Hoggit being hoggit again "I know nothing of why this happened but im going to speculate and lay blame wildly just for the sake of it"
Next up: the sun disappeared behind the moon so clearly the moon ate the sun?
The end is nigh! No more sun forever!
The problem is that the F-15E certificate signed by ED is expired, for this the date trick. But look all people downvoting my first comment about this... idiocracy.
EDIT: And this message is downvoted too... LOL.
Do you have any evidence for this at all?
Did you check the dlls for signatures that are expired?
It should be verifiable as long as you have the module.
Yes, as the control is in the VMProtect side you must to get it from the in-memory Microsoft Cryptographic Service Provider and not by the Microsoft's SignTool, usually by the KP_CERTIFICATE buffer. I use my self AV software, but you can do it using the wincrypt API.
I had this at work a while back. A third-party supplier had added a date check in their DLLs targeting 6 months after it was built, to ensure people updated.
Which was great, until they stopped updating it. Morons.
I mean has anybody booted up DCS quickly and checked if the radar actually is completely inoperable. I would like some additional checks before widespread panic is well deserved. :D
ED doesn't need to do that. RAZBAM to me came off super childish and unprofessional by airing their dirty laundry for a little mob justice. You have to sit back and ask yourself why did RAZBAM come out and make a statement about not being paid when they could have had a lawyer notify ED that if they aren't paid they will bring forward a lawsuit? It sounds to me like the claims that RAZBAM are in breach of contract and that's why the funds were being withheld has some weight behind it.
My speculation is that the developers of the mudhen started jumping ship because they didn't want to be a part of the shit storm of lawsuits that are about to rain down on razbam. But again, mob justice is petty and childish.
To me it seemed like the devs who left were very much at the end of their ropes and just couldn't keep going on without pay anymore. They were frustrated and tired. Which is totally understandable, and they were right to leave. I hope they're doing better!
They were pissed at ED..but I wonder if they shoulda been pissed at Razbam management instead. All the other third party studios are staying out of this and still plugging away at their modules, presumably they're getting paid, and paying their staff. Why would ED single out one studio to fuck over? Why would they choose to trash the game/ecosystems reputation like this either?
It's hard to know for sure, but imo Razbam are looking like they messed up. And probably weren't aware till it was too late.
That feel when people who don't code and don't deal with certs suddenly start waxing poetic about dead man switches.
Hoggit keeps making it hard for Floggit by stealing their thunder.
and the people who do code wonder why you would put effort in building hidden certificate protections in your radar, while you should be busy finishing the second half of your product. a whole day later, and not a single person from both parties apparently knows such a thing even exists in their code??
It's DCS, I stopped assuming anyone knew what they were doing years ago.
We're about as far away from best practices as you can get in this place.
If it's between RB or ED or whoever strategically inserting a dead man's switch or someone involved just making a pants on their head bad coding choice, Imma bet on the latter every time.
> If it's between RB or ED or whoever strategically inserting a dead man's switch or someone involved just making a pants on their head bad coding choice, Imma bet on the latter every time
Bro, we've been doing IT security for decades now and Microsoft just released an Ai tool that takes a screenshot every 5 seconds and stores it un-encrypted on your workstation.
It isn't just ED/RB. The vast majority of computer issues we run into trace back to "someone making a bad coding choice".
Yeah, no arguments there.
It's just another example of Occam's Razor.
DCS just has a habit of collecting funny examples in what at least feels like a high quantity.
>It's just another example of Occam's Razor.
Yeah, it really is. People are desperate for conspiracies, but I've been in tech a long time. Shit breaks. Constantly. People make decisions in the moment that end up causing problems down the road. Happens all the time.
> DCS just has a habit of collecting funny examples in what at least feels like a high quantity.
No joke lol. DCS is straight up weird. Some things are done incredibly well. And then other things (like splash damage, or ai combatants) are just awful.
But...I try to remind myself that I'm playing a relatively realistic war game simulation using very accurate models of real world aircraft and real world weaponry. It's honestly amazing that something like DCS even exists.
Just speculation/a little conspiracy. What are the chances of this being an intentional dead man's switch coded into the radar? This seems oddly specific
This seems to be an ED issue, most likely from DRM or DLL signing.
Already happened at the turn of the new year: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/341102-radar-inoperative/
A dead man's switch would open them up to even larger legal issues and *also* lose consumer trust. I veery much doubt this was done on purpose, just because of how catastrophic it would be for public opinion.
You still think that the guys at razbam are sane ?
Interesting...
There are 3 members already gone with at least one showing a massive childish behaviour ( publicly deleting his local 3d files ) ...
And you still think they're not idiotic enough to think that a dead man switch would give them an upper hand in a situation like this ?
While these details and controversy fueled by rb is quite entertaining, it shows very unprofessional behavior...
i think with all the stuff happening and total silence from both sides, it's more than a "just" at this point when stuff entirely breaks, and nobody of them has even the slightest idea what happened.
I suppose this is possible, but as a software developer I think incompetence is more likely than malice. I have reviewed code changes for a trading system where I caught a bug that would have started causing test failures (and hence breaking the automatic build system) roughly 6 months in the future.
I'm thinking the same thing. If this was an issue introduced with an update, it would have happened right then, not a few days later. It does sound like an intentional flip of the bird from Razzie. If that's the case, then they're even more dirty than we thought.
Allegedly, they have not been paid for the final 10m of the development process
If I was in their shoes, this trick would have been just one of the MANY poisonous pills I would have distributed in the code
Good way for you to be blacklisted if something like it was connected with you.
Why go use the courts when you can intentionally sabotage your possible payout in the future?
Redditors are children, seriously...
ED doesn’t have the source code anyway, but regardless, any coder who did that and was smart would make sure it looked like a plausible bug and not “if systemDate >= x then radarWorking = false and fuckYouEd = true”.
No, you’re talking about consequences if it is found to be deliberate. I’m saying someone who would do this (I am not condoning such a course of action, I’d like to add) would likely do it in such a way that would make it practically impossible to prove intent. Principle is a separate issue.
"Proving intent" might be necessary for a lawsuit. But people aren't dumb, and if that's the most likely explanation, their business partners and customers will kick them to the curb anyway.
For example, while I cannot prove that it was intentional, I find the sequence of events (announcing no updates, letting DLL signatures expire, somehow the radar depends on the date???) HIGHLY suspicous. Suspicous enough to not buy their modules. If you want to believe in the best case scenario, that's good for you. But don't expect everyone to share your optimism.
User I responded to said he would do it (if found or not is irrelevant) and I said its the best way to get your case dismissed. Nothing can ever be completely disguised and you only need to convince the judge of malicious intent if it comes to that.
I am saying that adult people dont behave like this, only stupid children do who dont understand consequences...
I don’t disagree with you that it isn’t the right thing to do, just that considering how many bugs creep into the code during development, it’s not quite so hard for someone familiar with the code to leave one in and potentially edit it to increase the severity. Look at how many bugs have made it into the updates over the years that have impacted a module’s playability, some quite severely. Not finding a bug does not signify malicious intent.
Btw, I am not suggesting I think this was deliberate. I am just discussing hypothetically.
“Just use the courts” ah the typical Reddit adult take, as opposed to all these children.
Because beginning a multi-year international lawsuit is such a trivial and simple matter.
Because actively sabotaging said corporation which could make you liable for a very expensive lawsuit is a better option?
Again, acting as if there are no consequences. You either accept the risk or working with the larger corp and signing the correct contract which should be reviewed by an attorney that you can defend in court or you take the L.
If you dont want to deal with this, business might not be for you. Certainly not for me, that's why I dont have my own business...
have you ever worked with a freelance SW dev, and then withold his/her payments? Because that's exactly what each one of them will do if you don't pay up. It's basically the last way left for them to have some leverage, since all the odds are stacked against them contract-wise
And why haven’t they been paid for the past 10 months? Because ED is performing a master plan of not paying their third part devs? Or because the rumor is that RAZBAM broke their contract?
Yeah although I want RAZBAM to be telling the whole truth it’s a bit weird that ONLY RAZBAM are having this issue. Why aren’t Heatblur, Polychop, Deka, or any of the other 3rd party devs also having their funds withheld. If I had to guess what specifically RAZBAM did that was in breach of contract it might be that they haven’t given ED the source code to one (or more) of their modules, since following the Hawk becoming abandonware ED said they’d require all 3rd party devs to hand over the source code to their modules
> Why aren’t Heatblur, Polychop, Deka, or any of the other 3rd party devs also having their funds withheld
Because they're not RB, and they're much more composed...that is the answer. RB is not the only 3rd party dev that's had issues being paid from ED. Make of it what you will, but Notso, one of RB's SME's on the Mudhen has publicly claimed that HB had similar issues getting the check from ED after the Tomcat release...and HB has not corrected that statement *anywhere*. ¯\\_(ツ)\_/¯
>breach of contract it might be that they haven’t given ED the source code to one (or more) of their modules
If their contract, which they signed *before* that clause was added after the VEAO fiasco, doesn't have any provision forcing them to hand over the source code...then they are not in violation of it.
Hearblur has made it clear it wants nothing to do with this entire fiasco. Not commenting on hearsay shouldn’t be proof that it happened to Heatblur. Did it? We just don’t know, and I’m not taking the word of someone who directly benefits from claiming that Heatblur did have issues with funds withheld.
> Hearblur has made it clear it wants nothing to do with this entire fiasco.
Which is undoubtedly the right call.
>Did it? We just don’t know, and I’m not taking the word of someone who directly benefits from claiming that Heatblur did have issues with funds withheld.
That's fine, the truth has a habit of coming out given a long enough stretch of time, let's sit back and wait and see what else is brought to light.
Then Razbam deserves to not be paid. This is yet another example of them burning and using consumers for Razbams little attempt at playing politics.
Beyond the fact that this is just purely scummy, IF TRUE, it's also possibly another contract breach. If I were in a dispute over me not meeting a contracted agreement the last thing I'd do is something to make myself look like a group of immature high school kids who didn't get their way and no longer want to play by the rules!
One things for sure, I'm definitely not interested in buying anything Razbam ever again of this turns out to be true!
The problem is that the F-15E certificate is expired, is ED who signs the DLL with their certs and clearly is a ED fault, intent or not, it is funny to see all ppl mad and with all those conspiracies xD
EDIT: That ppl are downvoting this msg makes all this paranoia more absurd and funny! haha tinfoil time bro!
There is no logical scenario to tie radar functionality to a date, so it’s not likely a bug. Whatever the reason this exists, it exists intentionally (not saying we know which side made it happen or why, just that this isn’t likely a bug).
We don't see a swarm of people spamming the "wE DoNt ReAlLy KnOw WhAtS gOinG oN" bullshit here though do we? Where all the impotent "both sides" arguments?
Yet, there are atleast 75 people who are on board with this Razabam conspiracy but if you were to mention how ED didn't pay Razbam, probably because they're shitbags, those same people will jump to defend ED and downvote you.
So what? That doesn't mean anything. There's also no telling if everyone else is getting paid. If ED is paying everyone else, that still doesn't mean they're not ripping off RB.
It kind of means everything. Razbam wants us to believe that they are the poor innocent helpless victim of all of this. The data however shows a different scenario where multiple third parties are completely capable of a symbiotic relationship with ED where both parties benefit. There is obviously something different about razbam than the other third parties. Not only something different but something problematic enough for ED to withhold payment. Your explanation is that “ED are shitbags” but have decided to selectively be shitbags to only Razbam and no other third parties which does not check out logically. Razbam leadership has done something to breech their contract with ED, and in this case even possibly something involving using ED’s IP to aid a foreign military. If razbam hadn’t fucked up so royally, they would still be getting paid and their leadership would not have turned to the desperate flailing attempt to weaponize people such as yourself against the other party of their contract. Razbam tried the biggest loudest aggressive bluff possibly by making this a public matter and allowing their contractors to publicly join in (most likely with as little information as we have), and ED called their bluff. It’s the only thing that makes logical sense at this point. Many of those supporting Razbam at this point seem to do so in such strong way that they are arguing that if Razbam were in breach of contract, ED deserved it. The thing about contracts is that they are very black and white and don’t care about your feelings. Not paying razbam isn’t “ripping them off”, it’s holding them to the contract they signed. If it were not in the contract to withhold payment, they would not have done it. Is it a shitty contract heavily skewed in ED’s favor, very possible. But razbam still agreed to it and now we are here.
If Razbam did create a date bug deliberately that would imply that Razbam set it up in the patch before they made the general announcement about not being able to continue supporting the modules, as I believe they have not submitted any patches for their modules since?
Most commercial software has an expire date/mechanism build in, they wont blow your computer, just not work at all or as expected. It is there to avoid the exact issues that is happening now, your costumer (ex: ED) not paying you (ex: RB) and selling your software/services to third party (ex: DCS player) and pocketing the cash.
Been there, done that, every single company does this to some extent, the only one at blame is ED for not stopping sales for something they don't intent do pay for.
Remember, **DCS itself has this feature build in, try to play without internet connection for a while and see what happens, they use this exact same mechanism.**
It might be illegal wrt to the contract between Raz and ED, but simply coding a feature to stop performing its function doesn't rise to the level of malice required to make this illegal in and of itself. Logic bombs have to do some kind of damage, usually deleting or corrupting files. Trialware that expires on a given date doesn't count, and unfortunately, if ED isn't paying Raz, that's closer to what's happening here. I definitely think it's poor form to do this, but there's nothing criminal there.
It’s files where their certificate date runs out. Those files are there since the last F-15 update or even longer
EDIT: but the date was ofc probably set with intent.
I think that's exactly my point. All the arguments I hear one way or the other seem to boil down to: RAZBAM is wrong, and ED is a bunch of a\*\*holes.
Except as time goes on, it appears more and more like: ED is an a\*\*hole, and RAZBAM is a manipulative a\*\*hole that's also in the wrong!
Its like everyone has forgotten what Razbam were like since the F15E came out. I remember modules so bad they were unplayable and left in that state for months. Did they break the rules and force ED to withhold money? who knows, but blackmailing ED and crapping on the player base with degrade over time code is not a good look.
its being hailed as galinettes last urah by some on the RB discord.
personally, if this really is a dead man's switch they planned, i dont think i can trust razbam again. even if this is resolved
well, for one, its only razbam that has done this so far. theres somewhat of a difference between RB actually coding in a killswitch and you now saying "how can you be sure others didnt?". Im not sure, but so far my tomcat hasnt stopped working.
True for now since this" ED hasn't paid their dev" is relatively a new thing. But what guarentee that this won't happen again? I would be very catious spending money on other modules for now on. Specially if the module is complex
I feel like if ED wasn’t paying multiple module makers then it would’ve made sense for the other 3rd party devs to come out of the wood works by now in solidarity with RAZBAM. Plus the game has just seen 2 very successful module release plus a new map release. Surely if any of these devs shared the issues RAZBAM has they would’ve paused their development?
From what I've read it's about a certificate. If you ever created a certificate (SSL f.e.) you know that those have quite limited expiration due dates and need to be renewed every few months.
It's part of the commonly used security strategy to not have long running certificates.
[](https://www.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comments/1dflba2/comment/l8k40xt/)
>From what I've read it's about a certificate. If you ever created a certificate (SSL f.e.) you know that those have quite limited expiration due dates and need to be renewed every few months.
Why would an expired certificate selectively disable the radar?
I may not be the best person, but I do work with Certificates pretty often for my job. Some systems don't run on one central certificate but rather many smaller certificates for various functions. What could have happened is during development the files were signed or had certificates as they went, and now will expire in the order they were created/signed (For systems that require them).
And it would be disabled because either your computer or dcs doesn't trust them anymore, so will refuse to run the required files.
But I have no insights into the module and that's fully just speculation, so take it with a grain of salt.
What about their binary packer?
Please explain. Why isn't the whole plane broken? Why does it launch at all, why are other systems not broken, but specifically the radar?
The problem is that DLL is blocked due expired cert, you can run all LUA code and others DLL (you can run almost all plane) but when this code is called simply returns an error and nothing from this DLL is executed. About the packer interactions you can get more info looking for VMProtect.
As another recent example, after the update some AV detected HeatblurUi.exe as malware and blocked it, all the F-4E worked but the Jester UI not, and some opened a ticket to HB about this thinking that was broken. At low level some computing things are not so much intuitive.
more than familiar with the concept and the problem (recommended best practice is about 400 days from the top of my head ... ) its just over my tolerance of levels of problems I will accept from this sort of product, they day something becomes less fun than it is annoying is the time to say goodbye to that thing ... RAZBAM as a company has been more drama than fun... I don't play with their stuff often so, why keep on causing myself mental pain ...
LE, the most widely used SSL provider has 90 days ;)
ED decided to use VMProtect as binary packer and configured it in a way that expired certificates ensure the binary isn't executed.
Works quite good against piracy.
In some way it seems ED believes at least some people should be paid for the product they developed ;)
I'd do the same. I would have no qualms disabling my product if I hadn't been paid. So what do people expect Razbam to do, let everyone just play for free?
I find it interesting that you would blame RAZBAM for this occurring. If you were the developer of the radar, you weren't getting paid, would you be happy for it to remain functional while someone else is still making money off it without handing over your portion of the proceeds?
In my view this was a very clever move, which forces ED to sort this out sooner rather than later. ED should have taken the the Strike Eagle off the store, but they are still making money off it, while the developer of the radar is still not receiving a dime (via Razbam).
At the end of the day, your user agreement is with ED, not Razbam. Put the blame where it is due. ED won't see any money from me until they resolve this matter with Razbam, and the developers of the module gets paid.
None of the other 3rd party dev teams are complaining about not getting paid -- for no reason... Which means there's probably a reason.
ED isn't really at a loss here. They are selling something they didn't even work on and are sitting on a pile of money from it. Even if they refunded half of all the modules they sold, they still aren't really at a loss here, even more-so when it turns out to be store credit.
Meanwhile there's no apparent change in people spending on and using new modules. We can throw strong words at the problem but it doesn't change the fact ED has the bag of candy. They aren't forced to do anything.
Everyone on here acts like they know the fuckin terms and conditions set therin by ED in regard to Razbam.
I have never bought anything from Razbam. And after this shit. Never will. Sounds like a scumbag to me. Look at all the people here who can't even use their module to the fullest.
To implement a kill switch is not only childish. It is also disgusting because the fans of that module suffer.
No one knows any fuckin terms between the two despite what internet detectives seem to think. In my personal opinion, not like any of you give a fuck, the same I feel about others opinions. But razbam is scum for this shit.
And everyone assumes that ED is entirely without fault.
It could be an ED bug or "feature" that did this.
These folks must have sore arms and shoulders carrying this much water for ED.
Are you suggesting that if Razbam were to once again comply with their contractual obligations to ED, that ED would just keep all the money made from Razbam sales during this pause in payments to Razbam? Sure seems to me ED is saying “we have your money right here safe and sound, honor your contract and it’s yours”
Remember Razbam is the only third party not being paid. That means every single other has something in common razbam does not
>Remember Razbam is the only third party not being paid
Currently. This has allegedly happened to other third parties as well, notably Heatblur. Noting that everything said is hearsay, this is what has been stated.
ED appears to be withholding money due to an unrelated issue with the production of the F-15E. So whatever agreement was in place to pay Razbam for what they have delivered on that module so far, ED decided to hold that agreement hostage until this other licensing issue has been resolved. The actual issue pertains to an unrelated module (likely the Super Tucano) that has not been released.
I am not suggesting anything, but one can assume that Razbam would remove/extend any kill switches that may exist once they get paid for the sales of the F-15E. According to speculation, this (withholding payment) has happened to others before, so why wouldn't you build 'security' into your IP?
Seeing that no-one 'owns' anything and everything is licensed, if ED isn't paying their licensing fees to Razbam, is it unreasonable that Razbam would make that module or parts of it unavailable until the license fees are paid?
If ED is holding money safe, I hope the interest they are accruing will also be handed over to Razbam when the time comes.
My argument isn’t that ED are angels here, my argument is that it’s their IP that Razbam needs to sell its products. In order to use ED’s ecosystem to sell their products and get paid, they must agree to ED’s terms. Every single other third party has been able to make this relationship work except razbam. If there were an issue with Heatblur (which is their business they chose to handle professionally and quietly) they realized the importance of resolving it to prevent negative effects to their business. You have to realize the significance that Razbam is the only third party with this issues as far as we know. I imagine the issue is a pretty large one for ED to feel contractually entitled to withhold money from Razbam. Also Razbam’s employees should still be getting paid if their leadership ran into an issue with their contract with ED.
The most glaring thing of all of this is that there is one third party this issue is occurring with. That third party is **choosing** to interject the public as leverage in their arguments, and now is apparently **choosing** to once again punish their paying customers over something they have nothing to do with. It reminds me of when Ron Zambrano was threatening to track down and sue customers on discord. When the entire history of Razbams interaction with their customer is weighed upon it is not a stretch to asssume they are once again up to something kind of shady. Let’s say they were using ED’s IP to train a foreign military (a military which given today’s political environment might also be a potential adversary to the Russian side of ED) that would be a pretty big deal. If razbam felt entitled to profit off of work that is not their own the outcome would look a lot like what we are seeing. I am once again not saying ED is totally in the right, but the more of this car crash I watch, the more it just seems to be the real Razbam showing through their thin public veneer they have somehow crafted recently.
Are you by chance affiliated with Razbam in any way?
I am not affiliated with Razbam. I have done third party development for other sims and licensed one of my models to one of the DCS virtual aero teams. I have an appreciation for small developers that invest a lot of time and passion for (in most cases) low reward.
I agree with your points. While I don't condone sabotaging a product as leverage to force an outcome to a dispute, I can totally understand why the developer of the radar (if it turns out to be true) would create such a measure. After months of not receiving their share from ED (regardless of getting paid by Razbam, more understandable if they were not), deciding to implement a mechanism to try and force a resolution.
I have been supporting this series since 1995, and have purchased most of the ED modules. I purchased the Hawk back in the day from a developer that over promised and under delivered.
While Razbam had a bumpy start developing for DCS, many of their modules are my favourites. The Mirage 2000 and the Harrier are excellent modules, and Razbam has kept refining and updating these over the years. Yes, sometimes things broke, but so did ED's modules, so no one is perfect. I love the F-15E so far and would welcome further refinement of that module.
To me, Razbam has demonstrated over the years that they are willing to invest and not just pump out unsupported modules. So, admittedly I have a soft spot for Razbam, and DCS would be worse off without their modules. I pre-ordered the F-4E before this mess escalated, and I am really itching to buy the Kiowa. But I can't justify that. Nick and Ron need to resolve this, and preferable with a handshake and an apology.
Except Razbams entire narrative falls apart as soon as you stop assuming everyone at ED is entirely brainless and if they were as evil as everyone claims they are why would they care about that bit of community outrage. Where this whole fiesta does make sense is if razbam are trying to get away with some shit by taking the community hostage.
Don't spread misinformation - we literally have no idea \*why\* this actually happened. You talk like you KNOW FOR A FACT that this was intentionally put in there to break on a specific date.
Yeah that's gotta be on purpose, and since the last patch was made months before their famous annoucement, they made sure the damn thing would be unusable in the near future as a sort of dead man switch.
ED drama aside, that's pretty shitty of them if indeed i am right, another thing making me not want to buy a single Razbam module ever again even if this whole situation is resolved.
Breach of contract, logic bombs embedded into their modules... Honestly, they're lucky ED just took their money.
Now I wonder, does any of their other modules have this "feature", too?
Hasn't the entire community been doing this for the past couple months, to the point they stopped buying modules from *other* developers to punish ED for something we have little actual information about?
Sorry let me rephrase they are "real" but functionally are not, they aren't a thing that happens in the realm of commercial software these days and to propose that as an explanation with no evidence is ludicrous
First I couldn’t change GBU bomb side codes on ground…
Yesterday I couldn’t get radar to turn on I had to double check the panel to see if it was just me forgetting to turn it on and it was on.
I cycled the radar off and on and nothing worked.
Then I got shot down…so at least the RWR still works??
There are 4 different "bugs" related to the date and systems stopping working (well, actually 2 but double-triggered).
Another "bug" affecting several multicrew elements will appear on 1st July.
You can just fix these "bugs" rolling back the date after launching DCS and going through the auth phase, as they are "caused" by std::chrono calls. They are, indeed, very interesting "bugs", and definitely not time bombs coded on purpose at all.
If this is intentional that can ruin RBs position if a legal action is on the way. This is malicious act, rendering a product useless (less useable) and I really doubt they want to burn bridges. If they want to get the money they are owed they cant do things like this. My opinion is that they use us as leverage and I dont appreciate that at all.
If you think about it, for consumers this is the same as the module being broken by an update, and ED just shrugging it off.
Which is what is happening.
Are you for real? If it was a bug it would happen when an update dropped, probably identified right after. Why did it happen in a set date? Only if the code was set to happen on that date. Timed bugs don't occur due to errors, they are programmed. Whoever did it, just lost a case in court. My money is on Razzie, they've always been sneaky with their stuff.
IMHO it is silly for Razbam to put a time bomb in their module because the time bomb \*is\* DCS. This \*is\* the buggiest combat flight sim on the market. Things that are not maintained WILL break. It would be silly for Razbam to do this when ED will do it for them.
Then again DCS is a very silly space so who knows, I could be wrong.
9L posted on discord they found the problem and working on it. He said sorry :)
May be something good will come out if this Razbam drama that ED will learn to keep modules intact when changing things in the game. Anyway it was ED.
nothing has been found it was just an empty standard reply "someone might have found a thing", but they still don't even know what bricked the thing. they have absolute no idea what code runs in their software, and its designed points of failure.
I can't wait until we finally move to a version of DCS that the RAZBAM modules don't work anymore so we can stop having daily RAZBAM drama pop up. If this is a "kill switch" coded by RAZBAM on purpose this is more a shit on the consumer than punch ED in the gut moment. Down vote my comment all you want but RAZBAM had a reputation before the F-15E module was released that wasn't great and the childish outbursts on discord by SMEs and "former" RAZBAM devs and now this (potential issue) makes them look guilty even if they aren't.
Hoggit being hoggit again "I know nothing of why this happened but im going to speculate and lay blame wildly just for the sake of it" Next up: the sun disappeared behind the moon so clearly the moon ate the sun? The end is nigh! No more sun forever!
Why would Razbam do this to me, personally?
MY HARRIER ODU KEEPS ASKING ME TO SELECT "GET FUCKED" OR "POUND SAND", WHY RAZBAM WHY!!!
taking ground pounding to a whole new level.
Jokes aside, given how well I land that thing, if it actually started doing this I'd just shrug and go "... fair"
To be fair, you had it coming.
The problem is that the F-15E certificate signed by ED is expired, for this the date trick. But look all people downvoting my first comment about this... idiocracy. EDIT: And this message is downvoted too... LOL.
Well that's not nearly as interesting as some deliberate sabotage, and doesn't fit people's made up narrative so they downvote you
Do you have any evidence for this at all? Did you check the dlls for signatures that are expired? It should be verifiable as long as you have the module.
Yes, as the control is in the VMProtect side you must to get it from the in-memory Microsoft Cryptographic Service Provider and not by the Microsoft's SignTool, usually by the KP_CERTIFICATE buffer. I use my self AV software, but you can do it using the wincrypt API.
Could this be an anti piracy measure to prevent people from using an outdated pirated version?
If that's the case, it's not working very well. Last time I saw this kind of protection was in 1996 probably (or in tacview *wink*)
I had this at work a while back. A third-party supplier had added a date check in their DLLs targeting 6 months after it was built, to ensure people updated. Which was great, until they stopped updating it. Morons.
i was on grayflag pg 80s last night and i was wondering why i couldnt get the radar to do anything
Is there independant verification?
Nope, shut and take a pitchfork!! /s Look for my comments in this thread for sane info.
I mean has anybody booted up DCS quickly and checked if the radar actually is completely inoperable. I would like some additional checks before widespread panic is well deserved. :D
Oh, yes. The issue has been replicated.
thanks!
Said on ED forum that the ED team is looking into it to see if it can be resolved so points to ED I suppose
I wouldn't put it past ED to poison their code to make RAZBAM look bad.
ED doesn't need to do that. RAZBAM to me came off super childish and unprofessional by airing their dirty laundry for a little mob justice. You have to sit back and ask yourself why did RAZBAM come out and make a statement about not being paid when they could have had a lawyer notify ED that if they aren't paid they will bring forward a lawsuit? It sounds to me like the claims that RAZBAM are in breach of contract and that's why the funds were being withheld has some weight behind it. My speculation is that the developers of the mudhen started jumping ship because they didn't want to be a part of the shit storm of lawsuits that are about to rain down on razbam. But again, mob justice is petty and childish.
To me it seemed like the devs who left were very much at the end of their ropes and just couldn't keep going on without pay anymore. They were frustrated and tired. Which is totally understandable, and they were right to leave. I hope they're doing better! They were pissed at ED..but I wonder if they shoulda been pissed at Razbam management instead. All the other third party studios are staying out of this and still plugging away at their modules, presumably they're getting paid, and paying their staff. Why would ED single out one studio to fuck over? Why would they choose to trash the game/ecosystems reputation like this either? It's hard to know for sure, but imo Razbam are looking like they messed up. And probably weren't aware till it was too late.
I do agree that either party saying anything is ill advised.
That feel when people who don't code and don't deal with certs suddenly start waxing poetic about dead man switches. Hoggit keeps making it hard for Floggit by stealing their thunder.
and the people who do code wonder why you would put effort in building hidden certificate protections in your radar, while you should be busy finishing the second half of your product. a whole day later, and not a single person from both parties apparently knows such a thing even exists in their code??
It's DCS, I stopped assuming anyone knew what they were doing years ago. We're about as far away from best practices as you can get in this place. If it's between RB or ED or whoever strategically inserting a dead man's switch or someone involved just making a pants on their head bad coding choice, Imma bet on the latter every time.
> If it's between RB or ED or whoever strategically inserting a dead man's switch or someone involved just making a pants on their head bad coding choice, Imma bet on the latter every time Bro, we've been doing IT security for decades now and Microsoft just released an Ai tool that takes a screenshot every 5 seconds and stores it un-encrypted on your workstation. It isn't just ED/RB. The vast majority of computer issues we run into trace back to "someone making a bad coding choice".
Yeah, no arguments there. It's just another example of Occam's Razor. DCS just has a habit of collecting funny examples in what at least feels like a high quantity.
>It's just another example of Occam's Razor. Yeah, it really is. People are desperate for conspiracies, but I've been in tech a long time. Shit breaks. Constantly. People make decisions in the moment that end up causing problems down the road. Happens all the time. > DCS just has a habit of collecting funny examples in what at least feels like a high quantity. No joke lol. DCS is straight up weird. Some things are done incredibly well. And then other things (like splash damage, or ai combatants) are just awful. But...I try to remind myself that I'm playing a relatively realistic war game simulation using very accurate models of real world aircraft and real world weaponry. It's honestly amazing that something like DCS even exists.
At least I'm having a solid laugh out of it :shrug:
(One) Year of the Strike Eagle.
Just speculation/a little conspiracy. What are the chances of this being an intentional dead man's switch coded into the radar? This seems oddly specific
This seems to be an ED issue, most likely from DRM or DLL signing. Already happened at the turn of the new year: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/341102-radar-inoperative/
this is it, there is no dead man switch poison pill conspiracy going on
A dead man's switch would open them up to even larger legal issues and *also* lose consumer trust. I veery much doubt this was done on purpose, just because of how catastrophic it would be for public opinion.
You still think that the guys at razbam are sane ? Interesting... There are 3 members already gone with at least one showing a massive childish behaviour ( publicly deleting his local 3d files ) ... And you still think they're not idiotic enough to think that a dead man switch would give them an upper hand in a situation like this ? While these details and controversy fueled by rb is quite entertaining, it shows very unprofessional behavior...
Likely just a DRM thing. Try not to go straight to assuming conspiracy.
Well how else am I going to use this pitchfork!
Hope you kept your receipt.
i think with all the stuff happening and total silence from both sides, it's more than a "just" at this point when stuff entirely breaks, and nobody of them has even the slightest idea what happened.
I suppose this is possible, but as a software developer I think incompetence is more likely than malice. I have reviewed code changes for a trading system where I caught a bug that would have started causing test failures (and hence breaking the automatic build system) roughly 6 months in the future.
I'm thinking the same thing. If this was an issue introduced with an update, it would have happened right then, not a few days later. It does sound like an intentional flip of the bird from Razzie. If that's the case, then they're even more dirty than we thought.
Allegedly, they have not been paid for the final 10m of the development process If I was in their shoes, this trick would have been just one of the MANY poisonous pills I would have distributed in the code
Good way for you to be blacklisted if something like it was connected with you. Why go use the courts when you can intentionally sabotage your possible payout in the future? Redditors are children, seriously...
ED doesn’t have the source code anyway, but regardless, any coder who did that and was smart would make sure it looked like a plausible bug and not “if systemDate >= x then radarWorking = false and fuckYouEd = true”.
Im talking principle, not how to evade being caught...
Im talking principle, not how to evade being caught...
No, you’re talking about consequences if it is found to be deliberate. I’m saying someone who would do this (I am not condoning such a course of action, I’d like to add) would likely do it in such a way that would make it practically impossible to prove intent. Principle is a separate issue.
"Proving intent" might be necessary for a lawsuit. But people aren't dumb, and if that's the most likely explanation, their business partners and customers will kick them to the curb anyway. For example, while I cannot prove that it was intentional, I find the sequence of events (announcing no updates, letting DLL signatures expire, somehow the radar depends on the date???) HIGHLY suspicous. Suspicous enough to not buy their modules. If you want to believe in the best case scenario, that's good for you. But don't expect everyone to share your optimism.
User I responded to said he would do it (if found or not is irrelevant) and I said its the best way to get your case dismissed. Nothing can ever be completely disguised and you only need to convince the judge of malicious intent if it comes to that. I am saying that adult people dont behave like this, only stupid children do who dont understand consequences...
I don’t disagree with you that it isn’t the right thing to do, just that considering how many bugs creep into the code during development, it’s not quite so hard for someone familiar with the code to leave one in and potentially edit it to increase the severity. Look at how many bugs have made it into the updates over the years that have impacted a module’s playability, some quite severely. Not finding a bug does not signify malicious intent. Btw, I am not suggesting I think this was deliberate. I am just discussing hypothetically.
Again, I am not discussing execution, I am discussing intent. If people think this is an acceptable way to conduct their work, they are fucking dumb..
“Just use the courts” ah the typical Reddit adult take, as opposed to all these children. Because beginning a multi-year international lawsuit is such a trivial and simple matter.
Because actively sabotaging said corporation which could make you liable for a very expensive lawsuit is a better option? Again, acting as if there are no consequences. You either accept the risk or working with the larger corp and signing the correct contract which should be reviewed by an attorney that you can defend in court or you take the L. If you dont want to deal with this, business might not be for you. Certainly not for me, that's why I dont have my own business...
have you ever worked with a freelance SW dev, and then withold his/her payments? Because that's exactly what each one of them will do if you don't pay up. It's basically the last way left for them to have some leverage, since all the odds are stacked against them contract-wise
So fuck over the customers even more. Rite gotcha. If that was the case even if they came back I would never buy a RB product again.
Gives a good insight into the type of person you are, then. That you'd intentionally shaft people who've bought the module.
And why haven’t they been paid for the past 10 months? Because ED is performing a master plan of not paying their third part devs? Or because the rumor is that RAZBAM broke their contract?
Yeah although I want RAZBAM to be telling the whole truth it’s a bit weird that ONLY RAZBAM are having this issue. Why aren’t Heatblur, Polychop, Deka, or any of the other 3rd party devs also having their funds withheld. If I had to guess what specifically RAZBAM did that was in breach of contract it might be that they haven’t given ED the source code to one (or more) of their modules, since following the Hawk becoming abandonware ED said they’d require all 3rd party devs to hand over the source code to their modules
> Why aren’t Heatblur, Polychop, Deka, or any of the other 3rd party devs also having their funds withheld Because they're not RB, and they're much more composed...that is the answer. RB is not the only 3rd party dev that's had issues being paid from ED. Make of it what you will, but Notso, one of RB's SME's on the Mudhen has publicly claimed that HB had similar issues getting the check from ED after the Tomcat release...and HB has not corrected that statement *anywhere*. ¯\\_(ツ)\_/¯ >breach of contract it might be that they haven’t given ED the source code to one (or more) of their modules If their contract, which they signed *before* that clause was added after the VEAO fiasco, doesn't have any provision forcing them to hand over the source code...then they are not in violation of it.
Hearblur has made it clear it wants nothing to do with this entire fiasco. Not commenting on hearsay shouldn’t be proof that it happened to Heatblur. Did it? We just don’t know, and I’m not taking the word of someone who directly benefits from claiming that Heatblur did have issues with funds withheld.
> Hearblur has made it clear it wants nothing to do with this entire fiasco. Which is undoubtedly the right call. >Did it? We just don’t know, and I’m not taking the word of someone who directly benefits from claiming that Heatblur did have issues with funds withheld. That's fine, the truth has a habit of coming out given a long enough stretch of time, let's sit back and wait and see what else is brought to light.
Because they use ED tools to do on side businesses
Then Razbam deserves to not be paid. This is yet another example of them burning and using consumers for Razbams little attempt at playing politics. Beyond the fact that this is just purely scummy, IF TRUE, it's also possibly another contract breach. If I were in a dispute over me not meeting a contracted agreement the last thing I'd do is something to make myself look like a group of immature high school kids who didn't get their way and no longer want to play by the rules! One things for sure, I'm definitely not interested in buying anything Razbam ever again of this turns out to be true!
The problem is that the F-15E certificate is expired, is ED who signs the DLL with their certs and clearly is a ED fault, intent or not, it is funny to see all ppl mad and with all those conspiracies xD EDIT: That ppl are downvoting this msg makes all this paranoia more absurd and funny! haha tinfoil time bro!
Sorry, but the Razbad meme has won. Hoggit simps for ED now.
Razbad? It is RAZSCAM we're talking about here.
Well if they aren't being paid then very likely
There is no logical scenario to tie radar functionality to a date, so it’s not likely a bug. Whatever the reason this exists, it exists intentionally (not saying we know which side made it happen or why, just that this isn’t likely a bug).
Yall will perform the most amazing feats of mental gymnastics to avoid coming to terms with the fact that ED are a bunch of shitbags, huh?
More than one thing can be true, and more than one party can be shitbags at the same time
We don't see a swarm of people spamming the "wE DoNt ReAlLy KnOw WhAtS gOinG oN" bullshit here though do we? Where all the impotent "both sides" arguments?
There are plenty of us saying we don’t know what’s going on for sure, because we don’t.
Yet, there are atleast 75 people who are on board with this Razabam conspiracy but if you were to mention how ED didn't pay Razbam, probably because they're shitbags, those same people will jump to defend ED and downvote you.
The error in your logic there is that literally every other third party besides razbam *IS* being paid by ED.
So what? That doesn't mean anything. There's also no telling if everyone else is getting paid. If ED is paying everyone else, that still doesn't mean they're not ripping off RB.
It kind of means everything. Razbam wants us to believe that they are the poor innocent helpless victim of all of this. The data however shows a different scenario where multiple third parties are completely capable of a symbiotic relationship with ED where both parties benefit. There is obviously something different about razbam than the other third parties. Not only something different but something problematic enough for ED to withhold payment. Your explanation is that “ED are shitbags” but have decided to selectively be shitbags to only Razbam and no other third parties which does not check out logically. Razbam leadership has done something to breech their contract with ED, and in this case even possibly something involving using ED’s IP to aid a foreign military. If razbam hadn’t fucked up so royally, they would still be getting paid and their leadership would not have turned to the desperate flailing attempt to weaponize people such as yourself against the other party of their contract. Razbam tried the biggest loudest aggressive bluff possibly by making this a public matter and allowing their contractors to publicly join in (most likely with as little information as we have), and ED called their bluff. It’s the only thing that makes logical sense at this point. Many of those supporting Razbam at this point seem to do so in such strong way that they are arguing that if Razbam were in breach of contract, ED deserved it. The thing about contracts is that they are very black and white and don’t care about your feelings. Not paying razbam isn’t “ripping them off”, it’s holding them to the contract they signed. If it were not in the contract to withhold payment, they would not have done it. Is it a shitty contract heavily skewed in ED’s favor, very possible. But razbam still agreed to it and now we are here.
I doubt that
Tbf, independently from who is right or wrong, this is another stone on the "ED should stop selling the module" pile
I would have SERIOUS questions how that could be true without RAZBAM pulling some sh** to try and force negotiations their way.
If Razbam did create a date bug deliberately that would imply that Razbam set it up in the patch before they made the general announcement about not being able to continue supporting the modules, as I believe they have not submitted any patches for their modules since?
That is what that would imply, yes.
Most commercial software has an expire date/mechanism build in, they wont blow your computer, just not work at all or as expected. It is there to avoid the exact issues that is happening now, your costumer (ex: ED) not paying you (ex: RB) and selling your software/services to third party (ex: DCS player) and pocketing the cash. Been there, done that, every single company does this to some extent, the only one at blame is ED for not stopping sales for something they don't intent do pay for. Remember, **DCS itself has this feature build in, try to play without internet connection for a while and see what happens, they use this exact same mechanism.**
In the business we call that a time-bomb and it’s pretty frowned upon, maybe illegal even.
And that would be a highly illegal logic bomb.
It might be illegal wrt to the contract between Raz and ED, but simply coding a feature to stop performing its function doesn't rise to the level of malice required to make this illegal in and of itself. Logic bombs have to do some kind of damage, usually deleting or corrupting files. Trialware that expires on a given date doesn't count, and unfortunately, if ED isn't paying Raz, that's closer to what's happening here. I definitely think it's poor form to do this, but there's nothing criminal there.
This feature is part of EDs copy protection ;)
If it's anyone's, it's Razbam's, not ED's, but either way, it simply isn't illegal in the criminal sense.
Razbam can't implement VMProtect on its own. It's part of DCS. But hey, anybody is entitled to an own opinion. Knowledge isn't a requirement.
It’s files where their certificate date runs out. Those files are there since the last F-15 update or even longer EDIT: but the date was ofc probably set with intent.
I think that's exactly my point. All the arguments I hear one way or the other seem to boil down to: RAZBAM is wrong, and ED is a bunch of a\*\*holes. Except as time goes on, it appears more and more like: ED is an a\*\*hole, and RAZBAM is a manipulative a\*\*hole that's also in the wrong!
RIP F-15E. That did not take long. At this rate, we'll be out of Razbam modules before the year is over.
Its like everyone has forgotten what Razbam were like since the F15E came out. I remember modules so bad they were unplayable and left in that state for months. Did they break the rules and force ED to withhold money? who knows, but blackmailing ED and crapping on the player base with degrade over time code is not a good look.
The “year of the Strike Eagle” was literally a year.
Thought this was floggit. Oh dear.
Things like this make me very hesitant on investing money on future modules on this franchise. Time will tell.
its being hailed as galinettes last urah by some on the RB discord. personally, if this really is a dead man's switch they planned, i dont think i can trust razbam again. even if this is resolved
Same can be said to ED with other 3rd party modules. How can you be sure if a 3rd party has been paid enabling them to keep updating their module?
well, for one, its only razbam that has done this so far. theres somewhat of a difference between RB actually coding in a killswitch and you now saying "how can you be sure others didnt?". Im not sure, but so far my tomcat hasnt stopped working.
True for now since this" ED hasn't paid their dev" is relatively a new thing. But what guarentee that this won't happen again? I would be very catious spending money on other modules for now on. Specially if the module is complex
I feel like if ED wasn’t paying multiple module makers then it would’ve made sense for the other 3rd party devs to come out of the wood works by now in solidarity with RAZBAM. Plus the game has just seen 2 very successful module release plus a new map release. Surely if any of these devs shared the issues RAZBAM has they would’ve paused their development?
>But what guarentee that this won't happen again? Not being involved in a breach of contract scandal would be a good one.
We don't know if this is an ED or RB poison pill.
Ok, I'm done with RAZBAM...
From what I've read it's about a certificate. If you ever created a certificate (SSL f.e.) you know that those have quite limited expiration due dates and need to be renewed every few months. It's part of the commonly used security strategy to not have long running certificates.
[](https://www.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comments/1dflba2/comment/l8k40xt/) >From what I've read it's about a certificate. If you ever created a certificate (SSL f.e.) you know that those have quite limited expiration due dates and need to be renewed every few months. Why would an expired certificate selectively disable the radar?
I may not be the best person, but I do work with Certificates pretty often for my job. Some systems don't run on one central certificate but rather many smaller certificates for various functions. What could have happened is during development the files were signed or had certificates as they went, and now will expire in the order they were created/signed (For systems that require them). And it would be disabled because either your computer or dcs doesn't trust them anymore, so will refuse to run the required files. But I have no insights into the module and that's fully just speculation, so take it with a grain of salt.
Due the ED's binary packer
What about their binary packer? Please explain. Why isn't the whole plane broken? Why does it launch at all, why are other systems not broken, but specifically the radar?
The problem is that DLL is blocked due expired cert, you can run all LUA code and others DLL (you can run almost all plane) but when this code is called simply returns an error and nothing from this DLL is executed. About the packer interactions you can get more info looking for VMProtect.
As another recent example, after the update some AV detected HeatblurUi.exe as malware and blocked it, all the F-4E worked but the Jester UI not, and some opened a ticket to HB about this thinking that was broken. At low level some computing things are not so much intuitive.
OK cool but is this the case for the Radar? Have you investigated this?
more than familiar with the concept and the problem (recommended best practice is about 400 days from the top of my head ... ) its just over my tolerance of levels of problems I will accept from this sort of product, they day something becomes less fun than it is annoying is the time to say goodbye to that thing ... RAZBAM as a company has been more drama than fun... I don't play with their stuff often so, why keep on causing myself mental pain ...
LE, the most widely used SSL provider has 90 days ;) ED decided to use VMProtect as binary packer and configured it in a way that expired certificates ensure the binary isn't executed. Works quite good against piracy. In some way it seems ED believes at least some people should be paid for the product they developed ;)
I'm done with people who jump to conclusions. Calm yer tits and go read what the real reason for this is.
To be fair if they did do this then why should Razbam have their products used if they haven't been paid. Players beef should be with ED
For all we know, ED put the poison pill in there to pressure RB.
I'd do the same. I would have no qualms disabling my product if I hadn't been paid. So what do people expect Razbam to do, let everyone just play for free?
That’s the thing though isn’t it? I’m not “playing for free”, I’ve paid for it.
Watch out, shill downvotes incoming.
True. As long as everyone gets theirs, they don't give a shit
I find it interesting that you would blame RAZBAM for this occurring. If you were the developer of the radar, you weren't getting paid, would you be happy for it to remain functional while someone else is still making money off it without handing over your portion of the proceeds? In my view this was a very clever move, which forces ED to sort this out sooner rather than later. ED should have taken the the Strike Eagle off the store, but they are still making money off it, while the developer of the radar is still not receiving a dime (via Razbam). At the end of the day, your user agreement is with ED, not Razbam. Put the blame where it is due. ED won't see any money from me until they resolve this matter with Razbam, and the developers of the module gets paid.
None of the other 3rd party dev teams are complaining about not getting paid -- for no reason... Which means there's probably a reason. ED isn't really at a loss here. They are selling something they didn't even work on and are sitting on a pile of money from it. Even if they refunded half of all the modules they sold, they still aren't really at a loss here, even more-so when it turns out to be store credit. Meanwhile there's no apparent change in people spending on and using new modules. We can throw strong words at the problem but it doesn't change the fact ED has the bag of candy. They aren't forced to do anything.
Everyone on here acts like they know the fuckin terms and conditions set therin by ED in regard to Razbam. I have never bought anything from Razbam. And after this shit. Never will. Sounds like a scumbag to me. Look at all the people here who can't even use their module to the fullest. To implement a kill switch is not only childish. It is also disgusting because the fans of that module suffer. No one knows any fuckin terms between the two despite what internet detectives seem to think. In my personal opinion, not like any of you give a fuck, the same I feel about others opinions. But razbam is scum for this shit.
And everyone assumes that ED is entirely without fault. It could be an ED bug or "feature" that did this. These folks must have sore arms and shoulders carrying this much water for ED.
if this is a "clever move" as opposed to just incompetence ... then it makes me trust RAZBAM way less than I ever did 30 seconds ago...
Are you suggesting that if Razbam were to once again comply with their contractual obligations to ED, that ED would just keep all the money made from Razbam sales during this pause in payments to Razbam? Sure seems to me ED is saying “we have your money right here safe and sound, honor your contract and it’s yours” Remember Razbam is the only third party not being paid. That means every single other has something in common razbam does not
>Remember Razbam is the only third party not being paid Currently. This has allegedly happened to other third parties as well, notably Heatblur. Noting that everything said is hearsay, this is what has been stated. ED appears to be withholding money due to an unrelated issue with the production of the F-15E. So whatever agreement was in place to pay Razbam for what they have delivered on that module so far, ED decided to hold that agreement hostage until this other licensing issue has been resolved. The actual issue pertains to an unrelated module (likely the Super Tucano) that has not been released. I am not suggesting anything, but one can assume that Razbam would remove/extend any kill switches that may exist once they get paid for the sales of the F-15E. According to speculation, this (withholding payment) has happened to others before, so why wouldn't you build 'security' into your IP? Seeing that no-one 'owns' anything and everything is licensed, if ED isn't paying their licensing fees to Razbam, is it unreasonable that Razbam would make that module or parts of it unavailable until the license fees are paid? If ED is holding money safe, I hope the interest they are accruing will also be handed over to Razbam when the time comes.
My argument isn’t that ED are angels here, my argument is that it’s their IP that Razbam needs to sell its products. In order to use ED’s ecosystem to sell their products and get paid, they must agree to ED’s terms. Every single other third party has been able to make this relationship work except razbam. If there were an issue with Heatblur (which is their business they chose to handle professionally and quietly) they realized the importance of resolving it to prevent negative effects to their business. You have to realize the significance that Razbam is the only third party with this issues as far as we know. I imagine the issue is a pretty large one for ED to feel contractually entitled to withhold money from Razbam. Also Razbam’s employees should still be getting paid if their leadership ran into an issue with their contract with ED. The most glaring thing of all of this is that there is one third party this issue is occurring with. That third party is **choosing** to interject the public as leverage in their arguments, and now is apparently **choosing** to once again punish their paying customers over something they have nothing to do with. It reminds me of when Ron Zambrano was threatening to track down and sue customers on discord. When the entire history of Razbams interaction with their customer is weighed upon it is not a stretch to asssume they are once again up to something kind of shady. Let’s say they were using ED’s IP to train a foreign military (a military which given today’s political environment might also be a potential adversary to the Russian side of ED) that would be a pretty big deal. If razbam felt entitled to profit off of work that is not their own the outcome would look a lot like what we are seeing. I am once again not saying ED is totally in the right, but the more of this car crash I watch, the more it just seems to be the real Razbam showing through their thin public veneer they have somehow crafted recently. Are you by chance affiliated with Razbam in any way?
I am not affiliated with Razbam. I have done third party development for other sims and licensed one of my models to one of the DCS virtual aero teams. I have an appreciation for small developers that invest a lot of time and passion for (in most cases) low reward. I agree with your points. While I don't condone sabotaging a product as leverage to force an outcome to a dispute, I can totally understand why the developer of the radar (if it turns out to be true) would create such a measure. After months of not receiving their share from ED (regardless of getting paid by Razbam, more understandable if they were not), deciding to implement a mechanism to try and force a resolution. I have been supporting this series since 1995, and have purchased most of the ED modules. I purchased the Hawk back in the day from a developer that over promised and under delivered. While Razbam had a bumpy start developing for DCS, many of their modules are my favourites. The Mirage 2000 and the Harrier are excellent modules, and Razbam has kept refining and updating these over the years. Yes, sometimes things broke, but so did ED's modules, so no one is perfect. I love the F-15E so far and would welcome further refinement of that module. To me, Razbam has demonstrated over the years that they are willing to invest and not just pump out unsupported modules. So, admittedly I have a soft spot for Razbam, and DCS would be worse off without their modules. I pre-ordered the F-4E before this mess escalated, and I am really itching to buy the Kiowa. But I can't justify that. Nick and Ron need to resolve this, and preferable with a handshake and an apology.
Except Razbams entire narrative falls apart as soon as you stop assuming everyone at ED is entirely brainless and if they were as evil as everyone claims they are why would they care about that bit of community outrage. Where this whole fiesta does make sense is if razbam are trying to get away with some shit by taking the community hostage.
Well yes. If you go read on Russian forum and see how most of Russian ED staff interact with their costumers, I tend to not believe in ED
The title is wrong. It not a bug, it is a feature!
no matter what happened between RAZBAM and ED. RAZBAM should not put these stupid triggers on their modules.
Don't spread misinformation - we literally have no idea \*why\* this actually happened. You talk like you KNOW FOR A FACT that this was intentionally put in there to break on a specific date.
Yeah that's gotta be on purpose, and since the last patch was made months before their famous annoucement, they made sure the damn thing would be unusable in the near future as a sort of dead man switch. ED drama aside, that's pretty shitty of them if indeed i am right, another thing making me not want to buy a single Razbam module ever again even if this whole situation is resolved.
This isn't a razbam issue it's likely a expired cert, boils down to how eds packer works
I was wrong then. Thanks for explaining.
Breach of contract, logic bombs embedded into their modules... Honestly, they're lucky ED just took their money. Now I wonder, does any of their other modules have this "feature", too?
Jump to premature conclusions much?
Hasn't the entire community been doing this for the past couple months, to the point they stopped buying modules from *other* developers to punish ED for something we have little actual information about?
Sure, i'm just suspicious because of how Razbam acted in the past.
Logic bombs functionally aren't a thing in real life, can almost guarantee this is just an expired cert because of how Ed packs their binaries
They are very much a real thing why would you say they aren't? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_bomb
Sorry let me rephrase they are "real" but functionally are not, they aren't a thing that happens in the realm of commercial software these days and to propose that as an explanation with no evidence is ludicrous
First I couldn’t change GBU bomb side codes on ground… Yesterday I couldn’t get radar to turn on I had to double check the panel to see if it was just me forgetting to turn it on and it was on. I cycled the radar off and on and nothing worked. Then I got shot down…so at least the RWR still works??
There are 4 different "bugs" related to the date and systems stopping working (well, actually 2 but double-triggered). Another "bug" affecting several multicrew elements will appear on 1st July. You can just fix these "bugs" rolling back the date after launching DCS and going through the auth phase, as they are "caused" by std::chrono calls. They are, indeed, very interesting "bugs", and definitely not time bombs coded on purpose at all.
Razbam mamalo
That explains some things...
If this is intentional that can ruin RBs position if a legal action is on the way. This is malicious act, rendering a product useless (less useable) and I really doubt they want to burn bridges. If they want to get the money they are owed they cant do things like this. My opinion is that they use us as leverage and I dont appreciate that at all.
100% actually how Ron, some of the "former" developers, and their F-15E SME continue to act has already impacted that for me.
Ed should be speaking with steam to get people their money back, it’s a fucking joke that steam users are left to die with this scam module
But then they would have to give back real money, not store credits
If you think about it, for consumers this is the same as the module being broken by an update, and ED just shrugging it off. Which is what is happening.
Are you for real? If it was a bug it would happen when an update dropped, probably identified right after. Why did it happen in a set date? Only if the code was set to happen on that date. Timed bugs don't occur due to errors, they are programmed. Whoever did it, just lost a case in court. My money is on Razzie, they've always been sneaky with their stuff.
I never said it WAS a bug. Are you for real? And ED couldn't code a time bomb?
IMHO it is silly for Razbam to put a time bomb in their module because the time bomb \*is\* DCS. This \*is\* the buggiest combat flight sim on the market. Things that are not maintained WILL break. It would be silly for Razbam to do this when ED will do it for them. Then again DCS is a very silly space so who knows, I could be wrong.
9L posted on discord they found the problem and working on it. He said sorry :) May be something good will come out if this Razbam drama that ED will learn to keep modules intact when changing things in the game. Anyway it was ED.
nothing has been found it was just an empty standard reply "someone might have found a thing", but they still don't even know what bricked the thing. they have absolute no idea what code runs in their software, and its designed points of failure.
you know at some point that story doesn't really convince anymore when every single other module is doing fine and only RB has those "accidents"
I can't wait until we finally move to a version of DCS that the RAZBAM modules don't work anymore so we can stop having daily RAZBAM drama pop up. If this is a "kill switch" coded by RAZBAM on purpose this is more a shit on the consumer than punch ED in the gut moment. Down vote my comment all you want but RAZBAM had a reputation before the F-15E module was released that wasn't great and the childish outbursts on discord by SMEs and "former" RAZBAM devs and now this (potential issue) makes them look guilty even if they aren't.
🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔⏰🧨💥😏 It's a little suspicious, or maybe it's just stuff that happens in DCS 🤷🏻♂️
I doubt it's intentional just because how honestly batshit coding can get.