WOFF BH&H2 my impressions thus far

[Ghostryder]

It seems we moved here so I registered to post my impressions thus far with this new edition of WOFF. I moved last Nov. and that was really the last time I flew so my memories are a bit hazzy but I do remember some things and can note some things just by flying about 5 missions thus far.

 First off the purchase experience was trouble free and pretty straight forward. Recieved the required emails for download almost immediately. The download clocked in at 9.6 Gig and took me but 14 minutes to complete. I'd rate this much better than any download I've done on steam or other services. The install I didn't clock but it took conciderably longer. There's a lot of files and if I had to guess I would say at least 20 minutes or more. I'll also note the latest patch was pretty small and only took a few minutes. As of this writing there's only 1 patch that fixes some runtime error and tweaks some color settings. 

 For those considering a purchase write down your purchase number as you will be asked for it the first time you run the sim. I of course hadn't done this but luckily I still was able to alt-tab out and retrieve the email for the number. Next step for me was go into the workshop and set up my thrustmaster t.1000 and throttle. I generally like to remap some buttons to time compression and engine start/stop. I suck as a pilot so I tweak the settings to also use auto pilot and TAC options with lables. As usual I forgot to 'save' the remap when i exixted and had a joyful time trying to remember what keyboard commands turned this stuff on lol. Again remember to save when you remap. 

After that first flight where I fumbled with a fuzzy memory ---never did get auto pilot on but I managed to land without killing myself--I remapped again and this time "Saved".  Yes it's like riding a bike. Not so much the flying but repeating the same dumb mistakes I made the first time I flew WOFF long ago. 

So I created 3 pilots. A french run, an ROF run and a Jaster run. Pretty much all started in 1915. The first one in January. ROF in august and the German on started in November. This is because I left season on 'any'. So that's how they generated. 

Some things I noticed right away was of course the new color photos, the 2 seater that placed the gunner right in front of me gave full view to the new turning heads. I noticed no stutters though I would say my FPS is a bit lower, hovering just above 60 fps most times. This isn't a top of the line system but a recent build with a good ASROCK MB with an I5 9800, 16GB RAM. A Nvidia 1660 ti using a 1 TB SD drive. I was generally in the 80s FPS wise on the older version. but then again I have everything set to 5 so there's that. 

 As for odd things I've noticed. On my very 1st flight the text was so small it was unreadable with flight instructor and labels on. But it corrected itself and never returned on future missions. I'll note also the keyboard in workshop lists the pause key but that does nothing. ESC key is pause.

Also in the old version you alway heard "contact' before you even appeared on the field on missions. That glitch has been fixed. 

I am so impressed I just paid about $200 for a Track IR 5 which I hope arrives within a week or so. 

As for the price of the sim? For me it's worth it because I loved WWI flight sims. I could care less about Multiplayer and I want immersion above all else. A dynamic campaign is king in my view. My first WWI sim was Knights in the Sky and of course followed by the Red Barons. WOFF to me is the ultimate for career and campaign. 

besides that I've spent as much for Cyberpunk 2077 which is a buggy mess and will probably never be the RPG that was promised. I'm still waiting after 9 years for anything resembling the game Chris Robert's promised with Star Citizen that was suppose to be finished in 2014, hundreds in any Paradox title with DLC purchases.....so as long as the game is your cup of tea and you can support a small dev in a very nitch market ....why not? 

anyway I just wanted to sign in and give some impressions. I really want to try to make it early in the war to war's end but i've yet decided what campaign/country/squadron to choose. Any suggestions as to your favorites?

 

 

[Adger]

Hi Ghostryder great stuff,  im sure the P key pauses for me ? Trackir is a gamechanger imho mate.

Your absolutely right about the titles you've mentioned and i believe that at $60 it's a bargain. The changes are fantastic, the scenery AI and the sounds ..the Skins i could go on. I've been with these lads for 10 years their support and dedication for a 2 man team is second to none.

Happy flying i sincerely hope you enjoy BHaH II

[Rick Rawlings]

Yeah, if you are going from no head tracking to TrackIR, that is going to be huge. If you happen to have ARMA 3 kicking around, you should give that a spin with head tracking, it's another whole different experience!

[catch]

Yeah but even trackir's not going to help Cyberpunk 2077

[Ghostryder]

lol. ain't that the truth. CDproject never was very good at gui's, inventory and the combat in the Witcher games was so "Mortal Kombat" you tolerated it just to experience the world and the quests. I thought to myself...at least with guns the combat should be better. How wrong was I ! It's not even a very good shooter, which isn't really my cup of tea anyway. I was hoping for a Deux EX like experience but even that never happened. And this time around even the quests and world weren't there. Oh it's pretty....but it has no depth whatsoever and the 'story' is 10 levels of dumb. 

 And Star Citizen? 360 million dollars and a huge team has only produced a tech demo being sold as a second game to the one that was promised in over 12 years of development and no end in sight. 

I'm a retired Engineer myself and have worked for companies like them and one thing I learned is upper management doesn't understand software development at all. You can't just throw money and people at it. Assuming all involved actually know what they are doing...which is seldom the case in game development because of the low pay, a small team will outproduce a large team every time and the end result will be more solid. just take a look at the WOFF as a perfect example but any small Indy dev today are the ones that are releasing the solid games with real innovation. 

 I could go on...but that really is another subject so I will save my own sanity and refrain. LOL

[Ghostryder]

Well what can I say?

 

WOFF is awesome with TrackIR!

 

Talk about easy install. After I used the software to center the camera and did the 'update game' option in it that was it! I set it to 'smooth' default and WOW! works perfectly. No FPS slowdown...no jittering or lag or anything. I don't fell a need to fiddle with the advanced options so I'm just leaving it as is.

On another note been regularly installing the fast incoming patches. What support!  I haven't had any issues other than mu own lack of pilot skills but I doubt there's a patch for that....

[catch]

Well, as they say, once you get trackir you'll never look back.

[Rick Rawlings]

Wait, I thought once you got TrackIR, you always look back?!?

[rjw]

Ha Ha, good one Rick!

[Ghostryder]

Yeah I though about that a lot before it arrived. How far does my head have to move to look back? too far and I'm stressing seeing the monitor and not enough and "wouldn't that be weird feeling?"

Too my surprise it was none of that. It's very natural and there's no issue at all. There's even cool stuff I hadn't thought about like looking 'over' your cab to see the ground or leaning in  to see a instrument. It all adds to immersion. 

Hardware wise it seems a bit pricey but I think most of the cost can be explained with the software. that has to take some effort. And the returns are as great as spending on a decent Joystick and throttle.

 Besides I have no other hobby. if I was into motorcycles or restoring old cars what I spend here is nothing.

Well I do have another hobby I ignore so much I'm terrible at...guitar. You can spend more on a single effects pedal. 

[TROOPER117]

12 hours ago, Rick Rawlings said:

Wait, I thought once you got TrackIR, you always look back?!?

Ah, when in game you are 'looking back'... but in reality, when using trackir, you never actually look back!... (a bit of lateral thinking old beans)

[Rick Rawlings]

On 4/23/2021 at 7:09 AM, TROOPER117 said:

Ah, when in game you are 'looking back'... but in reality, when using trackir, you never actually look back!... (a bit of lateral thinking old beans)

Maybe that's why I'm so bad at it...