matt milne

haha. hey ovs, it's nice to be able to view something you've been working on since god knows when, eh. by the by, i'm really glad the team's going with P4.

i;ve just finished 24 variations on flight of the bumblebee for piano and orchestra. it's taken me over 2 years to complete. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWaidUFCcKQ

in any case, naturally you would expect the difference between p3 and p4 to be as equal as the difference between p2 and p3. if you're talking about a new or different engine, things that cfs3 can't do like damage modelling, and generally anything on the list that had to be limited because of the nature of the years old system, would be great. improved models, textures, sounds, weather fx, additional details, etc would all be expected for the next version as a given anyway. p4 is limited only by the engine chosen and our imaginations, so i'm sure there'll be some pleasant surprises. i agree with winder, photorealism is wasted in many games and films and wouldn't help off in any way. if anything photorealism can highlight and make worse any differences between lighting, models, fx, and environment. because things in the cg world are always going to be different to things in the real world, no matter how hard we try to match them. with any film, it holds up to the first few viewings but the more times you watch a scene, the more you notice the differences and the compositing, that applies to games as well, so yes photorealism is not the road to go down. as usual, i think it's best to go with something that we feel looks right and are happy with. It should be great to us as players, it should always be a game we want to play ourselves. If any developer is unhappy with the game they've made, the wise thing is to start again.

aww you say the nicest things. i mean, arr woof woof, lol.

google is all you need to find out about me.

bring out that old 1850s law book and see what can be added to the list. a slight ticking off is about the most that could be hoped for. It's not as if we remember the lessons of either war anymore. We've never really had to fight for our freedom since and we don't know what it is, and so we let our politicians take advantage of that. The war generation almost rebelled over suez, i don't know what they'd make of iraq or afghanistan, or the other dictators we got rid of after we helped them to acquire power in the first place, only to replace them with additional dictators. it's all very futile. anywho, yes the mass hysteria over this latest escipade will fade and the idiot will get a slight slap on the wrist, but that's about it. community service would seem the most logical outcome.

jutland looks promising, bullethead

I score films, games, adverts, tv programs and corporate videos. And have yet to be paid to do it.

lol, that's the idea. i wanted something that could be played repeatedly and not become too boring, something that was powerful but neither too bombastic or too somber, and something that was familiar without being derived from other pieces, or sounding like it was trying to be something else. Finding the middle ground was an interesting challenge. Original music is a crucial part of a good game, as most developers know. but the key to that is getting the composer to write something that doesn't sound as if it should be played in an elevator, or in an advert, something that's atmospheric without needing to be shoved to the background, and that's not an easy thing for a project manager or music director to achieve. So i was very lucky to get the opportunity to write some music for off. the dev team did a great job and provided a lot of good inspiration.

I laughed when i read that. frustrating though it may be, it's adds to the ww1 experience. people served with their friends for decades in colonial conflicts, surviving almost everything the world could throw at them, only to watch them be killed by some freak accident, or a sniper or some other avoidable mistake in a single day in the war. entire regiments wiped out in 15 minutes, lifetime careers snuffed out in seconds, and all in fruitless or pointless circumstances. That was the war, and that left a severe and difficult-to-live-with sting for a lot of people for the rest of their lives. That's how good this is, even in its errors and crashes the game can create that feeling. anywho, i've found that nvidia generally gives better results for almost every game, but is frustratingly unstable. in an ideal world you'd have both ati and nvidia graphics cards in a single computer, so that you could alternate between them for specific games.

if every person could recommend off to one other person, our fanbase would double, it's that simple. granted if you're gonna fly over enemy lines you're gonna take some flak. and die hard supporters will always be that way prefering to sit in the burning barn whilst it falls about them, whilst seceretly regretting doing so, so we can leave them to that. my point is you don't have to engage them at all. we shouldn't be posting on Rof fan sites. What we should do is find threads posted by people who already have Rof and are specifically looking for an alternative. show them what off is and they'll jump on it. That way you have people who would really like off, who would be willing to listen to what you say, so you won't take any flak at all. if i read the market correctly, Rof is a total loss. which means there are a lot of people out there actively looking for something else, and we've got it. Show it to them and they'll go for it.

That is exactly correct. It's all very well Rof showing its true colours, but we've gotta actually make sure it's its death throws. Especially those who defended Rof in its early days, but came to us later. get out there and help the lost become found again. Rof is on its way over the edge, it just needs a good shove to speed it to its drowning faster.

great shot ovs scenery's brilliant, reminds me of some of those ww2 photos with rolling fields underneath.

it's a great idea everybody should say something, especially if they came to off from another game.

yes, looks much like it, as you rightly point out this isn't the first or last example. well that's the problem with modern marketing, they tell you what you want to buy, and you then want it. several users, beta testers etc posted their own reviews. Though you had to search hard to find them, and read between the lines to know what would happen. most frequently used phrases were "may have been released before it was ready" "money grabbing" "the graphics are superb" that was enough to let me know not to waste my money on it. The more hyped a product is, the worse it is. it's like it is in some film studios, they put focus on graphics and effects to distract you from the fact that there's very little underneath. Had the public refused to buy it they would either have been forced to rethink the product, or been forced out of the business entierly. but because consumers supported it, they took that as a sign that it was ok to do that. it is a practice that has degraded the industry, and lowered the quality of other products substantially. great genius designers have had their games ruined by the less-than-virtuous business practices of those wanabees around them. it is a practice that must stop. But as long as the public are willing to go along with it, that situation will not change.

I hate to say told you so, but i'm left with little option. As the RoF developers rightly point out, this was always gonna be the case. Those guys can't complain about RoF now, they willingly went along with the developer, went along with the publisher, and they believed the advertising. ignored the reviews, so they got exactly what they paid for. For the better part of 5 years developers and publishers have slowly evloved to expensive eye-candy with little substance, and consumers have gone along with it without passing comment. Rof is just the latest example of where this kind of practice lands a developer, publisher and its consumers. In the old days, you paid a small team of programmers and artists a low wage in exchange for millions of dollars worth of game. now you pay developers millions and mostly get far less in return. There are small islands of good developers and wise successful publishers, but like their geographical equivalents, a lot of what good is left, has being swamped by the rising tide.

well i hardly know where to begin nup, but that would be great wouldn't it, falls on knees and prays indeed, lol. anywho, this is phase 3 we're talking about, i always like to point out the advantages it has, and its more unusual qualities.

lol, that's the general idea. i think the wonderful thing about off is that it came out at the perfect economic juncture. At this point in time people are looking for a product, one product, that's gonna give them years of mielage. they're not wanting a limited game with a handful of planes that they have to keep paying to update, they want something solid that they pay for once that they can then play for a couple of years without buying anything else. most of the computer games on the market at the moment cost 50-60 bucks and can be completed in 24 hours. off costs much less, and could take years to play through properly. Granted its graphics engine is 6 years old, but i've been checking the others and they've all got background/model contrast issues that sometimes make them look more cartoonish than off. yes there may be some small problems, but it outshines most of the others in the market, on absolutely everything else. I'm hoping phase 4 will be on a different engine, with a different name. original, and full scale, so i can write a full score. Something we could take the industry by storm with, lol.

when you marry a great sim with some original music, you usually can please, lol. off's doing great, and we seem to be attracting people put off by rof as well, which is amazing really, a strong selling point, lol. thanks for the comments guys, yes 'hymn to the fallen pilots of flanders' is what i'm calling it for now. which is in part recognition of the poem "in flanders fileds" and also a humble tip-of-the-hat, to john williams' incredible "hymn to the fallen" from spielberg's ww2 film: "saving private ryan".

told you so, the initial reviews were not good, and by the looks of things they ignored them to release resulting in similar post-release reviews. heads up guys, there's a huge gap in the market, off can and needs to fill it. on a side note, there are many advantages to a score, that's why all reputable games put at least minimal effort into providing something. it was one of the many reasons why i was very happy to score off. though had i been asked, i'd have score rof too, but that's their loss, if you don't ask you don't get.

All this leads to the point anybody involved in the biz is aware of, and that is that the vast majority of commercial games appearing on the market just simply aren't up to the job. (there are exceptions to that rule, but those are few and far between) preliminary reports of Rof are not good, and in my opinion that renders the verdict of, largely unplayable unless you do what the developers demand, which is not what good game design is all about. It simply confirms the initial remark that off has the ability to take away, and deservedly so, the bulk of rof's thunder. they may have marketing on their side, but we've got something better: a good game. the current attitude of some developers is the principle reason why some of the big game design talent have left the business in recent months, you cannot substitute talent with marketing, no matter how much you spend on it, rof's just the latest example of a rushed greedy developer. solid experienced productions, will always be better than a slap-dash grab for cash. which all adds up to making off even more valuable as a project.

i used to play piano and pipe organ. about 6 years ago, before i started composition.

it should be somebody who's reviewed other games, preferably professionally. Somebody with a knowledge of aspects of game and mod making as well so all the elements can be covered. they should buy it, make notes as they go along, then write up the review. preferably over a week so they have time to reflect and research other games and background.

oh no you don't. If you think i'm gonna sit there and watch you keep the worlds greatest car locked up in the back garage you built it in, think again. I'm not saying go to ford and get a deal and i'm not saying go to some salesman and get a deal. I'm saying take it to a manufacturing expert. will wright for example has just left ea, an artist and great guy to show it to. bill gates again an artist and somebody interested in flight simulators. There are many many other individuals who would be interested in off if we took it to them. It's not a cottage or other form of industry, it's a collection of individuals. and how far their projects go depends on where they take them. I would like cinderella to go to the ball, the rest of you who'd like her to stay and do the odd chore for her ugly sisters don't need to do that if you don't want to, but stop pretending that this isn't the case. you guys have known about this for at least two years. pretending that off bhah is less than it is and so should be treated like every other insignificant fan project, is not i'd say the best strategy. come on guys one of you besides me has to be interested in taking it where it needs to go, we can be with off, and our friends can be with their wife and kids.

just because you throw an olympic athlete in a pool, doesn't mean they'll swim. Once you've thrown them in, you actually have to stand there and make sure they get where they're going. I'd say that 95% of film scoring involves standing over the director, making sure they edit the film, so you have something to score (and you're supposed to work for them, not the other way around, but it's the only way to make sure there's a great film at the end of it all). Off's doing really really great, and everybody worked real hard to get it where it is, all i'm saying is there are a few cylinders that should be being fired on to get over the last hill. consequently i gotta again side with ttigger on most of that. those of us who do this cause we've got nothing better to do, that's fine, but those of us who want to take it somewhere bigger and faster should be able to do that too. to me there is no difference between a hobby and a job, just those who do something well, and those who don't do at all. family and all the other mundane excuses are fine, but it's nothing compared to what could be done. and i for one ain't interested in just producing a generation that uses resources and poisons the planet, i would like to do something a little bit more meaningful. I hate to be a negative nellie, but 3 reviews in 4 months is what i'm looking at. there's a lot more to it post-release, is all i'm saying.