Reflections of a grumpy, middle-aged gamer

[ComradeP]

I prefer games covering land warfare between 1900 and 1950 or so.

The pace is not too slow, not too fast. There's limited technical complexity involved in the tactics and equipment.

I also second Anguille's too many games comment. Steam in particular sells so many games that it's difficult for the customer to find hidden gems. I end up purchasing games I know or that look appealing whenever I stumble upon them.

The good thing about playing mostly Tiller titles is that 1-2 new games I'm interested in are released every 1-2 years.

It's kind of ironic that many highly complex games still give the player so much control over individual components/units or have so many highly detailed ánd highly underdeveloped mechanics at the same time (capturing flags with the field telephone half-track in Graviteam Tactics) that they become the opposite of realistic.

[MetalDog]

"I would like to learn and play deeply immersive and detailed, complex games (CMO for instance)."

Lot of discussion about "complex" games.  CMO is a great example. Its only complex if you want to play it that way.

I am not daunted by the prospect of learning the CMO game mechanics.  It's the subject matter I find challenging.  So many aircraft types, so many different esoteric weapon systems, a whole different jargon!  I'm an old land warfare gamer.  This fancy air and sea stuff intimidates me.

Once again, you and me are on the same side!

[smithcorp]

I don't need to hit 15 buttons to turn the power on in a cockpit.  It adds nothing to what I want a flightsim to do.  Its great you put that level of detail into a sim, but just start the plane.

God, thank you! I sometimes watch DCS videos and can't imagine talking 15 minutes to start the aircraft!

[FarAway Sooner]

Great thread, guys!

I first cut my teeth on AH's War at Sea, at the tender age of 7.  Victory in the Pacific was my 2nd title, and D-Day was my third.  I think Ogre might have been #4!  From there, I sprawled into all sorts of sci-fi, WW II, and even a couple fantasy board games.  I played the bejeezus out of the original Star Fleet Battles, and I still have a box where I must have 30 of those microgames.  Man, was I pissed up when they upped the unit price on those from $2.95 to $3.95!

I definitely don't have the appetite for complicated PC gaming that I used to.  A lot of that is just tied to lifestyle (I'm past 50, I'm married and I have a 7-year old and a 10-year old, I stay very active coaching them up in sports leagues when we're not in the midst of a global pandemic, most of the close friends I used to play games with have kids too, etc.).

Having a full-time job and two kids to keep up with, I just don't have the mental energy to dive into complex games by the time my night is done and I have an uninterrupted hour or two.  The mind is still willing, but the flesh is weak!

For me, an awful lot of what turns me off so many "new" games is monotony.  When I'm not gaming with friends, a huge part of my enjoyment comes from figuring out a new system.  When I come across a truly novel complex system in a package that features good game play (like AI Wars or Rome: Total War or Distant Worlds: Universe), I still find myself rising to the challenge of grocking out a new game.

But, after playing games for more than 40 years, I find it pretty easy to diagnose what's going on in a game.  I might not be able to master all the mechanics right away, but I've mastered similar mechanics so many times, I know what the journey's going to be like, and I'm just not that intrigued.

Complexity by itself is overrated.  I think Settlers of Catan really triggered a new wave in gaming about 20 years ago, when they came up with the idea of MUCH simpler mechanics that blend together to create an overall gaming experience that derives its variety not from the numerous details that go into a single attack roll, but simply from the complex interaction between a handful of separately simple systems. 

That said, I find myself continuing to engage with other types of new games, if I find the mechanics intriguing.  A few tablet games have sucked me in for extended periods.  At the moment, I'm having great fun running a co-op game of Shop Titans with my kids, my nieces, and my sister.  The mechanics start out shallow, but you end up with 6 or 7 different "game systems" that all feed off each other in an agreeable and appropriate manner.

It's hard to compare board games to computer games, because the social element can be very different, too.

[Bardolph]

I started with AH Gettysburg and Tactics II c. 1962.  And did the SPI thing big time in the 1970s.

Every time the old board game Grognards start reminiscing, it's always about old Avalon Hill titles or Midway or some such.  My first wargame was Tactics II.  Good to see I wasn't the only one!   O0

Me II

[Father Ted]

For me, an awful lot of what turns me off so many "new" games is monotony.  When I'm not gaming with friends, a huge part of my enjoyment comes from figuring out a new system.  When I come across a truly novel complex system in a package that features good game play (like AI Wars or Rome: Total War or Distant Worlds: Universe), I still find myself rising to the challenge of grocking out a new game.

But, after playing games for more than 40 years, I find it pretty easy to diagnose what's going on in a game.  I might not be able to master all the mechanics right away, but I've mastered similar mechanics so many times, I know what the journey's going to be like, and I'm just not that intrigued.

Though I wouldn't claim to be able to work out games that easily, I do think that these sentiments lie behind a lot of our lassitude towards firing up new and/or complicated games.  If it's MP I'll put up with a lot because having actual other humans in the mix tends to keep gameplay fresh.  With new SP games I do look at things like tech trees and sigh, knowing that I'll have to put thought into them, and that it's thought that I've put into many games before, for the same "fix" of progression.  Building your empire is a thrill - the first time. But whether it's Total War.Game, FoG Empires or Paradox.Game, the mechanic is broadly the same for each.

Similarly with flightsims. When all is said and done, you're just changing pixels with a (some) PC peripheral(s).  Once you've learnt to "fly" one "plane", going through all that rigmarole again just to get essentially the same experience seems a bit of an effort.  Maybe VR is a refresher here...

I guess my point is that some of the "fault" may lie with slightly stagnant game-design rather than entirely with our fading faculties.

[MengJiao]

Similarly with flightsims. When all is said and done, you're just changing pixels with a (some) PC peripheral(s).  Once you've learnt to "fly" one "plane", going through all that rigmarole again just to get essentially the same experience seems a bit of an effort.  Maybe VR is a refresher here...

I guess my point is that some of the "fault" may lie with slightly stagnant game-design rather than entirely with our fading faculties.

   What might be stale is what games try to present as "winning"...one nice thing about flight sims and RPG is that looking at aspects of the world as presented in the game is supposed to be part of the experience.  More purely battle-oriented games I find tend to lose track of the atmospheric side of the gamer's experience.  I like the flavored atmospheres of the games I tend to play (DCS, HLL, Winter War, War Thunder, World of Warships) because (perhaps by accident for some of these)...well...er...probably a matter of taste in some cases, I guess.

[Lowenstaat]

Similarly with flightsims. When all is said and done, you're just changing pixels with a (some) PC peripheral(s).  Once you've learnt to "fly" one "plane", going through all that rigmarole again just to get essentially the same experience seems a bit of an effort.  Maybe VR is a refresher here...

I guess my point is that some of the "fault" may lie with slightly stagnant game-design rather than entirely with our fading faculties.

   What might be stale is what games try to present as "winning"...one nice thing about flight sims and RPG is that looking at aspects of the world as presented in the game is supposed to be part of the experience.  More purely battle-oriented games I find tend to lose track of the atmospheric side of the gamer's experience.  I like the flavored atmospheres of the games I tend to play (DCS, HLL, Winter War, War Thunder, World of Warships) because (perhaps by accident for some of these)...well...er...probably a matter of taste in some cases, I guess.

That's my impression, too. I enjoyed games like Gunship 2000, M1 Tank Platoon, and F117 from Microprose because they put me in the position of role playing as pilot or tank commander. Rather than a 15 minute startup sequence from a checklist I just pushed the E button and started flying/driving. These were not complicated simulations. Instead they were simplified role playing simulators in which I role played a person who could turn on an aircraft/tank without me as a player really knowing how to do it. Still, I, like many of you have posted, am amazed by the higher levels of depth offered by modern games like DCS, Steel Beasts, ARMA, etc.

[Toonces]

You know, I looked for this SimHQ thread for quite a while a few years back and couldn't find it.  My Google-foo was better tonight and it only took a minute or so.

I absolutely love the forum post I copied below.  It articulates everything I've been saying for years about flight sims.  None of us minds having better graphics and more immersion.  But, what the author below suggests, and I agree with, is that above all you need to be placed in the seat of a fighter pilot...all the extraneous stuff needs to be streamlined so the player can concentrate on being put in the moment, and not get impeded by details.  To put my own personal spin on this topic, I flew P-3s and our pre-flight for an ASW mission was 3 hours.  We needed this time to pre-flight the plane, file the flight plan and get the weather, program all the buoys, and myriad other tasks that took a crew of ten 3-hours to complete.  You know, if I want to simulate doing ASW in a P-3 I don't need to actually spend 3 hours in a flight sim pre-flighting and mission planning.  That misses the major point of what it meant to take that plane to 200' and 200 knots, at night, twisting and turning hunting a quiet, elusive target cruising among civilian tankers, fishing vessels, and what not.

This really is the essence of my complaints with respect to DCS (and now BMS).  We're moving towards increasing realism at the expense of the experience, of putting you in the cockpit and distilling the sim to the things that make flying a fighter interesting.  Zerocinco really says it better than I can.

I'm reminded of the interview I heard today with Howard Stern and Jerry Seinfeld.  Howard was talking about how Seinfeld's latest material focuses on minimalism; trimming and trimming his jokes to the minimum they need.  No fluff and no extra BS.  I find myself leaning towards games with this approach.  Like I said before, Cold Waters really exemplifies this.  Freefalcon did the same for Falcon 4.0.  There was just enough realism to make you work, but not so much that you were bogged down.  I'm getting too old to be bogged.

The original post is linked below.  I copied the text and pictures over.  YAP refers to "Yankee Air Pirate" a paid download add-on for Thirdwire's Wings over Vietnam.  I never played it, but I'm sure Jarhead did at some point.

https://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3496831/a-discussion-on-the-future-of-yap-and-flt-sims#Post3496831

...

We are at a crossroads at YAP (and Rising Sun). TK has killed refueling in SF2. While he failed to get rid of helicopter flight, he can whenever he wants and we expect that is next. Without helicopters, the need to take on fuel, ground targets that die, collateral damage, realistic night missions, lighting, real AAA, busy carrier decks, cluttered airfields it's silly to us and an insult to a historian. (No, I wouldn't call that a My Humble Opinion.) Possibly, seeing our success, has acceded to developing helicopter flight and refueling himself...finally.

So going to SF2 is unlikely for YAP. Rising Sun is already SF2-capable but recent patches have caused unrealistic changes. So, we think our tenure as an uninvited guest in a fantasy world may be drawing to a close. We may provide models for a time because we have an awful lot as yet unrevealed that may be of interest.

Therefore we want to have a discussion with you...the players. A shopping list? Okay. An opportunity to vent the politics of the denizens of the forums? No way. Things are happening and they will effect you, your investments in entertainment and your future choices. We might be able to do something about it but only if the rewards exceed the sacrifice.

We will do it with pics, if you don't mind.




This first is cut from an ad you have seen running. Their major contribution is that they have an ad budget and they are reaching out beyond those of us here to bring in more "players". You can fly with a mouse or a finger in 5-minutes. Some will enter our world and discover or demand better things. In that respect, they are certainly more important than we are and are doing us a service.

As you can see, this sim is not the best at anything really. This is not to condemn their attempt but to point out that nobody can do it all since WE are playing with YOUR computer. And maybe we are also pointing out that what people are demanding are possibly the wrong things.

Saigon with a moonscape in the background.



Dogpatch: our standard village.



Plei Mei Special Forces Camp using trees and a special tile to subtract un-reality.



IL-2 does terrific cockpits. Jet Thunder was doing good seas. We think we use whatever tricks we have to do better villages (ie. covering the crappy ground tiles with enough trees and houses to make it look real at high speed.) Check Paris in their ad. They are doing the same thing and, like us, are very carefully posing the shot.

Thirdwire does good shadows...now.



We know more about what really goes on and it shows. For instance, that F-16 being towed by an M-35!...and not a shadow to complicate the scene with realism. You have to wonder if they were drawing a horse race if the horses would have jockeys. That's why YAP developed all we did. We know what is missing from the picture even if all the players don't.

What follows are some pictures from real life.



The above is a picture of the last bombs I dropped. That's what you see on downwind. You see a lot more on final but you see it at 450 knots and you are not looking for songbirds on the wires. You look for what you need to see and your mind blurs the rest. Game designers do not know that. They are busy drawing shoes on rudder pedals. You do not look at all your instruments. You look for flashes and those little gray zip lines made by rounds passing by. What you KNOW is that all those little tin roofs are homes and people and you just missed the target by half a football field and that was good enough. We think it is important in a war simulation to know you are killing people and breaking things. It is both exciting and horrible...but it's real.







The water pictures. The blue one is at about 8000 or 9000 feet. I am looking for Lead, not waves. The gray one was taken as a passenger (hitch-hiking home to Danang after some aviation misadventure) in a C-123 grinding up the coast at a zippy 140 knots. Even as a passenger, you see a lot more in a photograph viewed afterward than you do in flight.



And for you rivet counters. You can see detail on the belly of the T-38's in this photo but the pilot of the airplane that was out of position taking this shot did not. If you stop long enough to see them, you will again be out of position. They are pulling about 5 G's, at about 12000 feet at around 300 knots. No time to be criticizing the art work.

Bonus: This is the landing of the last flight of Deuces in Southeast Asia. They didn't do much but they were sure pretty.



YAP's angle was to provide realism through situation. The player knew we were leveling with them and that we had placed them as accurately as we could in the moment...same for Rising Sun. IL-2 leans on computer memory to provide great artwork. X-Plane touts being able to make that plastic stick and LED screen behave like an airplane...certainly they do it better than we do. But aerial warfare is becoming..."different"...now.

Now we have to ask: What do you want? Where do you want the genre to go? What experiences do you want to simulate? Do you like to look at landing gear detail? Or do you want to wander around on the ground looking at tire treads? Do you want repetition and reward? Or do you want to have something to lose if you do not perform? Do you want to fly...I mean have to control the simulation...at the level of a pilot as in YAP or do you want to roll the mouse and look out the window?

The great joy of flying as a passenger is looking around and seeing little things. The pilot is not doing that. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?

[Lowenstaat]

We're moving towards increasing realism at the expense of the experience...

Well stated, Toonces. That's the idea I was trying to express, too. I appreciate the increased technical realism of modern simulations, but I really want the experience of a good tactical, operational, and/or strategic role playing simulator, something with the graphic fidelity of a modern/combat flight sim or a new flashy FPS shooter, but with the flight mechanics, character immersion, and dynamic campaign progress of the old MicroProse games.

[Tripoli]

...
This really is the essence of my complaints with respect to DCS (and now BMS).  We're moving towards increasing realism at the expense of the experience, of putting you in the cockpit and distilling the sim to the things that make flying a fighter interesting.  Zerocinco really says it better than I can.
...

Toonces-At the risk of sounding like a Wings over Flanders Field fan boy, you might want to give them a look if you haven't.  It has a very immersive campaign, but you are flying very basic (and somewhat unreliable) aircraft, so it might scratch the aviation itch you have.

[Toonces]

^ Thanks Tripoli.  I do have WOFF and I'm a huge fan.  I've found it is my go-to flight sim lately for the reasons you stated.  There's something very soothing about flying a plane that really doesn't have a large learning curve, and dogfighting is infinitely more fun than plucking targets BVR. 

We really need a new Korean War flight sim.

[Dammit Carl!]

We really need a new Korean War flight sim.

Amen.  Mig Alley was a hoot (fondly recall making my Shooting Star a million dollar lawn dart after pulling too many Gs coming out of a dive on a NK train and getting rid of those pesky wings).

[Tripoli]

We really need a new Korean War flight sim.

Amen.  Mig Alley was a hoot (fondly recall making my Shooting Star a million dollar lawn dart after pulling too many Gs coming out of a dive on a NK train and getting rid of those pesky wings).

I agree-MiG Alley was great.  Really needs to be re-issued.  Toonces-another idea: Try flying A2A's Piper Cub.  Very relaxing going VFR at 1500 feet ant 63 knots.

[Toonces]

For quite a while I was pretty heavy into FSX and actually was doing virtual airline routes with Virtual Delta...with the PMDG 737!  I don't know why, but somehow that was very relaxing. 

I also spent some time with Air Hauler and it was the same thing.  Firing up a little prop plane and flying cargo around...maybe a threat to Maverick but to me it's a bit of paradise.

I'm in a good gaming space.  I have enough to probably last me the rest of my life if I wanted.  I think what really has set me off lately is the newest iteration of BMS.  I posted about that before.  They just had to keep adding layers of complexity, and their last step really killed the fun (for me).  Most people love it; I'm a lone wolf on this one.  IMO, Freefalcon was the apogee of the Falcon 4.0 mod franchise.  It added just enough to be hugely entertaining without being overwhelming.  When I talk combat sim sweet spots, that was it.  Frankly I'd still play it and bail on BMS but FF was never all that stable and it simply won't run reliably on Win10.  It's a real bummer for me, because I could have amused myself forever with that last iteration.

Ah well...it's all good.