Viking360 = ZERO support after they have your money...

[steve]

I count tons of threads with ideas for presets yet none are ever made. It's hard not to think once viking360 has our money they don't care about the customer anymore. Is this a used car lot?? I bought a controller here because of how great your customer service was supposed to be. I read presets for the life of the controller... Yea ok. We have the same bunk preset since november when mw2 came out. This is pretty much the only relevant game out. Either release the source so we can program our own presets or step up and keep customers that have already paid happy.


===any text below this line was added by the admin odingalt on 4/23/2010 at 10:17pm===

Please visit this link in our forums. This is a link to a custom preset editor. This editor allows you to custom build your own driver. We apologize that it did take several months to release this editor. NO other mod shop has this type of software - and no other mod shop provides their software updates for free! We stopped writing new drivers around December because we were focusing on getting this new editor released. A custom editor provides the biggest 'bang for your buck' vs. wasting our time releasing drivers one-at-a-time. Please enjoy, and don't forget to visit this link to download the custom preset editor:

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=952

(remainder of discussion moved to second page)

 

[Krier023]

Re: Viking360 = 0 support after they have your money...

Well for the no presets since november. there was a beta preset editor that you can build your own rapid fire, and the reason odingalt hasnt been coding for a while is that he is working on the final release of the preset editor that should have many features so you can customize your own rapid fire/ macros

 

[Paul]

I count tons of threads with ideas for presets yet none are ever made. It's hard not to think once viking360 has our money they don't care about the customer anymore. Is this a used car lot?? I bought a controller here because of how great your customer service was supposed to be. I read presets for the life of the controller... Yea ok. We have the same bunk preset since november when mw2 came out. This is pretty much the only relevant game out. Either release the source so we can program our own presets or step up and keep customers that have already paid happy.

Dude, they're currently working on the Preset Editor you ungrateful piece of shit. They get around to the presets but each preset takes a while to make. "This is pretty much the only relevant game out" Get BC2 and say that again. They don't make presets for one person. So god. Stop whining about Viking being a scam. They're trying their best for people like you.

 

[PS3andCOD]

The preset editor is basicaly what you want -> making your own presets. You don;t need to be rude. And the dropshot was made, through the editor. It's the only preset wanted by more thanb a couple people.

 

[steve]

Re: Viking360 = 0 support after they have your money...

Well for the no presets since november. there was a beta preset editor that you can build your own rapid fire, and the reason odingalt hasnt been coding for a while is that he is working on the final release of the preset editor that should have many features so you can customize your own rapid fire/ macros

The sloppy beta editor you are mentioning has the SAME EXACT modes available with "the works" hex.

The only difference is you can customize which order you want certain ALREADY made modes and fire speed.

 

[steve]

Dude, they're currently working on the Preset Editor you ungrateful piece of shit.

You could call me an ungrateful piece of shit if I did NOT PAY for this product... but I did. $119 + shipping.

They get around to the presets but each preset takes a while to make.

I have a BS in CS, I know how long a few lines of coding takes to write and test.

Get BC2 and say that again.

Which game is #1 MP on all platforms again???

They don't make presets for one person.

Actually I do expect them to make presets when a GOOD idea comes along. I purchased a controller with lifetime presets... I guess that means the same presets will sit on the "download drivers" section for a lifetime??

Stop whining about Viking being a scam. They're trying their best for people like you.

Did I ever say they were a scam??? I said they have shit for support. If you've been around here long enough you would notice the support has gone in the toliet. There hasn't been a damn preset since NOVEMBER!

The fact remains... when this controller first came out, OD had great support for customers and made presets accordingly. I followed this controller from when it was first announced on acidmods and thought the idea was awesome and praised it to friends... who actually bought as well.

Once this thing starting selling really well... FROM OUR WORD OF MOUTH... all the support went to the shitter.

OD if you aren't going to write the presets we want... then let us write our own. Give us control of the controller we paid good money for!

 

[steve]

The preset editor is basicaly what you want -> making your own presets. You don;t need to be rude. And the dropshot was made, through the editor. It's the only preset wanted by more thanb a couple people.

The dropshot wasn't even close to what we wanted... the dropshot he gave us was... it held to prone for you when you pressed the button. That's it.

 

[Fredrow]

I have a BS in CS, I know how long a few lines of coding takes to write and test.

Well then you should have no problem figuring out how to program these controllers......

 

[steve]

I have a BS in CS, I know how long a few lines of coding takes to write and test.

Well then you should have no problem figuring out how to program these controllers......

So after a customer PURCHASES a controller from you for $119 + shipping... your answer is this?

I hope OD doesn't stand behind this.

Future customers beware...

 

[Fredrow]

Shoot Buddy, I don't even stand behind that....

I was just giving you back some of your own medicine. You really did sound kind of rude sir. I do believe that there is a right way to ask a question and a wrong way! And you have gone about this whole thing the wrong way. I'm sorry that YOU feel that Viking360 has zero support, because the truth is 85% of our customers are very happy customers. We can't please everyone because everyone is different and everyone thinks differently.....

By the way what is your really problem?

What great pre-set idea do you have that is not made yet??

 

[steve]

Shoot Buddy, I don't even stand behind that....

I was just giving you back some of your own medicine. You really did sound kind of rude sir. I do believe that there is a right way to ask a question and a wrong way! And you have gone about this whole thing the wrong way. I'm sorry that YOU feel that Viking360 has zero support, because the truth is 85% of our customers are very happy customers. We can't please everyone because everyone is different and everyone thinks differently.....

By the way what is your really problem?

What great pre-set idea do you have that is not made yet??

I went about this the wrong way?

1.) I've made threads.
2.) I've emailed OD about presets I'd like seen made for this controller... to help it grow even more.

All gone unanswered... not even "I'll look into it".

I see this on the main page "FREE Lifetime Software Updates". Where are the updates???

Back, when the site had the original layout it used to read "if we don't have a preset you want to see shoot us an email".

Yet all of my emails are unanswered...

This product support went downhill when the christmas wave hit.

I read the about section and find it comical it has this written...

"I have always let my honest customer service and superior products be my advertising. I run my business more like an engineering firm, not like a marketing firm. When you order from Viking360, you are purchasing a better product, backed by the best customer service, for less money. Our business philosophy is providing superior products to satisfied customers – NOT launching misleading marketing campaigns targeted at fooling customers into purchasing overpriced ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ products."

 

[steve]

Even though this an internet forum... I am a paying customer... and paid a good amount of money on a product I thought this company stood behind with support. Your reply shows a lack in customer service /and or respect for my purchase. Never would I imagine telling a customer to update a program I wrote by himself after paying me for the support.

 

[Fredrow]

Even though this an internet forum... I am a paying customer... and paid a good amount of money on a product I thought this company stood behind with support. Your reply shows a lack in customer service /and or respect for my purchase. Never would I imagine telling a customer to update a program I wrote by himself after paying me for the support.

Like I have already said I am just joking around. Because your first couple of post just seemed a little on the rude side. Sorry for that buddy!

 

[odingalt]

You could call me an ungrateful piece of shit if I did NOT PAY for this product... but I did. $119 + shipping.

$119 is a raging steal. Show me any controller for $119 that comes even close to the Thor's Hammer - evilcontrollers.com, voodoocontrollers.com, gamermodz.com, or any of the other shops out there. Our pricing is based on the market. I still feel that we are putting out products with more value than any other mod shop. Even without releasing any new driver updates for 3 months. (you don't get ANY driver updates with the other guys, except gamermodz, and he charges $25 apiece for an update, and that's for JUST rapidfire - absolutely no macros or glitches are available on his USB upgradable controller)

I have a BS in CS, I know how long a few lines of coding takes to write and test.

Then you should know better than anyone how much work it takes to test and release a product that supports all Windows operating systems. 'A few lines of code', for your information, is in the ballpark of 10,000 lines of code (for the microcontroller code, the custom preset editor and some modifications I am working on for the hidbootloader.exe program). Add hours and hours of debugging and testing (albeit not all boring, many of those hours are spent in matches of COD:MW2 ) and you've got a lot of manhours to put this product out.

Part of what takes me so long is that I don't have an infinite budget for this - I don't charge for software updates - which means I don't make any additional operating revenue from the 2,000 or so Viking customers that I can put towards software. If I were gamermodz charging $25 a whack for every single game, I'd have an extra $100,000 (each customer paying for two drivers). Hell, I could hire a full time programmer at that price. He charges $25 for just rapidfire - I guess I should charge $200 for the custom editor?

Actually I do expect them to make presets when a GOOD idea comes along. I purchased a controller with lifetime presets... I guess that means the same presets will sit on the "download drivers" section for a lifetime??

Specifically which features or drivers are missing that you want?

I said they have shit for support. If you've been around here long enough you would notice the support has gone in the toliet. There hasn't been a damn preset since NOVEMBER!

Hmm... that's strange, we added more features to 'The Works' driver on January 23rd, 2010. But yes I don't blame you, 3 months and no new drivers. As explained above, I've been putting my limited personal resources towards getting the framework for the custom driver editor set up, and trying to control costs so I don't have to gouge customers or go back on my word of free software updates for life.

The fact remains... when this controller first came out, OD had great support for customers and made presets accordingly. I followed this controller from when it was first announced on acidmods and thought the idea was awesome and praised it to friends... who actually bought as well.

Once this thing starting selling really well... FROM OUR WORD OF MOUTH... all the support went to the shitter.

OD if you aren't going to write the presets we want... then let us write our own. Give us control of the controller we paid good money for!

You know as well as I, that as soon as I release a software development package, all the other mod shops will steal my hard work.

I'm sorry you're not happy. If you look at any major company (creative labs, microsoft, ion drums, logitech) - then you should know that some of those companies take literally years to put out driver updates for malfunctioning products that people pay a hell of a lot more than $119 for. We've all had a PCI card, a video card, and audio recording card or some other hardware in our computer that didn't work due to terrible driver support.

I've only been in business since July of 2009. Cut me some slack lol. In any case, your complaint is well timed, I'm spending some serious coding time this weekend on the custom editor project. I've got the framework for the custom driver editor basically completed, and it looks to be working over the spectrum of Windows operating systems, so now I've got a great framework that makes it easier for me to add new features.

You've got to admit you're being a little naive in your expectations. If you have your BS in CS, I would challenge you to develop your own mod chip for XBOX 360, complete with software and all the custom features, in three months' time.

So, if you're not too mad with us, please stop by the custom driver editor discussion thread (I'm opening a new one tomorrow for the new version of the custom editor) and let me know the features you want the most. I swear to God, I am working on it!

 

[steve]

Let me first say...

I appreciate you replying to my thread. Most sites would have probably deleted such a thread against their business.

But..

This is the problem...

You know as well as I, that as soon as I release a software development package, all the other mod shops will steal my hard work.

Having this controller is the equivalent to having an iphone. Great product, but lacks MAJOR customizations and limits user ability to create/program it's own settings. Now look at a jailbroken iphone... see where I am coming from?

You leave us no choice but to rely on you to write our code... which sucks when it takes 5 months for a preset editor that still gives us no control over anything except fire speed and mode order!

I know from a business standpoint you are protecting your product... just sucks to be the consumer with a locked device when there is a lot of potential.

You've got to admit you're being a little naive in your expectations. If you have your BS in CS, I would challenge you to develop your own mod chip for XBOX 360, complete with software and all the custom features, in three months' time.

Yes I do have my BS in CS... but unfortunately do not have time to develop a chip for an xbox controller... that's why I have yours...

 

[odingalt]

You leave us no choice but to rely on you to write our code... which sucks when it takes 5 months for a preset editor that still gives us no control over anything except fire speed and mode order!

3 months, and it does more than that. You can't possibly realistically expect me to write and include every single feature that is ever requested on the forums? Nor can I be expected to provide for every single possibility of features that could ever exist in the future. There is no company on the planet that performs that kind of service, especially for a $119 product.

Iphone is locked down and you have to pay for apps. Is there a 1-800-IPOD number or an Ipod forums you can log into to request new apps for Iphone? Viking might be locked down, but we don't lock it down to charge you for apps like the iphone.

If you can get all the Viking customers to agree to start paying for software updates and new features for the controllers, and reneg on our promise of free updates for life, then I'll write whatever you want, when you want it.



Specifically what feature(s) are we missing, that you would create for yourself, if Viking was open source?

You can't possibly be serious that you don't think you've gotten your money's worth at $119?

 

[odingalt]

(continued from first post)

=====any text below this line was added by steve===

Correct me if I'm wrong here...

But your new Editor still has nothing new in it "yet"...?

Like the free UPDATES for life... i'll believe it when I see it.

===any text below this line was added by the admin odingalt on 4/23/2010 at 10:54pm===

Ok, I am correcting you. You are wrong. Here are the features that were added since our last update to "The Works" driver in January, 2010 (not November, 2009 as you claim - check the downloads pages):

*We now offer two methods for jitter mod, with three variable speeds for each.
*We allow users to enter CUSTOM FAST RELOAD SPEEDS
*We allow the customer to choose which buttons activate the mod and change mods
*We allow users to use a Windows GUI to select rapidfire speeds
*You can now have Akimbo Mode and Sniper Mode enabled simultaneously
*We allow users to custom build exactly what they want


You are not even giving us credit for the features above. Any customer you ask will tell you these were huge feature additions in 2010. And these features may mean nothing to you, but these features listed above were all the most requested features in 2009.

=====any text below this line was added by steve===

*We allow users to custom build exactly what they want

This is false. You allow us to use code that you decided would work well and let us pick the order of modes and speed of rapidfire..

Probably be better written if you said...

*We allow users to custom shuffle each mode and change rapidfire speed (which we already have in the generic preset)

===any text below this line was added by the admin odingalt on 4/24/2010 at 1:10am===

(The editor ITSELF is a new feature. Using a GUI to enter speeds is a new feature that was specifically requested by customers. The custom fast reload speeds in the editor is a new feature, NOT available in our previous 'generic' drivers (previously you could only choose from a few guns), specifically requested by customers. The six jitter modes are a new feature, NOT available in our previous 'generic' drivers, and was derived from multiple customer requests asking for improved jitter mod.)

The fact of the matter is most of the requests I got prior to releasing the editor last month, were from customers who wanted exactly that - to 'custom shuffle' their mods. If I hadn't invented the editor, I would've been forced to continue adding modes to 'The Works' driver, making it 9, 10.. 12.. 15 modes.. wow what a pain in the ass for customers to scroll through a bunch of modes they don't want. And no, it's not reasonable to expect me to recompile 50 different versions of 'the works' drivers for all the customers who wanted different combinations of modes. Thus the editor.

So everybody is happy but Steve. Let's just cut to the chase - specifically, what great feature are we missing, that you would make if you had the Viking source code?

 

[Hazer]

SO Steve, you are disgruntled because why? "I bought a controller that said it came with presets for life". And has the free support stopped? No, you said so yourself you see the development of the customer-accessable editor. So its not that you are not recieving the support you say has been neglected, its that you are not recieving it fast enough.

I guess you should go get teh mod out there that offers free support.......Please tell us where that is?

Oh, I'm sorry. You dont really want that. You want the source, because you yourself are a BSCS. "People rip off the Iphone, they should be able to rip you off too". Really Steve?

I have a better solution. You say you want custom presets, and that you want Od to release the code for you to do that. OK. The code thats being protected is the bootloader. If he gave you that, you would still have to write your own hex code to download to the chip. So why dont you write that for us? Send it in to Od in C format, and he can fit it into the bootloader format and everyone can benefit from it. By your logic, you say you want the ability to make the preset glitch code yourself. Whats stopping you? You dont need the source code to write rapidfire. The pinout is simple enough to determine just from the pictures of the product. There is nothing Od could give you that would help you write your own code. The only thing he can give you is the info on how to clone the chip.

I would hate to think that is the only thing your asking for Steve.


You are correct that the steady stream of glitch codes has been slim lately. But you know full well that all that time has been dedicated to the editor. Every free support item has been prioritized by customer demand. Most of the customers want the editor for the exact same claim you are tring to make. Majority rules.

So Steve, you could now please tell us which glitches/presets for MW2 have been missing? You keep avoiding that question, the rest of us would like to know what they are. Then everyone can say to Od: "Please postpone the editor so you can write this one extra stand-alone glitch".

 

[PS3andCOD]

Steve, I havn't seen any posts about groundbreaking glitches. And you refuse to tell us your idea now. Are you really just trying to scam odingalt into giving you the source code? That would be just plain wrong. Also, the way I interpret it, "free updates for life" means "free updates for new games and patches for life", not "I will work as your preset writing slave and make what ever you want for life".

 

[PS3andCOD]

I looked through his posts, and all that I see he wanted was the "Jtag" preset that is recently posted (hold X while trigger is held) and dropshot where holding the trigger makes you drop automaticaly. Nothing insanely new or inovative. How many people have Jtags and would make use of that one anyways? Here is a link to a search of his posts if someone else wants a look: search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&author_id=90