Probably spawned by Minecraft, retro looking games are all the rage. I would imagine the low fidelity graphics save a good chunk of change.
I would really like to see a flight sim with retro graphics but fidelity between Strike Fighters and DCS: Lock On. Not a study sim, just a sim that replicates the feel of different airframes that is somewhat easy to get into. In-air refueling should be able to be accomplished within a few hours of play. It has been frustrating waiting on the Edge engine for DCS, and it often seems the bulk of the development goes into prettifying a flight sim and not making it actually fun (dynamic campaigns, any story whatsoever, etc.)
We have no intro flight sims anymore. We have arcade shooters (Ace Combat) then we have near military grade study sims (DCS: A10/Blackshark/MI-8/etc). Thirdwire has seemingly given up the PC. Where is the bridge for a kid playing Ace Combat on his Xbox and DCS? I was lucky to start with Aces over the Pacific and the like and eventually graduate to Flanker, IL2, LOMAC, DCS...
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jogosantigos.com.br%2Ffotos%2Fa%2Fa10-0005.png&hash=018a9a695a194ba78a56e14d1d2465ab0faf0c6c)
The retro flight sims are on GoG. :)
If some one made a Flight Sim or any other type of simulation game today without Super graphics, I doubt it would sell.
Quote from: SgtRock on October 19, 2013, 12:14:37 PM
If some one made a Flight Sim or any other type o
f simulation game today without Super graphics, I doubt it would sell.
Unless the game came with an awesome truly dynamic campaign..I would sacrifice graphics for that. But I do realize most people would prefer it to be pretty instead.
It used to be that graphics made the game, but I think that the new indie games have shown that if the gameplay is solid, and the art style is good, the graphics don't necessarily have to be ultra-realistic.
Its times like these I wish I weren't so dumb and could program... :(
Gunship on the ST. We used to have hours of fun trying to beat each others service records, no campaigns, just random generated missions with excellent mission briefings, would love to see a true remake of that with retro (Minecraft type) or modern graphics.
Darkspire
I think the vocal members of the flight sim community painted themselves into a corner. They fought for more and more fidelity and every button able to be mashed and now I would imagine developers don't want to touch the flight sim with a 10 meter pole...
Just like with space sims, it is going to take a successful kickstarter or something of that nature to 'kick start' the genre again. Just a year ago no one was making space games...now we have Elite, Star Citizen, and about a dozen others.
Hopefully someone new will come along to create a new flight sim using Unity or some other existing engine, that way they can focus on gameplay and not reinvent the wheel like every flight sim seems to have done.
QuoteThey fought for more and more fidelity and every button able to be mashed and now I would imagine developers don't want to touch the flight sim with a 10 meter pole...
Your line reminded me of something I had long forgotten, two words, keyboard overlay :)
I miss those as much as a proper printed manual and all the other bits you used to get in a box, always felt like Christmas because you never knew what would be in there.
Darkspire
[deleted]
IL2 46 looks pretty retro these days and is still going strong. If you want an entry level CFS, then War Thunder seems to be doing okay. The genre is actually undergoing a bit of a renaissance with Battle of Stalingrad and DCS 1944 in the pipeline. Even poor old CloD is getting some love and is beginning to look like the game it should have been.
Quote from: Father Ted on October 19, 2013, 06:27:10 PM
IL2 46 looks pretty retro these days and is still going strong. If you want an entry level CFS, then War Thunder seems to be doing okay. The genre is actually undergoing a bit of a renaissance with Battle of Stalingrad and DCS 1944 in the pipeline. Even poor old CloD is getting some love and is beginning to look like the game it should have been.
I recently loaded up CloD and I still think it's IL2 in a new skin. I just can't get into these games (anything done by Maddox).
I have always loved Wings from Cinemaware...it fell in between a simpler arcade game and a just slightly more advanced 'sim' and had one of the best campaigns ever.
I miss Flight Assignment: A.T.P. I played that for hours on end. I wonder if I still have the old 3.5" floppy somewhere around here?
I think flight sims were like they were back in the day not because they were the awesomest, but because that was the best we could achieve with the technology that then existed. Especially something like a flight simulation, you really want the best graphics you can afford to put in there because visuals are such an important part of flying. I don't agree that something like flight sims really lend themselves to "retro" gaming.
Now then, where I will agree is that flight simulations have been becoming higher fidelity and better simulations at the expense of the "game". DCS is a perfect example of a great simulation but a shitty game. I fly more in Air Hauler than I do in DCS because in Air Hauler at least I have a unique, dynamic experience every time I boot it up.
I would like to see us go more retro in that sense, capturing the gameplay magic of sims like Tornado or Pacific War 1942, but I don't see any reason to sacrifice simulation fidelity or graphics to achieve that.
Of course if I had my choice, I'd want it all. But I think for the flight sim to to back to a gameplay focus its going to have to be done by a very small team where there probably won't be the graphics artists to pull off DCS like image fidelity. It is with that in mind that I say, please bring the retro looking flight sim.
I'd happily trade image fidelity to have a simulated dynamic war like Falcon 4 but with approachable avionics, a large array of flyable craft, multiplayer capability, story with a career path, etc.
Interesting discussion here. :)
I agree with Toonces. I do not think its a matter of the 'flightsim crowd have put themselves in a corner' at all. With new hardware more possibilities arrived and graphical fidelity as well as aerodynamic fidelity were able to be increased.
Even in the days of old a big dream has always been to have a big simulation with a grand scope and a true air, naval and ground war. The technology level just wasn't at such a state (at least not for consumers) to support this.
Funny thing about the visuals is that it depends on the type of sim; our full flight sims of the 737 have shitty visuals for todays standards. They're functional and are comparable to FS2004. Some fields have static objects like low poly aircraft and terminal buildings, but there are no cities, the land has a global mesh (elevation model is accurate), but is otherwise devoid of anything civilization related, except for airfields.
The clouds are not 3D and once you enter one you just get a white haze.
Visibility, however, is pretty accurately modelled.
My point being; eventhough these sims are used for real life training and certification, their graphical prowess is nowhere near modern consumer products like DCS.
Instead, you have a 1:1 replica of the cockpit with all the instruments and knobs. The cockpit displays need to operate in high FPS to keep indications fluid and realtime. Part of the visual prowess of computer desktop sims is taken care of with the actual hardware of the cockpit like the instruments and the knobs.
Another problem faced by desktop simulations; we need to have accurate instruments to enable a proper interface between the player and the virtual aircraft, but this takes up real estate on the screen, costs processing power and reduces room for things to enhance situational awareness like being able to look outside of the window.
Things that are completely seperate in professional full flight sims.
Yet, even with the subpar visual presentation of the full flight sim, you should see the computer 'tower' needed to drive all the parts of it. Hydraulic movement, instruments, visuals, etc.
On our consumer products we want to have it all as well, but it needs to be installed on a single computer and needs to run on one screen (more are supported but are luxury).
A complete cockpit, outside world, movement of other assets, calculations for the modelled atmosphere, firing and detecting solutions and tracking, etc etc all need to work... on one PC.
It's no wonder high fidelity sims with top notch graphics have had a long development process and took quite some time to get here. Even now we're still in the 'development' phase and trying to see what does and does not work (as shown by the way DCS is developed). We should not underestimate the sheer power needed for a modern (combat) flightsim.
But with the enhancement of the graphics, 3D capability of computer hardware and, stuff like TrackIR, they have been able to up the immersion factor by several levels, raised the ability for keeping situational awareness inside the sim (remember the old padlocking days?? ;) ) and push the boundaries of presentation.
I think it's a natural progression and something that is nothing short of awesome, but indeed; as pointed out above, the 'game' or perhaps the 'entertainment value' in a product like DCS is subpar at the moment.
But is this because it has become too difficult to learn and operate something accurately modelled like the A-10C, while in F-19 Stealth Fighter you just needed to remember a few keys?
For many flightsim enthousiasts the 'game' is learning the high fidelity stuff. I know several guys who are mostly busy with flying training sorties in DCS A-10C to refine their flying / weapons platform skills in it and have no need for any campaign or narrated missions.
They just fire up the same mission time and again with a certain training range and go through the same routines day after day to to hone they skills.
People create intricate missions or 'set piece situations' to run on a server and fly that one thing for weeks on end. Never touching the singleplayer stuff.
This, too, has been a natural progression with the advancements in internet technology. It's often much more an online thing now, flying together, than sitting alone in front of the monitor and flying a AI scripted mission with dumbnut AI wingmen. (which we didn't even have at all in the old days of simming, mind you!)
A seperate, but relevant discussion, is that often times people are bringing up the issue of getting the 'game' back into the 'simulation', while they are trying to run their missions in full realism mode, because that's aparently the way the sim needs to be used.
No it is not. If you're a more casual player you should enable you more casual options as well. DCS as well as Falcon have several options to reduce the fidelity of the sim and turn it into a more arcade experience. But at the same time people just reject these options. Weird no?
The magical word is 'options' here; As long as there are options for everyone to tailor their sim experience to something they are comfortable with I am only for getting 'as real as it can get' for those who want to get as close to the real thing as possible.
These things do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Quote from: republic on October 20, 2013, 06:22:23 AM
I'd happily trade image fidelity to have a simulated dynamic war like Falcon 4 but with approachable avionics, a large array of flyable craft, multiplayer capability, story with a career path, etc.
It's already here and you named it; Falcon.
BMS has a mod to enable flying multiple aircraft, it has multiplayer, a campaign and you can tone down the avionics, weapons and radar fidelity to make it more game-like as well.
This is a nice example of the point I made above. :) (No offence meant in any way!)
I've tried BMS a few times, maybe I just didn't know how to configure it so that it would be like you say.
I wouldn't be so forlorn had TK of Thirdwire not seemingly abandoned the PC for mobile.
Republic,
I'm not trying to be argumentative here- this is a serious question. I'm not sure what you're still looking for with respect to Thirdwire. As TW currently stands you have 5 different iterations of Strike Fighters 2 (SF2, SF2:E, SF2:I, SF2:V, SF2:NA) and the sim is endlessly moddable. What more do you want exactly?
It's a pretty nice package as it is. I don't see what additional development it needs....
No offense taken from anyone, I am interested in hearing what all of you think, even if you disagree.
I'm mainly concerned about the future Toonces. Gaming is now far bigger than Hollywood and we've got space games out the wazoo, wargames, adventure games, etc all sorts of niche games popping up and coming out of the woodwork...but no flight sims.
We are still relying on games that are 10+ years old. They are still great games, but what is my son going to play? I've grown up with the genre so as my skill increased so did the level of simulation available to me. I can't imagine a young person deciding to get into flight sims and then sitting down with DCS: A-10.
I don't want to think that World of Warplanes and War Thunder is the best we can do for a new non-study flight sim.
Ahhhhh...Gotcha.
Well, the short answer from me is that we, as flight simmers, have slit our own throat on this. We demand more and more realism, graphics, simulation fidelity, everything but the kitchen sink. It turns out that to make all of that it is really, REALLY expensive.
Oh, and we simmers only want to pay $50 tops for everything, and we also want the option of waiting for a sale where we can get the sim of all sims for a few bucks at most.
Heh. Makes me want to run right out and start developing a sim, how about you?
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on October 19, 2013, 12:43:58 PM
Quote from: SgtRock on October 19, 2013, 12:14:37 PM
If some one made a Flight Sim or any other type o
f simulation game today without Super graphics, I doubt it would sell.
Unless the game came with an awesome truly dynamic campaign..I would sacrifice graphics for that. But I do realize most people would prefer it to be pretty instead.
+1
Quote from: republic on October 20, 2013, 05:09:10 PM
We are still relying on games that are 10+ years old. They are still great games, but what is my son going to play? I've grown up with the genre so as my skill increased so did the level of simulation available to me. I can't imagine a young person deciding to get into flight sims and then sitting down with DCS: A-10.
I don't want to think that World of Warplanes and War Thunder is the best we can do for a new non-study flight sim.
The spiritual successor to IL2 Sturmovik is slated for release next year (it will be released for "early access" next month). The price for the basic edition is the same as any AAA console/PC title, so not too daunting. In terms of fidelity it will sit nearer to DCS than WT, but will have a range of "difficulties", so I don't think the age of the realistic yet accessible combat flight sim is quite dead.
Also there seem to be players who've tried WT and now hanker after something a bit more realistic, so the market for the CFS could be opening up again , thanks to the likes of WT.
Quote from: Toonces on October 20, 2013, 07:04:45 PM
Oh, and we simmers only want to pay $50 tops for everything, and we also want the option of waiting for a sale where we can get the sim of all sims for a few bucks at most.
It is quite odd indeed that the average flight simmer has no problem shelling out hundreds of credits to buy cool hardware to support his hobby, but once developers start to ask more money you will instantly see a lot of whining, discontent or outright anger. But let's look at (what I think makes up the demography of the community):
I do think the 'niche' in the 'niche' has no problem with paying more as it shown by the SteelBeasts Pro community.
But flight sims are an oddity in this; they are pretty mainstream and hardcore at the same time. Lots of casual gamers love flying games. And almost everyone I know has dabbled with one or several of FS's versions. Hardcore and family casual types.
Aviation is just an interesting subject to so many.
So perhaps this is why the community of various flight sims is such a vocally active bunch with wishes so widely apart at times?
But I am pretty sure that the sim hobbyist (hardcore types) have no problem with paying pretty substantial amounts of credits on hardware and software for their hobby.
The problem here is that the dev group would loose the (arguably bigger) part of the community who are more casually interested. Exactly this discussion has been done on the ED boards a while back and they claim they have more copies sold of the lower fidelity stuff like Lock On than they have A-10C level fidelity products.
As far as recent offerings;
DCS is the most modern one.
IL-2 successor is in development.
Part of the old Maddox' crew and Rise of Flight's crew have signed with ED to create a DCS WW2 game.
BMS still gets updated, but indeed is based on an older game. Still its nowhere near the initial product anymore.
Prepar3D seems to be getting a new version.
Combat Pilot is in beta which is based on the Prepar3D engine as far as I know.
Still a decent amount of options I would say, especially since DCS seems to be a 'living' project with lots of future...
Then we have games like World of Warplanes, which is a mainstream arcade shooter which happens to feature aircraft. Just like World of Tanks is no tank sim.
Quote from: Father Ted on October 21, 2013, 10:03:24 AM
Quote from: republic on October 20, 2013, 05:09:10 PM
We are still relying on games that are 10+ years old. They are still great games, but what is my son going to play? I've grown up with the genre so as my skill increased so did the level of simulation available to me. I can't imagine a young person deciding to get into flight sims and then sitting down with DCS: A-10.
I don't want to think that World of Warplanes and War Thunder is the best we can do for a new non-study flight sim.
The spiritual successor to IL2 Sturmovik is slated for release next year (it will be released for "early access" next month). The price for the basic edition is the same as any AAA console/PC title, so not too daunting. In terms of fidelity it will sit nearer to DCS than WT, but will have a range of "difficulties", so I don't think the age of the realistic yet accessible combat flight sim is quite dead.
Also there seem to be players who've tried WT and now hanker after something a bit more realistic, so the market for the CFS could be opening up again , thanks to the likes of WT.
They all seem kind of retro to me in that any good game makes choices about where to overload the player with realism and where to make it a wild and interesting experience. That's like gaming 101 and flight sims have had that recipe down for decades.
So over the last year I've played ThirdWire (and stopped...not quite "real" enough i guess), IL2 1946 -- a Classic, RoF -- a classic and CLOD. All I play now is CLOD. It hits the classic sweet spot and is retro enough in an odd way (Well it is stuck in 1940..well really just June to Oct 1940). U'm looking forward to Battle of Stalingrad -- which should be a fantastic game.
In the past when we've had these discussions I've stated the golden ruler I use to measure all flight sims against is SWOTL, Red Baron, and Aces over the Pacific.
I'd love to see a flight sim today that had all the elements of Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe and Dynamix's Red Baron and Aces over the Pacific.
You'd have a sim that would containe an awesome story/campaign/career mode, aircraft that are made available on their historic frontline introductions, a little bit of industry management, and finally naming your pilots and watching their careers progress with yours. They just don't make this kind of game anymore.
Quote from: W8taminute on October 21, 2013, 02:06:40 PM
In the past when we've had these discussions I've stated the golden ruler I use to measure all flight sims against is SWOTL, Red Baron, and Aces over the Pacific.
I know what you mean, but I think my aerial fun meter was completely reset by my first few missions in an I-16 in IL-2: cranking up my landing gear, not getting killed, landing back in Leningrad. That was just so cool and very unlike churning around in some ultimate gear.
@ Yassy,
We had a discussion on SimHQ I think about sim pricing and it was shocking. There are many folks like me that really are willing to spend an almost unlimited amount of money (within reason) for the right sim. For example, if you married DCS's graphics engine with Falcon 4's dynamic campaign with a DCS-level F-4 Phantom featured, I would consider anything under $500 reasonable. For me that is value. There are a few folks like me out there.
There are far more people that insist, still, on a $50 price point, and even more that are in the "I'll wait for it to go on sale during the summer" crowd. It really is remarkable. We think nothing of investing thousands in a PC and HOTAS, TrackIR, etc., and then balk when it comes time to pony up a hundred or so for a decent sim. And it's relative. When you consider how expensive FSX becomes once you start adding stuff to it, I can't believe anyone wants DCS-WW2 for less than $50.
Quote from: Toonces on October 21, 2013, 09:38:58 PM
@ Yassy,
We had a discussion on SimHQ I think about sim pricing and it was shocking. There are many folks like me that really are willing to spend an almost unlimited amount of money (within reason) for the right sim. For example, if you married DCS's graphics engine with Falcon 4's dynamic campaign with a DCS-level F-4 Phantom featured, I would consider anything under $500 reasonable. For me that is value. There are a few folks like me out there.
There are far more people that insist, still, on a $50 price point, and even more that are in the "I'll wait for it to go on sale during the summer" crowd. It really is remarkable. We think nothing of investing thousands in a PC and HOTAS, TrackIR, etc., and then balk when it comes time to pony up a hundred or so for a decent sim. And it's relative. When you consider how expensive FSX becomes once you start adding stuff to it, I can't believe anyone wants DCS-WW2 for less than $50.
Basic supply & demand principles. While there will usually be someone willing to pay $500 for something, that doesn't mean many people will do so when they expect it to be $60 or less. That would essentially cut their customer base down to almost nothing and pretty much guarantee very few sales and certainly no impulse buys.
While a $500, or even $100 flight sim may sound reasonable to you, that doesn't mean it is for most people. Hell.. you see the reactions when Matrix prices a game at $80. That's a lot of spare change for some, and such expenditures can never guarantee you'll enjoy it as much as you thought you would (or that it's relativley bug-free). You're obviously a rare example when it comes to spending habits. ;D
I understand you completely. Which is why I said we simmers have slit our own throats on this.
We want really expensive niche software, but we don't want to pay a lot of money for it. So developers don't make it anymore.
By setting that arbitrary $60 price point we've killed our own hobby.
I bought DCS:A-10 for $5 on Steam. That is a shockingly insulting price to pay for that sim. Honestly. I don't find it particularly entertaining to play, so there's that, but for a sim of such high fidelity that you can use it to train for the real jet that's just obscenely cheap. 15 years ago we couldn't even imagine sims like DCS.
But forget about asking folks to pay up!
But then again that's for combat flight sims. Browse around at FSX products sometime. Good payware aircraft for FSX routinely push $50+. I don't know why $50 is appropriate for a P-47 in FSX, but for DCS:WW2, six aircraft of that caliber as well as a mission editor, a variety of terrains, and all sorts of other bells and whistles need to be included for the same price.
Yes it's insane, espcially if you place it into context where even the more casual simmer seems to have no problem with shelling out a few hundred buck for a decent HOTAS and most all buy a TrackIR.
That's 250 - 300 bucks for a basic setup. But the price of software... no way! Weird eh?
They can use hardware for several titles. So it is a more useful investment.
Investing big bucks on a single title is risky.
If you end up not liking it, then you're screwed.
Based on my experience, I have tried a lot of combat Sims but none was able to grab my attention for years. Third wire cane close but it did get old. Falcon 4 and DCS are good and deep but I get real tired of them pretty fast. I come back after months of rest.
Civilian Microsoft Flight Simulator is the winner for me. It takes up 80% of my gaming time and I've spent countless amount of money on add-ons.
Remember, casual gamers are not in for the long haul. They are only there because of hype or to satisfy a craving. Some may not have time to study which deep Sims demand.
I think many simmers stick to only a few titles.
Most people I know solely fly DCS or Falcon. They're not 'sim-hoppers' at all and still lay down serious money for their hardware.
Still, I guess you are right that for a bigger part of the players the fact that you can use the hardware for more titles than one makes it easier to lay down serious money, but not so much for the software title itself.
I think we need to seperate 'cusual gamers' from 'casual simmers' here.
The former is unlikely to spend over a hundred bucks on hardware for sims to begin with (while they still like to play sim games some times), while the latter falls more into the category you just mentioned. At least that's how I see it.
Seems to me that the DLC mode is the way to go. I downloaded the FTP RoF, just to see if I liked it (would not have spent £40 on a "complete" package) and have now spent £100 in installments. I think we'll see a lot more "stealth selling" in gaming. Someone posted on the BoS forums that he'd dropped £1000 on WT. You can be sure that no one would spend that upfront on a videogame, but if it's a tenner here and a tenner there it's easier to stomach - and easier to lose track of.
It's the same with the hardware, once you have a decent PC (even that can be made incrementally). I've gradually added head-tracking, pedals, a "throttle quadrant" and reasonable stick over the years as I've realised what each would add to the enjoyment of the game(s). It doesn't have to be a huge initial outlay.
I agree. I hadn't looked at it the way you did just now, but I guess the expanding your hardware piece by piece vs. expanding your given simulator piece by piece might just be a great example.
Even the more casually oriented simmers will probably fall much easier for expanding their copy if the cost is just incremental for the short moment.
Still, we don't see this on a large scale in sims yet, do we? Apart from Rise of Flight I can only think of DCS, which expands its overall simulator via modules, but the latter still asks full price for 1 module instead of the 'incremental' price of the DLC for RoF.
Quote from: Toonces on October 21, 2013, 10:04:33 PM
I understand you completely. Which is why I said we simmers have slit our own throats on this.
We want really expensive niche software, but we don't want to pay a lot of money for it. So developers don't make it anymore.
By setting that arbitrary $60 price point we've killed our own hobby.
I bought DCS:A-10 for $5 on Steam. That is a shockingly insulting price to pay for that sim. Honestly. I don't find it particularly entertaining to play, so there's that, but for a sim of such high fidelity that you can use it to train for the real jet that's just obscenely cheap. 15 years ago we couldn't even imagine sims like DCS.
But forget about asking folks to pay up!
But then again that's for combat flight sims. Browse around at FSX products sometime. Good payware aircraft for FSX routinely push $50+. I don't know why $50 is appropriate for a P-47 in FSX, but for DCS:WW2, six aircraft of that caliber as well as a mission editor, a variety of terrains, and all sorts of other bells and whistles need to be included for the same price.
I see the DCS examples brought up often, and I agree that they definitely need a good campaign facet added to DCS World. I'd go so far as suggesting they create an expansion with a good dynamic campaign generator, since they already have a wonderfully modular system. I'm guessing their programmers just wouldn't find any joy in creating such a thing, probably preferring to add new aircraft instead. I dunno. It would certainly garner them more sales from such an add-on, I would think.
As for pricing, I think Eagle Dynamics/DCS has shown that lowering their prices is obviously profitable and squeezes more sales out of each product that they otherwise wouldn't receive. Else why would they regularly put their stuff on sale? And their recent release of DCS World on Steam with package prices between $15 and $50, and their regular sales, is obviously keeping them profitable. Don't fix it if it isn't broken.
On the other end of the spectrum, something like Steel Beasts Pro is what... $110 for the base sim? It doesn't even have one of the aforementioned dynamic campaigns in it either, does it? Maybe if it had that, I'd own it. But price isn't the only factor in this equation and it rarely is. The features & content is always a big consideration, in comparison to price. As is DRM. When it comes to SBPro, the price alone probably scares most people off, but both that
and the DRM, together, just turns me away in disgust. It just doesn't make sense for gamers like me, who tend to only play any one game in short spurts, to invest in such things and especially so if I'm gonna be treated like a criminal for such an expense. They obviously want to keep their sim as niche as possible, which is their own decision, but I'd guarantee they'd have an upswing in sales if 1) they removed the DRM, and definitely more so if 2) they reduced the price of their base game to $60.
Edit: The modular DLC system is defnitely the way to go since people can check it out for an affordable price and part with their money easier on future add-ons. I'd even go so far as to say that the DCS free-to-play system has probably garnered them extra sales they wouldn't otherwise have. Release a base package with one free aircraft/tank/whatever and charge for further packs. It's a smart way to market your software.
I would actually even go for the much hated subscription model if there were regular monthly updates of missions, assets, etc. My dream would probably be DCS: Korea and DCS: Vietnam with a DCS hosted server where you hop in can set up your own missions with friends and fight the war. Like Aces High II or WW2Online but only aircraft.
what happened to all the people who made the Janes flight sims - there were so many of those in teh nineties - so many good flight sims occupying a good space between fun and complexity. The Janes sims, the Interactive Magic sims, Empire Interactives' sims, all those Jetfighter sims and Novalogics sims and Microprose of course!!
perhaps we just dont have the proximity to the what if cold war scenarios and the interest created in modern air combat from the first Gulf War also. Owning a desktop PC and having a joystick were pretty common back then too, but now so much is console, laptop and tablet, but perhaps that has nothing to do with it, its fallen into a niche realm and when in that realm that sims will be made to suit the hard core audience i suppose.
I tried to get into DCS world's sims but they are a pain and a bore and with no story or atmosphere. as alwaysi thank the gods for Dosbox and also Nglide and the Enemy Engaged games which have endured well
^^ Didn't some of the Janes' Sim people go on to make Thirdwire sims?
Quote from: W8taminute on October 21, 2013, 02:06:40 PM
In the past when we've had these discussions I've stated the golden ruler I use to measure all flight sims against is SWOTL, Red Baron, and Aces over the Pacific.
I'd love to see a flight sim today that had all the elements of Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe and Dynamix's Red Baron and Aces over the Pacific.
You'd have a sim that would containe an awesome story/campaign/career mode, aircraft that are made available on their historic frontline introductions, a little bit of industry management, and finally naming your pilots and watching their careers progress with yours. They just don't make this kind of game anymore.
Some of the WW1 indie devs are definitely approaching Dynamix' Red Baron, and in some ways have exceeded it.
SWotL was one reason I was so hyped by one of Microprose's last sims,
The Mighty Eighth, which featured plenty of aircraft detail, a good (if small) introductory mix of fighters (Allied and Axis, including the ME-262 jet), and B-17 variants; plus several levels of play up to a dynamic campaign bombing or defending the Reich. My granduncle was the youngest American pilot of a B-17, and I was freaking there seeing what he saw!
Then it arrived with plenty of bugs, and as far as I know those were never ironed out, and here we are today. :(
Quote from: agathosdaimon on October 22, 2013, 09:31:16 AM
what happened to all the people who made the Janes flight sims - there were so many of those in teh nineties - so many good flight sims occupying a good space between fun and complexity. The Janes sims, the Interactive Magic sims, Empire Interactives' sims, all those Jetfighter sims and Novalogics sims and Microprose of course!!
perhaps we just dont have the proximity to the what if cold war scenarios and the interest created in modern air combat from the first Gulf War also. Owning a desktop PC and having a joystick were pretty common back then too, but now so much is console, laptop and tablet, but perhaps that has nothing to do with it, its fallen into a niche realm and when in that realm that sims will be made to suit the hard core audience i suppose.
I tried to get into DCS world's sims but they are a pain and a bore and with no story or atmosphere. as alwaysi thank the gods for Dosbox and also Nglide and the Enemy Engaged games which have endured well
Third wire Sims are pretty much the Janes of today. But they are getting old themselves.
they did the strike fighters and wings over europe games yes? yes they are good actually, great, i like them so much more than the DCS sims. more atmosphere and presence in the game
Quote from: agathosdaimon on October 23, 2013, 02:36:22 AM
they did the strike fighters and wings over europe games yes? yes they are good actually, great, i like them so much more than the DCS sims. more atmosphere and presence in the game
Yup. It's the semi dynamic campaign and the variety that keeps you coming back for more.
Hey look, someone listened! Kinda...
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/02/11/blue-sky-fragging-sky-rogue/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RockPaperShotgun+%28Rock%2C+Paper%2C+Shotgun%29 (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/02/11/blue-sky-fragging-sky-rogue/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RockPaperShotgun+%28Rock%2C+Paper%2C+Shotgun%29)
My eyes!!
Oh, the humanity!
That is some straight-up first generation Ace Combat gaming!
Although I wouldn't call that retro flight simming exactly. The Microprose Stealth Fighter games would be retro flight simming.
My first MP experience was Fighter Ace 1.5.. belonged to the VMF_214.. we put enough characters in the front of our call sign so that our individual ID's were hidden in game (really pissed off people who wanted to kill you)...
Great bunch of guys, still friends with a lot of them on FB
This brings back a LOT of memories!
Man, some great memories with these.
I've got a joystick/throttle/rudder pedal combo with TrackIR, and honestly they're just gathering dust. I desperately miss the mid-range sims with solid dynamic campaigns like the Aces series, F-19 Stealth Fighter, European/Pacific Air War, Red Baron 1-2, Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, and MiG Alley.
I get some fun out of IL-1946 and Rise of Flight, but nothing compared to the hours I spent with those old classics.
Quote from: SirAndrewD on February 15, 2014, 09:53:33 PM
I've got a joystick/throttle/rudder pedal combo with TrackIR, and honestly they're just gathering dust. I desperately miss the mid-range sims with solid dynamic campaigns like the Aces series, F-19 Stealth Fighter, European/Pacific Air War, Red Baron 1-2, Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, and MiG Alley.
If you want a newer sim with a proper old-fashioned dynamic single-player campaign where the war rages on around you, then get
Wings Over Flanders Fields. It just came out in December. Excellent campaign. Well worth the cost.
http://www.overflandersfields.com/index.html