CaptSopwith

And it comes from a jet sim - the mother of all jet sims actually - Falcon 4.0 I was reading through my Falcon 4.0 manual this morning and came across this passage. It was written by Gilman "Chopstick" Louie, the creator of the Falcon series and also a key member of the late, great studio, Microprose. His thoughts on flight sims were fascinating to read. This entire passage is tucked away in an appendix in the massive Falcon 4.0 manual. And while he's describing a jet simulator - something almost totally alien to what we usually fly - his ideas I think explain why OFF is a great sim. "Ask programmers and designers who work on combat flight simulations what features are critical, and most will define a great sim by how accurate the flight model and avionics are. Create a set of pre-scripted missions along with a few videos and voila... you have a simulation. "Unfortunately, to create a great simulation, a flight model, avionics, enemy AI, and good graphics are only the start. The purpose of the Falcon series is not just to simulate the aircraft but the entire fight pilot experience. Our goal has been not just to replicate the flight dynamics, avionics and visuals of flight, but to include the elements that make up the combat environment." "Falcon 4.0 is comprised of two completely separate simulations: the campaign and the air combat simulation (ACS). While most games focus only on the ACS, Falcon 4.0 spotlights the campaign..." He later elaborates on the compromise between total realism and the idea of immersion. "For experienced combat pilots, flying the real F16 is 99% boredom and 1% adrenaline. If Falcon 4.0 had the same ratio, nobody would buy the game. Falcon 4.0 like most games, increases activity levels to keep your interest engaged. The action you see in one Falcon 4.0 mission is equivalent to two to five real combat missions. The number of missions you fly in a day has also been exaggerated. On the other hand, Falcon 4.0 does not feature a super plane with unrealistic performance and weapons. Once in an engagement, the simulation realistically depicts what real F16 pilots can do." I could be completely wrong, as I can't read Winder's mind or anyone else on the teem, but these ideas strike me as close to what the OFF designers were aiming for; accurately simulating a combat environment as well as the aircraft that flew over it. While you may run into more flights than you would in reality, it is the simulation of an active and ongoing air war over the Western Front that is of paramount importance. Without that, you're left with pretty graphics and an accurate flight model, and little else. Every great flight sim I've ever played has featured a dynamic campaign system. All of the classics I've been dusting off this week feature that. And it's worth noting that even other current WWI flight sims are working to create such a system. Just thought I'd share. It seemed like some interesting reading. Cheers!

Lou, I don't think you could have written that any more poetically if you tried. That was a great read. As for me, the short version can be reduced to three words: Wings Of Glory. The long version goes like this. My grandfather built me a few plastic model planes from WWII when I was a kid. Spitfires, Me109's, that sort of thing. I loved them, but since they were models and not robust toys, I often broke them in a few days. He was far more patient that I could ever be, and always built me more without question. I was fascinated with dogfights and planes from that age on. I remember mixing some Star Wars in with my WWII dogfights - giving the German planes the menacing howl of the Tie Fighters as they flew by. Then, many years later, I stumbled upon the demo of Wings of Glory in a copy of PC Gamer magazine. Which, much to my happy surprise, is still going strong lo these many years later. (http://www.pcgamer.com/). The demo featured one mission from the game - flying an SE5 with Charles Dearing and two Rookies as you attempted to take down three observation balloons. Of course you run into a few skirmishes along the way, including a very angry and brightly colored Albatros CIII that fired in four round bursts - something I still catch myself mimicking when I fly to this day. It was only one mission, but I probably logged 100 hours on it. My parents bought me the full game for my Birthday the following year but alas, it refused to run on our computer and the whole thing - beautiful box, color manual and poster, all went back to the store. I wouldn't play through Wings of Glory until 2010. Then a few years later, around October of 1998, I was shopping at Wal-Mart with my mom - I was 16 years old and still learning how to drive. We walked through the game section - a ritual of mine whenever we went there - and living in a tiny town in the South, Wal-Mart was usually your best bet for finding video games in the pre-internet era. There, sitting next to a collection of puzzle and deer hunting games was the box featured in my signature - complete with the sticker advertising a free coupon for Red Baron Pizza in the box. I've never begged so hard for something in my life. Mom caved, dropped 20 bucks, and the rest was history. I flew Red Baron II on our month old Dell computer - which still sits in the corner of my apartment in a place of honor - with only my keyboard, but I was hooked. I found Delphi a few months later when we got dial up internet access and... half of a lifetime later, at 28, here I am.

Hear Hear Lou! BH: I think your assessment of the market right now is spot on - all of the main line releases are usually made for consoles and then ported to PC's, a complete reversal of the situation ten or fifteen years ago. However, I don't think the future is quite that grim - the market is shifting, yes, but sims like rFactor, iRacing, and other show that there's still the hint of a pulse left in the market. Also, I'm noticing that I'm not the only retro-gamer out there. I had never heard of GoG until I saw it posted here, but there's probably going to be another niche market for selling classic games that run on current systems. What's the old saying, I'd rather be an optimist and a fool than a pessimist and right? The market may well be doomed, but I'll keep telling myself otherwise and hope that there's more Winder's out there. I have a good hunch that there is. Cheers!

@Rubyfan: I haven't played very far into career mode. I've installed a few enhanced patches and there was a modded .exe file I found that solved a few problems PU developed with high CPU's (these included incredibly ugly low res textures and the Parkinson's hand issue when your driver shifted gears). So far it runs smoothly. I've started evolution mode and bought my first car and I haven't seen any problems yet (knock on wood). I do run the game with administrator privileges granted but that's it. I should also stress heavily that I'm running Windows 7 Pro 32bit - which likely makes a difference with these Windows 98 era games. Hope this helps!

Alright gents, here is the final tally. All told, I cannot believe these games installed so smoothly, with so little work. Getting games like Red Baron to run took less effort on this machine than they did on the original Dell rig I ran it on in 1998. The only casualties in my collection were: Worms Armageddon, Need For Speed High Stakes. That's it. Everything else is there and I've added the ARMA2 Demo and FS-WWI for good measure. The collection now stands at 54 games, according to Windows. What you don't see are the DOS Box games I added. They are: Wolfenstein 3D (plus 5 expansions and custom versions of the game), Doom, F117A Stealth Fighter, World Circuit, SeaWolf, SimCity Enhanced, Star Wars: Rebel Assault, Wings of Glory. The ARMA2 demo is quite interesting. I think these so-called "niche" games, as the gaming media likes to refer to them as, are going to be right up my alley. Speaking of Alleys, MiG Alley is also up and running successfully, again with almost no effort - and certainly a lot less than my Windows 98 days. Flight Simulator 2004 has also been added. It recently turned buggy with my installation of IE9 Beta, but after doing some research and trying a fix that solved a previous conflict with IE7, FS2004 is now fully functioning again. I haven't calculated the hours of gaming I've collectively installed on this machine, but I would think it would take years to actually play through everything. Even OFF would take that long - if I tried to fly with every squadron included. P4 will long since be out by the time I finish that list. In short, I don't know how I did it (I'm pretty sure it wasn't me), but this was the most sublimely set up PC I've ever had. I'm going to image the drive, sit back, and enjoy. I'm glad you guys have enjoyed reading along with me - this was the best use of a few sick days, ever. Cheers!

Well stated as always, BH. I had been keeping loose tabs on COD and this is the first I've heard about them throwing the campaign overboard. Here's my thoughts on the idea of flight sims shifting towards online multiplayer as the focal point of the game... My friends from college and I often play on XBox Live. Our game of choice is usually Call of Duty or Battlefield. Half of the time we're catching up on each other's lives and BS-ing about the day as we're shooting at the enemy. Don't get me wrong, we usually do well, but it's as much of a social tool as it is a game - especially now that we're all scattered across the country. But we often have a saying when we play: "Online gaming would be great if it weren't for the people." I know that's a bit of an overstatement - online multiplayer is, of course, about the people. But in games like Call of Duty or Battlefield, who you're teamed with determines the outcome of a game as much as your own skill; playing with a crappy set of people can ruin a night. In short, the experience will vary wildly depending on who wanders onto the server while you play. This type of gameplay seems particularly out of place in a flight sim - especially if it's made into the main event and not an additional feature. I know online squadrons have been around forever and - having been lucky enough to fly with a few of them over the years - flying a mission together, with an objective - even something as simple as patrolling the Front - can be incredibly satisfying. But that experience is unique. 99% of the players don't get to experience that. And even if you do, what are you supposed to do for the other 10-12 hours a week when you and your squad can't get together and fly online? What replaces that gap is critical. If there is a deep, immersive, dynamic campaign to go to, then you have a great sim. But if it's nothing more than a collection of single missions strung together - the replay value is limited at best. The Harley analogy is apt here. (I'd like to add that yes, I know the community is the lifeblood of a sim and if OFF had an easy to navigate MMP component, we'd likely fly online. But I think the main thing that draws us together is reading those reports from the front which comes from... the dynamic campaign system). And what if you aren't one of the lucky ones to fly with an online squadron? What if you're just another in a line of thousands of hapless fliers hopping on to what is essentially a Call Of Duty style team deathmatch server with Me109's and Spitfires? What kind of experience is that? I remember the free for all servers in Red Baron - and from the standpoint of someone who loved the campaign system - hopping on to a server filled with people flying Fokker D7's and Sopwith Snipes and "vulching" kills as people spawned on the field was aggravating - not fun. And surely the type of player who is attracted to an Il2 or a Cliffs of Dover game has at least a tacit interest in the history. If not, why not just pick up HAWX for the Xbox 360 and be done with it? Without a dynamic campaign system, the game is left with pretty graphics, incredibly detailed nuts and bolts simulation of aircraft, and that's it. And as "Chopstick" put it in 1998, that's not enough. If your sim is built around the Battle of Britain, then I want to experience the Battle of Britain! And an online, "capture the flag" server is not it. I have to admit, I'm a little bit angry about this. If a sim nut - a guy like Oleg Maddox - who clearly appreciates history - can be ordered to throw out a campaign system by his publisher, than perhaps the OFF and, now that they've been bought out by 777 Studios, even the ROF method - for all of its controversies - is the way to go. Jettison the publisher. Third Wire also does this very well, come to think of it. And studios like Battlefront have built entire businesses around internet releases of "niche" products. It seems clear to me now that we'll never see another Falcon 4.0 or a Red Baron 3D released by a mainline publisher ever again. Those games had a metric ton of content and an infinitely repayable campaign system. Activision would never touch a game like that - there's no DLC to sell for $15 a pop after you sell the game for $60. Those days surely ended when Microprose, Rowan, and Dynamix, shut their doors. Thankfully, we have people like Winder and groups like OBD who still understand what these sims are supposed to be about and work hard to get it right. Like you said, BH, we happily take the good with the bad - quirks and all. And I have no doubt in my mind that that is exactly why I've spent the last three evenings reinstalling games I bought at the end of the 1990s when I was still a teenager. Why? Because those games do what we wish these studios would do now. I own IL2. I probably have every campaign and every set of missions ever released for the thing. I run it with maxed out, eye-popping graphics. It's a hell of a flight simulator. And yet, I've never felt anything for it. I appreciate it for its technical achievements, the scale of work done by it is remarkable, but it has never once stirred anything in me. The moment I got European Air War to run - a game I bought in 1999; that was locked in at 640x480 resolution at the time of its release; a game built to run on 3DFX video cards; in short, a dinosaur even compared to the now ten year old IL2 series - I got goosebumps. Once the music cued up, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I felt a tangible shot of adrenaline. Why? Because EAW nailed the feeling of being a WWII combat pilot. The menu art, the music, the subtle touches, and most importantly, the dynamic campaign system that the game shipped with, made me feel like it was real. At no point during even the most intense dogfights in IL2 did I ever feel like I was a fighter pilot in WWII. It's the difference between the cold but classically trained trumpet player, and the gritty jazz musician that is a bit sloppy, but can leave you in tears. These current day sim makers lament a shrinking market. And, as much as it stinks to admit, we are a small group. You're never going to make a billion dollars off of a flight sim, ever. The market is completely different today than it was 15 years ago when Falcon 4.0 was being shown at E3. The masses have come to gaming, and hardcore PC gamers - and flight simmers - don't need to be courted anymore. There's money to be made selling Angry Birds on iPhones and map packs for Call of Duty. But sadly, if Cliffs of Dover really did throw the baby out with the bathwater in terms of the campaign, they seem to be making their situation worse by trying to be like all of the other "games" out there. And I don't know about the rest of you, but the reason why these sims hold such a warm place in my heart - something a video game, by all logic, shouldn't do in the first place - is because they aren't like every other game out there. We love these sims because they are unique, not in spite of it. If we're doomed to move into an era of DLC packs, and Massively Multiplayer campaigns where everyone flies in a free-for-all in historic planes, then we'd better pay well for Phase 4 and tip Winder and the rest of the team early and often. These guys are the few out there that still fight for what the "old school" sim builders stood for. If not for them, I'm not sure where we'd be as simmers. Just my 2 cents. I've probably had too much coffee today.

You don't give yourself nearly enough credit Lou. I noticed as well.

The less aggressive model actually replicates Boom and Zoom planes rather well. I don't think I ever caught a Spad while fighting in an Albatros. The only downside, like you said, is that they didn't attack enough - usually one pass and zzzzzzip, gone. It was frustrating, but I'm sure it was more accurate to what actually happened - try to get them in one go and if it doesn't work, get out. The difference in the real skies of WWI is that the Spads would likely have gained altitude and made another pass. Whereas their OFF brethren just scoot for home.

I believe some of the Neiuport models have limbs in them... I want to say a few of the German fighters do as well, but I can't recall which ones... the Pfalz DIII maybe?

Well, you can add MiG Alley to the list. Runs a bit choppy at times (when didn't it? lol) but it looks great. I really can't believe this keeps working!

Hi Duke. I can jump in on question 3. I'll leave the more technical aspects to the OFF team, they can answer a lot better than I can. Low, to me, seems to replicate early war activity. I usually see scattered flights of a handful of scouts. It seems to replicate what I read about the re-ordering of the French and German Air Services in 1916 - moving away from largely single plane patrols and towards more organized efforts to cover the air. Medium replicates 1917 pretty well. I encounter trouble more often than not when I fly. Whether they jump me or I engage them is usually left up to me - I can steer my flight towards or away from trouble. That said, I do find myself in much more trouble with medium than low. Many times, there's nothing else to do but dive in and fight and remember my line of retreat. I typically don't even touch high. High taxes my PC too much and my fps begins chugging as OFF is generating so many flights that it takes up too many cycles to process all of that AI. I would imagine that high replicates the most ferocious, high pitched level of the air war and you'll see dozens of fighters tangling in a dogfight.

I saw the news this evening Javito - it looks like a mess up there. Are you in college by any chance? I'm taking a guess based on the 1986 tacked onto your handle. At any rate, I hope things clear up soon. I had no idea this was going on until CNN picked it up tonight.

Ooo, now this is interesting. It looks like they have a method to install FS-WWI that doesn't even require the original SDOE. This might be the avenue I choose to take. I remember reading a lot about SDOE FS-WWI back in the day... I think even Delphi had a Forum for it that kept popping up as a suggestion for me based on all of the Red Baron forums I was visiting over there.

I also agree that I prefer the cockpits without the bodies. And, come to think of it, I can't recall a single flight sim I've played that modeled a full pilot's body. The closest would be some of the Falcon 4.0 patches that shows the pilot's legs, but they are a 2D painted on part of the cockpit, not modeled.

I never played 1942 PAW, but I've always heard it spoken of reverently in flight sim circles. It's also remarkable how similar their intro videos are. I think the EAW developers really wanted to keep the emotion and spirit of its predecessor alive. I really miss Microprose. Looking through the old collection, at least half of the old games are MPS titles. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu1p-DIQIZA

I'll have to give that a go next! This just keeps getting better and better! EDIT: Just did some digging, where would I find the MA and BDG patches? Google seems to be failing me this time...

They sure do! Which is something that they definitely did not do when I first bought this computer and it ran Windows Vista. I've decided to basically lock the system down at this point. I'm making an image of the HD as it exists right now and as far as I'm concerned, I'm not touching any more driver updates for my card - besides, the rig is nearly three years old, so how much of an improvement would a new set of drivers make anyway? Wolfenstein 3D was my first PC game. My mother bought it at college (she went back for a nursing degree when I was an early teenager) and came home with a Shareware floppy of the first episode. It got me hooked on computer gaming. I have it and every expansion I could find all running in Dos Box. You know, I never did get into SDOE or FS-WWI, I was so tied up with European Air War, Falcon 4.0, and Red Baron at the time. The models look pretty good though, I'll have to research that one next.

It's good to have you back Olham - my sympathies over the trials that you and your mother are experiencing. The boards have been darn quiet without you. I tried to fill the void where I could, but it turns out that you leave a rather large, Olham shaped hole when you're out of reach for a while. Have a round on me and thanks for replying to my German message, I'm glad my skills are progressing.

Yeah... how about that... lol. I don't know - the original Sims was quirky and I enjoyed the design tools from an architectural standpoint. I haven't played any of the newer ones from Sims 3 on - they seem a bit to... pop for me? They're so slick and smooth now that they've lost a lot of their old charm, at least for me. Besides, I enjoy flaming planes a lot more than I do telling a Sim to go to the bathroom lol.

@ Widow: Turns out all I needed to do was reboot the PC and set the dgvoodoo settings to the ones posted at Wings of Honor: http://www.wingsofhonour.com/redbaron3d/tipsandtricks/html_woh_redbaron3d_tipsandtricks.en.html#settingupthedgvoodooglideemulator The "Old Gal" runs beautifully! As you can see from my collection, I play all of the latest WWI sims (OFF is still my favorite for raw immersion) but it is a nice feeling to have RB back on the computer. Somehow the world seems more right (I know, I'm crazy). Which also means I have the entire collection - at least what I played growing up - Wings of Glory, Red Baron 3D (With Otto's HASP installed), OFF, and the other sim we don't mention by name. Not a bad collection for a propeller head like me.

Hi Widow. Yes, and no... I'm running W7 32bit Professional edition. I'm currently ironing out a problem with my glide wrapper. If I use dgvoodoo the game runs and doesn't crash but... I have some major FPS issues - single digits depending on what' going on on the screen. If I run a modded glide wrapper made by a RB modder named Greybeard I get fantastic FPS in all conditions, but the game crashes each and every single time I end a mission. I'll let you know if I work that out. We'll see... I know, I know... I get that a lot when people look over my library of games. My parents got me the original Sims for Christmas back in, what... 2000? Wound up finding a niche in my collection. As for the sequel - yeah, that was all me. Quick follow up - I found Hidden and Dangerous for free online! It was released as a deluxe edition as part of a marketing campaign for the sequel. So now I really do have nearly everything on my HD. I'll be snagging the ARMA2 demo soon, it looks very interesting.

ARMA has been a series I've meant to pick up now for quite some time. I really enjoyed the high realism / tough learning curve / tactical style games like Hidden & Dangerous (which I sold years ago for pennies). Which version do you recommend I pick up first to get my feet wet?

That's a stump-er British... some questions that might help. What system specs are you running? Are you running either Vista or 7? If so, you might need to reinstall with administrator privileges granted, or it won't copy all of the files over correctly. To ensure a complete install on my Windows 7 rig with HiTR, I boot into safe mode and install / patch OFF to completion as for some reason, my copy of HiTR conflicts with my anti-virus, which is Microsoft Security Essentials and it will not install with MSE running. My suggestions is boot into safe mode, install HITR from the original .exe file, patch the game and then reboot into normal mode and see if that sorts things out. Just some ideas as I sit here nursing some early morning tea. Hope that helps!

If Widow drops next the RFC will be reborn - and all of them will be flying Snipes! Crazy as that sounds - it just might all be true...

Hi guys. I hope all is well. It's been a busy semester so far but I've been trying to keep up on my reading here. I've encountered a graphics card problem and I need some help. My system is a Gateway FX7024 with 3 Gigs of Ram, a 500GB HDD, an Intel Core 2 Quad processor, and an nVidia GeForce 8800GT graphics card. Well, over the last few days I've had the entire computer lock up - complete with whatever the card is rendering at the time - in both cases it's been Call of Duty Modern Warfare - breaking up into pixilated bright pink and white dot goo. Then the whole system has to be hard rebooted by holding down the power button for 5 seconds. It only seems to happen during COD. I played OFF and even tried ramping up ROF - thinking that it should strain the card - and didn't see any issues. I have the latest drivers, and tried rolling them back to see if it was a driver issue. I thought the problem was fixed until last night, when it happened again on COD. I've taken the card out and cleaned it as best as I can with compressed air and even a vacuum (it was completely unplugged at the time). The card is getting white hot during gaming duties - the temperature is hovering around 90C and the max operating temperature is rated at 105C. I'm at a loss for what to do here guys - is it possible that the card is going bad? I always thought that if a video card went bad, it just died, not do this. Any advice would be welcomed - and if I do have to replace it, could you point me to a comparable card to the 8800GT - as the power supply in the Gateway is a bit limited and I don't think it can run the latest and greatest video cards out there. Thanks in advance for your help.