JediMaster

I never played the Privateer ones, but I played the regular series as well as Armada...which was a major screwup. My favorite was WC3, followed by 4 and then Prophecy. That had the best graphics and gameplay, but the worst story and FMV.

Which just means he may plan to add it "some day", but not necessarily at release. Perhaps "SF2 Expansion 4" for NA.

More anything = longer times. More terrains, more planes, more skins for existing planes, more weapons...perhaps missions and campaigns are the only thing that DON'T affect it. Or maybe they do, but you'd need so many to notice a difference and I don't think anyone has that many!

Yeah, cell shading seems unusual for this, but you never know.

Methinks that will cost a bit more than the $30 for NA.

Well the Mirage F1 expansion is coming first, unless TK changes his plans. I would buy such an expansion with that late F-4, though.

You read it 3 times in 2 months? Geez. Since I read it, I've read HfRO, Patriot Games, Sum of All Fears, Clear and Present Danger, Without Remorse, Debt of Honor, and I'm about to start Executive Orders. That doesn't count all the Star Trek and Star Wars novels I've read as well. Those only take me a week or so, though. I also want to re-read the Hobbit before the movie release end of the year, too. Then I have my IAPR, AvWeek, Smithsonian A&S, PC Gamer, and of course old books to reread. Red Storm Rising of course! You might call it "the bible" as far as SF2:NA is concerned.

A watched store page never updates.

I reread that book just last year...or the year before. Hard to remember now.

Oh, I see them all. I just don't always say something.

Yeah, it will be a while before even turbine-powered tanks could power this thing. It's ironic that the ships best suited to power these guns are the carriers.

They rightly should've been retired at the turn of the century, but were forced to go on far past that. Too many pilots were lost to its deficiencies in the past decade.

I guess that depends how closely you define "just as well". The radar is as good or better (depending which C it is). I don't think you could readily tell by looking, it's more "under the skin" changes that beefed up the E for the stresses of high-speed low-level ops. The engines are also tuned for it, so a C will outrun an E at high level, but an E will outdistance a C at low-level (although likely not outrun it over a short distance). The E sacrificed the C's ceiling, top speed, climb performance, and some other areas in return for the ability to carry a crap load of bombs a good distance at very low altitude. I'm pretty sure if you stripped an E and tried to make it fight like a C you'd find its range and ceiling were reduced, its top speed would be lower (although still Mach 2+, just not 2.5), it wouldn't climb quite as well (t/w ratio is just under 1 instead of just over), etc. Here's the weight figures for the 2. The MTOW is indicative of just how much the fuselage was strengthened over the C, and the empty weight shows the penalty that stronger structure cost in weight. F-15C Empty weight: 28,000 lb (12,700 kg)<LI>Max. takeoff weight: 68,000 lb (30,845 kg F-15E Empty weight: 31,700 lb (14,300 kg)<LI>Max. takeoff weight: 81,000 lb (36,700 kg)

No word on if coop will be in or not then? I must admit that's where I spent most of my time in DW as well as most other MP games. Oh...one thing I thought DW sorely needed but never got. During long scenarios, the ability to save the mission and resume it later! Too many great ones we never played because we never had more than 2 hrs to play it and if you'd barely started to prosecute your contacts at that point it really sucked. Of course, that only applies to coop.

It's actually not the direct personal cost that is the problem. People could just learn to drive more efficiently, less often, etc. The problem is the fuel is also used by everyone else. So the cost of food at the store is higher, the cost of the delivery is higher, the cost of almost ANY service or product must increase to pass on the increased fuel costs THEY pay to you so they're not making less. So in addition to having to pay more to go to and from work, and to go to and from the store, the stuff at the store costs more, the pizza guy charges more...it's a never-ending cycle.

No, my point was instead of SF2 being the first title with SF2V, E, and I coming out quickly after that he would've been better served to make NA the first release even if it came out later than SF2 did. Granted it likely would not have as many of the improvements as we have now (it would be closer to what SF2 was like on release perhaps), but I think he might have made more of a splash than SF2 made. Had he done that, by now he'd likely be on the 3rd release in the series of new stuff. I think he put almost as much effort into the SF2 series to date as he would have had he gone that route, with making updated cockpits, terrain, 3d models, etc, but too many SFP1-era owners declined to buy them because TK himself downplayed their improvements. He billed SF2 as a minimum-work upgrade of SFP1 and it became far more than that. Hence, he should've just shot for this in the first place and released the old games' content as expansions or whatever. The main difference would've been more SF1 owners would've switched over immediately and he would've seen greater sales. Will NA outsell all the previous SF2 releases? I hope so, but I wouldn't go so far as to predict it.

Not only that, they also use the taxes as a deliberate tool to keep people from buying too much. Same idea as taxing tobacco over here.

The first 2 are in Il2 and many WWII sims before it, and you can get an F-86 for SF right here. I think there's a mod with an F-86 for Il2 as well.

[Han Solo] Well that was a long time ago, I'm sure he's forgotten about that by now... [/Han Solo]

I think TK also does not have an economics degree. Otherwise, he might have come to the conclusion that Exp2 didn't sell as well because maybe people weren't really capable of spending money at the time? Also, frankly, Exp2 was underwhelming besides the ME, and if you don't care for the ME, you bought it for nothing. The campaign customizer as DLC was a good idea, because if people don't want it they don't have to pay for it (although I think that SHOULD be standard because it enhances the otherwise limited campaign options, and when you have no MP and ONLY single missions and campaigns, you really need either the ME or the CC in the game if not both). However, Exp2 was pretty much "some obscure Euro jets" other than that. To non-Europeans its appeal must have been small. At least Exp 1 had the P-51 and covered the relatively famous late 40s war in Israel. Finally, while I bought and enjoy them all, I think the route he took with SF2 was a mistake. Redoing SFP1, WOE, WOV, and WOI should not have been done. SF2:NA should've been the first SF2 title. People are STILL flying SFP1 and its brethren, and while SF2 is better it wasn't NECESSARY. He could've switched to the SF2 engine with 1 new flyable plane per title/expansion, kept the ability to use SFP1 mods (as most of the early SF2 mods were just ports), or just dumped the mods and put MP in as he said he might in the past (his notion that mods and MP are mutually exclusive I don't agree with, but there you go). Let's face it, SF2 as it is today with just a flyable F-14 but MP would sell great. The MP would have to be more than we had in SFP1 (random missions only) because it was too little, the ability to do campaigns or at least to do scripted missions in addition is needed. Don't dump the random, though, because in say DCS or RoF I constantly have the problem of lack of MP missions to fly and there's no options for campaigns or randomized missions there. I would love an SFP1-style random MP mission ability for both of those. Also, while it must be nice to get almost 100% of your sale price for yourself, I really think TK should look to Steam. Raise the prices if needed, but Steam has exposure. Just showing up when people search for "flight" or "sim" in Steam would be instant ads. There's also Impulse/Gamespot, Direct2Drive, and others. What's TK's ad method now? Word of mouth from existing customers? People stumbling across his FB page? Random Google searches? Inefficient.

Well, I would think he has other avenues rather than just "free". He could compensate the artist with a free copy of the game or some small fee. He couldn't give $40? There's some unionized pay scale he can't violate or something? Maybe combine it with advertizing for that artist in the credits ie "DDG textures by OlMamasBoy, other mods available at olmamasboy.com" or something like that. Many people do that...you provide a sample for free in return for free ads for your business. So they texture a ship for free, TK pimps their site for free where they could sell mods for SF2. Like Prowler maybe? Let's face it, if there's one thing you can't credit TK with, it's thinking outside the box...and it's usually a box of his own creation. I mean, he finally got on the DLC bandwagon, and while I appreciate the idea of making extra ships DLC (because let's face it, you don't need them, they're purely there to enhance the game and that's what DLC is perfect for) I think his reticence to accept help implies a distinct lack of trust in others.

Unfortunately rollbacks don't always work. I've had better than 50/50 luck with them, but still there are those times when it fails.

A couple of questions. Will it have MP? Adversarial and coop vs the AI? Does being in beta now mean they hope for a 2012 release? If so, where will they be selling it? Stores, digital DL, Steam, Impulse, etc? I've played some naval sims in the past, starting with Harpoon and Aces of the Deep and moving on to Seawolf and most recently SH3 and Dangerous Waters (spent quite a bit of time in DW, although the graphics could've used help), so a new one in that class is welcome.