RoF sale. Worth getting it now!

[Ataros]

As I read one forum thread written by programmers and designers of IL-2, RoF and DCS on Russian forums some time ago I know that the flightsim industry is having its hardest times ever probably.

You know that the niche is small and just a handful of people work for these 3 companies and some work for 2 or 3 of them to make ends meet. Thus I like the idea to support all 3 sims to keep these talented people working on sims and not switch to FPS shooters or various Worms of Planes titles where they can earn more money with all their talents.

I hope some of you would share my attitude and invest in these people by trying all 3 sim series.

Now back to RoF. 1st time I tried RoF demo 1 year ago which was 1 year after its release and did not like it at all. It looked like an unfinished product with very strange design decisions to me both online and offline. 2nd time I downloaded a free version of the game about 3 weeks ago which is about 2 years after its initial release(!) and liked it a lot as it now looks like a polished and shining product which really delivers joy to a flightsimmer (with very tough learning curve however). I find myself flying about 50% in CoD and 50% RoF now depending on my mood. I like aircraft models and sounds of the game made with great love. FM is very advanced but has some issues as any sim. The only 2 things I am not satisfied are 1) ground scenery which looks too cartoonish to my personal taste at mid-low altitude as if it was made by a good artist but not a photographer but I hope "they are working on it" :) to make it look more appropriate for a sim. Anyway I do not usually have time for sightseeing neither in RoF nor in CoD as I fly online mostly. And 2nd issue is absence of server interface or built in scripting that would allow creation of dynamic online campaign even in the old original IL-2 ADW style (which is strange as 777/GT created ADW).

Usually one single-sitter costs $7.5 but they just introduced a tremendous sale offering them for $3 which is more than an opportunity till August 17th only.
http://riseofflight.com/en/store

I recommend getting at least 4 uber-aircraft if you do not like to spend much money and time on the game (Fokker DrI, Sopwith Camel, Fokker DVIIF, S.E.5a) for less then $12 (!). These are good to dominate dogfight. The 1st and 2nd aircrafts are not easy to master though. As a 2nd priority I would go for Albatros D.III, Sopwith Pup, Pfalz D.IIIa, Fokker DVII, Sopwith Triplane, Nieuport 17.C1, Sopwith Dolphin, Fokker D.VIII (poor attempt to place in order of priority :)) that are in demand at full-real servers as well. Bristol F2B is the best and uber 2-seater if you like them. B'n'Z fans may wish to add Pfalz D.XII and Nieuport 28.C1 in addition to SPAD 13.C1 and Fokker D.VIIF. All these are my personal impressions of a newbie though. I hope veterans will give a better advice on the subject.

Anyway I think you all may wish at least download and try the play-for-free version with 2 flyable aircraft Albatros D.Va (t'n'b more or less) and SPAD 13.C1 (b'n'z mostly) just to get an idea how polished a product can be in 2 years after release which will hopefully give you enough patience for waiting for CloD improvements (this is not a 6 months or even 1 year endeavor). WWI is not my setting either but I must say if you like models details of CloD you would like RoF as well. Just do not go to the Newbie server online. It turns out it is easier to survive on a server without icons. Also be prepared to learn basics of flying and gunnery again. Maybe this unexpected difficulty have attracted me lol :)

I will definitely get DCS-A10 (hope it has an arcade mode :-D ) as well as Battle for Moscow and Stalingrad and all other products from these 3 companies. Let's keep the sim industry alive! Only we can save it and its employees from Worms of Planes invasions and temptations.

Wow... too long post )))

PS. This is not RoF/CloD/DCS comparison thread, this is "Help the sim industry and RoF/CloD/DCS" thread. Moderators, I would like to ask you too remove all unbalanced black-and-white posts to the rants thread http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=25051 .

[von Pilsner]

I support the sentiment Ataros... I own more flight sims than I can play for the same reason.

[Skoshi Tiger]

Thanks for the heads up, Ataros!

Just picked up the Handly Page and the Focker Triplane.


Cheers!

[DB605]

Yep i saw sale signs too yesterday and bought Fokker DVIIF immediately and probably gonna buy more planes soon. Attention to detail and athmosphere in this game is totally fantastic, hopefully COD will be like this some day. But lets stay on topic and not start another COD vs ROF wars again :)

[FG28_Kodiak]

Thanks Ataros!
Now i am owner of all available Planes in RoF :grin:

[Ataros]

Thanks Ataros!
Now i am owner of all available Planes in RoF :grin:

Ahh... Pity they do not have promo/partnership links. I would make a fortune from this :-D

[BP_Tailspin]

I added the Bristol to complete my collection.

[AndyJWest]

Yup - I've got a complete set now too. The next thing will be to get the field mods, where useful - I.E. gunsights in particular. They are rather expensive for what they are, but I don't see much point in getting them all.

I took the HP O/400 for a test hop last night - it seems a bit more stable than the Gotha, though it still has the 'gormess git in the front, obstructing the view' problem ( I think it needs a 'make the front gunner sit down' control), and I couldn't pluck up the courage to try anything but gentle turns - With no slip indicator, and a lot of inertia in yaw, spins seem likely.

[ATAG_Doc]

I am downloading rof now. I will buy all the planes after I activate it said I needed to activate first.

Very insightful and great post. Very true that unless the flight simulator community doesn't start looking at this from the perspective just as you eloquently have done we're all in trouble.

Even if you do not fly it - buy it! You'll be doing yourself a disservice if you don't. This is such a niche market and it goes against all traditional business model logic and it still boils down to revenue. No one does these things for their health they do it because they love it but ultimately everyone has to eat.

A bad example here but a variety of studies suggest that 10% of the world population is left-handed. Think of this as the flight simulator community its probably less.

Now think about how often do you see things made for left handed people. I think of golf clubs. You don't see near as many in stores because 90% of us are right handed and never think about it.

Go buy them. Flight sims are not destinations to be arrived at they're journeys.

Great post!!

[1.JaVA_Sharp]

that makes me really curious about the helo journey Bohemia is coming up with. Same thing for that indepedent Apache project...

[jimbop]

Thanks Ataros, just added a couple to the collection.

[Ataros]

The next thing will be to get the field mods, where useful - I.E. gunsights in particular.

I guess they should offer mod sale in 3-4 weeks to benefit from all newcomers.

Do not buy Sopwith Pup mod. Aldis is useless in it as it is located very low on the left hand.

[Richie]

I was always going to buy this but heard what it was like on the first release. Then Rise Of Flight Iron Cross came out but I kind of forgot about it then I came across it at Direct2drive I think it was for FIVE DOLLARS! What a buy! I wish my close friends would give it a chance. I can see that this is going to happen with Cliffs Of Dover..I'm pretty sure of it.

[robtek]

When i see this thread i have to LOL about the people which felt ripped of by buying CoD.

[Madfish]

Could anyone tell me about the differences between:
Rise of Flight free to play
Rise of Flight Iron Cross Edition
Rise of Flight Lite Edition

and the planes available to buy?

Would it make more sense to just buy the Iron Cross or Lite Editions instead?

Thanks

[SNAFU]

The Iron Cross Edition has 8 Planes methinks and the light even less.

If you download the "free" game, with the 2 flyables, and buy cheap planes in these days or bundles, I think you are cheaper off, than ICE or LE and then adding content.

But if you want to support the developers, buy first the LE, than ICE and finally add all the content one by one anti-cyclic in the high-price days, just as I did.... :-P;)

PS: If you just want to play around a bit and have to watch your spendings, go for the free game and add the plane you want to fly in the offline campaign. There you should get along with maybe 8 planes from one side. I fell in love with the Pfalz III, I don´t know why, but that`s the way it goes. If you like one plane, you find that totally sufficient, if you do have limited spare time anyhow... ;)

[Sternjaeger II]

When i see this thread i have to LOL about the people which felt ripped of by buying CoD.

Why? :confused:

[MadTommy]

Why? :confused:

Because $2.99 is such a rip-off for an extra plane! :rolleyes:

The only planes I don't have I don't really want.. still tempting to complete the collection! Hmmm.

[FG28_Kodiak]

The Iron Cross Edition costs $19.99 (~€14,50) for 9 planes:
SPAD XIII, Fokker D.VII, Nieuport N.28, Albatros D.Va, Fokker DR. 1, Pfalz D.IIIa, S.E.5a, Sopwith Camel and Nieuport 17 (Bonus Plane).

http://riseofflight.com/en/store/demoupgrades/demoiceupgrade

[ATAG_Doc]

I bought RoF this weekend and bought every single plane they have. It looks fantastic and I plan on spending some time all this week flying. Which is the Red Barron plane??? Is it red?

[SiThSpAwN]

DCS: A-10 does have an arcade or game mode, so you dont have to do the full simulation.

Question about this RoF, so I can download the unlimited demo and just add aircraft as I wish, thru purchase?

[epoch]

No, not quite.

You purchase one of the Demo Upgrades (http://riseofflight.com/en/store/demoupgrades) - ICE or Ultra. Then you can add more planes to the ones included in your upgrade.

The ICE upgrade is cheapest, and has a pretty good mix of planes to start with. I particularly like the SE5a.

[FG28_Kodiak]

I bought RoF this weekend and bought every single plane they have. It looks fantastic and I plan on spending some time all this week flying. Which is the Red Barron plane??? Is it red?

He flown Albatros (D.II, D.III, D.V) planes, Halberstadt D.II and the Fokker DR.I. And yes the paint was red.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_victories_of_Baron_von_Richthofen

[SiThSpAwN]

No, not quite.

You purchase one of the Demo Upgrades (http://riseofflight.com/en/store/demoupgrades) - ICE or Ultra. Then you can add more planes to the ones included in your upgrade.

The ICE upgrade is cheapest, and has a pretty good mix of planes to start with. I particularly like the SE5a.


But even that links you can purchase one of those packs instead of buying individual planes, anyways, interesting, I will have to check it out.

[AndyJWest]

There is no need to purchase the Demo Upgrade packs. They recently changed the policy on this, and you can upgrade solely by buying new planes as you choose - I did it this way,

[epoch]

There is no need to purchase the Demo Upgrade packs. They recently changed the policy on this, and you can upgrade solely by buying new planes as you choose - I did it this way,

Oh, cool. Good to know.

[Allons!]

<couph> Why dont you all just give the money to the developers? With bying this stuff you mostly support the distibutors. I wont buy RoF as i am busy enouph with CoD and IL-2 classic but i would spend 10 € for the devs to keep this thing going. So Ataros, create a "feed the animals" account at Paypal and the devs will be happier then see the money go elsewhere..

Idea +1 & Greetz, Allons!

[Ataros]

RoF does not have a distributor. 777 is both a distributor and developer. This is why they can survive. DCS has the same business model btw. I think CloD will have to go this way too one day at least outside Russia (UBI ;-) ).

Regarding donations in April there was a thread at sukhoi.ru asking if fans can collect money to buy new modern hardware for MG (for SLI tests, etc.). Luthier answered that they have good support from 1C-Softclub and this step is not needed at all.

Let's just buy their products and let their management to have a headache regarding which business model they must choose.

[F1Camel]

Rise of flight has always been worth getting its an amazing sim

[JimmyBlonde]

There is no need to purchase the Demo Upgrade packs. They recently changed the policy on this, and you can upgrade solely by buying new planes as you choose - I did it this way,

The demo is the full version now and it includes access to all the features, just not to all the planes. Note that buying planes from the store sometimes won't get rid of the 'demo mode' message on the hangar screen since your account will still be using the demo mode activation key. This should be resolved in the next patch (if it isn't already) or it can be avoided by buying a bundle rather than individual aircraft from the store.

It makes no difference at all however, you will have the text 'demo mode' in the top right of the hangar screen but the game itself is unaffected.

[ATAG_Dutch]

Rise of flight has always been worth getting its an amazing sim

Totally agree.;)

I bought the Iron Cross Edition just before they made the basic game a free download and don't mind at all.

It didn't stop me spending loads more cash cash on additional aircraft.

There are too many people here that imagine that because the planes are quite slow, the game will be boring. Not so. It's the relative speed and maneuverability of the aircraft that make any dogfight interesting, and RoF has this in abundance.

My favourite dogfighter is the Sopwith Pup, but the team giggles to be had in the HP 0-400 are awesome! :grin:

The Bristol F2b is similarly hootworthy. (that means good fun by the way :grin:).

[Ataros]

SPAD 7 Pre-Order Now Available with discount.
http://riseofflight.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=23024

Not cheap though :) Price of only 5 such aircraft would equal the price of CloD. But it is worth it.

[Pluto]

... I got the "Iron Cross Edition", bought it at Amazon. Its much better than the download version if you like a nice manual, a big printed map of the Western Front and other printed stuff. Really nicely made!
I additionally bought the Fokker E-III, the Fokker D.VIIF and the Nieuport-17 (Fokker-EIII and Nieuport-17 you need if you want to start an early career on both sides). All my planes have the fieldmods. Especially the gunsights are very useful.
:)

Now a word concerning the support for the development of flightsims in general. I like good combat-flightsims and that`s why I also had the whole IL2 series from the beginning and DCS-Blackshark but,...

I still feel screwed after buying Cliffs of Dover. If I had known in what state it is on release date, I would not have bought it !
Everybody who tells me I´m a whiner for expressing such feelings, I tell: "go f... yourself !!!"
:evil:

If it is a dvd-player or a car or a TV or anything else, would you accept products that are in such bad shape when you buy them ?
Sure not, you would rise hell. But when it comes to games or flightsims especially, you have to be nice, thankful and accept that you are sold, unfinished crap ? No way!
:!:

So much for that,... I like "cleared frontlines" (if they are not already cleared).
:mrgreen:

[brando]

What he said^+1

[Ataros]

I'd feel screwed if I purchased RoF in 6 months or 1 year after release. Thus I purchased it 2 years after the release when it is good enough for me. Entirely my decision, my responsibility, no one to blame for bad feelings. We are all learning anyway.

CloD in its WIP stage was good enough for me immediately on release day. Entirely my decision, my responsibility, no one to blame for good feelings. To me sim software is not like a dvd-player or a car or a TV, but rather like a beautiful garden that you grow or a castle that you build watching it becoming better and better year after year. To you it may be different of cause. Then you should make different decisions based on your personal criteria.

If you do not want to support all sim developers don't. Your decision, your responsibility. Make it, take it ;)

[CharveL]

I'd feel screwed if I purchased RoF in 6 months or 1 year after release. Thus I purchased it 2 years after the release when it is good enough for me. Entirely my decision, my responsibility, no one to blame for bad feelings. We are all learning anyway.

CloD in its WIP stage was good enough for me immediately on release day. Entirely my decision, my responsibility, no one to blame for good feelings. To me sim software is not like a dvd-player or a car or a TV, but rather like a beautiful garden that you grow or a castle that you build watching it becoming better and better year after year. To you it may be different of cause. Then you should make different decisions based on your personal criteria.

If you do not want to support all sim developers don't. Your decision, your responsibility. Make it, take it ;)

What he said.

CloD was much less than even I expected on release. However, the flight modelling and damage modelling alone gave me enough satisfaction to get some money's worth out of it along with the knowledge that my measly fifty bucks was going to help the only noteable ww2 flight sim maker survive long enough to continue development.

Sure, it's just as valid to look at it as if you were ripped off by a scheming, evil company that had to trick you into spending that huge sum of money, if you prefer. But myself, I've pretty much put it on the shelf until there is something more to do than shoot down bombers (as satisfying as that is in itself once a week) and will go back once most of the major bugs are sorted out and there is some "game" element injected.

Some sage advice would be to simply wait one week after release of any game/sim for reviews before drooling over the "buy" button five seconds after release. This way you can save yourself some $ and heartache.

Pretty easy really.

[Madfish]

Honestly said CloD feels much better already than RoF. I can't understand the hate against CloD, especially when it's coming from people that like the toy plane physics of RoF.

Maybe it's just me but even starting or landing feels much better in CloD and on top it costs nothing compared to RoF where you literally get a fraction of the value for a much higher price. Yes, they put shiny sparkles on everything and the website looks better but:
Perfomance was and actually still is horrible. RoF doesn't perform a hell better than CloD for me.
Few planes, expensive to buy. Trying them out is impossible, refunds also. A concept that I hate and actually one of the reasons why I didn't buy during the last sale after all.

I don't like where they are going and in fact I had hoped the genre wouldn't drift into a sugar daddy millionaire golf club. There are train simulators on steam that cost more than 1000$ if you buy the expansions. This is insane and almost theft. It appears the flight sim genre wants to kill itself if it follows that path.

Imagine a future generation of sims asking about 10-30 dollars for each plane or whatever - I see people flying with, excuse me, shitty hardware, sitting in front of messy desks etc. but sure, they will all win the lottery and be able to buy the content mh? I believe a lot of the friendly athmosphere that's left these days (and it's getting more rare every day) will be completely replaced by those you'd not want to fly with because they aren't nice but only show offs with an attitude problem.

But then again - isn't the sale over already? Maybe this thread is done anyways ;P

[Kongo-Otto]

Totally agree.;)
There are too many people here that imagine that because the planes are quite slow, the game will be boring. Not so. It's the relative speed and maneuverability of the aircraft that make any dogfight interesting, and RoF has this in abundance.


Well they flew in WW1 with the Stall Speed from an WW2 aircraft, but it's fun.
Tons of fun.
This week i had my first Double Kill, a Camel and a S.E.5 in my Albatros D.V, i was covered in sweat after that. Those where the longest 15 minutes since i am flying flight sims.

[Pluto]

... well, I would not have bought RoF either on release date, I was told, that it was then also a "crippled" or "unfinished" sim. But one of the big differences between RoF and CloD for me personally was, that I was not waiting for RoF.

For Cliffs of Dover I was waiting since the first time it was mentioned because I was already flying the IL2-series and I was enthusiastic about it !
I would say, they are both equally good. (once CloD will be fixed).

The planes in RoF do not have "toy-plane" characteristics. Dont forget, you cant compare a plane from WW1, made of cloth-wrapped wood and wire,
that is flying at a speed where the other one would be stalling, with planes from WW2 that fly much faster, are more powerfull and bigger. That you "feel" this difference in the sim shows already the good quality of both flightsims.

Maybe in 1 year CloD will be as good as it could be, hopefully earlier?!"
:roll:

[Blackdog_kt]

I'd feel screwed if I purchased RoF in 6 months or 1 year after release. Thus I purchased it 2 years after the release when it is good enough for me. Entirely my decision, my responsibility, no one to blame for bad feelings. We are all learning anyway.

CloD in its WIP stage was good enough for me immediately on release day. Entirely my decision, my responsibility, no one to blame for good feelings. To me sim software is not like a dvd-player or a car or a TV, but rather like a beautiful garden that you grow or a castle that you build watching it becoming better and better year after year. To you it may be different of cause. Then you should make different decisions based on your personal criteria.

If you do not want to support all sim developers don't. Your decision, your responsibility. Make it, take it ;)



What he said.

CloD was much less than even I expected on release. However, the flight modelling and damage modelling alone gave me enough satisfaction to get some money's worth out of it along with the knowledge that my measly fifty bucks was going to help the only noteable ww2 flight sim maker survive long enough to continue development.

Sure, it's just as valid to look at it as if you were ripped off by a scheming, evil company that had to trick you into spending that huge sum of money, if you prefer. But myself, I've pretty much put it on the shelf until there is something more to do than shoot down bombers (as satisfying as that is in itself once a week) and will go back once most of the major bugs are sorted out and there is some "game" element injected.

Some sage advice would be to simply wait one week after release of any game/sim for reviews before drooling over the "buy" button five seconds after release. This way you can save yourself some $ and heartache.

Pretty easy really.


Exactly. I'd still feel like wasting money if i was spending it on RoF, even in its current, much improved state and it's not so much about the "pay per flyable" (or even altimeter/gunsight, now with the field mods) business model. In fact, if i had been spending the cost of a beer every week on RoF, i'd probably have all aircraft and all field mods by now so while the total cost is indeed high, spreading it out over a longer time doesn't make it much of an expense.

I just don't like much of their design decisions and the engine's capabilities are almost maxed out already, so i prefer to spend my money on that extra beer while talking with friends in the bar.

I tried the demo 2-3 times during the first year and i have the free version sitting on my hard drive, i haven't fired it up more than 2-3 times since it became free to play. The only reason it's still there is that i don't need spare hard drive space yet, once i do it will probably be the first thing to go.

Does it mean it's a bad sim that deserves to die? Not really, as long as people enjoy it and it creates a hub/community for the simulator genre it deserves to survive. I don't like it, but some do and i have no problem with it.

And that's why, despite my personal less than stellar opinion about it, i don't buy add-on planes for it and then go to their forums to complain that the game is expensive for what it offers :rolleyes:

I got in a lot of heated arguments with other simmers on simHQ very early on in regards to their design choices because it was early days and there was some hope of steering them in a different direction through fan/potential customer pressure, but not anymore, i just let it go completely a few weeks after it was released.

When it became clear they wanted to do things another way and wouldn't provide an alternative that would suit me, there was no reason for me to spoil the fun for anyone that might enjoy it. I just decided to pass it by and let others have their fun with it.
Who knows, if it thrives on those people currently flying it maybe it will become even better and i'll start liking it too. However, if i go about actively discouraging others from flying it, it will either flop and then nothing positive will come out of the whole deal or it will keep on going and people in the RoF forums will be getting a mental image of a grumpy old man who's chasing the kids in the neighborhood whenever they see my username. It's just not worth being bitter, neither for me nor for other people ;)

Sadly this kind of common sense that is afforded to other flight sim studios, much of the flight sim community doesn't extend to the 1c team as well. Maybe if they had to pay for their 100 octane Spitfires and uprated DB601s instead of getting them for free in a patch like we got the 109E-1 and will probably get the E-4 too, they would behave in a better manner :rolleyes:

[kendo65]

I downloaded and tried ROF when 777 recently offered it for free and then bought the SE5 and Fokker DR1 in last week's sale. Been having some fun trying to master the very different flight characteristics, though I seem unable to shoot anything down with the measly two-machine gun armament of those early aircraft. (everything turns so damned tight - hard to keep a bead on them!!)

Thoroughly enjoying it. In my opinion it seems very polished and 'mature' in comparison to COD, so it is interesting to read your opinion that in early stages it was much less impressive. It gives hope as to what COD can become in another year. I also prefer the terrain in ROF - strange as to different people's take on things, but I don't find it 'cartoonish' at all.

It's an interesting sales strategy that 777 have adopted now with the game free and all revenue coming via aircraft. Personally i wouldn't be averse to paying for new aircraft in COD but only once the underlying issues are sorted and the game is running somewhere near its potential.

[Madfish]

[...]
That post was, although lenghty, very well put and mentions some things I also wanted to express. Too bad it vanished on the previous page, being the last post on it.