Well, if there was any doubt before there's none now. You're one sadistic man Jason! Can I pre-order it now?

This kind of comment makes me laugh. Lest we forget that the team originally just wanted to make planes from 1917-18 period. The original title of the sim was Rise of Flight - 1917. The outcry for early war "crap" planes was so loud and the criticism for not including all war eras was so crucifying they decided to spread out the plane set. The cry became "give us mid-war planes or you suck" and now it's "you suck for not making two-seaters from day one". In the future it will be "give us all 5 variants of the SE.5 or you suck". Imagine how many more planes you could have for 1917-18 if the community had just let the team keep their original plan? But then again, we'd probably be out of business if we didn't listen to the community. Our approach has worked for everyone's benefit and with time you'll get two-seaters and more scouts etc. from all eras. So those that criticize our choices as not adhering to historical needs have no one to blame but their own community, not us. We only did what you told us to do and isn't that what you (the community) want(s) us to do? We can't win either way.

Pre-order for the Gotha is coming soon, but we have no firm release date yet.

Jason

777 listening so far has made most very happy especially after this hotfix, and especially in the long run future. It's one of the big differentiators ROF has over other sims. Most sims are long-term commitments for gamers to learn, so we are glad to have one that actually follows the Kaizen Principle. There will always be some negative comments, it's just the nature of software but remember a single negative perception isn't the view of the majority.

Well you DID suck until I got my N11 and the Eindecker to shoot in it.

Now you're golden.

Everything is shiny, AFAIC.

Jason, while you have a point that the community asked for earlier war aircraft (which I personally tend to fly less, although I bought some) it is still pretty self-evident that the RAF should have had a late-war two-seater from the beginning. After all, MOST of the work of these scout aircraft was to either deny or allow the work of enemy and their own artillery observation, recon and bomber aircraft (two-seaters in most cases, with smaller tactical twin-engines sometimes and only the occasional large scale bomber).

The biggest contribution to the war on the ground was made by two-seaters, thus one for each side should have been included from the beginning, IMHO. Instead planes like the Fokker E8 are in, which serve almost no purpose in creating historical offline missions.

But then, I think most agree that RoF was always driven by the online community, so it seems that duels at 3000 feet in excotic scouts are more it's focus than the ability to generate semi-historical randomized SP campaigns. This is definitly something that both OFF3 and FE2 do better.

Of course there's a commercial pressure to sell add-on aircraft, famous, exciting aircraft will sell best. Its understandable that 777 have so far focused on these aircraft, I think aircraft perceived as being "good" for MP have been at the top of the list also.

There's a poll thread over at the ROF board suggesting that 80% of people with ROF (not a valid sample technique I know) have bought all the add on planes. Maybe this will make 777 more confident in making less well known or less exotic planes, there was some concern I think that 2 seater aircraft might not be big sellers. It appears that the drip drip of new planes at very reasonable prices has proved a success.

For myself, I think NeoQB/777 have done a fair job at adding aircraft to RoF. I doubt you could really please everyone - even OFF I think has some planes people are still begging for, and it already has a lot of planes.

The "stable" in RoF has grown a lot since release, and it does cover a fair amount of the craft with the most historical interest (if not those chronologically consistent).

Plus, I actually understand there's a business question here as well. If selling planes keeps the 'tank' of development topped off over at 777, I'm fine with their choosing the order things sell best in. A bit of a compromise, which seems OK to me.

That being said, I also appreciate the argument for trying to keep things historically balanced.

I think 2-seaters would be big sellers if the game properly supported their use (slightly more dynamic/varied ground targets, support for better Recon missions eg. with the point being to actually see something important, campaign support for two-seater roles).

However, it is always tougher to break new ground than to follow in the footsteps of others...

I'm just hoping that the Bristol F2B is right around the corner. At least a few blocks away.

i also be would very surprised if a flyable Bristol Fighter and a german CL plane would not sell well.......

the "proplem" IMHO are more the "bred&butter" planes i would guess , strongly "needed" to fill the sky (espacially offline)- but good selling ?!?!
and if planes like Be.2 or Re.8 would be become flyable, some option of artillerie ranging or some kind of photorecon would be nice.
Not easy to include i guess.... future will tell.