element1108

Big problem with kickstarter is it opens devs up to entitlement from consumers which can be more trouble than it's worth. If I were running a business I would seriously consider trying to execute my plan without the help of kickstarter if I had a decent cash flow and good investors. Five years ago I would have thought they could use a kickstarter type campaign to help out, but they seem to be in full control. No, things aren't progressing as fast as many like, but I don't think more money will simplify or expedite the complexity that surrounds this type of development. I'd rather wait it out than sort through threads where the kick starter peeps have felt "left in the dark" gripe gripe gripe. In conclusion Ed knows their finances, they want to stay in business more than we want them to (livelyhood vs hobby) and I'm sure the have seriously considered many different financial plans to keep the money coming in. Edit just to include this is all my humble opinion...and bother more.:)

I don't have any insight into their books, but I think they are doing pretty well for themselves. Consumer market is only a portion of their income unless major thigs have changed in the last little while. I also don't think throwing money at them will speed up the process. More hands on deck isn't always a good tbing in the workplace. I personally loath subscription models simply because there are large chunks of time I can't play at all...yes that's on me, but I'd rather pay a higher price upfront than a monthly fee.

I understand the basic foundation where your frustration is coming from. Unfortunately it's the reality and I would cordially suggest you alter your expectations not because they are unreasonable, but because they will only bite you in the bum time and time again. For things out of my control I always find it easier to adjust my expectation levels because those I can control. Not that I'm defending bel as a fanboy, I'm sincerely happy with their products and their (relative) short release dates for two modules. They are currently the most active and IMHO have earned a track record for being the only third party/partner to have delivered a fly able product. There is always room to improve, but on the meantime you can master other aspects. I'm not trying to be a know it all, just offering a sincere suggestion that helps me.

To each their own, but I'd rather be flying a beta than looking at a few screenshots a month. Be easier to be a decent huey pilot before adding the complexity of sling loads, which involves a lot of dynamic physics calculations. I would find it easier to shift my expectations than put so stock in what devs out down as release dates (Ina culture where release dates are almost expected to be missed)...still gives people a timeline.

Belsimtek have been spot on in both delivering quality products relatively close to one another (even though still on beta, I could care les as long as I can fly it) They've also been pretty good at their estimated delivery time...we can expect two modules from them in 2014 is pretty cool. I'm happy as hell it's the 86 and 1G.

I could see them implementing this feature in the future. Least of all infantry ground combat, may be underwhelming graphically compared to arma but would be an extension of CA. Controlling infantry in groups or individually would be interesting from a gameplay perspective. Evac would also be awesome but I doubt people are patient enough to wait around for it.

Looks REALLY good.....MORE! I mean, thanks!

Mmmmmm *swoon*

Cool idea! Thanks for the link mate!

Find your home keys and go by touch. The rift is so damn immersive you won't give a rats a$$ about your keyboard or it's functionality ;). As for the pony...ya never consider all flight sims equal...but can't put you down for not knowing...enjoy the learning curve...it's the best part of flight sims...getting the little things down. Try the Huey ;)

I will... No time for her now...

You need the old game because Lock On and FC series involve UBISOFT... ED are obliged to make owning the legacy software part of the system requirements. This is why ED are moving into the individual modules with the A-10A/25A/15/27 etc so eventually that won't be necessary any more. Their "strategy" is more a legal obligation at this point, if you look deeper you'll see they are moving away from the Ubisoft deal and onto their own. They are also working on Nevada being done in a new terrain engine (perhaps include collision detection in trees). Right now they are the only flight combat simulator developer who at this point is working toward and in many ways achieved the most versatile digital battle ground to date. It's missing a few luxuries, but we have player driven fixed wing A/A A/G aircraft, rotary aircraft, WWII legacy aircraft as well as ground units (both strategic command and first person on many units)...THAT my friend (and I mean no disrespect) is a very solid strategy for a combat sim. On the horizon are a number of other delicious aircraft that will only improve on this foundation.

I actually don't care about a mp version of this game. Always had some fun on the single player side. Lad they've evolved it a lot since the last one. Might check it out.

I came into lock on late, flaming cliffs and the 25T on the cover is what appealed me to the sim in the first place. I would be happy to own a dcs 25A/T ... I am happy we got a model and cockpit update lately though. Can't stand toe 2D pits even if the 3D isn't clickable.

I do agree narration that used good guy and bad guy is a bit lazy in this context. I could see the note to address that: Network: we want the audience to feel like our subject is heroic....how about using the term good guy/bad guy when describing American and German pilots!

What he said...I hate writing on mobile phones in here ...especially long essays...can't seem to properly articulate myself clearly because typing with my thumbs is annoying as hell hehe. Just wanted to give some insight as to the possible reasons why certain things of TV/film production are missing. Interesting discussion though +1's for all.

Lol...true! Anyway I appreciate your quest for quality...I've always paid attention to how planes and helicopters handle even as a kid I would try to mimic the way a Huey shifts move from transitional flight to a hover/landing. My best dramatic articulation apart from sims of dogfights is reading the books. Describing the action is like nothing I've seen on TV or in a film. Most of them are underwhelming in terms of kills, but the stress on the body, the chaos, confusion, adrenaline for a very limited time and then poor... A sky once filled with planes is empty. The they have to find their way back home ; land and scramble again in a few hours...I mean the physical stress of that alone would just floor me...let alone have that emotional experience day after day. Movies can't seem to translate that, they need the hero to kill 10 baddies in one sortie in order to cheat an emotional response. Bomber pilots had the worst of it by far (in the air force) 12 hour in subzero temperatures having the odds completely against you (survival).

I know the move you are talking about, does a super tight loop and smokes a 109 (in trailer they cut to a 262)....the worst though was what 10 p40's taking out an airfield? I don't think so....the reason the red tails stuck so close to the bombers was because they were so disciplined. Other unites hated that strategy because they weren't effective so close to bombers, they wanted to be in a position to transfer their altitude into speed and not waste gas s turning to stay in formation. I loved hearing why these pilots hated staying with the bombers...had nothing to do with recklessness or maverick attitudes...they wanted to protect those 10 man bomber crews as badly as the crews wanted to be protected. Anyway derail there and sure it's more complicated than I just laid out...hates red tails that point stands. We were lucky enough to be able to shoot aerials with our planes. We had a p47 in California, Lancaster in Toronto, spitfire and hurricanes in England, f4 phantom in Texas. Had a lot of fun ok that project. Edit: walking home now will read you next top gun post in a sec...

Flyboys was amazing...not 100% but seriously a good balance. It didn't do well because of the genre man...women don't care about this stuff...(demographic certainty not schauvanism). Our office cuts Mayday as well... That show is male! They are in their 14th season as well and have listened to viewers discussing inaccuracies but have the benefit of being a massive hit to incorporate those modifications. It's a slow process obviously by the time you see it the season is in the can but they take note for next season. Cgi budget is still tight...and the physical world (unless your Pixar) is top expensive to recreate. Pixar hand animated everything by the way, no motion capture (cough, dream works, cough). ;) Red tails my god what a horrible film that was. I let the cgi accuracies slide, but the writing, story and acting were horrible. We had a red tails episode those gents were and even still very disciplined and articulate...they had to be they were th cream of the crop. Honestly the characters portrayed in red tails film did them no justice.

Red Tails....aweful, but Lucas has killed the special effect so no point expecting him to make them sing even though he's got the resources..puke. I used DCS and IL2 for animatics actually, so I could cut in the live action stuff with the action to see how it would flow. Unfortunately the software used to animate doesn't include a physcal world, the planes are anatomically correct, so the moveable parts move when planes bank etc, but that's it. The rest is done inside a virtual world with no physical properties applied against it. The animators would have to animate the shift in weight or whatever physical flight simulates. IL-2 intellectual property would cost heaps, there's no way Ubi would license that out without it costing an arm and a leg. Besides IL-2 is a brand and has a style, so does dogfights. THe fact of the matter is and you may not like hearing this (i've come to accept it) the general public in this genre DOES NOT CARE OR EVEN KNOW the difference. It passes right over their heads, except people like us who live by it almost as a religion. A network or a studio isn't really going to funnel an already stretched budget into another intellectual property and I'm sure those flight sims you quoted aren't going to let some program use their blood and sweat for pennies either. It comes to is it worth the expense, 99.9% of these types of shows (especially TV stuff) won't accept that as an expense. It's just the way it is unfortunately.

My thoughts exactly!

Nope :(....still re-running like crazy, but in the end...too costly i suspect. I wouldn't say it's DEAD in the water, but I've certainly not heard anything I get green light emails. Actually when I got the initial green light of the show I immediately emailed the exec producer so I could get on it...LOVE WWII aviation. I cut Episode 6, Gabby Gabreski...the best 3 months I've had to work on a show because I simply loved the content.

That story is from the perspective of the American pilot, so yes they did refer to themselves as the good and bad guys...if any war was to have that distinction it was the Axis being bad and allies being good but of course that's up for debate, but most people who watch aren't going to argue with that type of language. You'd be surprised at how little people know when watching a dogfight, it uses a lot of language and moves that will pass over the majority of people's heads, so they write in a simple form. Who's to say the 65 year old dogfight which probably happened in the span of a few minutes max is told in an accurate fashion. Gun cam only shows when trigger was pulled and the combat ace is reliving a dream like experience that happened half a century ago...so there will of course be flaws. The OVERALL story for an AMERICAN audience is what that show specifically is targeting. Air aces was different, it was more about the pilots culmination to ace status and their motivating methods behind it. No we didn't refer to the germans as the bad guys, we even had German ace Hans something (I forget his last name now) tell his perspective on dealing with certain British and American aces and how by the end of the war the germans were throwing trainee pilots up to fend off battle hardened bomber formations (specifically during the American/British bombing offensive unofficially dubbed "big week" where american fighters were cut loose from tight bomber formations to shoot down german interceptors). My specific intent in defending dogfights is there is a financial reason behind why the animated planes don't move exactly or as accurately as the real planes, their overall objective is to tell a story, they can't by any means use live action planes to simulate those dogfights and don't have the budget for the highest end CGI. It's not due to the lack of skill or whatever on the animators fault. You can't even blame the networks, because they are at the mercy of the advertisers who in the end call the shots...you think Pepsi or GM wants to spend $150,000 on top of what they've committed just so the planes look like they have a more accurate flight model? (It would cost HEAPS more than that, just an example)...I can tell you they wouldn't. They are cutting corners left right and center. I've done a lot of science and war documentaries, first and second drafts are usually written as accurately as possible, but the language confuses the majority of the audience (focus groups ruin TV). So part of the network notes that come back are to simplify ... again not the animators, writers fault etc. There is always a balance when telling an accurate story/explaining science that needs to be TV friendly so of course it gets watered down. Fact of the matter is TV networks are moving away from any male viewership as their most loyal viewers and the ones with the most buying power are females. The only demographic that can count on a male audience is SPORTS...that's it. The rest of the television world is catering to female audiences with a very small percentage being male driven. Look at TLC, THE LEARNING CHANNEL?? Became about John and Kate plus 8 and onto that stupid redneck family and that little kid beauty pageant crap.

CPP or whatever that company is is ROLLING in it...I mean utterly smothered in money. If this guy paid $9k for that ship, he's very wealthy and might not feel it as bad if he were pedestrian. I mean that kind of ambush will go down as legend...some people love that...honestly it's hard to achieve that kind of dramatic beat in any other game currently. It will most likely SHIFT the entire EVE culture ... seeing how much a spy can affect the dynamic.

It is unfortunate...but I work in factual entertainment as a picture editor, I personally edited an episode of Air Aces (Hero's of the skies in Europe) and let me tell you how EXPENSIVE the CGI element is. The animators hand build the aircraft models and skins and then have to go and animate almost the entire running time (with some shortcuts). They have a very tight deadline and we often don't see a final render until days before picture lock (wireframe meshes). The guys who did the animations for my show LOVE aviation, we would block out sequences using die cast models. Unfortunately the reality is you are only given so much money from the network and the production company needs to pay it's camera crew, editors, producers etc as well so like any project, allocation of resources must be handled responsibly. The reality is most people watching don't know how a real plane handles, they want the overall picture with the story element...the show is about the stories in the end, not how accurately the planes are modelled or how they behave in the air (very difficult to achieve on a budget). If this were a MIchael Bay, Steven S hollywood picture, i would have a reason to side with you on this...but factual entertainment series have a substantially shallower budget to play with and they are becoming less and less frequent because they are so costly and their audience is small (compared to generic house renovation shows lets say). If we love aviation, we honestly should be more positive to the shows that actually touch on the subject. Story is critical, the special effects are secondary. Our show used drama re-creation, live action warbirds and CGI plus archival footage to tell the story, each episode was 1.3 million to produce (6 episodes) and involved 3 networks and one very rich Lord (because he loved it). The show was a smashing success, but unfortunately to expensive to do another season because advertisers didn't get the "numbers" to justify another season. Smashing success for a 6 part world war 2 aviation documentary series costing over 6.5 million vs a house renovation show who's entire 13 episode budget is 2 million...very different beasts. Anyway opened up a whole other bit there...I hope somewhere in that rambling mess you can find a new appreciation for this type of show and the work that goes into making it (and obstacles we have to face as well). :thumbup: