Textures and aircraft carriers come to mind. I wouldn't be surprised if more upgrades become payware.
That's some bonus features for the carrier, not the carrier itself. And textures, well, that's just textures. Buying or not buying into that makes no difference to what missions you are able to join.
ED has yet to confirm if everyone will get enhanced aircraft carrier assets or if we will be stuck with the same ones from 2003 (or earlier) that we've paid for multiple times now. And upgrades are just upgrades and you don't need them? Fair enough, but you're proving my point. By your logic the new weather effects/engine in development can be payware to as long as the original version is free. Where does it end? AI units? New countries? Mission editor changes? Advanced AI behavior changes?
Being able to join a server has little to nothing to do with the topic at hand. I don't own an M2000C, and if I join a server with only M2000Cs I won't be able to play regardless. Same with terrian. You're essentially saying upgrades should be withheld and sold as payware, but aircraft and terrian modules are bad because not everyone can join the same server. That doesn't make any sense to me.
The original concept of DCS World was a nice one. One base game that gets upgraded while you buy new aircraft, terrian and campaigns. Fair enough. Aircraft (and even terrian) are full price titles in themselves. We'd get gradual updates while paying a bit more for modules. But now we're being charged for various upgrades on top of that and will have to juggle draconian DRM for an abundance of things including texture files. If they're going that route then lower the price of the modules.
The original concept sounded great, but I'm not so sure I like where it is headed.
