Again, good post, MysticPuma.
The situation is quite muddly because other then in regular markets we as customers cant choose between different products all satisfying at least our basic needs (a playable and to some point realistic game) and as well the producers have a very small customer niche they have to deal with until they dont want to develop something completely other and give away all their WWII filghtsim skills. So the Devs and us are reliant on each other.
I would describe the overall situation not as being a producer/customer relation but more of a company/shareholder relation.
A relationship that is unsatisfying for us because normal customer rights dont give you a solution. Its unsatisfying as well for them because constant communications during the development process, transparency, honesty, credibility and all these factors that shareholders demand, are definitely not prime assets of the "vexed russian soul".
Most of us here are ourselves working, in whatever business, most of us have experiences in some kind of project management (in private and/or business life) and we generally await to recieve the same level of professionality that we try to deliver in our real lives.
The latest patch has shown all the problems that constantly accompany this game: Much has been done by the developers, stuff that hasnt been demanded at all (tracers ricochet), some that has been demanded (AI barrel rolls) and has been fixed, some that we all maybe didnt recognise yet. Nothing besides a "hooray, here it is" was communcated. We are still waiting for a simple list of features or fixes that the devs included. The community still and again has to find out tweaks and tricks how to get this game running, what to do and what not to do. No wonder, there isnt much cheering for this patch that has obvious and hidden pros and obvious cons.
But then, its one thing, to whine unprofessionality. We all could show some more professionality as well. Is somebody tells us his game is not working, we should demand the systems specs and give clear orders where to look at. If we get something working, describe it here. Update the bugtracker, if something is fully or partially fixed.
To me, most of CoD works right now. I have my fun at KV13 and ATAG and with the channel battles campaigns from desastersoft. Sure, much has to be done but i can wait for it being fixed..
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