Can I rant here?

[+Zurawski 33]

Can you tell me where I can find a copy of TK's mission statement, please ?

Not being a privileged member of his inner circle, nor a long serving veteran of sites like this, I do not recall seeing such a mission statement, as you mention above, being made available for public consumption by TK himself.

 

I read a lot of "TK says" on forums, by people who are obviously "in the know", but I'd like to see the original quotes, especially as they seem to have been repeated "over & over". If I don't know what he said, then I run the risk of being trampled on the forums for daring to say something out of line. Like now.

 

You've got to realise that most people "on the fringe", judge a Sim by how it plays for them, not by third-hand excuses from people who may have had contact with the author at some time.

If you disliked a book because it was monumentally boring, you wouldn't change your opinion just because a friend of the author told you that it actually was his intention to create ennui.

 

So you really shouldn't launch into people who feel that TK hasn't tried hard enough to make his games more immersive or realistic, because in their opinion, things that could have been done to improve the game haven't been done.

And quite frankly, I don't believe TK has stood still with his intentions. Otherwise we wouldn't be getting patches that upgrade the Sims with new features, or new Sims that are a little more advanced than before. If he really wants to stay Sim-lite, then that's his decision, but it would be foolish of him in the extreme if he ignored opinions from people in the Sim community just because their point of view is different to his.

 

After all, how lite is Sim-lite ?

 

Mission Statement?... Now your just being an (Expletive removed to protect sensitive ears).

 

It doesn't take a mensa candidate to see the audience Thirdwire is catering to, let alone have to spelled it out.

 

Your metaphor of a book is actually quite good... Except one doesn't read non-fiction if one prefers fiction? Same can be said of Thirdwire games... Thirdwire has been around long enough for "most" sim enthusiasts to know where they fit in the scheme of things...

 

I've got an example for you... Do Ford drivers buy a Chevy and wish it was a Ford? (Not on purpose I assure you). Thirdwire sims "are what they are"... It makes absolutely no sense grousing over what Thirdwire sims "are not"... when they clearly never intened to "be" what they are not.

 

Your right TK, HAS incrementally improved his titles as he goes along... I suspect it is core in his design philosophy. But if you look at the content of what he's updated/improved... little has to do with moving his titles out of the "game" catagory and into the "Hardcore simulation" one.

Edited December 10, 2006 by Zurawski

[+Tailspin 3]

Indio....Here's a quote from TKs response to your own inquiry about a patch. It chock full of hints about where TK is going with sims. I'll highlight them since you seem to have missed the point. First your post, then TK's

 

Thought I'd be the first moron to ask.

 

The Sim is everything you'd expect from the SF/WOV stable. But I'd like to mention a few points for discussion.

 

1.It would be nice for an option to start engines. You can do that in "Over Flanders Field", the CFS3 add-on, and it does add a lot to the immersion factor. I know you've never had that in SF/WOV, but what a shame there too.

 

2. Shouldn't rudders have some effect on the ground? I can't taxy after I've landed - the aircraft will only move straight ahead. And yet in all those war movies, they always swing the planes around when they land.

Surely everybody loves taxying to the Hangar after a tough mission.

 

3. It would be nice for a mixture control in the engines. Every other prop-plane Sim has this.

 

4. I don't like the engine sound loop - it's a sort of Chinese Water torture after about thirty seconds.

5. Unjamming guns is great. That's a neat idea from Red Baron that OFF can't do. And I like the idea of reloading the magazines.

 

6. I'd like it better if the time setting for "Dawn" was exactly dawn, rather than a variable to within a couple of hours. Sometimes, it's so long after dawn, it doesn't look any different to morning.

I can set the exact time myself by picking "Night" and then advancing the clock. But if you ever use the Jump function during your flight, you're immediately thrown back to the time-setting you originally chose.

 

7. You know how I feel about the Comm menu for non existent comms.

I guess what's even more embarassing was that I was using it for two whole missions before I realised what an idiot I was.

 

8. It would be nice for the black square around the duplicate Aldis sight to be removed. It blocks out important viewing area.

 

9. I'd like to see some ground troops. OFF can do it, because effectively it's a larger scale virtual World. But we had little guys running about in EAW when you blew up their trucks. Can't it be done here ?

The trenchlines just seem so empty without that.

 

10. Frame rates are excellent. I took the same settings I had for fully patched SF/WOV and there's no difference. I have everything on full, except horizon on "near", which seems more realistic anyway. I always hate it when a new Sim from the same stable suddenly requires you to buy a new computer. First Eagles has not made that mistake

 

11. Enemy aircraft fall apart relatively easily when hit. In OFF, you have to expend a full-magazine to get a kill. I have no idea which is right, but First Eagles seems more like it is in the movies.

 

12. Landing seems unnecessarily tricky. It's very hard to get your speed down as you approach, and I would have thought the aircraft would have had enough drag to slow more quickly when the throttle is reduced to zero. Once your wheels touch, you now have a major problem in slowing.

Again, there's little drag from the aircraft, but if you could switch engines on and off, then at least a dead propellor would add drag. Even swinging the rudder would help, but as we know the rudder currently has little effect on the ground.

Your only chance is to hope that the speed bleeds enough that you can pull the stick back and slow the aircraft with the elevators.

I think this should be examined.

 

13. Are those, endlessly repeated, little oblong white buildings, authentic French farms ? They look more Spanish than French. Scenery is very very good , though. The towns are lovely. I hope you'll do Paris later, because surely everyone loves flying around the Eiffel Tower.

 

 

We'll have the patch when we feel we have have enough issues that need to be resolved resolved Smile Right now, we only have few minor issues here and there, so we want to wait until more people play the game and make sure they don't run into more major issues.

 

Some of the things we're working for the first patch on right now include: some minor issues/tweaks to the flight model, missing shadows on some aircraft, minor optimization for (slight) frame-rate increase, and adding more serial numbers and personal marking decals.

 

As for the disucssion points, they're all good points, but...

 

1. We currently isn't planning on adding engine on/off, thats just not part of our game design.

 

2. We can certainly look into the rudder effectiveness, but its pretty low priority at the moment. Our game isn't about taxing on the ground, but fighting in the air Smile

 

3. We won't hav mixture control either, not part of our game design. Just because everyone else has one doesn't mean we have to be lemmings and follow them Smile

 

4. Sorry, no new sounds for now. Maybe much later down the road...

 

5. You can already unjam using U key and reload guns using R key.

 

6. Its difficult to get the Dawn time right, since it depends if you're stating on the air or on the ground (ie, should it be Dawn at take-off or over target?), and other things like dates and location (sun rise/set at different time depending on season/date and lat/lon of the map)... We might look at it sometime later to see if we can improve it, but its very very low priority.

 

7. Comm menu stays, you're free to not use it if don't like it. In a future patch, we might change the comm to be more WWI specific (so it only has command that can be sent via hand-gestures), but this isn't a high priority right now.

 

8. We'll look into that.

 

9. Not in a patch. We won't be able to add mass of 3d soldiers without seriously affecting the frame rate. Unfortunately, we can't get away with paper-thin low res texture soldiers (like in EAW) these days, so if we have guys running out, they'll have to be high-poly 3d guys, which can have serious affect on frame-rate. Sad

 

10. See above, there are many trade-offs we had to make to ensure frame rates are good even on mid- to low- end machines.

 

11. Although we might tweak the gun effectiveness, it will probably stay about the same, we feel its more fun if you can see the enemy aircraft falling apart.

 

12. We'll look into landing and drag on ground.

 

13. No, they're probably not authentic. They're that shaped to keep the poly count low (see 10 about trade-offs being made for frame rates). We probably won't do Paris or any other major cities.

 

TK

--

 

Just one example. There are many more like responses. You can look for yourself if you don't believe it.

Edited December 10, 2006 by TailspinAgain

[+Erik 1,812]

Reminder to everyone --

 

Keep it civil. It is our policy to NOT allow flamming, name calling, and online bashing in any form. Debate the topic not the person if anything needs to be debated at all.

 

Thanks for understanding and happiest of holidays to everyone.

[+baffmeister 1,205]

Just because you model a large planeset doesn't mean you can't make them fairly realistic (all the normal limitations of a PC flight sim considered).

 

TK (and some of the 3rd party modelers, too) use this as an all-purpose cop-out so that this "sim lite" idea is accepted, and anything faulty in the model can just be explained away with a dismissive wave. "Oh, it's sim-lite, what do you expect?" is a real easy explanation for any question that goes to the heart of, "Well, why couldn't you get [X] right?" Or, "why can't you model this BETTER?"

 

Look at Targetware. They have a VERY large planeset, that spans WWI, the between-war era, WWII, Korea (and soon, Vietnam and beyond), and they also have pretty accurate flight models, pretty accurate engine and flight control systems that allow the "personalities" of certain planes come through (the foibles as well as the triumphs), etc.

 

So, going back to some initial points, planes that had autopilot and autotrim can have them in Targetware mods, planes that don't, don't. Planes that require more pilot workload to get performance out of them (or in some cases, to keep you from exploding the engine out from in front of you!), are harder to operate.

 

It's WILL, really. If you want to take the "sim lite" excuse and leave things 'gamish', you can do that. Or, you can soldier on grimly and do the job right.

 

Might actually be easier to model a large plane set for an on-line only sim as opposed to a single player or combination sim. [assuming a so called 'hard core approach'] With a good flight engine and good data I suppose the aerodynamics could be modelled OK. I expect meeting the requirements of a hard core enthusiast with regard to the engine management aspect would be a big challange, however, though maybe not impossible. Would probably be more difficult in a single player or combination sim. As well as the aerodynamics and engine management, you would have to address the historical combat tactics used by the airforce involved, as well as for the missions being carried out. All this kind of development requires a lot of cash if you want to get a sim on the market in a reasonable length of time. [say 2 years] Didn't explain my earlier comments very well but for a niche developer of an expensive 'hard core' sim, licencing someone elses flight engine [possibly with some tweaks] would save a lot of time and money.

 

Dismissing TK's 'sim lite' approach doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. After a horrible start he 'soldiered on grimly' and as near as I can tell, has succeeded commercially with his project. Also, Third Wire has been very good about passing along updates and many people enjoy their sims. After some large scale failures of flight sim companies, it's good to see some gaining traction again. If the IL-2 people and Thirdwire can stay in business, there will be evolutionary improvements in these sims, I'm sure.

 

My issues with trimming and control imputs stem from my frustration with 'Mig Alley.'[i would have really liked to like that game.] Why not have as many options as possible to appeal to as many players as possible. Driving sims have had speed sensitivity for years. For players without force feed back, this makes the games much more enjoyable. Rowans approach with Mig Alley struck me as totally dumb. It seems to me they thought being 'Hard Core' meant modeling the control response of a Sabre as realisticly as possible and this would somehow be realistic for a guy using a 6inch tall 'swizzle stick' with no force feedback. Same goes for trimming, with out the feel,[and you would need force feed back rudders as well] the 'hard core approach' is UNREALISTIC. I have a force feed back steering wheel for driving games and really like it. I tried a force feed back stick for flight sims once and thought it sucked. [can anyone recommend a cheap one that makes trimming in IL-2 less of a chore?] Some differences here as well with regards to on-line and single player sims. An on-line sim requires the players to be on a level playing field. So, either you go with autotrim or not. [disregarding some newer fly by wire designs that have auto trim.] Probably some potential issues here as well with regards to control response, but if everyones got a realistic flight model, why not let them adjust the response however they like. Regards.

[Guest IndioBlack]

Here's a quote from the STRIKE FIGHTERS GOLD box:

 

"Fully scaleable difficulty options to challenge both novice and expert pilots".

 

That's something you read before you buy the game. I can't find anything on the box that says "don't whine if it's not as realistic as LOMAC, because it's not meant to be".

 

You'll find it's the expert pilots who are complaining about the lack of realism. And all they are really asking for is a few more features for "expert pilots". Like an extra Flight setting after easy, normal and hard, called "well hard". Since it would be an option, you wouldn't have to choose it if you didn't want.

 

I think the TK's Sims generally work very well as they are, but I'm sure most people find that omissions of simple features they've enjoyed in other sims can be a disappointment. Just little things, such as the ability to open and close the canopy with a switch, turn cockpit lights on and off, press a button to start the engines. Other Sims have these immersive things, and it's not being a "Lemming", as TK complained, to include them.

 

I don't see why we shouldn't be able to state our opinions on this subject, without being attacked and name-called. There's always a chance that these suggestions might find favour with TK, and the Sim get even better.

[+Julhelm 266]

You know, there's immersion and there's immersion. However, you (Indio and Stiglr to name but a few) seem to believe immersion is directly proportionate to realism features and realism features only, which is complete bollocks.

 

A great flightsim is first and foremost, a game, and secondly a simulation of reality. The simulation bit with all it's realism serves no purpose what so ever if you strip away the "game" bit. It's a game because it's intended for entertainment, and to have a good game you need to make tradeoffs between realism and fun, and especially so if dealing with a flight sim.

 

F-19 Stealth Fighter is a great example of how to do a fun flightsim that is also realistic enough to allow suspension of disbelief without being so realistic as to be annoyingly complex.

 

For an even better example, there is Cinemaware's Wings from 1990:

 

It is widely remembered as perhaps the greatest combat flight sim ever made, and the greatest WW1 sim ever. However, guys like Stiglr and Indio would probably spontaneously combust if they ever played it, because of the way it portrays WW1 combat:

 

1. The "sim" part always starts in the air.

2. You have no rudder at all, nor is stuff like torque modelled.

3. It has no instrumentation at all, instead all you get is a gunsight and your pilot's head which turns to indicate the direction of closest target.

4. It's possible to collide head-on with an enemy, fail to emergency land, crashing instead, and still survive on pure dumb luck.

5. Strafing and bombing are portrayed as subgames in their own, with the strafe part being an isometric shooter ala Zaxxon and bombing being top-down similar to Xenon or Raptor.

 

Ok, so it isn't terribly realistic. So why then is it that this game has recieved so much praise during the 16 years since it was released and is still fondly remembered by anyone who ever owned an Amiga?

 

Probably because of the following:

 

1. The game features a 230-odd mission campaign which isn't pilot-dependent like in most other games. If your pilot dies, you go back to flight school, create a new guy, and he gets to continue off where the other bought the farm. You'll even get to see your previous hero's name stricken off under "casualties" on the squadron roster.

 

2. The campaign is scripted in a novel way: Your pilot is always told by the CO to keep the squadron journal, and each mission is preceeded by a journal entry that only mentions the mission type, but also tells the story about the entire squadron and the lives of the other characters in the squad and in the war. When you get to the part where the squadron's mascot has disappeared in the trenches you can't help to feel gutted, only to feel honestly relieved when a few entries later, the dog returns having become pregnant and has it's puppies. Also, there's a Top-10 pilots list that appears each 10 missions or so where you can see your own hero compared to aces like Immelmann or Boelcke.

 

All in all, things that really add to the WW1 atmosphere of the game.

 

2. Each mission is proceeded by a silent movie-style "thought card" where your guy has sometimes valuable information about the encounter to come. Once again, this adds to the atmosphere because you feel like you're actually in there with him, rather than being confined to a sterile cockpit with "fly from A to B to bomb X" instructions.

 

3. The arcade strafe & bomb sections actually help to break up the repetitiveness of the sim parts in a really good way, and they serve yet another purpose:

 

4. The game is RPG in the sense that your pilot has stats for flying, shooting, mech and stamina skills that he makes use of during the air combat sim parts. These determine how fast you turn, how accurate your guns are, how fast your guns unjam and whether or not you can survive crashes and mid-air collisions. These are then determined by how good you are doing in the two arcade subgames. Not terribly realistic but makes for more fun gameplay.

 

5. If you die, you get a proper burial sequence complete with a tombstone with your name on it, and at the end of the campaign, when the war is over, there's a memorial stone with all the dead pilots you've had on it.

 

So well, yeah, you've probably guessed I'm not a huge realism-nut. I'm a gamer, and I prefer gameplay to complexity: Hence why I prefer SFP1 to F4 and BF1942 to WW2OL. The realism nuts get their parade games every once in a while, like LOMAC, IL2, Targetware and KOTS, and I see no reason why EVERY sim has to cater to their specific needs. Some of us enjoy "sim-lite" for what it is, so just let us, ok?

[Guest IndioBlack]

You know, there's immersion and there's immersion. However, you (Indio and Stiglr to name but a few) seem to believe immersion is directly proportionate to realism features and realism features only, which is complete bollocks.

 

Don't put words in my mouth.

I completely believe in immersion, but I don't necessarily think it is directly proportional to realism. Okay?

 

One example: I think just being able to start your engine before you take-off, and being able to switch it off when you've landed adds immeasurably to the immersion. I don't think the full ramp start up as featured in Falcon 4 is absolutely necessary, even though it is realistic. But I wouldn't want to deny anyone the pleasure of performing it.

 

I'm just asking that people be allowed to give opinions on how a game may be improved, without the usual attacks and rudeness from the community. But to hope for that is obviously, to use your words, "complete bollocks".

[BUFF 8]

Can you tell me where I can find a copy of TK's mission statement, please ?

Not being a privileged member of his inner circle, nor a long serving veteran of sites like this, I do not recall seeing such a mission statement, as you mention above, being made available for public consumption by TK himself.

 

I read a lot of "TK says" on forums, by people who are obviously "in the know", but I'd like to see the original quotes, especially as they seem to have been repeated "over & over". If I don't know what he said, then I run the risk of being trampled on the forums for daring to say something out of line. Like now.

It's all there on various forums if you care to go & search.

 

So you really shouldn't launch into people who feel that TK hasn't tried hard enough to make his games more immersive or realistic, because in their opinion, things that could have been done to improve the game haven't been done.

There is perhaps a difference between people like yourself who are a relative newcomer to Third Wire productions & Stiglr who has been there since the start?

If he can't get it through his head after 4 years that TK isn't making Stigl's own personal sim for him ...

I think that more & more people after giving him the benefit of the doubt are seeing it as just a way to stick his TargetWare oar in.

 

And quite frankly, I don't believe TK has stood still with his intentions. Otherwise we wouldn't be getting patches that upgrade the Sims with new features, or new Sims that are a little more advanced than before. If he really wants to stay Sim-lite, then that's his decision, but it would be foolish of him in the extreme if he ignored opinions from people in the Sim community just because their point of view is different to his.

 

After all, how lite is Sim-lite ?

The engine continues to evolve.

It would seem that TK has a long-term plan for evolution (there are a few things that have been in there since day one but never implemented) but chose to have a basic one working & build on it rather than spend years in the wilderness developing a full-featured one before coming to market.

I believe (I don't know) that TK doesn't think that the cost/benefit of doing a hard-core sim pays off (afterall even Oleg has said that Il-2 is barely profitable for him, maybe different for publishers than developers) - the development costs are higher but the market is no bigger & possibly even smaller.

 

I think the TK's Sims generally work very well as they are, but I'm sure most people find that omissions of simple features they've enjoyed in other sims can be a disappointment. Just little things, such as the ability to open and close the canopy with a switch, turn cockpit lights on and off, press a button to start the engines. Other Sims have these immersive things, and it's not being a "Lemming", as TK complained, to include them.

Third Wire sims already allow for canopy opening & various models already have it either mapped to a key or automatically on speed.

Similarly cockpit lights are already implemented.

 

I'm just asking that people be allowed to give opinions on how a game may be improved, without the usual attacks and rudeness from the community. But to hope for that is obviously, to use your words, "complete bollocks".

I've said elsewhere that I believe that how one says something is as important as what one says.

If one states one's case calmly & rationally it may well be similarly addressed but if done in rant fashion many people never get past the first sentence before turning off ...

[+Zurawski 33]

Here's a quote from the STRIKE FIGHTERS GOLD box:

 

"Fully scaleable difficulty options to challenge both novice and expert pilots".

 

That's something you read before you buy the game. I can't find anything on the box that says "don't whine if it's not as realistic as LOMAC, because it's not meant to be".

 

You'll find it's the expert pilots who are complaining about the lack of realism. And all they are really asking for is a few more features for "expert pilots". Like an extra Flight setting after easy, normal and hard, called "well hard". Since it would be an option, you wouldn't have to choose it if you didn't want.

 

I think the TK's Sims generally work very well as they are, but I'm sure most people find that omissions of simple features they've enjoyed in other sims can be a disappointment. Just little things, such as the ability to open and close the canopy with a switch, turn cockpit lights on and off, press a button to start the engines. Other Sims have these immersive things, and it's not being a "Lemming", as TK complained, to include them.

 

I don't see why we shouldn't be able to state our opinions on this subject, without being attacked and name-called. There's always a chance that these suggestions might find favour with TK, and the Sim get even better.

 

Hmmm...

 

The sticker on my brand new Chevy Avalanche said I'd get 19 mpg in the city... Funny... I'm only getting 17. Point being... find me packaging that doesn't paint it's product with broad strokes? As I eluded to previously, Thirdwire sims have been around long enough for so called "expert pilots" to know what they are getting into... I'm not buying the whole "we were mislead with fancy packaging jargon" tripe....

 

Ya know I wish my truck got 30 miles to the gallon... But I "knew" it didn't based on the type of vehical is was. Didn't have to read the sticker... it was a fair assumption based on common knowledge

 

Personally I see this type of thead as a compliment to TK and his products... obviously his titles have enough of the right stuff to keep you "expert pilots" interested... but it's obvious many of you want it to be so much more than what it is.... or ever designed to be.

 

This is IMHO, the crux of our impass... I guess it 's enough to agree to disagree.

Edited December 10, 2006 by Zurawski

[+Erik 1,812]

There will always be extremists ... those that want to feel the actual pain of being shot up during air to air combat so that their wives find them slumped over in their computer chair only to utter with their last breath, "now that's realism!"

 

There will always be historians ... those that fought in or have researched the conditions of flying and fighting during these times who remark that the canopy lock lever was 2 cm lower and aft of its current design. And that coming back in one piece from a mission with your rusted bucket of bolts and throwing the canopy open while taxiing back to the line all while hearing the cheers of your squadron was often the best feeling you had, so why didn't you design that into the game play?

 

There will always be gamers ... those that want story lines and a design elements that keep you playing. What good would a movie, book, or game be without a plot? I suppose that's why all of us choose to play these types of games instead of board games where there is no story line or plot to be had. Heck I can't even remember what the character's name (Mr. Monopoly) is that's seen on all the Monopoly games around the World, can you? I wonder if there are communities of Monopoly players who think $1500.00 rent on Park Avenue is rediculous? Listening to them proclaim, "you can't even get a card-board box on 192nd for that!"

 

Our community is rich with all types and even more than have been mentioned. Yet we often forget that we have only a select few who actually build the games, add-on aircraft, scenery, etc., etc., to fulfill the needs, wants, and desires of so many. I would offer that if we elected to come together and help build something with constructive criticism and support that things will and can get better for everyone. I bet if we asked the developers and designers how often they get offers of help like, "hey I'll do the 400 hours of research and 200 hours of prep work then write your POH so it's as exact as possible for a 60 year old aircraft." that we'll almost without hesitation hear them all say, "that just never happens."

 

I fear we often miss the mark when it comes to our complaints. People are far too eager to complain and get upset at developers and designers. It's seen all over our community from payware to freeware, and folks if we don't proactively make a concerted effort to change and get involved for the good we're going to see this all die on the design table. If we maintain this type of ill-support mentality what you'll find is that those folks will loose their drive and need to design and develop. Then what you'll be left complaining about is why everyone has stopped supporting your community. Which would leave places like CombatACE, SIMHQ, AVSIM, and others wondering why they continue to support communities with no releases but with lots of unhappy community members.

 

My point is that while you've thrown down your hard earned money, or not, for these releases that you keep in the back of your mind that your support (read: money you've paid) of our community is for it's continued health. It's payment for the research and development that it's going to take to get us to the next sim that with hopes will be more realistic, modeled better, or have more game interaction and story line. It's the part we all play to help the community grow and be stronger and it's the very last thing I'll complain about. Especially when I spend more money taking the wife and kids to McDonalds for grease and bread. Perspective and opinion are powerful tools you've each been given, please use them wisely.

 

Get involved ... I applaud you!

 

Just remember to keep your eyes on winning the war, not the battle.

[+Tailspin 3]

More thoughts from TK on the subject this time in reference to having engine start/stop implemented.

 

 

Thanks Wolfar,

 

Well, I might consider it for future patches, but I'm hesitent to add this in because I see this as one of the "threshhold" item defining the line between the "lite air combat game" (like the ones we make) and "hardcore flight sim". By leaving this out (and few other key features like trim and mixture controls), we're making sure everyone understand that the game in the "lite" category.

 

In general gameplay, I really don't see any reason for having this on a key since there really isn't an alternative - in the aerodrome attack scenario you describe, player gains nothing by not starting the engine as quickly as possible. There is no reason to turn engine off in mid-air, and at the end of mission, there is no reason not to turn it off... So it seems to me that we can get by with automatic engine start/stop, without introducing additional key just to add to the procedure.

 

TK

[Guest IndioBlack]

More thoughts from TK on the subject this time in reference to having engine start/stop implemented.

Thanks Wolfar,

 

Well, I might consider it for future patches, but I'm hesitent to add this in because I see this as one of the "threshhold" item defining the line between the "lite air combat game" (like the ones we make) and "hardcore flight sim". By leaving this out (and few other key features like trim and mixture controls), we're making sure everyone understand that the game in the "lite" category.

 

In general gameplay, I really don't see any reason for having this on a key since there really isn't an alternative - in the aerodrome attack scenario you describe, player gains nothing by not starting the engine as quickly as possible. There is no reason to turn engine off in mid-air, and at the end of mission, there is no reason not to turn it off... So it seems to me that we can get by with automatic engine start/stop, without introducing additional key just to add to the procedure.

 

TK

 

Yes but have you seen the fast-growing postbag of people on the Third Wire forum who think engine start/stop is a good idea that would aid the immersion factor ?

It may happen !

 

If it was feasible for third-party developers to do it, they would. And already, third part developers have enabled the following things that TK didn't include:

 

Ground Taxying

Check Six view

Separate Gun triggers on the Se5 (TK explained how to fix this)

Ground troops

 

Surely you wouldn't want any of this banned, just because it might take FE out of the Sim-lite category

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Hey Julhelm, your poast last page about Wings (1990) is interesting for one very good thing...

 

Julhelm::

1. The game features a 230-odd mission campaign which isn't pilot-dependent like in most other games. If your pilot dies, you go back to flight school, create a new guy, and he gets to continue off where the other bought the farm. You'll even get to see your previous hero's name stricken off under "casualties" on the squadron roster.

That's the basis of the perfect immersive dynamic campaign engine -- you simulate a war, not one single "pilot" or career. When you die or get captured, you start again as a newbie pilot for the same side. Let me explain...

 

My original idea for FB/PF dynamic campaign engine (dropped when I got into SF) was like this...Eastern Front, you start the campaign by first choosing a side -- Soviet or German/Italy. You have some options at campaign start. You can choose fighters or bombers or (most realistic) you can choose to follow orders and be assigned the plane you are ordered to fly. You can have some input on this, but not total.

 

When you get killed or captured, you are "reborn" as a newbie pilot, with some restrictions (optional at campaign start) on view panning speeds, field of view, joystick sensitivity, etc...that makes flying and looking around the sky more difficult for the newbie. Again, you can choose these newbie restrictions at campaign start, and you don't have to choose them at all if you don't wish to.

 

Even more interesting is an option, selected at campaign start, that if you get killed/captured, you start out not as newbie pilot, but as gunner for a number of missions, or until you shoot down your first enemy aircraft as gunner (another option). This is interesting because you can simulate trying to survive as a bomber gunner long enough to become a newbie pilot, but optionally without so much newbie restrictions, as for example, gunners that survive and live in warfare learn to look around the sky, so they already know how to do that once they take controls as pilot of a fighter or bomber.

 

Another option to select at campaign start -- If you fly German or Italian, if you get killed or captured you can be "reborn" as newbie gunner/pilot in the same nation or either nation. ie...German is reborn as German, Italian is reborn as Italian, and either German/Italian is reborn as German/Italian (the Axis to Axis campaign pilot option). I included the Italians because Oleg Maddox included some really nice Italian aircraft in FB/PF, and the Italian side can fly German aircraft as they did historically. Of course, if you fly Soviet in this Eastern Front campaign, you must fly Soviet again if you are killed/captured, as the only "Allied" side on Eastern Front is Soviet.

 

I was personally most interested in getting assigned aircraft that I didn't want (orders are orders -- for example like Su-2 pilot or gunner, using SBD dive bomber as standin for flyable Su-2). Again, that would be an option at campaign start. Alas, Patch after Patch continually changed things often very much for the better for my purposes, but also making obsolete my previous development work, and I eventually abandoned the FB/PF idea when I started getting into StrikeFighters for exploring the all time Titan of air war subjects -- SAC vs PVO, the LeMay years ~> http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=3233

 

 

Nice to know an ancient sim from last century had similar campaign ideas. Thanks for that!

Edited December 11, 2006 by Lexx_Luthor

[+Tailspin 3]

Yes but have you seen the fast-growing postbag of people on the Third Wire forum who think engine start/stop is a good idea that would aid the immersion factor ?

It may happen !

 

If it was feasible for third-party developers to do it, they would. And already, third part developers have enabled the following things that TK didn't include:

 

Ground Taxying

Check Six view

Separate Gun triggers on the Se5 (TK explained how to fix this)

Ground troops

 

Surely you wouldn't want any of this banned, just because it might take FE out of the Sim-lite category

 

 

You were asking about TKs "mission statement". Just pointing you to some of his own words on the subject. What I want or don't want and whether I get it or not is not going to affect my enjoyment of the sim that much. There is sufficient entertainment value in it already so anything else is just icing on the cake.

[+Tailspin 3]

I hate it when I'm right. :cray:

 

 

Hmmmmm....a whole post just disappeared.

Edited December 11, 2006 by TailspinAgain

[+Zurawski 33]

Yes but have you seen the fast-growing postbag of people on the Third Wire forum who think engine start/stop is a good idea that would aid the immersion factor ?

It may happen !

 

If it was feasible for third-party developers to do it, they would. And already, third part developers have enabled the following things that TK didn't include:

 

Ground Taxiing

Check Six view

Separate Gun triggers on the Se5 (TK explained how to fix this)

Ground troops

 

Surely you wouldn't want any of this banned, just because it might take FE out of the Sim-lite category

 

 

I don't think anyone is attempting to ban or stifle anyones opinion... especially if it improves upon the existing experience, be it incremental improvements or holistic changes that would bump it from "sim-lite" into something more palatable to expert pilots...

 

The friction (at least from my perspective) is some on this particular thread have made a point of insinuating that TK / Thirdwire is somehow wrong, lazy, incompetent for designing the games the way they are.

 

As Erik eluded to previously... this genre is a niche one... we ultimately need to support both schools of thought in regards to design.... We "need" sim-lites as much as we need hard-core simulations. Without both... we can never accommodate the two extremes and the genre will slowly starve it self to death....

 

Hard-core pilots will either fade out of the genre (Read: pass away or loose interest/ability) ... and new comers will find the learning curve to steep to make it accessible.

[+Tailspin 3]

You should have seen the post that disappeared. The facade fell away. What was exposed wasn't too pretty.

Edited December 11, 2006 by TailspinAgain

[Guest IndioBlack]

I don't think anyone is attempting to ban or stifle anyones opinion... especially if it improves upon the existing experience, be it incremental improvements or holistic changes that would bump it from "sim-lite" into something more palatable to expert pilots...

 

The friction (at least from my perspective) is some on this particular thread have made a point of insinuating that TK / Thirdwire is somehow wrong, lazy, incompetent for designing the games the way they are.

 

As Erik eluded to previously... this genre is a niche one... we ultimately need to support both schools of thought in regards to design.... We "need" sim-lites as much as we need hard-core simulations. Without both... we can never accommodate the two extremes and the genre will slowly starve it self to death....

 

Hard-core pilots will either fade out of the genre (Read: pass away or loose interest/ability) ... and new comers will find the learning curve to steep to make it accessible.

 

 

Firstly, the answer to the original question posed, is obviously: "No I can't rant here". Especially not me.

So I'm not going to rant. I'm going to calmly and rationally put forward a point of view.

 

I don't believe anyone is insinuating that TK is wrong, lazy or incompetent.

From my perspective, we have a game designer who makes very good Sims, but who insists that they be perceived as Sim-Lite. He encourages third-party modding and hosts a forum for users to discuss his Sims.

Naturally, users then suggest features that they would like to see him include in a Sim because they personally believe that these features would enhance their enjoyment and the enjoyment of others.

In some cases, TK might take these ideas on board, in others, not.

He doesn't have to give a reason why he doesn't wish to incorporate any suggested new features, but since he runs an open forum where, if he doesn't give a satisfactory answer he'll be asked why, he usually does.

 

The one response that seems completely arbitrary to me, is the one where he states that he will not include a feature because if he did so, the Sim would no longer be Sim-Lite.

So naturally I would like to know why the addition of one feature is suddenly going to push the game into being Hard-core. I would like to know what's so wrong about pushing the Sim-Lite boundary a little further than its current position. And I'd like to know what exactly is Sim-Lite.

 

Now when Novalogic brought out MiG-29 Fulcrum and F-16 Multi-role Fighter, I don't think anyone was in any doubt that these were not hard-core Sims. But Novalogic included an Engine OFF key (6) and HUD dim and bright keys (< and >). What about DID's EF2000 or TAW, are they Sim-Lite ? left Engine on/off ([), right Engine on/off (]).

Then there's Mission Studios' JETFIGHTER III, with Engine Off (~), HUD bright and dim (H, Shift H), altitude ladder on/off. Did these features propel it into the Hardcore category ? No, they just added to the immersion factor.

That's all that non-hard-core Sim pilot's like myself are asking for: a few more features that will add to the immersion factor. And for people who don't think these things are necessary, then they have the option not to use them.

 

You should have seen the post that disappeared. The facade fell away. What was exposed wasn't too pretty.

 

Grow up

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

HUD dim and bright keys (< and >).

Actually, HUD brightness control is not confined to immersion, but essential to ease gameplay for the customer. In night or low light level missions, the industry standard cfs daytime HUD lighting blinds the player. This happened to me in my first flight sim DOS Su-27 Flaker 1.0 from 1995. The ability to change HUD brightness is both easy gameplay and fully realistic. Of course, most sim developers don't think of the importance of night or low light level operations to their sims. Perhaps the primary exception would be the cancelled sim Target For Tonight which was to be created specifically for night RAF bombers vs Luftwaffe night air defenses.

 

Target For Tonight interview ~> http://www.womengamers.com/interviews/t4t.php

 

Perhaps the ancient Microsprose F-117 sim was another exception. Falcon I don't know.

[+Erik 1,812]

Indio

 

One thing I haven't quite got my head around is why this discussion isn't posed on the forums where TK or Thirdwire can reply. It seems to me that the best possible response you can hope for on our forums will be third hand information. If TK or any developer has a support forum it's there I'd be looking for answers like mission statements and such. From my perspective this has the ugly nature of talking behind someone's back, and it's something I'd prefer to stay miles away from.

 

As to the points you raise, they are valid, but it seems that only the designer can answer why something was included or wasn't and if something is possible or isn't.

 

Also thank you for the change of tone in your last post. It's leaps ahead towards a common working ground we all can relate to without being insulting.

 

Regards;

[+Tailspin 3]

Firstly, the answer to the original question posed, is obviously: "No I can't rant here". Especially not me.

So I'm not going to rant. I'm going to calmly and rationally put forward a point of view.

 

I don't believe anyone is insinuating that TK is wrong, lazy or incompetent.

From my perspective, we have a game designer who makes very good Sims, but who insists that they be perceived as Sim-Lite. He encourages third-party modding and hosts a forum for users to discuss his Sims.

Naturally, users then suggest features that they would like to see him include in a Sim because they personally believe that these features would enhance their enjoyment and the enjoyment of others.

In some cases, TK might take these ideas on board, in others, not.

He doesn't have to give a reason why he doesn't wish to incorporate any suggested new features, but since he runs an open forum where, if he doesn't give a satisfactory answer he'll be asked why, he usually does.

 

The one response that seems completely arbitrary to me, is the one where he states that he will not include a feature because if he did so, the Sim would no longer be Sim-Lite.

So naturally I would like to know why the addition of one feature is suddenly going to push the game into being Hard-core. I would like to know what's so wrong about pushing the Sim-Lite boundary a little further than its current position. And I'd like to know what exactly is Sim-Lite.

 

Now when Novalogic brought out MiG-29 Fulcrum and F-16 Multi-role Fighter, I don't think anyone was in any doubt that these were not hard-core Sims. But Novalogic included an Engine OFF key (6) and HUD dim and bright keys (< and >). What about DID's EF2000 or TAW, are they Sim-Lite ? left Engine on/off ([), right Engine on/off (]).

Then there's Mission Studios' JETFIGHTER III, with Engine Off (~), HUD bright and dim (H, Shift H), altitude ladder on/off. Did these features propel it into the Hardcore category ? No, they just added to the immersion factor.

That's all that non-hard-core Sim pilot's like myself are asking for: a few more features that will add to the immersion factor. And for people who don't think these things are necessary, then they have the option not to use them.

Grow up

 

What happened to your little rant from earlier today? It was quite enlightening. Do you think someone is picking on you? You asked a question. You didn't get an answer you could accept. You keep posting. You'll keep getting the same answer you don't want to hear. Sorry.

[+Erik 1,812]

Tailspin;

 

I'm not following how that post helps this thread and am asking myself why it doesn't meet the same fate at the earlier post, any ideas?

 

Thanks for the help;

[Guest IndioBlack]

Indio

 

One thing I haven't quite got my head around is why this discussion isn't posed on the forums where TK or Thirdwire can reply. It seems to me that the best possible response you can hope for on our forums will be third hand information. If TK or any developer has a support forum it's there I'd be looking for answers like mission statements and such. From my perspective this has the ugly nature of talking behind someone's back, and it's something I'd prefer to stay miles away from.

 

As to the points you raise, they are valid, but it seems that only the designer can answer why something was included or wasn't and if something is possible or isn't.

 

Also thank you for the change of tone in your last post. It's leaps ahead towards a common working ground we all can relate to without being insulting.

 

Regards;

 

 

Actually it is.

 

Quite eloquently by some writers, who are more knowledgeable than I.

 

However, since a discussion began here, those of us with an interest in the matter joined in here too. And what was particularly different here, was what I considered a very heavy-handed attempt to stifle suggestions about improving the Sim, which went along the lines of "You've been told over and over again that this is a lite sim".

 

Regarding tone in posting. How do you feel about Tailspinagain's recent messages? I'd love your opinion on that. How do you think I should react ?

 

Tailspin;

 

I'm not following how that post helps this thread and am asking myself why it doesn't meet the same fate at the earlier post, any ideas?

 

Thanks for the help;

 

Oh sorry Erik, I now see that you've answered my question in the above post.

 

Thank you

[+Dave 2,322]

Well it looks like TK said what he will do and not do. I see all sides of this and TK is so close to making his SF and FE series one of the greatest of all time but just can't get my why he is so stubborn in some things. But his word is final, you will have to except it and move on. Not the greatest answer in the world but what can you do?

[+Tailspin 3]

Tailspin;

 

I'm not following how that post helps this thread and am asking myself why it doesn't meet the same fate at the earlier post, any ideas?

 

Thanks for the help;

 

You are quite right. I'm exceedingly irritated with certain events lately and I should refrain from speaking out.