CaptSopwith

Hi Widow! Hope you're doing well. I popped in earlier and saw this thread about AnKor's mod. I had the same trouble you did getting it to run - I kept getting dumped back into the OFF main menu. Go into your CFS3.cfg settings in the workshop, set everything back to default, and the mod should run. For me, I was able to adjust the graphics settings and the overrides without any glitches. The mod doesn't seem to like having the texture settings messed with. If your setup is like mine, you've probably customized it a bit over the years to eek out that extra bit of performance. Setting the cfg file back to its defaults seems to have fixed it for me. And WOW, what a difference it makes! Even OFF looks as good as any ultra-modern day WWI sim I've seen. Great stuff!

Greetings from the Rocky Mountains where I am spending a lovely Christmas away! I just wanted to join in and wish everyone, especially the WOFF team, a very very Merry Christmas! Thank you for giving us WOFF in time for the holidays. I can't even imagine how much time, effort, and work went into WOFF. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there might be a super budget gaming computer under the tree this year so I can enjoy some flying time in WOFF. In the meantime I'm enjoying everyone's After Action Reports, screenshots, videos, and every review I can get a hold of. It looks absolutely fantastic... I think you have created the greatest single player flight sim ever made - in other words, everything I've wanted since I was a 12 year old kid playing Wings of Glory. So to Pol, Sandbagger, Winder, Shred, and the rest of the team, and to everyone here I know, Olham, Lou, Wodin, Robert, Hellshade, Shiloh, and everyone else... a very Merry Christmas!

I know I'm preaching to the choir here but... I feel like $60 is more than a fair price. A big budget game like Battlefield 3 expects you to happily part with that much, plus another $50 to become a "Premium" player, and then your online subscription of choice, be it Xbox or PlayStation, expect that you'll hand over another fistful of cash to play other people. And yes, I know that we're talking about a flight sim, not a multi-billion dollar title, but for me, that's all the more reason to pay $60 plus another bit for 4000 + aircraft skins. I've known Pol, Winder, Sandbagger, OvS, Shred, and the rest for going on fifteen years now. And they have, in their time away from their day jobs, created a flight sim that would have been released by a major publisher back in the 90s. It's the most complete single player recreation of the Western Front in World War I. It gives you 55 aircraft to play with out of the box, and it immerses you in the most completely dynamic campaign that we are likely to see - possibly ever again. And I also agree with 33Lima... value is in the eye of the beholder. For me, this is the sim I've wanted to play since I discovered WWI aviation in the mid-90s. So for me, $60, even on my budget, is one heck of a good value.

I'm still praying for a gaming computer this Christmas... in the meantime, my first campaigns will be lived vicariously through my friends here at the boards! I will definitely be picking up WOFF after the new year (read: when the next loan check arrives for school... call it a morale booster ) and whether it will run on my rig or not, I want to show my support for the team. Cheers!

Good to see you, Fortiesboy! Hope you're doing well. I don't have WOFF just yet but after reading over the list of modifications to the AI code for the game, I was deeply impressed. It sounds like WOFF really is one of the last (if not the last) great Single Player, Dynamic Campaign Driven, flight simulators of its kind. In addition to the comments left above, I thought I'd direct you to Hellshade's preview videos which demonstrates the breadth of knowledge that the AI now possess - particularly at low altitude which used to be their Achilles Heel. See what you think! :)

That might just be the best news I've heard in months! Thank you for letting me know Shred - how is life treating you these days? Hope you're doing well!

Hiya Lou! CaptSopwith reporting for duty! Hope I'm not too late for roll call, and a pint of Guinness at the pub! I have updated my pilot's badge accordingly, as befits the occassion! And remember, Guinness is good for you!

Great post, Widow! Gave me quite a good laugh this morning. And about that Snipe, I'd say you bent some of the main support spars but like the other say, some straightening, a little elbow grease, and some PC-10 doping, and it'll be good as new! And take it easy on those landings! Those Snipes don't grow on trees, you know!

Hey Shiloh! I didn't know you were a fellow graduate student! Mind if I ask what you're studying? I'm a history PhD, not surprisingly!

I'd say "Grad Student Stanard Time" where five minutes is actually closer to six months! Good to see you too plug! That power supply you sent me is still going strong! Hope you're doing well!

I agree that $60 is a lot of money these days for just about anyone... and believe me, as a broke grad student, I can sympathize! That said, there really aren't any flight sim developers left anymore - at least, not in the WWI arena. The ROF team has largely moved on to work on other projects, and the kickstarter funded resurrections of RB3D and Wings look great, but they're not going to be a hardcore, technically researched WWI sim that puts every squadron at their resepctive bases at the correct time of each month of the war... there's just no market for that outside of our merry band of Barmy OFF'ers! And you know what? I've known Pol since I was what... 17? I remember posting back and forth with half of the OFF team back when I was in High School and they were modding Red Baron 3D. I know it's biased, but they've been killing themselves now for going on four years and with - it seems - a lot less manpower than they once had. So really, even on food stamps, I'm willing to kick them 60 bucks for their troubles. Right now, it feels like the least I could do. And I agree with you on consoles! 60 bucks for a half-baked, over-hyped game that's going to force me to pay another 20 bucks here and there for DLC to finish a game that should have been done when they printed the thing? Yeah... not so much. At this stage, if I had to choose between as PS4 and a new gaming rig? WOFF would win me back to my keyboard and mouse - not to mention my ancient Microsoft Sidewinder Joystick! Cheers!

Lou, you are absolutely one of the foundational members of this community! I have missed reading your writing and especially enjoyed your recent publication of the Illustrated BOC News. I read it this morning over coffee and attracted quite a few puzzled looks from my girlfriend as I laughed hysterically at my laptop. Thankfully, she knows I'm a flight simmer and she's even okay with my TrackIR setup! Just wanted to say thanks for posting this - it was a fantastic read and a much needed laugh after several months of hard work in RL. Cheers Lou! And a very Merry Christmas to you sir!

...everything changes! Hi guys! I hope all of you have been well in the weeks / months since I last posted antyhing of note. As usual, RL (particularly school) has taken up all of my time, and much of my "free" time as well! It's fantastic to see everyone returning now that WOFF has come out. I only wish I had a computer with even a snowball's chance in hades of running the thing. My 2008 era desktop is struggling to run OFF with the graphics cranked up, let alone anything new. And, as an incredibly poor grad student, that probably won't change anytime soon. (I really need to publish that best-selling novel about WWI pilots while working on my dissertation! ;)) So... if I may return to the BoC, I'll have to grab one of those new badges for my signature. And, if I can ask: How the heck has everyone been!?!? Would love to hear what everyone has been up to. It's great to see Olham, Lou, Hellshade (fantastic videos, sir!) all back and chatting busily at the bar. I'll be traveling for the Holidays - which means my beloved OFF rig will be left behind, but I will have my laptop with me - so hopefully I'll be posting far more often than I have in the last few months. Cheers!

As far as I know, Matt finished scoring the soundtrack for OFF / WOFF back in 2011 or 2012. So it's been finished for quite some time now.

Hi Andy! Just wanted to let you know that I gave your new mod a run through and it sounds fantastic! I really like what you've done to adjust the sound distances. The enemy can really sneak up on you know and the echoes of the big guns near the Front are much more eerie at a distance. Fantastic stuff! My thanks for posting this so late in OFF's lifespan.

Sounds great Andy! I'm currently using Lothar's OFFbase program - how would I incorporate the new mod into the program, or is Lothar planning a version update that will do so in the near future? Can't wait to hear it - your current mod leaves me frequently jumping in my seat! Thanks for all of the hard work! Sounds great Andy! I'm currently using Lothar's OFFbase program - how would I incorporate the new mod into the program, or is Lothar planning a version update that will do so in the near future? Can't wait to hear it - your current mod leaves me frequently jumping in my seat! Thanks for all of the hard work! Cheers!

Here's a fantastic video of Kermit Weeks taking you for a walk-around tour of the Sopwith Snipe! Quite informative: I learned a lot about the plane!

Looks fantastic Lothar! And thanks for taking the time to work in the RB3D soundtrack - I think it makes for a fun retro experience. Tossing in Wings, too, is a great idea! I'm looking forward to seeing what the new version does. I do have a technical question for you, however. Whenever I run OFFice, I have noticeably lower frame rates and a lot of intermittent stutters in my gameplay when flying. When I unload Andy's sound mod, it's a little bit better but my FPS are down a good 25% from the stock game when I run OFFice. I don't think it's the software... is it possible that my rig is just too old to run the mods? I'll list my system specs below to see if you have any suggestions. The stock game runs between 20-60 FPS depending on how busy things are on screen. I usually run with regional activity set to medium as high can also cause a degradation in performance. Here are my specs - try not to laugh too hard Gateway FX7024 2 x 500 GB HD (Games installed on one disk, OS on the other). Windows 7 SP1 3GB RAM nVidia GeForce 9800 GT Intel Core 2 Duo Quad Q6600 at 2.40GhZ

That's fantastic Lothar! Very happy the Red Baron 3D soundtrack is alive and well once more! I love Matt's score to OFF - but there's something about the more upbeat tone of RB3D that I remember quite fondly. And Wings, wow... I wish I had played that one but 1990 is just a little before my time. We got our first PC in 1993 and shortly after that, Wings of Glory came out (which I have installed on my current rig in DosBox). Love the soundtrack through. Great stuff! And for anyone who hasn't heard the Red Baron 3D soundtrack - which I still catch myself humming around the house all these years later - here's some previews of what it sounded like. The audio quality is pretty low in these videos but they'll do.

Apparently so! Glad I got a little discussion going! And I remember those flame wars quite well - I believe there was one rather infamous thread entitled "The Fokker DR1 is Porked!" I got quite an introduction to life on message boards back in the late 90s. And Royce - I'm pretty sure I still have some of your handiwork on my PC. I have all of the major RB3D patches installed and I'm sure your FM is still kicking around there somewhere!

I have to say, I certainly agree! Matt's scores are magical - and I'm dying to hear the rest of his work when WOFF is released! Somehow, my Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 is still working after all these years. Got it for my 17th birthday... in 1999.

It is indeed, heartening to see all of the old names coming out of the woodwork! I was getting a bit worried (as you saw in my other post...). I'll happily take up a game of darts, and make my pint a Guinness! PS: Glad to see PW is still working on all things WWI - I remember he had a terrible time of things years back (I believe his wife passed away quite unexpectedly). I too play some ROF when I get time but with my system, if there are more than a half dozen planes on the screen ROF drags to a slow-motion crawl. Not sure there's anything I can do to fix that - short of buying a new system. And being a PhD Candidate, I don't have a lot (read: any) extra income right now.

Glad you like it Javito! I've got a few years on you, but not much: I was 16 when I picked up Red Baron II in 1998. Got it with our second home computer, a Dell XPS R400 that still sits in my closet. It's funny how we remember the missions we flew in that sim as if they actually happened. My girlfriend gets a kick out of my stories - and even asks me how my latest mission went when she knows I've been flying OFF. Out of all of the hundreds of hapless lads I sent up, only one actually made it through to 1918. He flew for the RFC, I think started in 1RFC, then 24RFC, followed by a stint with 60 before finishing the war behind the controls of an SE5 in 56 Squadron. Wound up with 82 kills - only two better than Manfred and I wound up with a VC (partly because I was maimed... ouch). Had another Brit pull a stint with Roderick Stanley Dallas and I felt terrible on the mission where I saw him shot down in the clouds over the lines. Funny... this is all getting close to 15 years in the past now but I still remember those evenings playing like yesterday. Your fights sound truly epic! Thanks for sharing them Javito! Hope you're doing well, mate.

I have to say, it's good to see a lot of names I recognize! Hope you're doing well Hellshade! I still enjoy watching your OFF videos over on YouTube. I also wasn't aware that people were actually complaining about getting previews... seems really baffling to me. I'd much rather enjoy some eye-candy to tempt me along for another two weeks!

Funny you should mention that. I've worked up a mod that incorporates the original RB3D music into OFF - replacing the original score. I'll get it posted at some point - I was seeing if Lothar could incorporate it into OFFice but once Combat Ace gets the downloads up and working again, I'll post it. Brings back a flood of nostalgia every time I play!