Bard

yeah no worries zzzspace - learned an important lesson - the truth only matters if you can prove it. I see that LOMAC has a lot of potential beyond airquake - problem is so much simply does not work at the moment to make anything but that pointless. Our squad tried to do a hand crafted campaign but we just started noticing how much didn't work and we just couldn't do what we wanted. we're all waiting for 1.02 - HOPING there will be no major bugs left that will limit the type of gameplay (ie realistic package level co-op missions) so we can have fun :)

All that's occurring overtime is a pervasive, ever increasing expectation that developers should increasingly provide unachievable 'reality'. Remember Jet Fighter II, or Microprose F-117A? ... great 'sim' games from 15 years ago (they seemed 'realistic' to my ignorance at the time), I'm sure many do remember them, I played those to death and had lots of fun for very few dollars. No one TOLD me they were poorly coded, poorly modelled or the fight model stank, or the graphics sucked and the sound was pathetic ... I just enjoyed what I bought and there were many 'sims' I bought which really were terrible rubbish (and I forgot most of them), and I didn't need anyone to TELL me that either. Didn't need an expert to give me it broken down into what's 'wrong', or should be done 'better' and patched up. Likewise, I don't need anyone to preach to me the pros and cons of a sim I play now--nobody needs that so please don't bother, I'm not interested. If I keep playing a sim it has to be pretty good to hold my interest, regardless of whatever warts it has, and in 15 years I'll still remember them fondly for what it did, not what was 'wrong'. Unfortunately today, simply enjoying a sim and making the most of what you bought (emphasis on simply), and not just resorting to being a 'smart-guy' critic, is much less popular ... the sim seems to become secondary to expressing dissent and contention. LOL … pretty wierd, whatever! I completely agree - instead of working on gameplay and quality the focus is on realism and lots of features. I'd be quite happy with eye candy improvements and multiplayer only on top of such old great sims as gunship, f-19 stealth fighter etc. The two biggest differences between then and now: 1) When those sims came out they worked out of the box - i can't even recall downloading a single patch in the old days. 2) Their graphics and sound etc were great for the day - but the magic thing they gave us was gameplay. One thing that seems to be forgotten by some is that it's entertainment software - and as such it should entertain. Having a super realistic sim with a dozen aircraft and dozens of weapons means nothing if you don't have the gameplay, especially STABLE gameplay. One of the biggest problems i think is developers reinventing the wheel each time - JF18 wasn't a completely new product, but built upon JF15 - and we can see the quality of JF18 because resources weren't wasted doing stuff done before. Oleg and IL2 is an excellent example of flight sim development done right. The thing it requires is the devs to create their product properly in the first place. There's two ways of developing software, disciplined and undisciplined - if you follow basic programming and design methods you'll do it the disciplined way and end up with a lot of reusable code, if you just go ahead and spaghetti code you'll find yourself with stuff that takes more effort to decipher than it would for you to write it all over again and hence you lose the lessons and effort you made in the first place. Unfortunately all the less wise see the undisciplined approach as bearing fruit quicker, not realising that they're not building a foundation to expand upon later - but maybe those putting up the capital don't realise this and force the devs into doing it the quick and dirty way. It may simply be that developing a flight sim properly these days is beyond many dev's houses financial abilities - and when they spread whatever resources they have too thinly in an attempt to add lots of functionality you end up with lots of mediocre stuff that may in the end reduce a product to crummy status, rather than to have less stuff that is done well. Here's the thing - if you can craft a fantastic sim that only has one aircraft featured and its weapons, you are more likely to have people who are going to want to buy follow on products that build upon what you've done because A) you produce QUALITY products and B) there's more features to give. heh - long post but it led from here to there ;)

don't worry about ruggbutt growler - i am not even going to read his posts :)

I think it's this fear that we have to accept what we're given rather regardless of condition that publishers are preying upon if you will. I can't begin to imagine what would happen if a shooter or rts game was released in the same shape that sims have been recently - and before anyone says they're less complicated so are going to be in better shape i'd like to point out this - it may take longer to get a sim into as good a shape quality wise, but that's no excuse for it not to be. I look at sims like JF-18 and IL2FB - both of these sims were developmentally complete upon release but just needed bug fixing. Even Falcon4 was complete - but buggier than hell. What we've seen with PSF and LOMAC were sims released before they had even been finished. Bugs are one thing and I believe that to a point they are going to be inevitable - but releasing stuff that isn't finished yet is another thing entirely. I think the prop scene is well and truly taken care of right now - what we're missing is a good jet sim that works properly. LOMAC at 1.02 might be that sim, currently it isn't. The next iteration of F4BMS might be that sim, but it also currently isn't. If only JF-18 supported trackir ;) I think it's going to be hard to get more people into this genre when they find that the software is buggier than hell, and too complicated to figure out without looking at the manual at the same time - something you can't do with pdf manuals. Something they can read on the loo or on the train or have open when they are actually flying the sim would really assist. I remember taking mine to highschool back in the golden years of microprose. A reputation for quality product is the best thing a developer can have.

But on the same hand, we can't go embracing those that have been pushed out the door before they are ready.

here's a test :) what would my opinion on LOMAC be? ;)

well - besides the manner in which that post was made, i agree with the sentiments expressed. I find it shameful that some people seem to equate incomplete development to bugs which make incomplete therefore acceptable, and that release is more reliant on commercial buying cycles than when the product is ready. I can't wait until the law catches up with software and begins to treat it similarly to manufactured goods in respect to consumer rights.

...especially when you consider that they themselves consider that this patch will get the sim to 1.0 standard - 6 months(?) after release? Hopefully 1.02 will not leave anything crippled.

wasn't it ATI that got caught doing that with quake3 benchmarks?

fix something - break something else - almost like microsoft security patches :D

http://taipans.dyndns.org/pubfiles/FalconS...ler.zip.torrent it WILL start slow - bittorrent gets faster as more people get online.

What is needed is a system that makes aircraft visible at realistic distances - yet takes into account the sizes of those aircraft - and possibly aspect in a simplified manner. for example - i was recently reading about some air force exercises where the opfor were flying F-5's - against eagles. The F-5 fliers had a HUGE visual advantage because they could spot the eagles much earlier than they could be spotted.

eye candy may be dandy but functionality for me ;) in other words - so long as the graphics provide the functionality of the stuff they represent (ie clouds break LOS, missile trails let you know a missile has been fired and it's initial trajectory) the "prettyness" is of secondary concern to me - especially if they really bog your system down.

.. a sim in the future. I've been scribbling notes for a multiplayer specification whilst commuting to work and am starting to put it down on.. bytes ;) a draft of the first portion "supernodes" is up at http://taipans.dyndns.org/network%20design%20spec.htm this first part is on a logical network structure that should allow for many more players to be involved than we can normally have due to upstream limits of hosts. the intention is to have a complete specification put together in a couple of weeks to give devs of upcoming sims something to think about, and maybe save some headwork. Cheers.

honeydo's got in the way ;)

they've been busy for quite some time. there's been intensive testing since may 2003 - taken about 9 months or so :) it's been about 11 months to get to testing. LOTS of work

you know what i think is missing in most sims? realistic visibility. A lot of air combat is purely SEEING your target first. For example - i've yet to see a sim that adjusts the distance you can see a target based on it's physical dimensions, aspect or lighting. If the sun is behind me i can see distant objects at much greater distances than i could if the sun was above me.

You wouldn't want to have multiple layers of supernodes for the latency issues - and the cascading effect errors could have. The situation it would work well using layered would be in a LAN, but since you've got enough bandwidth it's pretty pointless. I wouldn't want the supernodes to be automatically generated, just the supernode's user saying "use me as a supernode" and maybe the server host "authorising" the system. Falcon had a variant of this when not only the traffic could be layered, but the actual management of entities was distributed - only problem was that it fell apart. I don't know anyone who tried to layer the connections but I remember that the possibility to do so was discovered at some stage. The second part to this spec should be posted some time this weekend (valentines day and honeydo's permitting) - this part will be purely on the client's multiplayer interface and functionality. I can't see pausing being a particular problem - better than stopping the session and restarting altogether as you'd be forced to do with other sims. The autobalance could just have a great big green button that says "CONTINUE" that the server host could click on easily - the reason for the pause is that some sort of resynchronisation will have to occur for each of the displaced supernode clients - better to know that it's being done than just to have some warping/pausing with no apparent reason.

I think Multiplayer and Realism should be joint first ;) They don't have to be an either/or decision. I would be more than happy to throw ideas at the devs for a multiplayer functionality specificiation. Would you guys be interested in having some email chat?

limited clickability for anything that is pilot intensive would be great if you have the time to do so. I can pick up Jane's F-18 after not playing for months and still know what buttons to press in the cockpit to achieve any complex task. If i had to remember keystrokes there'd be no way :D

will you be having a "legacy" video setting that are fully functional that work well for those with current midlevel hardware? basically, if our systems aren't capable of rendering particular effects because they are done with hardware features that our cards do not have, will there be alternative simple graphics for these things? I would like to use LOMAC for an example for what i mean. lomac has excellent looking effects - but those without cutting edge hardware cannot handle the processing requirements for it. Often the only choice to keep framerates acceptable is to have the effects greatly reduced or even off. There is no "middle" setting that allows the player to see what the function those effects have on gameplay, without the heavy effect on framerates of the complex effect. Without the trail smoke for example, the player loses what the smoke achieves in function - awareness that a missile has been fired and it's trajectory and distance - which gives the player the chance to do something about them. A simple X ribbon for the smoke trail will provide the functionality of the effect, will keep the gameplay impact of the effect present, even if it doesn't look fantastic. Thanks

It is looking very good.