Steel Beasts Pro 2.6x upgrade

[Deamon]

Oh btw is the M60A3 actually manable ?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Deamon

Oh, btw when i said i want both i didn't meant that SBP should become also a tactic shooter but merely a much more leaborated infantry part that can be controled much better.

As I already said, they will do some imporvements to the ciontrol logic, and there is some demand for suiting the sim towards insirgency warfare. But you can also see the result is a focus on more APC and IFV options, not so much on including an ifantry component. Their management also indicated they expect that the focus in Wetsern arme focus sooner or later will swing back towards more heavy mechjnised warfare, sooner or later.

Now don't tell me that the military is the actual customer of eSim and that they catter only their demands and that this is a tank simulator in the first place and that my other wishes are not going to happen.

I don't "tell". It's a fact I state. From the player sales they cannot live.

Well let me tell you this, there are only so and so much vehicles in the real world and they are still fully occupied to feature them(respectively whatever the military customers request) But apparently this stuff is all featured one day and what then ? Are they just going to shut down the company or what ? No of course not, they will of course expend and eventually return to making games again and introduce more elements to the game of which improvements of the infantry and all the other stuff is the obvious way to go and this is where i hope to finally get what i want.

Many years ahead, and an uncertain future it is. Most people prefer to take what is available NOW and enjoy the time until then with playing it. And I tend to think that is wise. But if you want to wait another number of years just to get the perfect, the one solution that fits all yopu demand in detail - feel free to do that.

And besides that i have the gut feel that the military itself will demand a more and more elaborated infantry part. No one says that they will keep using it merely as a tank sim.

So far they exclusively buy it for tanker training. I am not in eSim'S heads and paper stuff and so do not know what is going on. But in 2006 when I put together an itnerview with their technical director I asked him about the dfistant future. And in 2006 he said that their competence lies in the field of tanks and mechanised warfare. It is here where the sim can compete with the rivalling products the military buys in form of hardware cabin simulatores for millions of dollars, and SBP competes successfully there due to its aggressive pricing. But this argument is not existent anymore when the focus shifts on infantry games, since here other software producers already have established themselves.

That is certainly the peve that i have with SB. There is no way you could ever run out of fuel on this map so that logistics become an issues suddely.

You can. And do. Some vehicles have shorter legs than others. And fueltanks can be perforated in battle. All of a sudden those fuel tankers and engineer units, CS trucks and Bergepanzer and ambulances make sense.

The community isn't in disagreement with me cause i am the community. What the designers agree or disagree with you simple don't know. Only when they get confronted with this idea and reply to that we can see what they really think of that.

Short attack of megalomania, eh? You are just one person, and even an outsider not knowing the sim. The community is the dominant majority over you. And for soem strange reason in five years I have not heared them saying what you said. That'S what makes you an outsider with a minority opinion. And what the developer thinks about how he should do things you can see in the results of how he actually does handle things, and designs features.

That the designers haven't thought about that improvement yet is perhaps because they have a million other things on their mind already and simple never had the opportunity to even think about it.

Maybe. Or yours is a minority opinion.

Sure thing. But if you are not sure then just say so. But thanks anyway.

If I am not sure of what I say, I wouldn't say it at all or add a line that I am not certain. Like every human, I can make mistakes without realising it.

Try to become a bit more open-minded. You have so specific demands and expectations that you probbaly will wait for years and years and still do not get what you want. All the while you are missing stuff that is very good already and is praised by many. The more your focus gets "tunnelised" or fixiated on specific demands, the less likely it is your desires will get fulfilled. You wait - but what did you get in the end? Nothing. You want to play huge scenarios, but have no ida how big the ones can get you alkready can do with SBP - I played some scenarios that took me breaks and several hpours over the day, due to my style of playing and wanting to avoid losses as much as possible. A scenario designed with any of the options you outlined above, would not make a dramatic difference in final effect. So relax, and look at it more easy. Yopu are interested in playing the best tank sim there is and that is closer to reality than any other - play this. You are not interested in thnat? Forget SBP, and spend your time on something more useful or to your taste.

But sitting five years just to see some incredibly specific demands in desiogn getting fulfilled and over that denying all the cream that already is available - to me that is an extremely strange choice somebody could make. But of course, you are free to decide the way you want. My advise after these two days of talking would be: forget about SBP, and never think of it again. Because I think you will never be satisfied, honestly. So just move on and enjoy yourself better that way.

[Deamon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I don't "tell". It's a fact I state. From the player sales they cannot live.

With "tell" i meant you don't need to comment that. Besides that i see i posted that sentece incomplete, i meant to say: "Now don't tell me that the military is the actual customer of eSim and that they catter only their demands and that this is a tank simulator in the first place, BECAUSE I KNOW ALL THAT!"

Besides that an armour simulation isn't quite an armour simulation without infantry. I also feel i have to clarify what i am talking about when i am speaking of infantry improvements. For the most part i am actually quite satisfied with the infantry the way it was in SB, i could work around some limitations alright but there remains a small rest of inabilities of the infantry that just drives me nuts, ruined the experience for me time and again and that prevented it to be a really usefull tool. Which are:

*The inability to crawl and stay low when i say to stay low.
*The inability to stay upright(while not moving). I would like to have the option to lay, crouch or stay upright, so that i can control the exposure of the soldier over the cover.
*The inability to shoot from a standing and crouching position.
*The inability to stay right where i want them to stay, they always run unauthorized for cover and screw up my ambush set ups.
* Throwing handgrandes, even if there is no visual contact to the enemy, just trow grenades as far as possible into the direction that i want it to. So that i can take out enemy soldiers on the other side of the road without storming over the ridge commiting suicide. It should also be able to engage enemy infantry with RPG's and ATGM's.(although in SBP that should be possbile already when controlling an ATGM manually )
*The inability to charge forward while the other half of the squad provides coverinng fire. ( Although that one was fixed in SBP already ? )
*The inability to split the team down to individual soldiers. I am tired of being forced to sacrifice the whole squad while trying to take a peak over that hill.(I am not sure if my memory seves me right but i think it was possible in SBP already at list split the squad into 2 groups which would mean to me a lot already ).
*Missing options for setting formations and formation spacing. While at it it should also be possible to change the facing of the fomation by simple looking into the direction you want the formation to face to and press a key.
*It should be possible to load an infantry squad into any vehicle and not just the one to which it belongs. ( Although i think that is already possible in SBP )
*Infantry squads should act completely independently from the IFV when i seperate them from it. In SB when i send the IFV elsewhere it suddenly stops and waits till the squad has mounted the IFV again, which wouldn't occure only when the IFV is far away from the squad. ( Although Sky indicated that this already has been fixed in SBP ).
*And in the context of SBP engaging low and slow flying air targets in close proximity. Is that actually possible already ? BTW does SBP features manpads yet ?
*All vehicles should actually have a crew that can dismount from the vehicle and continue on foot. So that i can disembark one crew member and let him run up the hill and take a peek over the edge with a binocular so that i do not need to expose the IFV and get blow away or just to avoid detection. Also in case the vehicle gets lost and the crew survives being able to continue the mission. This feature would be very high on my priority list and would also allow some hilarious rescue missions when a vehicle gets immobilized and you attempt then to rescue the crew under fire.( I think this are the little things that would make a big difference immersion wise ) For that matter the AI should be able to use the vehicle as cover and eventually disembark on the opposite side of the vehicle from where the fire is comming from, if possible. And while at it the infantry should have the general ability to use vehicles as cover and also move with them over open areas while using it as cover in a very tight formation spacing which is a common practice in reality. Also pop up over the endge of a vehicle and fire, provided the vehicle is not too high of course. I also would have almost said that it should be possible to mount the infantry ONTOP of a vehicle so that when a squad looses its IFV you just mount them ontop of that M1 and get out of there(you know the drill ? On the BTR you are saver than inside ) but in order not to enrage Sky too much i won't That stuff would certainly allow some hilarious and realistic missions.
*Another thing that i am not going to say is that i hope to see flamethrowers and Handflampatronen some day. That would be very handy in sticky situations.

I think that would be it for me. I am wondering how much of this was already implemented in SBP ? ( This is the actual reason why i post the list here ) But that they switched to 3D infantry kind of suggests to me major infantry improvements in the near future. Also that one scene in the video here...



...where you see that one biker drop that one insergent with the RPG at the bridge. This is just the kind of stuff that i look for.

I really hope they will fix that in the near future cause with this additional abilites the game would get a whole new dimension. Sky are you testing the new release already ?

And Sky pleeeeeaaaaase don't post comments about that that you have posted already above.

So far they exclusively buy it for tanker training. I am not in eSim'S heads and paper stuff and so do not know what is going on. But in 2006 when I put together an itnerview with their technical director I asked him about the dfistant future. And in 2006 he said that their competence lies in the field of tanks and mechanised warfare. It is here where the sim can compete with the rivalling products the military buys in form of hardware cabin simulatores for millions of dollars, and SBP competes successfully there due to its aggressive pricing. But this argument is not existent anymore when the focus shifts on infantry games, since here other software producers already have established themselves.

2006 ? That is 5 years old news. I remember a statement, don't know where i read it, in an interview or something that eSim annonced(or at least intended to announce) to their military customers to reserve one year(i don't remember which it was supposed to be) to cater the demands of private customers. And in that context, while it is true that they cannot survive from private customers alone the private customers are still there regardless and i am wondering at this point for what percentage of the revenue do the private customers account because if it is significant they can be actually expected to cater the needs of them as well accordingly.

You can. And do. Some vehicles have shorter legs than others. And fueltanks can be perforated in battle. All of a sudden those fuel tankers and engineer units, CS trucks and Bergepanzer and ambulances make sense.

I see. For that it obviously makes sense.

Short attack of megalomania, eh?

Oh you bought into that ? HAHA gotcha! That was meant to be a provocation, since you didn't seem to count me to the community. Unless of course your definition of communit excludes the SB community of which i am still an avid member. As a matter of fact SB is one of the games that i play the most, if you care to know and i am very much into armour.

You are just one person, and even an outsider not knowing the sim. The community is the dominant majority over you. And for soem strange reason in five years I have not heared them saying what you said. That'S what makes you an outsider with a minority opinion.

And that means what ?

And what the developer thinks about how he should do things you can see in the results of how he actually does handle things, and designs features.

This is only one way of interpreting what that means. It could just as well mean that he simple didn't knew it better at that time.

Maybe. Or yours is a minority opinion.

Since i run my own development for over 8 years now i can testify that as a developer(coder in particular) you always have a thousand things on your mind that are all somehow obvious and you go so fast from one issue to another that in the heat of the battle various other obvious ideas simple go unnoticed. It's like a bunch of enemies shooting at you from 10 different positions in all the heat and noise you won't be able to keep track of all of them because you are overwhelmed.

Try to become a bit more open-minded. You have so specific demands and expectations that you probbaly will wait for years and years and still do not get what you want.

I am not sure what open minded means here but besides my wishlist for improved infantry my demands are really just minor improvements to the editor.

All the while you are missing stuff that is very good already and is praised by many. The more your focus gets "tunnelised" or fixiated on specific demands, the less likely it is your desires will get fulfilled. You wait - but what did you get in the end? Nothing. You want to play huge scenarios, but have no ida how big the ones can get you alkready can do with SBP - I played some scenarios that took me breaks and several hpours over the day, due to my style of playing and wanting to avoid losses as much as possible.

Frankly i feel misunderstood by you. I certainly do have an idea how large the scenarios can get and i suppose there is no saving feature yet ? I play SB for years now and played all available scenarios. I would have gotten into SBP already if it wouldn't be so expensive so i sit, wait and watch for the right moment to strike. It's just a question of time till i will. Right now i am 50:50. The reason why i am posting here now is simple because i try to figure out if it's ripe for me already.

Also i don't feel that i am "tunnelising" at all. I am very enthusiastic about the progress made so far and expressed that here on several occasions it's just that i have the desires that i have. Besides the lacking infantry simulation there are only a few minor things that annoy me. Things that would be easy to implement and make the life of a scenario designer a hell of a lot easier. I played all the scenarios out there for SB and in the end started to make my own but quickely had to realize that the SB editor missed a few very essencial features that i would need to implement my ideas.

A scenario designed with any of the options you outlined above, would not make a dramatic difference in final effect.

To me it would.

But sitting five years just to see some incredibly specific demands in desiogn getting fulfilled and over that denying all the cream that already is available - to me that is an extremely strange choice somebody could make.

I feel misunderstood now even more.

But of course, you are free to decide the way you want. My advise after these two days of talking would be: forget about SBP, and never think of it again. Because I think you will never be satisfied, honestly. So just move on and enjoy yourself better that way.

My advice would be don't take what i say too personally, lol.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Deamon

Oh btw is the M60A3 actually manable ?

-> see stickied SBP resource thread

Besides that an armour simulation isn't quite an armour simulation without infantry.

See eSims own product identification in thre stickied SBP resourece thread. That says what the focus is.

The inability to crawl and stay low when i say to stay low.
*The inability to stay upright(while not moving). I would like to have the option to lay, crouch or stay upright, so that i can control the exposure of the soldier over the cover.
*The inability to shoot from a standing and crouching position.
*The inability to stay right where i want them to stay, they always run unauthorized for cover and screw up my ambush set ups.
* Throwing handgrandes, even if there is no visual contact to the enemy, just trow grenades as far as possible into the direction that i want it to. So that i can take out enemy soldiers on the other side of the road without storming over the ridge commiting suicide. It should also be able to engage enemy infantry with RPG's and ATGM's.(although in SBP that should be possbile already when controlling an ATGM manually )
*The inability to charge forward while the other half of the squad provides coverinng fire. ( Although that one was fixed in SBP already ? )
*The inability to split the team down to individual soldiers. I am tired of being forced to sacrifice the whole squad while trying to take a peak over that hill.(I am not sure if my memory seves me right but i think it was possible in SBP already at list split the squad into 2 groups which would mean to me a lot already ).
*Missing options for setting formations and formation spacing. While at it it should also be possible to change the facing of the fomation by simple looking into the direction you want the formation to face to and press a key.
*It should be possible to load an infantry squad into any vehicle and not just the one to which it belongs. ( Although i think that is already possible in SBP )
*Infantry squads should act completely independently from the IFV when i seperate them from it. In SB when i send the IFV elsewhere it suddenly stops and waits till the squad has mounted the IFV again, which wouldn't occure only when the IFV is far away from the squad. ( Although Sky indicated that this already has been fixed in SBP ).
*And in the context of SBP engaging low and slow flying air targets in close proximity. Is that actually possible already ? BTW does SBP features manpads yet ?
*All vehicles should actually have a crew that can dismount from the vehicle and continue on foot. So that i can disembark one crew member and let him run up the hill and take a peek over the edge with a binocular so that i do not need to expose the IFV and get blow away or just to avoid detection. Also in case the vehicle gets lost and the crew survives being able to continue the mission. This feature would be very high on my priority list and would also allow some hilarious rescue missions when a vehicle gets immobilized and you attempt then to rescue the crew under fire.( I think this are the little things that would make a big difference immersion wise )

You have never tried to breach a minefield under fire, and then get the leading tank taken out in the middle of the passage. That is what emerges you into things. And what the sim can already do.

Or a bridging assault, although not before now the feature was fully functional.

And like in reality it is better not to try any of these things, if possible, due to the risks involved.

For that matter the AI should be able to use the vehicle as cover and eventually disembark on the opposite side of the vehicle from where the fire is comming from, if possible. And while at it the infantry should have the general ability to use vehicles as cover and also move with them over open areas while using it as cover in a very tight formation spacing which is a common practice in reality. Also pop up over the endge of a vehicle and fire, provided the vehicle is not too high of course. I also would have almost said that it should be possible to mount the infantry ONTOP of a vehicle so that when a squad looses its IFV you just mount them ontop of that M1 and get out of there(you know the drill ? On the BTR you are saver than inside ) but in order not to enrage Sky too much i won't That stuff would certainly allow some hilarious and realistic missions.

Anything else...?

I think that would be it for me. I am wondering how much of this was already implemented in SBP ? ( This is the actual reason why i post the list here ) But that they switched to 3D infantry kind of suggests to me major infantry improvements in the near future. Also that one scene in the video here...

The infantry in the future will stay much like it is, the AI handling its reaction to standard orders or enemy actions just will improve. What you want surpasses even ArmA, and you want a massive second focus on playing from infantry'S position. But that is not what SBP is there for.

Squads now are split in heavy and light sections. Both can act independently from their transport unit. There is a single soldier FO unit. There are 3 men teams for TOW, HMG, MMG, 4mm greande launcher.

2006 ? That is 5 years old news. I remember a statement, don't know where i read it, in an interview or something that eSim annonced(or at least intended to announce) to their military customers to reserve one year(i don't remember which it was supposed to be) to cater the demands of private customers.

I recall that - it was a simple board post of Ssnake saying that they have some relief from military ocntreacts two or three years ago to extend that timeframe to a one year period to focus a bit more on what many players in the forum posted.

And in that context, while it is true that they cannot survive from private customers alone the private customers are still there regardless and i am wondering at this point for what percentage of the revenue do the private customers account because if it is significant they can be actually expected to cater the needs of them as well accordingly.

They have just increased the team and the people need to be payed on a monthly basis. They can live from working on military contracts. They can not live from skipping them and doing game stuff exclusively. The SBP you can buy, costs 100 dollars. The licence the military must buy per smallest number of seat-licence, costs 18.000 dollars. Go figure. SBP is a niche product, and tank games in general have their greatest times since M1TP2 behind them, it seems. Not even the WWII games are asked for in great numbers. and WWII is more popular than modern war in tank games. Never understood the reason, but that'S how it is.

And that means what ?

That for most of your specialised and detailed demands you probably can wait forever.

Since i run my own development for over 8 years now i can testify that as a developer(coder in particular) you always have a thousand things on your mind that are all somehow obvious and you go so fast from one issue to another that in the heat of the battle various other obvious ideas simple go unnoticed. It's like a bunch of enemies shooting at you from 10 different positions in all the heat and noise you won't be able to keep track of all of them because you are overwhelmed.

Do though plan to ever complete in this life, or will it be just in thy next one?

I am not sure what open minded means here but besides my wishlist for improved infantry my demands are really just minor improvements to the editor.

You want a completely new theme of simulation in equal detail being put into it! In principle SBP and ArmA married. This has been suggested in board messages over the years. And has been slammed every time, as far as I am aware of such debates. The focus is gunnery training, TC command training, unit interaqction in small units, best platoon level. Live with it. Everythinbg else that already is there, or will be there, already is BONUS.

Frankly i feel misunderstood by you. I certainly do have an idea how large the scenarios can get and i suppose there is no saving feature yet ? I play SB for years now and played all available scenarios. I would have gotten into SBP already if it wouldn't be so expensive so i sit, wait and watch for the right moment to strike. It's just a question of time till i will. Right now i am 50:50. The reason why i am posting here now is simple because i try to figure out if it's ripe for me already.

If you do not go for it after a 5 year wait, a solid community on display, several major upgrades illustrating how much the sim already has expanded, then simple truth is you never will. I think you simply have too high, too perfectionistr expectations. And beyond a certain altitude at which they fly, you never get down to the ground again.

The price. I assume you have bought games at times. Currently, new releases cost 40-50 euros for PC. If you have bought one game per year to play it for one year , you would have spend 250 euros. SBP could be had for 80 Euros at the lowest end of the price range. It equals the price of two normal games. Just that you get something that if the matter is of ionterest to you will keep you hooked not for one year, but for many years.

Seen that way, SBP is not expoensive, but a smile-.price offer. Even more so compared to the military the military which must spend this money to get some features unlocked (limit on map sizes, instructur console, digital map options).

Also i don't feel that i am "tunnelising" at all. I am very enthusiastic about the progress made so far and expressed that here on several occasions it's just that i have the desires that i have. Besides the lacking infantry simulation there are only a few minor things that annoy me. Things that would be easy to implement and make the life of a scenario designer a hell of a lot easier. I played all the scenarios out there for SB and in the end started to make my own but quickely had to realize that the SB editor missed a few very essencial features that i would need to implement my ideas.

I feel misunderstood now even more.

Not at all. But you sit and wait since 5 years and refuse to play SBP since some specialised details you want are not there. You invest your energy on focussing on those 1% that are not there and deny the shining 99% that are available. Sorry, but that is not clever. In five years, I must have turned several dozen people into customers , first by my review, and then by my board presence here; in the first year, I even got emails by them telling me in private again how much they like the sim. In these five years I have read just 2 or 3 people at the eSim board who refused the sim over claims of noit liking it. That ratio makes it the by far best rated sim I ever heared of in the whole history of computer games - and I'm with computer games since all beginning on.

I'm getting a bit tired of writing in circles around you. I answered your questions where I could. I told you you miss out on something great. I gave you the math over the price. The stickied resource thread is there. You are free to decide any way you want. But if you ask me over what to do, buy it or not, I say: don'T. Because I think you simply never will be satisfied and instead focus more on what is not there instead of what is there. That you have invested 5 years into a wait that most likely never will see full completion, while in five years the price for getting what is there would have relativised itself very much, says something.

Whatever, good luck.

[Deamon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

You have never tried to breach a minefield under fire, and then get the leading tank taken out in the middle of the passage. That is what emerges you into things. And what the sim can already do.

That would certainly be part of it.

What you want surpasses even ArmA,

He ?

and you want a massive second focus on playing from infantry'S position.

I wouldn't call that exactly massive just a few more improvements.

They have just increased the team and the people need to be payed on a monthly basis.

BTW: How big is the team by now ?

and WWII is more popular than modern war in tank games. Never understood the reason, but that'S how it is.

I would speculate that this has something to do with WWII being lavishly adverticed already in schools while you hear only little about modern warfare which is not surprizing then that the majority preffers WWII. People preffer what they know most about, you choose only from thouse things that you know.

I really stumbled accidentally into the WWI naval warfare subject. I had no interest in it whatsoever and if you would have told me before that i would be developing something awkward as a WWI subsim one day i would have slapped you. It was not untill i read my first book on the subject ( Riders of the Deep ) when i instantly realized the blasting potential of this subject ( provided it's properly implemented and this is why i invest so much time into it ) The spirit and inspiration that eminates from the eyewitness accounts are beyond WWII and beyond modern warfare(and i am saying that as a cold war nut ). I would have never expected that.

That for most of your specialised and detailed demands you probably can wait forever.

I guess, yes.

Do though plan to ever complete in this life, or will it be just in thy next one?

This one.

You want a completely new theme of simulation in equal detail being put into it!

No.

In principle SBP and ArmA married.

Even if my wishlist for SBP would be implemented, the infantry part in SBP would be still faaaaaaaaaar away from ArmA.

I think you simply have too high, too perfectionistr expectations. And beyond a certain altitude at which they fly, you never get down to the ground again.

And i think you exaggerate the magnitude of my wishes, excessively.

The price. I assume you have bought games at times. Currently, new releases cost 40-50 euros for PC. If you have bought one game per year to play it for one year , you would have spend 250 euros. SBP could be had for 80 Euros at the lowest end of the price range. It equals the price of two normal games. Just that you get something that if the matter is of ionterest to you will keep you hooked not for one year, but for many years.

Your assumptions are wrong. I don't buy games since years. I can't even remember when i bought a game the last time, it's so long ago. I also cannot keep up with the hardware upgrade madness anymore and ended up playing old games. I still play operation flashpoint, civilization and that alike. Price is not the only reason why i haven't got into SBP yet, it's also because i still have so much fun with the ole SB That is why waiting isn't that hard for me, i wanted to suck out the last droplet of blood out of it before i would consider to merge to SBP and it was only when i tried to get into scenario making and ren into the said editor limitations when i seriously started to consider to switch to SBP and i don't doubt into the potential of SBP a slightest bit and look forward to it. I am considering it now cause i think i exhausted the potential of SB for me.

Seen that way, SBP is not expoensive, but a smile-.price offer. Even more so compared to the military the military which must spend this money to get some features unlocked (limit on map sizes, instructur console, digital map options).

I had confused dollars with euros and thought it costs 125€. But now i see the light

Not at all. But you sit and wait since 5 years and refuse to play SBP since some specialised details you want are not there.

As i said above it's not that i refuse it but i still had too good of a time with the ole SB which reached the end of its life cycle for me now. Besides that i wanted to spend most of my time with development anyway and that is obviously a lot easier by not having SBP cause i know of course exactly that i would get addicted to it when i would get it.

[Deamon]

Sky i have one question about the ordering process, how can i pay in euro ? I see there only a dollar option.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Deamon

Sky i have one question about the ordering process, how can i pay in euro ? I see there only a dollar option.

The service will automatically exchange dollars for Euros on your banking account. I never had any worries with it.

By the time of writing this, 100 $US equalled 75,53 Euros.

Since all patches and upgrades always come as complete new installations and the manuals and DVDs get easily outdated anyway, you can safely live by the download version only, I think DVDs and printed manuals are currently not offered anyway. Saves you 25 dollars. You download the software and install it. You can burn the installation file to DVD if you want. You can read and print all installed manuals already while waiting for the mail-delivery of the dongle that is needed to run the actual software. Should be around one week, no shipping or tax costs.

Watch out for new freepatch/new version later this week. Since you need to wait for the dongle anyway, I would wait to download that one so that you do not two installations within just some days. The original manual for older versions you can find in their download section, resources->documentations.