Rise of Flight - To buy or not to buy?

[vanderstok]

Originally Posted by Fearfactor

One main reason combat sims are dying is because devs are too lazy to create much offline content.
.

Too lazy? I have never seen a small team work so hard and deliver so much as the RoF team did. I'm pretty sure the same goes for the CoD team.

You must be one of those strange creatures that think by throwing insults they'll get what they want. Or is that just how your parents raised you?

[Blackdog_kt]

I don't think the RoF guys were lazy. I think they were forced to release it way too prematurely due to financial reasons, plus one of their investors decided on using the constant online requirement. All that gave it a slow start and it's been playing catch up for a while.

That being said, i've tried the demo on various times during its life and i still think it has some way to go before it's something i can consider what i call a complete game in an "out of the box, install and play" sense.
If they had a version with enough flyables, a different DRM and a proper offline campaign (that uses the correct AI opposition, not spawning sopwith camels against my eindecker) i would reconsider.

Then again, i was recently looking it up again and i see people still complain about the render distance and the need to use zoom view to see the dots as close as 2km from their aircraft, so i don't know if such annoyances can be ironed out or it's a case of something that's buried too deep in the game's engine to change.

I think that's the problem with a pay-per-plane business model, even if they are cheap: developers are forced to focus on creating a constant stream of new flyable aircraft to sustain their revenue, almost to the expense of everything else in the sim, plus these flyables are not really that pricey from a developer's point of view but they are from a user's point of view if you want to have more than 4-5 of them.

On the other hand if they did it a la IL2 (content upgrades with major expansions only), they'd have more time to work on other stuff in-between releases of expansions: bug fixing, game engine upgrades, extra AI units to help enrich missions and campaigns, etc. Plus, they would be able to sell it for $50 instead of $5 and more people would buy it. Even if an expansion includes 5 planes i'm not interested in among a total of 10, i still consider it a better value than buying 5 planes individually, because expansions usually include extra maps or other goodies (some AI ground units, added mission builder capabilities or just a new mission type or multiplayer mode as an extra selling point). So, a full-on expansion is also a way for a developer to sell extra flyables to me that i wouldn't otherwise buy individually.

What i'm really interested to see is how long it takes before a 3d party group makes a WW1 sim out of Oleg's new engine and how it would compare to RoF.

[onlyforbrian]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

I don't think the RoF guys were lazy. I think they were forced to release it way too prematurely due to financial reasons, plus one of their investors decided on using the constant online requirement. All that gave it a slow start and it's been playing catch up for a while.

That being said, i've tried the demo on various times during its life and i still think it has some way to go before it's something i can consider what i call a complete game in an "out of the box, install and play" sense.
If they had a version with enough flyables, a different DRM and a proper offline campaign (that uses the correct AI opposition, not spawning sopwith camels against my eindecker) i would reconsider.

Then again, i was recently looking it up again and i see people still complain about the render distance and the need to use zoom view to see the dots as close as 2km from their aircraft, so i don't know if such annoyances can be ironed out or it's a case of something that's buried too deep in the game's engine to change.

I think that's the problem with a pay-per-plane business model, even if they are cheap: developers are forced to focus on creating a constant stream of new flyable aircraft to sustain their revenue, almost to the expense of everything else in the sim, plus these flyables are not really that pricey from a developer's point of view but they are from a user's point of view if you want to have more than 4-5 of them.

On the other hand if they did it a la IL2 (content upgrades with major expansions only), they'd have more time to work on other stuff in-between releases of expansions: bug fixing, game engine upgrades, extra AI units to help enrich missions and campaigns, etc. Plus, they would be able to sell it for $50 instead of $5 and more people would buy it. Even if an expansion includes 5 planes i'm not interested in among a total of 10, i still consider it a better value than buying 5 planes individually, because expansions usually include extra maps or other goodies (some AI ground units, added mission builder capabilities or just a new mission type or multiplayer mode as an extra selling point). So, a full-on expansion is also a way for a developer to sell extra flyables to me that i wouldn't otherwise buy individually.

What i'm really interested to see is how long it takes before a 3d party group makes a WW1 sim out of Oleg's new engine and how it would compare to RoF.

$5..?? Say What??? I paid more than $50 for my copy of ROF and although they occasionally have their older planes on special for $2.99, the regular price is much higher, for example the new Gotha bomber is $11.99 FOR ONE PLANE!!! Naturally, I passed on it.

[Alien]

Originally Posted by vanderstok

Too lazy? I have never seen a small team work so hard and deliver so much as the RoF team did. I'm pretty sure the same goes for the CoD team.

You must be one of those strange creatures that think by throwing insults they'll get what they want. Or is that just how your parents raised you?

Oh please, c'mon! How could RoF with 4 planes, and almost none physics compare to CoD?! If it had to, you'd have in CoD only Hurricane, Spitfire, Bf 109 and Stuka available AT ALL and have to PAY MONEY for rest of content which SHOULD be included for that 50-60 bucks!

[BigC208]

Almost no physics? That program has lot's of physics, 100% realistic? nope, but better than anything this side of a 6 million dollar level D sim at Flight Safety International. I bought the Iron Cross Edition that had 8 planes plus one bonus plane.

You're right, when it came out a year ago, it was not a finnished product. I did not buy it then because of the DRM requirements. When they dropped those I looked at it again. The $50 I spend on ICE was worth every penny. Including the 50 bucks I spend on extra aircraft.

We got spoiled by how Oleg gave us all the free stuff when Il2 came out. Those days are over. If you want to play you got to pay. Don't go all negative on a game because it cost more than you're willing to pay. Judge it on it's merits.

[Alien]

Well I didn't judge a game, but compared it IN MOMENT OF RELEASE to expected Il-2 CoD's content IN MOMENT OF RELEASE. I didn't want it to sound like criticism.

[Jotaele]

Buy it, you will enjoy a totally diferent way to dogfight , a easy ready to fly game with autoupdates, few controls to learn and configure (its a bit more complex to finetunning it,joy in example), and the most important, you support the flight sim industrie, not only this sim.Each time one sim becomes a good inversion, more problabilitis you have of futures inversions.

[SAS]

Originally Posted by BigC208

Almost no physics? That program has lot's of physics

yes it has.
this game gives me so believable feeling of flight that taking off one time in Dr1 after half-of-year pause in flying rof - taking me back again to flying this scrap planes
and damn it good!
feeling of aircraft, wind noise in the ears, rattle of this prehistoric mg's...
this game makes you believe that you're flying, rather than riding on the railes

[Redwan]

Why can't you buy both ?

Is it so expensive that you heed the assessment of the manrimonial budget authority first

I was a beta tester in ROF. I would try to sum up cons and pros.

pros:
- best FM up to date; DM too to some extent
- features newer seen before in a sim (like realistic sun glare, moving clouds with moving cloud shadows; you can extinguish engine fire with fast dive etc etc)
- realistic weather with impact on FM
- nice graphics
- very detailed cockpits and plane models
- friendly community (they have "fights too", thats how it is with simmers, but generally friendly and at hand if needed)
- devs listen their customers however on some issues they are stubborn (some of them spec.) and will not change a thing...

cons:
- optimisation/graphics problems (on some systems (even on latest HW) some users experience flashy textures (me included) when flying over no mans land - this is due to "optimisation" as explained from devs; on some systems stutters often, flickering landscape on some areas etc etc)...it was explained that its "hardcoded" and will not be changed.....this started to happen after introducing cloud shadows...
- ackward and non intuitive mission editor
- still no career mode
- small multiplayer community (50 players at best at weekends; and that is on most popular server)
- FM issues on some planes still not fixed (N17 roll rate, se5a engine etc..)
- limitations regarding number of units (planes and ground units) on server...very limited for smooth gameplay
- lack of AA on landscape resulting in heavy shimmering for most players....
- DM issues; some planes still able to fly with whole wings ripped off (I know it was possible for a short period of time but in the sim you can fly longer....I know in modern era there were planes with very small wings which could fly, but they were constructed to fly like that....WW1 wingless plane couldnt for sure...)
- DOT system....well il2 view system isnt much better but it is better than in ROF...in ROF you need to apply max zoom to see planes at greater distances; if you unzoom they disappear....like we have a binoculars sticked onto our faces...and usually its painful to use super zoom all the time to scan the skies)

All in all its a great sim (regarding feeling in flight) but have some serious optimisation issues + ackward viewing system).....