Rise of Flight : Now with Red Baron 3D-esque dynamic campaign

Games
1181

I typed Rise of Flight into Google and noticed it had a 6 / 10 review score at Steam. I thought I’d click through to have a laugh at the user reviews. What I saw was even more astonishing than I could have imagined. You don’t have to read the whole thing, but simply skimming this review is enough to show the sheer stupidity flight sim developers have to deal with in a post-War Thunder world.

cannot be unseen

How this game got ANY good reviews is beyond me. I suspect a large number of the positive ones are in sarcasm. This bothers me, because it gives the game a better overall score than it deserves. Seriously, write a sarcastic review if you want, but DONT rate a game as good when it isnt.

Ok, let’s start with the good parts of the game. Firstly, it is a full game and a well made one at that. Good graphics, similar idea to War Thunder in terms of controls and realism. And it is realistic, it’s an excellent flight simulator, good for your average propeller head. I thought, “Oh, hey, look, a War Thunder style game during the WW1 era, dont see any of those around”.

The bad part lies ENTIRELY in the marketting. I laughed my butt off after playing it. This is NOT a ‘free to play’ game. It is a DEMO at best, and it’s all down to the GREED of the game creators.

What they’ve done esentially, is strip out ALL the game until it is just the game engine alone. All your initial “free to play” download includes is ONE plane (one that, apparently, can’t be flown in anything other than the training missions), ONE sample map (a map that is only used on the training missions), and SIX training missions (the ONLY place in the game you can actually fly for free).

THAT IS IT. Want campaigns? Money please. Want the maps FOR those campaigns? Money please. Want the planes required for each mission? Money please. Want multiplayer access? Money please. They have cut out all of the game’s content, divided up piece by piece, and are charging the price of a full game for EACH PIECE. WHAT THE CRAP?

And what’s worse, reading the other reviews, it sounds like this game used to cost 50 dollars just for that demo! For 50 dollars, it better damn well have ALL THE CONTENT already in it.

I am a huge fan of free to play games like world of tanks, world of warships, and war thunder. All 3 of these have excellent pay to progress systems. They all have 90% of their content availible to free players, but use microtransactions to encourage players to pay. You dont have to, but you can.

Here is what a player like me expects when they read the words “free to play”

1.) 90% of the content availible is free. The other 10% is premium, but reasonably priced.

2.) An in-game economic system. Standard “silver” and premium “gold”. Gold can be used to convert free experience, buy silver, buy premium content, and buy silver.

3.) Standard accounts and premium accounts. Premium accounts get 50% more XP and credits. This encourages people to ‘pay to progress’ by essentially buying a subscription, but keeps the game profitable enough that free players wont lose out.

4.) Tech trees. By putting in a progression system, it gives purpose to the economic system, experience system, and pay to progress aspect. This progression system is what drives profits for games with microtransactions. It relies not on beating the money out of people, but on the IMPATIENCE of people. Either you can got a top teir plane within a year of playing, OR, you can get one within 3 months by buying a premium account, a few premium planes, and converted experience. You dont need EVERY player to pay money, just the impulsive ones. and trust me, the impulsive ones are worth 10 regular joes.

This is a tried, tested, and successful system. It’s been proven to work, and be VERY profitable. How can you tell? Because, I’ve HEARD of world of tanks. I’ve HEARD of war thunder. I’ve even been PLAYING them for as long as this game’s been out.

want to know what I havent heard of? RISE OF FLIGHT. Want to know why it took so long to run accross this game? Because it’s not popular. And it’s not popular because the twits who made the game are trying to BEAT THE MONEY OUT OF PEOPLE.

All of the essentials of a REAL free to play game are missing in this game. Instead, there is just campains, missions, and multiplayer (aspects a lot of real free to play games already have anyway), aspects I’d expect a fully paid for game to have.

And this game is a full box copy game… That they’ve slapped microtransactions onto. and when i say slapped onto, I mean they’ve slapped it onto E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. Nothing but the game engine is free, and what is a game engine without a game? Then, they got negative reviews because people were paying $50 for a friggin demo… Well YEAH! WTF did they expect?

So, they made the game “free” to justify the microtransactions… NO. These are not microtransactions, these are MACROTRANSACTIONS. The paid content is maps, missions, campains, multiplayer access, and planes. You literally need at least THREE of these to even PLAY the game. This game isnt free to play, it’s not even pay to progress, it’s not even pay to win. This game is pay to PLAY, a full box copy game they try to sell to you as a microtransaction nightmare.

And they’ve taken advantage of these microtransactions to squeeze money out of people. They’ve taken a game that is worth 25 or 30 dollars at most, and made it literally HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS.

I get the impression they saw games like war thunder and said “hey, they’re making money off of microtransactions, let’s jump on that band wagon”, without actually stopping and bothering to ask “what makes games like war thunder successful?”

Wanna know why war thunder is successful? Because they havent sloppily slapped microtransactions onto a box copy game, then had the gall to call it “free to play”. Perhaps Rise of flight should also be asking “what makes other ‘free to play’ games unsuccessful?” There are at least a hundred failed free to play games on steam alone they could check for reference. They all have the same thing in common: Greed. If a game is too unprofitable (in terms of in-game economy) and requires a premium account or other premium content, then it is not free to play. If a game rewards those who pay for an unfair advantage, then it is not free to play, it is pay to win. If a game takes a demo, marks it as free to play, then makes all the content paid for seperately, then is not free to play, it is PAY TO PLAY. I am sick and tired of seeing great games become unplayable because of this BS. Rise of flight is a great game. So why are its creators trying to beat it to death?

Will I recommend this game? If you like spending 200 or 300 dollars for 25 dollars worth of content, or LESS CONTENT than you can find in War Thunder, a REAL FREE TO PLAY GAME, then fine, knock yourself out. Otherwise, don’t download it. As a matter of fact, If anybody got this before they stopped charging for the demo, they should be demanding a friggin refund.

I’ve already uninstalled.

Steam is at fault as well. Do they not bother to regulate their games? Do they not REVIEW them? NO! In fact, it is CURATOR RECOMMENDED!

I’ll tell you why too, because the creators of steam are just as greedy as the creators of this game, and they make money off of every over priced BS transaction. I think Steam should be held accountable. They need to remain impartial in order to maintain the quality of the games being put on their program. Otherwise, people will stop using it. I’ve already used steam less and less as a result of past dissapointments.

If people are going to put box copy games on steam, steam needs to demand that the majority of the content be in that initial purchase. If people are going to put free to play games on steam, steam needs to regulate how they do it so the game remains successful. It is profitable for steam to do this because it ensures they make greater money. War Thunder is on steam too, and I garuntee you they’ve made FAR more money off of that one game than any of these other BS “free to play” games. But this is “free to play” (as in, A DEMO). So if you dont believe me, go ahead and download all 7 gigibytes of wasted time, and see for yourself. Actually I INVITE you to do so just to experience the annoyance first hand. Only then will you know why I criticize.

To be fair, I always thought it was silly and counterproductive to call it F2P.

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Did that reviewer even play the game? I agree with the silliness of calling it F2P, but good lord that’s someone who needs to stay the heck away from real flight sims.

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Well, given that he calls for an economy system and tech trees into Rise of Flight, yeah, I agree. Hey, maybe he would like the unlocks in BoS.

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Nothing to see here, just a really nice chart of airspeed vs. elevation with the most recent flight models.

It might take the DH2 a long time to reach 4000m, but once it does…

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Man, the Dolphin compares well with everything Central except the two with the altitude throttles. Good news for my favorite ride.

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Very nice. Where’s the sad arc for the DH.5? I’d also very much like to see the graph extended to 6,000-7,000m+ for the machines with higher ceilings, not that there was a lot of combat up there. And a similar chart for climb rates at all altitudes.

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Debating whether to buy the Ilya Muromets for $10 in the latest sale. It would just be for a quick laugh.

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Me too, although I used my Kickstarter kickback from backing CastAR to buy Battle of Stalingrad, and intend to play that for a while soon.

1189

Let’s both buy it. You fly, and I’ll hang out in the “insulated passenger saloon with a bedroom, a lounge and a toilet.”

That feature had better be implemented!

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I just snagged the DVIII on sale when the email came through. This weekend I reinstalled RoF after my rig upgrade, and after flying Hurris and Spits in IL2:CoV, I’m finding myself hanging from a tree in my camel way too often… I used to be able to fly figure eights of death in this thing and now I can barely fly straight… gotta get those muscles back! But the idea of having lower 300-ish degree visibility in the DVIII sounds pretty exciting and unlike almost any plane of the two WW eras.

Now that I can finally load it with good fps, though, I’m a little bummed they chose to make a channel map, we’ve seen this so many times now. Wish they had chosen the Med, or some mountainous terrain, like Greece, Italy, wherever else.

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True that—the only really interesting terrain features of any of the maps are the sea modeling in the Channel, and Dover. The bigger kicker is that mapmaking is a giant pain: to my knowledge, only one community map has ever been released, and that’s the one that’s built into the game now.

That said, have you tried the Felixstowe? Getting to grips with taking off from and landing on heavy Channel chop is worth the $3.20.

I bought it just for the experience—I suspect it’ll be fun for at least one edition of Bomber Battles. <.<

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I loved the VIII, but while it ran with two different engines in real life, in the game they’ve only got it with the lower powered version. While it was still a beauty to fly, in any dogfight the Entente plane would just play it safe in the early part of the engagement, gaining a height advantage and then just slowly drive the fight down until I had no altitude to use and now power to escape.

Such a pretty thing though.

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So, the Ilya Muromets.

Tim, it’s probably fairly comfortable in the cabin, and passengers can take a stroll on the lower wing to catch a breath of fresh air, but you may have more luck getting to your destination in a timely fashion if you choose a less relaxed mode of transportation, like, say, a horse. The most surprising thing about the Ilya Muromets isn’t how slow it is—I kind of figured it would be—it’s how dreadfully slow it feels. The landing at the end of the video is a good example, as I creep glacially above the line of trees.

Glacial is correct in the sense of size, too. The IM weighs about 3500kg in the video, thanks to a small fuel load and no bombs. That’s the same, more or less, as a La-7. The difference is that the La-7 has a wing area of about 17.5 square meters, and the IM has a wing area of 125 square meters. No wonder it can practically hover.

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You’re not exactly selling me on it here. I wonder if the enclosed cockpit makes it feel slower.

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Could be, but it is slower than the Gotha and HP both. Way too much parasitic drag from wings that size.

I plan on flying it in a few actual missions one of these days, so I can get a sense for how heavy it feels with a real war load. As it is, it’s almost spritely.

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Bumping this old thread to call attention to RoF fans who may not have heard:

The developers are creating a new game using the IL2 Sturmovik Great Battles engine, The Flying Circus.

Reason for bumping this thread: your Rise of Flight profile page has a discount code to knock down the price. My code expires today so if you’re a fan of WW1 aerial combat and you’re willing to spend money on early access, best jump on it!

The IL2 website seem to use different account than RoF (I had to register a new one on IL2) so that’s a bit inconvenient.

I’ve purchased but haven’t downloaded yet.

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Did this game have a dynamic campaign?

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Rise of Flight has both hardwired campaigns with pre-designed series of missions and a career campaign mode with generated missions.

The new Flying Circus game is still very, very new and not anywhere close to complete. I don’t think it even has a real WW1 map yet, much less any campaigns.

1199

This is what I was wondering. Thanks!

1200

It’s il2 host game does have em, pretty good ones too! And in VR!