It the same old shi* over and over again. I just find it funny that when I support TOH, or Strike Fighters, or X-Plane, all of which have severe shortcomings, I don't get near the rash of shi* as when I support ED because for some reason people think ED are some evil overlords or something.
I think it's a function of the fact that DCS is the closest thing to flight simming greatness that we have. From what I've been reading, it seems as though a lot of the frustration stems from the "nearly-but-not-quite" nature of the sim, the painfully slow development times and the always obtuse and frequently arbitrary directions that ED (and their partners) seem to be taking with their releases. I think people sensed an "on-the-verge-of-greatness" moment with the Su-25T AFM, the Ka-50 and the A-10C... but then the divergence into WWII, the lack of new theatres and the painfully slow development of both EDGE and the F/A-18C have resulted in a sense that it's all gone rather off the rails.
From my perspective as a single-player gamer with a love of helicopters, I'm extremely well catered for. I get three very high fidelity aircraft, each with excellent campaigns and a theatre that looks good and works perfectly for slow, low level aircraft. That sometimes makes it difficult for me to see the validity of the various complaints, but I ultimately think that they are valid.
The observation that kind of brought it home to me was the comment about what it would feel like to have a DCS: F/A-18C, but only have the WWII Normandy map to fly around. Despite the fact that I'm currently happy to tool around modern day Georgia in the P-51D, the scenario sketched out above would be unconscionably retarded and unacceptable from my perspective.
The end result is that while I don't necessarily share all of the frustrations, but I can totally understand how people (dependent on what's important to them) are getting frustrated about:
High fidelity aircraft that don't have "valid", historically relevant theatres to play in.
Very limited resources being spread across a wide variety of historically exclusive time periods.
Mission content that is very finite, scripted and (dependent on the aircraft) of widely varying quality.
All of that said, though, there are right and wrong ways to voice those frustrations. The snidely passive aggressive personal attacks and, in places, flat out lies are completely unacceptable, IMHO.
As difficult as it is, though, Beach - try to avoid rising to the bait. You're one of the most consistently positive, interesting, thoughtful and valuable contributors around here. Getting drawn into extended arguments with people that aren't interested in intelligent debate is ultimately fruitless, frustrating and stress inducing. Spend your time productively and go make some AARs, instead.
