now that ED is doing it, why not make the 1free flyable the tf51?

i dont see the numbers of backers anyway close to the actual customers once the sim is out...

I don't see the need for a free aircraft if ED decide to make this into a proper DCS World module, rather than a standalone (which is what the KS said it would be).

If it is a standalone, then the TF-51 would be a bad choice, as it's not going to get people involved.

+1 David.

I'm not bothered either way and would hope ED are able to pick what ever option is best in their mind.

I can see what some are saying, that having a free combat capable aircraft is more attractive for people to try out. But I also think that giving away a high fidelity aircraft worth ~200K(?) might not be financially viable. Whilst the SU-25 is free, it isn't at a PFM and ASM level that the DCS WW2 birds will be modelled at. When the DCS WW2 project was in the planning phase I don't believe the TF-51 was available - now that it is it makes a lot of sense to offer it as the free flyable. For me it all simply comes down to what ever works best for ED, I hope they are not tied into providing a free P47 etc if they'd rather not.

I don't see why a product like DCS:WWII would need to be free - and fully playable. This is "en vogue" nowadays, it seems? I just don't get it.

But anyhow, regarding "TF-51D" is useless as it has no weapons and it does not even fit into the time period ... what about this:

Make DCS:WWII as free base game a DEMO. Not a game, but a interactive demo of the game. Story driven, ideally supported by some nice cinematic movie like sequences (hello GA! :o) and for interaction the TF-51.

The Story? What about this: an old fighter pilot veteran returns to france and wants to visits the places he once fought over for the first - and probably the last - time after 70 years. You are the pilot of a TF-51D and take him for a ride over france while he tells you his story ...

(Note: IIRC, the normandy map was supposed to support different timelines! :o)

That is one hell of a good idea!

Beats Spit Girl!

That's a great suggestion Flagrum. :thumbup:

You could even have some flashback moments with a FW 190 swooping down towards you.....

great idea flagrum!

i dont see the numbers of backers anyway close to the actual customers once the sim is out...

That's avoiding the issue. There are a number of different levels of customer, those that would buy in anyway, no matter what, because they are sure DCSWWII will be awesome, for which backers is a reasonable proxy, then a number of groupings of increasing size right the way down to 'just not interested'.

There will be some who will buy it when it's done, sight unseen unseen, but there's an undoubtedly larger audience who will want to try it out first. It's for them that the F2P model is designed, and for whom there needs to be a compelling offering. Being able to shoot things is more compelling than not being able to, all else being equal. The number of people that will buy on strength of the FM alone is pretty small, as that population have probably already got DCSW, or will do now the TF51 is in the base game. That leaves the rest of the people needing to be engaged by doing something that excites them.

Just as an example, my experience with RoF, which uses a similar F2P model, was that it became immediately clear that it was a high quality product, in fact I'd go so far as to say it oozes production values, but despite playing with the FM and enjoying barnstorming through the pretty (but DCS-sterile) scenery, I wasn't convinced to actually buy until my first flight on flight dogfight. Shooting off the wings of a Sopwith triplane and watching them flit by my head whilst the rest of the gaggle swarmed a stones throw away, I was hooked. I've been buying sims for a long time, since before the original Flanker, but I still needed that full trial to buy outside my comfort zone (Western WW2), especially at DCS like prices. Had I just floated around admiring the scenery I'd have just put it in the same bracket I have X-Plane, I.e. nice but not worth sacrificing time I could use for more enjoyable sims.

The end point of my ramblings is relatively simple, if DCSWW2 is going to remain available as a separate, F2P, thing (even if it can be integrated into DCSW), a F2P version which is DCSWWII (but not really, because we are too cheap to give you a gun or an actual WW2 aircraft...) Is a nonsense and makes a poor introductory proposition for anyone that isn't already sold on the idea anyway.

As per my first post, the P51 is the natural choice, it's sold the most already and probably has the least sales to loose. It is also such a crowd pleaser that it would do well on Steam.

Throw in some flak to shake things up a bit.

Then just as the FW 190 starts landing hits on your aircraft you get jolted back to reality.......

Throw in some flak to shake things up a bit.

Then just as the FW 190 starts landing hits on your aircraft you get jolted back to reality.......

:thumbup:

And think of how immersive some cut scenese could be - made by glowing amraam - with the typical sepia touch to them, etc. ... :D

The Story? What about this: an old fighter pilot veteran returns to france and wants to visits the places he once fought over for the first - and probably the last - time after 70 years. You are the pilot of a TF-51D and take him for a ride over france while he tells you his story ...

 

KISS (keep it simple, stupid) A DCS Normandy version of this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFg-EZ19_Z8 would probably be more then enough to get people started.

That's avoiding the issue. There are a number of different levels of customer, those that would buy in anyway, no matter what, because they are sure DCSWWII will be awesome, for which backers is a reasonable proxy, then a number of groupings of increasing size right the way down to 'just not interested'.

 

There will be some who will buy it when it's done, sight unseen unseen, but there's an undoubtedly larger audience who will want to try it out first. It's for them that the F2P model is designed, and for whom there needs to be a compelling offering. Being able to shoot things is more compelling than not being able to, all else being equal. The number of people that will buy on strength of the FM alone is pretty small, as that population have probably already got DCSW, or will do now the TF51 is in the base game. That leaves the rest of the people needing to be engaged by doing something that excites them.

 

Just as an example, my experience with RoF, which uses a similar F2P model, was that it became immediately clear that it was a high quality product, in fact I'd go so far as to say it oozes production values, but despite playing with the FM and enjoying barnstorming through the pretty (but DCS-sterile) scenery, I wasn't convinced to actually buy until my first flight on flight dogfight. Shooting off the wings of a Sopwith triplane and watching them flit by my head whilst the rest of the gaggle swarmed a stones throw away, I was hooked. I've been buying sims for a long time, since before the original Flanker, but I still needed that full trial to buy outside my comfort zone (Western WW2), especially at DCS like prices. Had I just floated around admiring the scenery I'd have just put it in the same bracket I have X-Plane, I.e. nice but not worth sacrificing time I could use for more enjoyable sims.

 

The end point of my ramblings is relatively simple, if DCSWW2 is going to remain available as a separate, F2P, thing (even if it can be integrated into DCSW), a F2P version which is DCSWWII (but not really, because we are too cheap to give you a gun or an actual WW2 aircraft...) Is a nonsense and makes a poor introductory proposition for anyone that isn't already sold on the idea anyway.

 

As per my first post, the P51 is the natural choice, it's sold the most already and probably has the least sales to loose. It is also such a crowd pleaser that it would do well on Steam.

i dont think this will be the case..offering them a full blown high fidelity wwii warbird,unrestricted access to offline and online play, why would they buy anything if they already have it for free?

i dont think this will be the case..offering them a full blown high fidelity wwii warbird,unrestricted access to offline and online play, why would they buy anything if they already have it for free?

For the same reason people buy modules after having the SU25T in DCSW. More aircraft variety, to fly the one they always wanted, as a new challenge etc... It hasn't killed DCSW and it won't kill DCSWWII. As long as the additional content is sufficiently compelling it will sell. Pay $30 to add guns to your mustang isn't very compelling.

How many people really fly one aircraft all day, every day? I'm not saying DCSWW2 HAS to be F2P, but if ED believe that F2P is the answer, then it should be genuinely F2P not 'free to play as long as you don't want to do anything interesting'.

there is 25% chance that they will get exactly that plane, the one they always wanted to fly for completely free....

i also think that if ED could easily afford to give away even the P51 for free, they would have done so already and not created the TF51...there is a good reason they created that plane i guess....

and so as dcs wwii will very likely be combatible with dcs world and its modules, it will very likely be possible to even fly a10s over normandy...but sure while that beeing the case, we should somehow make it impossible to have tf51s flying over it...

my point is just, why give away anything for free at all?guns wont convince many people i guess...especially not for dcs.today its harder to find a game without guns than the opposite.there are soo many combat flight games out there, all carry guns...dcs wont stick out of these games because of guns...it will stick out because of the fidelity!the tf51 is already there, i doubt that ED will make extra work to make it impossible to use the tf51 in dcswwii...

giving away any of the announced wwii birds for free is certainly a big loss in ed's pockets.

EDIT: your comarison with the su25 in dcs world and the for now four announced wwii warbirds p47,spitfire,109,fw190 isnt really matching i think...giving away one of especially these 4birds, the "rockstars", for free for dcswwii would be similar to give away a future dcs F18 for dcs world.

there is 25% chance that they will get exactly that plane, the one they always wanted to fly for completely free....

i also think that if ED could easily afford to give away even the P51 for free, they would have done so already and not created the TF51...there is a good reason they created that plane i guess....

and so as dcs wwii will very likely be combatible with dcs world and its modules, it will very likely be possible to even fly a10s over normandy...but sure while that beeing the case, we should somehow make it impossible to have tf51s flying over it...

my point is just, why give away anything for free at all?guns wont convince many people i guess...especially not for dcs.today its harder to find a game without guns than the opposite.there are soo many combat flight games out there, all carry guns...dcs wont stick out of these games because of guns...it will stick out because of the fidelity!the tf51 is already there, i doubt that ED will make extra work to make it impossible to use the tf51 in dcswwii...

giving away any of the announced wwii birds for free is certainly a big loss in ed's pockets.

But that's a reasonable argument in favour of a feature limited demo and against F2P, rather than whether TF or P51 should be included if ED pursue the F2P route.

There are plenty of WW2 games, DCS being the only one that goes to this level of fidelity, so we agree on the selling point, the risk is that it will fail to stand out because people won't look past the lack of guns and therefore the ability to give it a proper whirl is hampered because we are too mean to give them guns.

As I see it, there are two reasonable options:

• Release a feature limited demo giving a full fat aircraft and a few training and SP missions,. Multiplayer, Mission Editor and non-demo missions are restricted. Offer a cheaper (say ~$15) demo unlock to allow the full features for that aircraft (i.e. it becomes a conventional one module install), or the whole thing unlocks when you buy another module
  
• Remain F2P, give the P-51 (for reasons stated earlier), let people properly explore and rely on this being a sufficient demonstration of quality to encourage them to buy more modules
  

A demo without guns makes a poor demo, a F2P combat game without actual combat is just going to piss people off for not actually being F2P.

a demo is a good idea!would require some work though..

and very likely it would still be possible for the tf51 fly in dcswwii for free i guess...because thats what was stated from the beginning...that dcs world and its modules will be combatible with dcswwii

a demo is a good idea!would require some work though..

and very likely it would still be possible for the tf51 fly in dcswwii for free i guess...because thats what was stated from the beginning...that dcs world and its modules will be combatible with dcswwii

If the demo route is taken, then it would probably need to be locked down to just the demo, to stop it being moddable, but that's a technical question we'll not get to a solid answer by ourselves.

I have no strong attachment to the F2P model, but what winds me up is F2P games that are so heavily borked as to be just add on pushers, with no "play" involved (and I believe I'm far from alone).

i dont think this will be the case..offering them a full blown high fidelity wwii warbird,unrestricted access to offline and online play, why would they buy anything if they already have it for free?

I don't know, why does anyone buy any other planes for DCS World? It is the same exact situation.

:doh:

:thumbup:

 

And think of how immersive some cut scenese could be - made by glowing amraam - with the typical sepia touch to them, etc. ... :D

Please NO!!!!

I would rather the gave away something at the fidelity level of the Su-25T though...

If that did not mean building something extra I might be inclined to agree with you.

This is an 'eat the mistakes' and make a best of the the situation.

I would rather the gave away something at the fidelity level of the Su-25T though...

Well if they make something to that level of fidelity...

Say an ME410 ;)

I totally agree, and I think in this situation. I think the best solution for ED is no free aircraft, at least not the PFM/ASM ones.

That would work too. It would be easily accomplished if they abandoned the separate install. Without a separate install the free aircraft already in DCS World would be more than sufficient.

I would rather see the other Hornet they are working on get done first lol....

 

Maybe they could do a glider, they would require other players with paid modules to tow them into the air rofl :)

Only if they plan to do the DC-3 first, stepping stone to the B-17 anyone? ;)

That would give Hornet fans kittens.....