I’m sorta confused. The way that Matt Wagner describes it, this is going to be a highly simulated module far surpassing anything that has ever been done with carrier ops before. Do I understand, you will be able to drive the thing? LOLOL
I mean I can take off from and land on a carrier right now. And it is fabulous. Better than any other game really.
Why in the world would anybody expect this to be free? I sort of understand the frustration of the split in multiplayer servers, but the explanation was completely reasonable.
“Of course, on the technical side, there will be so many network inconsistencies between module owners and non-owners of the carrier that it would cause havoc and look terrible (particuarly deck crew and the new comms), as such making it available to non-owners in MP makes no sense. Other carriers will be available to non-owners still, and many will be happy with the new, free carrier that was added just last year along side the Hornet. This module iis for those that want to take carrier life to the next level.”
Fair enough. I’m sure I’ll buy it just so I can steer the carrier into a pier and see what kind of mayhem I can create.
I wonder if it would make sense for them to go to a SAAS model. Monthly fee to give you everything, like Adobe did with Creative Cloud. Not popular from a customer perspective, but oh boy did Adobe make a killing with that (or so I understand).
I don’t think anyone expected it to be free, they just didn’t anticipate that everyone would need it to be on the same playing field.
With the recent news over what Adobe is doing to their customers using a subscription model, if DCS goes subscription, I’m done with it. Now, if on the other hand, you can subscribe or buy a module, I could get along with that.
Honestly like what has been said above, it’s too early to be freaking out. Look how much MAC has changed in the last few months. Wouldn’t be surprised to see this go through some changes as well. And besides I’ll treat it like I do other modules that don’t interest me.
Same here. I’m happy to drop a fortune over time on a DCS or Rise of Flight, but the moment they can remove my access for non-payment, I’m out. You could offer me every module access for $5 a month and I’m still not interested.
Regarding the ATC, happy to wait on that and pick it up at a discount - even if it says things like “now fly into the tail”, which is pretty much what I’m doing.
Are you referring to Adobe raising rates, or did I miss something more nefarious?
In a way, DCS is already SAAS. The other day for some reason I couldn’t connect to their license server. A message popped up that said In three days the whole thing would stop working. We don’t actually own anything right now, just the right to “use” the software.
Divide your investment by the amount of months until they do shut down their license servers and that’s the monthly fee you are paying. So if you are $500 in and the servers stay on for 10 years, well that’s around $4 / month.
It’s not a comfortable thought, and I don’t like it at all, but SAAS model can work for companies, especially if they are the only game in town, like Adobe.
On the other hand, If I had access to everything, maybe $5 / month wouldn’t be so bad. Honestly for my time of use I might end up paying more. If it sped up their development a bunch due to more constant revenue stream…
My problem with Matt’s response is basically that I can’t take my carrier experience to the next level and reasonably expect human opposition in online missions.
This bothers me a little (though not a huge amount). I still plan to buy the module. But I think they’ve bought themselves a fair bit of negativity on this, letting the community assume it wouldn’t lock people out that didn’t own it for such a long time.
I think at least most of us understand that ED’s work doesn’t come free and that with stocking up on developers, they are under even more pressure to keep a steady stream of income. The thing that I find primarily problematic is that I as a customer am in no way able to judge the implications of buying something. Example: I specifically bought the Hornet at the end of it’s presale to have as much information available as possible to me. Still there was no way for me to know at that point that i would end up with a module that has barely functional ATC with the carrier.
There was probably no way for ED to know either at that point. ED can’t plan ahead indefinitely, naturally. Still, given this lack of transparency that results from long term development, I’m left wondering if it wouldn’t actually be a better idea to finance core development via a subscription.
While not 100% fair for everybody (some features are only for people that own certain modules), at least you know what expenses to expect ahead of time. I know it has its downsides as well, I’m just throwing it out there.
Edit: I see now i should’ve cared to read the rest of the posts above.
pff and all this over the cost of a meal and multiplayer. Only a fifth or less of DCS users do multiplayer. What a sh!tstorm of drama. People should get over themselves before going in a hissy fit over this.
The @#$ing planet is dying, [Edited out politics] but this is the sh!t people get riled up over?! gah.
I’m offline exclusively and PC is almost never connected… in fact, I had to login to update and get my Tomcat, and it was startling how many DCS world changes had been made since the last time
If you stop paying, you’re locked at the last update.
That could work.
But what if I want in again, a year later…?
I can just get every update the last year, for free? Wouldn’t be fair.
Maybe a minimum subscription time of a year, or so?
As someone that plays SP and COOP im am mostly interested in AI. I expect AI not to frequenly collide in the pattern, do an endless circus of go arounds above the carrier until running out of fuel or crash into each other on the deck. I also expect the AI to acknowledge my humen presence in a correctly flown pattern by respecting applicable spacings (and not crash into me). I expect 16 airplane (AI) Alpha Strikes to be able to spawn, taxi from parking, launch, recover and park without collding or blocking each other. I want such moderatly sized AI air wing operations with integrated player(s) to work flawless.
It has never been explicitly spelled out but I assumed (and still do) that such improvements would be part of the announced new carrier operations. I don’t have a problem with paying extra for it (even though AI should work out of the box) considering that it will be a limited expense in the grand scheme of our hobby. It probably wont affect our own small group that much but I can see that this could cause a major issue with the multiplayer community. Basically repeating WWII Assets Pack times 10. I wish this could have been solved better by ED.
With (most?) of the new carrier operations being tied to a paid Nimitz, I wonder how this will affect other carriers such as Heatblur’s Forrestal, RAZBAM’s Tarawa or other potential future additions. No Marshal or LSO for the Forrestal? Or will the 3rd parties at least get the API to write their own?
Yes, but you have to strike a balance between hassling people that genuinely want to support ED and how easy you make it to abuse the system.
Also if you make subscriptions too long, it sort of defeats the advantage. I have no idea what ED will do in one year, so i might want to opt out of my subscription before that.
The concern here is being wedged - getting people used to the idea of subscription. That’s not what any of us signed up for.
I paid for a product and I expect to be able to use it without limitations. If DCS were to go under, the last thing they’re expected to do is release a patch that unlocks DRM.
