Wow......DCS Blackshark

[JediMaster 451]

I'm very disappointed in this decision. It strikes me as a very Russian one. Almost no other dev or publisher believes in using SF anymore because of the tons of bad press, but bad press apparently had zero impact on their decision. I find that remarkable.

It's like they wanted to use SF because it's Russian and only if their 100 person testing team had serious issues with it were they going to go elsewhere.

 

This reminds me of a certain other decision made just about 6 years ago to do something that people mostly thought was a bad idea, but was backed by what later turned out to be faulty information. Not that it mattered, because the "deciders" had already made up their minds and any positive backing was grabbed, however flimsy, and negative was brushed aside.

 

So, congrats to ED for acting very presidential in their decision-making process.

[mustang60348 2]

I'm very disappointed in this decision. It strikes me as a very Russian one. Almost no other dev or publisher believes in using SF anymore because of the tons of bad press, but bad press apparently had zero impact on their decision. I find that remarkable.

It's like they wanted to use SF because it's Russian and only if their 100 person testing team had serious issues with it were they going to go elsewhere.

 

This reminds me of a certain other decision made just about 6 years ago to do something that people mostly thought was a bad idea, but was backed by what later turned out to be faulty information. Not that it mattered, because the "deciders" had already made up their minds and any positive backing was grabbed, however flimsy, and negative was brushed aside.

 

So, congrats to ED for acting very presidential in their decision-making process.

 

 

That is so true.

 

Holy crap, I just went to SIMHQ and went thru the thread over there about SF copy protection in BS.

 

WOW, what a freaking soap opera. I haven't been back to SIMHQ in well over a year and after reading that thread I feel so good about my decision to leave that place.

[JediMaster 451]

There's always a fine line between not being heavy-handed and allowing chaos, one spills over to the other so easily...

 

But hey, you can't please all of the people all of the time anyway, so you do what you can.

[eraser_tr 29]

Who needs DCS when you've got a heavily modded EECH? It's not as pretty, but the drama is nonexistant.

 

ED's behavior is pretty typical of russian companies, 1C Maddox is the same way. And one big caveat, Russia is the software piracy capital of the world. And they are overhauling the DRM for the western market?

 

When will business get it? TK's method might be easy to pirate, but who actually would? No invasive DRM and hostile company policy, minimal piracy.

[mustang60348 2]

Who needs DCS when you've got a heavily modded EECH? It's not as pretty, but the drama is nonexistant.

 

ED's behavior is pretty typical of russian companies, 1C Maddox is the same way. And one big caveat, Russia is the software piracy capital of the world. And they are overhauling the DRM for the western market?

 

When will business get it? TK's method might be easy to pirate, but who actually would? No invasive DRM and hostile company policy, minimal piracy.

 

There was a company a couple of months ago who said it best "Pirates are NOT OUR CUSTOMERS, so why should we make decisions based on what they say and do".

[mustang60348 2]

Sorry to hear. We're trying to give the community the chance to discuss. As much or as little as they want to without dissing ED, SF, or their fellow posters.

 

Oh well.

 

I was referring to "Who is allowed to say WHAT to WHOM and Who isn't", which was the reason I left in the first place

Edited November 25, 2008 by mustang60348

[Snacky 0]

I think it's time we had some new stuff developed by American comanies. DCS Blackshark looks very nice and it feels very polished out of the box so kudos for that, but I am so sick of having Russian hardware shoved down my throat.

 

We are forced to buy this stuff because we have no choice. Microsoft can't seem to put out a decent combat sim and nobody else has stepped up since the Baltimore group fell apart. What we are left with is modding 10 year old software.

 

TK's stuff is very good and he is a very good sim designer, BUT in this day and age it's all about online multiplayer and TK has dropped the ball in that area. If TK ever get a 24 player multiplayer setup with a mission builder then I'm all over it, but the single player AI only stuff only goes so far.

 

Sorry for the vent, just fustrated about everything coming from Russia now.

[Gr.Viper 131]

Sorry for the vent, just fustrated about everything coming from Russia now.

For some reason here in Russia we feel sort of the same 'cause all good adventure games and shooters etc come from 'over there'. Our local things are mostly junk. So think of it as exchange.

[JediMaster 451]

Complaining about MS' combat sims when they haven't released one in 6 yrs is kind of silly.

I saw some pre-release CFS 4 stuff that was never officially released and it looked good. I'm talking a lot better than Il-2, which came out the year before CFS3 but looked better. I think CFS3 made some good progress and CFS4 COULD have beat Il-2 in some areas if it had proceeded. Instead, MS canned it without a word (there was no official announcement of the game's development or its cancellation) and dedicated themselves to the air-truck sim that is MSFS.

They've talked about releasing a new combat sim for years now, whether WWII or jet, but so far nothing.

[Snacky 0]

Yeah, i hear ya viper and I understand completely. You guys across the pond were forced to play around with American aircraft for a long time so I'm glad you guys finally have something to get excited about. My biggest complaint is with the American designers not stepping up, but I guess those days are over now that Consoles make all the money.

 

I know there are supposed to be "projects" on the horizon, but there always seems to be projects on the horizon with the horizon never in sight. Perhaps once the A10 shows up in DCS i will feel a little better.

Edited December 18, 2008 by Snacky

[hyperfighter 0]

OK< was just reading the open letter to the BCS community here

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=32860

 

While just about everyone in that thread agrees with ED (no surprise though, because if you don't agree with every word they say you get banned , so the only people left are the FBs).

 

But once again their decision makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

 

Right now as everyone hovering (pun intended) around the BS release knows, there is a cracked version out. This is a fact, by not releasing the Russian version to the West they are 100% definately losing sales of their product and now they are talking about making the CP/DRM even worse than it was...This means even more lost sales and of course they think that no on will crack this new CP/DRM mechanism like they did the old in in a matter of hours.

 

This comes off to me like a kid stomping his feet and throwing a tantrum... Are they pissed , sure are, they worked hard and their product got cracked quickly. Their 'years of testing' of SF lead to nothing, they pissed off their own community by choosing it, and got nothing in return and instead of simply removing the CP/DRM they are just going to make it worse.

 

I am in the military and I am sure other military folks will have heard this saying that comes to mind

 

"Moral in this place SUCKS, leave is cancelled until Moral improves".

 

 

Perhaps someone can explain to me how they will achieve anything good by making the CP more restrictive. Some have stated in that thread that FC never got cracked....OK, that is a lie...Also, lets assume that it did, perhaps that is because of "Security thru Obscurity".

 

i bought the game, but i have to say its really stupid to release it for russians only, its like saying plz hack my game because its the only way to get it. furthermore if they are gonna make the game even stricter (i mean after installing it ten times now you can just chuck the game in the bin because it will be banned, ill definately wont buy the game twice so ill get the cracked vesion by then)

another thing that really pissed me off is that the campaign is not compatible with vista!!geez thanks guys for not telling this, now i have a game that is like some demo but has cost me 50 us dollars...well i am cured, ill go for the crack next time they bring a module out just to see if i dont get ripped off again...and i think your right if they make the protection stricter i wont buy the game anymore and i think many wont.....i want value for my money, not some game i can do a couple of install of and then is useless. but i like to see em make the game more strict, i just wonder how many custumers it ll cost them...i am sure they lose more then they would gain...also a few mission are bugged i think, for instance icant get over the mountains in the dcs black shark South Ossetia Pirates mission nomatter what i try...while i could when running the game on xp...weird...oh and about vista i have never seen such a s**t os,it user unfriendly, they took away the handy options from the start menu and replaced it with crap like format disk and sleep mode but removed shutdown pc. also i have 4 g but vista uses 25 % (=1G) for ???? right for nothing, just for being there...i miss xp like hell and am seriously thinking of getting rid of vista, since i dont see any advantages over xp, only disadvanteges...vista needs to ask if i am sure anytime i click anything which is extremely anoying. it makes your system slower, half of the games dont work well on vista its a piece of crap (but hey its microsoft, it isnt like i was expecting a good produkt or anything)

[Canadair 16]

i..oh and about vista i have never seen such a s**t os,it user unfriendly, they took away the handy options from the start menu and replaced it with crap like format disk and sleep mode but removed shutdown pc. also i have 4 g but vista uses 25 % (=1G) for ???? right for nothing, just for being there...i miss xp like hell and am seriously thinking of getting rid of vista, since i dont see any advantages over xp, only disadvanteges...vista needs to ask if i am sure anytime i click anything which is extremely anoying. it makes your system slower, half of the games dont work well on vista its a piece of crap (but hey its microsoft, it isnt like i was expecting a good produkt or anything)

 

Never said better. I agree to each and every line. What is amzing is that at times you simply can't go back even if you want, because simply you have no drivers for the periphals. that is especially bad for laptops. oh but it was DSC Black shark. Sadly the more hardware get better, the less skilled programmers get. I see the quality of software going downhill VERY fast. Graphics and eye candy left alone, we are accepting as decent, stuff that we would have rejected a few years ago, in every software type I would say and specifically in flight simulators, which get little to no support. the whole falcon seriers can't use AAlias on Vista with the latest drivers for example. Unbelivable and outrageous. I was flying SFP a few days ago and thinking that it would be nice to be able to reprogram the waypoints in flight ,, and then I remembered that this option was possible back in Stealth fighter on C-64. On the other hand, thoguh, TK's approach, is probably the best approach possible, with continues free updates and huge moddability, in this low bugdet era ( in general and for flight sims specifically). Low budget, excellent results, with an open product that the community can enhance greatly, not to mention the updating system. It has been said a lot, but is worth rementioning, Oct patch rocks and brings the game to anew level. ,,now if only he would sell the SDK to someone,, that would eb great, can you imagine what companies and publishers like Justflight could do for the SFP series? sorry for the big OT

[Growler67 0]

I know some on many forums gripe about having the disc in the drive. I've never had a problem with doing this, personally. Doing so but instead of using a standard 4.7GB DVD, a 5.2GB DVD with the game and the Checkdisc files would seem a way to protect their IP and not be overly punitive towards paying customers. It's just like music CD's that have 80 minutes of content rather than 70. I'm just sayin'.

 

As for the variance in the versions released, ED caught plenty of flak over LOMAC: FC originally beng intended for the Russian market only. Westerner pouted and whined interminably and ED hurriedly changed their position and relesed it. It was NOT compatable with the Western release of the core software and then the whiners lost their freakin' minds. They asked for it and they got it and still weren't happy.

 

Now I am NOT an ED fanboi by any stretch. I'm just reminding some of past incarnation of similar behavior. I think LOMAC was much more eye candy than substance. The left handed interface in the Mission Editor (apparently it hasn't changed with BS) just for starters. As CPU/GPU cycle intensive as thier .lau code is, the alternative of going with something like STEAM isn't really an option to combat their concerns over piracy.

 

I do not know what the real difference would be with different regional variations. If it would be something like Linux/Windows/MacOS or is it more like regional DVD/NTSC/PAL? In any case, making a single product (core code) and then distribution (regional coding) would seem to be two different animals, wouldn't it? What's the problem? Then when ED has some patch fixes for a product, but makes you pay for an add-on product to get it seems back handed to many. Why couldn't patches and other fixes for a product be available for registered products? It was purchased and registered properly, why MUST someone BUY an add-on (even if they have NO interest in it or it's content) just to get the original product fiexed?

 

ED has made some seemingly not so great decisions in the past. It would appear that their business model has evolved, but not really changed much. They like many others in many other facets of any industry end up treating the symptoms rather than seeking a cure for the disease. Punish the legitimate customer base to spite a few pirates.

[Flegmatica 0]

Why i cant use full screen? In windowed mode it runs just fine but if i put full screen the game just doesnt work!

[viperBAT32 2]

my thoughts exactly on Vista....but i recently ordered Black shark(expecting it shortly from ups).ny brother has it in Texas(yeah,my BROTHER IN TEXAS)anyway,i'm looking forward to spending days just trying to fly the thing.after all,i work 12hr days for peanuts,and,when i get home,i want to EMERSE myself in this sim.so,i get to fly 1 helo...so what.i have never flown it before.i like the thought of actually LEARNING something,even to point of mental PAIN.you shouldn't be allowed to just "jump" into a "SIM" and take out a whole battalion with spit and firecrackers!know the machine...inside and out...and then die several times until you KNOW what you are doing!thats what i think makes a REAL SIM.i haven't been a fan of SF,either...but,i've also never removed a game from ED,yet.just some of us are looking for this type of sim,and some aren't.....has anyone played online yet?want to see what its like,before i get the sim.

[JediMaster 451]

Online is just like playing offline except for the lag factor you may have to deal with and the fact that difficulty settings are enforced by the server. So if there's an option you want one way and they set it another, you're stuck, no overrides, regardless of whether you think they have it set too hard or too easy.

 

The separate shortcuts for SP and MP is a little unusual for a flight sim (although I've seen it for years in FPS games), and the settings are all configured in the SP side (the only setting alterable in MP is your name and network connect speed I think, everything else like if you want to remap a command is only done on the SP side) so be sure you have your setup as you like it in SP before you go into MP the first time. Otherwise you'll have to disconnect, exit and start the SP side to change it before you go back into MP and reconnect.

[viperBAT32 2]

whew! took me long enough to get back to this thread!i simply cannot play online(no high speed dsl available in my area...omg dail-up sucks!)however,in singleplayer i'm having a blast.i can't count how many times i've died just trying to trim the beast!finally got some flight time down and have created a few missions.

 

apart from the SF debacle(apparently i will NEVER uninstall it for fear of reactivation issues)the sim has a good feal,lots of eye-candy(i know,i know)and,i just wanted a good helo sim for years now.

 

well,back to slave to the grind(who thought up this work thing,anyway?......oh yeah,the BILL collectors!)

[Cali 6]

WOW, I just saw this thread. I got banned from ED's forum because I agreed with someone, yes they banned me for life. Like Mustang said, if you cause a ruffle in the water.....be careful. I also think the mods there suck, well at least 2 of them A and EB.

[GASCAN39 7]

wow is right, just downloaded this and sheesh, immersed in it already. Excellent sim

[Rodster 1]

<br />WOW, I just saw this thread. I got banned from ED's forum because I agreed with someone, yes they banned me for life. Like Mustang said, if you cause a ruffle in the water.....be careful. I also think the mods there suck, well at least 2 of them A and EB.<br />

<br /><br /><br />

 

Ha ha man, I got banned for life from the SimHQ forums for calling the guy who apparently designed the online activation scheme for Black Shark a rude, condescending a%$$#@!e, which he rightly deserved. :D

 

My brief experience with ED support over the US activation scheme has been met with similar rudeness via email. Now I bought a copy of DCS: Black Shark US Version from Amazon.com which I regret and I can assure you I will not buy anymore products with intrusive overbearing DRM including the upcoming A-10 sim from ED.

 

Be that as it may I am now running Black Shark in cracked mode in v1.0 so even the online activation has been cracked. All the developers and publishers have done is p*ss off the legitimate customers and they have lost a future sale.

[Cali 6]

I haven't had a problem with getting more activtion's through ED, they have givin me about 3 different codes so far. The only problem I have had have been the mods and a producer of ED. Which he was working closely with a squad CO to try to get a few of us kicked from their forums. They (ED) have made some dumb mistakes.

 

1st, they added the 25T, 85% of the people have never even seen or heard of that POS.

2nd, the blew off the community when they kept telling them that there are some major problems with flaming cliffs.

3rd, people have been asking for an F-16 or F-18 ever since it came out

 

 

Now we have DCS and they made the ka-50 and hopefully every 9 months another aircraft/heli will be released. By the time we have enough to have fun online...it'll be 7 years from now. Oh yes, they are already behind on the 9 months!

[Rodster 1]

I'm glad it worked out for you Cali, but my dealings with ED via email have always received the response "the activations/deactivations we gave you" should last a real long time. If you have a good reason and it's on a case by case basis we'll give you another key.

 

If it were like rFactor where you call or email Trymedia and ask for an activation refill on an unlimited basis then there would be no worries here. That's not how ED presents itself wrt activation refills.

[Cali 6]

Sorry to hear all that crap Rodster, that sucks fo sho! I mean you paid for the game, and if you upgrade a few parts you have to reuse a number. Unless you use the "save activtion key" program. It's suppose to save info and you can reinstall lock on and put this file in your lock on directory. It's suppose to work, but I have never tried it, they always gave me more activtions.

[Rodster 1]

Sorry to hear all that crap Rodster, that sucks fo sho! I mean you paid for the game, and if you upgrade a few parts you have to reuse a number. Unless you use the "save activtion key" program. It's suppose to save info and you can reinstall lock on and put this file in your lock on directory. It's suppose to work, but I have never tried it, they always gave me more activtions.

 

Maybe you can ask them for me.

[Cali 6]

PM me your old serial # and I'll see if I can hook you up, they'll give you a new serial # with more activtions.