Alphasim forums ditched

[deimos256]

i sent an email with a question i had, lets see how long it takes for a reply, this ought to be interesting

 

[expat]

That place nearly felt like a virtual home to me. I don't like this at all.<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->

Nice to see you here Erik - consider it your "new" home!

The whole Alphasim experience leaves one with very mixed feelings. Once upon a time - on their boards AND their on-line shop - it was THE place for discussing and enthusing about classic military a/c. The fact that they indulged my interests by making almost every USN cold war era plane that were childhood favorites made them extra special. I valued the superior knowledge and shared enthusiasm of people posting there. I learned a heck of a lot about aviation and its history. This know-how was valuable and it is a sad loss now that it is no longer available as a research database. I had good experiences with support and admired how they would release older models as freeware - or build an "oddball" aircraft they knew only a few die hards craved and wouldn't be best sellers (sort of "Oh, what the heck, we'll make it anyway . . ") - both terrific customer goodwill builders IMHO.

But things change and life goes on. When they chopped the boards down a couple years back, that's when I found myself coming here and enjoying the same, and in many ways broader learning experiences, not to mention the comraderie, good nature and humor of SOH members, whereas by contrast, it was disappointing to sense a growing bad temperedness around AS. In any event, I wish them all the best of luck and continued success. My personal FS experience would not have been the same without them and I will remain a customer.

Expat

 

[S]

Well guys, I feel like stepping in here for a second. Just to show that there have been good cases too when it comes to their customer service. I've had to contact Phil a few times about a few issues I had about some of their products. Always had a reply within a day. Sometimes this brought a fix and sometimes he simply explained as to why he wouldn't change a certain thing, but always in a very polite and friendly manner. What more can you ask. Same goes for Dan. Always very supportive and driven about his products.

Pinch a sloth with a stick and you'll have a day to wait for a reaction, pinch a leopard with a stick and your next stop will be heaven's gate. Don't demand, ask kindly and politely, even if you feel you are 100% right to demand. In the end a nice and polite question usually gets a better result.

Why I say this, simply because I've seen those kind of rather blunt demands quite often on the AS support forum.

Well I think I'm just going to do some flying. Not the best of days for me today it seems.:isadizzy:

 

[Lateral-G]

I have spent a ton of money with Alphasim and at one time bought just about everything they sold.
Then when their prices passed $40 and then broke $50 with, I think the A6, I nicely:d expresssed my concern about how expensive they were getting.
Man, the Alpha groupies attacked in force and I was ripped a new one. One was even a mod.
After getting roughed up and humiliated, I have NEVER poster there again.
All they do is bloat about how great the screenshots are.
Never mid the ****ty flight model or that 4 things work in the vr cockpit.
I will not miss em.

See there's the thing with AS' forums....say ANYTHING, and I mean ANYTHING, negative and your were soundly thrashed. Either by the AS fanboys or the mods. You either were a happy-happy, joy-joy customer with nothing but praise and goodness to say else you were thrashed, beat down, or tossed out and banned.

A business has to be able to handle the good criticism as well as the bad. How they handle the bad is even more a reflection on them (and the owner) than how they take the priase and acclaim.

Like I said in the FS9 forum about this topic...Phil's going to do damn well whatever he wants...and that's his right. However, in the process he just maybe screwing himself. of course we all know from past experience and situations with him that his temper and petulance often stand in the way of common sense and good business practice. He needs to learn to distance himself from the idiots. Every business attracts them. You can't help it when dealing with the public customer. Ask anyone that deals with customers on a regular basis and you'll get some fine examples of inane requests or comments. You need to take a deep breath, step back and realize you can't always fix stupid. By the same token, even though they may look and act stupid you can't ignore them and treat them that way. Because they're going to run off and tell all their stupid friends (and a few smart ones too) what lousy service they received, how poorly they were treated and no one should do business with AS ever again.

Shutting off a forum because you don't want to hear whiny customers, negative comments or the same question over and over again because you lack the patience and skill to do so only hurts the business in the end. especially after those forums were established to promote the business and product as well as support it. IMO the flight sim community/market is too small to piss of whatever customer base you might have.

-G-

 

[harleyman]

MD, I am PMing you. Check back shortly... I have an idea.

We're listening.......:d

 

[Henry]

A business has to be able to handle the good criticism as well as the bad. How they handle the bad is even more a reflection on them (and the owner) than how they take the priase and acclaim.
You can't help it when dealing with the public customer. Ask anyone that deals with customers on a regular basis and you'll get some fine examples of inane requests or comments. You need to take a deep breath, step back and realize you can't always fix stupid. By the same token, even though they may look and act stupid you can't ignore them and treat them that way. Because they're going to run off and tell all their stupid friends (and a few smart ones too) what lousy service they received, how poorly they were treated and no one should do business with AS ever again.



-G-

That is basic business
The Customer is always right even if they are not
rule #1 customers lie
rule #2 customers are stupid
of course thats not the majority but after a while
dealing with them that comes first
customer relations is an art, one need someone
who will do there best to fix a problem
with respect!
that is one of my real life occupations
its not always easy but i seldom get a problem i cannot fix
one way or another.
Its also not that easy running a Forum, the typed word can be
completely misunderstood by misreading etc etc
there are always 2 sides to every story.
I am not taking sides here as i do not frequent AS forums
but i would think that without a forum
one can still maintain customer support
take a look at AH they have no forum
and they have excellent customer support
sometimes airing problems out in the open
can cause even more problems.
Looking back over this thread it seems like 2 threads
1 over the forums and 1 over support
maybe the loss of one will make the other better
Just my thruppence :d
H

 

[Mickey D]

Hi there tigisfat. How are you doing? Hope you didn't think I was a jinx when my prophesy re. the English summer came true at Fairford.

 

[jdhaenens]

LOL...too quick on the fingers...

 

[IanP]

I'd say there were three issues here, not two.

1) Forums or lack thereof.
2) Support or lack thereof.
3) Attitude of certain members of staff.

Like I said before, I can only speak for myself, but closing the forums isn't a killer for me.

Support? I've had some very good experiences with Alphasim and some absolutely dire ones. The good ones I have had have been direct contact. As soon as the forum gets involved, basically if you weren't there to praise Alphasim to the heavens, you were scum to be ridiculed, ignored or, if you persisted, banned. They were great if you were one of the "in" crowd, and utterly useless if you weren't. This isn't a new thing, either. I started giving up on them back in the days of the Big E being their latest product. It's gone downhill ever since to the point where I actually didn't want to click on links that people sent me to the Alphasim forums.

Finally, and the killer for me, is that I've seen far too many petulant outbursts, downright untruths and childish rants from one person in the very recent past to consider sending any money his way. I feel really sorry for the developers trying to work around him, but he's blown it for them as well.

I know I'm not the only person who feels that way, and I'd go back to Alphasim with no problems given a serious change in attitude. I like their models, I have a lot of time for a number of their developers, but I can't see it happening. Hence I'll spend my pay on developers who don't want to treat me like dirt for not being sycophantic enough to them in public.

Ian P.

 

[centuryseries]

I have spent a ton of money with Alphasim and at one time bought just about everything they sold.
Then when their prices passed $40 and then broke $50 with, I think the A6, I nicely:d expresssed my concern about how expensive they were getting.
Man, the Alpha groupies attacked in force and I was ripped a new one. One was even a mod.
After getting roughed up and humiliated, I have NEVER poster there again.
All they do is bloat about how great the screenshots are.
Never mid the ****ty flight model or that 4 things work in the vr cockpit.
I will not miss em.

I hope you're not talking about the aircraft that I worked on. Before saying something is ****ty imagine the hours put in first. I can see why developers give up on the flightsim community with comments like that.

Contrary to what I'm reading a lot of us who either still work for AS, or the recently departed always tried to give sound advice on things.

I remember your feedback Jimjam on the Avsim forums, this was all taken as constructive criticism - we listened to what the posters had to say. While somethings might not have been updated for that product I certainly remembered them for the later ones.

It doesn't matter where you go there will always be 'fanboys' those were out of Alphasim mod control, we cannot censor comments about people liking things, that would be ludicrous. One thing that should've happened is that posters there should've used the search facility rather than posting the same question that at least one person had already asked in the past, thus saving dev time with quicker construction.

I don't agree with the forums being closed, but it is not in my control. If Phil decides he wants to close them thats his business decision, if I don't want to put up with a lack of advertising space I know what to do. :ernae:

Best Regards,

David
AlphaSim-Quid21 (well used to be lol)

 

[SkippyBing]

Before saying something is ****ty imagine the hours put in first. I can see why developers give up on the flightsim community with comments like that.

To be honest if you're charging money for something you can't really use the 'I put hours into it, what about my feelings' excuse, because the purchaser put hours in to earn the money to buy it.
I was put of ever buying anything from AS from the replies posted on the forums to anyone who had a criticism of a model, no matter how it was put. So I suppose scrapping them might improve sales...

 

[michael davies]

Michael, now may be the time to believe in the saying, "When one door closes, another one opens." Alphasim seemed to be a good model upon which small developers could work together.

Good luck!

Indeed, since Alphasim closed the door on new scenery products last year I was left with a carrier with no home to go to, that has been picked up by another company, the new CVN project has also been picked up by another company....I'm not going to get cuaght with all my eggs in one basket again LOL....seriously both companies are well respected and have general areas of expertise, each carrier fits a set time zone that suits each companies existing catalogue.

Many other Alphasim developers have moved to Skysim, some more may move over in due course, some may stay, some may go elsewhere and sadly some may just throw the towel in, I've had my hand on that door several times these last few months.

I dont agree with the forum closure, I dont think Alphasim set out to close the forums, they did have a genuine server crash and I think they took that as a gift horse to close the forums and save themselves a lot of work and back lash, their getting some now but no where near as much as if they had closed an up and running forum.

As others have said, there is nothing here that I can write publically or privately that will alter any of this, I've known Phil nearly ten years, when his mind is set its set.

The objective now is to minimise the damage done and try to ensure it never happens again.

Best

Michael

 

[michael davies]

MD, I am PMing you. Check back shortly... I have an idea.

Checked, will formulate a reply once things settle down around here LOL.

Kindest

Michael

 

[Mickey D]

well hopefully these developers will move their efforts elsewhere, didnt a scenery team recently pull their stuff off AS? Maybe they knew this was coming

It was blowing in the wind. And yes we are in the process of re-releasing them here www.sky-sim.co.uk at a more sensible price.

Something over which we had no control at AS.

 

[vstudios]

A much simpler system would suffice, (ticket support and knowledge base manager)

I fully agree, managing a forum is not as easy as everyone seems to think.

 

[Bone]

What a pisser. I'm going to miss the A.S. forum. I had to change my "name" to get on this one...it's nice to see some of the guy's here.

Formerly "Bone" on A.S..

 

[Panther_99FS]

It was blowing in the wind. And yes we are in the process of re-releasing them here www.sky-sim.co.uk at a more sensible price.

.

And if we could now only get some SkySim scenery screenshots....There are items I'm interested in purchasing...

 

[mcjerkyls]

while i may not post much, i have been a lurker for a good 4 years, and all this (forum) discussion got me on it, just wanted to say a big KUDOS to the SOH MODS, staff, donators, etc for a job extremely well done, always keeping a fantastic, social atmosphere, that is almost 100% unique to this forum. so friendly, helpful, non political which is a big plus, no fighting for the most part, just a great place to be.
-Steve

 

[harleyman]

Thats what keeps us all here and happy....Nice to see you post after all this time...There are truely good and unique folks here..:ernae:

 

[Islander]

Actually, I'm trespassing over here in the 'Land of FSX', as I still live in the past (FS9), but saw this thread, read through it, and thought I'd paraphrase some of my comments from the FS9 forum:

Though I've never posted much here at SOH, I've browsed the forum on a daily basis for two or three years- it's a friendly and relaxed environment with a huge resource of experience, ideas and assistance.

It would be unfair for me to witness the demise of the AS forums without thanking those who made it a fine place to share ideas, etc for such a long time. There are the developers and team members, past and present. There are the 'civilian' moderators who volunteered their time in an effort to keep us on track, and there are the members without whose ideas, assistance, screenshots and humour the whole thing would have deflated.
Thanks... all of you .

It's a pleasant surprise to see so many of those characters posting here.
Fortunately for all of us, there's Sim-Outhouse :ernae: !"