How Did You Find OFF?

[CaptSopwith 18]

I have just registered as a new member, have been following this website for a few weeks, I just purchased, recieved and installed CFS3 and I'm fixing to order BH&H and I'm so excited I can't see straight. I haven't felt like this since 2002 when I recieved CFS2 as a birthday gift and couldn't believe I could actually fly an f4u instead of just build plastic models. I also installed SDOE and really enjoyed the WWI download as well as WWI downloads with CFS2. Cody Coyote's mission builder tutorial has been an excellent tool and alot of really good people make CFS2 continue to upgrade and carry on way past what I believe was expected. I also believe that enthusiasm is present in OFF. I know that too few movies and simulators of WWI aviation are available (my favorite movie "The Blue Max") and now I'm looking forward to being shot up to pieces in BH&H.

 

Tbolin. Let me say welcome to the boards and welcome to OFF. You won't be disappointed with BH&H. I just wanted to say that I echo your sentiments about being excited to fly a new sim. It was a long decade between RB3D and the next big thing for me, which was OFF BH&H. I followed and played P1 and P2 as OFF developed but I didn't have the computing horsepower to really run anything. Thankfully, my new computer arrived around the same time P3 was nearing completion and it was worth the wait.

 

Think back to the most atmospheric, immersive sims you enjoyed in the past and OFF is exactly that, immersive. Flying a patrol over the lines, hearing the flak bursting nearby, watching for other planes in the sky, and then feeling your stomach knot up as you see a group of planes approaching, but aren't sure yet if they are friend or foe. That's OFF to a tee. It's the first sim I've played that made me happy just to return in one piece, let alone rack up any kills. You're in for a treat man, and you found the right group of crazy pilots to share the experience with. I've been on various boards over the years, and this is by far, one of the absolute best. Let us know if we can help with anything and I think I speak for everyone when I say, we look forward to your first combat reports and impressions of OFF. Cheers!

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Please report, Widomaker - I still have it, and might also dig it out and give it a bash.

Although - maybe it will run on Win7, but not on Vista?

 

Will do Olham...I suspect, if it runs on 7 it should run on Vista?...but I'll let you know how it goes my friend

[Olham 164]

Thanks, m8!

[Tbolin 0]

Thanks for the welcome matt, drinks on the house, but wait........ I thought Flyboys couldn't hit the bar until they had a kill, am I correct or am I intoxicated once again on Harley oil?

[smilingmonkey 1]

I started my love of WW1 sims back in the day when a friend left his computer and a copy of Red Baron 2 at my house...I wasted many, many hours flying around that little world.

 

Then it all dried up for me, I lost interest in flight sims entirely for many years. Then just recently I got the bug again, the same friend introduced me to Il2 and I was happily flying Hurricanes around and shooting up the Japanese...

 

But the love of WW1 flight was still strong...I googled and searched and found Rise of Flight...I did not jump straight in, but watched many you tube clips and read forums, not wanting to prematurely immerse myself.

 

It was during one of these you tube journeys that I discovered a clip by Hellshade...I had no idea the Over Flanders Fields even existed before that, I watched in awe as the enemy planes dove down from the clouds and danced around each other in a balletic furball...That single moment had me hooked.

 

I searched more and was directed to the site, which I read in its entirety, amazed at the amount of input and assistance that the community had obviously had, I then found the Comat Ace forums...Just the staggering amount of love everyone had for the sim, and the qulity of the characters that were posting each day was the final nail in my OFF coffin...

 

I bought it, waited impatiently, read everything I could find and tried not to annoy Uncleal with too many noob questions (which is quite easy to do if you just read the forums extensively)...Then I followed all the intructions to the letter when the sim arrived, installed with no problems, played with slack jawed amazement and crashed my first pilot after just 24 minutes, and loved it.

 

It has to be the single greatest discovery in my flight simming to date....just brilliant.

[von Baur 54]

So, smilingmonkey, don't hold back...tell us how you really feel about OFF.

[Rickitycrate 10]

No wonder you are such a smiling monkey. I can relate. Welcome aboard sir!

[Olham 164]

smilingmonkey: ...and tried not to annoy Uncleal with too many noob questions...

 

He loves to be annoyed like that; quite the little masochist he is!

Edited February 27, 2011 by Olham

[themightysrc 5]

My discovery of OFF came at the end of a long, long slough due to computer crashes. I bought RB3D on a whim many years ago, and was utterly blown away by the fidelity (ahem), the graphics (ahem) and the gameplay (still unmatched, even by OFF). However, it was the time of Win95, Win98 and Win ME - in the case of the latter, an operating system has never been better named: ME indeed. I had that rubbish trash my PC so many times that in the end I gave up on RB and games in general, particularly as I flitted between jobs.

 

What pulled me back into the fold was Talonsoft and their Battleground series, which, with a machine running XP now at hand, made me appreciate the finer points of computer wargaming again - American civil war, Napoleonic wars, I lapped it up. It was only then that I idly began to wonder whether my old RB3D CD might run, and, miracle of miracles, it loaded, but without sound and various other problems due to XP. I trudged away from WWI sims, and instead loaded the awfully spiffy looking IL2, which looked very interesting indeed, along with other s**te like Jane's Fighter Squadrons, the History Channel's Battle of Britain, Rowan's BOB and B17 Queen of the skies. All of these went west except IL2, which ran like a slideshow due to my PC. All were removed. I upgraded the PC again and reloaded IL2 only, with Forgotten Battles, and was finally chuffed to have a working air combat sim - hurrah! Leutenant Ernst Remarx plundered more than a few Ruski kites until I discovered Pacific Fighters, which I loaded in high anticipation. Back to the slideshow. Dammit! All I wanted was a chance fly a decent sim that had aircraft I'd f***ing heard of!

 

It was at that point that, pretty despondent about IL2, and not knowing much else, I reloaded RB3D again and went in serious search of fixes for the XP problems. Of course, they existed in spades, and had done for years, so I downloaded the WF patch - still the best ever, despite the problems it can cause - and bought FCJ, which made the original RB3D simply look amateurish, which isn't a judgement in any way on the original authors, I should add. With WF2 and FCJ, my WWI sim happiness was complete: except for a few niggles; and the wish to sort them; and have a few more aircraft; and to see how else it could be improved.

 

You know how it is.

 

So I ended up searching the internet, like a sad obsessive - which my wife would (accurately) proclaim that I am - looking for these tweaks and improvements, but they weren't really there any longer. What was there was the enormous hype for a game called Rise of Flight which was some months away, and the almost ethereal hints about another game called Over Flanders Fields, of which I'd not been aware. In fact, I'd never even heard of CFS3. I also found out about, and, for some months, was bamboozled by First Eagles, but after I'd downloaded everything it had to offer and that others had created, I realised it wasn't the successor to RB3D and let it go. TO be sure - it's fun: but it only has the immediacy of the flying to keep you going. Forget a campaign.

 

Anyway, after much pondering, and after hearing more about OFF, I suddenly stumbled upon Combatace.com - and, of course, the makers and players of the game. I can't remember my first posts, but I suppose I probably sounded enthusiastic but cautious. After all of the preceding, it was once bitten twice shy. Once I realised that there was a substantial campaign experience, and read that OFF was the brainchild of people who'd slavishly improved RB3D, my mind was made up, and I purchased both OFF and CFS3 on the same day.

 

I have to say though, that having followed the FAQs (superficially) and installed CFS3, flown once, and then installed OFF, I was completely appalled by the horrible mess of colours that I saw before me - this was just junk after RB3D! Of course, it wasn't OFF that was to blame: I had an integrated graphics card that was utterly s**t, and I'd paid no attention to the CFS3 config. That done, and with a new AGP graphics card in place, the game suddenly jumped out at me.

 

I'm currently retraining to be a java programmer, and thus I'm stuck with this PC for a year or so, but when I can afford to - once I get the benefit of the course - then, trust me, I will buy the meanest motherf***ing PC on the planet and install P4. Nothing else will suffice.

 

Cheers,

Si

[Tbolin 0]

YeeHaw!!!! You know theres bad days, good days, really good days and then theres great days.Today is one of those great days! Just got OFF out of the mail box.The adrenalan is pumping. Cold Brews are on the way including Warsteiner Pilsners. Time for Tbolin to get blasted out of the skies. Hey, on the campaigns I guess you get to choose to fly Allied or Central Powers right? What makes you decide? As for me, I am so amazed by Boelcke, Voss and the Richthofen brothers, what a treat it would be to be they're wingman! Thanks guys

[Over50 0]

Read about it in a PC Gamer sim review by Andy Mahoud

[Av8er 0]

Hi everyone long time no see, don't know if any of you guys remember me but hey what ever. Since I can remember I have been a airplane freak. My parents tell me that when my mom was pregnant with me they went to a Reno airace I would kick with enthusiasm when ever the planes went by. Anyways I played RB30 with my older cousin went I was little, he would fly the plane and I would shoot, he taught me everything from stalling the plane (which I did a lot) to leading the enemy. Many years past and I finally got back into WW1 after extensive WW2 flying hours on CFS one two and three. I discovered that there were patchs for RD3D which was my all time favorite from when I was a kid. I played that for a couple of years when my comp died. When I finally fixed it the game wouldn't work for some reason so I searched for a new game. At first I was looking at knights of the sky or somthing like that. But it only had like 10 (Corect me if im wrong) planes and I didn't like that so I moved on. Then I found P3 this fourm and you guys. Now I think I will have to download the game again for just by reading this fourm again has gotten me wanting to play. It's nice to see some of the old guys here still.

[Alexander51 3]

Got burned out with IL2 1946 and needed another subject to get

interested in. Got into Aces High II for a few weeks and got

an old friend into Aces High II as well. He preferred WW1 sims

and Aces High II has 4 basic WW1 planes to mess with. That got

me into WW1 again.

 

Rise Of Flight was too much for my computer so I am going to

give Over Flanders Fields a try. Just waiting for the CD from

http://www.overflandersfields.com/ to arrive.

Edited June 10, 2012 by Alexander48

[Olham 164]

If you are into immersive and dense campaign stuff, you will not regret it, Alexander.

You should think about downloading the "Hat in the Ring!"-Add-on too; you get a much

improved AI, new planes etc. It is now much reduced - see here:

 

http://overflandersfields.com/info.htm

 

Please report, when you got started - I'll add you to our OFF Pilots Maps then.

[Dej 17]

At the time of P2 being available my boyhood and teenage interest in WW1 aviation had taken a back seat to the Battle of Britain. I was playing BoB and IL2 on PC having graduated via CFS3, EAW, PAW, TFH, SWOTL and several others, including, at some point, Flying Corps Gold.

 

I'd nevertheless still been collecting WW1 aviation books and I had a sudden hankering to have my flight sim kicks match my literary ones. I browsed around. Came across RB3D, naturally, and realised I'd completely missed out on the whole RB3D thing (in fact I purchased it out of curiosity after I'd played OFF P2 but couldn't get it to run decently even with the various patches). But in looking at the various mods for RB3D I came across OFF P2. I regret to say I can't accurately recall who sent me my copy (either Typhoon or Nio) but from first playing it I loved it. So immersive. I lurked around the fora for a bit, realised these guys were dedicated and hugely knowledgeable and haven't looked back since.

 

So thanks OFF for reawakening my interest in WW1 aviation... it is where my heart really lies.

[John Chorm 0]

RB got me going. puter wise This was after a fanatical addiction to the old AH board game RICHTHOFEN's WAR in 1980. Full Canvas Jacket add-on was great add-on.

[+elephant 36]

I was a regular at Sim Outhouse (looking for CFS2 Mods) when I first saw a video of an upcoming Mod for CFS3 called OFF.

Being kind of disappointed by CFS3 though, I forgot everything about OFF and it's development...

I got involved with IL-2 and left SiM Outhouse since.

After many years playing and modding IL-2, I wanted something for a change and got into SF2.

Following their unofficial Modding Forums here at CA, I rediscovered OFF...

[Hauksbee 103]

I was stuck playing CFS:European Theatre. I never cared for CFS2, and CFS3 was an eviserated version of CFS1. I had bought one of just about every WWI Flight Sim, but none of them satisfied. The graphics were just a bit better than PacMan, and, in those pre-TrackIR days, the planes just zipped past so fast, I could never find them again. One day I got an e-mail from the Devs (with lots of pictures) that asked: "If you could get a WWI Flight Sim that looks like this, would you buy it?" I checked the "Yes" radio button and promptly forgot all about it. Little did I know, they were testing the waters for P3. Then one day, there was a second e-mail saying that P3 was ready. I bought it, and WWI is all I fly today.

Edited June 12, 2012 by Hauksbee

[Burning Beard 14]

I was watching the rumblings on the forums about OFF before Phase One came out. I probably downloaded Phase One the first day it was available and still have all the official files from Phase One and Phase Two on my computer. I think I was the first player to post a user account when Phase Three came out (I ordered early and got it quickly because I am in California).

 

 

 

Beard

[Olham 164]

Beard, you LUCKY man - you have seen all the developments over the whole long way.

I came to OFF by googleing for a WW1 sim in October 2008, and quickly found this exiting name.

[corsaire31 7]

I've been around Combat Ace for some time mainly for the Thirdwire part ( I still fly WOV and WOE - ODS from time to time ) At the same time I was in the process of going backwards in the history of flight. After many years flying jets ( Falcon 3.0 and 4.0 mainly ) I had switched to flying props to stop pushing buttons in the last years (IL2 1946 - tried CFS2 in its time but not really enthusiastic). I remembered playing a lot Red Baron in the old days so decided to continue the backward process. I jumped in Rise of Flight 18 months ago for the multiplayer part mainly and joined a squadron as it's really nice to fly with friends from different countries. In the beginning I was waiting for the "Phase 4" release, but when I understood what "two weeks" really mean and the prices were down to a very reasonable level, I ordered my DVD. After a few flights in BHaH I downloaded HitR and here we are...

[Slartibartfast 153]

For me it was when you guys arrived from the outer nether regions of the T'internet... I read the forums for a couple of months and then dived in... and every weekend I watch as one of my new pilots goes and does something stupid and is no more... which reminds me since my rebuild in April I need to reinstall OFF and get back in the air...

 

 

(Okay I know I shouldn't engage the bad guys over their Airfields but its so tempting, its a bit like) :-

 

[Olham 164]

In the beginning I was waiting for the "Phase 4" release, but when I understood what "two weeks" really mean

and the prices were down to a very reasonable level, I ordered my DVD

I guess you mean "reasonable for a sim, which will soon have a better follow-up".

Cause, when the new product was just released, the original starting price was more than reasonable IMHO.

I have never before seen a sim with so much knowledge and devotion put into, for such a reasonable price as OFF.

Now it is - together with "Hat in the Ring!" - a real steal.

Everyone who just wants to give it a try, should grab it.

[corsaire31 7]

My words about the price was an understatement... it is very cheap of course, even if more expensive I probably would have jumped in anyway, just to verify the happy comments you guys were posting in this forum...

[Mr_Dirt 1]

I was playing Red Baron modded with Full canvas Jacket and some other mods. I was searching the net for WWI combat sims and found Over Flanders Field 1 for a free download. It took several tries over dial-up internet, but it was well worth the effort. Iwas amazed by what the developers did for free. The support from them was better than I got from games I had payed money for. I have been with OFF ever since and would not want it any other way. This sim lead me to this and other sites where I have learned and met many fine people who share simular intrests.