I like this thread

It advocates releasing BoB before it is really finished, because RoF has problems becasue it was released before it was really finished. This will help Oleg somehow :grin:

OK, we all want BoB released. I want a finished product more than a product right now. People always remember "broken" longer than they remember "late" with non-vital products like entertainment software

I haven't seen anything of RoF other than screens, and their mistake in my opinion is forcing people to play online

I've been flying R0F for a couple of days now.

Personally I like it. Believable FMs (Will know more when the rotary engines become available. How well they represent gyroscopic precession will make or break the sim for me).

So far the offline/single player missions I have been flying are pretty good. Which is a good thing as currently multiplayer is extremely limited owing to the newness of the game, lack of servers up and only coop mode being useable.

The game looks great overall, and the sense of being in the air is very palpable. Watching the shadows and reflections move around the cockpit and over the aircraft as you turn is really cool.

On my first combat sortie I had the best dogfight against AI that I have ever had in a sim. I was in a SPAD XIII and got jumped by a pair of Fokker DVIIs while I was lining up a Hun two seater observation plane. The DVII can out climb and out turn the SPAD, while the SPAD can out run and out dive the Fokker. So I pushed the nose down and extended away from them. They gave chase of course. When I had enough distance I turned into the oncoming pair and broke their formation as I passed between them. I used the SPAD's speed and dive advantge over and over till I could get a good deflection shot in and sent one down in flames. As I extended away I saw the remaining Hun running for his lines. I gave chase and let the power of the Hisso engine do it's magic. I came up on his low six, lined him up, pulled the trigger and about 2 rounds fired and then the guns jammed! I broke left and cleared the guns while he was coming around. He got some hits on my left wing, but nothing serious. So I started the fire, extend, turn, fire thing all over again. Finally I managed to get a shot into his cockpit from the high 4 o'clock position, and PK'd him. The Fokker slowly spiraled to earth.

I was sold then and there.

Now to be totally honest the game is far from perfect.

The control setup window cannot be accessed while in game, and takes a while to figure out. But once you do it becomes fairly intuitive. Just remember that you are not flying IL2 and you will be OK with some patience.

Setting up some of the view controls still is giving me some trouble, but as I use TiR anyway the only thing I need to sort out is the zoom feature. I've just about got it where I want it. The thing that is helping is to delete the standard control assignments for hat switches, and only set the ones you need. BTW one nice feature is that you can easily save several different control profiles if so desired, so I let the stock one be, and made a new one, so I'll always have a reference point.

Be sure to set a button on your stick or throttle for charging the guns! You haev to cock them manually or they won't fire! And if they jam you must recock them to clear the jam. This happens often.

The mission editor is a mystery to me, and I think it's broken. When I open it the map is very pixelated and quite unusable. I'll investigate more.

Some folks have had troubles with the initial registration, but mine went well and I was in the game quickly. Be sure to check the settings first and have the "full screen" box ticked, otherwise you won't see the menus at the bottom of the screen.

This sim has great promise IMHO. With more flyables, and getting the online servers sorted better (Hyperlobby support needed badly), it will mature into a classic.

http://http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/4844/elspad.jpg

http://http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/5035/obsz.jpg

http://http://img34.imageshack.us/im...99/fokkers.jpg

Hahah tell that to the Duke Nukem Forever community and you'll get bitch slapped :)

They still have a community?

:confused:

:mrgreen:

Heck, they have a website and forum.
http://www.3drealms.com/duke4/

Flyingbullseye

That's more than SOW's got!! :grin:

Indeed.

And for most of us, it's a great example that a website is no indication for a close release, not even that it's still being worked on, to be honest. ;)

Thanks ElAurens. Based on your assessment and Oleg's positive comments also, I've ordered my copy of RoF too.

After all RoF has been announced for a European release in July, too.

Bitch slap me? OK, well good luck to them

Let me try to explain it to you

If you have a product that is broken, that is bad
If you have a product that is late, that is bad

The worst of the two by far is "broken". That's an accepted business principle in the Real World of Grown Ups. Now, your little opinion may be otherwise, and the darling little kidz at the Duke Nukem summercamp might think the other way around too, but you know what? Kidz think the darnedest things, and they think they know it all without having done squat. It's about the same as a fart in church- it stinks, there's no substance to it, and it makes me laugh. So sure, the Duke Nukem community might not like me saying "Broken is better than late"; and good for them. Can you guess how much I give a rat ass about what they think about sunshine, lollipops, rainbows or anything I say? :rolleyes:

+1

I remember firing up the original IL2 Sturmovik on my AMD Palomino rig with (wow) 512Mb RAM and a 64Mb Radeon 8500 and being amazed at the result. Within hours I was flying on-line with over 20 other people in a UBI-server, all of us reeling from the improvements over the flight-sims we had come from. It was new, it was different but above all, it worked. Straight from the box onto the on-line server. We never looked back.

That's actually a very good point. The more anticipated a title is, the more of an anti-climax people experience when it is found lacking in areas of basic functionality.

That's also why the IL2 add ons and expansions sold so well. People had a lot of the new aircraft already from the free updates and patches. What made them sell well is the new maps and the ease of installation.

It's a joke. :grin:

Duke Nukem is already 10 years late, and recently it's been cancelled. Late as in "never" isn't actually that much different from utterly broken, you can't ever play it either way.

Dude it was meant to be a little funny whats your issue?
And you call the people at 3d realms kids just because Duke Nukem is an action title, seriously they've for sure over 2000+ members which have hung around the forum since they were first put there, and thats what? around 10+ years my friend, more than enough for more than kids to hang around.

Think before you post and i wouldn't be surprised if their community has less whine than this one from time to time and then we're talking a heck load of years of waiting, anyway i don't think they care much for your words either seeing as it was just a little joke.

Being a fan om simulators doesn't make your more mature than a cod player by default..it's up to each individual.

BIG mistake!!! For every glowing review at teh ROF forum, there are 6 or so that take the opposite opinion.

Good luck. You'll need it.

I consider that I lost $40 buying ROF on Day One from Gogamer. I surely won't be spending $5-$10 each (who knows how much really) for additional aircraft. My detailed reviews and experiences with ROFcan be found at the ROF forums...under Doolittle81

My experience with ROF is a positive one. There are a few glitches but ROF is a very realistic combat flight experience that will steadily improve over the years. Cheapest entertainment available anywhere.

I like very much Oleg Maddox work. I think he is the best in the genre , but there is no need to bash other people work.
Even Oleg is satisfied in seen good combat sims emerging , even if in unfinished state at the start.(like Il2 when launched)
It made our genre of hobby stronger .

+1.

With more competition we as simmers should only hope to gain better more realistic sims. Without that competition we'd still be playing CFS3.:shock:

Flyingbullseye

As expected...blatantly obvious Shill boy(s)...I won't say which one...just watch the phraseology versus that of the creators of the game. It's laughable how the shills are out there on the various forums pretending to be innocent and objective Customers...who LOVE the greatness of ROF. Transparent...except to fools. imho

What a joke.

Its unfortunate that some of us have no clue on what's involved in making todays combat flight sims. Even Microsoft, who were able to make money on their flight sims quit the genre. It was just to much work for the profits being made. Today we only have two companies making combat flight sims from scratch, ROF and Maddox. I've heard nothing for sometime from A2A or 777 studios on their projects enhancing the old Rowan engine. It appears that Maddox made enough monies to extend the development of SOW until its a more polished sim.

The ROF developers don't have that luxury. They've had to put out an unfinished sim to fund further work. They say their in it for the long haul, but that could easily be short circuited if initial sales are poor. ROF's excellent Aircraft models, Engine Management, Terrain, Flight Model, and Damage Model are an excellent base to expand from. Even as is you can spend many hours and days learning the FM's, improving your weapons, and navigation skills. Well worth the 39 bucks IMHO. By the time I'm profient at these tasks, I'm sure that there will be bug fixes, and added content.

You can chose to trash everything they've done, desuading anyone else who will listen, and kill a developer we so sorely need. Or you can support them with your 39 bucks so ROF can develop into a benchmark WW1 sim, establishing a company that could produce combat flight sims for years. Our choice.

That depends on what you mean with "from scratch".

I'd like to add Eagle Dynamics, for example.


But also X-Plane is still alive and kicking, as well as Condor.

And at least we get some updates on projects like FighterOps, Thunderworks and Seven-G, which say's they are at least still working on the titles, whenever they will be ready.

I agree it's still a niche genre, but it's not as dead as it was 5-8 years ago, even if M$ abandoned the Flightsimulator series. And even here M$ already stated, that this does not mean the FS-series have come to an end.

This gives me some food for thought. I wonder if what is currently on release to the public is actually a late beta, and perhaps (this could be pure wishful thinking on my part) they'll release a solid/polished more expensive version with more flyables later, *and without the online requirement for every mission*. ie, like any normal sim release, online activation or similar, but that would be it.
Because what they have at the moment is a sim that only the keenest (good beta testers) have purchased, and with small piracy chance.
Is anyone else wondering about this?

Maybe I didn't make it clear that I was talking purely WW1 and WW2 prop sims. :)

Will they release a solid/polished sim later. Yes, thats the whole idea of the developer in it over the long haul developing consent updates, paid and otherwise over the next many years. After exhausting all avenues of improvement in the relatively small WW1 front they could expand their gained expertise into other time periods of combat flight.

Will it eventually not require online registration, maybe, but I doubt it. Unfortunately Piracy has dictated some form of protection, so they can be compensated for their years of hard work.

Is this a sim only the kennest have purchased, again not very likely, even a few who purchased ROF don't even like WW1 flight sims, but wanted to support the combat flight sim genre.

Not clear enough for me, it seems ;)

I've been thinking about the current release being a deliberate unannounced beta test and it's making a lot of sense- if you proceed on the assumption that requiring people to connect continuously even for singleplayer is going to cost a significant number of sales in the long term. I was dead keen right up to the point they announced the connection reqs, but it's killing my interest- I, along with many others in Oz, don't have reliable broadband. And, if the company does go under, potentially there'll be a lot of coasters around.
So maybe this is not the 'real' release. RoF in its current form is just an open beta that people have paid for the opportunity to test. RoF developers get the money required to keep going until the game is a stable release. Requiring a server check at the beginning of every mission locks down piracy, and reassures the investors in the meantime. When I say that the keenest ones purchased, there's still a LOT of people holding off until they see that the company won't founder, and in the meantime, RoF gets a huge amount of feedback from the people who most want to make the game a success.
Part of this would be the forced updates, which is something else I loathe- patches do break stuff sometimes, and I don't want to have to wait 2 hours to download the latest before I can play- with updates, everyone plays the same version for 'testing'.
So, here's what I'm hoping would be the idea: After 6 months, RoF announces that they're moving to different distribution model; puts out boxes with stable 1.08 version including 8-10 flyables charging normal game release price; box requires internet/phone activation/disk check etc, but doesn't require continuous connection for SP; wild rejoicing on the part of all of those left out previously, and I purchase game :)
Presumably game gets cracked at some point, but sales rise considerably anyway.
Might be additional paid patch with extra flyables, reqs another activation to get on servers.
I really hope they've got something like this in mind, because their current business model seems... rubbish.

I understand that people need to support the genre, but I'm not purchasing a game I can't expect to work for me.

I have no problem with a staggered release, even if some aspects don't work! (ie with bugs). Empire Total war was released with bugs but I was glad to get it! I was forced to upgrade my system, no problem, i needed a good reason to upgrade. Now ETW is great, with patches and DLC (Down Loadable Content)

I have no problem paying $100 for a quality game like IL2 II (SOW) and $20-$30 for DLC, and even paying <$10 for external modders additional aircraft!

As to a full air / land / sea system, I would love to see an invasion plan and interaction between all aspects of 1940 military to achieve / defend against this.

He111

Remember, quality will always win through.

1C has nothing to worry about.... WWI siming is different.. and frankly... neoq needs to polish & finish thew WWI stuff before even thinking of going to WWII.. not only that.... because of the differences in the two sims... and if you want a small taste in IL2 just fly nothing but a I 153, a U-2VS, or a Gladiator against other similar aircraft for a week straight.. and then consider that the above mentioned planes are actually more powerful than the WWI aircraft... and you will agree that 1C has nothing to worry about as long as they release SoW... and I have no doubt that will be forthcoming.

Shouldn't you be hosting a coop instead of posting>?

I agree Bear...it will be years before the ROF developers can even think about getting into the WW2 theaters. ROF will do well sticking with WW1 stuff for the foreseeable future, as they have little competition. The developers have alot of work to do, fixing, improving and adding content to ROF.

I would not be a bit surprised to learn, that plan's and work on an WW II era had began already. If so, the competition between these two Russian firms, will be a win win for all of us. That era of flight I think, represent's a larger piece of the possible sales pie to both.

Funny there is like 3 major Sim Developers still out there Neoqb , Maddox and Eagle Dynamics and the war is raging about which one sucks the most... TBH it's only a good thing that we get more games and competition between sim games so we can see the genre expand into more quality.

RoF vs Initial IL2 release, say what you want but my opinion is that RoF takes the gold medal here, it even has inbuilt server browser something that IL2 lacked and kept a lot of "non bothering" online players out of the buisniss, i mean things improve and it's all for the good, sadly thats the case with real life as well... i.e deaths and disasters helps improve the future and safety.

Be joyful instead, it definantly doesn't hurt the sim community to have more games ffs.

I have been flying R0F for a bit now, and I would not go so far as to say that it is better out of the box than the original IL2.

R0F suffers from lack of content, both in terms of aircraft and online capabilities, and an overly complex and totally undocumented mission builder.

If neoqb can deliver on some high content patch work, then it will become a classic of the genre. If not, well, I have other $40 coasters around the house that it can join.

I hope they pull it off. I really enjoy this type of flying. It is very much more difficult than WW2 flying, by a huge margin. Bearcat alludes to this in his post. A lot of players simply will not "get" what it is about no matter how polished it becomes, because they can't go 450mph and tote around a brace of 30mm cannon.

But for the virtual flyer that appreciates the subtlety of sticking a .303" machine gun right in the enemy's face and pulling the trigger, it will be an answered prayer.

Well, nice to see that three huge developers (each one having a distiguished game, and in different areas) in Russia (and even better for me, as I'm moving there tomorrow).

Rise of Flight in WWI, IL-2 in WWII and Lock On in the modern combat area (well, as I started playing Lock On after IL-2, I use some of my IL-2 knowledge in Lock On. Remember those turn fights between Spit and 109 that we all love in IL-2? It's the same thing, but with a three times greater speed, missiles and everything.)

Sad thing we lost the guys from Microsoft in the civilian aviation field. Hope their staff and all that third party industry that orbitated around it start to coop with these three developers to improve their products and make flight simulation more realistic than it is.

About this Rise of Flight world-war 2 project, I think they're rushing the stuff. I would try to consagrate RoF as the top name in World War I simulation, as Maddox Games did with IL-2 series, and Eagle Dynamics did with Lock On. I had Flanker 2.0 installed on my computer a long time ago, and you can see they did a marvelous effort to improve it until the level Lock On reached nowdays. I also bought, at about the same time, the original IL-2, and again, we can see how did Maddox Games to turn it on what most of the virtual and real pilots consider the best when talking world war 2 simulation. If they do a similar effort like Maddox and Eagle did, or even like Aces Studio did to bring Flight Simulator since the early 90's editions to the X version 'til they were kicked from Microsoft, Rise of Flight series might became the classic in it's category as Lock On and IL-2 became in theirs.

So how is the general feedback from Neoqb, do they seem interested to correct the short coming's soon. Or are they mute on peoples concern's, and reluctant to promise anything forthcoming fairly soon.:confused:

Apparently the ROF developers are too busy fixing bugs and adding content to comment, but people close to the developer say they are hard at work.

The initial IL-2 release was immensely more polished than the initial ROF release, with far few buggers, and far more content.

Neoqb aint building a ww2 sim anytime soon.
Anyway chivas i can't say i've found many bugs in Rof most of them consist of the GUI interface or some AI, besides that i had far more trouble with IL2 but everyone has a different experience from another perspective.

Couple of weeks ago I've got email from Microsoft with survey about future flight sim.
It took me quite of time to answer all the questions and my impression was that they are thinking about some enormous 24/7 VATSIM like environment with missions , buying and selling paint skins , dropping "things" and the likes. Half of the questions was about flight model which of course I answered "hard core".Something is up.Warcraft is coming to the virtual sky ?! The only problem is that in order to go "for the masses" you have to "relax"
something - 12 years old and CEM ? I don't think so.

I'm one of the people that decided to wait. The reasons are many and i don't expect everything to be the way i like it, but through a strange twist of fate every single one of RoF's design and marketing decisions are the exact opposite of what i'm expecting from a modern flight sim.

If the online requirement was dropped i would probably order my copy today.

If there was more AI aircraft to accurately represent the 1917 theater of war, plus a properly done dynamic campaign to fly with and against them, i would probably order it as well. Look at Black Shark for example. It's only one flyable, but there's an entire war around you with dozens of AI units. It evens out pretty well.

If there were more flyable aircraft i would probably order today as well. Mind you i'm not talking about 30 extra aircraft. Between 4-6 flyables would be both good and reasonable. I know these next-gen models take time to develop and Oleg said himself on an interview that it might take a single person as much as 6 months to do a SoW-quality model.

The thing is, i don't expect everything i wrote to happen, but i expected some of it. As it stands in its current state, the reason i am going to wait for it to mature a bit is that absolutely none of these things are in the sim yet.

In regards to the aircraft/content issue, Oleg is going for a dozen of flyables right out of the box for SoW. We have also seen a lot of screenshots and videos from the early RoF days (when it was still called knights of the sky) with different aircraft, so it's not because they don't have time to model additional aircraft, some of them are already done. Not to mention that WWI aircraft have limited systems when compared to WWII or modern ones.

I think that a lot of the controversial decisions were made when the companies merged and the project was renamed from KoTS to RoF. The gennadich team was also a group of experienced people in the IL2 3rd party community, so they probably know how succesful the IL2 business model is. So why change it?

Well, the only thing i can think off is that they ran out of money to finish it, an investor came along and said: "Here, take this money, but you'll have to change some things first". And then came the online requirements, the lack of aircraft, micro-payment add ons and so on. Ever wonder why we used to see the Camel and the Dr.I in all the Kots videos, yet RoF was released with a Spad and a D.VII? It's simple, someone thought that having two of the most iconic aircraft of WWI in the initial release might be all the casual sim gamer would want, thus never buying anything extra.

All the measures taken seem to suggest an approach to securing as much income as possible, from the copy protection method to the way the add ons are handled and how these add ons become a necessity through a lack of initial content. Nothing wrong with a developer cashing in on years of work to be honest, but it pays off to exercise some moderation. Otherwise, if you go with a brand new way of doing things in every field imaginable and give the impression you're in it strictly to milk the proverbial cash cow, you simply run the risk of scaring away a load of people and having the entire thing backfire on you. To a certain extent this has happened. What remains to be seen is whether they can stay afloat long enough to address some of these concerns, at which point they'll start getting a lot more sales.

Just my 2 cents ;)

For what it was worth I had absolutely no trouble with IL2... or FB for that matter... and I agree.. the GUI leaves a bit to be desired.. although the scalability menu is nice.... I havent been able to really fly the sim yet because I cannot seem to get my TIR working right.

I still fly the original IL-2 release, un-patched & un-pluged:). A very refined out of the box sim, if you were to ask me. Right now ROF has a bit of a black eye, which tends to scare off some potential customers.

I never had problems with my original IL2 either. Infact, from my personal experience, I'd say that IL2 is one of the most bug free out-of-the-box-games I ever had.

The only really bad thing that comes to my mind is the manual setup of IPs.

But I still miss the touchy P39 in the original IL2 and of course the whistling sound of the 109, especially in times of excellent sound-alternatives for most other aircraft. :(

(Helping PMs welcome)

The RoF appreciation society has thinned out considerably from most of the forums.
If you sugar coat a turd,its still a turd.They didn't even bother to sugar coat RoF!
IF it survives,one day it might be worth the purchase price.

I wouldn't go as far as to say the game is not worth the price or even a turd.

It is a good simulation and it's fun to fly and stuff.


But it's the brown, stinky touches they applied to the nice simulation, that makes it hard to fall in love with.

The sim has potential... it does have some plusses... I still cant get tpo most of them because I have yet to fly a successful mission because for some reason my TIR goes out every time... but the sim has potential. I am certain NQ will fix many of the issues... I dont think they invested as much time, work & money into this thing to let it doe on the vine... but there is a window of opportunity to maximize a product's potential.... I am not sure if they will make it through that window without squeezing through..

It seem's to me that they rushed it out the door, at least that's the feeling I get after reading all of the neg. post here and there. If there were any English only speaking beta tester's, you would think that that problem with the language would have been pointed out, and fixed. Now couple that with the call home feature, it just plain scares people away. Well I should say scares me away...I hope that they survive and clean it up, add some content, it does look good! grafics/fm...I wish that I was "in" on the ground floor, but I think that I should wait.

Maybe is just me, but I don't think $39 dollars is that big of an investment for a healthier future for prop combat flight sims. Especially when I consider what we spend on computers, monitors, and peripherials to play the software. I agree that ROF needs alot of work, but that will be continually upgraded, if ROF generates enough initial revenue to continue. Maybe all of us in the community don't need to initially support the developers, but I just hate to leave it up to chance. There is alot of quality in what we've seen so far from ROF, so we know they have some talent.

NeoQB a bunch o liars
 

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.ph...ml#Post2764509

NeoQB, a bunch of l***s.....they told me that the sim will have full wide screen support....what a bunch of l***s

I feel like somebody slaped me in the face since I was the one who trusted them the most....

I realize its a new sim with a lot of bugs...but when someone lies in marketing purpose (to the ppl who trusted and supported them) and then vanish....

Would you pay $97 for it though Chivas,because that is what it would cost me in the UK,with postage and customs!
I wouldn't.

Wait another 3 weeks, then you will pay 39$, too. Aerosoft will sell the game in Europe.

Until a few days ago you could also have ordered the import version from local stores. Here in Germany it costs 50 Euros including taxes and shipping from the US.

I tend to agree. RoF is selling for the equivalent of two Osprey titles over here. Or 2/3 the cost of a modest dinner out with the missus (one entré to share and one drink each).

I agree Uther, $97 is alot of money, especially for a sim that is not fleshed out. Hopefully your local sellers will soon have ROF at a more reasonable rate.

You guys on the other side of the pond seemed to get shafted with the high cost computer stuff. I'm having a tough time reconsiling a golf holiday to Scotland this summer especially when I look at the conversion rate and have to double the price of everything.

Odd, I'm in the UK and it cost be about £35 including FedEx postage.

Did you get the game Hood? And if so,where from,because thats cheap.Also did the customs charge arrive yet? If you get one that will add £11.10 to the price.

Ive just been into by a shop in the UK they wont be stocking it as its not a popular title, the assistant then informed me RoF is already a torrent and available to download with CD keys etc

I suppose those high prices will push up the piracy unfortunately.

Well if I'm wrong with the price I will admit it! Somehow I worked it out to that figure.I dare say we will know in a few weeks here.
Can't believe its a torrent,and as its online registration,I doubt it would work.

EDIT
Christ its all over the net! Someones having a laugh!

I guess this is why they chose to make use of online-only mode and only playing via registred accounts in the first place.

Now that's customer service!

:)

For me it was a matter of not wanting to deal with the agravation of the things that need attention in the sim. The money or price was not a real factor or concern for me. I'm sure that once they patch her up, especially the language part, I'll be happy to support them:)

Won't support their business model. Sorry. It may be detrimental to the hobby as a whole, but I'd rather them think I'm not interested in WW1 flight sims than to have them think I approve of their business model.

2 planes.... online connection for off line play (I realize it's only for tallying players score).... half assed unfinished online access (THIS is one thing that shoud have absolutely positively been completed before sending out the door. It's like selling a car with only 3 tires).... poor UI.... figity Track IR support

I'll wait to see how everythng pans out, but I'm not confident in the future of RoF. And if it means setting a precedent for continuing this business model I'll pass.

I don't understand the Track IR issues people say they are having.

I use the profile I use for IL2/46, set it to exclusive load, and it works great.

Did they at least integrate player vs player dogfights? AFAIK it was only possible to do coops in the initial release.

Nope! 5 Vs 5 coops apparently.A real winner for an online game.

how do u load that profile?...I can only pick it for favofrites but I can only work with default profile....

Open the "Profiles" tab of TiR. You should see two windows. The upper are the default game profiles that the program auto loads on game start up, listed by game.

The lower window is a list of all the available profiles.

Just tick the "exclusive load" box to the right of the profile you use for IL2 and it should load that, and that only every time.

My IL2 profile is a modified "combat flight" profile and I saved it under the "Combat flight" name. So I just use "exclusive load" for that one.

If you let TiR auto load a profile then it does not work well at all.

Players these days are so spoiled (some for good reason certainly) and I agree there are some high expectations because of the current state of IL2 and the interesting things the MOD community has been able to do with it as well as other sims like LOMAC, DCS, etc.

Expectations are such that the mindset mirrors something like this -"IL2 was the last-gen, the next gen should be better in ALL aspects or it's a failure." The fact is, it's not better in "all" aspects, but it is better in some. Personal choice allows people to either buy it, work through some of the teething issues and enjoy many aspects of the first, of many, next-gen sims...or not.

I like it. There are some really terrific things in the sim and many more already in the works.

Sure, I volunteered and signed up to experience some of the teething pains as a beta tester, but this is a hobby of mine and not only do I get an early peek but also know I'm contributing to the betterment of the genre...whether you agree with me or not.

From where I stand, I'm excited about this sim and very much look forward to what it will be in another 6 months. That doesn't mean I have to forsake IL2 or any other sim I enjoy flying. I wasn't a beta tester for IL2, but I got onboard early (since the first demo) and walked with it through it's many teething problems as well, and to see what it ultimately became is truly satisfying. I know the neoqb gents are also very dedicated and talented. If it's better for anyone to sit back and wait, cool. It will be a fantastic sim though...like it or not.


TB

Well said Thunderbolt.

+1

as beta tester what did you find that needed review and fix, anything? seems like you could have listed a few things for them to look at. did they give to you some promise to correct any problem you found, do you feel that they did act on your requests and repaired the problems you found? i think the beta testers might have screwed up a bit from all the bad talk about the game on boards.

+1

The RoF forum has lots of problems in there.

I've been with IL2 from the beta and I don't remember seeing the problems they are having at all, in fact its not a good idea to compare the 2 sims as some have done here for obvious reasons, obvious to me that is :)

I have to disagree...there were no "teething problems" The game was First Rate...problems, only very poor pilots who could'nt get off the ground, and who thought that they knew better, and were a better pilot than Oleg. They did nothing but complain and critersize every little detail. The so called fixes to appease were a shame! The original game, straight out of the box was superb, and I fly it regularly...Your record with ROF does not seem any bettter LOL, maybe you should stay out of the kitchen...and I mean that in a respectfull way, I know that you mean well:grin:

And what is my record with RoF? You don't know what I've done.

Nah, I'd rather mess up a few batches of cookies and end up with something tasty in the end than sit at the table in front of an empty plate griping at the cook.

I have quite a bit of really hard bark on me and nothing much bothers me...especially nothing to do with games and online forums.

Mere speculation.

:)

yes...puny humans - we shall make a bonfire of their sad husks

LOL :grin:

FYI, as is typical, the NDA I signed will not allow me to discuss bugs and/or unreleased content from the beta.

I will say this though; The developers really are pro-active and releasing updates with high frequency. Some will say that is bad and indicates many problems that should not have been there to start with. Others will say the attention is a good thing (though very necessary right now) and the ultimate goal will be a refined product that incorporates latest code, effects and modelling techniques.

If you formulate your opinion without trying the product in any way and from only reading a public forum populated by people who mostly don't have the product in question, well then, that explains quite a bit.

I'm not even remotely saying this is a polished product that is perfect for EVERY flight sim enthusiast...at least not yet. What I AM saying is it shows much promise and with the developers working tirelessly and continuing to make improvements and sending out updates, it will only get better. If it's still not your cup of tea, fine. That's all I'm trying to say.

The passion with which many people who have not even seen any part of this sim are crying out is humorous.

Does ROF have an automatic updating service, like Windows Update, to download patches or fixes? Or are you notified somehow?

I mean , patches to solve problems of the game, not new planes to be purchased.

Or will we have to wait for a release of a official patch, like in IL-2?

IIRC it has an autoupdater, yes. But that's just second hand information.

If it's true what Loft answered to a German forum, I think that RoF definitely died for me:

http://www.homedrome.de/Startseite/U...E/Default.aspx

25$ per plane? That's insane!


If that is true...
...will probably cost it's weight in gold...

It updates automatically when you launch the game and it connects, the first thing it does is check for updates.

Those aircraft take a team of workers ages to make. $25 dollars is reasonable I think. Even on my modest income. Don't forget though, AI versions of new aircraft are confirmed as being FREE. You only pay if you want them as flyable. That makes it fair to those who wish to purchase, and to those who don't but want to stay current.

Per a post made by Neoqb today, the Albatros and Nieuport 28 will be free, and the Nieuport 17 will cost $7.62 next week.

The aircraft are VERY high quality, and I would not take issue with paying more for them. IMO, their Nieuport 17 at about $8 is a steal. I would have paid much more for that aircraft, as well as the Albatros and Nieuport 28. I had actually planned on spending about $15-$20 per aircraft but would not have minded paying more.

I know I am probalby in the miniority with regards to what I am willing to spend, but when I look back at how much I have spent on FS9 and FSX (yes, very different products), this pales in comparison.....and I am having more fun with RoF. :)

neoqb's flight modeling of the new aircraft is very good indeed.

The Neiuport 28 has really well done gyroscopic precession, as it should, and the modeling of the sequential ignition cut off for "throttling" the engine is well realized.

The DVa is very smooth, and easy to fight with. In fact I prefer it to the early model (Mercedes powered) DVII we currently have.

The SPAD is still the "uber" plane of the sim so far, but the upcoming SEVa will steal some of it's thunder. The Pfalz D3 is an unknown quantity to me, other than what it looks like. We shall see...

+1 , That's very true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BhtR8bEN6M

Johnny Long Torsoooo, Johnny Long Torsoooo, the man who comes in pieceeeeeesss!!! It's loooong! :-P

Hi ElAurens, yes I have to agree regarding the Nieuport 28, nimble aircraft and nice roll rate, its a real challenge aiming with those offset guns too.....a good trainer if ever there was for the necessity of getting in close, as you should. I too prefer the handling of the Dva, looks great too :)

Re the Spad, I would disagree that anything in this sim thus far is "Uber", but then I have never believed in the concept of "Uber" planes. It is always the pilot that matters. Performance is of course great, fast and a great diver, relatively stable gun platform too. One big weakness however is cockpit visibility, SA is always paramount, but in this sim more than others.....and with the Spad if you don't have trackir then forget about it. Have to agree though, its my personal fave thus far.

This is a welcome move by Neoqb, and at least shows willingness to address community grievances (of which there have been many) and shows good will. This will go a long way, as will this sim with more much needed hard work. They seem to be grasping this, and I look forward to the bigger second patch. I am an optimist, and hopefully its onwards and upwards from here.

Now go make me a Sopwith Snipe!! :grin:

Yes, a very good move on their part...this should help with the sale's of this sim, both short and long term...brovo:cool:

I agree.

I just think they're just charging you for content that was ready and should have been included with the retail out-of-the-box "vanilla" game from the start. Making necessary content out of the retail game and selling it to you days after initial release as meager "add-ons", does not show good willingness, but real gullibility on your part.

These idiots are kidding themselves.

Only a fool would buy an incomplete anything on the promise the rest is yet to come, oh that's if they don't go bust in the mean time before relieving you of more money to complete your "game/sim".

It reminds me of the Di Agostini business model where you buy a monthly magazine with a part attached to it until you collect all the parts and have built the magazines advertised item, car plane boat etc, problem is the thing ends up costing ten times what its worth and it don't work either, but you have collected faithfully every month over the last year paying through the nose for a piece of worthless junk.

In this case it seems you have paid up front for a very basic shell and will continue to "fill" it out at your own expense, they must be laughing all the way to the bank (hopefully they are investing it in a bank) and will continue to service their cash cow and not dump the project leaving customers with an incomplete basic WWI sim that you cant use because the registration server has gone and cant call home to launch the game and join a server that no longer exists.

Just my thoughts

No, DuxCorvan. Being fully cognizant and aware of their business model and intent to charge for add ons (which they have always been clear about) does not show "real gullibility" on my part, thank you. Perhaps you would like to look up the definition of the word "gullibility".......Implying susceptibility to deception. No deception has taken place, but thanks for the concern.......I really need people like you to look out for me in this big bad world ;)

The "extra" new planes were for free, as the Russians had them also....Making now 4 flyables in the soon to come initial Euro release. Nothing charged. People are free to buy or not as they choose, it will not affect online play, and regardless they will appear as AI. I have no intention of buying the Nieuport 17 for example, because I have no interest in it. The cost of a new plane you could not buy two pints of beer in Newcastles Bigg Market for. (Around £4.60 I think).

I'm happy with that. You're not. Nevermind, eh. It takes all sorts, and I think we will be able to live without you mate, no offence :)

Cheers.

WW1 air combat sims are a vrey small niche in a rather small niche.

Even if RoF was done on the business model that Oleg has used all these years, it would never sell in the numbers necessary for it to be successful.

Never.

Hell, you can't even fill a sever in IL2 with early WW2 aircraft because they are "too slow" and frankly too difficult for the cannon toting masses to get their quick 1000 points in.

neoqb's approach seems a reasonable one to keep a sim with a rather small market alive over time.

In case you have not noticed, PC flight simulation, of all kinds, is going the way of the dinosaur. Most publishers simply won't bother with us anymore. Why should they? We are demanding, rude for the most part, and tiny in number. Big publishers can far more easily bang out another first person shooter, that is just like every other FPS, incrementally improve the graphics, and sell millions of copies to slobbering 13 year olds who wouldn't know an aileron from an air speed indicator, much less have the patience to master flying in a simulator. Wat? No power ups?

:roll:

I give a lot of credit to neoqb for trying something new, that has the potential to keep small segment titles alive.

Or would you rather have no new WW1 flight sims at all?

There is a big difference between the idiots who bought Microsoft stocks and those that bought Bre-X gold stocks. One is a company that had known assets that continually evolved and the other company had nothing but false claims.

ROF has known assets that most early adopters are enjoying as we speak, with the strong likelyhood that ROF will continually evolve. Could ROF fail, of course it could, its a gamble, but a very cheap gamble. Its not like your investing your life savings.

Those that are waiting for the sky to fall or the sim to become more fleshed out are missing out on some very cheap entertainment right now.

chivas, i dont think that is a valid argument

you'r basically saying that we (the long term flightsim enthusiasts, rather then dabbling newbies) should always blindly support and unjustifiably glorify any flightsim program that gets released, no matter how bad it is or whatever problems it might have, just because we are a smaller subsection of the gaming world and somebody makes "something" for that genre.

personally i think we should take the exact opposite approach, and only support quality products that have good content, and those that provide us with content and features we actually want. to get a yardstick of what that minimum level of quality and content should entail, we should look for something that is BETTER then the best individual aspects of the current and previous state of the art products in that category (like il2-1946 or ms-fsX products, and the better previous ww-1 sims), not something that might only look a little prettier in the eye candy department then older games and then doesnt include (or even deliberately regresses or removes) many basic components/aspects that make up the now well understood minimum standard for a "good game" in the flightsim genre.

there are many many problems with the RoF sales model and the product itself, i wont extensively list them all here again because it gets rather boring, but at the moment of sale in the west it very obvious it is more like a late beta with multiple deliberate limitations added that cripple it even more (limited servers, limited type of online play, limited planes, limited maps, limited season of year, daytime flying only etc..), and whatever you buy is a disposable item that has no intrinsic or long term value or usage whatsoever. looking at some of the main RoF forums in the last few weeks the volume of complaints from disappointed and frustrated customers is very high, so severe in fact they already had to release a few of their precious extra planes as "free" extra's (jay, you can now fly 4 planes instead of 2 !, /sarcasm off, but it still has lots of lockups, crashes, and you cant play it offline at all etc..). btw in some of their western world game advertising they previously had already stipulated you could fly some of those new "free" planes, so not providing them could have landed them in more hot water.

if you are going to be so desperate to always accept anything new, no matter how bad it is, just for the sake of getting something, then all we will get in future is similar crap, if you pardon my french, because that product and sales model will be deemed a successful model for those that will make products afterwards.

your argument about already having an expensive pc with various expensive flightsim hardware addons is also the wrong way around imo. people buy pc's for multiple usage purposes, then most flightsimmers here spend an extra 30 to 50% to get better components and extra hardware for it, but they bought those extra items specifically to fly and enjoy the few good flightsims that already exist, and to enjoy them in the best possible way, not the other way around.

does that mean there is nothing good about RoF ? there are some good aspects, but with the deliberately imposed limitations and buggy state it is right now, for the better informed flightsim customers that make up a large part of this small market it definitely aint worth the full game price they are asking the way it is in its current form, and for the new type of product it is it should be avoided completely untill they correct some of the major limitations (currently they hope people wont look to closely at what they are actually getting before they spend their money, and the perpetual roiling carpet of paying more money they need to continue with).

they have essentially taken a console product sales model where you buy a locked item at full price that can only be played on one station at a time, but have then prevented you from playing it as a stand alone game offline which is what most people normally would do (and then still constantly force you to keep buying more extra's for it like more cars, planes, or scenery like you do with some console games), and then mixed this with aspects of the "online-only" flightsim model (where you normally get the game for free and pay a monthly subscription to play it, but in this case they make you pay for the game itself to), but they then added their own further twist on it, make the game deliberately incomplete to start out with (one season, one map, 2 flyable planes only, daytime only, etc..) so people need to start immediately buying more items and features from the start, and then also make it 100% reliant on some distant russian server functions that can be stopped or discontinued at any time, forcing you to buy their next product when they decide to shut it down (or fail), leaving you with absolutely nothing.

if that is your dream of the future of flightsimming, i think you have set your standards rather low

It is easier and less exacting to build a game than a flight simulator.

The mathmatics required to build a navigation system is pretty mind blowing stuff. Then you couple that with the physics, aerodynamics, and graphics.

Games are "hot" and the console has done a great job of bringing the kiddies to the box.

A combat flight simulator equal to an IL2 and upcoming BOB requires an enormous amount of work. The mathmatics, physics, graphics are just mind numbing.

Heck, I love air combat. If I were in the gamer business I'd study the kiddies with the console games and try to address that market. The setup, installation and continued game play is totally controlled by the application. No addons or improvements... just play the game and enjoy. That is probably the reason so many games are on the shelf.

A friend of mine tried to buy a Sturmovik 1946 at EA store, and the clerks didn't even know what it was. Sorry, air simulation geeks are becoming extinct or something like that.

Oleg will do alright, because he knows the Jets are too fast and complicated. The WW1 stuff is too slow, and the weapons too weak. There is plenty of speed, weapons are powerful and the pilot is the most important element in WW2 CFS. The player should be the focus and that is alot easier to do in a WW2 CFS.

Flight simulators like MS and X-Plane are complex, but pretty good if you are interested to learn many of the more cerebral things that go with piloting aircraft. There is even good crossover to the real world in both sims that is valualble to any one seeking to be or already is a real world pilot.

I read Oleg's responses in this thread. I am satisfied we are going to get a excellent product.

Actually my standards are quite high. When I see an emerging quality developer, I'll support him with my monies and words, and I'll keep supporting them as long as the quality carries on. Quite frankly what we pay for quality flight sims is a joke compared to the monies, talented people, and time required to devleop them.

Personally I'm mainly waiting for SOW, and have no problem waiting for a completed quality product. That said I'm able to enjoy another uncompleted quality product in ROF now. It also wouldn't have bothered me if Oleg had released SOW early with just a map, spit, hurri, 109, and He111 as it would have given me time to learn those aircraft and navigate the map. I have alot of respect for IL-2 series and how it was continually improved over the years. I see ROF having the same kind of future. The only difference is Oleg has the resources to hold off release until SOW is complete where ROF doesn't have that advantage.

You can chose to kill the developer withholding your monies and trashing the sim, but I've chosen to help them continue their quality work.

RoF has two pretty big problems - the legacy of Il-2 (as an example of a very extensive planepool) and the legacy of Red Baron (as an example of a near-perfect offline campaign). At the moment (and for quite some time, or even never at all) it will be able to compete with either of these things. I must agree with naysayers - at the moment the content of RoF is more Beta than full product (heck, the original Il-2 demo had two flyable aircraft!) and the unfinished state of several key features (Mission builder, online, campaign) seriously limits what you can get out of it. If flying and dogfighting is all you're interested in then it's probably quite good (have heard only good things about FM and DM), but if you seek a Red Baron - like campaign or massive online battles á la Il-2 you're going to be disappointed. To me it feels as if neoqb ran out of cash and had to release something to get new funds to continue work, because I severely doubt they'd have released the current product if they'd had the choice.

I'll wait until they add some stuff to the original game to start thinking about buying it.

Unfortunately, I guess that when this happens, I'll be too busy scrambling on my Hurricane trying to catch a Dornier formation before it reaches London, screaming "Atchung, Spitfeuer!" through my radio and immediatly break formation in my yellow-nosed Emil, followed by Black 6, 12 and 3, diving over "the few" to give the bomber boys enought time to drop their bombs on Bristol.

spare us the BoB drama it's not even been shown in motion yet..

Aside from that RoF has been exceeding my expectations and i am happy with my 38$ spent on it , rather have some fun while waiting for the "hopefully" successful and good SoW than be a sour old man.. I've no problem with enjoy some pure next generation quality. Nothing is perfect not even SoW will be perfect at retail, if it is flawless it would be the first game in the history so chill on the preaching.

I am pleased you like it, i have not tried it yet simply because the first world war is not really my thing. However just imagine how may updates and add ons there will be for ROF by this time next year, when we will still be here asking if we can have an update for SOW or asking questions that will never be answered in the appropriate thread. Actually ROF is looking more appealing by the day....

I can understand the viewpoints of those saying WWI is not their thing.....Fair dinkum its not everybodys cup of tea. I do however find the ruminations of those who have not played it, yet seem to somehow be experts on the sim a bit confusing......And no I am no "Cheerleader". I wrote a small review on it over on Simhq (I post there under "Biggles07") I think began with "I'm a believer BUT", with both positives and negatives. Those opinions are pretty much the consensus at the moment. That said, I had been playing it only around 3-4 days at that point, since then I have had some great fun with the sim, despite its frustrations.

It is not in competition with SOW, room for both in this world and then some. 99% of those who bought ROF will buy SOW too, no doubt about it. Why all the bitching?

@KG26_Alpha "These idiots are kidding themselves."

Thanks for that mate, charmed. This "idiot" here is having a great time with the sim, cheers. Don't worry, though your comment struck me as somewhat ironically "idiotic" itself being that you have never met me.....though I'm not quite puerile or immature enough to return the favour.

That said Alpha, if British you are more than welcome to attend Newcastles Cruddas park community centre boxing gym on wednesday nights and call me an "idiot" then.......I'm a middleweight so PM me if your interested. Relax, its just sport! Funny how the insults flow on computers isn't it? Aye, whatever Bonny lad, lmao ;).


@Tree, theres a new vid up on YT which you can find on the Simhq ROF page of the British SE5a coming soon......looking good. If that doesn't get yer in the "Tally Ho" Spirit then nothing will hehe.

Cheers.

Chumming the water again?