Expansion from Desatersoft
 

I only found one other thread about this expansion.
A german company by the name of desastersoft, www.desastersoft.com, will have an expansion for CoD.
Today on their site they announced that the expansion has gone gold, they need to translate it into english as well.
I, living in the US, e-mailed them if a download version will be available and they replied (imagine that) right away almost, next morning, that they are planning a download version, print products will however likely be not included in the download.
E-mailed them again if they will let you buy it in $US and if it will work with the steam version, which it should I would think.
Will keep updated if I find out anything new, the expansion looks really nice, tons of contend for both sides of the battle. And a demo is available for download as well, I didn't download it yet, if, then I want the whole expansion, sorry but I do like CoD.
Edit: sorry misspelled the company name in the title.

did you say expansion? Any details what it includes? What front is it? How much it will cost, and when it will be available? Is it an official expansion being signed off by 1c?

found out some more info. This is translated via google, so it's not perfect, but here it is. No new aircraft, mainly new missions, lots of them, historically accurate campaigns is what it really is.

Yup, something like this is more than welcome by me right now, hope it works, I may try the demo at some point, while waiting for the download version I can purchase in $US.;)

The price is 27.00 euros, so in $ that is.....hmmmm......30 something...ish? Not cheap, but if I look at the contend it seems to be worth it.
It might be if they get enough e-mails from overseas they will be even more enclined to release a download version.

They have a sort of english version of their website, click on contact, the areas marked with a star have to be filled out.
These are in order: first name, last name, e-mail and of course then your question, if you want to make a choice for the first area choose the second one "Fragen zu Produkten", which is questions about products.
Second row is just how you want to be addressed, Mr., Mrs., don't think you have to click anything there since it's not marked with a star.

The first thread is more than enough to discuss this expansion.

It's good to know there are talented people willing to take this on... Hopefully, it can only be a positive direction for cod :)

Just makes you wonder what the outcome would be given an official update/patch alongside it?
Would it literally be a 'disastersoft'?

NedLynch, thanks for finding this, let us know if it works! ;)

I'm right behind you in the queue!:-D

yeah its hard keeping up as code changes and seems that Clod's code WILL change.

Team D had insider info, that's why theirs stuff is so scotch (good, well most of it really) not to say the mod the oP mentioned isn't but my feeling is its too early to have something of a great undertaking while this game is patched out of beta maxed . . . . this game it seems they want to get it working first before releasing soft dev kit stuff . . .

So is this expansion just mission?

Here's the main thread for the Wick-Dundas campaign..

From what could be seen from the demo, the missions had almost no scripting at all (just some simple triggers with HudLogMessages). Paying 30 euros for that is waaay too much.

Maybe if they will sell the english downloadable version at 10 euros it might worth a try, but otherwise, I don't think so.

Yes, it looks like a german campaign pack. Think you can find just as good missions for download free on various forums ;)

good to know that someone else working on this project as well
but with the currently AI i doubt if its worth to buy it

yea
Why the hell would anybody want to pay for a campaign that we should allreardy have, and like said, there will be plenty of free one's

Regarding Desastersoft i might say that i haven't found free content (mission packs) in the same quality for 1946.
I can't believe that it would be different in CoD.
But then, there are always people which are satisfied with less.
Good for them, safes money.

+1

Will buy it, asap.
I have their IL2-46 addon "Der Eismeerjäger - Walter Schuck" and some others from them.
Fine stuff!

Surely if people want to buy it its up to them!
Personally I won't buy it, but I'm sure a lot of work has gone in to it.

Im sure alot of people will get it, but as i see it, to me its somthing that we should have anyways, and give time there will be alot of campaigns, that people will give away free

Of course Doc, but it comes down to personal choice really.

Personally i will buy it
but first the AI must be fixed....

One of my first posts on this forum was about the meagre content the game has right now. I was told that IL2 1946 started out just the same way (if anyone can confirm this please do so) and that the great content/dcg/add-ons were mainly community generated.

If, like some people here say, Desastersoft actually makes expansions/add-ons that are a notch above the rest and given the fact that they are a for profit company, yeah sure they will charge for their work, if it's worth it we will only know as soon as someone gets the expansion, which currently is still in gold status, and posts some feedback.

And even then different people will feel differently about wether this is worth the money they are charging or worth getting at all or not.

If only Lowengrin would make another DCG for this sim.........

Bottom line, the price they are charging is what it is, it's up to the individual if they are willing to pay it. I think I would pay for a profesionally made add-on, if available for download here in the US. But like I said, if it's really professionally made you can only judge after you buy it, there is never a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

be they even top notch campaigns, asking 30 euro for it is waay to much, no matter what. it is almost the price of a full game, if not even bigger..

interesting

30 Euros, so what? Thats about five or six packs of cigarettes or roundabout 19 litre Premium Gasoline, here in Germany.
(For the metrical challenged 4 litre =5.01 Gallon) :-P;):-D

Seems SOME people have more money than sense

Also Kongo since you think its so damned cheap you can buy me a copy

And 30 Euros for a DLC that contains NO added aircraft or any other vehicles for that matter is JUST a RIP off by most peoples standards. Alot of bigger named companies sell there DLC for 15 bucks or less AND contain new items etc. So i don't see where you find 30 Euros being so cheap.. As i said 1st up more money than sense. And if i remember correctly werent these the guys that tried to sell a addon pack, same deal just a bunch of missions NO additional content for Silent Hunter 3? They almost got sued for not obtaining permission and were told to withdraw the leech product?

Regards

sarcasm is great but only when i works ;)

Havoc04, uhhh, the SH3 thing does not sound good.
Are you sure it was this company?

MY APOLOGIZES its not Desatersoft but X1 Software! 2 completely named companies, so again i apologize. It just sounded awefully simiular (bunch of missions no extra content high price) You know. That old chestnut.

Regards

I find it very interesting how many people have prefabricated opinions here, judging a product that isn't even marketed.

The people promoting this mission-pack at least know the history of the company to deliver quality.

And those, which are saying it's too expensive, there are many hours of work in there and it's no hobby project, it's made to earn money.

This product serves a niche-market with a low number of customers, that is always more expensive than mass-market, in every product.

The difference to free products, as far as i experienced, is the more realistic approach and better research.

If you just want to have fun, the free missions will serve you well, but if you will try to relive what the pilots felt,
with no instant dogfight, but with hours of boredom paired with minutes of terror, dealt out as historical correct as possible atm, you should spend the money.

Robtek. I think you would agree that there would little to NO pre-judging if they HAD NOT stamped a price tag (Large Tag at that) on it before it was ready to release.. There fault on that. Nice to have hindsight though.

Regards

Desatersoft, is just exploiting a loophole, in the fact that Cod was realeased with no dinamic campaign, and a very crappy normal campaign,
And by charging 30 bucks, they probably knows, theres alot of suckers out there that will pay

Can anyone remember such a price dis ussion about their IL2'46 adons?
Just wondering because they are in the same pricerange.

And for IL2'46 there were realy a lot of good free downloadable missions/campaigns. IF this will be the case for CoD , time will tell-having CoD's FMB in mind. This thing is only similar to the '46 one for the first look!
As said, nobody is forced to buy such adons, they dont change the gameversion.

And yes , gamecontent for IL2 classic was also made by 3.party , from the Hyperlobby to dynamic campaign generators!
That was never the strength of 1C:MG ;)

If this was a DCG id buy it asap... think ill pass on this one... for those of you that buy it, i hope its worth your money :)

Sorry, i can't follow you here.

If a company developes a product the price is calculated in advance.

It is calculated how many copies will probably be sold, how many man-hours are needed, how many overhead for printing and accessories is necessary and so on.

So, the calculated price is fixed before production is finished.

Why not publish it? Every other Software company does it??

I for one placed a preorder yesterday at amazon.de. I think, these campaigns will deliver the offline content I was looking for with CloD: A nice string of historic missions as experienced by the piliots.

I bought a lot of campaigns for IL2, too and had a good time playing them.

* Case Blue
* Battle over Europe (ok, that one did bring new maps)
* Ostfront
* Rebirth Of Honour
* Wings over Waves
* Fliegerasse: Stern von Afrika
* Fliegerasse: Eismeerjäger
* Operation Overlord

So why shouldn't I with CloD?

If it does what it says on the box, and contains what it says in the box, then it's in no way a rip off.

You may judge it expensive or not, but that's something different, and is a value judgement you're free to make.

Considering Clod prolly needs a £600 PC and a £100's worth of peripherals, £15 for some usable content doesn't sound too bad.

However, if it's missing half the advertised features, the half that remain don't work and you never hear from the guy that took your money then yes, you've been ripped off.

I would pay 10 euro for an English download version but 30 is too much for me when the game is not much more (or even cheaper) today.

Good luck to them anyway and I hope they're successful since I doubt the devs will produce any decent campaigns any time soon, at least for BoB.

The relation between the price for CoD and the mission-pack is absolutely irrelevant!

If you buy a stock Harley sportster it costs about 8000$, with all extras it costs 18000$!

I guess that's true and I have no problem paying for add-ons. But at the same time:

30 euros, Desastersoft = Campaign
vs.
30 euros, 1C (or whoever) = Campaigns (admittedly pretty rubbish), QMB, FMB, mission recorder, online play etc...

just ignore robtek, he's not a reasonable person willing to recognize some simple truths.

it doesn't matter how much money costs Desastersoft to make this campaign, if it would have costed them 1 billion euros, that wouldn't mean anyone would pay 100k euros for it just because those were their costs.

and again, what could be seen from their demo, was just simple missions, without any kind of awesome scripting (actually almost no scripting at all, unless you can call trigerring some texts scripting).

also, the statement some of their advocates keep throwing is the "historical research". let me tell you I saw LOTS of user made missions & skins & campaigns with far more research than that.

in the end, that pack is absolutely not worth anything above 10 euros, and I'm sure their sales number will confirm that.

sincerely sell 30dollars a campaign... with only mission made in the FMB and maybe some skin....

it is incredible that people buy that!

at this moment.. anybody can do it and sell it....

but you know what we said... as soon people are able to buy something...we will sell them!

A 30-euro expansion for a broken game? Is this a hoax?

I keep getting the sneaky impression that there are either people that work at that company or friends there off, trying to peddle, talk it up, justify the costing. Anyways i'll say no more on this topic..

Regards

30 € is what I spend on two evenings having a couple of beers in a pub with friends. Or a single evening with the GF and a movie.

This product seems to offer six campaigns and around 200 hrs of gameplay.

Seems like a bargain to me. I've paid more money for single addon planes in FSX and got more than my money's worth.

Of course I won't spend a cent until the most glaring issues of this unfinished mess that is CoD are fixed.

Ahh, the trolls have arrived.

Time for reasoning is over, time to leave then.

Yep you are quite right about that.. There are a few about

Regards

No one said 30 euros is a big amount of money. Not in any case for me. It's just is way too much in exchange of what is offered. I would pay 100 if I would get 100€ worth in return. I've spent 320£ on the Thrustmaster Warthog, which is pretty much for a joystick, and in no case a small amount of money. Yet, I was happy with it, because what I've got in return deserved every penny I've spent on it.

It's all about business model: you want 100 customers to pay 30€, or 1000 to pay 10€. In the end, they're free to go with whichever fits them better.

That says it in one
+1

Sad that people are so shy of being fooled twice.

I've had no dealings with this company, but in the past I've bought almost every expansion pack there was for the IL-2 series, and I always thought I got much more than my monies worth.

Think it through: It probably takes me four to eight hours in the FMB to come up with an interesting 45 minute mission, and that's with out skinning, historical research if applicable and simply having a fun idea.

Anything "non standard" such as some of the crazy racing maps would take me much, much longer, if I could do it at all.

What are you prepared to work for per hour?

And don't claim "but I give it all way for free", there was such a stink about mission makers being "ripped off" by people searching their own cache files for MP missions that 1C encrypted the cache!


Don't misunderstand me: I won't buy it, but that's because I won't spend a red cent on this POS until it's received some care and attention from some one who knows what they're doing, which by now almost certainly means mods, if Steam ever allows it.

But it's simply not fair to paint every small developer with the same brush. Some of them are very good and try very hard.

You guys are stubborn, and just go on and on..

Yes, I'm sure they are working very hard. I would also work very hard to make.. dunno.. a rocket.. but that wouldn't mean anyone would pay me trillions of euros for it.

And don't even dare to open the discussion about what hard work on how much money.. here in eastern Europe we're paid way less than you guys in the West, and most of the time for even a harder and longer work.

But that's not the point.

The point is, certain things values a certain amounts of money. And when someone asks way moore, without offering anything special, no one is willing to pay it, even if it is not about large sums of money. They will only pay for what they perceive as a right bargain.

The point is they will find 2-300, maybe 500, people to pay 30 euros for it, but there will be 2-3 maybe 5000 people not willing to pay 30 euros for it, but would pay like 10 euros. Now, do some math, and tell me in which case they would gain the most return money? 500x30 or 5000x10?

Is simple, and if they don't get it, then they really deserve the foreseeable outcome of this..

True, but that value is not a precise number, it's what a potential customer is willing to pay. Some people think it's too expensive and will not buy it, some think the price is OK.

Since I have bought products from them in the past and have been very happy with what I got I'll certainly take a closer look on this one, too.

Simple math, depends on production/distribution cost per unit. e.g. the map, the printed manual and the likes. I'm talking about a physical copy.

One thing I like about the bomber campaign, is that they provide recon photos and approaching directions.

Quote from Desastersoft.com: Bei Olafs Jagdbomberkampagne gibt es detaillierte Zielanweisungen, wie es für Bomber notwendig ist, mit Anflugkurzkarten, Zielfotos usw.

I'm looking forward to it, but then I'm more of an offline flight simmer who likes well crafted static campaigns with historic background in a WW2 flight sim.

Just preordered the addon. Desastersoft has a good name making camapigns and CloD is a great game and with this addon it will be an even better experience.

Cheers

Winger

That's not much for a few Beers, i normaly need that amount for me alone,or even more. And no i am not an alcoholic, i am Bavarian. ;-) :grin:

any add-on will obviously have to be done through steam, if not, then i think i can feel a frebie coming on:rolleyes:

As minimum this addon must included the Bf 109E-4. Wick last mission was with a E-4.

Blame the developers that the most flown 109 version is not in game- and the most flown Spitifre(Mk.Ia with CSP) too btw.

As long the 3.party SDK tools are not out. Additional planes would be not allowed Mods that cause a Steam ban i guess.

This thing is a singleplayer. Mission/campaign ad on. It uses the given features of the default game. Not more, not less........

It has an updatertool ( that worked already with its demo). Desastersoft claimed already that they would update he missions when (!) stuff like an 109E-4 would appear officially.

Nice that people work on a good campaign ...
 

... for "Cliffs of Dover", the sim certainly needs one !!!

But it`s pretty useless to consider addons or campaigns as long as the sim is not working as it should and as long as it does not even have all the objects it should have and a fully functional mission editor.
Moreover - the sim only covers the time of summer 1940, how long can such a campaign then be ? 6 or 10 weeks ? That`s not even worth starting it.

Sorry
:mrgreen:

Looks interesting but 1.4 Euros to the dollar I will pass.

Interesting, they made some good stuff for IL-2: 1946... I don't think I would spend that much on it at the moment, though...

I bought just about every third party add on for IL2, but the price they are asking seems a bit much for me personlly.

I would do 20 bucks but more than that the value wanes in my opinion.

The download-version without printed maps and handbook should be less than 30€

i bought the russian version of the game for a third of the price of this campaign and i bought the european version for 40euros!so the price is ridiculous high in my opinion.

If it is too expensive for your taste, dont buy it.
No product can satisfy everybody.

I've got a bunch of missions made up. Can I sell this for $30 too?

You can try, as everybody else :D

On a side note, how does this work with 1C, as these people will be making money from CoD, which I assume is protected. Do they have to pay a royalty to 1C?

If there's as many missions as in the Desastersoft addon and comes with skins and printed goodies, I'd be happy to buy them

I doubt it, they are just adding missions to the game and (probably) not licensing anything from MG.

We get skins for free, or didnt you no
Printed goodies? can i fly them?:rolleyes:

I don't know whether they pay royalties or not, but some kind of business agreement concerning copyright and related rights must have been made, otherwise this Thread would have been locked very fast. ;)

I don't follow your reasoning... If I create a font and offer it for sale for use in word processors I don't need their permission. Or if I use notepad to write a program, I own the code and not the folks who made the text editor.

Generally you own the output of a program you use (otherwise the C+ compiler & IDE people would own everything... :D).

As long as they are only distributing the missions and skins and not MG code / Intellectual Property there would seem to be no obvious infringement.

What i ment was this:
if they use the FMB to create the Missions, they use the "Intellectual property" from 1c, so if there is a commercial FMB use from a third party without a permission from 1c, it would be an infringement. wouldn't it?

Its made by Disaster Soft, CoD is really dead isnt it.... jk

My thougths as well.No problem for user made missions, but making missions to sell surely infringes on CoDs Intellectual property, and therefore I would assume there is an agreement between D/soft and 1C, and royalties flowing 1C's way for every expansion sold.

If I can get a package like the one Desastorsoft offers I'll gladly fork over some cash. In all my years of Il2 gaming I've seen no "free" campaign that came even close to what those guys offered.

But to each his own.

I think it's out now for all those who ordered from desastersoft website directly. Alas living in Austria (14,90 EUR shipping from desastersoft) I did preorder it from amazon.de and they still show September 1st as release date.

Anyone got it already and cares to eloberate to shorten the waiting for me a little bit?

i was hoping for a digital download
but i see only DVD:confused:

How about the language question,I heard they were trying to get this translated,but have'nt heard any news since.

I would imagine there will be a fair amount of briefing regarding missions etc,if this is all in German,with all respect this would be a problem,would'nt it?

Back when I saw this for the first time I had sent them an e-mail and they said a download version was "sort of" planned. Just sent them another e-mail asking about a download version and availability in the US.
I will update as I get a response from them. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

thanks NedLynch:-D
also i hope they translate it too

I've been looking for it just now on amazon.com here in the US, can't find it, what did you enter in the search box to get to the expansion?

1. the actual version will only work if you have set your CoD installation via Steam to german.
2. the plan is that they will make a version working with an english installation of CoD
3. such a 'english' version will be only available as a digital download


so far the infos you get if you read german forums. i am sure as soon Desastersoft have something at hand , they will show up officially in english spoken forums too!

Hardly an expansion pack is it. To my mind an expansion pack gives you new content, ie new aircraft and or new maps.
This is just a mission addonpack.

I don't see either why people discuss the price so ardently. I understand that some may be angry because Cod came with so little content. But this is definitely not the fault of Desastersoft.

I can understand that some people are not willing to pay this price but hey, why quarreling about it? Just don't buy it if it is too expensive for you. Just wait until some cheaper or free stuff will turn around.

I for my part liked the demo but as long as the AI is not fixed I won't get too much into single player and therefore won't spend the money on a sp campaign. However, if they finally manage to fix the AI and the FM issues I surely will spend some money on quality sp campaigns as I did for IL2. Imho the commercial campaigns that I bought were well worth their money and not one single free campaign came even close. Which seems obvious: hobby campaign designers spend some of their spare time on it and it is extremely difficult to put that many hours into such a project. And selling a campaign puts some nice pressure on the designer to deliver or he will be sooner out of business than he can say x#.@*

I can't help but wonder why someone would name their company Disastersoft (Desastersoft in German), unless they were doing earthquake and tsunami sims. Altough they are doing Hurricanes. :lol:

I ordered from amazon.de. Big difference.

Oh my, that kinda sucks. My Steam language is English and I really don't want to switch it. Well, maybe a little .cmd script is in order to copy the _de.briefing to _en.briefing ...

But the demo had no troubles with my installation of CoD, I had the briefings, albeit in German language.

"Fliegerasse! Helmut Wick vs. J. C. Dundas" will come out in english too, the translate need some time.

here the Desastersoft website:

http://www.desastersoft.com/

I do understand german quite well, it's only the Steam language setting I want to keep. ;)

You can play the Campaigns in english Steam, but written Language in Briefing is German, the briefing files do not ending with a "de" linke in the demo.

I did receive it today I tried one mission it works fine but it is in full German and my German is a little rusty it shall be sporty to so the least but there is a fine map of the game, installation easy and launching the game automatic by an icon of Desastersoft. If there are problems you shall hear from me again. Have a nice game.:-D

good hunting mate
i wan't your impressions ;-)

What are the skins like senseispcc,nice?

I got an e-mail back today from Desastersoft stating that a downloadable version will be available at the beginning of September.
It will be available worldwide and payment will be made via paypal.
All they are doing is translating the expansion into english and testing it to make sure the english version runs properly.

That's good news for all those who can't understand german. And depending on the pricing maybe even an option for those who do. But I really look forward to the printed materials they have included in the packaged version.

+1

They've made several add-ons already, you think they don't know how to calculate the best price point better than some outsiders mouthing off on a web forum?

For the time you end up spending when you play the missions and campaigns included, the product is certainly good value for money. Maybe not in Albania but in Western Europa for sure, and since the product is in German I have the feeling it will probably sell mostly in that country.

And, no, before those who enjoy gratuitously smearing the good name of fellow forum members come in. I am not affiliated with Desastersoft in any way. Really sad that it is necessary to say that, but that is how it is when "certain people" use the most base tactics to smear others.

I'm going to wait for CoD to get finished before I invest anymore money. Sorry. It seems like cart before the horse to me, but..... to each his own.:-D

Maybe it is a good value for money.. for some..

But.. not from what I've seen in their demo missions.

And no matter what, it's ridiculous to pay 50 bucks for a car, and then to be asked 40 for a wheel... You are free to throw your money if you feel like to, but that doesn't make it fair none-the-less..

here a small Video from the Erpr.Gr210 combat flight, the voices you hear, is the command for the player to destroy the Blenheim group, this is a part for the mission.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Am8XBTu8k

thanks NSU for the video
excellent :-P

Nice video. Actually I think the history of the Erprobungsgruppe during BoB to be very interesting and worth a small campaign.