Hey guys, OP here again. I'm a bit surprised to see this thread going strong since I hadn't posted in a few days, but that makes me happy at the same time! I hope you understand that after days of getting around IP bans and singing up with new accounts, as well as promoting this topic on other forums and contacting people on Twitter, I felt like a bit of a break after Helios finally outlined how it is!
At this point in time it's clear to me that Codemasters aren't going to fix it. It took this much effort just to get them to acknowledge it exists, and whilst part of me wants to continue with this thread as well as some other ideas I had (a few of which I think could've got us some attention) I'm dubious it would get us anywhere.
I must say I'm proud to have got this topic 8,000 views.
I think it's obvious there are two main concerns here:
1) The resistance to admit a bug even exists, let alone inform of us a possible patch.
2) The lack of support from CM and their community management.
Codemasters/Mods/Community Managers - Please read the following and think about how you handle situations like this in the future.
When I first signed up on this forum I honestly didn't expect to do 95% of the things I did. I admit, I was annoyed, frustrated and angry. My tone wasn't overly pleasant or mature. However - can I really be blamed? Since the initial patch the game has had zero support and this game breaking bug was allowed to exist. I came to this forum looking for three things:
1) Information
2) Support
3) Assurance this kind of bug isn't acceptable in Codemasters games.
I didn't get any of the three. Even as a university student with a lot of free time, do you think I wanted to spend this much time on your forum? Campaigning? Signing up for several accounts just to be heard? No. I hoped that in my first topic I'd get some official word on the matter and for better or worse that would be it.
Instead, I was ignored. When I contacted mods and the developers directly, I was ignored further.
I accept game development is hard and the business side of it is pretty brutal. As do, I expect, 99% of the people on this forum. You don't need to ignore issues and pretend that the game is fine and that F1 2011 will magically fix everything. Rather than be told in vague terms to trust you about F1 2011, I'd prefer to hear how you've looked in to this bug, why it is hard to fix and have a sincere apology and promise that you'll do your best to not let anything like that slip through the net again.
Furthermore, I'd like to be assured that F1 2011 would have better support/patching if such a glitch did happen to slip through the QI somehow.
Right now, I'm going into 2011 thinking three things:
1) F1 2010 is an amazing game at its core with some bugs that have been ignored. Maybe F1 2011 will keep that same standard but ship without bugs, but if it does....
2) Will it get patched promptly and will Codemasters abandon it after the first patch? Right now F1 2010 is pretty much dead to you guys, a mere 6 months after release.
3) On top of that, will Codemasters continue to ignore any issues that arise in 2011 and will I have to make a 20 page topic just to get a response from them again?
Luckily for your company I'm willing to take a bet on F1 2011 since I have 200 hours invested in this game and I want to see improvements, but don't for one second think those last two concerns aren't high on my priority list. If there are bugs in that game I will be back, I will be even more persistent and I hope that you are more willing to engage and discuss the game then, rather than sweep me and the issue under the carpet until enough people are vocal about it.
In the day and age of wonderful customer support from companies like Valve etc, this has been a depressing experience. Please take this criticism on board and consider how you act in the future.
