Rowan Software -- Where are They Now?

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McMick
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Rowan Software -- Where are They Now?

Post by McMick »

It's been a long time since Rowan disappeared, has anyone ever had contact with any of the original BoB programmers or artists or whomever? I'd hate to think none of them have any interest or love for this game, and it would be nice if they had some spare time to volunteer to make this game better. It's a notion I had just now, not a well thought-out idea. But since this game is rather special (and has one of the loveliest user bases I've ever encountered for a game), I was just curious if any of you thought it might be worth it to try to bring a couple of those guys into the BDG or whatever you want to call it now. Since it's an A2A Simulations property / asset, does that have any bearing on the situation?
Intel z170, i5-6600K, GTX 1070 8GB, 16GB DDR4-2666, Win10 x64, TIR3+6DoF, MS SW FFB2, Viewsonic 22" LCD 60Hz 1080p

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JJB17463rdBombGroup
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Re: Rowan Software -- Where are They Now?

Post by JJB17463rdBombGroup »

From my understanding Scott acquired this Rowan simulation-strategy game long ago for Shockwave Productions now A2ASimulations to re-release it with lots of improvements and this eventually became successful because of the extra BDG volunteer efforts.
Financially it might have been risky for them. The other goal was to reuse it for another simulation-strategy game of a later time during World War 2 perhaps with Allied bombers (and escorts) on the offensive against NAZI Germany.It could have been either a B-17 simulation or perhaps a Lancaster bomber simulation maybe. This never panned out apparently because of the high development costs and it was a too costly and/or even a losing or non profitable endeavor money wise.Really it would have been great to have seen other incarnations of this game at different periods in the war in the same way the iL-2 simulation did.
I could be wrong about this and it might be a misunderstanding of mine but this was a long time ago.
Son of a U.S.A.A.F. 15th Air Force 463rd bomb group 772nd squadron B17 pilot.
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McMick
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Re: Rowan Software -- Where are They Now?

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Yes, I understand the deal from all those years ago, but it's 2020 and BoB II doesn't run correctly on Windows 10 unless you use that reversion patch. Maybe some of those guys are retired now and would have some spare time to lend. The original programmers of the game engine, I should think, could bring the help this game needs to get it more modernized for today's hardware and OS. This is assuming they even remember anything about it, of course. I could be totally wrong about all of this, but I figured since they bothered making it in the first place, they might still have some affection for it and maybe they could be persuaded to volunteer (assuming anyone even knows how to reach them). If nothing else, maybe they could provide insight that others could use?
Intel z170, i5-6600K, GTX 1070 8GB, 16GB DDR4-2666, Win10 x64, TIR3+6DoF, MS SW FFB2, Viewsonic 22" LCD 60Hz 1080p

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JJB17463rdBombGroup
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Re: Rowan Software -- Where are They Now?

Post by JJB17463rdBombGroup »

Ideally it would be great if the software was eventually say in 10 years (when it isn't profitable) was open sourced with detailed documentation so anyone could modify it with new improvements. Yes all the original programmers etc would need to come together to do this.It will probably never happen though which is a shame.
By open source it could become a different year simulation/strategy game.
Yes I would have also liked it eventually available on GoG but that will not happen either
Son of a U.S.A.A.F. 15th Air Force 463rd bomb group 772nd squadron B17 pilot.
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