Author Topic: Warbirds: IEN's definition of "free" finally matches the rest of the world's (Read 2466 times)

AKDejaVu · « **on:** December 07, 2001, 01:57:00 PM »

From HS's "sitrep" posted on Dogfighter:

Quote

We're opening up a new (limited time) promotion starting this afternoon that allows new players to sign up for a 2 week free account. You create your FREE account from this link ( http://www.ient.com/warbirds/shootout/freetrial.html ) and for 14 days after the account is created you will be billed nothing, but you will have access to every arena in WarBirds 2, Dawn of Aces and our newest and best offering...WarBirds III.

After the 14-day trial is over you will STILL be billed nothing. Your account and all it's information will be saved as a FREE account and you will have access to all our FREE events. If after this trial offer you decide you like what you see, it's easy to convert your free account to a premium (pay) account. And you will keep your call sign, rank and any score accumulated during your trial membership! Membership starts for as little as $9.95 (US) per month for unlimited flying time in WarBirds III and Dawn of Aces.

This promotion is slated to run (the page will be open) from 07Dec01 until 21Dec01. Based on how well it does it may be run again in the future. We're asking that you, the players, help us get this info out.

AKDejaVu · « **Reply #1 on:** December 07, 2001, 02:01:00 PM »

More info

Animal · « **Reply #2 on:** December 07, 2001, 04:35:00 PM »

In a few minutes someone will make a post with such lines as:

"WHO CARES, AH IS STILL KING OF ONLINE SIMS."

"BRAND W IS A POS ANYWAYS"

streakeagle · « **Reply #3 on:** December 07, 2001, 08:46:00 PM »

Free or not WB3 gets none of my time. Brand W does not support my Voodoo 5500 in WB3 and is therefore not even installed on my computer.

AH, like all other software except WB3 and X-planes, runs great and looks great on my Voodoo 5500. Long live AH. May it continue evolving such that is remains the best WWII air combat sim available.

Gadfly · « **Reply #4 on:** December 07, 2001, 10:28:00 PM »

Yeah, all developers should expend resources on a card that is dead and has been for, what, a year or two? They should support my windows 3.1 too...

mrsid2 · « **Reply #5 on:** December 08, 2001, 02:28:00 AM »

It's good news really, more people will be introduced to the world of online air combat.

And it enables me to pop in to meet my old squaddies heh..

WB3 and WB2.7x are a great diversion from playing AH, 2.7x raises old memories, but mainly the more I play them, the more I appreciate AH. Theyre fun, theyre good, but simply not as good.

Revvin · « **Reply #6 on:** December 08, 2001, 07:26:00 AM »

Streakeagle> I would'nt be surprised if HTC had to drop Voodoo support in the future as they make more use of DX8.1 and beyond. Its not the developers fault that a card no longer has updated drivers to keep it compatible with later version of DirectX. Like Gadfly said a little less diplomatically

Voodoo has been dead for over a year and advances in graphics and DirectX mean video cards don't have the long life they used to have unless properly supported.

That being said WBIII has got less and less of my time recently as I feel they've lost direction in what they want to do. There is still so much to do in WBIII even to add all the features that WBII has and yet they talk of adding other era's such as the Korean era and updating Dawn Of Aces to continue the WW1 era they covered. The release of the F86 was to me just a knee jerk reaction to the fact that Targetware were attending the last Con and despite protestations it was done in Hotseats own time they still found time to put it in the game and then take away an arena from the players who like a historical setup for a whole week so they could show off the new plane to everyone. They even posted in forums like SimHQ heralding the release of the F86 and yet they did'nt have any planes like a Mig to counteract its presence in the arena so what was the point in the first place?

While Nero fiddles Rome burns and players are voting with their feet. Already I've seen a number of players leave some of them long time players and a few of them bomber pilots who are fed up with having their voice ignored.

iEN for years have ignored players plea's to introduce a two week no obligation trial as Aces High has. We are their eyes and ears when it comes to seeing and hearing the wishes of the players of other communities as we play other sims. The free trial is great but players downloading AH get this free trail whenever they want, they are not hearded into the arena in one go and swamp the place with new players of who many don't RTFM and give new players a false impression of what the usual arena population level is like.

The free trial and mention of a boxed sim just seem like the last desperate gasps of air iEN make before they finally go under. Perhaps then we'll have a company behind Warbirds that actually give a damn and fund the development team so they can add everything they want.

SOB · « **Reply #7 on:** December 08, 2001, 08:41:00 AM »

Voodoo 5 is still a viable card. A lot of people have them, you can still buy them, and DirectX supports them (and will in the future, even if specific DX features aren't supported on the card). The comparison to Win 3.1 is retarded...try harder.

SOB

Gadfly · « **Reply #8 on:** December 08, 2001, 09:32:00 AM »

I can buy a 73 Vega too, but it is still a piece of toejam.

edit-I'm not implieing that the vid card is a pc of crap; I have no knowledge of it at all, just trying harder.

[ 12-08-2001: Message edited by: Gadfly ]

AKDejaVu · « **Reply #9 on:** December 08, 2001, 09:59:00 AM »

Revvin... dunno about your theories on what will or won't happen now because of the two week trial. The only thing that seems VERY obvious is that they are trying to capitalize on the closure of AW to gain more customers. It is easy to think that AH had something of an advantage over the last month in getting those customers simply because they could try the game for free.

AKDejaVu

BenDover · « **Reply #10 on:** December 08, 2001, 01:17:00 PM »

nvidia killed 3d-fx!!!

oboe · « **Reply #11 on:** December 10, 2001, 07:33:00 AM »

Has anyone else tried WB for free?

I was a longtime player and signed up for old times sake, but I can't handle the FM anymore. AH spoiled me.

I'm not sure how I ever did it in fact - even after playing extensively with my joystick settings, the planes still respond to my inputs like they are mounted on springs and stuck in a bowl of jello.

No wonder AH gunnery is more effective - people can hold the nose of the a/c on target while they shoot.

If WB III has this same characteristic, it won't matter a whit how much better the graphics are.

akak · « **Reply #12 on:** December 10, 2001, 07:41:00 AM »

why even pay for warbirds when you can play it for free on some german gaming site?

streakeagle · « **Reply #13 on:** December 10, 2001, 08:27:00 AM »

All I am saying is that AH and almost every other new game still supports the Voodoo 5500 implementation of DirectX 8. WB3 does not. Since I still use my Voodoo 5500, I won't play or pay for any game that doesn't support it.

As it stands, I am not impressed with WB3 anyway (even using a properly supported NVidia GF2 card). Just using the latest graphics technology does not make a better game or sim. The WB3 graphics may have better resolution and more complex shapes, but they look cartoon like and their models are poorly proportioned (the P-51 and F-6F come to mind).

As for AH support for the Voodoo 5500, they didn't even upgrade to DirectX 8 because they are still supporting much older hardware limited to DirectX 7. All of the AH DX8 betas ran and looked great on my Voodoo. Their decision to stay with DX7 actually hurt my image quality since the DX8 betas got rid of terrain shimmering even with antialiasing turned off.

Apparently, there is some sort of texture support in DX8 that both WB3 and X-planes use that is not supported by the Voodoo 5500 drivers. Until that feature is used by the majority of software (making my card as obsolete as some say it is), I will stick with my superior image quality and otherwise superior compatibility since both NVidia and ATI can't seem to write a single driver that works with everything.

Anyone who thinks a Voodoo 5500 is totally obsolete and should be replaced by an NVidia or ATI card has never compared them to the Voodoo side by side. Of course it is not the fastest, it doesn't really work with WindowsXP, and does not fully support DirectX 8, but it looks damn good and runs plenty fast with every game I like to play: Aces High, Jane's USAF, Operation Flashpoint, Max Payne, Ghost Recon, SAR 3, and IL-2.

I cannot say the same for the NVidia GF2. I can't even find one version of the driver that supports all of those games without glitches. NVidia still doesn't really know how to do antialiasing either. They need to put that 3dfx technology they bought to work.

Gadfly · « **Reply #14 on:** December 10, 2001, 09:27:00 AM »

Streak-I have to admit that I only play a couple games, Nascar4, WB2.77,Il-2, and Command and Conquer, but the Geo drivers seem to work well in them. I also do not get new drivers as they are released; I let all of ya'll test them for me(same with OS and browsers).

Are there no settings that will work in WBIII with your card? I can't believe that no one flying it has a 5500?!