CaptSopwith 36 Posted Saturday at 07:54 PM (edited) I'm enjoying a mid-afternoon coffee and wanted to send a little note of thanks over to the entire crew working on this latest and greatest iteration of WOFF. At 43 I'm probably still one of the younger (ish) members of the community, and always have been (I joined the ancient Flight Sim boards on Delphi when I was 16!). I've been playing video games since I was 4, and my grandfather (a WWII vet) handed me an Atari 5600 controller and a copy of Moon Patrol. I still love games and I think I've been through just about every generation of console without missing a beat since the NES. Which means that in addition to my flight sim rig (a 40th birthday present from my wife ), I've enjoyed the PS5 immensely. I love getting into racing games and play just about every version of the F1 series and Gran Turismo that I can get my hands on. Modern gaming sure is amazing! But it also has a lot of increasingly troublesome drawbacks. I'm excited (cautiously) for the new Battlefield 6 - so I snagged the Open Beta for both console and PC only to find today that I'm number 7800 in the queue on PlayStation and 152,280 on PC... Modern games also need a constant internet connection, and sometimes I wonder who I'm really supporting when I sign into a server that may be in Russia (which feels a lot more problematic than it did when I first got those games)... Which is why I'm so grateful that there is still a dedicated band of brothers making this sim - a game whose only goal is to create as true to life a representation of an era that we are all fascinated by. Filling out claim forms that often go nowhere, choosing to actually degrade the visuals by slapping on a greasy pair of scratched up virtual goggles... the things we do to feel a little more in touch with the source material lol :screwy: But how refreshing is it in our era of drip-fed content, buggy day one launches and their subsequent 80+ GB "patches," we still have a relic of the golden age of gaming: an offline, dynamic, immersive, remarkable flight sim that takes you as you are, doesn't shove DLC in your face, or ask you to upgrade to the super premium deluxe edition, or micro-transaction you to death for loot boxes and cosmetics. When the team has the next leap ready, it's there for you to buy, one and done - complete with several planes, and dozens of improvements. This is a rare space these days. And one, that, as I sat and stared at my monitor, for a AAA game to tell me that my input is so valuable that I'm in a queue of players longer than several cities I've lived in... I was happy to close the window and send you all a note instead. So thank you - for your passion, your dedication to accuracy (reading the exchanges between OvS, Graf, Elephant, and JFM have been a favorite reading pastime for me this summer), the gorgeous screen shots and just how much we love this odd little corner of the gaming / internet world we inhabit. It's still a pleasure to be along for the ride, all these years later. Cheers gents! Edited Saturday at 08:02 PM by CaptSopwith 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Rick Rawlings 179 Posted Saturday at 08:41 PM I agree fully! And they may be the last of their breed! The only consolation is that: provided we survive the AI singularity, you will definitely live long enough to have an AI system design you a bespoke WWI flight simulator exactly the way you want it. AI can already do basic programming and games, within ten years, we should be there. If we survive... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CaptSopwith 36 Posted Saturday at 10:34 PM 1 hour ago, Rick Rawlings said: I agree fully! And they may be the last of their breed! The only consolation is that: provided we survive the AI singularity, you will definitely live long enough to have an AI system design you a bespoke WWI flight simulator exactly the way you want it. AI can already do basic programming and games, within ten years, we should be there. If we survive... An unnerving thought, my friend! As a teacher, I already see a pervasive number of essays and responses that have been generated and not written. It would be cool to see if an AI could find some more juice in the CFS3 engine or even help the team port the sim to another engine altogether... but for now, I'll take the handmade option over the Terminator lol 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
