his views. He is a breath of fresh air amongst the sea of mediocrity that was left after HiTech, Pyro and the rest of the crew left iEN. Unfortunately, it appears he's changing feet again with a recent plea to the WB user community to save his BBS "forum" on development, which if I understand the essence of it correctly, his employers want him to discontinue and be less vocal about the development process. Perhaps it's simply their way of trying to help him be less dangerous from a political correctness point of view. In any event, he is an outside contractor, not an iEN employee, so I suspect he's going to continue to give them fits as he moves the WB 3 project along to hopefully a fall, or next spring release.
iEN also continues to be a struggling entity from a fiscal point of view, still losing money until a predicted turnaround in the latter part of the year. "The company also announced that operating losses, adjusted for non-cash and unusual charges, were substantially reduced to $0.5 million in Q1 from $0.6 million in Q4 1999, and $2.7 million in the year ago period". A bright note is that they have improved revenues and slowed the bleeding, plus they now seem to have understood the need to diversify. Since there's no breakdown of product line revenue, I have no idea how the WB's division performs financially. Personally, if it was not near break even now, or making some money, I'd shut it down immediately. A painful thing to say about a passion and environment that's given me so much, but no different that putting down my old Basset hound due to cancer, after she gave me twelve years of devoted trust and love. To keep going, as a CEO, I would have to believe in a business sense, that WB 3.0 will be vastly superior to any other on-line multiplayer flight-sim. Therefore, you would also assume that players would be willing continue to pay an hourly rate for its use, even though the marketing paradigm has shifted to the now dominate "flat rate" pricing model of AH, WWII On-line and probably others to come.
See this link for more info:
http://www.quote.com/quotecom/news/story.asp?story=13785752&symbols=IENT When the WB community on AGW sees all of these machinations being thrashed about, it's enough to bring out the insecurities in the best of us. Therefore they will react as they have to you, or anyone for that matter, who adds more stress to an already threatened environment. Unfortunately, mixed in with the facts of the situation about the product, you also have it compounded by the same vociferous and vocal few on AGW, who have always poured gasoline on any issue. In my personal opinion, they're most often youngsters still in some level of schooling with too much time on their hands, or if they are a more mature crowd, generally individuals who have experienced little influence and control in their real work or home lives. They use an electronic veil of anonymity with impersonal text communication to exercise a virtual political power and clique building, often to the exclusion of others who disagree with any of their positions. To their credit, some use their real names, while others hide behind pseudonyms. I wouldn't take it too personally, as it's highly unlikely the same written "flaming" style of dynamic interaction would occur in a face to face around the table venue. My apologies for wandering off and playing amateur psychologist, but one doesn't have to be Freud to read much of what they write and not draw those same conclusions. Now you know why I've never posted much on AGW, or when I did, learned when it was time to bow gracefully and return to being a lurker. Unfortunately, we are starting to see some of the same names over here, I assume hedging their bets about product futures and sizing up a new potential electronic domicile.
The good news is that this AH community is on the front side of the product life cycle "Bell Curve", where you can smell and almost taste its vibrancy, as the software evolves through each iteration. Have you ever noticed how users here forgive the most outrageous bugs and play anomalies that they would "draw and quarter" iEN about? That's the byproduct of a trusting, healthy and fresh environment. HTC seems "lean and mean" in a business sense, as well as financially viable faster than most corporate start-ups. HiTech has acutely understood the value of good marketing at all levels, including a paced "keep them hungry" product development, plus he has the patience to grow HTC with a "crawl, walk, then run" approach. The result is that the egotism and negatism about form, function or feature that predominates so much of the discussion about WB, doesn't really exist here. It could, but only if the community gets drawn into it, or the product itself begins to suffer from atrophy in marketing and release cycles.
I loved WB when I was an early adopter in late 95, early 96. I watched it grow with the same enthusiasm we currently see here in AH. I saw the excitement on AGW as each iteration was anticipated and discussed. I was spending upwards of $150-$200 US per month, but in an electronic sense, I also experienced the loss of the founding fathers and many of the players (AGW posters) I grew up with. I watched the WB atrophy of "tinkering" type software releases with ever changing goals, while iEN continued to enjoy the benefits of being the ONLY multiplayer on-line viable flight-sim option for me. I watched AGW with apathy as many self serving personae's began to dominate and now, I watch many members there signing under their names "WB 3.0, I want to believe". The danger for iEN and WB while stuck in the current cycle, is that they can easily fall into a "death watch" mentality. At that point you would see everyone searching for all available life rafts, while the rest continue to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Although I don't post there anymore, I'm still a proud member of AGW with no intention of deleting my bookmark. We should all thank Argo for the enormous service he offers the WB community by maintaining a non partisan environment. I still pay my $9.95 per month US to iEN, but to be frank, haven't flown since the day AH went live from beta. Why do I continue to pay iEN and lurk at AGW? Well, my first boss once said, "your as good as your last sale". So, to me it means that I want to have options as a consumer. AH, WB, WWII On-line, or whomever has the next on-line sim are simply as good as their last release to me. If one becomes superior, than I'll move there, or back there and be happy. Being an individual who has to fix sick corporate environments for a living, I see almost daily, the delusions of senior executives who rely on consumer loyalties as a fiscally sound marketing practice. I sincerely hope that WB 3.0 is financially viable and a great success for iEN, as it will only serve to improve AH and their competitors, to the ultimate benefit for all of us in the long run.
With apologies for the obscene length of this message and being OT...
Regards,
Badger
Fight on "My Time, My Terms, My Ground"
[This message has been edited by Badger (edited 05-03-2000).]
