Dynamic Campaign Discussion Thread

[Speed]

We clearly have the talent (eg. 16th_Speed) and motivation. What we need is a stable foundation that won't change *radically* between now and the likely release date.

 

 

You're giving me much more credit than I deserve. I simply don't know any reason why a community DC isn't eventually possible (other than ED changing DCS too quickly for the developers of a dynamic campaign to keep up), and I think I could possibly help make it a reality if the community started on it. Saying it and doing it are two things that are light-years apart, and furthermore, I have no intention of starting work on a dynamic campaign, not unless certain conditions involving my own free time and goals and the game's Lua interface are met.

 

Moa, as far as not using Lua for the DC, you are right of course (is it even possible to develop a full program with Lua?), however, I suspect that it might be convenient to use a little bit of Lua to interface with DCS, you know, using LuaSocket or whatever they call it. I imagine a DC would probably be programmed in C++ or C#, especially if you need to use Lua, right? AFAIK, I don't think there is support for Lua in any other languages than C, C++, and C#.

[J. Heller]

A DC is a fun thing for a consumer product, yes. But don't fool yourself into thinking it's of any value whatsoever towards realistically simulating combat, because it isn't. What is of value is to have enough control over the training scenario such that you can adequately train the things that you set out to train, and learn what you need to learn. DC's do not offer this. DC's offer immersion, and "immersion" is not the same as "simulation". Now, not to say that immersion is bad, aux contraire, but it has nothing at all to do with "simulation".

 

Didnt I purchase a consumer product?

 

When the united states air force trains A-10C pilots in a simulator, they're not interested in creating "a war". They're interested in training their pilots. Including things that go beyond the pilot is of absolutely no value and only a distraction unless the exercise in question centers on CCC - in which case a dynamic campaign is still worthless.

 

I dont fly for the USAAF, I fly for the Microsoft AF. Just letting it be known that many in the community want a DC...I could care less about what the military wants in a sim since I dont work for them. And neither do must of us playing this sim right now.

 

I caution you greatly to back off with the attacks.

You have no clue about who he is, what he is, what his background is, but you might want to consider the fact that he is a tester for ED and has been so for a long time. Maybe, just maybe, he knows a thing or two about how these things work? And I'm not just talking about the programming side of it, or the project management side of it, but also the application side of it. He is well qualified to talk the talk and unless you have some very interesting merits to back yourself up I suggest you reduce your attitude. Thankyou

 

There was no attack made here, I suppose I could say the same to him as well. Of course I dont have the benefeit of being a forum moderator that can throw my weight around anytime someone says something I dont like:(

 

Back to the DC... Yesterday I flew a mission in the Devils Cross campaign and on RTB I noticed the airport nearest my base had been attacked. Two whole buildings had been blown up. The next mission, which took place the next morning, these buildings were back again like nothing ever happened. I lol'd and thought of the F4 DC again. Lets put all the systems simulation and whatnot aside and look at the CCC, Supply and Airfields as simulated in F4. In F4 if you bow something up it is gone from the campaign for good, or at least until reasonable time has passed and it could be replaced. Destroy an early warning radar and the enemy loses high alt. radar coverage in that area. Destroy a supply depot and the enemy units will not be supplied or reinforced so quickly. Crater a runway and the planes stationed there are grounded, freeing up resources to be used doing something besides defending against airborne aircraft. Sure, all this might be useless to the military but I purchased a consumer product. Whats more realistic, a campaign where blown up buildings are rebuilt like new in less than a day or a campaign where blown up shit stays blown up and all the factors of Logistics, supply, CCC and even production are factored in to the replacement of destroyed units.

 

Remember, while you may be a military contractor and use that knowledge to build superior aircraft models there is still alot more to consider when selling to the consumer. We want it to be accurate, yes, but we also want it to be fun and immersive. I think you guys have the fun part worked out, just give us the immersion and I will shut up,lol. Anyways, no disrespect intended to anyone and I apologize if I was offensive. I would like the same respect afforded anyone else, and gladly give that respect back. RTB.

[Speed]

I see. I'm not sure if something like this exists - actually, I'm pretty sure the whole ME is written in LUA and as such is self-documenting. But anyway, I'll ask.

 

I know for a fact that even now, the ME has been extended a bit.

 

Yea, but the Lua is passed C functions and data that we have no access to the source code of; that said, I haven't taken much more than a cursory glance through ME Lua code. Undoubtably, if you were going to make a third-party ME, you would definitely be looking through ED's Lua for a source of inspiration. That said, Lua isn't necessarily the fastest and most bug-free way to do things; for example, in the development of the autoarty functions included in that mission I talked about, "Kashuri CAS", there was very curious bug that took me several hours to figure out. It turned out that declaring a certain variable in Lua was causing another variable, with a completely different name, which had its value set a few lines above, to change value. There was no logical reason for it to do this. I finally had no choice but to admit that it was probably Lua itself that was @#$#ing up. As far as I could ever tell, it was assigning the same memory address to the new variable that I was using for that other variable!!! So yea, there are a few scattered issues with Lua, and it might be best to avoid it when possible. Not only that though, I think it runs quite a bit slower than a real, full, programming language.

Edited June 28, 2011 by Speed

[Murf7413]

Two things:

1 - It failed because the developer bit off too much. It cost way too much to make it. It could have as much fanboys as it would like; it got delayed so much it had to get released in a shoddy shape, and when it didn't sell the developer had to abandon it and die.

2 - It was popular, in relative terms (compared to a mainstream game it was a total flop), because there simply was not much else out there that really tried to do what it did. (Jane's F/A-18 maybe?)

 

Thus the game ended up abandoned, and it's main prize feature - the DC - is still arguably crap at doing anything realistic after some 10 years of further work.

 

A counter-example: HardWar. Sort of an Elite-wannabe if you're familiar with the type. After the same amount of time it's still played by an active community, and people still tinker with it. But it was an absolute failure, and it took it's developer with it.

 

Another example: let's imagine Duke Nukem Forever was actually good now that it finally got released, and sold like cream. It still took down what used to be an industry giant. That's... Not good. ;)

 

Imagine where Microprose could have been if they didn't bankrupt themselves on overambitious projects like Falcon that they then had to release in crap shape or even just plain abandon? If they had worked calmly and collectedly on a more realistic codebase you could have had something WAAAAAY better than any of the Falcon derivatives now...

 

Commiting fiscal suicide is NEVER a good idea.

 

 

 

There is nothing in the universe that cannot be made better. But I hope you realise that we might take exception to telling ED that commiting corporate suicide is a good thing. And that's what people are doing when they ask the question "why doesn't DCS have that DC"? ED would either have to make a shoddy one, or they'd have to commit suicide. OR... they can work on their technology iteratively and thus give us all what we want in due time.

 

Eagle Dynamics has been making sims since '91. It's still alive, well, and kicking ass. Microprose is not. Think about that. ;)

 

I grant you... good points, I don't buy all of it... but I am not sure I can argue intelligently against them either... but good points none the less, and certainly answers some of my curiosities. :smilewink: Perhaps from a programers point of view... the Falcon DC was shoddy.... but, from MY point of view, I thought it was quite good... a little difficult to work with.... but, still I think it was quite good.

 

I too hated to see Microprose go away... and I certainly am not asking or want ANY company to "commit fiscal suicide"... I don't think anybody in these forums do. As for Duke nuke em'... that's out of my league... I don't typically do FPS games, and the only ones I have done were of the WWII genre....

 

Anyway... I have stated my thoughts and opinions on the subject, and not looking to create or start arguments, so I will shut up now. :lol::pilotfly:

[EtherealN]

Perhaps from a programers point of view... the Falcon DC was shoddy.... but, from MY point of view, I thought it was quite good... a little difficult to work with.... but, still I think it was quite good.

 

Just for clarity: I don't mean it's shoddy in a programming way - I wouldn't know since I've not looked at the source code and probably couldn't understand it without doing a lot of homework. (Introducing oneself to a new code is difficult as hell, which is the reply to the people who cry out for ED to adopt Outerra as a terrain engine.)

 

I too hated to see Microprose go away...

 

Me too, just for the record. I still have an original box of Falcon 3 with maps, five billion floppies and everything. :)

 

As for Duke nuke em'... that's out of my league... I don't typically do FPS games, and the only ones I have done were of the WWII genre....

 

Ah, sorry, basically what happened there is that the developer was so pre-occupied with making something "perfect" that they kept revising, polishing, throwing out major parts of the code to do something better, and so on until they just ran out of money completely and died. They managed to sell off the IP and codebase for pennies to let Gearbox Software (I think it was Gearbox... I haven't bought it due to being dissuaded by a flood of negative reviews) "finish" it, but well... it's not good. The point being: they were so ambitious in doing something totally awesome that they forgot the financial realities, and it killed the company. (And basically made paupers of the guys who had been made millionaires on the previous success of 3D Realms products.)

 

Falcon is a bit of a special case in a long string of these kinds of stuff (90% of games make a loss...), since it happened to be in a niche and the thing they tried to do, even in a "shoddy" shape, was something that no-one else had. (Possible exception in EECH, but again - where is Razorworks today? ;) )

 

This, combined with a source code leak, allowed people to keep working on that feature. But this is extremely important: Falcon is NOT evidence that it's "easy" to do a feature like that and survive, precisely because it's existance required the death of one company and volunteer work for a decade after that. And it's still "shoddy", in my opinion. Though again - not necessarily shoddy in a coding sense, but in a capability sense. It really does not do a good job of simulating a war. What it does is help you get a feeling of immersion as a player, and that's good and fine, but to try to claim it as a "simulation good" is worthless. And to try to say (as some has done in both these cases) that it's easy or good from a marketing standpoint on it's own requires a total absense of history.

 

Anyway... I have stated my thoughts and opinions on the subject, and not looking to create or start arguments, so I will shut up now. :lol::pilotfly:

 

No need to "shut up", you can speak your mind as long as it's done in a respectful manner. I know that not everyone can have the same insight into this stuff that I and many others here have, same way I understand that not everyone can be total hardware nerds, like I am. We're all specialists (of sorts) in our own fields. But in this specific case it's just such a common discussion that it gets sort of tiresome to deal with it yet again, and it might tear a bit on my nerves. I apologise for that and hope you can understand it.

[GGTharos]

I think what will clarify this better is something like:

 

Falcon 4 is released in 1998 as a POS that barely works, crashes often. Note there has been over 5 years of development at this point.

Falcon 4 is patched to 1.08i in '99. It is now a working piece of software, but many bugs remain.

Hasro lays off the team just before 1.08i and 1.08i2. Falcon 4 is now a business failure.

 

Falcon 4 code is leaked. The community keeps doing things with it - illegaly - including patching up the DC - until LP picks up the latest BMS version at the time, and patches it up to make it stable in MP and SP, fixes up the DC and releases it in 2005. At this point, over 12 years of development have passed.

 

Last F4AF patch is issues in 2008. 15 years of development now.

 

In 2010, LP goes out of business ... another one claimed by Falcon 4. Falcon 4 is once more a business failure.

 

Development continues in AFAIK less than legal manner, at this point we are looking at 17-18 years of development. Shouldn't you have a little um, more at this point than you do to show for those 18 years?

 

F4 may be successful in the community, but it demonstrates exactly what not to do when you are company developing flight sims - or at least, so it seems.

[EtherealN]

Didnt I purchase a consumer product?

 

Here's your statement:

 

This series is called Digital Combat Simulator, to simulate combat you should create a conflict and then drop the player into it as a very small cog in a large wheel. Falcon4 created a war, not just an aircraft and then some cheesy scripted missions around it.

 

Your argument was not that you are a "consumer". Your argument was that to do the job of simulating air combat you need something like the F4 DC. This is false. Worse than false: it's the opposite of the truth.

 

Here's the simple fact, extracted from reality: simulators do not sell well enough to fund an immediate development of something like the F4 DC. It's NOT a case of laziness. It's not a case of oversight. It's a case of companies not wanting to commit seppuku. The only reason you have DCS to fly, as opposed to a 10 year old failed simulator and HAWX, is that ED is able to leverage synergies between military and consumer requirements.

 

If you doubt it, tell me how things went for Microprose and Razorworks.

 

Just letting it be known that many in the community want a DC...I could care less about what the military wants in a sim since I dont work for them. And neither do must of us playing this sim right now.

 

First of all, it's "I couldn't care less". English is my second language (well, technically my third, but who cares). If you could care less it means you... could care less. IE - you care. ;)

 

Sorry, I'm a grammar nazi. :P

 

Anyhow, you SHOULD care about what the military wants. First of all because your whole argument was that a DC is required to simulate combat. The point that the guys who have a life-and-death (and billion-dollar) requirement to adequately simulate combat don't care about DC's at all I thought would illustrate the error in that statement.

 

Secondly, what they want fund a good part of the product you get. Obviously I don't know all the details, but I'd wager a couple month's salaries that without said contracts there'd be no DCS at all. Nothing. Nada. ничего.

 

Again: a DC offers immersion; not simulation. The IL-2 standard "DC" was technically crap but I still played it because it was fun in a sort of RPG way. I'm not contesting the point that DC is fun, I'm contesting the specific point that you made.

 

There was no attack made here, I suppose I could say the same to him as well. Of course I dont have the benefeit of being a forum moderator that can throw my weight around anytime someone says something I dont like:(

 

You went on a tirade about "half your age" against a person you know nothing about. That is not kosher. Do not do it again. It's nothing about throwing weight around, it's about what Eagle Dynamics have tasked me to do on this forum: keep the peace. You contravened

§1.2 of the rules and I cautioned you for it. End of story.

 

Remember, while you may be a military contractor and use that knowledge to build superior aircraft models there is still alot more to consider when selling to the consumer. We want it to be accurate, yes, but we also want it to be fun and immersive.

 

Last I checked the product seemed to be selling pretty well, though I'm not privy to the details. The point I'm trying to get across is that money needs to be made to fund development, and in this industry there's almost no such thing as an "operating income". You up-front the cash to develop the project, and you either make a profit or you die. Eagle Dynamics has decided to target synergies between the markets and let that co-fund the development on both sides. And example (though, again, I don't know exact details so add a pinch of salt, I'm mainly just illustrating the point as far as I know it):

 

For DCS:A-10C, the avionics, sensors, hydraulics etcetera simulation was funded by a military contract towards providing training software for the training of USAF/USANG A-10C pilots. The military, however, doesn't really care about the flight model - they teach "flying" though... flying. ;) So the flight model was funded on the commercial side.

 

Profits from both can be allocated towards other aspect, such as working towards a DC. And ED is working towards a DC - they know we all want it, they want it, but they have to balance the books. I don't think they made the mission generator for pure giggles. They have a plan, and I don't know exactly what the plan is but I've learned to have faith in what they do. For one thing, because they've made good stuff happen. For another, because they've done it in a market that is generally considered suicide to be in.

 

I think you guys have the fun part worked out, just give us the immersion and I will shut up,lol.

 

That's the thing I am trying to get across to you: if you equate "immersion" to a DC (though earlier the DC was a requirement for simulation, make up your mind ;) ), there's no such thing as a "just". There's two companies that tried it, Microprose and Razorworks. They're both defunct. Seriously, really take a moment to think about that. Two companies tried it. They're both dead. Gone. Kaputt. Chapter 11.

 

That is the point.

Edited June 28, 2011 by EtherealN

[jctrnacty]

I think what will clarify this better is something like:

 

Falcon 4 is released in 1998 as a POS that barely works, crashes often. Note there has been over 5 years of development at this point.

Falcon 4 is patched to 1.08i in '99. It is now a working piece of software, but many bugs remain.

Hasro lays off the team just before 1.08i and 1.08i2. Falcon 4 is now a business failure.

 

Falcon 4 code is leaked. The community keeps doing things with it - illegaly - including patching up the DC - until LP picks up the latest BMS version at the time, and patches it up to make it stable in MP and SP, fixes up the DC and releases it in 2005. At this point, over 12 years of development have passed.

 

Last F4AF patch is issues in 2008. 15 years of development now.

 

In 2010, LP goes out of business ... another one claimed by Falcon 4. Falcon 4 is once more a business failure.

 

Development continues in AFAIK less than legal manner, at this point we are looking at 17-18 years of development. Shouldn't you have a little um, more at this point than you do to show for those 18 years?

 

F4 may be successful in the community, but it demonstrates exactly what not to do when you are company developing flight sims - or at least, so it seems.

 

Well i cant agree with you GG, problem with Falcon 4 was that it was ahead of its time. When they released th F4 there wasnt a computer that could run this game smoothly. This time came a 6 years later and that time the community was able to fix the biggest issues with DC so that you could finish the campaign. Till now F4s DC was not outdone.

 

I hope that DCS will continue to develop future modules with DC in mind and one day we will get it done by DCS or at least by third party studio.

[GGTharos]

You don't have to agree with me, it's still a twice-over business failure.

 

When they released it, it was so full of bugs even today's computers couldn't run it smoothly.

[HerrKaputt]

You don't have to agree with me, it's still a twice-over business failure.

 

When they released it, it was so full of bugs even today's computers couldn't run it smoothly.

 

What I'm about to say doesn't 100% confirm what GG is saying but it does point in the same direction.

 

I downloaded FreeFalcon, which is a free game based on F4, already with quite a few bugs fixed. Nevertheless, it still crashed a few times until I learned a few things I can't do with it (the most obvious being ALT+TAB).

 

So I fully believe GG when he says that F4 in its original state (i.e. with none of the patches that were released after launch date) was too buggy for anyone to play.

Edited June 28, 2011 by HerrKaputt

[EtherealN]

So I fully believe GG when he says that F4 in its original state (i.e. with none of the patches that were released after launch date) was too buggy for anyone to play.

 

It wasn't just "too buggy". The only reason it's not kown throughout the business as the most loltastically broken release in the history of software is that it was in a niche market. :P

 

EDIT: Okey, and there's Windows ME. But aside from that.

[Speed]

It wasn't just "too buggy". The only reason it's not kown throughout the business as the most loltastically broken release in the history of software is that it was in a niche market. :P

 

EDIT: Okey, and there's Windows ME. But aside from that.

 

What about Cliffs of Dover?

[J. Heller]

Here's your statement:

 

 

 

Your argument was not that you are a "consumer". Your argument was that to do the job of simulating air combat you need something like the F4 DC. This is false. Worse than false: it's the opposite of the truth.

 

Here's the simple fact, extracted from reality: simulators do not sell well enough to fund an immediate development of something like the F4 DC. It's NOT a case of laziness. It's not a case of oversight. It's a case of companies not wanting to commit seppuku. The only reason you have DCS to fly, as opposed to a 10 year old failed simulator and HAWX, is that ED is able to leverage synergies between military and consumer requirements.

 

If you doubt it, tell me how things went for Microprose and Razorworks.

 

 

 

First of all, it's "I couldn't care less". English is my second language (well, technically my third, but who cares). If you could care less it means you... could care less. IE - you care. ;)

 

Sorry, I'm a grammar nazi. :P

 

Anyhow, you SHOULD care about what the military wants. First of all because your whole argument was that a DC is required to simulate combat. The point that the guys who have a life-and-death (and billion-dollar) requirement to adequately simulate combat don't care about DC's at all I thought would illustrate the error in that statement.

 

Secondly, what they want fund a good part of the product you get. Obviously I don't know all the details, but I'd wager a couple month's salaries that without said contracts there'd be no DCS at all. Nothing. Nada. ничего.

 

Again: a DC offers immersion; not simulation. The IL-2 standard "DC" was technically crap but I still played it because it was fun in a sort of RPG way. I'm not contesting the point that DC is fun, I'm contesting the specific point that you made.

 

 

 

You went on a tirade about "half your age" against a person you know nothing about. That is not kosher. Do not do it again. It's nothing about throwing weight around, it's about what Eagle Dynamics have tasked me to do on this forum: keep the peace. You contravened

§1.2 of the rules and I cautioned you for it. End of story.

 

 

 

Last I checked the product seemed to be selling pretty well, though I'm not privy to the details. The point I'm trying to get across is that money needs to be made to fund development, and in this industry there's almost no such thing as an "operating income". You up-front the cash to develop the project, and you either make a profit or you die. Eagle Dynamics has decided to target synergies between the markets and let that co-fund the development on both sides. And example (though, again, I don't know exact details so add a pinch of salt, I'm mainly just illustrating the point as far as I know it):

 

For DCS:A-10C, the avionics, sensors, hydraulics etcetera simulation was funded by a military contract towards providing training software for the training of USAF/USANG A-10C pilots. The military, however, doesn't really care about the flight model - they teach "flying" though... flying. ;) So the flight model was funded on the commercial side.

 

Profits from both can be allocated towards other aspect, such as working towards a DC. And ED is working towards a DC - they know we all want it, they want it, but they have to balance the books. I don't think they made the mission generator for pure giggles. They have a plan, and I don't know exactly what the plan is but I've learned to have faith in what they do. For one thing, because they've made good stuff happen. For another, because they've done it in a market that is generally considered suicide to be in.

 

 

 

That's the thing I am trying to get across to you: if you equate "immersion" to a DC (though earlier the DC was a requirement for simulation, make up your mind ;) ), there's no such thing as a "just". There's two companies that tried it, Microprose and Razorworks. They're both defunct. Seriously, really take a moment to think about that. Two companies tried it. They're both dead. Gone. Kaputt. Chapter 11.

 

That is the point.

 

 

Yeah yeah yeah, you keep talking about how Microprose is gone and so on. The fact remains that after more than a decade F4 is still being used by a large portion of the community. I think the main reason for this IS the DC, and that no one else has tried to create such an(what word can I use that you wont try to tear down?) immersive experience. In DCS currently there is zero immersion outside of the cockpit. To say that the company will fail merely from trying to build a DC with F4's scale is just foolishness since it could be developed seperately from other DCS releases and then integrated when it is ready. No one is going to bash the company for trying something so complex, and also something the community as a whole is crying out for. No matter how buggy it is on release I would still support such an endeavor because it is the best way to create total immersion in a modern flight sim. Or any flight sim for that matter. Its fiscal suicide to create something that everyone wants? Surely not if its done right...I can wait, just saying this is definitely something we all want to see. It seems your only argument is that the last company that tried a true DC is now gone, so why should anyone else try. What if the Wright brothers looked at Davinci's drawings and said, "Well thats it then, he tried and failed so why bother?" You see where that argument leads?

 

I'll go ahead and let you have this one though, you win. I concede defeat to whatever cause you are currently defending with your arguments to my posts. I still am not sure what that is...:joystick:

 

And really, my grammar? C'mon man, tear down everything I post but leave some ridiculous grammar and spelling contest out of it. Shall I peruse through your posts and correct all the misspellings and grammatical errors for you? Ridiculous.

[J. Heller]

What about Cliffs of Dover?

Exactly, but I put that one on the shelf more for flight model inaccuracy and the fact that MP servers wont let certain planes be used due to "fairness". Whatever that means. Also CloD is probably the most content-lacking sim I have ever picked up.

[Jona33]

Yeah yeah yeah, you keep talking about how Microprose is gone and so on. The fact remains that after more than a decade F4 is still being used by a large portion of the community.

 

And you keep going on about how good F4 is. I've had it working for 2 or three days, in total a couple of hours playing and I'm already getting bored of the campaign. It's rubbish. I get more immersion from the linear Deployment campaign on BS (which is good fun:lol:) If ED do a DC that's fine by me. But if it's like F4's then it's a waste of money, time and effort. Three days, remember that. How people put up with it I don't know.

[winz]

Yeah yeah yeah, you keep talking about how Microprose is gone and so on. The fact remains that after more than a decade F4 is still being used by a large portion of the community. I think the main reason for this IS the DC, and that no one else has tried to create such an(what word can I use that you wont try to tear down?) immersive experience. In DCS currently there is zero immersion outside of the cockpit. To say that the company will fail merely from trying to build a DC with F4's scale is just foolishness since it could be developed seperately from other DCS releases and then integrated when it is ready. No one is going to bash the company for trying something so complex, and also something the community as a whole is crying out for. No matter how buggy it is on release I would still support such an endeavor because it is the best way to create total immersion in a modern flight sim. Or any flight sim for that matter. Its fiscal suicide to create something that everyone wants? Surely not if its done right...I can wait, just saying this is definitely something we all want to see. It seems your only argument is that the last company that tried a true DC is now gone, so why should anyone else try. What if the Wright brothers looked at Davinci's drawings and said, "Well thats it then, he tried and failed so why bother?" You see where that argument leads?

 

I'll go ahead and let you have this one though, you win. I concede defeat to whatever cause you are currently defending with your arguments to my posts. I still am not sure what that is...:joystick:

 

And really, my grammar? C'mon man, tear down everything I post but leave some ridiculous grammar and spelling contest out of it. Shall I peruse through your posts and correct all the misspellings and grammatical errors for you? Ridiculous.

The reason why F4 is still played is that noone has dared to touch the HC sim market again after they saw what happened to microprose and LP. What was the competition for F4? Isn't it the other way around, that there was no other hard-core sim for a modern period jet available?

 

Creating something everyone wants can be fiscal suicide. Because even everyone is a finite number of customers. And when we are talking about high-fidelity sim, then it is a quite a small finite number. There is no guarantee that the sales will cover the development cost. And you cannot just throw infinte money into featuries 'that everybody wants'. That's just bad business plan.

 

I would love to see a DC, but we have no right to demand one from ED. In fact, we should be thankfull that atleast someone is tending to this niche market as ED is with the DCS series. Let the people resposible for the company make the decisions.

[J. Heller]

The reason why F4 is still played is that noone has dared to touch the HC sim market again after they saw what happened to microprose and LP. What was the competition for F4? Isn't it the other way around, that there was no other hard-core sim for a modern period jet available?

 

Creating something everyone wants can be fiscal suicide. Because even everyone is a finite number of customers. And when we are talking about high-fidelity sim, then it is a quite a small finite number. There is no guarantee that the sales will cover the development cost. And you cannot just throw infinte money into featuries 'that everybody wants'. That's just bad business plan.

 

I would love to see a DC, but we have no right to demand one from ED. In fact, we should be thankfull that atleast someone is tending to this niche market as ED is with the DCS series. Let the people resposible for the company make the decisions.

 

Did you not read the post? I never demanded anything from anyone, nor did I say to throw endless sums of money into creating a DC. There will always be at least one developer creating these niche market sims, right now it just happens to be ED. Its like you want to go around in circles or something... FSX is great for practicing holding patterns.

[J. Heller]

And you keep going on about how good F4 is. I've had it working for 2 or three days, in total a couple of hours playing and I'm already getting bored of the campaign. It's rubbish. I get more immersion from the linear Deployment campaign on BS (which is good fun:lol:) If ED do a DC that's fine by me. But if it's like F4's then it's a waste of money, time and effort. Three days, remember that. How people put up with it I don't know.

 

I have had it working since 1.08... and since everything happens differently everytime you play I can keep on playing it for as long as it takes another dev to create such a brilliant DC. All the DCS missions will be the same over and over and over and over... Get it straight, I LIKE THE DCS SERIES I JUST AM NOT THRILLED THERE IS NO DC FOR SUCH A NICE SIM. Hate me for my opinions, they are only just that, opinions.

[Impact]

And I have the feeling that this niche market is not as big as it was in the nineties. Back then I knew some people who flew flightsims in reallife. But nowadays, all that I have known either are not interested anymore because of being married and having a family and a job, or don't have time because of being married and having a family and a job.

 

DEJA VU?!

 

I still don't understand how they can still produce such a high fidelity simulation, when the product price didn't change. Same with the Warthog HOTAS. Do they really sell that well around the globe?

[J. Heller]

And I have the feeling that this niche market is not as big as it was in the nineties. Back then I knew some people who flew flightsims in reallife. But nowadays, all that I have known either are not interested anymore because of being married and having a family and a job, or don't have time because of being married and having a family and a job.

 

DEJA VU?!

 

I still don't understand how they can still produce such a high fidelity simulation, when the product price didn't change. Same with the Warthog HOTAS. Do they really sell that well around the globe?

 

I have to agree with you, I remember when we had many more sims available to us. Remember Spectrum Holobytes Mig-29? X-wing? TIE Fighter? F-117? Tornado IDS?Alot more racing sims then too, I guess as we get older the console kids will just continue to destroy the simulation market until there is nothing left but Microsofts FS... Not looking forward to that at all.

[VincentLaw]

Yeah yeah yeah, you keep talking about how Microprose is gone and so on. The fact remains that after more than a decade F4 is still being used by a large portion of the community. I think the main reason for this IS the DC...

 

I think a major reason that lots of people are still playing F4 is because of the airplane. If Eagle Dynamics announced DCS: F-16 (or even DCS:F-18C for that matter) all of those people will probably jump on it like a lot of red baron people did with Rise of Flight. the Ka-50 and A-10C simply offer a different experience, like a niche inside of a niche.

 

It seems your only argument is that the last company that tried a true DC is now gone, so why should anyone else try. What if the Wright brothers looked at Davinci's drawings and said, "Well thats it then, he tried and failed so why bother?" You see where that argument leads?

 

I'm pretty sure the argument here is not that ED should avoid doing a DC like the plague, its that doing a DC requires a large amount of time and resources, and doing one well is extremely difficult. just look at MS combat flight simulator 3. they tried throwing all of their eggs in the DC basket and it killed their series too! ED is slowly improving and adding to DCS with each release, and eventually we might get a DC, but it will probably be in baby steps (the right way) like adding a mission generator. instead of the wrong way like Samuel Langley and his Aerodrome.

[Moa]

I have to agree with you, I remember when we had many more sims available to us. Remember Spectrum Holobytes Mig-29? X-wing? TIE Fighter? F-117? Tornado IDS?Alot more racing sims then too, I guess as we get older the console kids will just continue to destroy the simulation market until there is nothing left but Microsofts FS... Not looking forward to that at all.

 

Yes, those sims were great, but you also have nostalgia to blame. None of them come remotely close to the depth and breadth of A-10C. None of them required remotely the same total development time to produce (ED has been working iteratively for a *long* time to get things where they are now). This is one of the reasons why there are so few in the flight sim market.

[J. Heller]

None of them come remotely close to the depth and breadth of A-10C.

 

I remember MiG-29 had a 600+ page manual that came in the box...I remember it well since I read the whole damn thing when I was trying to figure out why my 386 PC kept locking up on me. There was actually quite alot to these sims, especially when you consider when they were made.

[amalahama]

Here's your statement:

That's the thing I am trying to get across to you: if you equate "immersion" to a DC (though earlier the DC was a requirement for simulation, make up your mind ;) ), there's no such thing as a "just". There's two companies that tried it, Microprose and Razorworks. They're both defunct. Seriously, really take a moment to think about that. Two companies tried it. They're both dead. Gone. Kaputt. Chapter 11.

 

That is the point.

 

I have read this reasoning repeteadly, but I think that maybe, maybe the thing that led them to bankrupt wasn't a DC development. Maybe even without DC they would have bankrupted anyway. Maybe the real reason was that the context was changing and they didn't know to adapt it.

 

In fact I can give you the opposite example: EF2000 released an expansion with a DC and it was very sucessful. After that it would come F-22 ADF and TAW. It was in the golden simulation era, when flight simulators sold well and big companies like EA supported them. On the other hand, you can see the last Janes development, F-18, it didn't come with a DC and EA get rid of its simulation branch anyway. And, oh lá lá! it was around the same time Razorworks and Microprose passed away.

 

From my point of view ED is doing a very good job to not hasting and taking it easy, probably a DC development would require a comparatively big amount of resources that lately wouldn't neccesarily mean big profits, but for your comment it seems that a DC is almost an impossible enterprise and in reality is not a such big deal, you can see the DC basis in lots of RTS already. It might be the case if you try to do a DC with the same people that design the flight dynamic models or the avionics behaviour, but it should be easy for people with a strategy games background.

 

Regards!!

[Murf7413]

Just for clarity: I don't mean it's shoddy in a programming way - I wouldn't know since I've not looked at the source code and probably couldn't understand it without doing a lot of homework. (Introducing oneself to a new code is difficult as hell, which is the reply to the people who cry out for ED to adopt Outerra as a terrain engine.)

 

 

 

Me too, just for the record. I still have an original box of Falcon 3 with maps, five billion floppies and everything. :)

 

 

 

Ah, sorry, basically what happened there is that the developer was so pre-occupied with making something "perfect" that they kept revising, polishing, throwing out major parts of the code to do something better, and so on until they just ran out of money completely and died. They managed to sell off the IP and codebase for pennies to let Gearbox Software (I think it was Gearbox... I haven't bought it due to being dissuaded by a flood of negative reviews) "finish" it, but well... it's not good. The point being: they were so ambitious in doing something totally awesome that they forgot the financial realities, and it killed the company. (And basically made paupers of the guys who had been made millionaires on the previous success of 3D Realms products.)

 

Falcon is a bit of a special case in a long string of these kinds of stuff (90% of games make a loss...), since it happened to be in a niche and the thing they tried to do, even in a "shoddy" shape, was something that no-one else had. (Possible exception in EECH, but again - where is Razorworks today? ;) )

 

This, combined with a source code leak, allowed people to keep working on that feature. But this is extremely important: Falcon is NOT evidence that it's "easy" to do a feature like that and survive, precisely because it's existance required the death of one company and volunteer work for a decade after that. And it's still "shoddy", in my opinion. Though again - not necessarily shoddy in a coding sense, but in a capability sense. It really does not do a good job of simulating a war. What it does is help you get a feeling of immersion as a player, and that's good and fine, but to try to claim it as a "simulation good" is worthless. And to try to say (as some has done in both these cases) that it's easy or good from a marketing standpoint on it's own requires a total absense of history.

 

 

 

No need to "shut up", you can speak your mind as long as it's done in a respectful manner. I know that not everyone can have the same insight into this stuff that I and many others here have, same way I understand that not everyone can be total hardware nerds, like I am. We're all specialists (of sorts) in our own fields. But in this specific case it's just such a common discussion that it gets sort of tiresome to deal with it yet again, and it might tear a bit on my nerves. I apologise for that and hope you can understand it.

 

No harm, no foul, no worries... :smilewink: Trust me... I am probably more stubborn than most here at "sticking to my guns".

I read the forums for information and education, and when I have something to say, I say it... but, this is a game, and NO game is worth getting bent out of shape for. We have all got our favorites, and dislike other games for one reason or another. I have been involved in the real world aviation for 35 years now, and I am retired military as well.... trust me, I am NOT going to get bent out of shape over a game. :thumbup:

 

I fully respect the opinions of others... and I expect the same in return.

 

I am not a techie or a programmer... I play for fun, enjoyment and relaxation.... and for NO other reason!!! :D:joystick:

 

No worries man...keep the faith!!! :pilotfly:

Edited June 29, 2011 by Murf7413