Of course they want it this way. That's why it's going to be "this" way. They aren't doing it to upset people though. They are doing it to bring in the most amount of money as possible.

That's why there's going to be restrictions in place. My guess, as I've thought they would pull a stunt like this for a while, is there will be no access to the mission editor or access to host your own online server during this ordeal, or at the very least, until close to release.

That way they can run their own "test" server with hardly any objects and restrict it to whatever amount of people the game can handle. Then those users can be happy it runs great without anything going on in a mission, any substance, let alone thousands of objects etc., that people are used to from the IL2 titles that made the IL2 name in the 1st place (the MG engine).

Those people reporting and posting will probably get others to buy it etc, because "it runs great". But then, once the game is finally released, and we can finally try to build an IL2 like mission, we'll watch the game have the same limitations that ROF does.

That's why 95% of the questions in the "ask the devs" questions threads aren't/can't be answered. That's why you can't do a flight sim comparison on their forum. That's why you can't talk about any "facts" there as well. If it doesn't tow the party line, your post is deleted. I understand the ROF fan club, albeit small in comparison to IL2, probably isn't used to what the MG IL2 titles can do, but once the IL2 community comes over and sees that the sim won't be able to do 1/2 the stuff 10 year old IL2 already does, let alone 1/4 of the stuff Clod can do, restricted access or not, people are going to be talking about it.

This ordeal is just the tip of the iceburg with regards to the direction the IL2 name is headed. What once was a sandbox capable of doing almost anything you could put your mind to, now looks to be very limited, and even more restricted. One does hope for it's success, but constantly brushing everything under the carpet, deleting posts without even a reason as to why, banning people that have paid for the game for constructive criticism etc. Pretty pathetic. It's no wonder some are already asking for a refund.

You got it all wrong. The reason people are not happy is because they KNEW WHAT TO EXPECT FROM A PAID BETA!!!
Nobody, without connection with the team had any idea, they'll restrict the paid beta to times most working adults don't have time to play. That's the problem. I've tried dozens of paid and unpaid beta and alpha software and never seen one that restricts your playing time this way. At least not a paid one.
To me the "premium" has no value as it is now. I'm not home those days.
So you tell me that I should pay and shut up anyway, even if I can't play it and the premium has little value to me? I can get the rest of the stuff later anyway. The early access was THE reason I preordered. I don't care about gunpods, cool skins or forum badges. Fw-190 and LA5 won't be ready for months anyway, so why bother?

This Tuesday to Thursday crap is not normal for a paid early access! it's unheard of until now. That's why the outrage.
This should have been printed with red capital letters in the preorder menu.
Now when you tell them you are not happy and should have been told about it in advance, the developers are laughing at you with catch phrases like "this is alpha LOL" and ban you for "challenging the honesty of the team".
Perfect treatment for the premium price we paid for it.

The only way Nattylced's argument would be valid is if they displayed the "limited alpha" information ON THE SALES PAGE. If you have to dig through forums posts just to know what you are actually buying then the devs have failed IMHO. I would not be upset if they had displayed the limited timeframe information on the sales page

Early Access*

*Early access will be limted to mon-thurs during hours of our choosing.

I wouldnt have been upset because I would not have preordered it.

Exactly. The Tuesday to Thursday crap is so far from all the paid beta releases out there, that nobody even considered it a possibility.
Now the beta is not available for me due to my work schedule. I should have been warned about it on the preorder page.

Solution is simple if you paid with a credit card. Call your credit card company and tell them the product/service is not as described and you want a refund. Might be able to do it with PayPal as well. Personally I don't care. I bought the Premium version to support the Development Team and the two extra planes. The early acces to the beta is way down the list. I hated screwing around with Buggy CloD when it came out so I probably give it a spin every now and then to see how it's progressing. Never expected it to be as good as the original Il2 anyway. It'll be years before you reach the scope of that game. Now with the latest update it's even better. Between HSFX 7.0, CloD TF v4.0 and RoF I'm having a full plate. Again, for those that feel bamboozled, flimflammed or violated in any other way, ask for your money back and be done with it.

I really enjoyed tinkering with beta software. I got a lot of games and software as beta and that's where the shock comes from. All the software I got as PAID BETA, was basically the same. The game in it's current state available for me to download and try, when I have time. Missing parts are expected, crashes are expected, few down time periods are expected.
What is not expected by 99% of people that tried paid beta software is the software available for you only Tuesday to Thursday.
As I said, this is so far away from mainstream, that should have been placed at the top of the forum.
As things stand now, I'll wait few days and see if they take any step to rectify the problem and if not I'll cancel.
About supporting the development team, I'm doing that, for a long time.

This doesn't mean that I should be perfectly happy with to get product (yes, the beta was sold as a product) only others will get to enjoy.

Its an Alpha, not beta .

The Alpha stage with Tues to Thursday allotment will change, just wish we knew, but its impossible to tell when. Patience.

Money is always going to figure in, but also stability of server/code when subjected to a higher load and this is going to be the over riding reason. The whole thing could easily fall over on Tuesday when subjected to a lower mid-week load, let alone be somewhat prepared for the weekend.



Stunt? I don't expect it to be worse than the so called War for the Overworld Bedrock Beta, which was actually an early Alpha with low resolution and no animations. They got a lot of negative feedback for that . But it has improved bounds. Why would you expect to access to a mission editor or the ability to host your own server at this stage? That's more likely a later beta when they introduce the feature and specifically ask for feedback.



We only know what's working from the development live streams and released footage, until then yes I would expect the unit count to be low due to the unknown effect of load during the first mid-week tests where I am sure they're expecting a lower load vs expectation over a weekend when no developers maybe available to take action when it falls over. I wonder if they should have advertised full 24/7 access and then it fall over like many MMORPG's on release day? Oh I am sure the angry voices will fill the heavens with angst.




You are quite correct though, potentially people may say how well it is running with a few vehicles and planes around, but its far from the only reason and its very unlikely we'll have a good measure of how well it performs before the close of the beta program. Of course, no-one can predict the future, but I am hoping it will handle more than ROF, but are people willing to potentially upgrade to a system more powerful than what ROF has? Again, expect angst.




Of course you'll be able to push a lot more models out on Il2, being 10 years old with much more basic modelling going its just going to be that way. In many ways this is the similar situation World of Warcraft has caused to the MMORPG community, practically everything is compared to a 10 year old game which has been added to and improved over the years. Even though I am seriously looking forward to BOS I doubt it will reach the same unit count, however I am expecting better modelling from BOS across the board, and with only videos to go on it seems that way. Can you 100% quantify your remark that the fully released BOS will only do a 1/4 of what clod can do?



The name cannot get any worse than when Clod was released by Ubisoft (who in my opinion as the publisher are the most to blame for this)! Ever think that a good reason for a cautious Alpha release is to slowly build up and do all that is possible to avoid the fiasco? What's worse, some anger for a short while, or total derision like the clod release? First impressions really matter and cannot easily be undone.

Lets hope, indeed try for the best flight sim experiences which fulfil our wants, no matter who makes or publishers, but we should also keep in mind everyone has different ideals on what makes a good flight sim, even the vaulted Il2 failed in certain areas (for me personally it lacked immersion, never felt my pilot meant much, it was the same with ROF).

Its a shame the flight sim community is one of the worst in my experience, better than MMORPG as a whole, but not by a lot.

"[Its an Alpha, not beta ."

"The Alpha stage with Tues to Thursday allotment will change, just wish we knew, but its impossible to tell when. Patience. [/quote]"

Again, the first release for us that paid, will be an Alpha, not a Beta nor a full release.

You must have forgotten that this engine has been around for a while. The master browser system has been around for a while etc. If they haven't already gotten the means to correct it back when there used to be players in ROF MP, I highly doubt they are magically gonna fix the problems 4 years later just because they are putting WWII planes in the same game engine WWI planes fly around in a different game. It's still the same engine. The developers even told us this. If anything it will be modified to allow WWII type systems needed. If anything, IMO, it will be worse simply because of all the extra things going on within a WWII plane compared to WWI.

I remember a session in ROF where we had 50 players on the server to make a video. One thing we decided to do was all dive and drop our bombs in our WWI crates one at a time. So essentially there was 120-200 bombs being dropped within 2km radius within a short period of time from the 1st to the last bomb (around 20 seconds) and just that small amount of bombs exploding at once crashed the master browser / server. We all got kicked.

For comparison sake, in a WWII plane some planes may house 20+ bombs a piece. Now take a group of 20+ bombers flying in formation, all dropping their payload at the same time, add in 100 human players etc., and now you have what we can do in the old game or IL2COD.

So again, I don't see how they haven't had the data long collected to fix, let alone actually fix the issue within the DN engine when both sims share the same game engine. So while your idea is plausible, it is very naive to think that's what's really going to happen during this timeframe when, in the 4 years of ROF, they never took this type of data before don't you think?



Why wouldn't anyone expect that? Again, this is not a new game engine. This is a game engine that's been out for 4 years now. If we aren't getting a mission editor for it or a way to host an online server, they have other reasons for the restrictions, as again, those have already been made for the same game engine.





See my same point above concerning ROF. If that was the case or their concern, why haven't they been doing this with ROF let along incorporating these types of fixes for the object and other game limitations for the last 4 years?




People's personal rigs had absolutely nothing to do with regards to the object and game engine limitations of the DN engine. For example, if you overload a mission (which is really easy to do in ROF) the dedicated server software simply crashes before the mission loads. And if you are on the verge of overloading a mission (one that actually does run) when you join a server everything is in slow motion. That's about when the master browser would lose it's connection to the server and then cause the server to crash. But again, people's rigs have nothing to do with game limitations.

For comparison, I can take the laptop I'm typing on right now (which is pretty stout tbh) and open up the FMB in IL2COD and ctrl+clk to my heart's content 50,000 objects all over the place in the English Channel map. Heck I could use enough objects to build a bridge completely across the English Channel. The point is, when I go to load the mission, it might take 15 minutes to finally get finished, but it will load. And I will see all those objects I've placed. That is because the game engine was designed to handle it.




Ah I think you have another misconception here. The texture resolution for ground objects etc., for ROF is actually almost identical in size to old IL2. They are tiny. They do look better being ran through DX9 compared to DX8/Open GL of old IL2 of course. So please don't use the argument about object count or their limitations has to do with graphics.

For example, IL2COD has about 3 times the resolution of ROF/IL2 in the ground modeling / static objects. Then there's the map textures which is also huge. But IL2COD/old IL2, again, handles it just fine. It's a game engine limitation again.

And for final comparison. The new Nevada map for DCS EDGE (yes just the map) is at 22 gigabytes right now. Those textures must be unreal! And to further put it into perspective, our limited access for BoS that obviously includes the map to fly in, in total, is only supposed to be a little over 2gb I believe. So, as you can see, you can't really use that sort of argument. Other games get along just fine and are not limited in the same way the DN engine is.



For me, I saw the potential and the amount of labor put into Clod right off the bat. So I never thought about it as a failure. I, and anyone else that had any sort of sense, also knew the game was simply unfinished. I was disappointed at times, but also knew that there wasn't anything out there that could do 20% of what Clod's game engine had the potential to do. And when you can start to see some of that potential with modding the sim, I think many people are going to wishing it 777 never took the business from MG. Because game engine to game engine. They aren't even in the same solar system.



You're right. Everyone has different wants. That's why a sim designed around a sandbox where users can create and cater to exactly what they want to do or create, like IL2 / IL2COD has done, has always been the best sims out there. From full realism to wonder women, to dev consoles, to huge battles, to SP campaigns, to scripting and creating server commanders etc., for online wars etc., no sim has ever been able to do soo much as with IL2/IL2CLOD.



I agree there's a few people out there that are hard set on ideals that are driven by emotion, grudges, hate etc., but there's many out there that deal with fact, have fun, and are nice people.

Our forums are basically policed by the same people that post there. It's amazing what kind of community you can have when you try to have a real democracy, instead of the my way or highway attitude of moderators found elsewhere. Trust me, there are many good members involved with flight simming. But just like most people/customers, if they aren't allowed to voice their concerns or their concerns are constantly brushed under the carpet, they will get upset, and rightly so. TF gets all sorts of criticisms all the time. We don't ban them because someone says the FM is garbage. Criticism is a good thing. Some other developers should learn that.

[quote=TheBlackPenguin
Its an Alpha, not beta .

The Alpha stage with Tues to Thursday allotment will change, just wish we knew, but its impossible to tell when. Patience. [/quote]

So why wasn't any other ALPHA PAID software release I've tried limited to Tuesday-Thursday? Did you try the DCS P51 alpha, or DCS A10, or Arma3 alpha? None of this, paid early releases, like 99% of the PAID early release software, had such a retarded schedule.
None.

The "founders" that bought the Premium are exactly the group of people you don't want to screw, because chances are will buy you next installment and paid stuff, without too much fuss.

I did that with ROF. They asked for help and I just bought everything as it came out in order to support them. It didn't matter if I wanted or used the stuff, I just bought it.
I could do that with this game as well, but, looks like they don't care if I can actually try the game. Once I paid them all they care is their schedule. When you tell them, wait, I can't do your schedule, you get the "this is Alpha sucker", answer from the developers.
They'll loose a lot more than $90 from me with tricks like this.

Not all releases, or developers are the same, indeed when I tried Neverwinter they would literally only do 48 hrs (albeit on the weekends) for the first three months, and that being MMORPG it was mainly to start testing out server stability. Yes Tuesday to Thursday is annoying, the only ones who can deny that happen to have one or both of those days off. What are you expecting from early Alpha?



Why do you feel particularly screwed or tricked? It seems they are being cautious to begin with, no idea why, I could speculate a slew of reasons, but maybe they'll go into detail this Friday on the reasons? I am in the same boat as you with regards to ROF, although I intend to fly all the planes in career mode eventually, yet personally I don't feel tricked nor betrayed as I want to give the developers the best opportunity to make BOS the best they possibly can. They could be wrong about the current plans, in which case I hope it opens up fast, and even they're correct nevertheless I hope it opens up quickly .

PS: Thanks for taking the time to submit a great reply Bliss.

well, I have a small war with them these days

they've really managed to upset me with their attitude, as we as did the hoard of angry brainless fanbois floating around there and bashing everyone trying to express their concern, and trying to get some answers from the devs.

this is the initial post, also containing a poll, which was conveniently moved (more like hidden) from General Discussion into Poll section and immediatelly locked (under pretext it was same as other poll thread):
IL2 BoS pre-ordering and autumn early limited access

after that, I've made another General Discussion thread, kepying just the reasoning part, and adding dev citations related with the "need" of a mid-week-only limited access and regarding how long that period might be, and my comments on them.

IL2 BoS pre-ordering and autumn early limited access

this second, more detailed one, just "dissaperead" during the night, without any kind of explanation.

I've wrote them asking about what happens, and I'm waiting for their response.

(adonys here)

PS: si apropos, Jaws, si eu sunt roman

I'm not happy either.

I paid $90 up front on the pretext I'd get early access to the game. I wasn't paying to sign up as a beta tester. I paid $90 to get the early access, I could have paid $50 and had the standard access.

What has really pissed me off though is the attitude from the devs and certain members of the forum.

"Pay up and shut up" seems to be a common mantra.

If it was a few dollars/quid...yeah fair enough, but it wasn't, it was $90.

I'm not happy at paying for premium and being treated like a sucker.

Thanks for the answer BlackPenguin.



That is a massive multiplayer, the game has no offline content that can run without connection like a simple quick mission builder. From a paid alpha I would expect the basics. QMB, few missions, basic online, with some crashes here and there and a few down times here and there.

This is how 99% of the paid early released software are released. I don't have extravagant, or unreasonable expectations. that's basically industry standard.







For a few reasons. First, as much as I want to help them, the package is not worth %90 as it was. I can't play in those days and this restrictive schedule, is so far away from the practices in the industry, that should have been announced before releasing the preorder enrolment.
On top of that, it's their attitude to ridicule those who are not happy.


Edit. Hey Salut Adonys.

Because they were not upfront about what the early access would entail.

*shrug*

It's a matter of opinion. Did you pay to preorder the game at a discount, with a bonus of early access, or did you preorder the game to get the early access with a bonus of $10 off?
The only difference is the intent. The end result is exactly the same except for the feeling of the buyer.

If you were more interested in saving $10 than in test-playing an unfinished game that may be so unstable that you'll barely get any time in it, this is a fine deal. $10 off, not bad. Most games on Steam only give you $5 off a preorder.

If you did it because you thought for some reason you were getting the full game well before others (or perhaps a late-beta that for some reason would stretch out for months)...then while I can see why you would be upset, I don't understand the reasoning. I honestly don't see how you could believe that. Why would they be allowing people to play a mostly finished game without releasing it? Why wouldn't they be releasing it and getting the money from people buying it? Doesn't it make sense the game would be feature incomplete, unstable, and quite likely more frustrating than fun?
In other words, your illogical decision has now come back to bite you with reality.

In short, there is a GOOD chance that during early access it will have just as many problems as CloD did (AFTER it was released). When the final release happens, it should be stable and feature complete (again UNLIKE CloD), but personally I think it will NOT be entertaining to be flying an alpha or beta around. I got my fill of that with CloD.

Some of you seem to think in a couple of weeks the $90 payers will be playing an almost-done game?? And that the 72 hr restriction is some sinister plan as opposed to it being probably all it can handle at this point as they try and stress test it to work the bugs out?

Is this your first flight sim?




The Jedi Master

Have you ever been involved with other PAID early access software? Those who did it a few times, know what to expect from a PAID beta software. (now they call it alpha after this mess was announced ).

Nobody in his right mind, with a little alpha/beta testing experience, expects what you said.
Nobody expects a full game. DCS-p51 alpha had half the flight model finished. Many other games had big parts of the full game missing, because they weren't ready.
The question "Did you expect full game?" has been repeated many times. NO we expected an alpha to try out. Few missions, few planes, planes with half finished flight models. Only few objects, limited multiplayer, few crashes here and there and few small periods of down time.
That's the bare minimum that most companies sell as PAID EARLY ACCESS. Nobody tried this kind of stunt with paid early access before. This is the kind of schedule is ok for FREE beta/alpha testers.
Many times this free beta testers get the game for free at release with a thank you for your help.

For BOS Premium the early release is heavily advertised and used to get people to pay twice the price of the basic game. You can't charge this kind of money and then cut off half the users from one of the important reason they preordered. You may think you tricked them now, but will hurt you financially in long run. Specially with a business plan like ROF. If I feel they tricked me out of 90% I'll make sure I only get stuff that I really want, an not like I did before: just get everything in the store as it comes out. They'll lose three times that money from me with trickery like this last minute radical changes.

I'm sure I did more financially for 777 studios than a lot of this guys that run around the forum attacking anyone who may have some issues and blindly approve everything.
In the long run, that kind of behavior hurts the company, because they don't know where the majority of users stand, because all this "yes dear leader" noise.

True.

And the question therefore is: did they withhold the specifics as to what early access would entail simply because they knew if they did include the specifics they would sell less advanced copies? One can only assume, but I'm of the opinion the assumption one comes to first would be a safe one.

One wonders if the payments made for the early access were to be rendered to the company with the same "provisions" as the early access of the sim is being made to the paying customers, what the company would say. I think one can safely assume that as well.

It is not about getting a full game to play. No one expected that. Or at least I hope they didnt expect that. But they sold a lot of copies o the Alpha and they never once mentioned it would be time limited the way it is.

Like I said, it is not about getting a full game to play as much as it is being able to play the Alpha which unless I bend my schedule backwards (which isnt happening) I wont be able to play the days they listed. Had I known this ahead of time I would not have bought the 90 dollar package.



This is how I feel. With RoF I bought all the planes, planes for friends and about 30 extra copies for friends and squad mates to get them interested. Those people in turn bought planes. I did it because I wanted to support the game and because I trusted the developers to use that money to expand on the game.

With BoS the game is not even out yet and they are already screwing over their customers. I think my days of loyalty are over.

The people who spent the extra money to support BoS are IMHO NOT the ones you want to alienate but at the end of the day it is their choice to do what they wish.