I can’t imagine that the lack of promised communication has gone unnoticed, and that this indicates a certain level of problems in the intended development. I can only grovel some apologies for this. I’m now in a position where I feel I can comment more fully.
The Developer stated, in a January email:
| QUOTE |
| “I will be dedicating myself to this project for the duration, which I would expect to be approx 6-7 weeks. I will keep in regular contact with you at absolute worst on a weekly basis but more probably 2-3 times a week, more so if I need clarification.” |
To date, any feedback from the Developer has been in direct response to any begging emails I have sent on behalf of the Final Flight team, and the players, and falls far short of the 2-3 emails per week stated above.
On 1st April (looking back, the date seems significant!) I received a response to an email stating:
| QUOTE |
I’m drawing up a test plan to distribute to you and your testers, as well as finishing some items off.I’ll be in touch again in a day or so.
|
In the three weeks that followed, I received no response to numerous emails and telephone calls, and after speaking with people Stakeholders in Final Flight, agreed to start taking legal action to reclaim monies given as an advance payment, and the costs generated through the delay and court action. The Developer was informed of our intentions, and last Saturday, we received an email stating that the site would be completed, ready for testing within the week.
We experienced further delay, without feedback, and so we wrote to the Developer informing him officially of our intention to take legal action if we did not have the site by Friday 16th May. We did receive an email confirming that a couple of bugs were being ironed out, and that the site would be ready to test this week.
To this point, there has been no further feedback.
This now means that we’re back at square one, having to look for a new Developer. Having spoken to others close to the site, and the running of it, I have decided to give it another go, and look for a new Developer. This, as you can appreciate from past failures, is no easy task, and is no more likely to yield the results that we’re looking for. However, this time we’re looking into new methods for searching for the Developer, and hope to appeal to a racing orientated company or individual.
So, I’m afraid this does set up back quite some time. I cannot be accurate in my time estimation, since I’ve yet to find a Developer who has hit a deadline. All I can promise is that I’ll keep trying, and when Developers allow, keep you informed to the best of my ability.
I would like to remind anyone with money invested in the site through upgrades, that your account status is frozen, therefore you’re not losing any playing time through these delays. Frozen status runs from 1st November, and the time between this date and the start up date will be added to your account when you sign up to the new version of the site. In addition to this, you’ll be getting three free months by way of compensation, as previously agreed.
I can only apologise for these problems - I understand how frustrating it is. Sadly, I began the project believing that employing people who were specialised in coding would give us the best end results, and it hasn’t been the case.