Olham

You could and should only do that at the very beginning, Carrick. As Bullethead is warning - some changes might cause problems. But if you have just enlisted a pilot, and before flying with him, you just go there first and make the changes, I believe it would be okay. I myself have changed the names of my wingmen into the names of relatives or friends, and it worked. But I have done right before the first sortie.

Morris, the video I saw about RAGE looked very promising!

Mass Effect2 looks great. Could it be a bit much of philosophising? I'll take second looks later. The Witcher's graphics don't appeal to me; the figures appear quite stiff. This Dragon Age II trailer looks brilliant - will check more: Thank you guys - it's always interesting what else there is. I didn't check for some time.

You can cycle through friends & foes this way: - switch TAC on - use TAB to mark one craft - go through external views by clicking F4 two or three times - you should get the outside view of the aircraft you have marked - now press TAB again and again, to cycle through ALL other craft It may be slightly different (like Shift + TAB), but I have changed "Controls" and reduced it to TAB only. You get there by pressing "Esc" ingame. You can program any Control for a new button or key. The CFS3 engine is surely limited here or there. But since the guys have built their most immersive sim on that engine and no other, I will make do with it the best I can. I am addicted to OFF.

Thanks, but I knew how to get out and back again for a new attempt, and it would have worked. It's only that I can't set my birthday correct - I can't get any earlier than 2004. And that is too young for them to let me in. No, I don't like any sort of games, just because of the type of game - neither rollplayers nor shooters or sims. I like only very few, and it is hard to say why. They need to have a special athmosphere and graphics. Also they should have a good story. And they shouldn't be so linear. In one word: I like only top quality - don't play much. I liked the early "Command & Conquer". From all shooters, I liked "FEAR" best, but it quickly got disappointing. Then there are mixes of genres - STALKER is such a mix of rollplayer and shooter. I liked it, because it had an intriguinly believeable, own world. Another, older one I really liked was "Wolfenstein 3D" - amazing how many levels they had created!

Von Paulus, I clicked on the link for DIABLO III. When I wanted to see the video, they requested my age. But I can't seem to get to a year earlier than 2004. When I accidently clicked that, I was locked out. Do you know how to get to an earlier year? (arrow up/down didn't work)

Von Paulus, I went through such a phase some years ago, and playing good games like STALKER or IL-2 helped me to "stay tuned".

The data about each ace are also growing with the timeline in OFF. But OFF is striktly historical - the aces die, when they died in real life. I prefer that to being some super heroe who can kill Guynemer before his time. Nope. Not possible. But you can share with them the same self made skin. To get that, you need to select "Petrol management" in "Workshops".

Wow - von Paulus - if the international ranking agencies could see your list, they would be ranking Portugal much higher!

Yep, it is ridiculous! They treat the people like braindead. That is censorship at it's peak. And all that, because they are so very afraid, that it might be noticed internationally, that there might be some Germans, who are still or again thinking fashistic. Although: "to think" sounds NOT like the right word there.Such crapp exists everywhere.

I am only getting there slowly, Creaghorn - bit by bit. My first year with OFF was the typical "I will win the war singlehandedly" approach. Then I got more and more into personal skins, and I learnt more about a war I didn't know anything about. I learnt to know about the structures and Staffeln; and about the many known pilots. I read their books, as well as historical research. And only now, after more than 2 years, I am beginning to develop such a "deeper relationship to the whole rest of the Staffel. I always used to know my direct wingman by name, and I once lost a good longtime fellow, which was really saddening. But I still have to go a bit of way to reach a real life behaviour. There is hope - the tendency is there. Right now, I am reading "Voices in Flight", a book with interviews of British WW1 pilots, and it brings them closer to me. In fact it makes me want to start a longer lasting British pilot soon. But that is a development - not something I can just decide to do from now on. I have to grow into it. I need to feel it.

As far as I know, the package "IL-2 1946", which I got and used for some time. The aircraft are looking great, and you get with that package all the models that have previously been added in add-ons. Also you get experimental aircraft, which have not, or only very rarely, come to fly any missions. That's why it's called 1946 - you can play a "what would have been" version of WW2. You will get the package very cheap now, and it's definitely worth every penny.

Since I got "Over Flanders Fields", I don't play games anymore. I am really mostly waiting for P4, but I don't really expect it to be completed in 2011. If there was a sequel for STALKER, perhaps. Diablo III ? I used to play Diablo II and liked it a lot (good music and sounds!). The overall "graphic athmosphere" was just excellent. Must check the web for Diablo III.

At last, I found one video the lawyers must have overlooked. Here they are: IRON MAIDEN play ACES HIGH http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zoCZ4QhOdU

Did you know, that Sir Ronald Reuel Tolkien has seen the trenches of the Great War? See here under 1916: http://www.the-rangers.net/joomla/index.php/library/jrr-tolkien/biography Jackson would not only have the right experience in creating big mass scenes with computers. He also has most of the necessary aircraft for the close-ups in New Zealand. He has his own S.E.5a, and among all those other "wing-nuts", it would make me wonder, if they were not already collecting piles of stuff, to make a movie from. His interest would surely be, to tell the story historically correct - down to the right individual markings. Yeah, I bet he will do it - and I am surely looking forward to that movie!

"The last will be the first" or so it says in the bible. I will wait even longer - to finally get the sim, when it is really gamer tested and sorted out. In my Albatros I feel I have all the time in the world - no haste to get to those roaring glass houses - I would miss the scent of the poppies...

What a fragile looking beauty! Now I'll find it harder to shoot them down....

Leutnant Viktor Schobinger from Jasta 12 had a special "bottle shape" design on his Albatros D.V. The fuselage was black, and on both sides was this light blue "bottle shape" (see OFF skins). About him I know, that he had the same design on his replacement craft, as you can see in this picture - the two closest craft were his. From JFM's book about MvR (I think it was) I read, that at least the ace pilots all had a replacement craft. But if they all had their own, individual markings on those too, I can't say. I bet, many of them had.

When I see that mud & blood & bajonett stuff, I must say, that the aviators probably had the better choice. Of course theirs wasn't easy at all. They often froze to ice cubes up in the cold air at 15.000 - 24.000 feet, and when they came down again, the warming up went too fast and put their feet in agony. They had no parachutes (until late in the war, when some units got them), and when the craft was burning, they only had the choice to burn or to fall to their deaths. But when you see, how the men in the mud had to fight that war - day after day, for months, for years - I would have hoped to get accepted as an aviator.

Although it's 01:27 h in the night here now, I don't feel like I can sleep. So I took the book I bought some time ago, but never found patience to read yet: "Voices in Flight - Conversations with Air Veterans of the Great War" The first veteran to tell his story is Sir Herbert Thompson, who had been flying with 8 RNAS. And I must say: if this book continues to be such an easy read, and to be so very entertaining, I will be through very quickly. The typically British understatement, paired with the warm-hearted humour of Sir Herbert is a joy to read. I am already very sure, that this book will get me more into flying the British side, too. It is impossible to feel distant or remote to this veteran. I forgot completely, that I would, back in those days, have been on the other side. He simply took me by the hand and led me right into being a British aviator. Very good read so far!

PS: here is a link to Anna Malinowska's website with some of the interviews I just found: http://www.freewebs.com/voicesinflight/index.htm

Hihihi - well, sometimes, UncleAl, it may be necessary to use what you have learned in school: to read a book. (Perhaps there are at least CDs somewhere, containing these interview recordings?)

Mine was "Their Finest Hour" from LucasFilm Games. The aircraft were only pixelated views from only a few angles - but I am sure I have been intercepting "Messerschmidts" with "Sailor" Malan, in my Spitfire high above the cliffs of Dover.

Yesterday, I tried to get into TheAerodrome website - without success. After thre attempts, I received a screen message telling me that I was banned due to attacks being made from my system. It took me a while to understand, and I let my KASPERSKY AV program make a system check. It found this trojan: "Exploit.Java.Agent.du" (I have added quotation marks to prevent it becoming a clickable address - I may sound foolish, but don't know much about such stuff, and I don't want to create more chaos.) What ever that trojan exactly did - The Aerodrome felt being attacked and banned me. I have eliminated that trojan, of course. But still, after three E-mails to their webmaster, I haven't even got any response on my question, what I could possibly do to drop the bann. Has anyone here ever had such a situation? And what did you do then?

Thank you, Javito! Perhaps they'll find it some time soon.