paid updates?

[Chivas]

SOW is not the Battle of Britain. SOW will eventually cover more than the orginal IL-2 series. The SOW series will also be modded more than IL-2 ever was. That said IL-2 will live on happitly until the first release of the SOW series, then die away as each addon and mod appears for SOW.

I would pay for comprehence mods to the IL-2 series atleast until I have SOW on my harddrive. I would imagine the experience of flying SOW would be far superior to anything I could still get from IL-2 modded.

[nearmiss]

I have often wondered how many of the posters that mention paid updates would actually make a purchase.

If paid for addons are planned several thoughts to consider.

1) I would suggest an excellent mission builder with some good tricked out tools to facilitate programmable mission building would be valuable.
2) A programmable AI performance package with pre-set programming for actions that real pilots (based on skill) would do under certain conditions.
3)Additional aircraft would have value if some very extraordinary efforts were made to fix some of the FM and DM.
4)We could use high quality object filled maps as well.

How many times have we all read postings about uber or borked aircraft that were no where near representative of the real thing?

Luftwaffe had orders not to engage with P51s in dogfights. They were losing too many aircraft to Allied fighters. I know the argument is the late war Nazi pilots weren't as experienced or well trained as the pilots earlier in the war, even though they had the quality aircraft they couldn't get the job done. Maybe some truth to that, but still I think there are plenty of "other" aircraft that could make a difference in online play.

During the past couple weeks I've been reading archived postings where users express their frustration with aircraft. Now online players are pursuaded to fly with 190s and Spits. It's an easier and best go to just pick the big dogs that get the job done. Reminds me of "THE ZONE", with a bit more sophistication called B & Z in lieu of T & B.

I know you can fly different servers. Yet, if you go into the all or nothing "anything flies and fights servers" you'll get your fill of late war German and British opponents.

[mazex]

I have no problem with paid updates, I've bought all the modules for "Combat Mission Shock Force" even though I hardly play the game (hate the Syria setting) - just to get CMx2 Normandy

I guess the business model from CMSF would be feasible for a game like SoW:BoB as we are in a niche market... Release a base game and then rather fast to produce modules with "plane packs" for the same base region. RoF tries a smilar approach but I would rather pay 25$ for a 1941-1943 channel war module with FW190:s, Spit V:s etc than 5 dollars for each plane etc...

/Mazex

[Voyager]

I'm not adverse to purchasable player flyable aircraft, so long as you aren't required to buy it to fly in the same servers. Same with offline campaigns, and coop campaigns. Basically, I'm good with it if it can be done in a way that doesn't fragment the player community.

Flight sims have such a long development, and tend to be playable for so long that the $50 box, and patches for 10 years doesn't seem to me to be a very workable model, and the constant expansion packs fragment the community. I can see how a sales model based on a single engine base, with purchasable planes, campaigns, etc, especially when combined with special focus releases could produce a more sustainable business model.

Problem is, I imagine it would be painful to code.

[HFC_Dolphin]

Sometimes I wonder why we think that sims are not a good enough market.
What do we mean by that?
That it's not similar to Warcraft, where developers made hundreds of millions?
I hope this is not the target, cause it's obviously a wrong one.

For a rather small team, like OM's, I think that IL-2 series, with 4 paid products in 6 years (using the same original engine), made a great profit.

OM and 1C know better what they want and I hope that it'll be a similar to IL-2 release model, which kept the community united in all these years. I'd hate to see a model of one hundred different releases per year, like the M$FS one.