Hellshade

Kelly Mo, I just cheat and set fuel to Unlimited in the workshop. I too lost a pilot behind enemy lines due to a fuel shortage issue (involving warp, for which there is a work-around). Obviously if you want to fly DiD standard though, that isn't going to work for you. Still, I hate to lose a pilot to a glitch involving fuel or destination, so that takes care of it. On the downside, I'm denying myself the possible experience of being in the middle of a dogfight and having my fuel run dry, which could make for a rather exciting story. /salute Hellshade

Ironically, I have the feeling that Rise of Flight may just be the best thing that ever happened to Over Flanders Fields and, by virtue of that, the best thing to ever happen to historically accurate WWI flight simulation. It's this kind of passion for accuracy, depth and variety that makes me never second guess about pre-ordering an OBD product. /salute Hellshade

In other words, all the quality and depth we've come to expect as part of the Over Flanders Fields experience. This is why OFF will have a primary place on my hard drive for many years to come. I'm always interested to check out other flight sims, but nothing has re-created "The War to End All Wars" in anywhere near the painstaking detail OBD has. Honestly, I doubt if any traditional commercial developer ever will. It's the difference you get when you place Passion over Profit as the driving force behind the work. Thanks WM. /salute Hellshade

That's a great idea! *Quickly switches Workshop settings to "pilot never dies"* Yes, absolutely let's go with that. You know maybe the confirmation thing is something we could play up in the title too. Over Flanders Fields : Confirmed Kills Hell, a lot of people die in different flight sims, but only in OFF can you get "shot down" by your own Commanding Officer. It's the only sim I know of that you can't just take a kill confirmation for granted. The quest for confirmed kills and trying to live long enough to get them adds a considerable amount of emotional intensity to the game. I think I was more excited when my first claim got accepted than when I actually made the kill. Kind of interesting when you think about it. It's also something that sets WWI apart from every other air war. By the time WWII happened, gun cameras recorded most kills, confirming the pilots story. It kind of gets right to the heart of how far more difficult things were for the first men to fly and fight. It wasn't just trying to survive and make the kill. You had to get it confirmed or it never officially happened. That reminds me of a quick suggestion for P4. How about when you make Ace with the required number of confirmed kills, you get your name in the next newspaper report on the war as your nations newest Ace. /salute Hellshade

After checking out the video WF2 posted, I noticed the following good and bad things (IMHO) about RoF. On the plus side, the moving gun hammers along with the shifting shadows and lighting effects in the cockpit really add to the immersion. Also, I think the rivers look very nice and the damage effects are exciting. The plane crashes are exceptionally well done. On the minus side, how many times can you shoot down the same type of aircraft before the excitement wears off? I am sure I'll get RoF and play the hell out of it just to check out the eye candy and damage modeling, but honestly there is a severe lack of diversity in the RoF skies at this time. 4 Planes total? Only 2 or 3 flyable? Maybe I'll get addicted to the on-line MP dogfights, but to be honest that video made me feel more like I was watching some slick new Nvidia or Intel demo designed to show off the processing power of some new card or chip instead of making me feel like I was engaged in real WWI air combat. With just the one or two planes in the sky it all felt kind of...sterile...for lack of a better word. I'm not ripping RoF at all. It looks gorgeous and I'm excited to try a game that fully supports my juiced up 4 Ghz i7 Quad Core processor w/ 6 GB of RAM. I don't know if this makes sense to anyone else, but it just didn't "feel" like war to me watching the video. It felt kind of sterile and lonely, even though it looked absolutely beautiful. OFF BHaH, by contrast, always makes me feel like I'm in a desperate, epic dogfight surrounded by the comrades in my squadron and my opponents who are anxious and eager to kill me given any chance. The sheer number and variety of planes in OFF BHaH makes the air war "feel" like a real war. You never know what's going to attack you next. In RoF, after the 30th mission I think I'll find myself saying "oh, look. Another Spad." It will look beautiful, but it'll be the 200th one I've seen and little to nothing of anything else. In short, I think RoF has a lot of potential, presuming they can get enough customers to over come the dislike of a constant internet connection. I just think OFF BHaH has a clear and substantial lead on content, depth and immersion. I suspect with the add on plane pack and a P4 in the works, that lead will probably only get bigger for quite some time to come. /salute Hellshade

Oops. Didn't know "Crosses of Honor" was a movie. Then definately we should go with something original like OFF: Topgun. Can I have "Maverick & Goose" painted on the side of my two seater please?

Have you read what people want to see in the P4 ideas thread? I think "Life, the Universe and Everything" might be an understatement. hehe Maybe "OFF: Crosses of Honor" - since all the medals are being redone. Hellshade

As long as you don't charge by the letter, fine. :)

I changed my mind. I'm not going to add anything because after reading all of the suggestions, all I really want to do is just send a pizza, 12 pack of beer and a bottle of advil to the Devs. I'm sure whatever you are able to put into P4 will be fantastic, but thanks for taking everyone ideas into consideration. Let me know when I can pre-order. /salute Hellshade

I think the balance is good. It doesn't seem to hit nearly as often, but I did witness it take out an Alb DVa I was busy peppering with some Allied "love". It seems like most people feel the same way, judging by the results so far. That said, the accuracy of AA fire improved quite a bit between 1915 and 1918. I wonder if it's possible to make the AA get more accurate with each year in the campaign or have a selection in the workshop for AA accuracy 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1918 which is progressively more deadly the later you choose. Sounds like a P4 'wish list' item though. As for P3, either up the accuracy a tiny bit or just leave it alone. /salute Hellshade

Those are all excellent suggestions. I'll 2nd all of those and try to come up with a reasonable list of my own. Honestly though, I have plenty of faith that I will love whatever you guys come up with for P4. /salute Hellshade

BD, True on all accounts about the differences between ROF and MMOs. It is definately not a true MMO and won't have the incremental updates to content other than new planes now and then. Like I said, it's a "quasi" MMO in that you have to log on to play it and the Player vs Player competition is the main draw to keep people hooked. Maybe a better analogy would be to games like Call of Duty 4. Sure there's a campaign to go through, but logging onto a server and doing PvP combat is what gives the game it's longevity. However even CoD4 doesn't make you log in to play the single player stuff. Still, I guess it just doesn't much matter to me about the log in requirement . I'm so used to it from playing MMOs and on-line first person shooters that it's not that big a deal. STEAM games require you to be logged in to play, I believe. I could be wrong on that though. Here's my guess though. For the people who have the gear to run RoF in all it's graphical glory, as soon as they get their first on-line "kill", especially if they worked in tandem with a friend using voice chat software, they will be hooked on the thrill because of the intense, close proximity air to air combat that really only the WWI setting can provide. If the damage modeling of the aircraft is as visceral as it looks in the videos and feels rewarding, the game will develop enough of a following to keep it growing. Again, that presumes they keep the cheating to a minimum and the bugs get ironed out quickly. We shall see soon enough. I am very anxious to at least try out the demo when it becomes available. Any ideas when the demo is supposed to be released? Hellshade PS. I never played EvE Online, though I heard it was complex and intense. I was tempted, but resisted.

Does anyone know when the Demo is supposed to be released? It will be interesting to see if the AI lives up to the hype it has been given. Hellshade

A slightly different perspective on the log in requirement, The log in requirement for RoF doesn't bother me much really because I've played EQ, EQ2, World of Warcraft, Age of Conan and Lord of the Rings on-line (along with about 11 million other people). In order to play any MMO, you have to log in, get the required new patches and then stay on-line until you are done playing for that session. So in that regard, there really isn't anything new about RoF's requirements, although obviously it's not a true MMO game. But it is a sort of "quasi" MMO in that the limited single player part of the game isn't really ment to be the driving force of entertainment. That's just the warm up, kind of like Quick Combat is the warm up for the campaign in BHaH. The driving force behind the fun of RoF is playing with and against other live opponents. I can tell you for certain that what keeps most people playing real MMO games isn't the content nearly as much as it is that all of their friends are on-line playing. You log in not just to play, but to talk with your friends and help one another achieve whatever your goals might be. With traditional single players games, including BHaH, you are either on the message boards connecting with the community or you are playing the game. In on-line games, you do both at the same time. Plus the on-line rivalries, friendly and not so friendly, pretty much guarantee people come back for more action, no matter if they won or got killed last time. In MMOs, there is usually a rival PvP (Player vs Player) guild that you and your guildmates spend a lot of time hunting down and killing. In ROF, it will be enemy squadrons to kill and rival same side squadrons to try and achieve better scores than. As long as it's a fair playing field (meaning nobody is using cheat exploits), it is incredibly satisfying to know that you defeated a skilled player instead of a well programed AI. Especially when you know that next time they will be looking for you specifically. In MMOs, it's mostly about having the right "uber" (I always hated that word) gear so you can win. In RoF, it will be all about the plane you are in and your skill with it. To me, that is pretty cool. I personally am not concerned about having to log in to play, though I do understand why some people are very hesitant to do so. Millions of people do it every day, however and I don't think it will be a huge barrier to getting enough people to play. If they do it right, forced logging in of all players may be the very thing that ensures the MP skies are filled with ferocious furballs and that is what RoF is depending upon to be a success, it seems. The downside to a huge emphasis on MP though is the very real risk of alienating players because of rampant cheats / exploits. Why play any game that you don't stand a fair chance of winning and that all of your skills are made useless because of hacks? The other big worry for me is the lack of planes. It won't take long for people to figure out the flight dynamics of the few planes that they are flying in the RoF skies. Fewer Flight Models to deal with means that "cookie cutter" strategies to win against your opponents 1 or 2 planes will develop quickly. The more variation they can make in their aircraft and flight models, the more the complexity of winning goes up exponentially. For example, a squardon of DVIIs vs a squadron of Spad XIIIs all know the strengths and weaknesses of one anothers planes. But a mixed squadron of DR 1s, DVIIs and DVa 200's against Sopwith Camels, SE5as and Sopwith Triplanes makes things far, far more challenging from a tactical standpoint. Did such mixed combats actually occur during WWI? I couldn't tell you. I'm sure there are folks on here who know. But RoF isn't really pushing historical accuracy as it's primary selling point. It's about exciting, visceral and intense multiplayer combat. More planes would help that dramatically. /salute Hellshade

tttiger, I bought it at full price too. and by all means, criticize away. OFF P3 isn't perfect and I think the devs are the first to admit that. It's not that you criticism the game that concerns me at all. It's that I think some of your criticisms are spun to be ridiculously unfair and out of proportion with reality. Yawns from devs? Name a company that responded to it's user base faster with patchs after release that addressed serious issues and added flexibility to the game (multiple DMs, Workshop options). I think it's wholly unfair to paint them as uncaring. I see no other way to read that comment from you that all they did was yawn about it. You get upset that I "put words in your mouth" that you never said? That's exactly my point why I did that. Because I've never seen a dev "yawn" at requests made to improve the game. But apparently it's okay for you to put words in their mouths and make them sound like they feel a certain way when they don't. You have every right not to appreciate people putting words in your mouth that you never said. Now that you know how it feels, how about not doing it to others first? Just one of those crazy thoughts in my empty head there. I guess I'm the crazy one because you have a complete double standard on how you want to treat people verses how you expect to be treated. and "for a company that beats their chest about historical accuracy, you think they'd at least get the medals right? As if there aren't thousands of accurate things in the sim already. How abount counting to 3,200 for me? Then multiply that by the amount of time it takes to research and then paint a plane. I can't imagine the thousands of hours that just went into that historical detail alone. Plus maybe, just maybe they want to spend time with their wives or kids once in awhile. Yet another crazy, empty headed thought of mine while I'm off my meds. Because obviously you know what the proper time frame is for them to get done the things that you expect to see done. Wow. If I'm on meds, maybe you should be. How egotistical are you to say that just because you aren't seeing the results you want fast enough, the devs obviously think historical accuracy is just a big "yawn" to them? Maybe the American medals weren't their priority and given the amount of pressure put on them to release P3, I'm sure they made other historical sacrifices in order to just get it shipped. There are things I'd like to see added or fixed in the game too, including the American medals, but just because what I'd like to see isn't the devs priority or doesn't get done as fast as I would like to see it done isn't a reason for me to mock them and say they can't even get the little details right and therefore make it sound like OFF P3's claim to historical accuracy is basically an empty promise. Not sure how anyone else read that comment, but that's how it came across to me quite loud and clear. Make all the valid criticisms that you want. But how about just not extrapolating out outrageous and unfounded accusations from those criticisms like because they missed that detail, it's obviously not a historically accurate sim? Criticisms are fine. Pointing out the medals need to be fixed is a great thing. It lets the devs know we care. Making it sound like they don't care is completely unfair. If they didn't care you wouldn't be flying the beautiful, if imperfect, flight sim that you are. How exactly do you justify those two extremes in your head, anyway? That historical accuracy is a "yawn" but you can't name another sim that is more accurate? Of course you ripped me for pointing out the obvious discrepency in your argument. But that's cool. The fact that you can't answer that question directly pretty much is the answer, isn't it? As for things I'd like improved or fixed. More planes, especially Gotha and HP bombers. Straffing of running trains bringing supplies to the front lines would rock. The ability to pick "Random Enemy Planes" in QC mode. Fixing medals and adding the ability to get more than 4 or 5 would be great. Every one of those and I'm sure more are legitimate requests. I just don't presume to say that just because I haven't seen them in the time frame that I'd like to, that OFF P3 isn't fullfilling it's promise for historical accuracy or that the devs yawn at the ideas of their user base. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Sorry you can't see that. Hellshade

60?!? P4?!? Whole war?!? We heard it on this thread first folks. :) Thanks Pol, Even if your kidding you just made my night. /salute Hellshade

That's true ttt. Those slackers at OBD should be ashamed of themselves. 3,200 historically accurate paint schemes on planes right down to the writing on the wheels is a pittance. 12 historical fronts complete with squadrons that move to the correct location by date, are rostered as near as historically possible and even switch between new and older planes just as they did at the time depending on parts availabilty is a complete sham!!! Historically accurate weather from 90 years ago. Real planes from real squadrons flying on genuine missions on the day they flew them. FM characteristics as realistic as it is possible to model them based on descriptions and within the limits of the games engine. But they can't even get the damn American medals right?!? What the hell have these people been doing with their time?!? Slackers, one and all at OBD!!! I demand Justice!!! I feel like I've been slapped in the face with a haphazardly thrown together bit of code that obviously bears NO resemblance to the facts of the day!!! Clearly we've all been hornswaggled and I thank you for pointing out this outrageous deficiency that these deviant developers have tried to sweep under the rug. And they say "historically accurate" as if they have facts to back it up. Pfft!! The nerve!!! Now if you'll just kindly point me in the direction of the WWI flight sim that has done a better job in any, let alone all, of these areas, I'll be happy to plunk my cash down. <waits patiently for the answer> *crickets chirping* <waits more> *more crickets chirping* Gosh tttiger. Maybe for $39.95, these few folks have put together the most historically accurate WWI flight sim available on the market today or even for the forseeable future. Is every single detail of a four year long World War 100% modeled accurately? Gee no, I guess not. That's not really possible, is it? What did you expect? Digitally enhanced photos of every single pilots face mapped onto the pilots in their respective planes like Madden NFL Football does with it's football players? Sorry the Devs are all too busy modeling new aircraft to add to the game for us to enjoy instead of re-arranging the medals box that we see for 10 seconds out of every flight. Of the two, I'm pretty sure the rest of the folks who purchased the game would prefer the additional planes. I think they have every right to "thump their chests" about the historical accuracy of BHaH. Nothing else comes close. Unless you believe maybe that RoF got it 100% historically right by showing WWI was fought between a total of 2 different flyable types of airplanes (that for some reason couldn't take off without an active internet connection)? Sorry that they didn't "at least get the medals right", for you. Maybe they were too busy with several thousand other historically accurate details and still get it done in under a decade. Maybe you could "at least" learn to appreciate that little fact. Hellshade

I doubt, but hope then, that ROF will allow me to fly on-line in my own "private" war with only the people I invite. If I'm forced to fly against known cheaters with a 214:1 kill / death ratio I'll lose interest in about the first 30 minutes if the cheating becomes blatantly obvious. I have read that they are supposed to have a fairly in depth mission creator built into the game which is nice, but pre-generated missions don't have the suprise value of the OFF campaign. And while ROF appears to have incredible damage and flight models, I can only shoot down the same 2 types of AI piloted aircraft so many times before the excitement wears thin. No, until they add significantly more aircraft and have a proven AI like BHaH, the main draws for ROF for me are the state of the art damage modeling, cool graphics and most importantly, the MP combat against live opponents. If the MP combat is borked due to rampant cheating (and I genuinely pray that it will not be, but I am having doubts), then the game loses all appeal to me because if the only damage modeling effects I ever witness are on my own plane as my opponent flies by at 350 MPH shooting 5,000 rounds of ammo into me, then I really won't have any use for the game. I'd like to say that none of this is a personal attack on RoF or it's developer. I think the game looks beautiful and I am extremely eager to play it. It'll put my recently revamped computer to the test as I read it is written to be multi-core aware and quad core processors get 30% to 40% more performance out of it than a duo Core 2 does. Against a live opponent, the game has the potential to be a real winner in my book, especially if they stamp out any cheating and add a bunch more planes. I'm just stating that I'm worried lack of security could ruin the game. But I was afraid the CFS3 engine would ruin BHaH and those fears turned out to be completely unfounded. Perhaps I'll get two miracles in a row. I'll find out when I get back from my Honeymoon on June 25th. Unless there is already widespread criticisms of ROF, I plan to order it then. Meanwhile, I'll keep enjoying BHaH (and Oblivion, I finally started playing again) and anxiously await the next patch or add on to BHaH that the flight code Masters of OBD see fit to grace us with. /salute Hellshade

The ROF crowd has really turned me off with all of their trash talk, enough that I am not at all interested in buying ROF. Totally lacking in honesty and respect... Unfortunately, in my experience the trash talkers tend to be the same highly competitive people with the maturity of a 12 year old who love nothing more than winning by cheating. They base their self worth on the fact that they are playing the "best" game and they are the "best" at it, even if they have to cheat to win. It's quite possible that the ROF game will soar to success or cash and burn based on it's level of security to prevent hacking. Me personally? I'm 40 years old. My self worth comes from providing a good home and life for my family. The games are wonderful, but winning one has never gotten me a promotion at work, paid my mortgage or awarded me a Nobel Peace Prize. If I ever have to cheat to win or trash talk others to feel good about myself I'll check into enrolling into the nearest middle school. And I'll have my wife ban me from being on the message boards after 8pm on a school night. :) /salute Hellshade

A good point, Pol. Having not had the chance to play RoF for months during beta testing, I'm sure I'll be a puddle of noobsauce on the ground in no time flat when flying against a veteran of the game. Still, my bigger concern by far is security. In a competative on-line gaming environment, there's always those few folks who figure out how to hack the system so they can feel "big" winning against others by cheating. That will kill a community fast if the developers can't put a stop to it ASAP. Lets face it, if you fly against a guy who's guns don't jam, he never runs out of ammo and seems impervious to damage, honest gamers are going to lose interest in the game almost immediately. That's a true "Game Over" scenerio for most people. A lot of faults and flaws in a game can be forgiven, however when people get cheated out of a position in an on-line ladder the real screaming begins and it's next to impossible for a developer to recover their reputation from that once it's lost. Lets hope they either do it right or invest in PunkBuster, because no matter how good every other aspect of the game is, if the skies are filled with lame cheaters, the only taking off I'm going to be doing is taking RoF off my hard drive. I sincerely hope that doesn't happen. /salute Hellshade

I don't get the whole "It can only be one or the other" mentality that so many gamers seem to have. Back in my MMO days, anyone who played World of Warcraft talked crap about the EQ2 players and EQ2ers always fired back about "WoW" shortcomings. I played them both. EQ2 was very limited when it first came out but made HUGE strides in being more fun for the casual gamer over the last 2 years. Both games had (and still have I'm sure) a ton of fun to offer, each with it's strengths and weaknesses. If someone likes one game better than the other, then great. Go play it. But don't waste everyones time trash talking the other. It's fine to put out honest, respectful opinions about why you find one game more satisfying or fun than another, but flame talk about other games (or worse, the people who play them) is childish. As if people who don't enjoy playing the same game I play are somehow "less cool". Please. In fact I think people who flame other gamers and games do a huge disservice to the community of the game they play because it makes them look immature, intolerant and small minded. As for RoF, I plan to buy it. It has an on-line multiplayer component that is more intuitive to use than BHaH does at this time. BHaH is the best WWI flight sim single player campaign game I have ever played. The AI is magnificient, the campaign huge, the number of planes is fantastic and the graphics are exceptionally good. No disrespect to First Eagles, I simply have never played it. On the other hand, the RoF videos look like some fun multiplayer combat. The graphics and damage modeling appear to be outstanding. If it's as fun as it looks, I plan to have a blast against on-line opponents. But when I want to feel like I'm really in the war with a huge variety of different planes in the sky, I'll fire up BHaH in a heartbeat. I love BHaH. I'll buy every expansion they make for it as long as the quality remains what it is today. And I'm sure it will. I just don't see how or why enjoying BHaH (or RoF or First Eagles) should prevent me from trying and enjoying other games. /salute Hellshade

And one more thing for P4...have the AI pilots turn their heads from side to side and look up like they are looking around for enemy aircraft unless they are actively shooting. I'm quite sure that isn't even remotely possible with the CFS3 engine, but man I bet that would add to the immersion to see an enemy AI pilot turning to look at you as he banks around trying to get a bead on you. Barring that, would it be possible to put a scarf on them or perhaps a flight leader flag on the wing of flight leaders planes? Regardless, I'm sure the Masterpeice will only get better for P4. Just let me know when I can warm up my credit card. /salute Hellshade

Is this the 1.3 DVD version of CFS3 that doesn't require the DVD to be in the drive in order to play it? Because if it is, I'm going to be spending $10 in the near future. /salute Hellshade

I'd recommend taking a look at the OFF P3 BHaH Preview movies and ask yourself what you are waiting for? You won't find a more historically researched and accurate campaign (from pilots, plane types, plane paint jobs, squadron locations and daily missions) than here AND the enemy AI is without a doubt the best I have seen anywhere. Throw in TrackIR support, 2 Damage Models to choose from, top quality patch support from the Devs and maximum configurability for your playstyle and skill in the workshop and I can't imagine where you'll find better, especially for under $40. /salute Hellshade

I decided it was time to upgrade heavily, so I custom built myself a new rig to play OFF BHaH on (Ok, and I've finally started playing a little Oblivion again too). i7 920 Quad Core 2.66Ghz OC to 3.8 GHz PT6 Motherboard 6 GB DDR3 RAM (Corsair XMS) Vista 64 bit 850 watt P/S 1 TB SATA hard drive 7200RPM (not 10k) New Armor Mid Tower black case Zalman CPU cooling fan (keeps it at 46c under heavy load even OCd) and reused my 28" I-INC widescreen monitor GTX280 1GB video card (OCd to 675 Mhz Core and 1352 Mhz GDDR3 RAM) TrackIR 4 Saitek II keyboard (lights up the keys so I can see them at night when the wife is in bed sleeping and I'm still trying to win WWI) Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick crappy little logitech mouse The Results: OFF looks and plays beautiful, smooth as glass with 12 planes or more on the screen even over an airfield! Not a stutter anywhere even at 1680 x 1050 and everything on 5. But a great rig does not make a great pilot!!! The bosche were not impressed and gunned my arse down without hesitation. Apparently Winder programmed them to "Fear No Gear". LOL Seriously though, what a beautiful game Devs. You should be proud. I literally sometimes like to fly freeflight and just look around at the world. Simply breathtaking. Thanks for the endless hours of fun. It's gotta be the best $50 I spent on a single player game since Diablo. Maybe Oblivion. Keep up the great work because I am ready to buy whatever expansion you put out. It's just amazing how satisfying this game is on so many levels. /salute Hellshade