JediMaster

I'll always wish the F-12 had been produced.

Race 07, despite being almost 6 years old, is a great game. It has its limitations, but as mentioned there are a bunch of expansions and full titles that merge with it like GT Evolution, Race On, Race Injection (numerous smaller addons combined). It's like a slightly newer GT Legends with different tracks (mostly, a couple are the same) and different cars, Race 07 having a diverse bunch of all types including open wheel. Oh, the other difference is unlike GT Legends and GTR2 which preceded it, Race 07 has no "unlockables"...you get access to every car and track from the start and can mix and match how you want.

Which is exactly what Saddam did. He at first tried to use his AF, but quickly realized that was futile and instead started firing Scuds at Israel and Saudi Arabia....because he realized the best way to hurt the US was indirectly. Likewise NK will attack soft SK targets.

People Eating Tasty Aliens?

I guess they figured a picture of a rock wasn't "exciting" enough.

...while I win it here with the exact same numbers.

Right, because a naked F-35 would be offensive!

DSOHILTSWALTB is one that always makes me laugh. "...and ANIMALS that will be bread for SLAUGHTER!"

Some might see a rather hairy woman.

From what I hear, people have already taken Arma 2 stuff and put it into A3 Alpha. Islands, units, you name it. You can focus on what the weapons and vehicles are, but that's a rather narrow view. A bit like saying you never were willing to try Bioshock because you don't like the ocean.

Check the news forum or look at the front page. Just 2.5 years after the last major release, Arma 2: Op Arrowhead, a playable alpha of Arma 3 is on Steam for preorder and immediate testing. My first hour evaluation: despite having many missing features right now (just an alpha after all), A3 runs as well as A2 does now on my system and looks better, with numerous improvements. Plus, the basic version is just $33 USD.

[fimg=left]http://www.arma3.com/images/post_thumbs/arma3_alpha.jpg[/fimg]For those of us who have enjoyed playing OFP, Arma, Arma 2, and Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead over the past decade, today BIS released a playable alpha version of Arma 3 on Steam. It features the smaller of the 2 islands that the final version will ship with, a few single player scenarios, the mission editor, and multiplayer. Steam Arma 3 page: http://store.steampo...com/app/107410/ BIS page: http://www.arma3.com/ In case you're wondering, yes, Arma 3 is Steam-only. Check BIS' site for their explanation. You can buy the Steam key direct from their site, or just buy it direct on Steam, unless you want the big "Supporter Edition" which is only for sale on BIS' site. Either way, you're getting a key for Steam.

*shrug*

I think I've been waiting for a true VR headset for 20 years now. I'm also quite excited about that. None of the ones I've seen so far have ever motivated me to even try them, far too limited so I knew I wouldn't like them.

Are you using Track IR in the videos?

Quite possible.

Remember the Maine?

In "worst case" scenario, if they were desperate, they only would've had at the most 6 planes (and those 4 in 79 likely weren't all done by Sept) for use. Without any logistical tail, and remember back then the idea was plentiful spares and sending engines back for maintenance, not to mention no real experience for the ground crews on the type, we're talking at best a dozen or so sorties before they'd have to stop for work. It just wouldn't be practical, not when there were other proven examples around.

Thanks for stopping in. Lots of people here are fans of old school space sims.

The autoupdater is not yet carrying it as of this post.

And now for something completely different...

The problem with being a tiny developer is indeed that you often have to live with whatever decisions you make, even if they were wrong. Does he wish he'd either not bothered (and done Iceland traditionally) or simply done it another way altogether? I don't know, but it's obvious he's not happy with how long it took. The only option is to try and make as much as possible off this investment ie making Exp3 and/or DLC for NA. NA has only 2 flyables stock, though, so that limits what he could do there. Just cutting all PC work at this point is not going to recoup his costs.

It's not an easy thing to achieve. Many a sim has suffered from looking like a brisk train at low altitude to simply having almost no discernible detail making it feel more like "floating".

All I can say is...how in the world did the SF2 aircraft cost that much more than SFP1s?? Someone is making it and the cost is 100% labor. So are the planes taking THAT much more time to make, or do people just demand more money for their time now? When on the one hand it seems TK is the only coder, you have to wonder if he's overcharging himself or something???? Is he outsourcing these things to people who imagine he's pulling in tons of money? Looking at what modders do here for free how can these kinds of prices be justifiable? Naturally he's not going to tell us the source of all his costs, but it seems to me that if he's being totally honest with us he's getting screwed on his costs. So SF2NA cost far more to make than any previous title, which I can understand based on how long it was in development, as for programming costs = time X manpower. The problem is other than the few NA-specific skin DLCs he's not trying to recoup that investment with more lower-cost-development NA-related content. Look at houses like EA and Activision that nickel and dime their customers with a batch of 4 maps for $15! He also seems too risk-averse when it comes to marketing. Has anyone seen any mention of a TW sim ANYWHERE that wasn't a word-of-mouth post? He has an active FB page, but I'm not sure how often people "stumble" into it and how often they need to actively search it out. My wife has been doing some FB marketing and she's learned how to spend a few bucks here and there and you can target your ads pretty well to people who would be your consumer base. For grins, I did a google search for "F-14 sim". Top was an images link, where from what I can determine there are NO shots of NA or ANY TW sims. Next is a YouTube link to some guy using an F-14 is MSFS I think. Then comes a link to 7.5 yr old thread in Ubi's forums asking why there aren't any F-14 combat sims, and THEN a link to a SimHQ thread from 18 months ago asking when TK's sim is going to finally come out! What's the last link on page 1? Amazon's page for buying F-14 Fleet Defender from 20 years ago!!! In fact, search for F-14 Tomcat simulator and you'll get IRIS' F-14 they're doing for DCS in the middle of the page. Thirdwire? Not there at all. I was unable to find a single way to word "F-14" or "Tomcat" and "sim" with or without combat or flying to get to Thirdwire's site. Isn't this a MAJOR problem? No wonder his sales aren't good enough. TK needs to spend a few bucks for a marketing student (don't bother with the pros, they will do the same quality work for more money and try to convince him to go overboard) to SEO his site, get some videos on YT to rank, and get the word out on FB. Once people get NA, that can be the "gateway drug" to the rest of his series, but with the recent rerelease of Top Gun in 3D this is the best time for him to be trying to get the word out. I've been attending meetings at the unemployment office about starting your own business, and there are certain things that every business must do. You MUST target a niche, no matter big or small. TK did that. You MUST provide a product that appeals to that niche. TK did that, although I don't think he necessarily did market research or any of that banal stuff. You MUST have good customer service. TK has managed that by and large (no one's perfect). Finally, you MUST get sales, and that means getting the word out to your target audience that you EXIST. Without sales, the rest is irrelevant. Great product or bad, good service or crap, if no one buys it that stuff doesn't matter. Getting the word out = marketing and TW's marketing being 90% word of mouth has proven, once and for all, that it can no longer provide the sales needed to offset his recent cost increases. So he needs to market more. BTW, not having bothered to look at it with my phone, does SFA have any backlinks or other info that would lead its users back to TW's site and the PC versions? Beyond someone seeing "Thirdwire" and choosing to google it themselves that is?

That's the point. If it was made for SFA, then it doesn't have that better stuff. If it was made for Exp3 and ported to SFA, that's different. We don't know. Dan's comment that he is unaware if it will be in or not answers nothing.