|
Author
|
Topic: Combatsim? Heard Yet?
|
nealg
Pilot
|
posted 12-30- 12:39 AM
   
Just came from Combatsim, and was surprised to find it has gone subscriber only. If you read there regularly, you may want to check out Doug Helmer's announcement on the necessity of this. It surprised me, I hadn't expected it, but he does a truthful and honest explanation of the need for it.
------------------
nealg=FC= IP: Logged |
robert s
Pilot
|
posted 12-30- 12:58 AM
Just came from there myself and I have to agree I am surprised too. It seems to me that their biggest problem is a lack of internet ads salesmanship. Perhaps combatsim should hire a purely commissioned internet sales agent for the site. (They gotta exist???) I wish them luck.IP: Logged |
Spanky the Mad Dog
Pilot
|
posted 12-30- 01:42 AM
Spanky here.. Hmm, Guessing I won't be going to that site anymore. Ah well Its articles weren't to great latly anyways. I never did like there forums for some reason either. So how are they going to attract new readers anyways? Free combat sim weekends like HBO? LOL It will be like a porn site, with free tours.
HAHAHAHHAHAHA Hmm male readers probly 97% why not get porn ads? Hehe
IP: Logged |
goth
Pilot
|
posted 12-30- 02:15 AM
I feel sorry for the EAW guys. They'll have to subscribe or start their forum over. We are truely blessed here that from Pete Hawk all the way to our present site we've had good continuity. We should all be thankful we have this site and our gracious host. S! [This message has been edited by goth (edited 12-30-2000).] IP: Logged |
nealg
Pilot
|
posted 12-30- 02:42 AM
LOL!! Spanky, I was kinda thinking the same thing.  But I do feel bad in a way; that was one of the very first boards I found, back when SDOE was very young and I was trying to figure out what I needed to do to learn how to build a computer. It was - and has continued to be - a daily stop for me, even when I had to re-register in Oct of 99. I am gonna miss it, since I can't really justify the 4 bucks a month ( really not that much ) for something I may not use every day. The only thing I had been following there lately was the BoB forum.
------------------
nealg=FC= IP: Logged |
JT
Pilot
|
posted 12-30- 03:25 AM
Hate to say it, but this will kill Combatsim.com. I'm sure a lot of people will subscribe, but not enough to finance the site. I love Combatsim.com and I'll probably subscribe, but I just don't see it working. Maybe this is more like a pledgedrive... rake in a few bucks, then go back to having a free site :-) IP: Logged |
Pete Hawk
Pilot
|
posted 12-30- 06:52 AM
I'm SO glad that our forum here is free. I visit it many times everyday, to see what's new for this undying sim. At times I wish I kept my forum open but I'm happy how it all turned out in the end. We're all still here and Inertia is hosting the site, as I always thought they should (well, back then it was Parsoft). I thought it was silly for me to be paying $35 bucks a month to keep us all together and no one else had to do a thing. I was hoping Parsoft would have just said "we'll host it for you Pete and pick up the bill." Well, that never happened and when I found out that was about to happen anyways, it was too late, I had killed it in response to a couple of people who I felt were changing the course of things for the worse. I wanted the board to be all about SDOE and to spur creativity. But when some crazy off topic posts would end up in the general forum, grabbing all the attention and a huge number of replies, and then the other posts that I thought deserved all the attention but got only 1 or 2 replies, that started really getting under my skin. I honestly didn't see an end to it. Just when I thought it was over another one would show up. So there you have it. I was paying for it, it went sour in my view, and I had to prune it every few days or the entire board would start to run very sluggishly (plus my webspace was limited).So I hope you can all understand my reasons. I'm happy to say though that for the most part, the newer forum Lector ran, and now this one have stayed pretty much the way I'd hoped they would, very pro-SDOE which is a great thing. I hope this trend continues for many months to come. Because CombatSim was a very big part of my flight simming and allowed me to get some great info on many games, and since they also published an article of mine complete with nice screenshots I took in the Falcon 4.0 demo on how to successfully perform an air refueling, I think I may just subscribe for a year as a way of saying thanks. I'd really hate to see them go under. My wife and I are thinking 2001 should be a good year for us, so what the hay! Every now and then you just have to give back. 
[This message has been edited by Pete Hawk (edited 12-30-2000).] IP: Logged |
DanW
Pilot
|
posted 12-30- 09:51 AM
Does anyone remember that 'Combatsim.com goes print' fiasco that happened about 3 years ago? They were going print for 39.95 a year. I sent my money in and even won a T-shirt. After they cancelled the whole deal - I never did get the T-shirt or my money back!Websites should be fun and free, if they want to support a hobby/genre that they are too interested in. If its costing a ton of money to operate, then maybe they should consider cutting back on all the services/bloat. I seriously doubt they will get the hits that Voodoo Extreme or Tom's Hardware Guide gets. I hope it works for them though...it's been a good site over the years. IP: Logged |
Smokey
Pilot
|
posted 12-30- 07:33 PM
I heard a news story tonight about how
internet stocks have taken a tumble. The
jist of the story was that the fantisy days
of the internet may be drawing to a close.
Reality will now set in, charges will be made
for this service. It could be a very sad time.IP: Logged |
Sv
Pilot
|
posted 12-30- 08:00 PM
Yes Smokey,As someone who's livelyhood depends on e-commerce, let me tell you, it is over. The world of great free services on-line is no more. No one knows for sure what will happen next, but I am sure there are great things to come. Now I am on to new and better things... I hope ------------------
-Sv =FC=
WWI in SDOE!
IP: Logged |
Werner Molders
Pilot
|
posted 12-30- 11:09 PM
I agree, if combatsim is truly the canary in the mine, then the internet is fast becoming shackled to the almighty dollar (or 1.5 dollars, Canadian). Sad, really. I think enough of a "free" internet culture has been born however that sites that try to follow this model will quickly die as people refuse en masse to support this. It will mean losing some big-name sites, but so be it if the end result is a general pruning of the internet. I guess only time will tell.Werner ------------------
Visit Abbeville Field Today!
 IP: Logged |
Spanky the Mad Dog
Pilot
|
posted 12-30- 11:55 PM
Spanky here... I could almost see some sort of pay for use system, just not subscriptions, Think of all the sites you visit. 2-4$ isn't that bad until you realize the shear number of sites that you visit in a day. I must visit at least 10-15 a DAILY, not surfing but going to EVERY day. Here, hotmail, hotbot, 3dfiles, arstechnia and all kinds of others that don't come to mind right now. Now imagine subscribing to 10 sites at 2 dollars a month thats 20, now what about the sites you visit weekly? you still have to subscribe right? so thats another 5-10 another 10$, so now i'm starting to pay 30-60 or more a month to surf. Thats getting a bit high, now factor in i'm from canada and all of a sudden this really cool internet thing is costing me more a month then I pay to feed myself. I could see a system of paying per use like I pay a TINY fee to visit the site, per day or 24 hour period, I visit hotmail to check my mail and I can check it again in that 24 hour time period for free. Not sure how much I would want to pay but it would probly be pennys or a part of a penny.
If combat sim got a cent for every visit last month they would have made 140000$.
Thats one hell of a take. Using my system of free access within 24 hours that would drop dramaticly but would still be a decent chunk of change. yet I would only pay 31 cents to visit the site daily. SO lets say I visit 20 pay sites daily at 1 cent a day. Thats only 6.2, now thats not to bad. There is complications. The overhead for a credit card charge is way more then the amount you pay per day. But i'm sure some systems/finacial person could figure it out so we could save money, the sites could make a little money and the company that handles all the transactions could skim a little off the top for there troubles. Just a thought anyways. Takes a large overhaul of the way the net works but would be much better for us the surfer and probly the webmasters in the long run. IP: Logged |
Joseph Cotton
Pilot
|
posted 12-31- 01:43 PM
The EAWer's are largely moving over to the EAW SimHQ board. Even Christopher Coon one of the EAW programmers dropped in to recommend it as an alternative. Although many seem to be divided as to loyalties for some reason. http://www.simhq.com/cgi-bin/boards/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi The F4 people are going to Delphi, SimHQ and somewhere else that I forget.It seemed quite a surprise to everyone as it all happened in 24 hours. Personally I always preferred SimHq's articles better anyway. I don't hold much hope towards Combatsim's future. Additionally,
I haven't been here in awhile, you guys have made some great looking things lately.
S!
[This message has been edited by Joseph Cotton (edited 12-31-2000).] IP: Logged |
nealg
Pilot
|
posted 12-31- 02:27 PM
I think that is the saddest part; the entire site was a community, and the lack of notice had to be a let down of a sort to those who had been there since it's beginning. I admire Doug for his honesty in laying it all out, but this doesn't seem to have been a overnight decision...only a overnight implementation. As it had become a home of sorts for many, maybe the concept of charging 'rent' wasn't a bad thing, just the lack of eviction notice for those without the rent increase money, or the desire to pay rent in that neighborhood. I don't know....it would seem, perhaps, that he could have set up some sort of account activity based on a per visit charge of, say, 10 cents or 50 cents or something then not actually billing until your total hit 3 dollars or 5 dollars. This could allow people to pace their visits...heck, I don't even know if such a thing is possible. But most of the regulars would reach the billing amount frequently, where more casual visitors might take months.Of course, then you don't have a guaranteed amount monthly to base your income on, but if 4 or 500 simmers made 5 to 10 visits per month at say 50 cents per, then he could have a base to work from, but also a incentive to keep the site current, fresh, and filled with the goodies that would attract other simmers. I pay for my access, so I won't pay to visit a site. No, not even THOSE sites! If it gets to that point, where I am charged to visit even the smallest of sites, then I guess I will have to cancel my access; not a attractive proposition at this stage, but one I may deem necessary. I don't see it coming to that...but then, when I was a teenager, computers filled entire buildings and Internet wasn't even a word.
------------------
nealg=FC= IP: Logged | |
FSIC Messageboard
UBBFriend: Email This Page to Someone! 
