My most expensive module by far... feeling bad..

I'm really annoyed that some people feel that they are entitled to get these new features for free.

Think about it for a sec.

You bought a 2008 Honda Civic. It did not come with a built in navigation system, just a CD player and radio. Now Honda is releasing a 2019 Civic with a built in infotainment system with bluetooth, navigation and a bunch of other features.

 

Are you going back to the dealership and demanding to get those new features for free in your 2008 model?

 

When you bought the Ka-50 back all those years, no one promised you a MLWS and no one promised you Iglas.

Now you have the opportunity to have these things. Buy it or just be thankful that people like me will buy it and fund the 3D model upgrades that you can enjoy for free.

 

I'm really excited to get the new 3D models(free!) and the new MLWS + iglas. I have the most hours played in the Ka-50 although I haven't played it recently because of the dated visuals and problems. I'm excited to get back into the Black Shark Pit.

 

The only thing ED, please please please tell me this will come out some time this year.

What a bunch of man babies. if you can’t appreciate the hard work and amount of work they are doing on the shark then settle for free update of model and graphics. I will happily throw more money at them for the new systems modeling. Bunch of drama some of you are about nothing. Man the **** up

:thumbup: Both of these posts just about sum it up.

I think this is a perfectly satisfactory arrangement.

Regarding DCS i have a doctrine, i buy all modules to support the whole project. They saved helicopter simulation on PC over 10 years ago, a genre that was said to be dead and not profitable. Now we have a huge ecosystem for extremely detailed flight simulation, i want to help keep this going on.

I'm sorry you feel that way. To update the Ka-50 (one of our earliest DCS modules) takes a lot of time, money, and opportunity lost from other projects. We do realize though that the Ka-50 needs a lot of love to bring up up to par with our more recent modules. As with any module though, we need to find a means for it to pay for itself, so we simply cannot give away the entire update for free. We have staff to pay and lights to keep on.

 

As a compromise, we are giving away the all new and greatly improved external model and cockpit for free to all Ka-50 users. However, if you want to have the additional functions, I'm sorry, but we need some compensation for the work.

 

I hope you understand.

 

Thanks

The Job of marketing is to play with messaging so as to make any corporate decision palatable and profitable DESPITE REALITY. The problem is that for most marketing people, it can be very hard to keep track of all the "SPIN" the corporate chiefs have forced them to spew. This creates conflicts in the spin.

1 - "the most authentic and realistic simulation of military aircraft, tanks, ground vehicles and ships possible."

- - - If you have to pay corporate resources to correct and update product you already sold then the product that was previously sold was unfinished product and couldn't have been accurate and authentic. Why would you have to change a COMPLETE, ACCURATE & AUTHENTIC product? What does this say about all of your claims of complete, accurate and authentic other products?

2 -In the past, you bought a sim and it came with ALL of the finished aircraft. In DCS we're forced to pay-per-plane. I had a tough time with this in the beginning but warmed up to it because of the quality of what was being produced for the money I paid.

The question of pay-to-update is a serious one. What are the boundaries for Pay-for-update? Where does it end? If your starting Pay-for-update then the natural progression is the selling of empty planes with bad graphics. Then users pay for missile systems, cockpit systems, improved graphic, etc all in the effort to achieve "the most authentic and realistic simulation of military aircraft, tanks, ground vehicles and ships possible." You're charging to update a previously incomplete product. What does this suggest about the kinds of decisions DCS is willing to make for increased profits.

You talk about the monies that need to be paid to create these updates. Those monies were paid. THAT is the ethical contract you made with your community when you took their money for digital aircraft. That they were paying for complete, accurate and authentic aircraft. Now your asking them to pay for exactly the same thing, a complete, accurate and authentic aircraft for the one they paid for and never got the last time.

DCS has spent years building a community of dedicated players and its those dedicated players who have kept it alive. The software itself is actually very boring. There's a very limited collection of maps and play with the automated mission generators gets stale quickly. In fact, for the first two years of ownership I had been avoiding online play and couldn't figure out where people where finding all of the missions and features they were showing on the internet. Its the player community who make the mission maps, host the multiplayer servers and run the squadrons that make the game great and interesting and form the bonds that keeps people coming back. They don't get paid and will quickly tire of your bills.

Be very careful how you abuse that which you have worked so hard to build. It won't go unnoticed despite the spin and every player you loose is another brick from your foundation. You don't have to loose them all for it to crumble.

...

Take a breath, and just leave.

@DubDub, if you bought BS1, you can download finished product here:

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/downloads/previous_versions/dcs_black_shark_english/

if you bough BS2, you can have finished product DCS 1.5.8:

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/downloads/world/dcs_158/

I suggest people pull their finger out of their bums with their inability to assign value to this development team and the amount of work they already do for free. Some people feel no shame in making their case for the free argument.

I suggest people pull their finger out of their bums with their inability to assign value to this development team and the amount of work they already do for free. Some people feel no shame in making their case for the free argument.

true that, lookin forward to the free update! thats awesome.

An update for classic 1990s variant for free + optional more modern variant to but if you want. Seems perfectly right. Idk why there is always some whiner.

ED, if you're going to upgrade the avionics package, lets GO BIGGER. Let's give Reds a night attack capable aircraft. Something that can compare to the FLIR abilities of the A-10C, AV-8, and soon the F/A-18. Lets upgrade the Ka-50 to an N or Sh model. I'll be happy to pay even more!

:thumbup: Both of these posts just about sum it up.

And you rich trust fund kiddies get a little annoying yourselves. Try working a real job with real pay. Talk about tone, you need to tone it down before you get attacked back.

ED did a good compromise here. I'm pretty poor, but I'll be trying to scrape up the money for the upgrade.

ED, if you're going to upgrade the avionics package, lets GO BIGGER. Let's give Reds a night attack capable aircraft. Something that can compare to the FLIR abilities of the A-10C, AV-8, and soon the F/A-18. Lets upgrade the Ka-50 to an N or Sh model. I'll be happy to pay even more!

Not that I would want to pay "more", but the problem with the Russian FLIR is, is it at the same technology level as American or Euro? I've heard a lot of talk on the internet that the Russians are still at a "Gen 1" level of tech when it comes to Night Vision technology. I would love to be proven wrong on this. Does someone have any proof that they are at at least "Gen 3" tech? Some video would be nice. I haven't been able to find any to compare.

Yeah, it's a compromise, but the one which I like. Fix what was broken in 2.5 for free. Add new features and upgrades for $$$. And the visual upgrades are also free, that's something extra, they could've just slap the new textures.

Some ED decisions may be questionable, but this is a good deal.

The Russian FLIR was/may still be, horrible. My understanding is that the FLIR components for the KA-50 were actually of French design. That's coming from Wiki. But I'll take poor FLIR over no FLIR.

Yeah, I'm looking for video again. What I'm finding doesn't look too bad. A little blurry, but usable. WAAAYYYYY better than a dark screen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_AZEAply2I

I love the way the word free is being mentioned in this thread

You do realise that ED have had 11 years worth of sales from the black shark?

I love the way the word free is being mentioned in this thread

You do realise that ED have had 11 years worth of sales from the black shark?

So the next Chevy Silverado model is completely free? I can expect that? GM has even deeper resources than ED.

So the next Chevy Silverado model is completely free? I can expect that? GM has even deeper resources than ED.

When it gets recalled because the brakes will fail, yeah, I expect them to fix it for free.

If I had a nickle for every time someone tried to suggest that physical goods can be a useful analogy for software goods I could afford Blackshark 3.

:D

After years of crying about a RWR we finally get a President-S system, wow what a surprise! Greate News!

BS2 is 8 years old, to pay for a capability upgrade to BS3 is ok. The texture patch for BS2 is for free, i don't understand what the problem is? ED is doing there job and they need to be paid for. Hope they do the same for the A10C to get a HMD! and may be a engine model with temperature simulation and functunal override switch to get some more horsepower. Thank you ED

If I had a nickle for every time someone tried to suggest that physical goods can be a useful analogy for software goods I could afford Blackshark 3.

Yeah, software is more like service...so do you pay for haircuts only once for lifetime or you have to pay everytime hairdresser have to cut your hair? Hope you are not bald...

I come from LOMAC. I bought BS1 in 2008, I still have the DVD. Then the upgrade to BS2. Later on, a stand-alone BS2 license on sale. The price is nothing compared to amount of hours I enjoed and the number of people this hobby has allowed me to meet.

I know people can disagree but when I look at DCS and I think about how much time and money goes into research, development and arts. I think that I have thrown already at least 100h into studying the RIO seat between manuals, NATOPS and testing. Then I think about the fact that "typical" game publishers are still selling the umpteenth COD for the same embarassing price. Then I check for the prices of ONE tank in WOT, WT et similia and it's not usually much lower (if it is lower at all) than a part of a sim that requires way more effort than a 3D model and I really ask myself how can people really complain about it. Don't get me wrong, money is money, no gives it away for free but on the other hand ED is not a charity. I think people here lack a lot in terms of perspective and forget that this is a niche and no one forces anyone to buy. If you are not happy, get BMS for instace! It's almost free and it's amazing, no one is forcing you to comply to a platform that you don't like!

On the other hand, this does not mean that people cannot point out what they think is wrong. For instance, the big complain I have for ED is the unintentional attempt to brake the multiplayer: I don't mind having a million small DLCs but they should you the same system as BIS has for ArmA3. They should work on improving the MP experience (and they are doing it, think about the dedicated servers). Of course there's much more to do.

They also have the tendency of screwing up from a PR and marketing point of view sometimes but hey, I've seen MUCH worse.

Anyway, my .2€.. feel free to disagree. It's free :)

I just bought BlackShark a few months ago.

Given the substantial increase in defensive and offensive capabilities, no problem paying a reduced/upgrade price for this new variant.

Wags & NineLine, I'd LOVE to have similar options on variants for other modules, too.

Please figure out some way we can help you pay more attention to upgrading The World itself, too. A small monthly subscription, or a premium plan for upgraded features, or a version upgrade fee, etc.

I realize it's difficult to balance the biz aspects with the tech aspects of a unified multiplayer sim, so I'll leave it to you. Just realize that while many of us love all the choices of modules (and I've purchased most of them just in the last 6 months), we'd also like the most important module, The World itself, to progress at a similar rate & depth as the airframes.

Please pass along my appreciation for the hard work you folks put into this sim and all the modules. It's a long time dream come true for me.

I regularly fly mine, and was out in it earlier today. Very much looking forward to the updates and happy to pay for the new functionality.