Jumbik

Also Heatblur being 3rd party developer, they need to consult release dates, or any other "official" dates with ED first. If ED wants to release something else first before their module will get a chance, that's something Heatblur cannot influence. So even if Heatblur would be ready to release F-14 now they cannot admit it as it would shed bad light on ED. Razbam was faster with Harrier, ED plans to release 2.5 very soon, I would guess we will have another pre-purchase in next week for something new too, either F-18C or Strait of Hormuz. If it will be F-14, good for us.

How about the Christmas F-18C banner with Guy in Santa hat there too? :D It think it was here last year? I suppose it would be fitting this time.

Upgrading the Alpha build with new map and game version would be logical as a first step I think. Converting the alpha to Open beta and getting rid of the Alpha build altogether would be second step. Once you are sure that everything works as it should you can move it to the stable version. All new maps could be then released in Open beta first and then moved to Stable when ready. No need for Alpha branch at that point as maps would be released as early access beta too I suppose.

This was stated by the moderators, not ED staff. From what I can tell the only time when the Starforce is doing something is when major game updates happen or HW in PC changes. That is my experience.

Wags said that we will see F-18 startup video next week so I suppose maybe some 2.5 news today?

They do not have to put it there. It states that it requires Internet for activation and that is enough in my opinion because nowhere is stated how many of these activation's will be needed and that was the same with previous copy protection even though you had limited amount of activation's. There is no mention about it even in Eula. People are basing their expectations about previous experience but if for example Starforce would change with newer version to the same model how would people act to it then? Let's just wait to how it will evolve. I'm welcoming the change for example. I do not agree with the 4 day limit though. I do want to have one global account and simpler way of activation, but I do not like the idea of limited single player. If I want to update, buy something from shop or play multiplayer then yes go ahead and verify my installation but give me at least 2-3 weeks of Single player when I'm abroad without internet connection.

You mean that the store page should have had information about internet connection needed every 4 days? The information on store page for harrier mentioned that the module will require internet activation as all the other modules. It does not mention how often though and as it is with current copy protection that can mean multiple activation based on state of the installation on your PC too. I understand that people did not expect this change, they are surprised, some enraged but I do not think there is any basement for legal actions here. I know we are playing with words here, don't get me wrong. And I do know that some people will be affected by this change and that's why Wags said that they will evaluate it and change it based on peoples feedback.

There are games that require permanent internet connection to play. Even in single player. And they are sold in EU. How that differs to what ED wants to do?

Whoa this discussion moved a lot since the morning. Originally I thought that the planned change to the copy protection will be a good thing but now I can see some legit concerns too. It will not affect me much, maybe only sometimes but generally not. But seeing how much it concerns other people, I would like to start some real constructive discussion here and listing what is good and what is bad about the proposed system first could move the discussion the right way at last. Hopefully we can move on with some propositions afterwards. :) + Unification of platforms. One global account will solve this. How often do you see new or even regular DCS players ask about keys from ED shop and Steam and why its not possible to merge them? This problem will be gone. The game can be sold then pretty much anywhere and you will choose the platform you want to download from or the community you are interested in more. Or this is at least how I imagine it, because there are other companies that do the same. + Key verification, management, transfer... I had my share of problems with the current system, they will most probably be gone. Buying a present for my friend will not be an inconvenience I have to go through. Installing the game again will not put me under stress. Managing authentication across more than one version of the game will be easier. I also read here that it will be much easier for 3rd parties and game testers. - Single player requires internet connection. I know there is plenty of new games that require it too, but with DCS this is a bit off I would say. Mainly due to the map editor and sim pit builders. Let's say that I'm a sim pit builder, pretend that i want to build Harrier pit and put it somewhere in a basement where I can fly it when it will be released in stable version. I will pretty much want to freeze the installation on such computer to one version for very long time with only harrier activated there. The new system will hamper my desire. Long term period without internet connection. Either I cannot have connection yet because I'm moving, building a house. I'm on vacation abroad and I cannot have internet connection without expensive fees but I want to play or build missions in editor and test them. Natural disaster will happen but I still want to enjoy DCS :) I'm working in place where internet connection is impossible and I will be in such condition for several months but I still want to enjoy DCS in my spare time... I suppose I could find more examples but you get the point. I can understand why ED wants to have the verification in place, to be sure that you are the one who is using the modules, not sharing them with others somehow. But I can see the general concerns about the 3-4 day limit to be valid. Here are my own propositions how it could be solved in a way that it would minimize possible problems that people may have. Each proposition is just a proposition, maybe only some would be good, or all at the same time, I do not know but we have to start somewhere. Increase the default limit to one week. Make it possible to extend the offline limit for set amount of days if needed once. Steam works this way if I'm not mistaken but there is a limit. Possibly give an option to create an offline key that will allow me to be offline for set amount of time which I know how long it will be. This would solve the people working in places like ships without internet connection. No updates or multiplayer available while not verified. No access to shop features without verifying. etc. So what do you think? How would you want to approach the subject of new copy protection?

New copy protection and future With this new copy protection in place, can we hope for some unification of platforms? Will Steam eventually use the same authentication? There are other games that use it this way, look at Elite Dangerous for example. One ED account but you can choose from which platform you will download the client and updates. With the 2.5 merge on horizon, this could lead to some very user friendly Quality Of Life improvements. The new copy protection is a good step forward anyway and thank you for that. :thumbup:

Isn't F-15E still classified? I suppose it depends which lot will be done, but considering that the aircraft is still in service, I would suspect, that a lot of the systems will be not accessible for us.

Oh my, that Rio will be the best thing in a long a time. It will add so much to the atmosphere! ALSO! Any plans for Scarlet Johansson DLC voice pack? :D

Thank you for the super wide version! I was looking for it on Facebook and was afraid I would have to ask again for one, but you went ahead of me and made on right away. :D

I suppose it will be sold separately. Maybe a low res version with limited functionality will be included, but that's only my guess.

Well, seeing that list I would say that we will be getting EA in December. :joystick:

We will probably not hear a clear answer to this but my guess is that it has something to do with the fact, that the module will come with carrier which will probably be a separate module in case of ED products like F-18C so they had to change the price to reflect this and make it in line with future releases. But that is just my guess.

Oh yes, I'm in the same situation. I just do not want to play until the versions will be unified and the community stops being divided by it. Although it did not stop me from supporting the devs by buying some modules. :D

From the posts around E3 show I got that the technology behind it is done and they need to integrate it into the cockpit instruments.

I'm really glad to hear that DCS World is healthy enough platform that can make for a living of whole team of dedicated 3rd party developers. I'm looking forward to what Razbam can deliver to us and I hope that DCS as a platform will only grow. With the upcoming unification in 2.5 version the community will be whole again and I hope we will see incredible things in future.

The F-14 rio technology will be most probably Heatblurs property and hard linked to the module. It's not like ED adding basic feature in the DCS platform that everybody can study and use afterwards.

I suppose you mean translated? I doubt that Razbam has enough resources to do a Chinese translation at the moment. There is not many people that are able to translate to Chinese let alone people who know avionics related "language". And if there are it costs a fortune to do. I suppose you will have to wait and see.

The performance problem will be partially solved by introducing the way they want to run the sim in future. Server host relation even for single player instances. It will bypass the one core limitation that is there now. As for the dynamic weather, I think the problem that they wanted to solve was synchronization between clients in multiplayer as everybody was getting different weather conditions. Clouds... well that is in making for as long as I can remember. The problem was always big performance hit.

Thank you! :)

If I remember well, I had to unregister the key via the official app inside the module folder to make it working.

Yesterday was too late imho. Separating the steam and standalone environment was a bad idea too in my opinion. Steam is today's mainstream platform, it's the largest gaming community in the world. New player that finds out about DCS on Steam can get in very tricky situation because the modules they can buy there are unusable in the standalone version. Eventually they will find out that if they want to be able to try out all the new and shiny things in DCS then they need to switch to the standalone version anyway which makes their steam collection useless. I hope that the new login system will serve to merge these two worlds and in the long run we will have one module repository instead of two. I was lucky as when I started with DCS, the modules were interchangeable between the platforms.