Product Distribution

Hello, I have recently come across your Combat Helo project. Personally I think it looks fantastic, and will definably be a breath of fresh air to the helo sim community.

I was wondering if Combat Helo will also be sold in stores in America, as well as Great Britain.

Thanks!

We will evaluate publishing options later in the year. Currently there are no plans and no deals have been signed with a distributor. They are waiting for us to get evaluations of the game ready which won't happen until after have firing range map is released.

Ok sounds great! You guys are doing some great work so far. I can't wait to see it! thanks.

Do you guys really need a distributor? Not knowing all the marketing stuff out there (so don't flame me please ), but can't you distribute it on your site, using Paypal or some other payment form? I think word-of-mouth will help market it. I, for one, will be buying any release (pre-beta, etc) as soon as you get that purchase button working

Do we NEED one? Perhaps not. Might we do better WITH one? Probably. I'm not a business man and I'm not diplomatic. There are people who know the distribution routes who put a lot of sim product on shelves and on-line who have the time to promote and push product. In the long term I want to make better games with better tools and that means pushing the equivalent of 5,000 units over a six month period which is actually a lot in this genre. I don't see how we can realistically do that in the current climate without some kind of support. Consider that a better than average FSX add-on aircraft might shift 1,000 to 2,000 units, piracy probably doesn't help when margins are so precarious.

Deus Ex Disclaimer: My back of the envelope figures might be way out of date.

Whether GFWL will be required to play?.It will not be possible to play without him?I do not make any difference, but most people do not suffer GFWL and recently scored a great defeat Bulletstorm,many people abandon the purchase just because GFWL.
As I wrote, it does not bother me in any way, loose note.

Will there be a boxed version ( I hope so )

GFWL (Games for windows Live) won't be required. There was an accidental logo usage. It's been fixed.

Cheers

Will there be anti-piracy measures taken? Ways to make it far more difficult/ virtually impossible to torrent? I've heard rumors that some other small groups have been researching ways to insert a virus into a computer with a pirated copy.

I am a firm believer that every single developer deserves the money they worked long and hard into the night for their product, and I think that every measure possible should be taken to protect something as good as this, especially an indie project.

Yes will be the latest version of Starforce 7.x,ie will require constant access to the internet, even when computer disabled.And every day you have to enter a new serial number.Of course, a computer virus Flexman also thoughts you will get the pop-Talib with Kalashnikov every 10 minutes.I hope you're satisfied.
examples here : (still work in progress )

I don't want to engage in the Ying and Yang of anti-piracy methods. None of it works except to discourage casual piracy and it annoys users. The game will offer added value content and upgrades registered users can enjoy throughout the life-cycle. Encourage people to do the right thing is all I can do. I still have faith in people.

Hahahaha, that's hilarious BANITA and I couldn't have replied better (to the previous post)

BTW, there's an another small typo in your webpage in the aircraft specs, more precisely in the CH-47D Chinook specs, where it says that the Maximum speed is 200 Knots and the Never exceed speed is 170 Knots but obviously these values should be the contrary (Maximum speed is 170 Knots and the Never exceed speed is 200 Knots).

WOW! I've never heard of such sophisticated anti-piracy measures! I can't wait to see that, especially with the pop-Talib virus spreading across the web. Top notch work.

Don't forget piglett in boots....

Flexman I'm glad you still believe in people , because I'm afraid he really believes in what I wrote
Btw pig is sweeeeet .

Taking a closer look into SeaHawk's post I'm also starting to believe that he really believes in what you posted and really believes is all of those crappy/BS DRM protection schemes that unfortunally exists nowadays...

1:30 "...and make over forty Facebook posts about Farmville every day." LMAO! That video is great.

Just found out about this game today. I can't wait to get my hands on it. I wish the devs every success!

I just find out about this game to.And what about a nice flight- manual ala Longbow2 ?

Printed manuals are stupidly expensive to make. It would probably cost more than double the price of the game. Would be nice to offer a spiral bound manual though. But if you had a manual we'd miss you on the forums asking questions.


BTW The UK manual for Longbow 2 was terrible, the content was fine (mostly) but the printer or pre-print company did an awful job getting sections wrong, no colour plates, missing pages. I don't know how the rest of the world received theirs. I still keep the Longbow 1 manual next to my desk. It's a work of art, nice green cover. Metal spiral binding, genuine coffee rings...I might have added those. Lovely.

I remember the time when I bought games from Dynamix, Microprose, Digital Integration, Spectrum Holobyte,.. ; that in the big carton box there was a hefty manual (hundreds of pages) included.

So you could play but also read, it was gaming and a library all included in a box...

I still have a lot of those. Have the F15III Officers Edition in the humongous box with charts. Shipping was more than double the cost of the game.

The craziest box had to be the Novalogic Comanche Maximum Overkill in the funny angular puzzle box. Open it up to reveal 3x floppy disks inside

Yeah.. those old manuals were great.. but can see a pdf being more practical for cost and distribution reasons.

How about a keyboard overlay

You could have a manual ready for those book print on demand services?

When you release the training/range area, have you thought about what sort of support and bug tracking you'll have? Hopefully we won't nag you too much, so you can keep working toward the full sim release.

Thanks again to yo and AD for the effort you are putting into this.

Greg.

I know what you mean because I also have Novalogic games and also the falcon 3 and 4 boxes that way several kg.

I even purchased all the prima guides for the Microprose games (with the desert scenario disk for f15 strike eagle 3)

Or like the SWOTL box with a cryptex like codewheel.

I vaguely remember that there was something strange with the manual now that you mention it! But i think that was like 1998 !

I,m starting to wonder by now why nothing is known yet about the product Distribution? I mean asuming that "release in the holidays" are the christmass holydays then its 2 and a half months before release!! Are there any ideas about who or where it will be released? or will we just be able to order it on the site?
Some feedback on this would be more then welcome.

A download. It's not a major release.

Sounds good enought for me.

On the top of my list

I'll buy it anyway .... Alpha, Beta, Gamma .... the way it is.

Congratulations on the excellent work and thank you of course, will soon provide us with these new sensations.

Regards

I would be ready to buy a beta even though I could not make the flight as if it can help to complete the game

Awesome thing to hear. I dropped most modern flightsims for their "potentially not gonna be able to activate" DRM. I don't want the constant tie to a publisher system for a sim that has potential to be enjoyed over many years.

sorry to bring this back but... when can we buy the beta?
Just saw the Prologue video and I must say it looks realy good

Working on a some of the back-end stuff atm, the updater and server side scripts. Trying to play catch up since I took a couple of weeks off over the holiday. Yes I sort of slacked off.

No Hellfire missile system yet, that will be one of the first big updates when we start rolling out changes. I started work on an FAQ which I need to finish. I'll get it stickied here when ready.

Just to be clear, the virus solution would be illegal. It is against the law to willfully manufacture software with malicious intent. At least in the US.

I'm not disagreeing with the sentiments behind it, just pointing out the realities.

well my desiel truck state 150mph but I can't get it past 95mph.

What does you the maximum speed of your truck diesel truck has anything to do with this at all??

The "maximum speed" in helicopters is the maximum speed that the helicopter can attain while flying in "normal conditions and in straight line" but despite this a helicopter (or any other kind of aircraft) can surpass the maximum speed in some conditions like for example when diving and for aircraft (both fixed and rotoary wing) you have also have a "Never exceed speed" which is a speed that if exceeded will cause strutural (and therefore critical) damage to the aircraft!

This means that for the obvious reasons the "Never exceed speed" is ALWAYS higher than the "maximum speed" and not otherwise.


NOTE: The real maximum speed of your truck is not what your speed dial indicates but you can find it in technical charts/data/manuals regading your truck
Never exceed speeds don't apply to trucks or most other ground vehicles due to the fact that they can never attain in any conditions enough speed to cause any kind of strutural damage.

I believe Mastiff was joking.

If that was the case, please disregard my post

Since English is not my first language sometimes I have a bit of a dificulty in understanding some jokes/sarcasm/whatever.... sorry

Any news Flexman? I want to buy this as soon as possible so I know I have the money available.

You think in the next month we could buy the beta?

At the risk of sounding like a corrupt MP3 file (I'd say 'stuck record' but when I do my kids look at me funny) as soon as we can. Could be, see how it goes, there's still some game bits to finish but I'm building the server side stuff atm.

Flex, your latest blog post is resulting in foaming at the mouth and bloodshot eyes from lack of sleep.

Stay away from those bad borrito's.

I have to do the taxes this weekend, that will be inducing the same effects you describe. I really hate the business side but it gotta be done.

My wife said she'd deal with mail order discs for folks that want some physical copy instead of a digital download.

It's going to take a few iterations to get the existing features working to an acceptable degree of quality I fear. I think the prudent thing to do is stamp the words "BETA" in HUGE letters across the thing. The problem is mostly that I bit off more than I could chew for the time-frame and features I thought would work in the engine simply don't.

*mumbles incoherently something about engine version 2*

It's good to see common sense alive and kicking

Now considering Flaxman’s logic about customer, and the fact that this product is not a million dollars company publication, obliges me to support it by definitely baying it. This Honest work must be rewarded.

Independently of everyone’s opinion about software piracy market theory, doing this on Combat-Helo sounds really silly and unreasoned.

+1
It is sold from my point of view.

youre right flex... there will be some piracy no matter what.

We're gonna support ya buuuuuuuuuuuddy....

+2

Count me in for supporting this awesome project!

+3

Without a doubt .... this one is a no-brainer to get and support!!!!

Cheers

-1 for a letdown.

I'm very very likely to support this. Perhaps not instantly, as I'm not really rich enough to be a simmer, but even if I'm late to the party, I still want to be there.

Flexman,

Can I give you my money yet?