Carrier comms - Mini Updates

I can only speak for myself and the ~5 man group of people I fly with, but the requirement for all members of a server to have the carrier DLC has turned it from a probable day 1 buy to a waste of money for those of us who own the 18 or 14.

Same for our squadron of (currently) 20+ members.

Also, IMO ATC is an absolutely essential part of carrier ops, and I struggle to see how ED justifies it as outside the core of the game when their flagship module is carrier based, their most detailed third party module is carrier based, and they've expressed an interest in making the game shift toward naval operations.

Ultimately I guess it's up to ED to make the things they make, and decide how they want to monetize them. It's then up to us if we want to buy them or not. However ... to my mind things like improving the (currently very buggy and underwhelming) ATC is improving the core platform (much like the mission editor, or improving performance, or the dynamic weather and so on) and is something that benefits lots of modules. As such I would personally much rather these types of things were made available "for free" and paid for out of general module sales, even if that made all modules a little bit more expensive.

We have read all your comments and we understand that this is not popular for many of you. However, for the health of our company, this is a necessity.

 

Thanks

I dont get how creating a module that repells potential buyers due to how it will be implemented is a necessity.

Also why is this a necessity? Is ED broke? What will happen when ED goes bankrupt, will I still be able to play?

Please dont go for the "if you want to support us and we need your support oh so much, so buy it because we need it" way of handeling negative feedback.

We are a company, not a charity that needs to pay staff and keep the doors open. Throwing precious time and resources against a project, must have it at least break even. While this decision may lose sales from a segment of our customer base, it will result in a much better return on investment in the lifetime of the product.

 

Thanks

I dont want the carrier for free.

I dont see myself buying it, when I, as a MP player wont use it anyways, because servers and communities are not able to use it, without losing most of their playerbase.

Matt calls for retreat as civilians desert a demolished King's Landing. Amid the city's destruction. Stay tuned!

We have read all your comments and we understand that this is not popular for many of you. However, for the health of our company, this is a necessity.

Frankly, it sounds like you haven't read our comments if you think this structure is beneficial to the health of your company. I'm not sure how limiting your potential market and turning away potential buyers is better than not limiting it and enticing more buyers.

Are you saying turning off all interactive functionality for non-owners, including cats and traps, not technically feasible for Eagle Dynamics?

What you propose then would result in the carrier being invisible to all clients that don't own the module. That is not acceptable.

 

Thanks

"That is not acceptable" are the words my friend is going to use when I have to tell him, that he, in order for him to play with me, has to buy a carrier, even if he has no intend of using it, or his modules are not even able to land on it.

Just because the server has this module now.

That Wags, that is clearly not acceotable and openly anti consumer.

What you propose then would result in the carrier being invisible to all clients that don't own the module. That is not acceptable.

That is not what I propose, but to be honest, it being invisible would be an acceptable solution. Not optimal and definitely not pretty, of course, but certainly acceptable.

In fact, a game functionality to truly make units invisible — not just the “invisible (to AI)” advanced command — would be a pretty helpful thing to have in some cases.

Couldn't you have a placeholder carrier for those that haven't purchased the module, something like the current stennis model. This placeholder would have features omitted such as the deck crew, even going as far as making it a dumb object with no cats or wires. This would enable the mission maker to make a Carrier group with the Nimitz and Stennis, to the Nimitz owners they would see a bustle of life on the Nimitz and the non owners would see the current Stennis and another dumb carrier.

"That is not acceptable" are the words my friend is going to use when I have to tell him, that he, in order for him to play with me, has to buy a carrier, even if he has no intend of using it, or his modules are not even able to land on it.

 

Just because the server has this module now.

 

That Wags, that is clearly not acceotable and openly anti consumer.

Well said.

Even with the above posts made by Wags in mind, I still do want to add my voice to the group showing concern.

Speaking from a small ~10 person group where about half of us likes and flies Navy stuff and the other half is flying AF or non-US aircraft we will not be using the Carrier DLC due to us not wanting to split our group in two.

I will however donate to something we can (and do) use; MOOSE and the AIRBOSS-module matching the price tag of the carrier module when made available.

I am looking forward to buying other modules that encourages and supports co-operation instead of the opposite tho!

Even tho the above post made by Wags, I still do want to add my voice to the group showing concern.

 

Speaking from a small ~10 person group where about half of us likes and flies Navy stuff and the other half is flying AF or non-US aircraft we will not be using the Carrier DLC due to us not wanting to split our groups in two.

I will however donate to something we can (and do) use; MOOSE and the AIRBOSS-module matching the price tag of the carrier module when made available.

 

I am looking forward to buying other modules that encourages and supports co-operation instead of the opposite tho!

We are in a similar position. There are maybe half of us that like and fly navy planes, and the other half don't touch navy things. Even if every navy flyer purchases the new CV module, why should those guys who don't even touch navy planes be forced to pay for a module they would have no use for, other than being allowed to connect to a server running these paid CVs?

So instead of ED selling 5 out of 10 DLC carriers to our group, they will sell ZERO.

Everyone in the game gets exactly the same module, no unique codebases or anything In the code just run these entitlement checks.

Use in single player: don’t own it, don’t spawn it

Use online: try and spawn a plane on it, or take one of the positions. Check user entitlements and give a message redirecting to the store page.

Use online: try and call ATC, returns a message saying “for authorization you must own this module”

Use online: try and catch a wire. Check and if you don’t own it, wire doesn’t react, you just bolt.

Now on servers the carrier is a huge floating demo, people can touch and go and see how much better it is, and be directly motivated to buy it. Doesn’t split the online community. If fact it will push any carrier based module owner to try a few touch and go’s and then buy it when they might not otherwise know what they are missing.

This would increase sales, has no online sync or technical issues. Just have to check DRM ownership occasionally. Sure it's a very pretty model, but don't gate that, if anything having it visually in the game for non-users will seduce them into buying it. It's an ancient sales technique.

 

ANd of course, like maps and asset pack, it will be free to dedicated servers.

 

Does that mean you won't have to own it to join a server running it?

Now as a newish server owner, if my players do have to own it to play on the server running it.

Can we easily disable it?

Use online: try and catch a wire. Check and if you don’t own it, wire doesn’t react, you just bolt.

 

Now on servers the carrier is a huge floating demo, people can touch and go and see how much better it is, and be directly motivated to buy it.

Fantastic idea, and one that has been exploited hugely successfully in other franchises. There's never an upside to massively limiting your potential market before selling a single module.

I don't think ED's really thought this through. Hopefully the overwhelmingly negative reaction to the module's recent announcement will convince them to take a second look at how to handle it.

We want to buy it. But we also want to be able to use it with our friends without having to be an extension of ED's marketing team and constantly convincing people to buy it even if they don't really want it, just so we can use it.

Based on TomVR's suggestion, adjusted.

No physics/entity based existence that messes with the synchronization/experience. Instead.

- No SP availability at all.

- MP : No communication with the carrier at all (No ATC. No guidance from the deck crew. No re-arming). Literally the only thing you can use it for is to land.

That basically makes it the same as a base game carrier with a texture/model update but also greatly reduced functionality, and if you want the full carrier experience you simply purchase it.

How is that possibly problematic to implement?

- MP : No communication with the carrier at all (No ATC. No guidance from the deck crew. No re-arming). Literally the only thing you can use it for is to land.

I would even say, no cats and traps. You can fly by it, collide with it, see it, but can't actually make use of it in any way unless you buy it.

Accomplishes the same thing as far as making sure people who want to use it actually pay money to fund it and make it worthwhile, without a large technical hurdle or splitting communities. ED loses no sales, and potentially makes far more from people who see it in their friends' servers and decide it looks cool and want to use it themselves.

I would even say, no cats and traps. You can fly by it, collide with it, see it, but can't actually make use of it in any way unless you buy it.

 

Accomplishes the same thing as far as making sure people who want to use it actually pay money to fund it and make it worthwhile, without a large technical hurdle or splitting communities. ED loses no sales, and potentially makes far more from people who see it in their friends' servers and decide it looks cool and want to use it themselves.

Yeah I'd be fine with that too, but so far most of the retorts against that is having clients seeing different things, game assets reacting differently depending on permissions and so on. So it'd be a way to nullify that issue if it's all done outside of the virtual world.

There's no need for clients to see different things. ED would just need to include client checks on airborne aircraft as they do for players that haven't spawned yet clicking on modules they don't own, and e.g. script a bolter any time a non-owner tries to trap.

Hell, I would even be satisfied with a simpler and brute force method of exploding any non-owner that came within 200m of the center of the vessel.

There are a million ways around the problem ED is touting as an excuse.

I think no traps, otherwise you'll get salty non-owners trying to hog up the deck by parking across it or generally being a nuisance. The new carrier should be an "exclusive club" kind of deal, though I'm sure harriers will still try and land on it, but other than griefing they can't rearm or anything.

Still letting them touch and go on the deck will give them enough of a taste to see what the new carrier is all about, plus maybe practice their carrier landings and make the new carrier their follow up purchase. If you've been doing all your practice/training on the nimitiz it would feel like a step down actually trapping on the stennis. So on this model you should at least give the non-owner a notification if they actually hit a wire, and which one, you could follow up that message/prompt with a call to action to buy the carrier.

This is all old as dirt sales psychology, it's what makes F2P a multi-billion dollar industry.

Edit: also the CHAD Nimitz and Virgin Stennis memes write themselves under this model.

What you propose then would result in the carrier being invisible to all clients that don't own the module. That is not acceptable.

The real issue here is that you guys are locking away ATC for your flagship modules (that are also incidentally the most expensive modules to-date for DCS) behind another paywall. How are you able to justify forcing the community to pay for proper ATC comms when they should be included with the Hornet at purchase? It's one thing if you want to charge for the fancy new model, the new rooms that you've hinted at adding, the LSO station, all of that...but it's a shame to see you locking ATC behind that paywall as well. Why would that not be a core part of the sim, functional with the existing Stennis?