Thank you very much Hookman, and maybe we'll learn soon more details of what's being considered for KOE's future!

Hautz is reinforcing the point that simming is certainly world-wide, but that perhaps enthusiasm for WWI flight simulation is even greater in Europe, and I think that he could very well be right!!!

So many friends from England, and Holland, and Belgium, and France, and Germany enjoy this genre.

In fact I've met more good people from Canada, and overseas flying online, or on the forums than I could ever have expected to meet in person!

Lets not forget South American too, and Austrialia, New Zealand, and Japan.

Come on Aspect.......there's a market that needs KOE!!!

Actually if i remember correctly, presale orders for Full Canvas Jacket while i was completing the work ended up being over 500+ units. Not a huge number at all, but it is a mod, and has had zero promotion (except for the 20 or so magazine article, reviews, and online reviews - that i know about).


Kess
The Promised Land

I would say that roughly 65% of FCJ sales have been from non US countries, of that, at least 40% were from the UK alone.


Kess
The Promised Land

Well there's some important full canvasing market research right there from Kess!

Hey, I think it's time for Tom Cofield or Andy Bush to get their airline tickets for Colorado because............we gots to know!!!

Kess, do you have an idea (and are you prepared to tell us!) how many copies of FCJ you've now sold?

Well i lost track, but several months ago i figured out that i had sold over 2000 units.


Kess
The Promised Land

Whoa nelly! Nice work Kess. I'm jealous - just did the math (2000 * 25 = $50,000) .

If we could make a newsletter at $5 a pop and sell it to 2000 people, that would be $10,000 for each issue (not including printing and shipping expenses).

Just playing around with numbers - whether it's accurate or not .

-FranksValli

Indeed!

If Aspect were to sell KOE direct over the internet for $50 US, and does as well as FCJ, we're talkin' grossing over 100 grand.

Of course it could sell better than FCJ, or worse I suppose..........

Perhaps the bottom line is how much it would cost to finish and promote the product, and whether Gary Stottlemyer finds any of this as intriguing as we do!

I don't want to put a damper on your enthusiasm, but Gary doesn't read the forums, any of them. It took three months of coaxing just to get him to let me say something about what happened with Destineer. Who knows how long it'll be before he let's me tell you what we're doing now as part of step A of our rescue plan.

The best thing the community can do right now is start to collect data on what they've done in the past, and what they're willing to do in the future. Those numbers from Kess about FCJ and where the buyers were from are a big help. I've been in contact with the people at SimHQ and they're putting together a poll. When it comes out the more people we can get to take it, the better decisions we can make.

We need help with setting up and running a website. Aspect still has access to a server and I'll ask Gary if we can start using it more. In a sense we'll start doing what Destineer promised to do, but never did.

We need to find some people who can volunteer help in running the site.

We need to get a list of names of people who want to know news about the rescue efforts of KOE.

We need to get a list of names of people who are interested in buying once we have something worth offering.

When people say, "I'm willing to help. What can I do?" We need to have a place to send them.

I suspect that in many ways this will become like a military operation, in that there will be many times when it becomes a case of hurry up and wait. And there will probably be a SNAFU or two. People will have to remember that there's only two of us left, so whatever we do, it will take some time. I think there have been many insightful comments made by others on this forum just how hard it is to make a flight sim so people will appreciate the difficulty of what we're trying to do. I'm hopeing that Gary will let me post some small AVI files of the aircraft in action. I want people to see what we have and that we're not just a bunch of talk and smoke and mirrors.

Well we've seen the vestiges of what was meant to be, and the faint glimmer of maybe something more than this past week's gloom and doom.

Hopefully some of the IT guys will come forward here to lend their expertease to this potential website project, and although we do understand that things will be slow going, there's probably much for which we can be thankful for.

Thanks for considering an alternate plan Xeidos2, and for not letting KOE die without a fight!

Not trying would have been UNACCEPTABLE!

I'll be spreading the word, and lending what assistance I can.

Now it's time for a roll call!

This could turn into an interesting project.

I have no real idea how best to get the ball rolling; but it needs to get rolling that's for certain!

Talk of the lips tends only to penury
But in all labor there is profit.
Proverbs

I'm more than willing to help run the website. I have to leave for dinner right now - I'll edit this post with more details.

EDIT: I'm not an expert in terms of developing the layout, but I do an O.K. job. Certainly I would put in a large amount of effort to develop a professional layout if you guys want.

In terms of coding, I have been working with PHP and MySQL as a student worker at my job and have been cranking out databases.

The latest job I had was importing a database for my boss - and making it searchable (by several fields), and have the results display 10 per page. You can view this latest project here .

I just made the basic functional page a couple days ago, working from 12:00 to 4:00 am, sleeping (more or less), then working the rest of the day on it.

So though I'm not very good at layouts, I am adequate at coding. This is useful in making things like photo galleries (where you could also have the ability to display a random screenshot on the front page), easy news updates (basically you just type in the news update into a form on the website, and the news gets sent to the MySQL database).

I'm going on vacation in a week, and school is starting up in a month, but I'm ready and willing! Where do I sign up?

ANOTHER EDIT: P.S. - Elasmoworld's layout was designed by someone else, who is very good at making websites. His site is here . My site is here (and it uses PHP-MySQL for updating news items, but that's about it!)

-FranksValli

I have constructed a few websites in the past, including my current simple site (in my signature) for SDOE which I intended as a central location for links and info. I'm not at the level of a professional developer, but I know a fair amount. I'd be willing to help in some aspect, and if helping with an official website of some kind proves out of my skill range then I'll gladly promote KOE on my current site or construct an additional fan site of some kind for promotional purposes. Whatever it takes to get the word out, and get people invested in this WWI Flight Sim!!!!

Wow lots of reading here!

I do like the ideas thrown about. I would certainly subscribe to a news letter.

I would also like to offer some of my time to the KOE project. I could indeed keep a web site up to date once it's been completed. I am no web master tho... I know HTML and that's about it. (See the FS-WWI site: http://argonv.tripod.com/FSWWI_Page/readme.htm) But, that being said... I could post news, pics, dev updates, links and whatever else. I could also keep track of the WWI simming forums for you guys and update the communities there regularly so you guys don't have to mess with the community at all, or as little as possible. I would also like to offer my organizational skills to you guys. I do manage the FS-WWI mod and do a lot of the current 3d modeling touchups and projects with FS-WWI, as well as aircraft coding and assembly (Not in C++ or Java but coding in an aircraft compiler which reads data from the game files and displays it where I can edit that data. I also import textures and 3d objects with this program and basicly assemble and code the aircraft for the game) I can also beta test, assemble beta teams and I'm a regular on the net with hi-speed cable. I also help manage two web sites, http://www.ww1sims.com and http://forum.biohazcentral.com/index.php?showforum=46

S!

Just one note to follow up my earlier comment of KOE and other countries.

One of the things that the discussion of KOE has revolved around amongst my German friends is the fact that most of them have older computers and probably don't have the horsepower to run a graphics intense game like KOE.
This is not a little concern for them, but a big one.

The RB community is an older one, for the most part, and come in three flavors.

The guys who have pretty up to date machines and run the game with a glide wrapper.

The guys with two machines--one having a voodoo card of some type.

The guys with older machines who run RB on their primary computer--usually with a voodoo 5 card.

This is consider to consider if you start polling a potential audience.

Some guys will upgrade their machines to play KOE, some won't be able to afford it.

Again, I bring this up just to think about, as it's something I've seen discussed (here in Europe) since KOE loomed on the horizon.

Hautz

I am greatly disappointed that KOE has been put on hold. It was one of the very few games/sims I was looking forward to. I have been missing a WW1 sim since RB3D and am willing to help get this one back on track. I would be willing to pay $15 for a newsletter, access to beta's and a discount on the release version. The actual release version I would be willing to pay $60 for not including any discounts. This is only for an "average" flight sim though. Average being something with a list of features and planes similer to that of the Red Baron series. Of course it would need improved graphics, flight models, damage models and the other usual upgrades. If more stuff is added I would be willing to pay more. I am aware that there were alot of completly different plane types during WW1 so I would be willing to go for a sim that doesn't cover the full war. Something from 1916 to the end of 1917 would be plenty IMHO. I prefer boxed games that I can get at a local store but I am willing to buy online if need be. I am not terribly well known here but I am a well known and a reasonably respected member of the IL2/FB/AEP community.

I can skin.

Goodwood\'s ILL-2: Forgotten Battles Skins

They've gotten pretty good lately...

Here's what I've got so far: http://www.themaingate.net/koe/

It might look a little better with some content on there .

It has a couple of spacing problems, plus a problem with the main body being too big height wise (because of the table?), so there's a sliver of repeating background at the bottom.

It alright, but it should be improved. The original source Photoshop PSD can be found here .

I'm going to put some more work into it soon - this was just an attempt to see how far I could get with the preexisting photos and everything .

The quick news and random screenshot sections would utilize PHP (so the news is easy to update and the screenshots come out randomly).

-FranksValli

Well it certainly doesn't sound like there's any lack of enthusiam for helping to get this sim project to market!

Maj_Death and Goodwood, I would think you guys and the IL-2/FB/AEP community are just as important to this project as anyone else.

Hey, wonderful artwork Goodwood.............and 150 of them!!!

Gee Xeidos2, you're getting volunteers stepping up to the task already...........things moving to fast for ya? LOL!

Dave, that page is lookin' good!