Arcade Flight Sims?

[TeaAndScones 2]

Most people on CombatAce are probably Flight Sim Vets. I myself am a Strike Fighters 2 Fan, which is probably my favourite flight application. Though sometimes, I find myself switching on After Burner II on my Mega Drive every once in while to satisfy that need I have to just shoot s**t out of the sky.

 

I also play Ace Combat on occasion, mainly because of their high production values and compelling storylines. That's all very well and good, but..

 

There are some that are just there to jump on the AC bandwagon for a cheap buck, (Top Gun: Hard Lock comes to mind), and just abuse the 'Flight Game' name.

 

Its also a pity that fewer 'Simulators' are being made nowadays. I feel its just the Games Industry not having the balls to put in something that could possibly present a challenge to the player, on the chance they will jsut give up, or too wimpy to say 'If you don't at least put some effort in, you're not going to see the rest of the game'. The aforementioned AB and AC I can forgive, (AB originated in Arcades, nuff said, while AC was probably the first proper Arcade sim on a console, so it was new and refreshing at the time), but then there are just cheap games attempting to get a quick buck from what they an throw at us. (Most infuriatingly, 'Janes Advanced Strike Fighters', Janes name on an arcade sim, HHNNNNNNGGG*dead*)

 

So, what are your opinions on todays Flight Sims/Games. I'd especially like to hear from proper sim vets, like Falcon 4.0 players. :)

[MigBuster 2,884]

Hows about a Falcon 1 (1987) player?

 

 

Been talked about a lot this - at the end of the day people will only invest time into something they can make money from - logical really

 

Even TK at Thirdwire - despite being an avid aviation historian is well aware that if he wants to afford to eat that realistic flight sims are not where the cash is at - in fact it seems even lite sims like this that sit somewhere between hardcore (Falcon 4 etc) and Arcade (AC etc) are not guaranteed.

 

SF Android / iOS are cut down arcade versions of SF2 - and provide the masses with what they want - a few minutes dogfighting in a vast array of jets and a bit of fast fun - and as such has had more downloads in a few months of this than 10 years of the SF1 and SF2 series. He even made a comment that a future First Eagles patch could be likely - which tells you how well they are doing now they have gone full on Arcade.

 

 

Actual hardcore combat Flight sims are for the niche only - DCS is the only dev supported one I know of - F4 BMS is done as a hobby etc - both are based on existing engines - thats the way it is........

[Vavavava 10]

At the moment is exactly what MiGBuster said...i am waiting to see what IC game studios and 777 studios will produce since they formed in a partnership ( IC made the IL-2 series and 777 the rise of flight)

[+Julhelm 266]

Even TK at Thirdwire - despite being an avid aviation historian is well aware that if he wants to afford to eat that realistic flight sims are not where the cash is at - in fact it seems even lite sims like this that sit somewhere between hardcore (Falcon 4 etc) and Arcade (AC etc) are not guaranteed.

Who gives a s**t what TK thinks is commercially viable? The man infamous for actively refusing to market his franchise. Really? If there's no money to be made in realistic sims, why do companies like Gaijin invest millions into realistic combat sims with high production values like War Thunder? Or why does 777 persist with developing Rise of Flight? Or how something like Euro Truck Simulator 2 can top the retail sales in UK and France? Guess they all must have missed the gospel that there's no cash to be made in realistic sims.

[MigBuster 2,884]

Who gives a s**t what TK thinks is commercially viable? The man infamous for actively refusing to market his franchise. Really? If there's no money to be made in realistic sims, why do companies like Gaijin invest millions into realistic combat sims with high production values like War Thunder? Or why does 777 persist with developing Rise of Flight? Or how something like Euro Truck Simulator 2 can top the retail sales in UK and France? Guess they all must have missed the gospel that there's no cash to be made in realistic sims.

 

WW1 and WW2/Korea guns only sims have always sold well - the concept of blasting away guns only in a massive slow furball has always appealed.

 

So where is the F-4K with fully clickable pit and all the switches and avionics simulated....................considering that would probably take as long to dev as the entire War Thunder game did - how many millions would be waiting to snap that up with the 1000 page PDF.....................

Edited March 25, 2013 by MigBuster

[fallenphoenix1986 603]

Who gives a s**t what TK thinks is commercially viable? The man infamous for actively refusing to market his franchise.

 

Can't really argue with that... why would a product sell en masse if you deliberately don't tell anyone about it for years.

 

From where I'm sitting the TW series had the potential to be all sims to all men but stagnated because TK refused the major updates that would have allowed it to flourish, citing cash flow issues at every turn and at the same time keeping the series "underground".

 

Hopefully some day the comunity will gettheir hands on the code in the same manner as has happened with the IL-2 and F.4 comunities.

 

 

 

On the original topic:, I've been out of consoles for 10+ years, I did have on the Mega-Drive II: "Mig-29 - something or other" & F-22 "Something or other". On the PS1 I had: "Ace Combat: 1"," Wing Over", "Wing Over -2", T"op Gun - Fire At Wil" and a hand full of others that served me well before I discovered "Janes IAF".

 

Craig

Edited March 25, 2013 by fallenphoenix1986

[Easton 1]

I have allways had a flight sim loaded on my PC for about eight years now. I'm not claiming to be very good at it but I enjoy the challenge of a modern combat flight sim every now and then. WOE is what I have loaded on my PC now.

On Sunday I was on Steam and noticed JASF in the games list. I had a Janes flight sim a few years back and thought this new one must be even better now. Never even looked up any reviews and bought it.

Big mistake on my part, I may as well of burned that thirty dollars.

[FalconC45 162]

Who gives a s**t what TK thinks is commercially viable? The man infamous for actively refusing to market his franchise. Really? If there's no money to be made in realistic sims, why do companies like Gaijin invest millions into realistic combat sims with high production values like War Thunder? Or why does 777 persist with developing Rise of Flight? Or how something like Euro Truck Simulator 2 can top the retail sales in UK and France? Guess they all must have missed the gospel that there's no cash to be made in realistic sims.

 

WT is making $ on the mouse aim mode & the arcade area of WT. But, from I heard they finally fixed the joystick problem. There is a rumor going around that Gaijin nerfed the joystick code on purpose but I don't believe that personally. I agree about TK, quite don't understand his thinking of not mass marketing his company & the sims. When I say mass marketing I'm thinking of ads & interviews & sneak peeks in magazines and online sites.

 

Falcon

[Gr.Viper 131]

GOG now has Strike Commander

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/strike_commander

[JediMaster 451]

The reason flight sims do so poorly is the community is too damned nearsighted.

The number of simmers who enjoy WWI, WWII, jets, modern, arcade (WoP), lite (SF2), medium (LOMAC), and hardcore (DCS) is VERY small (I'm one of them).

 

Instead, you get the guys who ONLY fly WWI, but only want VERY real, so things like First Eagles aren't good enough. Or, they want to fly jets, but LOMAC is "too simple" for their tastes, so DCS is the only thing they fly and therefore buy.

Meanwhile, you have people who find DCS more like a job than fun, so SF2 is where it's at for them...but they don't really care for fictional, so no SF2 (Desert)...and they never cared for the Middle East, so no SF2:I...and SF2NA was just Iceland and an F-14, and the MF F-14 is better, Iceland is "meh"...so they have SF2:E, SF2:V, and a few DLC. And then they think they "support" flight sims?

 

People who like RTS games tend to get a LOT of RTS games. People who play RPGs buy a LOT of RPGs. People who play shooters buy a LOT of shooters.

But flight simmers buy like $100 worth of sims, not per year but TOTAL, and then spend $2000 on HOTAS, TIR, PC upgrades, a cockpit, and so on, and then complain that there's not enough for them to use all this fancy hardware on! They have this skewed value of a sim in their minds, that they should pay no more than $40-50 for it but get HUNDREDS of hours of simming for a DECADE out of it. Meanwhile, other people buy games at $50-60 each, play them for maybe 40-50 hrs tops (even less in the case of some modern shooter/action games) and then move on and consider it a great value. Guess what? Paying $50/sim a couple of times a decade doesn't make a healthy market.

 

The fallacy is the interpretation of the "vote with your wallet" concept. By not buying something, you tell the creators "I don't want this", but that's all you tell them...YOU may think you're telling them "I want something more realistic" or "I want something modern, not WWII" or "blah blah blah", but all they hear is "flight sims don't sell well." So they stop making them, they don't go back and make something else with an equal or LARGER budget in the hopes that this time it will be a hit.

I see far too many complaints that a given sim is only "75% of what I want", so they don't buy it. Well, guess what? Not only will they not make that 100% of what you want, but the other people out there for whom that title was 90%+ of their ideal get screwed as well when sales tank. The other thing is often the reasoning given is WAY off. For example, feature "X" isn't present, so the ENTIRE sim is barely 50% for you...like say clickable cockpits. Yeah, such as the Il-2:BoS whiners saying that since it won't have clickable cockpits like CloD (even though Il-2:1946 and all before it didn't have that) makes it a "crappy arcade" game, all the myriad other failings of CloD being set aside because clickable cockpits is apparently the SOLE discriminator of how good a sim is or is not.

 

Now I don't advocate buying complete crap or something you despise. If you're a prop guy and can't stand jets or radars or missiles, fine....but you should then buy all the decent (note I didn't say "good" or "great") WWI and WWII sims out there to let them know you are in that market. However, to not buy Flaming Cliffs 3 because you can't BEAR to do anything lower fidelity than A-10C is not doing the market any favors, you're hastening its demise.

 

If you like it enough to put just a few hours in it, you should get it so that the market is there long enough to make the next thing you do want. As for the "no money to be made" idea, notice no flight sims come out of the West aside from SF2, and that's a 1-man show? A show that now appears to have drawn its curtain the last time? The last major sim release from the West was FSX (I don't count MS Flight, it was a major company but not a major sim), and that was how far back now?

I think CFS3 was the last major combat sim release from the West? For jets, was it Jane's F/A-18?

 

There is money to be made, but it's not GOOD money, it's small-margins money, and the big publishers aren't interested in that at all. Hence all our sims are made in Russia! So if you get all cheap and principled and refuse to buy any sim that doesn't meet 100% of your standards, you'll soon find there won't even be one at 50%.

[MigBuster 2,884]

Some great points JM

 

Even when people are getting the games / add on's for free they are picky and want this / that / the other.

 

honestly give a flight simmer a gun he'd shoot himself in the foot!