DCS Summary | G.91 Development Progress | Chinese New Year sale now on!

[Hotdognz]

Same here, I'm not happy that Kola is 50% off less than a year into EA, no point in supporting ED with EA purchases when this happens.

I won't be doing EA now on any new maps if that's going to happen, I'll wait less than a year for a sale.

Sent from my CPH2333 using Tapatalk

[d0ppler]

Can we expect the sale coming to Steam as well?

[RVT2403]

1 hour ago, Hotdognz said:

Same here, I'm not happy that Kola is 50% off less than a year into EA, no point in supporting ED with EA purchases when this happens.

I won't be doing EA now on any new maps if that's going to happen, I'll wait less than a year for a sale.

Sent from my CPH2333 using Tapatalk
 

They advertised a certain quality. Then delivered something different and afterwards managed to make it look even worse with each update. No one is buying it apparently, so they have to discount it early to boost sales and rake in at least some money. Maybe the map becomes acceptable one day, but until then i got better use for 150+GB on my drive. Wrote it off as a lesson learned and uninstalled for the foreseeable future.

I think new development teams should have to prove their skills with creating a small (say 100x100km) sample map of a random, rather unimportant region first, so they do not burn a prestige map someone professional could have done properly.

No more buying for me unless the dev team is known to deliver a good product and service and has proven itself. This also includes the Afghanistan failure, i am glad it was just 25 bucks i "invested" there.

[Hotdognz]

6 minutes ago, Schlingel mit Kringel said:

They advertised a certain quality. Then delivered something different and afterwards managed to make it look even worse with each update. No one is buying it apparently, so they have to discount it early to boost sales and rake in at least some money. Maybe the map becomes acceptable one day, but until then i got better use for 150+GB on my drive. Wrote it off as a lesson learned and uninstalled for the foreseeable future.

I think new development teams should have to prove their skills with creating a small (say 100x100km) sample map of a random, rather unimportant region first, so they do not burn a prestige map someone professional could have done properly.

No more buying for me unless the dev team is known to deliver a good product and service and has proven itself. This also includes the Afghanistan failure, i am glad it was just 25 bucks i "invested" there.

I actually like the map, think its one of the best in green maps in DCS currently even in its current state, its the going to 50% sales price less than 1 year in grates me

Edited January 26 by Hotdognz

[MAXsenna]

Just now, Hotdognz said:

I actually like the map, think its one of the best in green maps in DCS currently even in its current state, its the going to 50% less than 1 year in grates me

Agreed! I really like it, while the 50%...

@Schlingel mit Kringel It'll come around considering the progress of South Atlantic. 

[Boosterdog]

17 hours ago, Nightstalker said:

I feel the exact same thing is going to happen with my Afghanistan purchase that happened with my Kola purchase.  I don't think it's even been a year and Kola (while still in E/A) has dropped over 50%  That is really a slap in the face to those that get marketed that early adopters save more in E/A.  It's obvious now that modules will be cheaper once it's actually better.  It's becoming quite frustrating.  That's why I'm not buying Iraq.  I'll wait for a more fleshed out map and cheaper.  No need for it now anyway.

Whilst Kola ans Afghanistan has been dissappointing, Iraq does not suffer the same fate. Its already a pretty good map. Which obviously begs the question as to how the other two got out of the door in the state they were in. The other sections of the Afghanistan map not appearing on time give me some hope ED have accepted the original release was not up to standard and that its being worked on to bring it up to Iraq standards. I hold no such hope for Kola. 

[MAXsenna]

31 minutes ago, Boosterdog said:

I hold no such hope for Kola. 

It will take time, and people said the same about the South Atlantic. 

[Boosterdog]

51 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

It will take time, and people said the same about the South Atlantic. 

There are no guarantees and there is no roadmap for that. Thats hope and trust on your part. Nothing more. Additonally, just how good the SA map is now is alo subjective. 

Not picking a fight, just saying its a personal take. 

 

[Gunfreak]

12 hours ago, Schlingel mit Kringel said:

They advertised a certain quality. Then delivered something different and afterwards managed to make it look even worse with each update. No one is buying it apparently, so they have to discount it early to boost sales and rake in at least some money. Maybe the map becomes acceptable one day, but until then i got better use for 150+GB on my drive. Wrote it off as a lesson learned and uninstalled for the foreseeable future.

I think new development teams should have to prove their skills with creating a small (say 100x100km) sample map of a random, rather unimportant region first, so they do not burn a prestige map someone professional could have done properly.

No more buying for me unless the dev team is known to deliver a good product and service and has proven itself. This also includes the Afghanistan failure, i am glad it was just 25 bucks i "invested" there.

Except for one runway picture. All other pictures showed exactly what Kola was gonne look like. They also made it clear that they were using satellite imaging. Which told me and everyone who paid attention. That it would look much like South Atlantic map. Which it did

The map get better for each update. And looks far better now then it did. Ground textures has gotten at least 3 major upgrades in less then a year. And it looks fantastic. Not sure how you can claim it gets worse for each update date. As it only gets better and by a large margin. 

And it's obviously not a skill issue. But a limitation of the DCS terrain engine. These are the same people making fantastic terrain for another sim. So there's no doubting their skill.

In a perfect world all maps should look like  Normandy 2 down low and Kola/South Atlantic up high. 

[MAXsenna]

3 hours ago, Boosterdog said:

There are no guarantees and there is no roadmap for that. Thats hope and trust on your part.

Don't think there was a roadmap for SA.

It doesn't really come down to hope and trust, it's about the advances they've shown on the SA map, that makes me firm in my belief it will become better.

4 hours ago, Boosterdog said:

Additonally, just how good the SA map is now is alo subjective. 

Absolutely! 

4 hours ago, Boosterdog said:

Not picking a fight, just saying its a personal take. 

Never took it as such. We're all different. 

7 minutes ago, Gunfreak said:

But a limitation of the DCS terrain engine.

Exactly this. They have already stated that they are limited by it in what they are able to do, contrary to what they would like to do. 

 

[RVT2403]

12 hours ago, MAXsenna said:

Agreed! I really like it, while the 50%...

@Schlingel mit Kringel It'll come around considering the progress of South Atlantic. 

SA isn't looking too well either tbh. Textures look very bad. This is all after retexturing. Aircraft: sharp. Buildings: sharp. Trees: sharp. Ground textures: need glasses. (That's one reason people do not buy it, and it is a reason why people do not buy Kola. I regret i did. Hence the big discount)

Edited January 26 by Schlingel mit Kringel

[Nightstalker]

29 minutes ago, Gunfreak said:

Except for one runway picture. All other pictures showed exactly what Kola was gonne look like. They also made it clear that they were using satellite imaging. Which told me and everyone who paid attention. That it would look much like South Atlantic map. Which it did

The map get better for each update. And looks far better now then it did. Ground textures has gotten at least 3 major upgrades in less then a year. And it looks fantastic. Not sure how you can claim it gets worse for each update date. As it only gets better and by a large margin. 

And it's obviously not a skill issue. But a limitation of the DCS terrain engine. These are the same people making fantastic terrain for another sim. So there's no doubting their skill.

In a perfect world all maps should look like  Normandy 2 down low and Kola/South Atlantic up high. 

The point is, the map has only been released for under a year of E/A I believe and it's already more than 50% off.  The fact it's finally getting better just proves the point.  Why pay early adopter price for a poor launch when you can wait a year and get a better version for 50% off?  This is getting very frustrating.  I expect deep discounts on older maps but not new maps that are still in E/A.

[Gunfreak]

Just now, Nightstalker said:

The point is, the map has only been released for under a year of E/A I believe and it's already more than 50% off.  The fact it's finally getting better just proves the point.  Why pay early adopter price for a poor launch when you can wait a year and get a better version for 50% off?  This is getting very frustrating.  I expect deep discounts on older maps but not new maps that are still in E/A.

Because I've had 8 months of awesome time with the map.

It took just a little over month to get winter textures which i very much enjoyed. Then a couple of months after that. We got improved textures for summer. With vastly improved colours and textures. 

If you fly in the Swedish area in the southern and of the map. It looks very good even in helicopter. 

And all DCS maps have ugly parts. With Syria and Normandy having the least amount of ugly parts. 

While  in Afghanistan is almost impossible to find a place that doesn't look terrible down low. 

Iraq is better then Afghanistan. But there are many places in northern Iraq with towns basically stand on a 40 degree list. It looks fine in the editor. Then you place a ground units and go into the game and you'll see that anyone living in that town would roll out of bed. As the entire town is listing to the side. You'll also had odly placed roads etc.

Kola suffers from bad textures down low(game engine limitation) wrong type of trees(again engine limitation, but they have improved this too)  however there is far less "mystery towns" and "impossible roads" as seen in Iraq and even Syria.

[TheFreshPrince]

I've tested Kola a bit after buying it and it has the same problems as all DCS maps: Lack of vegetation diversity and unrealistic trees, water always looks the same, no edges/ridges/rocks and other details (polygon size is probably way too high for that), terrain textures are repeating itself, etc. In the north, there is also not enough water (lakes/rivers). You can see the empty basins from the satelite images. Looks good overall from altitude, but horrible on the ground. For Kola this much more problematic than in a desert map. Airports, buildings, roads, etc. look good in the high detailed areas though. All in all it's a good map for DCS I think, but I have expected a bit more. The current price is OK for that, but the full price would be a bit too high.

[Nightstalker]

1 hour ago, Gunfreak said:

Because I've had 8 months of awesome time with the map.

It took just a little over month to get winter textures which i very much enjoyed. Then a couple of months after that. We got improved textures for summer. With vastly improved colours and textures. 

If you fly in the Swedish area in the southern and of the map. It looks very good even in helicopter. 

And all DCS maps have ugly parts. With Syria and Normandy having the least amount of ugly parts. 

While  in Afghanistan is almost impossible to find a place that doesn't look terrible down low. 

Iraq is better then Afghanistan. But there are many places in northern Iraq with towns basically stand on a 40 degree list. It looks fine in the editor. Then you place a ground units and go into the game and you'll see that anyone living in that town would roll out of bed. As the entire town is listing to the side. You'll also had odly placed roads etc.

Kola suffers from bad textures down low(game engine limitation) wrong type of trees(again engine limitation, but they have improved this too)  however there is far less "mystery towns" and "impossible roads" as seen in Iraq and even Syria.

You completely glossed over my point. We are not discussing whether someone can have fun with a limited content E/A module.  We are talking about pricing.  Why should someone today, 8 months after release of an E/A module get the map cheaper than I did when I was marketed to get in early for the BEST price.  This isn't even the first sale on this map. Why would I ever trust their early access pricing again?  

[rob10]

11 hours ago, TheFreshPrince said:

I've tested Kola a bit after buying it and it has the same problems as all DCS maps:

Have you flown it recently?  I was really disappointed by it at release, but flew low level in F-18 last night as part of a mission and (while it can always be better) it found it quite good.  I know others will have different expectations for a map, but Kola is definitely ticking my boxes these days.

Edited January 27 by rob10

[Beirut]

16 hours ago, Hotdognz said:

I actually like the map, think its one of the best in green maps in DCS currently even in its current state, its the going to 50% sales price less than 1 year in grates me

 

I've been flying it a lot since it came out and I got my money's worth of flying fun. I would not exchange the time spent with this map with waiting for it at 50% off.

[Boosterdog]

8 hours ago, MAXsenna said:

Don't think there was a roadmap for SA.

It doesn't really come down to hope and trust, it's about the advances they've shown on the SA map, that makes me firm in my belief it will become better.

 

Well thats hope and trust in my book Max. I guess its no different than me having faith in Heatblur or Polychop though..

[MAXsenna]

Well thats hope and trust in my book Max. I guess its no different than me having faith in Heatblur or Polychop though..

Probably!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

16 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

If you fly in the Swedish area in the southern and of the map. It looks very good even in helicopter.

I haven’t flown there yet in a helicopter, so I'll take a look. But I have flown helicopters in the Murmansk area which is supposed to be the “high detail” part of the map, and I didn’t like it

[Trigger]

Kola map - in fact, I should have known better.

Once bought Wales for the MSFS and the result was absolutely disapointing. So I asked myself what in fact is all the fuzz about Orbx? A lot of money for false promises just to finance further development (which, at the moment, I'm still missing.) At least when flying helicopters.  A pitty after playing DCS for now 15 years. Something seems to go in the wrong direction.

[draconus]

19 hours ago, Nightstalker said:

Why should someone today, 8 months after release of an E/A module get the map cheaper than I did when I was marketed to get in early for the BEST price. 

You've made your choice then and thought it was worth it. You had it available for play before others who waited. It's like asking for a pay back because you didn't know the sale is starting the next day. "Who would have thought? It figures!"

[Beirut]

22 minutes ago, draconus said:

You had it available for play before others who waited. 

 

Exactly! I bought it the moment it was available on Steam and have been flying it as much as all other maps combined. If I was offered the chance to erase all those flights in order to get $20 back, or whatever, the answer would sure as shoot be no.

 

Besides, whether we buy something full price, sale price, or EA, there is no guarantee we'll enjoy it in the long term. It just may not hold our interest. All that really matters is whether you're having fun with what you bought. And I've had a lot of fun with the Kola map.

[Boosterdog]

1 hour ago, draconus said:

You've made your choice then and thought it was worth it. You had it available for play before others who waited. It's like asking for a pay back because you didn't know the sale is starting the next day. "Who would have thought? It figures!"

I think saying we our choice based on what the pre relaese marketing implied would be more accurate. Had those proven accurate, I would have said its fair. But they wernt accurate. They were grossly overstated to a point where there was no option in type of flting we preferred that could not be bettered, and by some magin, on existing maps. Even Caucauses.