Lock On: Flaming Cliffs Distribution Option Polling

[Greenies]

There is a lot of talk about refunds here. I'm sure that before ED make FC available for download, they will tell us the system specifications that they add-on require. If you download the game, and end up unsatisfied with the product, that's life! In Norway, if the product is faulty (i.e. damaged disks), you have the right to get another copy to replace the faulty one. I think you would have to be a close friend to the seller behind the counter if you are to get your money back.

 

Now, in the case of a faulty download (file is corrupt), I'm sure that ED will let us download the add-on as many times as we like. At least, in my opinion, that would be a good solution, don't you people agree? After all, currently, we have to create a login account on their site, and when it is confirmed that we have payed for the add-on, I suppose it wouldn't be too difficult to allow us to download the add-on several times.

 

Imagine a situation when you have payed for and downloaded the add-on, and burned it to a CD. The CD gets a nasty scratch and is unreadable, and Windows crashes and requires a fresh installation. Oh-oh? In such a case it would be a relief to be able to just log into your Lockon-account, and download the add-on once again.

[Dmut]

Greenies, what is someone tell it's account information to nearest warez group? then everyone could be able to DL FC? IMHO there should be a limitation to number of downloads for each user.

[AnzacPT]

...

 

Fighter Ops is basically stopped and will take years to come out if and when they start working on it again...

 

let me take a second to laugh! It is alive and well. Like Dmut said their new website will be up any time soon. I know of a bunch of great people working on this project right now, so it is far from stopped... dunno where you got that idea...

 

Back on topic, I think flight sim's has a bright future, starting with FC! :D

 

i also try to keep up with fighter ops... but since i knew that GTi dropped the project, and they have to start from almost the beggining and making a new website, etc... i take this as a project stopped until i SEE something again... and i don´t think it will have normal distribution scheme also...

 

in a way, it´s kinda a funny... ED has made herculean efforts to keep everyone informed and knowing that they were still working on LOMAC and there were always people willing to suspect of ED´s intentions and/or willingness to support their product... on the other hand, most people i see in the foruns is willing to support Fighter Ops...

Don´t get me wrong... i hope Fighter Ops sees the light of day and that it becomes a great sim... i would be one of the first ones to buy it...

 

and as for what i stated in my post, i still think it is true...

 

what alternatives do we have right now? NONE.

 

Fighter Ops and Thunder Jet are things of the future...

 

as for the doubt that seems to be bothering most people now here...

 

i, for one, would prefer to receive a CD by mail...

 

BUT... if i have to make a download... i would not worry much...

 

you just have to use a download manager (and maybe ED will use one, like Adobe) like Go!zilla or something like that... that way you can make partial downloads, etc, etc... and if the connection is lost, it will resume where it stopped...

[Jester_159th]

I must admit I'd also like to know how ED intend to cover the eventuality of a corupt download. Some info on this from them would be most welcome.

[Guest GateKeeper]

Visa + CD for me.

 

As I (and as well as ALOT of others) still have a regular dialup connection, (not Broadband option available in my area) downloading the add-on would not be an option.

[DarkStar]

There has been some legal issues, wich has been solved. G2i and fighterops team (secret company name) are now two different projects companies, no one scrapped the project, it was just halted by a few months. Go over to the forums, do a search and ask some questions. you will get your answears :D

 

They will be using no publisher, just like ED. :)

[AnzacPT]

There has been some legal issues, wich has been solved. G2i and fighterops team (secret company name) are now two different projects companies, no one scrapped the project, it was just halted by a few months. Go over to the forums, do a search and ask some questions. you will get your answears :D

 

They will be using no publisher, just like ED. :)

 

i was aware of that... i am glad that the Fighter Ops team is backing their project... that is a good sign...

 

i was only stating that as of now... i could not think of an alternative...

[Bug11]

Uhm pardon me, but since when could you get a refund on software products because you're not happy with them? I know some retailers in the US used to trade your games in in that case, but apparently this isn't possible too often anymore - the usual case is, if you don't have a broken CD, but are just unhappy with the software, you're stuck with it. Always has been the normal way, and I don't see how it should be different here now.

 

Of course there is a certain risk involved like with any kind of software. You have to decide whether it's worth taking this risk or not.

 

understood - but wouldn't it be nice to be able to take a look risk free? i'm sure it would be in the best interests of ED to get people to do so.

 

electronics boutique has been happy to take returns within 7 days if you aren't satisfied here in Canada. i suppose if you made a habit of it they may get a little annoyed :)

 

i've taken the liberty of contacting my federal department of consumer affairs to clarify a document i found on their website that states an online vendor must provide you with a refund under certain circumstances - one of which is whether the product is as represented and whether the consumer has had the opportunity to be adequately informed of the product. I won't hold my breath for a reply any time soon though. I wouldn't be suprised if the law is lagging so far behind that the answer is grey.

 

I suppose i'll wait until there's a few reviews and enough time has passed to find out if anyone is having major problems with it before purchasing. If only i can resist the temptation to buy it before then :D

[AnzacPT]

anyway... i don´t see the point of keep posting on this or similar threads...

 

either people are REALLY naive and never bought anything online and EVERY software they bought was EXACTLY what they wanted and expected, or i don´t understand the radicalism of many statements here...

 

but i think i finally found out what the problem is...

 

ED, worried with what might be the best solutions to provide the add-on to us made a thread on their forum so that they could take some decisions, no doubt... and what happened...?

 

people banging on ED on how they are going to make the download, or get a refund or how many MB´s the add-on has...

 

those questions will, no doubt, be answered in due time.

 

the point was to help them figure out how to provide us the add-on, because it takes time to arrange a deal with a VISA, Mastercard or whatever company... and we still want the add-on on time, right?

 

as for refunds, download sizes, etc... that time will come.

 

i will cease posting in these threads as i see no point in doing it unless to answer their doubts regarding how the add-on should be provided.

 

EDIT:

 

NOT intended to flame anyone. anyone is entitled to their opinions.

 

Peace.

[bflagg]

not to switch subject...

fighter ops stopped?

why do you think so? their site is up, and forum is active.

AFAIK, they are working on something to show on public, like beta-demo.

 

Hey, Dmut...

 

I was responding to AnzacPT statement... it threw me off as well

[condor11]

Re: Lock On: Flaming Cliffs Distribution Option Polling

 

I really hope there'll be some other stuff than PayPal. A lot of people have been burned, a lot of sellers have been burned too.

More info here http://www.nopaypal.com/

 

I wish you guys at ED to be carefull dealing with PayPal. Even US laws can't do much for americans in dispute with PayPal.

[Greenies]

Greenies, what is someone tell it's account information to nearest warez group? then everyone could be able to DL FC? IMHO there should be a limitation to number of downloads for each user.

 

There is no solution that is free of dangers, I agree with you there, Dmut. Perhaps this problem of giving access to one's account to a warez-site could be solved by ED demanding that we as users provide our credit card number each time we download the software. I don't think anyone would give away their credit card number to anyone except close family members. What do you think, Dmut, could this be a possible solution?

[britgliderpilot]

There is no solution that is free of dangers, I agree with you there, Dmut. Perhaps this problem of giving access to one's account to a warez-site could be solved by ED demanding that we as users provide our credit card number each time we download the software. I don't think anyone would give away their credit card number to anyone except close family members. What do you think, Dmut, could this be a possible solution?

 

One-time keys for activation, provided by ED's server depending on who has officially paid?

 

If you're downloading, that's not a problem. If you get it on CD, include the one-time key in the packaging.

 

I'm not hugely knowledgable on security, so please go ahead and shoot holes in the idea :wink:

[GGTharos]

It's not a bad idea if it is hadled correctly ... I'd rather not go in depth, but your 'one time activation key' has to be delivered reliably, basically, and if posisble a certificate of PKI of some sort could be used to ensure that you can get your key again using your own private key that you used for the purchase. Probably too complex for this atm though.

[169th_Fungus]

Why not a small client like Valve's STEAM that requires your username, password and CC number or cd-key or activation key to start. Make it check when you start the game like STEAM.

 

If you lose or get corrupt download you can download it multiple times but only when logged into your account and if you give out your account details to someone you get banned and you can't play just like STEAM.

 

Why not, Valve have done it and it seems to have worked pretty successfully for them bar the small minority which there always is anyway who got banned etc.

 

Food for thought

[britgliderpilot]

Why not a small client like Valve's STEAM that requires your username, password and CC number or cd-key or activation key to start. Make it check when you start the game like STEAM.

 

If you lose or get corrupt download you can download it multiple times but only when logged into your account and if you give out your account details to someone you get banned and you can't play just like STEAM.

 

Why not, Valve have done it and it seems to have worked pretty successfully for them bar the small minority which there always is anyway who got banned etc.

 

Food for thought

 

Steam works, but is a pain in the ass.

 

IMHO, it could work if they junked the idea of downloading updates through the client . . . . which I imagine ED wouldn't want to do.

 

 

Steam, of course, is the only way to play HL2 online . . . . and I wouldn't want that to be the case for Lomac.

 

 

Can it be done?

 

Yes.

 

Is it worthy actually doing something like this (combination of various suggestions here)?

 

Well . . . . . how worried are ED about piracy, and how long will we wait for v1.1?

[Greenies]

A soundproof solution will take lots of development time away from the add-on itself. It will be interesting to see what ED comes up with in the end.

[Klopsik206]

Why not a small client like Valve's STEAM that requires your username, password and CC number or cd-key or activation key to start. Make it check when you start the game like STEAM.

 

I won't buy 1.1 with such scheme. :x

I'd rather buy CD mail version and pay for it more.

This is creazy...

[AnzacPT]

Why not a small client like Valve's STEAM that requires your username, password and CC number or cd-key or activation key to start. Make it check when you start the game like STEAM.

 

I won't buy 1.1 with such scheme. :x

I'd rather buy CD mail version and pay for it more.

This is creazy...

 

people...

 

let´s wait and see what ED is going to come up with...

 

i trust them... :wink:

[catseyes00]

I'm a bit surprised so few people in the poll have opted for the CD version. Like many, many people, I still use dial-up internet, and won't be able to get broadband any time soon. So the download option simply isn't realistic for me. It's the CD or nothing.

 

It occurs to me that if you poll members of any online forum you're likely to get answers skewed towards those whose connection is 'always on', and hence who are 'always on' the forum.

 

I'm not meaning this as an exercise in moaning and groaning, or as a criticism. Just worth keeping in mind, I think...

 

S!

[DarkStar]

Just a heads up to those of you who doubt thet Fighter Ops is in development. Check it out. http://www.fighterops.com :D

[britgliderpilot]

Just a heads up to those of you who doubt thet Fighter Ops is in development. Check it out. http://www.fighterops.com :D

 

I won't go into the full Fighter Ops argument here - use another thread for that - but there are those among us who are rather sceptical about the whole project.

[Andrew_McP]

I'm a bit surprised so few people in the poll have opted for the CD version. Like many, many people, I still use dial-up internet, and won't be able to get broadband any time soon. So the download option simply isn't realistic for me. It's the CD or nothing.

 

Unless I've been asleep (it wouldn't be the first time!) we don't know how large the file will be yet. It's a "super-patch" after all, not a new game, so I doubt it will be huge (by modern standards anyway).

 

It would be nice to think that ED have anticipated the modem issue and will offer segmented downloading. It might take a while, but slow downloading is better than no downloading.

 

Andrew McP

 

PS While I'm in the thread, my thought is that ED is a small company with very limited resources releasing what's going to be -- when all's said and done -- a product with pretty limited sales potential. Costs have to be kept to a minimum, and using Paypal makes a lot of sense because it isolates them from the complexity of setting up and supporting multiple payment methods.

 

Paypal's not ideal, and CD distribution would be nice, but in an ideal world many things would be different. For a start I'd be flying Tornado-2, Longbow-3, and EECH-2. And 1.1 would have an enhanced Su-27, not a 25T :-)

 

I think us military flight sim enthusiasts have to get used to jumping through a few hoops to get our fix. This is a niche hobby and the niche is getting smaller and more expensive all the time. I wish ED luck trying to get the best bang for buck out of this 1.1 release.

[AnzacPT]

Unless I've been asleep (it wouldn't be the first time!) we don't know how large the file will be yet. It's a "super-patch" after all, not a new game, so I doubt it will be huge (by modern standards anyway).

 

AFAIK, it would be less than 300MB...

 

as for the rest...

 

WHY should ED release segmented downloads when you can use a download manager that can make partial downloads, check CRC errors, etc..?

 

they are free, available and simple to use... you can even program the download to times where you have free internet traffic or something...

[Andrew_McP]

WHY should ED release segmented downloads when you can use a download manager that can make partial downloads, check CRC errors, etc..?

 

I remember my frustrating modem days well :) Despite all the checks, it's still possible to spend a long time downloading a big file only to find it does not work for some reason. That's a nightmare for the user and a potential support headache for ED. Splitting the download means that if a segment is corrupt in some way, you don't have to DL the whole thing again.

 

300Mb seems like a huge figure though considering the whole game plus the 1.02 patch is only 640Mb. Hopefully we'll soon find out, I've waited nearly ten years for realistic landings from ED, that's worth $100 all on its own for me! :)

 

Andrew McP