I would call it putting things in perpesctive, we can wait and wait, or try something new.

Thanks buddy i will check it out, I dont think you will get many takers for a good old 'punch up' on here though. This is really a fan site so anything that threatens Oleg normally gets toasted both sides by the usual suspects.:grin:

As it stands "ROF" doesn't offer enough for me (right now) to try it... and "I'm" not willing to hedge my bets on speculating what kind of (and how many) "free"(?) up-dates "ROF" may offer.

Confirmed.................... Idiot.

;)

My ROF post
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akNmqkEPoV0&NR=1 LOL



I can't run it on my PC so my friend had to help me out.

he has a quad w/ 2.66 ghz pc.


I'm using my Microsoft 'new OS' approach.

1. wait and see the damage.
2. wait for a patchable or version that runs reliably.
3. wait and see the non MS support community behind it + extra apps.
4. buy, patch, and install (for this game, i'd be play).


I'm going to wait on ROF.

why?

short version:

DRM turns me off esp w/ better DRM methods out there.

ROF bugs are big. They forgot Rule #3 of game fight club. release beta = betamaxed. Don't release beta. (rule 1 n 2 talk about the game club to everyone). Still though pest control (patience + beating up a pillow / punching bag) will work. Somtimes.

ROF content is low. I feel like I just bought a box of my favorite ceral, opened the box, split the plastic bag's top and find it half full. And 5 crunch berries, when the picture has half of it berries and cereal.

However the modeling, physics and eye candy (graphics) is good so if they fix it, its worth it, so I will wait.


Support the flight sim devs, yes. This is why I will get a 2nd copy of IL-2 for backup (one DVD will travel). But support a product that was rushed through QA? This happens more than it should for the video game community. And lower expectations of intended audience is partly to blame.




long version:






first the good:

Gorgeous graphics, excellent physics, and realistic WW I flying. Yes you can crash (planes) just cuz. Wind blows too strong, smack. Squirrelly movements check.

then the bad:

1. the DRM thing. I buy my games. I don't want to be penalized because of some pirate paranoia. Look at Microsoft, they've been fighting pirates and ninjas and you can torrent a modded Vista that runs smoother than a trimmed Pony. Millions and months spent on DRM that the electronic army of hackers undoes in a day. I d/l games to test to see if I like and if I like I buy it. If I don't like it gets erased.

(I'm going to buy backup copy of IL-2 46 dvd). There are so many user friendly ways to implement DRM and they went the hardline. So I'll wait until a good patch / hack / mod / DRM method switch happens.


2. Bugs. I am tired of being punked by game dev companies. Like Age Of Conan ( more like age of crash on). First my friend said registering Rise was a challenge (waiting to time out, then retry etc), and he's tech savvy. On my ROF play, got CTD once, and locked up several times, looked for online connection.

And my friend has solid internet (he plays MMO's and FPS hard core.)

We tried selecting a plane and it says cant access it, then we back out to main menu and back in and NOW can select it.

I'm ok with the funky voice acting, but during a mission when the game quits and blacks out, then you're greeted by your desktop and flash of a window some error message that appears and disappears in the same instant . . .

The fight for good quality continues. I will not be betamaxed and waste $$ and time on something that should have been QA'd properly. And this is basic to any product.


3. loading like playstation. Ok his rig is powerful. It can run 3 instances of Left 4 Dead, two Lord of the Rings online's and run in desktop or in either games as if no thing else is being ran.

He can even render Lightwave style while playing Left 4 Dead (1 instance).

We had some laughs, were waiting for ROF to load, and he switched to Left 4, played a bit, went to check ROF, loading :D


4. Weak sauce content. 2 planes? Ok, they're trying the Valve angle / Blizzard Starcraft 2 model. Release a 3rd of the game, then more. Ok. But Valve and Blizz are industry heavy hitters and neoqb's the new kid on the block (does neoqb rhym with n00b? ). Valve and Blizzard can make this call given their position.

2 planes and some missions doesn't have the scope of the theater they're trying to represent.

5. buying new planes. I could support this, but being stingy with only 2 planes upon release means they're out for $$. I was laughing at the post on the ubi forums where someone said if this was IL-2, it would have only IL-2 and ME-109 to play lol.

And only 2 planes harkens to this japanese 8 bit ww2 sim where you could fly a cream yellow or green zero or something that looked like a mustang in USN hellcat colors. it was from arcade tail end 3rd person view perspective and you could bomb, torpedo, and shoot at incoming planes ships etc. But thats cuz memory was premium, 8 bit gaming was new frontier.

But this is 09, variety is the spice of life. And IL-2 has raised the standards.

Give something more than 5 planes each side. And more missions, heck maybe even one bomber biplane and missions like that. I don't care if its old school where a gunner uses a modified sextant to aim, picks up a bomb from the basket, and arms the bomb and holds it over the side.

I'm waiting for the 10 planes for $10 sale! It seems they know how rare WW I sims are so they're milking it.

6. The ubi forms post has lots of posts w/ a near fanatical fanboy ism of this game. I'd think lots of people would be wanting this game due to the starving nature of WW I sim and the rarity of good sims of that era.

I notice here, like ubi, flaws of the game and neoqb's shortcomings are overlooked because of the eye candy graphics, the 'ohhh and ahhhh' of a flight sim and the accurate flight model. But ROF has the bugs, the issues, the lack of content, lots of missing qualities from stellar games that should've been there from the start.

Ok, I can understand beggars can't be choosers right? A hungry man's gotta eat? And if your diet is only WW I sims . . . when anything edible shows up, bon appetit, even if its a rat burger (demolition man anyone?). But like Ash, I choose you IL-Two!


Support the sim community. Yes, if product is good. But I don't think so, if its not. I mean, if you buy a buggy product, you are telling the manufacturer you're willing to take something less than the top notch quality we all deserve.

Forget all the doomsaying Flight Sims are dying. IL-2 is just as popular. 7 years and you can still find a strong community going for that. Only games I know of with that longevity are a few MMO's (Asheron's Call) and classics like Nintendo's on its Wii.

Alot of the posts praising ROF seem to be skewed by the lack of good WW I flight sims, heck even WW I sims period (ya it hurts we can count them on our fingers since x86 days) so once one comes up, with graphics and decent flight model its "next best thing since sliced bread" despite the shortcomings.

Ahh, takes more than just eye candy to sell me.

But at least none of the issues are what I would call game breaking. Game hesitant to buy, yes.


So I'll wait for more content, patches to fix the bugs, and hacks / replacement of the DRM.

Plus I have to build a PC, and that takes time cuz I'm going CH for IL-2 first.

See . . . but what if BOB SOW comes out. And also I'm waiting on Starcraft 2, and Mass Effect 2. ROF could slip under the radar . . .


lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6YJV...eature=related

@Alpha....Hahahaha, confirmed......Bigmouthed Wuss ;)

To be honest i am not a big fan of first world war sims fullstop. However ROF does look very good and the support seems to be there, i am not concerned about paying a few quid for add-ons that is to be expected these days, and i am getting very tempted by ROF, at least its something new to fly about in.

lick it
 

SE.5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KGaWGfjJWs

Pfalz D.IIIa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpGva7i-S2M



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlbUuMQ1z5c

Neobq also added the D.5 Ablatros, the Nieuport 28 for free.

The free Albatros convinced me - luv that plane - , but I got to say that I'm not impressed that much. It has potential, no doubt, it's fun and it looks great, but I also know now why 4 hours were enought to see it all...

If it only would have adjustable sensitivity (at least they are considering that, now...), I could say something about flight-modell and stuff. With a Saitek-HOTAS, you are fighting your input a lot more than the flightmodel itself. :rolleyes:

As they should have as they were to be there in the first place.

True.

Anyway abit offtopic for the discussion but a "in your face" kinda thing..
Command and Conquer 4 , yes as far away from a ww2 simulation you can get , have just announced that they require constant internet connection while playing, even for Single Player à La RoF.. just thought some people should realize this is a buisniss model that is gonna get even more common with the years to come... even for casual games..

It might become more common, if people knowingly buy software that behaves that way. I won't be buying software like that.

Actually, not true. It's the same type of snafu that plagued 1:C maddox regarding the Betty bomber and a few other flyables that the publisher put on the box art thus giving the impression they would be included. 1:C responded by finishing that (and a few other things) and putting them in a free patch. Not much difference really.

As far as fighting your inputs, trim adjustments were only present in a few models (like the SE5a for one) and it was limited. The standard practice for many was to set their control surfaces to be slightly nose-up at a certain airspeed and fly with constant forward stick pressure. Sounds awkward (and it is), but it was common then.

To what extent should we have to apply forward stick pressure to achieve level flight (as one example) is still being worked out.


TB

"I could say something about flight-modell and stuff. With a Saitek-HOTAS, you are fighting your input a lot more than the flightmodel itself. "

I disagree with that Feurfalke, ( I have an X52 Pro setup myself) but this is how it was anyway by all accounts, big adjustment from the comparitively "fly by wire" IL-2 birds lol and you can't relax much at all. Throttle/RPM adjustment is key, its very difficult at first but its as Thunderbolt says, its the way it was. Wind and turbulence are also big factors, you will find yourself crabbing due to a strong gust alone, these things were lightweight. You go full throttle, and unless you "Trim" your stick with some rope you will end up with a sore arm (I was one of the first in Europe to get it retail) Adjustable sensitivity would be great for those who want it, but not flying at full throttle all the time and getting mix and radiator settings right works wonders too, especially in dives. Personally, I feel the FMs are hands down the best thing about it by a country mile, a lot of others feel that way too.

Agree that its fun, but yes at present 4 hours tells you pretty much the whole story so far. GUI and Map interface improvements are pending.....and maybe more in next patch. Like you say, the key word is potential and lets hope it fulfills it. Something to amuse myself with until "Storm Of Waiting" shows up anyway :) I'm enjoying it despite its flaws, particularly the Albatros which is my fave ride by far, and looks great (Fokker too twitchy for my liking ).

Roll on September, hope theres something worth seeing from 1c.

Yes, Orville, that was my impression at first, too.

I though "Wow, the wind feels great on the light planes" and was fascinated by the sluggish feeling. Then I tried the game with my CH HOTAS and adjusted curves and I could snipe a pilot from 500m in a Albatros - not even to mention the much more stable Spad13.

It's also not really realistic how the planes respond. Okay, I only flew once in a radial-engine biplane, but it felt a lot different - especially on the ground. In RoF if you kick the rudder you can turn without moving forward and against the skid the back of your plane is lying on. We had a wheel on our biplane and it didn't like that without applying that much throttle, that the plane at least slightly moved forward when turning.
It also has little to no effect when starting or stopping the engine. In IL2 this effect is like 10 times stronger and they had a much different prop-weight/resistance to planeweight ratio.

You should also play the game online a bit. Some people also know about the sensitivity trick. Depending on who you fly against, they'll shoot 10 times in a row with less 1 second burst, no matter from what angle they're coming, while other planes twitch and twiggle around like you and I do with the X52 ;)

As I posted: Great potential, but not quite there, yet.

You do know who Albert Zhiltsov is, don't you?

PC Pilot Magazine, Jan-Feb 2009, Page 59.

Albert Zhiltsov - "On initial release the end-user will be able to fly the legendary Albatros D.V, Fokker D.VII, Niewport 28 and SPAD 13."

There it is for you in 'black and white'.

All 1C patches for Il-2 were free.

Not patches.........updates :)

All RoF patches are free as well.. what are you on about luls.
Only addons will cost such as planes.. lewl

IL2 updates were free the only paid addon I bought was the PE2 Peschka and that was only because the Russian market had it and the Western market demanded it, it comes included now in IL2 1946 @ £9.99

Free updates included
100's of aircraft
ships
vehicles
artillery
armour
buildings
100's of ground objects
maps
and some stuff I've probably missed.

I wonder if RoF are going to just charge for planes.

And the winning answer is...... "Who Cares".

Those that want to pay for add on's will, and those that don't wont. It has no effect on people who haven't purchased the game yet.

+1

Besides RoF isn't IL2 get used to it ffs.

Is it right to compare IL2 with RoF? Times are certainly different and in this economic market it's tough to give away as much as Maddox/UBI did.

The difference between the two (and I think is a valid point) is that there was a fully fleshed out game with IL2. You could take on different roles dependant upon the plane you chose. There was more than two planes listed. There were more maps. As far as I remember online worked from the get go. IMO RoF isn't a complete game.... yet.

TBH. If SoW:BoB were to come out at $100.00 I'd buy it. If I add up what would be necessary for RoF to be what I'd consider a complete game I'd probably pay the same amount as I'd pay for BoB and I'd be happy to do so if all the features and planesets were included and functional.

In time I'm sure it will get to the point where IL2 was upon it's release (or to where I think RoF is a complete game) but two planes and one map and non-working online are a little light for my tastebuds.





With that said even SoW seems like it will have more features out of the box than RoF. We can all ONLY guess as to why the diparity of releases, but I'd hate to set a precedence for incomplete releases just to make more money upon completion or to allow unfinished buggy games to go out the door to unsuspecting simmers.

Gotta love the non contributing finger poking posters here that have no idea about IL2 1946 as it stands now and the development its gone through and continuous support over the last 8-9 years.

I hate to be labelled a fanboi but that's what I am only on the grounds of the development team from Oleg/1 C Teams continued interest in taking facts and advice from its customers regarding flight models and historical data and updating the sim/game according for free.

You will be hard pressed to find any other developer dedicated to its community as Oleg and his fellow workers.

My final post here as this threads so far OT.

Good luck to RoF buyers and your future I mean that most sincerely.

[QUOTE=Robert;82928]Is it right to compare IL2 with RoF? Times are certainly different and in this economic market it's tough to give away as much as Maddox/UBI did.

The difference between the two (and I think is a valid point) is that there was a fully fleshed out game with IL2. You could take on different roles dependant upon the plane you chose. There was more than two planes listed. There were more maps. As far as I remember online worked from the get go. IMO RoF isn't a complete game.... yet.

TBH. If SoW:BoB were to come out at $100.00 I'd buy it. If I add up what would be necessary for RoF to be what I'd consider a complete game I'd probably pay the same amount as I'd pay for BoB and I'd be happy to do so if all the features and planesets were included and functional. [\QUOTE]

Of course you can compare the two, but you need to take into account the extensive expansion and development that occured to IL2 AFTER it's release.

Hopefully ROF will show enough potential to get enough suport from the FS community to develop into a truely comprehensive WWI flight simulator. (Or at least keep ME amused until SOW is released ;) )

One of the big complaints people have about IL2 is the size of the maps. ROF has put it all on one map. Supose you can't please every one! Hmmmm!

ROF - "On one map of 125 000 km2 the military conflict between Germany, Austro-Hungary and France, England, Italy, the USA and Russia take place."

From what I've read they already added another two flyable planes That get installed through the patching process.

How long has ROF had it's website and blog up? Concidering that we are in a niche market and mainly enthusiasts are going to buy the game, I think that most people know the situation or will at least read the box cover. Do you want a warning label on the box in inch high letters? "WARNING- This Combat Flight Simultation contains 4 flyable aircraft, you may experience a level of disapointment if you expect more!"

Check out DCS Black Shark. At the moment there is only one flyable helio. The precedent has already been set, a long time ago. Flight Simulator (before micro$oft got involved) had only one plane I believe. No one complained because they knew the the situation.

My big concern is the online validation every mission and the patch updates. I still remember playing Company of heroes the first time and took about 3 hours to install the patches before I could run the silly game and get into my first mission.

Until my copy of ROF arives I don't know how intrusive it will be?

Cheers

I should have added AT RELEASE. I took it for granted that people would know what I meant. Sorry. I know IL2 has expanded quite a bit. Compare the two out of the box and I feel RoF lacks. If it were a more robust collection I'd pay $100.00 just like I'd pay for BoB. At this time I don't want a piece-meal game that doesn't have all it's features added or working.

I honestly wasn't aware the map was that big. Are there any hills or mountains?

MS Flight sim had one plane when PCs were still running DoS and CPUs were running at 33MHz or less. There has been a full spectrum of airplanes since FS 98 (or before, but I wasn't simming back then).

We are spoiled with IL2. I freely admit it. I'm only asking for a complete game. To me RoF feels undone..... despite neoQB's best efforts.




Good luck with RoF. I hope you enjoy it, Skoshi. Reading some of the folks at UBI rehashing their experiences is great. I enjoy reading about them. I'll more than likely buy RoF when things I think need finishing are done.


PS. If you could arrange the 1 inch high letters I'd appreciate it. ;)

+1

You have to be a bit more honest, when comparing IL2 and RoF.
Imagine you only bought the basic IL2FB and you decided to not buy the Aces Expansion, PE2 and Pacific and 1946 addons. Then with the RoF-Model you'd still be able to play with the rest of the IL2-players regardless of addons they got, because you'd have received the graphics updates, maps and improved flight-model with free patches! So the only difference would be, that you cannot fly the planes yourself that came with the addons.

Now THAT would compare to Rise Of Flight's business-model.

How does ROF work with online play Feuerfalke, say for example you purchased/downloaded a Sopworth pup and i hadn't purchased/downloaded it, but I wished to join the same server as yourself, would I get an error message or would i simply not be able to see your aircraft or would i see it but not be able to fly it.
I haven't got ROF yet but i am interested.

The later.
You will have the Sopworth pup fully installed on your PC, and even be able to built mission with it as AI plane.
"Purchasing" a plane means only purchasing the right to fly it (and it means no specific download, just an authorisation in the server database... so next time you launch the game, you will be able to fly it). Every patches/upgrades are downloaded automatically as soon they're available and you lauch the game, whatever you bought planes or not... so everybody has the same code and data on his PC.

I really don't want to compare business models of both games. I had tremendous fun with IL2, and all money expended on it was worth it. I'm 100% sure it will be the same with SoW:BoB.... and so far, I have the same feeling with RoF (just hoping neoqb will get enough income to be able to continue its continuous development plan)

If you don't purchase an aircraft, you will not be able to fly it, but you will be able shoot at it and down it. :)

Keep it simple. To purchase a plane simply means to purchase a cockpit. All externals are in the game already.

Couldn't put it any better than Foo'bar just did.

You buy the cockpit, the rest comes with free patches. That means you can join any server using these planes, but you may not fly it. In other terms, you will only run into problems if you join a server that only uses planes you don't have payed for, because then you can only join to watch the show.

:cool:

Rgr that, thanks. :grin:

Just got my copy. Takes some time to customise things to ones liking, but first impressions are very good indeed. After seven years of Il-2, it does take you out of your comfort zone somewhat. However perseverance is rewarded.

I'm very pleased with my purchase and I'm glad I was not swayed by the more hysterical members of the community.

It's definitely fun and it's something new. It just get's old a bit quickly, but that's when we start playing online ;)

Support means different things for each one. To some it is unconditional, to others it means "i'll buy if i like what i see". Both groups are needed for the survival of the flight sim genre, the first to fund the beta testing and bug hunting process, the second to press for improvements :cool:

Personally, I'm waiting for something like a "gold" version a few months down the line. One that possibly has proper multiplayer capabilities, more aircraft (both flyable and AI) and a well done single player campaign for a normal game price. A $40 admission fee to take part in an open beta doesn't cut it for me, no matter how good the FM/DM is, but that's just my personal opinion.

Also, a version that lets me choose if and when i want to install the latest patch and/or revert to a previous version, because sometimes patches break more than they fix. And most of all, a version that isn't dependant on a bunch of different ISP's working in unison for me to use a product i paid for. If i buy something i expect it to work regardless of what technical hiccups the server on the 5th hop from my local ISP to Amsterdam might be experiencing. It shouldn't be my problem, simple as that.

Maybe not all of this will be fixed according to my liking, but i expect some of it to be fixed before i get a copy. For example, maybe the new version has more aircraft and a well done dynamic campaign but the stupid DRM implementation remains, or vice versa. If half of my wishlist was being addressed i would probably pick it up.

At the state it is right now i feel i don't really want to get my hands on it. I fear i'll like so much the few things it does well, that i'll be even more frustrated at the total glaring omission of other important stuff and/or the not so user friendly customization process and DRM scheme :grin:

Your mileage may vary of course, but being primarily a WWII jockey i can certainly keep flying IL2 for a couple of years more, especially thanks to the unofficial add-ons made by the community. I wanted to get RoF initially before i found out about all the things i dislike, but even then i was just looking for something to keep me occupied until BoB:SoW. To me that means a more or less complete game that will work right out of the box in the sense a traditional combat flight sim is expected to. I'm looking for something to keep my mind off BoB:SoW for a while, not trade one anticipation with another waiting for new flyable biplanes, a proper campaign and bug fixes :grin:

The RoF manual has some interesting notes about it's FMB.
As well as event triggers and much other stuff, you can also arrange objects (say an AAA or observation balloon position) and save the layout of those objects as a kind of template that you can paste into other missions or areas of the map. It sounds like a great feature, that will allow a much more lively frontline to be created for a lot less effort than in Il-2.

Oh dear, you're gonna be waiting forever with those demands.. why not just go make the game yourself..

Well, it's not my job and i certainly don't have a problem waiting. Just like i said, IL2 will be a fine companion for me for a couple of years more. If Neoqb comes up with something i like then i'm going to buy it, otherwise i'm not going to and wait for SoW:BoB, very simple really.

you've just summed it up pretty well, the problem is however that "thats all there is" and after a few days you have already seen its limitations. however nice it might look, its unfinished in much of its content and many of its game aspects (online play, stand alone missions, campaign, coop etc..)

now just remember that this has been sold to you at full game price, under the illusion that you would get a fully functional and completed product, which it clearly isnt

and from now on, just keep your wallet open, cause you are about to go on a long drawn out ride where they will keep stringing you allong to extract more and more money from you at each step.

except of course that this is EXTREMELY limited, no 24/7 dogfight servers for global players to meet on whenever they feel like playing their game, no decent campaigns, coops, or new series of missions to dld either.

now is that really the level of quality in a new flightsim product you will accept from all new flightsim products from now on ? i doubt it, or you have set your standards really low, and in many regards it is a significant step back from the good flightsims from the last 10 years (mig alley, falcon 4, ms-flightsim, il2 etc...)

now also compare what you have now to the long list of exiting features and content that in the last few years you were led to believe would be included, any sense of feeling conned or fooled by the old bait-and-switch trick yet ?

zapatista

39 dollars isn't full sim price...I paid alot more for IL-2, OFF, CFS, and FSX, etc
The addon aircraft cockpits, FM, and DM's are cheap by any standard if you so chose to buy them.

I guess you missed "Rise of Flight Vision Statement" that indicates that ROF was released early to generate funds to continue development of the sim. All aspects of the sim will be improved over the life of the sim. I would image if you enjoy the sim the cost per hour of usage will be measured in pennies. Hardly a deal breaker.

Chivas

Says the guy, who don't own the game and seemed to know everything 1 year ahead of everyone..lmao

We where well aware of what we were getting Neoqb haven't fooled anybody on purpose. IL2 consists of many expansions and updates, stop comparing it to RoF it's just ridiculous besides IL2 doesn't really have the proper tools for multiplayer either... it utilize a 3rd party tool for server browsing, something that would leave a lot of players out of the online community.

And IL2 wasn't exactly rich on content at initial release either.

I wonder,neoqb showed a lot of stuff which looked totally finished when Rof was called KoTs.Did they take it all out just so they could sell it as add ons?
Imagine Oleg releasing SoW with one flyable 109 and one flyable hurricane,no campaign,very limited SP,broken MP (can't host behind a router,just go in DMZ and open all your ports to the world,don't worry...),and a dead environment.
Then said don't worry,everything else you need will be available to purchase at the store soon.
I think RoF looks good,but will not buy it until it is improved by several patches to bring it up to something other than a beta,and an early beta at that.
Everyone raves about the DM of RoF.Screenshots of,and reports of planes flying around with no wings,or most of the wings gone don't impress me that much.Planes crashing from hundreds of feet and just doing a little bounce on impact,and looking a little crumpled???

What is it with the fanboiism of RoF? Are the people who brought it slightly embarrassed about it,and need to keep defending their purchase,even though deep down they know its not good enough just now?
Visit simhq and if you complain about RoF,even people who brought the game,get ripped to pieces.Then again some of the fanbois appear to be on the neoqb payroll,and belittling anybody who dares to complain seems to be a valid tactic of defence.
Some even purport to speak for the developers (they are working on ....... and ..... now,so shut up etc) but that seems to be a trend that infects a lot of forums these days.

JG52Uther if your not interested in supporting ROF at the moment and prefer to voice your inexplicable wonder at those that do, its your choice. We all understand that the sim is unfinished and has bugs and anomilies but the community can see that the ROF team is talented and could use our support. Especially in the early stages of development in these tough economic times. If the community withheld their support, I have no doubt there would be considerable pressure to close the doors. We have too few talented combat flight sim developers to let that happen. Thirty-nine dollars is a very cheap investment in the possiblity of much greater things to come. Although I realise that quite a few people have there own financial problems and can't afford to invest in an unfinished sim.

Luckily it appears that many in the flight sim community are able to support the sim, and it should give the company enough of a financial boost to continue development to a stage where it could attract many more gamers.

Its not like early adopters are having to wait for the sim to flesh out. There is huge entertaiment value in what there is in the sim now, and it gives me something to do until SOW comes out. :)

Chivas

If you look at my early posts at SimHQ, I was very enthusiastic about RoF.

I still am in some ways.

The flight modeling is very good indeed, as are the aircraft models.

However, after flying it for a while now the new has worn off and the problems are becoming very apparent. My most recent posts at SimHQ reflect this experience with the sim.

You can agree with the business model or not, I'm not getting wrapped up in that debate, but no one can tell me that all is well and that the unicorns and rainbows are there for all to see. The rabid fanboism at SimHQ is out of control. If you are an onliner and post about problems with the multiplayer aspects of the sim your comments are brushed off as trivial gamer talk. Only "serious" off line players can have valid observations there it seems.

I want RoF to succeed. It has tremendous potential.

But right now the emperor has no clothes, and the fan boys are blind as a bat.

That's true, zapatista.

Considering neoqb has to maintain online servers 24/7 for all their stuff it makes you wonder why they don't have some official servers running for their customers. :(

It does surprise me that Neoqb doesn't have dedicated servers running for their customers. I could be because the code hasn't been optimized enough to run effectively with large groups of players. It doesn't bother me at this point as I usually like to learn the aircraft and practice shooting skills before venturing on-line.

I will have to read your thoughts on ROF over at the HQ...I had thought that you were very happy with the sim...should be an interesting read

SlipBall, many aspects of RoF do make me glad I bought it.

But after seeing aircraft after aircraft crash in to the earth from thousands of feet and bounce or just crumple a bit, I'm becoming less enthusiastic about the DM. Oleg had this pegged in his comments on it. It looks to me like they just applied FPS "rag doll" physics to the crash DM. One of the German squads put together a little vid of various aircraft collisions with ground objects. It's like the planes are made partly of rubber. They flew an Albatross head on into a moving train and it just bounced and bent the fueslage a bit. Rubbish. That aircraft should have been totally destroyed.

And after flying the thing almost nightly since I received my copy I'm simply getting bored. Multiplayer does not exist in any way that those of us who have flown IL2 from the beginning understand. I've never been an offliner, but the RoF "campaign" is dull and lifeless, the only thing good about it is the fact that at least the AI will engage you and they don't have super human powers like Oleg's do.

If online were really an option I would be a lot happier.

neoqb really needs to get off their butts and get this sim brought up to a level where one could realistically call it a finished product.

They don't have a lot of time to do this, at least as far as I'm concerned.

They have the basis of a very good and long lived title here, really they do. But they need to fix it. Yesterday.

Do you think anyone here is comparing a 9 year old product with RoF? C'mon most of us here were there when the original IL2 was released and that's what's being compared. The only ones mentioning the 'full release' of IL2 (meaning all it's addons) in a comparative way to RoF are the fanbois raving over RoF. Get real. That's not fair to neoQB. It's not fair to fans of both games, and that's not what's being done.


I hope neoQB succeeds and manages to get things working as soon as possible. But not having online code working for a game that was heavily bolstered as an online experience is unfathomable.

It's great the game looks as good as it does, but it's 2009. Would anyone expect less? I'd be dissappointed had the game not looked as brilliant as it does. But as many have mentioned that luster wears off PDQ when you look at how unfinished it is.

Time will tell if this game succeeds. I've been tempted to go to pick up the game at the local MicroCenter, but I've heard enough to confirm my own suspicions that I won't buy it untill neoQB finishes the game.

The tradgedy of all this is that I BELIEVE neoQB is trying, and these issues are a symptom of how difficult it is for new developers (especially of complicated games like Flight Sims) to make and finish a game. Sadly, my fear is they won't be able to.

What they need to do above everything else is get online functioning. Releasng two extra planes to placate supporters is nice, but is not what is necessary to lengthen RoF's shelf life.

Unfortunately the things we all want can't be created over night. There may be more than a few people putting the game on the backburner, until the first major patch/addon/content.

I must confess I haven't flown the game enough to know the full extent of the existing contant, but what I have flown was entertaining. We just have to get our heads around the fact, that ROF is a WIP, amd most of our concerns will be dealt with if possible over time.

I understand that many don't want to pay even a minimul sum for a WIP, but I would rather do that than have no sim to support.

The following screen captures illustrate the problem with the DM of RoF.

This SPAD lawn darted straight into the ground at a speed high enough to tear it's wings off.

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/8245/spadcrash1.jpg

This is it bouncing on impact.

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/6825/spadcrash2.jpg

And here it is after coming to rest. Not even a dent in the cowling. This aircraft should be a smoking hole in the ground. Note also that there is no hole in the ground, or fire for that matter.

I can appreciate that sentiment. I've said in a previous post I'd pay $100.00 for SoW. If ROF was similarly finished (based on our expectations and Oleg's notes) I'd pay the same. I hope they can succeed.

TBH. With me, because of health issues and how it's affected my ability to work, $39.00 is a lot to shell out for something like this. I can't afford the risk they may not be around 8 months from now, and I end up with a game with limited appeal.

I'll feel the same way should SoW be released in a like state as RoF.

Actually you would be left with a game that doesn't work at all, thanks to the magnificent online-only DRM scheme :grin:

I too want this to succeed, but i won't help make it a success in its current unfinished state and set a bad precedent for what a company can get away with. If Oleg, Eagle Dynamics or any other sim developer released something in that state they would be torn to shreds. The only two reasons people support them is that

a) the dedicated WWI jockey hasn't had a sim with a dedicated, up to date engine for years and they are willing to settle for the bare basics and

b) Neoqb is a small company that clearly stated in their letter to the community "sorry, we ran out of money and it was a choice between releasing an unfinished game or scraping everything"

To give credit where its due, Neoqb has the foundations more or less set right, they appear to be trying hard and recently they also made some effort to keep the community in the loop as far as further development goes, despite being awfully hurt by the language barrier and the lack of an effective PR effort early on.

It's not them i'm worried about, it's the willingness of such a large part of the community to lower their standards and unconditionally support an unfinished product.
It's all fine and dandy for people to like it, it's a matter of personal taste. What's not fine is having a bunch of people telling you your reasons for not liking it are rubbish, the changes you are waiting for before you buy are not going to happen so take it or leave it, you don't have the game so you shouldn't talk about it, and so on. It's just an attitude that culminates to a very simple conclusion "Buy it now or shut up and get out".

It's even got to the point where people like ElAurens who actually bought the game are getting shouted down on the slightest mention of a thing being wrong.

The usual argument behind such tactics is that they support the genre and how they are serious simmers and the rest of us are not as "hardcore" as them. What they fail to see is that what could be a justifiable situation because of Neoqb being a small company, is something that would not be cool at all coming from an established software house. However, the big boys are watching and if an upstart company with a niche-within-a-niche product can get away with that much, they will surely be able to get away with more. Everyone talks about how RoF has a lot of potential. Not enough see a different kind of potential though, the potential to harm the genre in the long run because of setting the bar too low. Setting a precedent on what's acceptable by the masses in terms of content, quality and price is always a dangerous thing. Asking too much and the developers will never be able to satisfy the public, asking too little and the public will never get another worthy product. I would go as far as to say that for me personally, the survival of the flight sim genre as a whole is much more important in the long run than the survival of a single development house. It's not like they'll disappear if they fold, they could work on other projects in a different studio, for example making a WWI add-on on the SoW engine :-P

It's not them that have to disappear, it's the notion that you can sell an open beta for full market price and place a bunch of restrictive design elements on top of it all.

The way i see it, i can keep flying IL2 with the community/unofficial add ons for a couple more years. I certainly won't be bored until Christmas, at which point Neoqb might release a gold version. Imagine that, working MP, a good offline campaign, more AI and flyable aircraft and a different copy protection method for $50. Now we're talking business.

Didn't they say that the DRM would be removed if the company failed?

I don't know if they really said it, but it has been that way with MANY other games, too, even if the company was still there. After a few years most DRMs are lifted. Some do it earlier (The Unreal-series removed their complete copy protection at max after the 3rd or 4th patch) and some later, but if you get the game for 10 bucks at the value-price, there is not much sense to cause them trouble with DRMs. And let's face it, most DRMs hit the honest customer, not the pirates.

I also got to agree with Chivas in some points.

1st - I agree that their online-gameplay is somewhat limited. But IMHO it would be much better to have at least one or two dedicated servers running, to assist improving the online gameplay and solcing network-issues the same time they provide 24/7 servers for online players. It would also make it more obvious for customers to see neobq is working on improving gameplay and online-features. But maybe they're doing this via their beta-tests, so who knows?
2nd - I agree that supporting them is the best way to ensure they improve. But I'd also like to see some progress in the right direction. It's not like the game has just been released or so, but over quite long periods, there are no news or updates whatsoever. While I still think this is okay for a game that has not officially announced yet, it's a bit different for a game that people already bought and which has to make a name on the market.

@ElAurens, you say "But after seeing aircraft after aircraft crash in to the earth from thousands of feet and bounce or just crumple a bit, I'm becoming less enthusiastic about the DM. Oleg had this pegged in his comments on it. It looks to me like they just applied FPS "rag doll" physics to the crash DM."

I actually said this well before Oleg on this very same thread, asked for peoples opinions on it, and not a single person replied. Few days later, Oleg says the same and all his little soldiers are in agreement lmao :grin: I am apparently not important enough lol.........Oh well must accept it :)

That said, there are aspects of the DM that are superb and have never been done before, in any sim. Its not all doom and gloom, even last night I noticed something new......After taking damage from AAA fire, I noticed that sun rays where shining through the holes that had been made onto the lower wing, looks unbelievably cool ;)

Why don't you wait till the first large scale patch before condemning it? All the things you say about Multi-player are true, the campaign sucks as well....But have patience, Padwan :)

Page 2 on this thread. 22nd June.

"Now I'm no Physics "Major", but as impressive as some of the effects look, some of them do not look quite right to me. A plane diving at a collosal speed regardless of its weight is going to build up a lot of mass and energy, right? It just seems sometimes that they just crumple like the paper aeroplanes I used to throw at my maths teacher as a kid, when they were'nt looking Maybe I am wrong about this, but I would expect for example them to be impaled into the ground in this scenario, if coming down at speed at a 90 degree angle. Like I say, maybe due to their relatively light weight this would be correct, someone please correct me if this is so."

Hmph. :grin:

I'm sorry to hear this is your personal view on this community, but this complete statement completely disregards some important facts:

Oleg had the chance to play the game before or shortly after it was released in Russia in May. Mid-June US-customers could get a limited number of copies, but sales reached their high not before the last week in June. European customers will get their chance end of July in an English version and End of August the earliest in the localized versions.

So if even more people will give their reviews in August, that is not because these "little soldiers are in agreement" then, but because most of us will take that long to take a personal look at the game and not make a judgment based on second hand information.

Thank you Feuerfalke.

Orville, I don't recall your post. I am just giving my observations after spending some time with the sim. I'm hardly Oleg's little soldier.
He is correct about this aspect though.

we resolved that before in this same thread chivas, RoF is being sold as a full price normal game, and is roughly equal in price to most other flightsims.

have a look at these prices from one of the RoF "officially recommended sales points" in north america (http://www.fspilotshop.com/index.php...a5cd2c1a262cc3)




now that is a very different perspective, and not one that is openly recognised by the hysterical RoF fanboys that still keep pretending everything is perfect with RoF and whom with a cultish zeal keep trying to ignore all problems with it.

you and some other keen flightsimmers might see that as good enough reason to send the RoF devellopers some pocket money, and hope that enough will trickle in to keep them going a little while longer. this is of course presuming the RoF folks will actually use that breathing time to fix the main glaring current problems with it, rather then mainly work on other "for sale" addons or a next product of the same poor quality ( as i postulated could well be the case in starting this thread by indicating they are already working on a ww2 sim). your decision to support this for-sale-beta is a decision you are making on trust and hope, not based on fact or an obligation or garantee that RoF will ever have its main problems fixed, or that if they flop you will even still be able to play the game in its current form.

and RoF doesnt openly state that "pay us to finish this beta, this is not a full game" at the current sales points for their product either, and neither is it clearly labled on the product box when you look at the item ion the shop shelf, or on a website that sells it.

does it mean there are no positives in RoF, yes there are a couple

so should the average flightsimmer support RoF right now by buying it and seeing their $$$ payment as a virtual donation to the RoF team in the hope they will as a priority address its most glaring current problems ? no not in my opinion. one of the main reasons is that when the RoF project flops you will be left with absolutely nothing (your game wont even work in its flawed current form), and the fiasco itself will again give future flightsim ventures a reduced chance to get decent $$ backing for any similar products

there are some solutions to this, but looking at how RoF managed the whole project it is unlikely they can make the mental leap required to address those (so far we have had misleading information during devellopment, bait and switch marketing, taking the worst sales aspects from several game genres to solely focus on revenue income, and not having a core quality product at release time, premature release of an unfinished beta pretending it is a full product, not addressing the main complaints etc). there is no doubt some of the game FM DM and grafix people have talent, but they have been shafted by thier own marketing greaseballs, and the way it stands right now it is going the way of the dodo's (and extinct NZ flightless bird).

they have already released some patches since it was 1e released, going by the gradual minor fixes included, this is going to take a very long time and there is no indication that the real main issues will ever be addressed satisfactorally (easy to join online servers for coop missions, dogfight and campaigns, a firm promise to remove the DRM if the game flops so people wont have wasted their money, free mission building, object making and campaign management tools so the comunity can take the ball and run with it to buid on what basic content there is now, etc..)

and what you are forgetting to mention, there are some further major issues with what should be the best core components of this game to, like takeoff distances for aircraft are 4x to long, placing doubt on their environmental physics modeling, odd damge models with aircraft striking the earth at full speed, static weather patters without terrain masking for AI (magic vision seeing through mountains and clouds) etc...

i think the red barron crowd whom have for a long time been waiting for a new replacement game, they keep hanging on to the glimpses of quality RoF shows and it must be frustrating for them to see the botched product they were landed with right now. for them i hope eventally RoF will be patched to fix it (err for free of course, rather than the pay as you go carrot dangeling they are using now)

for the rest of the flightsim community RoF as a "new product type" (perpetual console type addon sales), its beta status at release time, the fact the product wont play at all if RoF flops, major elements missing in the game, etc.. means that this is the worst possible type of new flightsim. If it succeeds it is bad for us because it sets a new lower standard for all future products, and if it fails it is bad for us to because it will be used as a reason for other investors not to enter the market in the future and make new products. the only glimmer of hope is that RoF could rapidly address the major issues with decent free patches and open up the game to community input, which i seriously doubt will ever happen before they run out of money and have to close their doors, at which point you will be left with nothing, zip, de nada, rien ! personally ifyou are going to do an act of charity i prefer to give my 50$ to a homeless out of work person so he can buy himself some food for a couple of days.

We never resolved anything in earlier posts.
In Canada I paid these amounts when the sims were released, not after they were in the bargain bin.

FSX Deluxe over $60 Canadian
OFF $50
IL-2 well over $50 for most installments ( IL-2, AEP, Pacific, FB, PE-2, IL-2 1946 )
CFS again well over $50 each for CFS1,2,3
EAW can't remember
ROWANs Battle of Britain over $50
BOB WOV over $50
ROF ......$39 Canadian is hardly full price.

Most of these sims were ok, but IMHO only two of them have a decent feel of flight and one of them is ROF.


There's nobody in these forms saying the sim perfect and ignoring the problems. Most everyone flying the sim, know its a WIP, and many are enjoying what content there is, understanding that the issues and content are being worked on. Will they be just adding paid content and not fixing bugs, not likely, as the people building the sim are enthusiasts not bean counters.

The only thing your right about is ROF is not a full game, but everyone knows that.

What you can't seem to grasp is this game is a Work in Progress, released early to generate funds, and the 39 dollar price tag reflects that. As a work in progress you can expect bugs and some missing contant will be added for free. Of course there will be paid content as well, how else do expect them to stay in business. We will likely pay as much for this sim series as we paid for other flight sim series depending on ROF's quality and longevity. This sim could generate a sustainable business or fail based the quality of the work. The existing ROF WIP is very good base to build on, and most simmers realise what it is.

Could the sim fail and you are left with nothing, yes, but the more likely scenario... the DRM would be lifted, and the community would work on the sim.

It would be interesting to see what people would think about DRM and other copy protection if it was their own project and monies on the line.

Copy protection is never a solution, it's merely a deterrent. Especially in niche games like flight sims, where the fan base is usually dedicated to a larger extent than in other games, piracy is not so much of a problem. In games where it is a big problem, the publishers are usually big software houses that can absorb the piracy hit, plus they never manage to keep it under control anyway. The sole purpose of copy protection is to make sure the game won't be freely available during the first weeks of release, because that's where most of the sales occur and the biggest potential for financial damage resides.

Almost everyone has illegaly downloaded games and the reason is simple. There are too many games that don't justify a full price, there's not a demo or people are not sure if they are going to like it enough. The real distinction between a pirate and a customer is the receipt. A person who buys is not a pirate, plain and simple. He may not like the copy protection and used a cracked version of the game, or he may have played a few hours with an illegal copy before deciding to go out and buy it, but anyone with a legally obtained disc and a receipt in hand is a customer, plain and simple.
A friend of mine downloade Empire Total War, he tested it for a week, decided he likes it and then went ahead and bought it. He's not a pirate, he's a customer.

That game is an interesting example for another reason as well. It's a game that requires online verification, much like RoF but a bit more hassle free. It's based on Steam and that platform gives you the option to run your game in offline mode, because as a primarily online platform they know that networks are so multi-layered that there's too many random things that can go wrong and deprive you your enjoyment of the title if they tie it to an online connection at all times.

Guess what happened, the cracked version was out within a week of release, packed with a custom installer and working offline. My friend did buy the game in the end, but a lot of people didn't. And the copy protection was inadequate to deal with it as well. Similar examples are Spore and The Sims 3, supposedly online activated yet freely circulating the internet in illegal copies. Even the addon content for the Sims 3 is available in pirated copies. If EA can't put a stop to that, what makes people think that Neoqb will? The only reason RoF hasn't suffered a similar fate is not because their DRM is good, it's because flight sims are unpopular with the masses. You can be sure that if it grows in popularity everyone and their dog will be able to obtain an illegal copy of the base game, possibly even the add-on planes. So in the long run, the only thing the DRM does is p*ss off the few people that were actually willing to make a legitimate purchase.

Now where is the line drawn between games like these and flight sims? Simple, flight sims have fanatical audiences who realise that in order for them to have something to fly, the developers have to make money. Flight sims are also usually the products of small studios, making the above even more pronounced. Someone might not feel as guilty ripping off a multi billion dollar franchise, but if they are flight sim fans it won't really sit well with them doing the same to a small developer.

Last but not least, in fact it's the most important factor, flight sims are complex enough to not appeal to a massive audience, and hence unpopular for cracking and illegal distribution.

All the above leads me to believe one very simple thing. The vast majority of people who would pirate a flight sim title are not lost sales, but people who would never buy it anyway. They are not lost sales, they were never sales to begin with because they don't care enough to learn a complex game. They will spend two days downloading an illegal copy, go through a couple of missions, uninstall and delete.

Imposing the hassle of such a DRM method on a legitimate customer when your game is hardly as attractive to the pirate audience as the latest first person shooter is unecessary, a simple disc check would suffice and the counter-piracy effect of any method would be the same anyway. It's also simply shooting oneself in the foot and the reason for that is very simple. The people who would pirate it if they could would never buy it anyway, plus you lose a good chunk of potential customers who would make a purchase but are turned off by the DRM implementation.

This is not entirely my own line of reason mind you. It's the model a very succesful and small developer house is using to calculate their business growth and potential. They released some niche games and the only protection was a CD-key during installation. Was it pirated? You bet. Was it pirated more than more popular games? Not by a long shot.

In fact, the company stayed focused on delivering content to the people that they knew would buy their games, instead of wasting time embarking on a wild goose chase against the people who will never buy anything anyway and they did very good as a result. If anyone is interested to read about it, google up Stardock games (the company) and Sins of a Solar Empire (one of their games).

A few quotes from Wikipedia:

Yup, a game with no protection whatsoever is a top seller at retail, because those guys are simply focused on providing quality entertainment for their target audience. On his SimHQ interview, even Oleg Maddox said he would prefer not to have DRM. He's also spot on about the correct way to use an online authentication system. Instead of being online all the time, recurring activations at set time intervals would both reduce piracy a bit and they wouldn't leave you high and dry in the case of network troubles. Here's the page in question from the interview: http://www.simhq.com/_air11/air_341d.html

You know what would have been fun...

the moment RoF announced that they would require constant connection... organise protest. Everyone who would have purchased without requirement puts $50 into escrow account and RoF get a visual on money that they're missing out on. Money gets released back to each flight simmer at 6 month mark if RoF still requires connection.

I read yesterday that they've apparently said they'll patch for offline if the company goes under. First time I've had a vested interest in a flight sim failing :(

Take of distances are only too long if you don't know how to take off in a WW1 style tail dragger that has a skid instead of a tail wheel.

This is pilot error not a game engine problem.

Once folks were shown the differences in take off proceedure that WW1 aircraft need it stopped being an issue of contention.

Next.

Well said Blackdog, I've been saying the same thing for some time now but you've said it much better. Heck, 1946 doesn't have a CD key and though we all know its been pirated the sales on it will by far have exceeded the pirates. I still say and believe that when SOWBOB is released the pirate activity will be low, it will occur but low as opposed to other releases much to what BG has said. Once some punk kid gets waxed a number of times and stalls and crashes he'll give up and go back to the twitch shooters and the other pirates that actually do fly will have to shut their piehole about stealing the sim or get expelled by the community.

Flyingbullseye

In the IL-2 community, they seem to be welcomed and adored for breaking in to the code...I have alway's taken a strong stance against such activity

Hi all. Ok, @Feurfalke "Oleg had the chance to play the game before or shortly after it was released in Russia in May. Mid-June US-customers could get a limited number of copies, but sales reached their high not before the last week in June. European customers will get their chance end of July in an English version and End of August the earliest in the localized versions.

So if even more people will give their reviews in August, that is not because these "little soldiers are in agreement" then, but because most of us will take that long to take a personal look at the game and not make a judgment based on second hand information."

That is fair comment Feurfalke, even if by his own admission he didn't play it too long (4 hours) his observations were correct. Mind you, it doesn't take a genius to work out (certainly not one myself lol ). I started playing it on the 29th of June Feurfalke, I was one of the first non-beta testers in Europe to get it delivered from the states......I have noted many things that are wrong with it, as have others. My point is to those who are bashing it, (not saying you are mate) give it more time. All human beings make mistakes, it is indeed "human to err". Game developers are no exception. Unless these detractors come from the planet Krypton, and walk around with a big 'S' on their chests, I'm guessing they have at sometime in a professional capacity too ;)

I get tired of repeating myself to be honest, I haven't got the strength anymore lol. If people don't like it, fine. I people do, great. People who do not like it who haven't even played it bemuse me, but they can have their (somewhat uninformed, like planes will cost "25 bucks each") say too. There is no "war" between SOW and ROF, they are not rivals and there is no need to take any "side". Those who got ROF will undoubtedly get SOW too.

ElAurens, I cannot disagree with any of your criticisms, you are right. I'm just saying give them a chance, and have some patience, maybe things will turn out OK. I know how infuriating a lot of the shortcomings are, tell me about it lol. But I believe we will know better in maybe 6 months, I personally think it will improve a lot. God knows, it needs to. But then for me, the glass is always half full, just the way I am, but of course everybody is different! :)

My Ha'penny. Peace to all ;)

I'm not going to get sucked into a debate about the mods, however you don't know for a fact that all have pirated the sim. My bet is very little. There is a difference however fine in anyone's eyes, between pirating a game (stealing) and moding a game that has been purchased, hacked or there otherwise.

Flyingbullseye

If modding was the same as cheating there wouldn't be so many modded servers attracting some of the top fliers in the community. If modding was so bad, Oleg wouldn't work to integrate modding support in SoW and he wouldn't hand-pick some of the most talented modders to help him with SoW (his words, not mine, in the simHQ interview again).

For me, the distinction is very simple. The process of modding was a dangerous path, but the results were positive for the most part. I no longer have to fly a Me109E over the Gulf of Finland against Spit MkVs and pretend i'm over the channel fighting against Spit MkIs. I can fly over a map that's the real channel (ok it's scaled down a bit but still it's better than Finland) and see the correct aircraft types around me.

A lot of people who stopped flying IL2 some years ago, finally went out and bought 1946 just for this and got back in the game. Because, no matter how good the graphics, FM or DM, what matters the most in the end is having the tools to recreate as many scenarios and tactical possibilities as possible. That's why modded servers are more popular, you can do things on them that can't be done on the stock ones. I have seen formations of heavy bombers with fighter cover, flying the correct mission profile and using tactics as accurate as can be in a computer game, and all were flown by real human pilots that i had to outsmart to stop them from reaching their targets.

That's the big selling point for any sim really, the ability to recreate more than just the aircraft. That's why sims with just one flyable have become classics, like Falcon4 and Black Shark, that's why a lot of people think RoF is incomplete and that's why the mods are popular. No matter how good your FM is, if there's not a sufficiently well done rendition of the war around the player you're simply flying an FSX clone and not a combat sim. Of course that's a matter of taste, many people are happy with the FM/DM alone, but there's also a lot who enjoy seeing the entire theater of war in motion.

I'm really happy that Oleg's team is trying to go the traditional route and give us something like that, an experience that will be as complete as our processing power allows and maybe even more than that, right from the box.

One thing is for sure, BoB will have some sort of anti piracy protection , wither it will be regular cd-key protection and check vs master servers for online play we'll see soon enough. (that's how most games does it)

Vanilla IL2 doesn't even require CD-Key and it's safe to assume it's been pirated a lot especially on later years, if the game would've been released (stock version) 2005+ i doubt Oleg would've had such a success.

Piracy has escalated a lot the last 5 years.. SoW will not ignore that..

+1.

Lets hope not.

Flyingbullseye

your being deliberately misleading there

ncix.com is the only one that i can see selling RoF for the 39.99$. you keep quoting them so ademently as a point of comparison as if this is a valid comparison which is valid in most retail locations, BUT
- they do not include local sales taxes in those quoted prices (which many other websites do) and that will add about 10%,
- AND their shipping cost of 10$ is about double what the other stores quote (even if mailed inside the same state the ncix.com store is in) .
- by the looks of the product content they are not really a significant games retailer or flightsim supplier at all, and many of the major titles they dont carry (it is mainly pc hardware they sell), and i see many of the big current games are not on their list either.

so if that is your great claim to RoF's cheapness, bollocks !!

if you look at the main game retailers websites that do carry a range of flightsim products (as for ex listed in the recommended retailers list in this recent simhq thread http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.ph...s/2738493.html ) then you will find RoF is exactly prices as i already quoted to you before, SAME price as other normal "full" products or other major flightsims

and instead of going by some of the fantasy numbers you came up with from your dimming memory, lets just quote the normal prices at some of the major websites listed in the officially recommended suppliers that provide a comparison with the other FULL flightsim products they stock, and which are sold at NORMAL full retail prices

have a look at these prices from the RoF officially recommended sales point in north america (http://www.fspilotshop.com/index.php...a5cd2c1a262cc3)

if you can come up with one of the major legitimate flightsim software suppliers (that carries the normal full range of flightsim software products and games), which sells RoF at something like 30% of what they ask for fsX, lockon, black shark, Xplane, etc..., then i will send virre89 some free zit cream to his home address. but as you well know already, your argument doesnt hold up, its basically sold at full price, just like some of the other flightsims it is trying to compete with

wow, what a change of tune from the usual coolaid fueled chant that its fanboys sing on all the main forums, why dont you try and go there and mention just a few of its GLARING problems there and see what happens :)

bollocks, bollocks and more bollocks !!

it doesnt say that on the retail box or at retail websites, it doesnt give that as a blatant warning on the official RoF website, AND reviewers/previewers are not being told to advertise this and forewarn potential customers either

now that RoF is out "in the west" however the multiple problems it has are so obvious to any normal customer that with the orchestra of loud complaints they simply cant pretend anymore this is a complete game with the set of normal features you'd expect from any other software company, what is worse is that many of its problems and limitations have been DELIBERATELY added to try and squeeze more money out of customers with complete disregard of basic features and functions normally expected !

YOU might not mind that, and i am not here to tell you what YOU should like or not like, or spend your money on, but to now pretend people were forewarned about its problems is ridiculous. neither does it say at the entrance to their forums "this is a beta project only, thx for sending us your money to support us in the believe we will be able to resolve most of the main problems it currently has, and that we will give you a normal set of features and functions AND that we will unlock the game for you if our company flops"

to now pretend they have been open and forthcoming is silly, and neither are they in a grate haste to fix those main issues.


wrong again, they are already selling addon items they made, in my book that shouldnt be the case untill some of the major problems are resolved. this shows you clearly where their priorities lie, just in case you were not able to spot it earlier

yes there are some good aspects of RoF, but that doesnt excuse its problems or the flawed sales model they have implemented. would you accept it if all future games were in the same crap status when you bought them ? i doubt it, you'd be the first one yelling your lungs out and crying foul.

nonsense

and of you go again pretending RoF is so much cheaper then normal full games, which it clearly isnt, and the lame attempt at justification that everybody is forewarned about how flawed and beta it is, which isnt the case either

you dont know that chivas, and there are already examples where exactly that happened, the company failed and shut down their servers, leaving everybody with NOTHING. if it was that simple to unlock i am sure some clever 12yo with a hex editor would have already done it by now. since you cant guarantee it will be unlocked, nor have some inside line to the developers, pretending it will be eventually unlocked is just another attempt of again putting a rosy spin on it. if the company is in financial trouble, which they already are right from the start by their own admittance, i doubt they will spend more of their money on unlocking the game and removing the restrictions they previously deliberately imposed