BMS --> 4.33.1: what you need to know and how to be prepared

[Hawk]

Buone notizie.
Da verificare la strategia necessaria per fare funzionare F4.0 sul server

http://www.bmsforum.org/forum/showthrea ... e-prepared


From BOXER:
Hi Everyone:

It is my pleasure to be able to tell you that the BMS team has reached an agreement with Tommo, current owners of Falcon 4.0 copyrights, that will allow us to resume making Falcon BMS community add-on releases now and for the foreseeable future with Tommo's approval.

The next release which will be version 4.33.1 incorporates two kinds of changes:

1.Fixes and updates to the Falcon BMS content based on bug reports and other inputs to the team; and
2.Some changes specifically related to the agreement with Tommo.


I won't telegraph the punch on the first of those categories; a change log will come with the release as you would normally expect and the documentation will be updated to match. That's all I'm going to say on that front so for details you will just have to be patient for a little longer

The second category may require a bit more explanation in particular because everyone will need to be prepared for changes in the way the Falcon BMS installs and runs on your systems. For the most part, you _should_ be prepared already in most cases if you have run Falcon BMS before but to be on the safe side, I want to make clear how things will work from this point on in case people want time to make sure their systems meet the requirements.

The biggest visible change is in how the installer and the game executable launch.

It has always been the BMS team's approach that Falcon BMS is an add-on for use with licensed copies of the original Falcon 4.0 game. As the primary element of the agreement with Tommo, the game now reinforces this principle more strongly. Specifically, the installer will check to see that a complete copy of the Falcon 4.0 game (Edit: "we recommend patching to 1.08 to be on the safe side" -- actually, belay that: it's not necessary -- see here for more explanation) is present on storage media in the system on which the installer is running. Similarly, each time the launcher is used to start the game, the same check will be made. In other words, to use Falcon BMS on your system, a licensed copy of Falcon 4.0 must also be installed and present on that system. You do not need to have run Falcon 4.0 after installing it before you try installing or running Falcon BMS; simply completing Falcon 4.0 install successfully is sufficient. Note that presence of a CD [or ISO] copy of the original game will not help you: Falcon 4.0 must be installed correctly and completely on the system for the checks to succeed. For the avoidance of doubt, only copies of the original Falcon 4.0 game will work for use with Falcon BMS (any other later variants such as Allied Force are not compatible). For clarity, the checks performed are entirely local to the system so both installing and running the game will work on a system that has no internet or other network connection.

If you have Falcon 4.0 resident on your local system, then the first visible difference you will see is a new splash screen. That screen shows a Falcon BMS logo and logos for Tommo, Retroism and the BMS team together with copyright and trademark statements that outline terms of use. You will note from this that the Falcon BMS community add-on is made and distributed with permission from Tommo. That permission is conditioned on the install and runtime checks mentioned above as well as reinforcing that, in line with the BMS team's long-time policy, Falcon BMS is only available for non-commercial uses. The splash screen is displayed in time that is used to load the game in the background so, in other words, no additional start up time should result from the splash screen (compared to earlier Falcon BMS versions).

If you do not have Falcon 4.0 installed on your local system then the next thing you will see is a Windows message box pop-up that tells you that the installer or the game is unable to find a copy of Falcon 4.0 on your system. The message box has a button to dismiss it (once you have read the message) and then the game will exit immediately. As I said, if you have used Falcon BMS before then you should already have Falcon 4.0. However, for those who may be new to the community, the message box mentions some possible sources of licensed copies of Falcon 4.0 that you may like to use to acquire a legitimate copy if you need to do that. Other sources are possible and viable; for instance private sale or eBay to find a copy of the [increasingly-rare] original hard-copy game materials. [Note there were some issues with copies of Falcon 4.0 purchased from Steam (it was made available there in January 2016) -- these are now resolved as we helped Tommo get the Steam install process working correctly -- thus Steam is a viable (and convenient??) source for copies of Falcon 4.0 if you need one.]

We had planned for 4.33.1 to be a small incremental patch for 4.33. As a result of the changes described above, this will not be possible. Instead, 4.33.1 will be a complete from-scratch installer. You will have to use this to make a fresh install of Falcon BMS. That install will be separate and independent from any other you may already have on your system. There are a few exceptions (see docs when available) but in the main, file content from 4.33 will be compatible with 4.33.1 so things like key files and log books can probably just be copied over to the new 4.33.1 install directory. For the avoidance of doubt there is no way, supported or otherwise, to get 4.33.1 features inserted into an existing 4.33 install...that just won't work so we would recommend not wasting time trying it.

While the above might cover most things you have in mind, there may still be reasonable and constructive questions to ask so we'll try and keep this thread open so long as it remains useful to do so.

In closing I want to thank on behalf of the entire BMS team those of you who have waited patiently while this situation resolved and for the support and encouragement received in the meanwhile. We hope you will agree that this is a good day for the Falcon community: one that provides us all with a solid foundation on which to build future improvements in the game that we cherish.

PER QUANTO RIGUARDA IL SERVER:
DOMANDA
Originally Posted by Eagle-Eye View Post

Wonderful news.

Point of uncertainty, though: in our squadron, we all have hard copy disks of Falcon 4.0, so that's no problem. What might be, is that we are running a VPS server that we can only access through Teamviewer. Putting a disc in our computer is obviously not recognized on the server, so I suppose we will be forced to make an image of the F4.0 disk, upload that to the server and then install it. Can you confirm that this will work, or will there be ways in the new BMS to recognize an image install and label it "illegal"? (just for completeness' sake: if asked, I can provide a picture of disk ownership)

RISPOSTA
From BOXER
I believe there are a variety of ways to install CD-based games onto machines that have no physical CD ROM drive. I suspect your worst case scenario (cost wise) might be buying a copy via Steam...remember every system with Falcon 4.0 installed should have it's own licensed copy anyway so perhaps that's the expedient and (as by others suggested above) perhaps an appropriate gesture of acknowledgement anyway.

Saluti
Hawk

[Cougar]

Ohhhhh belle notizie finalmente!!!

Io la copia fisica ce l'avevo ... ma mi sa che ne dovrò acquistare un altra via steam ... poco male ...

[Metal]

Se c'è su steam credo sia la migliore opzione in effetti, le copie fisiche sono rare ormai da trovare...! Anche se personalmente per queste cose (vedi DCS) Steam non si è comportato proprio benissimo...

Metal

[Cougar]

Beh ma per quanto riguarda Falcon non serve a molto ... deve solo essere installata una versione originale di Falcon ... fine.

[Hawk]

Pare che ci siano alcune incompatibilità tra le copie "antiche" previste per sistemi a 32 bit e gli attuali Win10 a 64 bit.
Bisogna provare.
In ogni caso si può sempre riacquistare una copia autentica e sostenere il libero mercato.

[Cougar]

Avevo letto che su Win 10 a 64 bit bisogna far partire l'installazione in Win 10 Safe Mode e funzionava ... Comunque penso per optare per la copia via steam.

[Metal]

Avevo letto che su Win 10 a 64 bit bisogna far partire l'installazione in Win 10 Safe Mode e funzionava ... Comunque penso per optare per la copia via steam.

Costa poco per cui penso che non sia un problema...domani lo prendo. (c'è anche la versione del 1987 credo di averci "volato" sul commodore... )

Metal

[Ares]

L'articolo ha questo link:
http://www.bmsforum.org/forum/showthrea ... post372264
in cui specifica che la 1.08 non è installabile su sistemi a 64bit ma che contrariamente a quanto dichiarato inizialmente la patch non sarà richiesta per l'installazione della 4.33.1

[Alexandros]

In pratica ci costringono a comprare di nuovo falcon approfittando di quel che fa BMS

[Ares]

sembra così .. una sorta di colpo di coda per guadagnare qualche licenza in più.

[Cougar]

Beh, giustamente vogliono rientrare almeno in parte dell'investimento che hanno fatto nell'acquisto della licenza.
Tutto sommato ci sta come cosa ... e spendere 10€ per falcon mi sembra una spesa più che accettabile considerando le altre decine se non centinaia spese per le altre periferiche che utilizziamo con Falcon.
Se questo è il prezzo da pagare per tenere in vita falcon sono ben disposto a spenderlo... Basta che sistemino i bugs ...

[Gringo]

Quoto quanto detto da Cougar; consideriamo poi il lavoro gratis che un mucchio di gente ha fatto per farci utilizzare un tale prodotto.

[Hawk]

Io ho installato Falcon dal CD versione originale in italiano e Win 10 64 bit non ha battuto ciglio.
Ci ho pure volato....
L'acquisto di ulteriore software va inteso solo come "obolo alla causa", dato che chi ha un CD originale non dovrebbe averne bisogno.
Saluti

[Ares]

Sarei d'accordo con te Cougar ma non so quanto di quello che i nuovi "proprietari" racimoleranno devolveranno a BMS...
Spero che qualcosa investano e che ci siano (magari) piani di sviluppo di Falcon per sfruttare le competenze su modelli di volo e quant'altro per investirli in un Falcon 5.0.

[Cougar]

Nono non daranno un bel niente a BMS ... il punto è che però non avrebbero fatto continuare quelli di BMS se non avessero accettato di portare queste modifiche e di far pagare a noi l'obolo ...