Quote:
Originally Posted by Chivas
Will it eventually not require online registration, maybe, but I doubt it. Unfortunately Piracy has dictated some form of protection, so they can be compensated for their years of hard work.
Is this a sim only the kennest have purchased, again not very likely, even a few who purchased ROF don't even like WW1 flight sims, but wanted to support the combat flight sim genre.
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I've been thinking about the current release being a deliberate unannounced beta test and it's making a lot of sense- if you proceed on the assumption that requiring people to connect continuously even for singleplayer is going to cost a significant number of sales in the long term. I was dead keen right up to the point they announced the connection reqs, but it's killing my interest- I, along with many others in Oz, don't have reliable broadband. And, if the company does go under, potentially there'll be a lot of coasters around.
So maybe this is not the 'real' release. RoF in its current form is just an open beta that people have paid for the opportunity to test. RoF developers get the money required to keep going until the game is a stable release. Requiring a server check at the beginning of every mission locks down piracy, and reassures the investors in the meantime. When I say that the keenest ones purchased, there's still a LOT of people holding off until they see that the company won't founder, and in the meantime, RoF gets a huge amount of feedback from the people who most want to make the game a success.
Part of this would be the forced updates, which is something else I loathe- patches do break stuff sometimes, and I don't want to have to wait 2 hours to download the latest before I can play- with updates, everyone plays the same version for 'testing'.
So, here's what I'm hoping would be the idea: After 6 months, RoF announces that they're moving to different distribution model; puts out boxes with stable 1.08 version including 8-10 flyables charging normal game release price; box requires internet/phone activation/disk check etc, but doesn't require continuous connection for SP; wild rejoicing on the part of all of those left out previously, and I purchase game
Presumably game gets cracked at some point, but sales rise considerably anyway.
Might be additional paid patch with extra flyables, reqs another activation to get on servers.
I really hope they've got something like this in mind, because their current business model seems... rubbish.
I understand that people need to support the genre, but I'm not purchasing a game I can't expect to work for me.