Some interesting information from Nick Grey on a youtube comment

Nick Grey, founder and CEO of ED posted some interesting information on a youtube comment

Thank you for sharing! I always enjoy his thoughtful and seemingly honest comments. I wish Eagle Dynamics all the best in fixing these issues and hope for a bright future in DCS for us all :-)

I was suggesting that a couple of weeks ago and got killed by almost everyone, because nobody believed me that their Businessmodel can not work the way it is. Now we know that it does not...

For a good reason. Anyone who watched those discussions just with a glimpse saw without opening up their eyes that the loudest request for a subscription model came from people who have 1-3 rigs with a 9900k and 2080ti in them with a Pimax or Reverb and at least a 50" 4k attached at home. Those don't have to think about it at all, they'll just pay without even considering. But not everyone can do that. Subscription is a warranty to put people off for sure! GoFundMe or any other donation option would probably be better in the end, as there are lots of people willing to pay more apparently. And maybe there's even some rich guy who could just throw in a million or two just because he can?

As for the module prices: I keep saying they're worth every cent, and I'd probably would pay more, but it would also be harder for me to get there and I might tend over to buy things on sales instead of getting them day one. Yet it's still more bang for the buck than the annual 120€ freakin laser show that I get projected right at my retinae for just under 3 minutes.

I dont. I guess those against subscribtion models are age 40 and up. No offence here, but subscribtion is the way to go. The times of pay once, use forever are long gone. Look at Xbox Game Pass, Ubisoft, Origin, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, Disney. I mean what the heck, even your mobile phone plan or Internet Provider is basically subscribtion. You Name it, its subscribtion.

I don't have a single one of those except for the phone because that's ridiculously overpriced in prepaid and you can get a device with that subscription which pays off if you inform yourself before getting the deal. And I don't feel the need at all...

For a good reason. Anyone who watched those discussions just with a glimpse saw without opening up their eyes that the loudest request for a subscription model came from people who have 1-3 rigs with a 9900k and 2080ti in them with a Pimax or Reverb and at least a 50" 4k attached at home. Those don't have to think about it at all, they'll just pay without even considering. But not everyone can do that. Subscription is a warranty to put people off for sure! GoFundMe or any other donation option would probably be better in the end, as there are lots of people willing to pay more apparently. And maybe there's even some rich guy who could just throw in a million or two just because he can?

 

As for the module prices: I keep saying they're worth every cent, and I'd probably would pay more, but it would also be harder for me to get there and I might tend over to buy things on sales instead of getting them day one. Yet it's still more bang for the buck than the annual 120€ freakin laser show that I get projected right at my retinae for just under 3 minutes.

 

 

 

I don't have a single one of those except for the phone because that's ridiculously overpriced in prepaid and you can get a device with that subscription which pays off if you inform yourself before getting the deal. And I don't feel the need at all...

First of all, I do not have a 50" monitor... yet.

I get the argument that not everbody can pay that. What k dont get is saying: "I cant afford a subscribtion but i would pay more for certain modules." That makes no sense what so ever. And Im beeing polite here.

I do have more or less all of them... I do have all of them, exept spotify, because i do have amazon to be honest and I think the idea is not that bad. I can spare five bucks a month more easily that lets say 70 to 100 bucks. Lets take MS Flight Simulator 2020 (whitch btw. comes out August 18th) - 70 Bucks in the normal Version, free with xbox game pass. So i can play that one 14 month before i hit 70€. And game pass is not even 5€. Before I hit 14 Month Im probably bored already and use it for a new game without having bought a 70€ game i do not use and probably can not resell.

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Love comments like this, thank you.

And I don't see MSFS2020 as competition, it's civilian flight, not military.

That said, it *will* make us drool over the clouds/graphics, LOL.

MSFS 2020 launches on August 18 so I guess we won’t have long to wait to find out how it will affect DCS. Microsoft also made a combat sim in the past. Do you no think they may in fact be planning to add a combat portion to their platform? I think we would be nieve to not expect that to follow and Nick Grey probably knows this. MicroProse is also getting back in the market and who knows what they have planned for the future. I think all of this is a positive for the hobby.

looking at the structure of msfs2020, i think it doesnt really lend itself well to combat

its seamless but nevertheless locally instanced, nothing loads outside of your bubble -- that completely breaks any bvr environment

nothing loads outside of your bubble -- that completely breaks any bvr environment

LOL. That's how the other Viper based milsim works. The one with pretty darn good BVR

LOL. That's how the other Viper based milsim works. The one with pretty darn good BVR

Because everything that is outside your "bubble" is only simulated, not processed. Like put a to units against each others in far distance location and it doesn't matter what there happens as no one is there to see it. So you can just run the numbers, roll a special dice and see which one comes as winner. Report the situation and call the day.

ok first off, I think many have no real idea of just how GIGANTIC the new Microsoft effort is. This is not evolutionary, it's revolutionary. It's a true clean sheet approach to flight simulating.

Maybe you vaguely remember a nice looking video clip from a year back... but trust me, this is a BIG DEAL. It's such a big deal, that tech people who don't care about aviation are saying "WHOA, THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!!"

They are simulating a simplified computational fluid dynamics... air/wind over wing and tail surfaces, computed on the fly in real time, like xplane does. They compute wind flow over and around features like mountains, valleys and how that will buffet your plane. They are computing propeller effects on the tail surface. All on the fly.

The terrain detail... really? If you think it lacks detail down low, then you have not seen many videos of MSFS2020, because really, nothing else has even ever come remotely close to it. Many pics and video at times appear photoreal. A few have actually been mistaken for real pics.

Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator had three products, covering WW2. Earlier than that, there was rumors that they had partially developed code for simulating Mig-29 and... uh, I think a Hornet. It was never published, it wasn't even close to publishing, it was a project apparently to see how much computer power would be needed to make that a reality and then it was cancelled. But my point is, at least a few people there seem to have understood fighters, in the past.

I think maybe ED might consider approaching MS about a cooperative partnership: MS provide the terrain and maybe server code, ED provides the battlefield and aircraft and it's munitions, along with 3rd party aircraft /assets.

The one with pretty darn good BVR

you mean the one that was pretty darn good at telling people what they wanted to hear? lmao okay

FS drops on 18th of August, pricing has been made public

As A SINGLE PLAYER, DCS is almost there for me, of course more damage modelling would be great, more modelling for items like the drones, spotting & lasing targets (without adopting a script). I think personally, improved AI would be fabulous. flying in SP with your wing man, confident he'll/she will attack your targets. stay in formation and not crash or eject before landing at home plate.

John Stealey of MicroProse has developed “Titan”. He describes it as “a world rendering mil-sim software which he plans to use under MicroProse. I wonder what for?

As far as ED making more money, I think it would be easy. Start pumping out WAY more single player campaigns for the many modules they already have. They have admitted that the vast majority of their customers don’t touch multiplayer so start catering to your bread and butter. I may not buy every module ED makes but I do buy every campaign that is made for the modules I own. Pump these out on a continual basis until the dynamic campaign gets sorted out and I for one will keep spending money.

ok first off, I think many have no real idea of just how GIGANTIC the new Microsoft effort is. This is not evolutionary, it's revolutionary. It's a true clean sheet approach to flight simulating.

 

Maybe you vaguely remember a nice looking video clip from a year back... but trust me, this is a BIG DEAL. It's such a big deal, that tech people who don't care about aviation are saying "WHOA, THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!!"

 

They are simulating a simplified computational fluid dynamics... air/wind over wing and tail surfaces, computed on the fly in real time, like xplane does. They compute wind flow over and around features like mountains, valleys and how that will buffet your plane. They are computing propeller effects on the tail surface. All on the fly.

 

The terrain detail... really? If you think it lacks detail down low, then you have not seen many videos of MSFS2020, because really, nothing else has even ever come remotely close to it. Many pics and video at times appear photoreal. A few have actually been mistaken for real pics.

 

Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator had three products, covering WW2. Earlier than that, there was rumors that they had partially developed code for simulating Mig-29 and... uh, I think a Hornet. It was never published, it wasn't even close to publishing, it was a project apparently to see how much computer power would be needed to make that a reality and then it was cancelled. But my point is, at least a few people there seem to have understood fighters, in the past.

 

I think maybe ED might consider approaching MS about a cooperative partnership: MS provide the terrain and maybe server code, ED provides the battlefield and aircraft and it's munitions, along with 3rd party aircraft /assets.

all fur coat and no knickers

Thanks for taking all of 15 minutes to tell me you want a Dynamic Campaign... I guess. :sleep:

"DCS is great at simulating battles, but not amazing at simulating war."

I want more accurate planes than I want a more accurate strategy game going on below me.

Yes I understand my opinion is probably the minority here.

How about actually charging for the base DCS World simulation?

Stop with the silly DCS is free mantra, charge $80 and release a new version every 2 years. That way you could actually monetise upgrades to AI, weather, ATC, graphics engines etc. Basically all the items people have been requesting for years, but that continually get left behind because ED needs to focus on revenue producing products first.

Biggest problem I see with a subscription model is that ED has already burnt up a lot of the trust from the player base. I know countless people who would be told the same idea and retort with "Yeah but this is ED were talking about, how do you know they'll actually improve DCS with the extra money?"

If they want to do it they that had to do it right off the bat or prove that they can fix/improve the game in the recent light of the P-47 update and then maybe people will be more willing to do that once they've proven themselves, of course to do that you need the money and dev time to fix it in the first place but they'd just need to push through it I'm afraid.

How about actually charging for the base DCS World simulation?

 

Stop with the silly DCS is free mantra, charge $80 and release a new version every 2 years. That way you could actually monetise upgrades to AI, weather, ATC, graphics engines etc. Basically all the items people have been requesting for years, but that continually get left behind because ED needs to focus on revenue producing products first.

Please vote here.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=277843

Those saying FS is not competition because its a civilian sim; first of all, many people fly both, and very few of us have unlimited time and funds. So yeah, it will compete for our attention and money.

But more importantly, just like FSX, FS2020 will have an SDK giving devs full access to the underlying game engine. And at least one company has already committed to using that to enable combat on FS2020:

https://www.vrsimulations.com/rhino.php

These guys already did it for FSX and P3D; they made an F18 module and a weapon/radar/avionics/damage/mission editor/ API for their own module and that was also integrated in a dozen or so third party modules by other developers some of who's name you should recognize. The result clearly didnt have the scope of DCS, much less its popularity, but if you look in to it, it is kind of impressive what they did based on a 20 year old SDK / sim engine, and it was apparently good enough to sell to the US military. Worth noting, their team seems to consist of one and a half developers. It helps when others create maps and write the terrain / weather / graphics engines for you.

Ive been crucified for suggesting it before, and Im sure I will again, but I will say it again; the most sensible approach for ED is making a "DCSW" or "MAC" thats based on FS2020. No one is going to rival MS' terrain, weather and graphics engine any time soon, so instead of competing against it, use it.

A FS based "DCSW" can be a gradual approach where you start with one or two plane modules that have limited weapon functionality -for all I care only PvP air to air combat to start with - but that will already give you a product that you can sell, to what will undoubtedly be, millions of FS simmers, as well as to most DCS pilots, and could easily generate more revenue than DCS does today. And just as importantly, they would get to set an API standard for other military modules. If ED dont do it, someone else will. And they will get my money, because I desperately want to fly combat jets with the Fs2020 terrain, graphics and weather engine. DCS helicopter and VR pilots probably even more so.

And yep, it may involve compromises. It may take a long time before it could replicate all the features we have in DCS. But it doesnt need that to be a viable product. It can be a 10 year parallel development until the FS versions has enough of the DCS features that it makes DCS obsolete. It may also not be possible to make WW2 maps in FS2020. Or it may be hard; from what I can tell, devs can make custom airports, if you can do that for an airport, you may be able to do it for entire regions. Probably a lot of work, but making maps is a lot of work now too. It might be something for one day down the road.

...

Ive been crucified for suggesting it before, and Im sure I will again, but I will say it again; the most sensible approach for ED is making a "DCSW" or "MAC" thats based on FS2020. No one is going to rival MS' terrain, weather and graphics engine any time soon, so instead of competing against it, use it.

 

...

I would love to see that and I think ED is prominent enough to get MS attention, if they approached them.

The question is: will it be more profitable for ED to implement combat in FS2020s engine or implement the missing features in DCS World?

I also have always supported a move to a subscription model. I think most people would be very surprised by how low the monthly price would need to be in order to be revenue-neutral for Eagle Dynamics. Wags posted user numbers a few months ago and I did the math and it worked out to being somewhere between $5 and $10 a month for total access. Obviously that's just pure back of the napkin speculation but I think it's probably in the right ballpark. In practice I think you would vary the price above and below that depending on how many modules a subscriber wants access to.

 

Obviously, many users react extremely negatively to this suggestion. The arguments typically fall under either not wanting to pay again for something they already bought or just hating subscription models in general. I think both of those are weak arguments but I understand why people make them.

Sure but you're fairly new around here and you probably come from years of other experiences from much different fields and ways of doing things, it's not like you've got yourself a computer for the first time to play DCS right? So your opinion is heavily biased, but that's not necessairly bad, it's just we have to be aware of our biases.

Subscription system means more billing and paperwork for the company that is primarily focused on making aircraft not employing accountants, more work for the users as well, dealing with the auth system and stuff, it's just completely pointless because some people think the aircraft are too expensive, no they're not, you could only compare DCS to an equivalent sim, but there is none, comparing it to some other completely different traditional games is invalid even if the company it self compares it, technically it is invalid, but many people (customers) still do it, so the company is forced to do it because of that.

Then again modern times, if the techical-paperwork reasons are out of the way and all is like butter, and a switch happens, with some big reasons explained for the switch, I probably won't avoid DCS because of it, but I would be a weird feeling, like if it's some kind of World of Warcraft and I think it would severely affect my time schedule management to fidddle with when I'm going to play with how long sessions so I don't lose too much time on an active subscription, with my dynamic business and fiddling here and there, beta testing can sometimes go so out of topic that it brought me to a complete OS reinstall with major PC maintenance, yes it all originated because of DCS, I will be testing DCS on 3 HDDs paired together with Microsoft Storage Spaces (it's not real RAID0 and even if it was, access times and random reads would still be crappy compared to SSD) on purpose just to test out how does the disk-read-correlated stutters behave and if it makes the performance issue look worse (more pronounced for demo effect) but I had to first start backing up all my data I planned to get off these 3x 1TB HDDs onto the new 4TBs, and I had an idea of a new Win10 ver, to test DCS on something newer rather than just 1607 Anniversary Update in my case ... and while I'm doing that why not make a really good custom debloated Win10 with perfect settings which I'd like to have for my general and other non-DCS use anyway, so that's another prerequisite of sorts before I even get back to DCS ... now with all of this going on, I started some big house cleaning work ... now with all this in mind, if I had for example another PC with DCS I could play here and there in the middle of all this, you try to manage the plan of time scheduling to get the most DCS play out of a subscription, when not to pay, when to pay, would I play enough, so if I wanted to play only a little it would outweight to the negative so no subscription for the month, but if I really wanted that little play I would pay just for that which means it's just wasting money, that's one thing, the other thing about the effect on time scheduling is with 2 words: A HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS.

This whole "pay sub to play a little bit in a month" is just a lazy idea, if ED needs more money I rather pay more in a module or some paid upgrade, to get rid of the subscription dillema and all the time scheduling clustermind drama.

Biggest problem I see with a subscription model is that ED has already burnt up a lot of the trust from the player base. I know countless people who would be told the same idea and retort with "Yeah but this is ED were talking about, how do you know they'll actually improve DCS with the extra money?"

 

If they want to do it they that had to do it right off the bat or prove that they can fix/improve the game in the recent light of the P-47 update and then maybe people will be more willing to do that once they've proven themselves, of course to do that you need the money and dev time to fix it in the first place but they'd just need to push through it I'm afraid.

:huh:

Join Date: May 2020

I could be assuming wrong but this just doesn't feel right.

Such a bold opinion so quick.

I would love to see that and I think ED is prominent enough to get MS attention, if they approached them.

The SDK will be available to everyone AFAIK. It would certainly be available to ED.

The question is: will it be more profitable for ED to implement combat in FS2020s engine or implement the missing features in DCS World?

Replicating FS2020 features like entire world map in that level of detail with AI enhancement is simply out of reach of pretty much anyone else for the foreseeable future. I mean Google could do it, and maybe they even will for google earth, but they are not big on flightsims. I dont even see Lockheed Martin /P3D do it. (Though I am curious what they will do. License the FS2020 engine ? I probably would. And if I where Lockheed Martin, Id want to use it for my commercial/military sims too. And if you do that, wouldnt you make a declassified PC game version for it as well?)

Creating a weather and graphics engine as good as FS may not be quite as impossible, but there is just no way a boutique flightsim shop like ED can afford that IMO. And why would they? There is a reason game developers pretty much never make their own 3d engines anymore. Even the 100M budget AAA titles. They license unity/unreal/whatever so they dont have to spend 90% of their developer time replicating all the stuff someone else already did better. Instead they focus on what they excel at. ED should try do the same. They definitely have some unique knowledge and experience, but making terrain and weather engines is not one of them.

I'm not very much into the idea of cloud gaming, I'll just wait until I have a 160GB RAM Computer and we'll do it all offline in DCS 4.0 :)

Subscription system means more billing and paperwork for the company that is primarily focused on making aircraft not employing accountants, more work for the users as well, dealing with the auth system and stuff, it's just completely pointless

Oh please. They already have all the DRM stuff in there, they can and do enable modules for users like when they do free trials. Adding a subscription model to the current "buy module" model couldnt possibly be more than 1 day of work. Paypal and other payment providers handle all that stuff for you, steam does it too, just use their API. All ED need to do is enable or disable a module or the game depending on whether you paid your sub or not.

because some people think the aircraft are too expensive,

There are many good reasons to consider subs; barrier to entry for new players. You may not think modules are too expensive, and if you end up playing the game for 10 years, they obviously arent. But it certainly looks very expensive to someone coming from IL2 or even xplane and P3D. Especially to someone who doesnt yet know which module or kind of module he will actually like most. And you want new players and more players, because the more customers ED has, the more they can afford to develop the stuff you want.

The second reason is related to that: aligning developer interests with ours. If ED only makes money selling new modules to (old) customers, they need to keep pumping out new modules to pay their bills, and thats exactly what they will do. At the same time, they have no direct financial incentive to improve the base game. The result is rather easy to see. We get unfinished module after unfinished module, stuff no one even ever asked for, and very little seems to be done to address age old user demands concerning the base game (clouds, dynamic campaigns, VR performance etc). Thats completely logical when new modules pay their bills, and the other stuff is just a cost to them they can scarcely afford. A subscription model could decouple their revenue from constantly creating new content, and give them more financial incentive to do what users want most, which may not be yet another new plane or map, but improving the content we already have.

As far as ED making more money, I think it would be easy. Start pumping out WAY more single player campaigns for the many modules they already have. They have admitted that the vast majority of their customers don’t touch multiplayer so start catering to your bread and butter. I may not buy every module ED makes but I do buy every campaign that is made for the modules I own. Pump these out on a continual basis until the dynamic campaign gets sorted out and I for one will keep spending money.

+1

Campaigns or even just 'missions packs'. With good scenarios, voiceovers, surprises, and so on. I'd even buy training missions/campaigns. I've never understood why ED releases so many plane modules but so little content to enjoy with them.

Is it because that's not what the hardcore players want?

Or because good SP missions would require a better AI than what we currently have?