Paid campaign quality control measures?

[Highwayman-Ed]

I fully support the new paid campaign idea and having been a mission designer since the first days of Lock On, I think it has great potential.

 

I'd like to ask 2 things.

 

1. Are the campaigns that will be sold tested by ED before their release and are there minimum requirements for them in terms of the number of missions, content type and reliance on scripting?

 

2. As a mission designer, it can be incredibly frustrating having to fix things every time that a patch to DCS is rolled out and some minor item changes mission behavior. Will the campaigns come with any warranty in terms of patches and updates when a DCS update 'breaks' functionality, and is that warranty ED's or the 3rd parties?

 

Thanks!

 

Highway

[NeilWillis]

I hardly imagine they'd take your money and then do nothing about keeping things current.

 

Take a look at the way Maple Flag missions are supported, and their excellent content.

 

I think you can be confident that ED will make sure you get value for money.

[Grimes]

1. I would assume the campaigns would be similar to full on modules where-in a contract is agreed upon between the campaign creator and ED and a certain level of quality is required. Content wise I think it would (or at least should) be pretty flexible due to the variety of mission design that is possible.

 

2. I don't know, but it is complex issue. For instance an AI bug and new AI behavior could both "break" the mission functionality. Both are outside the control of the mission builder and both could require modification to a mission to make it work correctly. Yes a bug shouldn't appear, but it happens and is ultimately unavoidable. In the end it is up to a mission maker to keep a mission working in the current release of the game. Whether that means to make a change based on a bug, or sit and wait for said bug to be addressed is probably up to the content creator.

 

Since there is the payware level added on top, there is an extra incentive to keep the content working. If someone makes a campaign and they all but abandon it I doubt their future campaigns (if any) would sell as well with such a bad reputation. By making a payware campaign they are forfeiting the ability for the community to step in and fix an issue, so it is squarely on their shoulders to fix stuff..

[Highwayman-Ed]

I hardly imagine they'd take your money and then do nothing about keeping things current.

 

I'd like to believe that it will be that way...

 

I would assume the campaigns would be similar to full on modules where-in a contract is agreed upon between the campaign creator and ED and a certain level of quality is required.

 

Same again, this is what I'm assuming, but it is only that, an assumption...

 

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying that I believe we're going to see a hoard of half baked and poorly constructed campaigns thrown at us with no support, but I haven't seen anything from ED about how they will be policing the content...

 

Hell, I'm even considering building one myself...

[MBot]

As a potential content creator, longlifety of the missions is also one of my primary concerns. Every patch has the potential to introduce bugs/changes that require an unpredictable amount of work to keep a campaign working. Some bugs/changes might even break a mission concept beyond repair. What do you do then? And for how long do you remain responsible to keep the campaign working?

 

I appreciate the initiative by ED for more and better campaigns. But for me the platform is currently too unstable, and the investment of work too unpredictable, to make a binding commitment as a contractor.

[Grimes]

Its only an assumption because I don't know either. And I too would like to know. :)

 

Questions will likely have to be answered by Wags.

[Rabbl]

As i hear from interviews from devs if you want to make money from paid campaigns you must support it in any further update. Simply. As any software developer do at that moment.

[Sabre-TLA]

The campaigns and missions are the same as any software module. It's up to the 3rd party devs to continue to support their offerings.

 

No difference for mods either (payware or otherwise). If you want to keep your customers or keep people using your mods you have to support them.

[Highwayman-Ed]

The campaigns and missions are the same as any software module. It's up to the 3rd party devs to continue to support their offerings.

 

I don't disagree here, and I'm not saying that any honest and able 3rd party dev wouldn't do their best on this... I know I currently do for all of the multiplayer missions that I have made, and re-made over and over again in DCS each time a patch breaks something. Like Mbot said, the platform has proven a little unstable from one release to the next.

 

Quite often we see script functions break and features drop in and come back without any mention in the patch notes... Anyone with experience of building conditions around troop loading and under-slung loads in the Huey as and example will know what I'm talking about. Yes I know a lot of this stuff is 'beta', but aren't almost all of DCS's modules still in beta?

 

Case in point--->With the SU-27 Ultimate Argument campaign

Unable to complete Mission 3 with the current bug of AI aircraft not being able to formation land. This is bothersome haha. Great campaign thus far though. Really do enjoy it a lot!!! :)

 

My concern simply put is that the expectation from a paying customer for a campaign module purchased through ED is going to be much higher than that of anyone downloading a free mission or donating 99c for access to one. They will (at least I would) expect advanced features and objectives, much more so that a simple set of waypoints strung together with text messages and to take full advantage of the features of the module the campaign uses.

 

With the quirks in DCS from patch to patch, I want to know that if I for example decide to take my 'hobby' to the next level and put together a campaign or two, is my hobby going to become a time consuming pain in the rear end because I have to re-write scripts, change mission objectives and test fly missions over and over again to cater for these little bugs that creep into the software development cycle of the DCS platform and eat up any time that I have to actually fly for fun...

 

In summary, my question for ED / Wags is this... Are the 3rd party devs building the campaigns with all the best intentions in the world to support them, going to have the information and support from ED and the module developers that they need to support their own paying customers, or are they at the bottom of the food chain and have to deal with whatever comes at them.

Edited January 10, 2015 by Highwayman-Ed

[mac495]

As in the case of all Huey Slick missions being broke now because of inability to pick up troops.

[Scarecrow]

I'm confident enough that the 3rd party campaigns will be high quality from competent mission designers.

But I could see once a designer has published a few campaigns the upkeep of those campaigns could become a full time job.

 

You'd really only want to write a campaign once rather than re-balancing it four times a year for 2..3..5 years maybe. I don't know anything about mission making but I bet it'd be a PITA.