Battle of Moscow: To Buy In or Not To Buy In, THAT is the Question!

April 5, 2015

Yep, all in this coming Friday. Support the devs who continue to refine and deliver. BOS still needs and is receiving work. It is getting better every week or two, still. I think with time it will be all it was touted to be almost two years ago. It's not yet but it will be. I'm happy to pay for the next one (BOM) and support both the Dev's as well as the genre. Based on the planeset I will remain primarilly a Luftwhiner but may dabble with the P-40 a bit. Hoping for the MTO next and hedging this bet on that roll.

I'll pay for everything else for you guys in the community. Because that's what a community does. Looks out for the common good.

April 5, 2015

Well I thought about it for a while and then I decided to pre order again. BoS has some still remaining issues and the single player campaign is one of them. That said... I'm still playing the campaign and above all I'm having a ton of fun flying the planes. It's the best WWII flight experience around and BoM is giving me more of that.

So... It's worth it. But I'm also hoping the devs are listening that although I'm supportive, im also hoping to see improvements across the board. Improved single player and game performance are at the top of my list. So far they continue to support the series and I look forward to the latest BoS patch and new BoM news as well.

Edited April 5, 2015 by ShamrockOneFive

April 5, 2015

Is it worth the investment to buy the game hoping that someone will release a campaign mode worthy of the name?

If this is the question then in my opinion the answer is a definite no until evidence of it exists. Buy a game for what you know it is, not what you hope it will be.

April 5, 2015

I was so anxious to buy, but with the dollar being more than three times the value of the currency of my country, I'll wait for a sale. Too bad I dont have the money right now, otherwise I would pre-order.

April 5, 2015

To be honest I'm disappointed about the lack of content in SP and the way MP is handled in regards to coop, that said however,
I have high hopes for the future due to the very talented sim community out there. Also I think this small niche needs supporting
and that coupled with the fact that I'm a sucker for flight sims made me jump on the bandwagon yet one more time.

April 5, 2015

I love 'flying' (and ofc, fighting in) all those WWI/WWII planes. And I 'fly' ALL of them in every flight sim I own (lot of them).

So, for me, $8 for a flyable plane with IMHO fair FM is a good deal.

April 5, 2015

I've already bought BOM. That says nearly all is needed to say. Though I share the concerns raised by Wulf and Chuck and others regarding SP, MP and slightly biased FMs. In spite of all these problems the team deserves my support. They deserve the support not only because there is no other comparable sim out there. They in fact do their job pretty well.

Just a final note. I understand that the devs are under pressure from multiple sides. There are historical documents, the player base with all the contradicting expectations, the owners, the budget .... they have to fit their product in a very slim gap.

April 5, 2015

While this game certainly shows a huge amount of promise, especially for carrier operations, MTO, and the PTO, there are some issues that are making me wait on BOM.

Pricing: right now, I see the $80 price for premium as decent. However, I see it as a decent price for it's release, not early access. Sure, $80 for 8 (mostly) original planes and a map is nice, but BOS netted each of us an entire game built from scratch.

Pricing aside, what I think the new IL-2 series needs is to prove it's a real step above the old IL-2 series. There are currently DM issues that IL-2 1 had sorted out that IL-2 2 doesn't have yet. FM is out of wack. The 'campaign' needs a complete and total overhaul. Yes, while the graphics, DM, and FM, are still good, they need to be tuned to customer satisfaction before moving off onto the next product.

Also, this game needs the MTO, all it requires basically is a couple maps, and allied aircraft to fill in past the P-40. This game already has enough reputation for being a little on the snowy side, and this would interest players who dislike the eastern front, or the old U.S.S.R. vs. Germany shtick.

April 5, 2015

If this is the question then in my opinion the answer is a definite no until evidence of it exists. Buy a game for what you know it is, not what you hope it will be.

This right here is what makes sense. Perfectly said.

April 5, 2015

It looks like 1CGS strategy is now to extend as quickly as possible to other fronts that will attract more western sim pilots (and thus more money). P40, Macchi, Bf110, seems to be a step towards MTO which is very good btw, many are already dying to see this.

First objective is probably to give a greater variety of planes in a short time frame to keep our interest and our will to invest, but it should be kept in mind that something has to be done for offliners which represent the greatest part of the simer community!!! So far what they have is not enough and they are not asking for much: just a real campaign!

Time and Money, extending as quickly as possible to propose something more and more like IL2 original seems to be the goal, and it comes with sacrifices (some minor bugs, FM, but alas and most importantly single player campaign)

But the core of the game is already here, solid, allowing most of the possibilities we dream of.

It is a war the team is fighting i guess, in this world you really have to achieve something in order to have banks to finance your project. Running quickly to western fronts (MTO) but without sacrificing too much its coherence as a hisorical oriented sim (thus BoM) seems to be the path 1CGS took. We will see where it will go but i wish the team all the best! They have my support even if i have been seriously disapointed by the single player aspect of the game.

Go on you 1CGS guys, i know you can make it!

Edited April 5, 2015 by RegRag1977

April 5, 2015

I already paid an awfully high price for 10 planes, a boring campaign, a system of unlocks (very simulator to unlock some bomb racks), not so well modelized planes (FM and DM, even if we have some improvements since the last patch, so at least 6 months after the game release) and even some bad ideas like graphical presets without the possibility to customize the graphics options to optimize the game regarding your PC...

BoS is not bad, but really lack of content, especially with a buying price like this.

So what ? Pre-ordering BoM for the same price as BoS, for just another 10 planes ?

Nope nope nope.

Unfortunately I'm in the same place. The campaign is just basic with no regard to proper immersion, progression, etc. Its boring as hell. Being forced to endure the simple campaigns to unlock stuff in MP is even worse. It just seems to me to be a 2nd map with a few more a/c. But for $100AUD?? sorry mate...not when I can pay half that for GTA V on pc. Each to their own, but I think I'll be keeping my cash in my wallet.

April 5, 2015

Without a complete overhaul of the campaign system and an easy to use, IL2/DCS-style mission editor I won't be buying BoM.

April 5, 2015

With boring multiplayer ( offline i dont care), only 48 slots servers and balanced flight models of Russian planes expecially i have actually not too much interested in buying BOM.

April 5, 2015

I personally think I am gonna pass as the price is pretty steep for just a map (which won't add much to the BoS experience) and a set of planes of which almost half are mere variants of what we already have.

I would prefer spending this kind of money on something more refreshing like a Pacific Ocean Campaign or the good ol' Western Front.

But if the Macchi were available by itself, I would buy it in heartbeat.

April 5, 2015

I bought - kinda in affect.

I should have done like all the guys from my Squad. They all wait until we get a clear statement from the devs on playercount in multiplayer. 48 is absolutely not acceptable.

Also there are many other things to fix before tehy guys will invest any more money.

April 5, 2015

I honestly don't know yet. In other hand, i'm tempted to buy it because of Ju 88 and summer maps. In other hand, i'm not a fan of BoS "light sim" overall feel, some weirdness in FM's and lack of proper campaign is very big minus for me...we'll see how things will go.

April 5, 2015

P40 is a "must"... really attractive
but otoh... not enough ground units, not enough content in general giving no reason to play massive hour-long sessions

April 5, 2015

I honestly don't know yet. In other hand, i'm tempted to buy it because of Ju 88 and summer maps.

Someone correct me if I am wrong, I believe both the flyable Ju 88 and summer maps for BOS are coming for BOS anyway for free. No need to purchase BOM to get these.

April 5, 2015

Not Ju-88 but Ju-52

And not flyable, just AI.

Edited April 5, 2015 by Ami

April 5, 2015

Not Ju-88 but Ju-52

And not flyable, just AI.

Ah yes, you are correct:

Post by Blacksix:

<<<

This April (that's when v.1.011 is going to be published) Velikie Luki map (165 x 100 km size) and Ju 52 will become available to all Battle of Stalingrad pilot for free.

Also we’re working on the Summer and Fall Stalingrad maps which are going to distributed freely among all BOS players in Q3 2015.>>>

April 5, 2015

Let's hope they'll change their minds and make Tante Ju flyable in some future.

April 5, 2015

Let's hope they'll change their minds and make Tante Ju flyable in some future.

No thanks :D

April 5, 2015

You're welcome

April 5, 2015

For 95$? No. For 80 $? Still no.

If 1C wants to sell their games at a price even higher than AAA titles, it's gonna have to provide the content to match the price first. Being an indie developer is no excuse for putting the prices so high. Other lesser known and smaller indie devs have offered more for half (even a third) of this price, and it included alpha, beta and release access to the game.

For what is offered, I don't think it's worth it. The current SP campaign format has nothing to offer that I find remotely interesting, and Jason confirmed that there would be no attempts by 1C to improve upon it; The campaign is simply a glorified linear QMB that uses the same premise: spawn, fly to the action point (which is an abomination IMHO), shoot at something, return to base. Pointless. Squadrons didn't meet at an "action point" set in advance like in a 18th century pistol duel. After putting hours into the campaign, I couldn't tell you what units took part, which pilots flew, about the specific events... it was as dry as it could get, but without any relevant content to make it somewhat educative. A historical campaign like that should do everything in its power to TEACH you about the Battle of Stalingrad. Il-2 BoS didn't. A total of 5 minutes of cinematics just doesn't cut it. If it's good enough for 1C, well, I'm sorry to say that it's not good enough for me.

Multiplayer without 60+ player limits for me are doomed to die a slow death. Multiplayer assures the longevity of a flight sim and forms up a solid community behind it that helps get new folks interested in the game. I have received many e-mails from people who saw my "Band of Blennies" or "71st Chronicles" video series and decided to buy CloD after watching it. Why? Simply because "we looked like we were having fun together". That's how flight sims should be: a social experience. That's what brings in new customers, and what creates a solid playerbase that is constantly expanding.

Since Battle of Moscow is a rinse-and-repeat iteration of this formula, I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone. The idea is there, but it is not what I want from a flight sim. The addition of FMB is a step in the right direction, but IMHO it's too little, too late: community mods and community content should have been a focus from day one.

Speaking for myself, the only reason I bought BoM was because of intellectual curiosity. It's the same reason I buy these trainers in DCS that nobody (figuratively speaking) wants to fly. I like learning about all sorts of planes I don't know about, it's like a guilty pleasure of mine.

+++

April 5, 2015

If I am allowed to express an opinion then I would be wary of buying it for the same reason as I did with Cliffs and it's Russian expansion

Cliffs was released with features broken, features missing, frame-rates challenged and many issues.

Over the following few months patches were applied (official ones) and while they helped the frame-rate, many other issues remained.

During that time it's Russian expansion was announced by them as an update/addon for Cliffs and the uproar when Ilya announced that Cliffs was as fixed as it would be until they finished work on it's Russian expansion and people bought it to finance that work, well I think it still reverberates around the net!

I was disappointed with BoS and the unlocks, graphic locks, lack of FMB, limited multiplayer and other features that have been discussed ad-infinitum and I just wish that a developer would fix the software they initially release so that it wouldn't require a multitude of threads complaining about features that should be fixed and available.

Due to the experience with Cliffs and the seeming disregard to listen to the majority of the users who purchased BoS when it comes to the 'popular' argumentative features, I honestly have the feeling of once bitten twice shy.

I think if the features that the BoS community have many times requested be fixed and so-far ignored were given some of the developers time then BoM would certainly give me more cause for giving my money to it, but I see no commitment to listen to the community and fix these issues and if the money coming in is to allow them.to proceed with BoM, how much time will there be to fix BoS when so much time will be needed for their new update?

Therefore I'll enjoy reading about the Alpha testing, wait for the release to.see what features have been locked or removed and then by it on the 50% sale a couple of months later.

April 5, 2015

If I am allowed to express an opinion then I would be wary of buying it for the same reason as I did with Cliffs and it's Russian expansion

Cliffs was released with features broken, features missing, frame-rates challenged and many issues.

Over the following few months patches were applied (official ones) and while they helped the frame-rate, many other issues remained.

During that time it's Russian expansion was announced by them as an update/addon for Cliffs and the uproar when Ilya announced that Cliffs was as fixed as it would be until they finished work on it's Russian expansion and people bought it to finance that work, well I think it still reverberates around the net!

I was disappointed with BoS and the unlocks, graphic locks, lack of FMB, limited multiplayer and other features that have been discussed ad-infinitum and I just wish that a developer would fix the software they initially release so that it wouldn't require a multitude of threads complaining about features that should be fixed and available.

Due to the experience with Cliffs and the seeming disregard to listen to the majority of the users who purchased BoS when it comes to the 'popular' argumentative features, I honestly have the feeling of once bitten twice shy.

I think if the features that the BoS community have many times requested be fixed and so-far ignored were given some of the developers time then BoM would certainly give me more cause for giving my money to it, but I see no commitment to listen to the community and fix these issues and if the money coming in is to allow them.to proceed with BoM, how much time will there be to fix BoS when so much time will be needed for their new update?

Therefore I'll enjoy reading about the Alpha testing, wait for the release to.see what features have been locked or removed and then by it on the 50% sale a couple of months later.

How about including a full disclosure statement at the beginning of your post?

Edited April 5, 2015 by [-]Primus_71

April 5, 2015

Prepurchasing has ruined PC gaming for the most part.

April 5, 2015

For 95$? No. For 80 $? Still no.

If 1C wants to sell their games at a price even higher than AAA titles, it's gonna have to provide the content to match the price first. Being an indie developer is no excuse for putting the prices so high. Other lesser known and smaller indie devs have offered more for half (even a third) of this price, and it included alpha, beta and release access to the game.

For what is offered, I don't think it's worth it. The current SP campaign format has nothing to offer that I find remotely interesting, and Jason confirmed that there would be no attempts by 1C to improve upon it; The campaign is simply a glorified linear QMB that uses the same premise: spawn, fly to the action point (which is an abomination IMHO), shoot at something, return to base. Pointless. Squadrons didn't meet at an "action point" set in advance like in a 18th century pistol duel. After putting hours into the campaign, I couldn't tell you what units took part, which pilots flew, about the specific events... it was as dry as it could get, but without any relevant content to make it somewhat educative. A historical campaign like that should do everything in its power to TEACH you about the Battle of Stalingrad. Il-2 BoS didn't. A total of 5 minutes of cinematics just doesn't cut it. If it's good enough for 1C, well, I'm sorry to say that it's not good enough for me.

Multiplayer without 60+ player limits for me are doomed to die a slow death. Multiplayer assures the longevity of a flight sim and forms up a solid community behind it that helps get new folks interested in the game. I have received many e-mails from people who saw my "Band of Blennies" or "71st Chronicles" video series and decided to buy CloD after watching it. Why? Simply because "we looked like we were having fun together". That's how flight sims should be: a social experience. That's what brings in new customers, and what creates a solid playerbase that is constantly expanding.

Since Battle of Moscow is a rinse-and-repeat iteration of this formula, I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone. The idea is there, but it is not what I want from a flight sim. The addition of FMB is a step in the right direction, but IMHO it's too little, too late: community mods and community content should have been a focus from day one.

Speaking for myself, the only reason I bought BoM was because of intellectual curiosity. It's the same reason I buy these trainers in DCS that nobody (figuratively speaking) wants to fly. I like learning about all sorts of planes I don't know about, it's like a guilty pleasure of mine.

I completely agree! With the exception that I am gonna do as Mysticpuma says: wait for a big sale before getting it... if there will ever be one, otherwise I'll just leave it there and sigh looking at pictures of the Macchi, the only half-decent combat plane the Italians ever made

Edited April 5, 2015 by KastaRules

April 5, 2015

Prepurchasing has ruined PC gaming for the most part.

It's created a lot of controversy between the pre-purchaser and the developers, that's for sure, but it has opened up the way for the continuation of flight sims in a tough market niche, with software development being accomplished by smaller companies, with less capital and smaller staffing.

April 5, 2015

It's created a lot of controversy between the pre-purchaser and the developers, that's for sure, but it has opened up the way for the continuation of flight sims in a tough market niche, with software development being accomplished by smaller companies, with less capital and smaller staffing.

Exactly and while there are gripes to be had at BOS the question is who wants it to carry on and who doesn't.

Personally I find there more to be liked than disliked and want to see the series carry on for many years to come.

April 5, 2015

Pre-purchasing has opened the door to some interesting stuff that may not have existed otherwise. Flight sims are not the Call of Duty/Battlefield/EA Sports juggernaught of gaming but it seems like 1CGS has a decent business plan to keep this product going if the smaller community is purchasing it. If people aren't interested then they can obviously take their money elsewhere but I'd like to think that the majority of folks here are interested. Otherwise why bother posting?

April 5, 2015

My hardware, exclusively used for RoF/BoS, is worth about 30 times the price for BoM. I have no time for other games. As long as the software is cheaper as the hardware, I will continue to preorder from 777.

Edited April 5, 2015 by Quax

April 5, 2015

I on the other hand have to admit that I haven't had BoS installed since the unlocks came and went.. I totally lost the will to fly..
Haven't had any of my flightsims installed since then, as one harddrive died, and I realized I couldn't even bother setting up the controls for any of them again. So with my 'investment' in BoM I hope to get back the joy of flying.

Already knowning that I 'paid' my way out of unlocks.. twice now.. makes me feel a bit dirty, as I paid for something that is what I hate the most in something that tries to be a simulation, then pay even more to have it go away!?

April 5, 2015

I guess I'll wait and see. If it's "just" BoS with a new map and new planes then I feel no rush buying it.

I can't fly BoS with my teammates because they didn't pre-order it and now would have to grind through that boring SP Campaign if they bought it only now. Its just plain wrong and unfair that premium customers can buy themselves arround the unlocks.

If 777 is going to do the same thing with BoM then they will be making sure that I'll never be able to fly with my Geschwader. My buddies dont understand why they don't have access to every "unlock" from the beginning. They expect a sim product not a "sim-game". They are not 16 anymore. Many of them still believe that this game is arcade only because it has the word "unlock" in it, no matter how hard I try to tell them its not.

Also the outdated graphics (especially the map, trees and limited objects) and its limitation for the future prevent them from buying it (for that price at least). It seems I will be flying CloD for some more years, here and there flying BoS alone online and imagine what could have been.

Still I'm looking forward to BoM, maybe everything will come together, eventually.

April 5, 2015

I guess I'll wait and see. If it's "just" BoS with a new map and new planes then I feel no rush buying it.

I can't fly BoS with my teammates because they didn't pre-order it and now would have to grind through that boring SP Campaign if they bought it only now. Its just plain wrong and unfair that premium customers can buy themselves arround the unlocks.

If 777 is going to do the same thing with BoM then they will be making sure that I'll never be able to fly with my Geschwader. My buddies dont understand why they don't have access to every "unlock" from the beginning. They expect a sim product not a "sim-game". They are not 16 anymore. Many of them still believe that this game is arcade only because it has the word "unlock" in it, no matter how hard I try to tell them its not.

Also the outdated graphics (especially the map, trees and limited objects) and its limitation for the future prevent them from buying it (for that price at least). It seems I will be flying CloD for some more years, here and there flying BoS alone online and imagine what could have been.

Still I'm looking forward to BoM, maybe everything will come together, eventually.

I feel your pain not all our guys bought premium and are in the same situation. The only (tiny) consolation is that you can get most of the unlocks pretty fast if you do it right. I did some of the campaign because I wanted to save the missions and then look at how groups worked for mission building and then decided to do a few more to unlock some of the skins. I used expert mode but short missions, you leave your aircraft in auto-balance mode so you don't have to fly it to the action point, the enemy bombers are always flying towards you and you just watch your wingmen who will spot them before they even render. Then damage two of them and disengage flying straight to the exit point at full power in a dive. As soon as you get to the exit point you then end the mission, rinse and repeat. You can do a whole load of missions (I only did intercept ones) in an hour so it's not like you have to grind for days like Eve Online or what have you.

I think eventually they will have to scrap the unlock system for online, it is inexplicable this has carried on for so long and the backlash was predictable as well. On the positive side if you fly Axis fighters you really only need the glass armoured back plate for online fighting.

April 5, 2015

From the BoM preorder page: "Aircraft modifications: Buyers of the Premium Edition will get access to aircraft modifications from the beginning. Buyers of the Standard Edition will have an opportunity to unlock aircraft modifications through the gameplay process."

So they haven't learned anything but to divide the community, and milk money out of it

April 5, 2015

BOS netted each of us an entire game built from scratch.

Ummm, nope. BoS netted us a WW2 re-skin of a WW1 sim with very limited potential, which is only now becoming evident to some of the early believers.

As to my choice, I will not be pre-ordering BoM. I'll be waiting to see how it plays out after release in the faint hope that the issues that still plague BoS will somehow be rectified. Then I'll wait for a Steam sale and pay a reasonable price for what is really just a DLC add on.

Edited April 5, 2015 by BlitzPig_EL

April 5, 2015

From the BoM preorder page: "Aircraft modifications: Buyers of the Premium Edition will get access to aircraft modifications from the beginning. Buyers of the Standard Edition will have an opportunity to unlock aircraft modifications through the gameplay process."

So they haven't learned anything but to divide the community, and milk money out of it

it's a business and there is nothing wrong with making money...however this is going kill the interest of a lot of people which is counter productive to their bottom line.

Ummm, nope. BoS netted us a WW2 re-skin of a WW1 sim with very limited potential, which is only now becoming evident to some of the early believers.

As to my choice, I will not be pre-ordering BoM. I'll be waiting to see how it plays out after release in the faint hope that the issues that still plague BoS will somehow be rectified. Then I'll wait for a Steam sale and pay a reasonable price for what is really just a DLC add on.

^^^^

April 5, 2015

How about including a full disclosure statement at the beginning of your post?

Lolz. Good catch. Bravo!

Ummm, nope. BoS netted us a WW2 re-skin of a WW1 sim with very limited potential, which is only now becoming evident to some of the early believers.

As to my choice, I will not be pre-ordering BoM. I'll be waiting to see how it plays out after release in the faint hope that the issues that still plague BoS will somehow be rectified. Then I'll wait for a Steam sale and pay a reasonable price for what is really just a DLC add on.

Can you explain what you mean in regards to "very limited potential"?

April 5, 2015

Can you explain what you mean in regards to "very limited potential"?

I also find it strange that some people seem to have a crystal ball, or somehow have read all the code and proclaim that they can see that there is no way that BoS can be improved, in the same way original IL-2 was improved from 16 people online and the basic "sim" that it was in its first iteration..it (original IL-2) certainly has little relationship to IL-2 1946 patched to latest version

Cheers Dakpilot

Battle of Moscow: To Buy In or Not To Buy In, THAT is the Question!

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