+Alphadelta Posted April 10, 2011 Posted April 10, 2011 Evening gents, Apologies for the lack of updates lately. Time has been extremely tight! Rather than chip away on the full Combat Helo project and release it in one big drop we've decided to develop and sell an initial taster/trainer. This way players get to try out the full Apache and it's various systems sooner, learn to fly and fight in a less frustrating/dangerous environment, and provide feedback to make the final release smoother and less buggy. We always wanted to develop a fort Rucker style map so the decision made sense on a number of levels. The terrain is a work-in-progress but we've happy with it's accuracy and diversity. There's relatively dense forest, farm land, scrub and an area of desert. Various buildings have been include to give it a mid-western feel. Our yet to be named stagefield. Basic, but with everything an Apache needs to operate. Fuel, ammo and maintenance tents. From inside the control tower. There are 3 regular ranges of differing lengths and 2 slightly more natural firing ranges. Targets range from rusty old pickups to rusty old T-72's. There's also a mock-up of an Afghani compound with multiple enemy firing positions surrounding it. Unorthodox, but it provides some training for the future deployment to Herat, Afghanistan. As always, follow the latest progress on: Our development blog: http://combathelo.blogspot.com/ Our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/CombatHelo Cheers Quote
+Alphadelta Posted April 10, 2011 Author Posted April 10, 2011 Hopefully we can include a season changer. Cheers Quote
+JediMaster Posted April 12, 2011 Posted April 12, 2011 I hope you have a lot better luck with your plans than certain other unnamed sims that are yet to see the light of day! Quote
dsawan Posted April 12, 2011 Posted April 12, 2011 Look forward to this one. i take it you guys are doing the release similar to jet thunder? Quote
+Alphadelta Posted April 15, 2011 Author Posted April 15, 2011 (edited) I haven't been following the latest Jet Thunder developments so I'm not sure whether or not we're going down a similar release path. The current plan is to put out the target range as a taster to the hardcore sim community. Something to generate interest and capital to ensure the larger release can come sooner rather than later. New website coming soon! Cheers Edited April 15, 2011 by Alphadelta Quote
+JediMaster Posted April 16, 2011 Posted April 16, 2011 As long as it's not an obvious beta (cliffs of dover anyone?) but simply more limited in scope I think people will be able to choose to buy or not with confidence. I know some people will wait for the "full" release while others will get enjoyment from a trainer/school just fine. I think all can agree having fewer features that work great is preferable to having all the features heavily bugged. Quote
+Alphadelta Posted April 16, 2011 Author Posted April 16, 2011 We're continually asked to release a beta, but if we had something at beta level we'd be laughing. :) It's an understandable fault, but most gamers seem to believe that every stage of game development before gold status is beta and that developers are holding-out on them for the purposes of masochistic self-destruction. At this point we are so far from what a full beta would contain (i.e EVERY features of the release build) it's not funny, far from funny infact. Hence the need to release the target range/taster/teaser to generate funds and publisher interest to make a full release possible. A taster would also solve one of our greatest problems; that we don't have the man-power or financial resources to properly 'pimp' CH to a wider audience, A taster in the hands of a few hundred hardcore fans would rapidly solve that problem. Once a product is out on the market a larger more active community form and subsequently the players promote the product via screenshots, videos, word of mouth, articles etc for free. :) Just as you say Jedimaster, fewer features, but all working correctly, that's the aim. Hopefully the features we include will be impressive enough that people feel that it was A) worth the money and B) worth future support. Cheers Quote
+JediMaster Posted April 16, 2011 Posted April 16, 2011 Yeah, that's the thing that some devs get nailed on when they release a game with DLC planned for later...is the game a worthwhile experience and value if the customer NEVER buys anything else again, and will they recommend it? If you get it wrong, you get a lot of angry people! Also, unlike EA or Activision, you won't have other stuff to fall back on or a built-in audience for some of your stuff. So, not to say you'll have to live up to a higher standard but...well you'll have to live up to a higher standard. However, by phasing it in you can spend more time on the polish and less on a deferred feature now, which will help make the favorable first impression! Quote
+Gr.Viper Posted April 17, 2011 Posted April 17, 2011 Well, like indie developers before you, you can always label you release alpha, beta or whatever and sell it with a discount patching it as the development goes on, so that they end up with a full release. articles etc for free. :) Quote
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