JediMaster

If you can remember sleeping in your daddy's arms, you've got a hell of a memory!!

I'm not just a habitual flight simmer, but also naval simmer, sim racer, FPS'er, RTS'er, and even a few RPGs to boot. I think I have over 2 dozen games installed on my PC right now not counting the vast library of previous titles that aren't installed. So I have a much longer view of the patterns seen over the life of games (in the 90s, 2000s, and today) and can say with great confidence that today's audience/market is far more demanding than in the past. At the very minimum, it can be stated they want the sims to do more and look better than ever before while still paying the same $50 they paid 20 years ago! A good sim now is the price of one tank of gas. I think what I paid for Falcon 3 20 years ago ($65) would've bought at least 3 full tanks if not 4, depending on your vehicle. Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe charged $30 per expansion, and that was ONE plane each. All it did was add that plane to the campaign plus create a new career for it. There was no MP. People bought them in droves. I recall one of the biggest sellers was the P-38 (a WWII sim that covered the later war years that didn't come with a P-38 stock?? GASP!)

With a population of over 6 billion, I don't think you can classify man as "uncommon."

I remember reading that 25 years back or so and being astonished at how simple the concept was. To date, zero successful attempts however.

If there's one thing I think everyone can give Pakistan credit for, it's playing both sides for its own benefit. They are masters at it. They're not on anyone's side but their own, and if your interests and theirs coincide you are de facto allies until further notice in that area. Other areas? A later date? Maybe not.

Just 8 years after the first plane! We're also only 11 months away from the centennial of the sinking of Titanic...hard to believe it's already upon us.

"If RoF is already such a great sim, then why are there still so many people arguing about aspects of it that displease them?" LOL, I take it you don't hang out on many other flight sim forums then! Name ANY sim and I can find 5 complaints that people endlessly debate online. Even the venerated pantheons of Il-2 and Falcon 4 have flaws galore. I myself have a lot less time in Il-2 than I would like because after only a few hours playing it I tire of: overpowered cannon/underpowered MGs, bizarre A/C handling that makes it seem like I'm flying a model airplane more than a real airplane (like they don't weigh enough), AI that is more stupid than intelligent, a very sterile feeling in the cockpit that makes it feel like I'm flying a WWII simulator but NOT a pilot flying in WWII. Every sim has shortcomings. Some, like Il-2 after almost 10 years, will obviously never have them fixed because development is done aside from mods (the TD stuff is just official mods). Others are still in development and may see those flaws reduced/eliminated, and RoF is one of those. It's been 2 years but it's in full swing. Where was Il-2 after 2 years? Replaced by Forgotten Battles, you better buy that, nothing more for Il-2. Where was F4 after 2 years? Well the team was disbanded after 1 year so all we had was mods on the horizon starting with the realism patches. RoF has finally introduced flyable bombers and 2 seaters and more are coming along with a revamped career. So at the 2 year mark I would say RoF is doing far better than those classics which either said "hope you like it now because that's how it's staying" and folded, or said "hope you like it now because that's how it's staying unless you buy the sequel". As RoF has only charged for more planes (and now changes to those planes which aren't necessary, just nice to have), those who only bought the original release have a better experience now than 1 yr ago which was better than release. Don't give up on them.

My older daughter will be 3 in Sept, and her little sister is now 3 weeks old. She's sleeping in my arms as I type!

Again, I HAVE seen that many posts making those assertions, not in this thread necessarily, but around the net for months and months. The problem is that making a sim is time-consuming and expensive and something has to give. What would you be willing to put up with to get these extra non-flyable planes just flying around? A) Worse graphics, either in appearance or performance B) Worse AI, either being cow-stupid or Terminator-accurate C) Laggy MP D) constant crashes/game instability E) poor flight modeling F) poor damage modeling G) fewer ground targets, maybe they could just have the WWI equivalent of "comm building" for every mission? RoF does good on all those areas. It DOES have 2 seaters, one for each side. So instead of seeing a variety of different types of 2 seaters, when you see a German one you know it's a DFW CV. Is that really so bad? There are many areas that RoF still needs to improve on. Personally I'd rather have zeppelins before more 2 seaters because they were important too. After all, we DO have 2 seaters to both fly and fly against. Hence it seems like the focus on the fact that there aren't more of them seems to be disproportionate to the actual issue.

There are only a few things that DX10 can do that 9 can't. The deal is usually that do them in 9 would cripple the performance, so it wasn't even something you could toggle on or off.

Win7 is a big improvement over Vista, and frankly XP has become obsolete. Were you running XP before? If so, SF2 uses DX10 which helps speed things up compared to DX9 for an equivalent appearance, so that's likely helping you as well.

I suppose the problem is that I've seen literally dozens of posts complaining that the lack of 2-seaters = total fail at realism, so why bother getting RoF? I don't think I ever saw any claim made that RoF was to be some sweeping perfect recreation of WWI air combat. The sim was designed around single-seater fighter vs fighter combat. Due to clamor from the community, they've been putting other planes in at a rate they can manage that obviously is too slow for some people. The fact is that RoF has been out for 2 years, but in the last 4 months a 2-seater and 2 multi-crew bombers have been released, so I'd say progress in that area has been swift now that they've figured it out. So, to be clear, I'm simply fed up with people saying "game A doesn't have feature X (regardless of what else it has), therefore it's crap" or some variation. Is it a shortcoming that more 2-seaters aren't there, whether flyable or not? Certainly. However, to say said program is not worth the money because of that lack is "I believe at best a sweeping generalisation." This isn't limited to RoF. I see it all the time about TK's sims as well. They don't have MP (since SF2), they don't have proper prop-plane modeling, they don't do modern planes well enough, the terrains are too poor...and therefore not worth getting. I saw it when Black Shark was released because it wasn't a Western helicopter, but a Russian one they didn't care about. All because the poster claims that whatever particular feature in their opinion is very important is missing. Certainly a sim that misses on dozens of features that were present in sims before is worthy of criticism, but I've seen an undue amount aimed at RoF over the 2-seater issue as if that's the single most important facet of a WWI sim. Perhaps then the "hard truth" is that it's an opinion, not a fact, that a particular feature is vital. Therefore arguing about it is no more than two people of opposing viewpoints who will never be swayed from their opinion.

They needed to create the code to allow multi-crewing of planes. That was implemented first with the Gotha and HP, released only a couple of months ago, and now put into the DFW and Breguet. I know they have more 2-seaters coming. As for other games lacking things and claiming authenticity, have you ever paid any attention to the Battlefield, MoH or CoD games? They don't claim to be sims, but they claim authenticity because there are military advisors used (even if they're mostly ignored). What about a WWII sim that ignored the Pacific theater? I guess the original releases of Il-2 were crap then, because they were Eastern Front only. You can't have it all, something has to give. The hard truth many of you don't want to accept is the number of people that would buy the "perfect" (in your estimation) WWI sim is far too small to recoup the costs to make a sim like that. Unless you'd be happier with each copy costing $250 instead of only paying for the planes you want? Then however the number of people willing to buy that "perfect" sim would drop even more, as few seem to accept paying more than $40 for any software... Also remember RoF was begun by a Russian publisher that wanted a WWI MMO and then dropped it, leaving the team with code that was hardwired a certain way. Had they started from scratch knowing this was the way they were going, they might have made vastly different choices.

I knew a guy who was very Christian but swore all the time. There was another woman where he worked who was a real holier-than-thou type and finally asked him "how can you call yourself a Christian when you swear?" He answered "Jesus hung out with fishermen."

Funny you phrase it that way when fuel is always measured in pounds and not gallons! Anyway, there are plenty of other names they could've used for tankers. Note however that "official" tanker names like "Stratotanker" and "Extender" are totally ignored by the community. Everyone calls them KC-135s and KC-10s. What are the names of some defunct gas companies they could use?

I'm intrigued now. How would one go about upgrading his rage? You backed off from talking about it but I want to know! Enough range talk, let's hear about RAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the campaigns I prefer the tactical nukes.

I feel relieved for you! My new daughter, born Tuesday, came home with us on Thursday and we're exhausted from just TWO days in the hospital. I can't imagine going there that much!

For those so inclined, A-10C is available, patched to the latest version, on Steam for $59.99.

I haven't finished my first run thru of ME2 yet, but I like it as much as ME1. I hope ME3 doesn't disappoint.

Believe me, it will take you some time to get everything comfortable again. At least you'll be in a better position once that's done!

Voyager? For a tanker? Doesn't seem apt. That would have been a great recon UAV name though.

Oh, that's all? I was hoping for a long list.

His AARs are addictive, please consult a physician before engaging in any regimen of reading Beach's AARs. Side effects include anxiety, heart palpitations, sweating palms, and ED (for people). In the presence of a sim, priapism may be experienced.