The Rise and Fall of the Flight Sim Genre

[adonys]

This is a copy of a post I've put up on DCS WWII's KS page, as a reply to Ilya's Update #8:

 

I've sent you a PM almost a couple of weeks ago.. no answer..

This whole KS project is a mess, another sign of how things were, are and will still be done. no real or strategic thinking for the future, just a "do it right now as it came at a first thought"

 

Now, the debate:

1) only two planes for free (one for each side) is the minimum acceptable for a successful F2P model

2) digital only goals are a MUST (we're in 2013, you know..)

3) same for goals taking into consideration the present DCS supporters who ALREADY bought the P51-D (showing that you CARE about the current present supporters), allowing them an option to access the whole DCS WWII with it's alpha, and the DCSW P51-D with it's beta

4) no amount of "killer video", different (digital) goals, monetization, fun learning curve or aircrafts/theaters will significantly change the current amount of support. your analysis of the previous sims successes and current one failures is wrong, as you have not identified the main real reasons. the evidence is out there in front of everyone, but it seems it is not so easily acknowledged.

 

the main real three factors are:

a) the immersion (the "be-there" factor - which was present in the each flight sim which had success: the old ones from the golden era, the old IL2, and the Birds of Prey. IL2 CoD partially had it, but it was doomed to the disastrous technical state of its software). the immersion is mainly provided by eye-impressing factors: the graphics, effects and animations. compared with 2013 game's standard, DCS world videos are looking sterile, some machines flying in a lifeless world. a real pilot model in the cockpit for the user to impersonate with, visual & voice commands, and the 3D vision (Occulus Rift) are additional helpers for the 2014 year.

b) the easiness of doing things. you've wrongly identified the not fun learning curve as being the main culprit, but the truth is a little bit different. SC2 and DoTA are the perfect contra-examples: they have an difficult learning curve, comparable with the one of a flight sim, but they are still played. why? because you can do things even from the beginning. you might not beat a decent SC2 or DoTA player, but you can play, and still enjoy the gameplay. in a 2013 flight sim, as a novice, you can't even start the engine, nevermind taking the plane off the ground!

c) the control system. a 2013 flight sim requires additional input devices from the player: at least a joystick and a head motion tracker.

d) longevity. mostly given by the (3rd party) modules and community development (via SDK's and scripts), and multiplayer

 

At the current state, DCS WWI won't attract more then the current KS supporters number, which can be safely named as the whole 2013 flight sim community/enthusiasts. For bigger numbers, you need to attract people from outside flight sim genre.

a) is the main factor for attracting new people from outside flight sim genre's niche. b) and c) are the main factors needed to prevent the outsiders attracted by a) giving up the flight sim for good in less than 1h. d) is for having the flight sim's life numbered in years rather than weeks/months. Of course you'll need everything else: a fun learning curve, fun middle (single player)/long (multiplayer) term gameplay, a stable software platform, prompt patching, PR, 3rd party modules (via maps/aircrafts/missions-campaigns SDK's), community management, exciting new features, etc, etc.

 

All points above are demonstrated against any successful/unsuccessful flight sim that was ever delivered:

- the huge successes had all three of them: AOE, AOP, SWoTL, RB, 1942 PAW, EAW, B17, Rowan's BoB, RB2, CFS, CFS2, IL2 Sturmovik, Wings of Prey.

- the partial successes: Warbirds (multiplayer), WWIIO (multiplayer), Falcon 4 (community development), BoB2 (community development) LockOn/DCS (graphics, community development, modules), RoF (partially graphics, modules)

- the huge failures didn't had them: B17 II, CFS3, IL2 CoD (though the principal culprit for IL2CoD would be the software problems and undelivery)

 

The best example for all of this is the Wings of Prey/War Thunder, which is the only one who made the transition from mainly the flight sim niche to the mainstream, via consoles.

 

I could have elaborated more about this, but I'm out of time.

 

PS: Oh, and a 5) Ilya, stop making marketing videos in which you're reading a script. it makes you look awful and it looks completely insincere.

Edited September 30, 2013 by adonys

[adonys]

(reserved, as I don't have enough time to elaborate more on this right now)

[OttoPus]

I find almost every point of your analysis correct.

[Korn]

b) the easiness of doing things. you've wrongly identified the not fun learning curve as being the main culprit, but the truth is a little bit different. SC2 and DoTA are the perfect contra-examples: they have an difficult learning curve, comparable with the one of a flight sim, but they are still played. why? because you can do things even from the beginning. you might not beat a decent SC2 or DoTA player, but you can play, and still enjoy the gameplay. in a 2013 flight sim, as a novice, you can't even start the engine, nevermind taking the plane off the ground!

 

Errr that's exactly what he said too, that it's not difficulty of learning but its lack of fun. He even gave the same Starcraft example, if i remember correctly.

 

LE: regarding (5), it's not that he's reading from a board, it's that it's placed (way) to the side instead of above/below the camera and you can clearly see what he's doing :).

Edited September 30, 2013 by Korn

[Keyser]

This whole KS project is a mess, another sign of how things were, are and will still be done. no real or strategic thinking for the future, just a "do it right now as it came at a first thought"

 

Debatable. There was without doubt a strategy for the Kickstarter. The fact that that strategy didn't seem to work out is unfortunate, but we can see now that the team adapted and is trying to change the strategy right now. How successful they will be in the last days remains to be seen.

 

Now, the debate:

1) only two planes for free (one for each side) is the minimum acceptable for a successful F2P model

 

Your opinion. Also not really born out by the facts. In DCS:World, you don't get the Su-25T and the A-10C for free - you get one. People seem to be quite happy paying for other modules just the same.

EDIT: You may have been meaning the same thing I am saying, in which case I misunderstood your "minimum acceptable" phrase. In case you were saying that only two planes should be free, preferably less, then we're also mostly in agreement here.

 

2) digital only goals are a MUST (we're in 2013, you know..)

 

Agreed.

 

3) same for goals taking into consideration the present DCS supporters who ALREADY bought the P51-D (showing that you CARE about the current present supporters), allowing them an option to access the whole DCS WWII with it's alpha, and the DCSW P51-D with it's beta

 

Not sure exactly on what your proposition is. In any case, RRG Studios may be collaborating with ED, but they have not been involved with the P-51D to my knowledge, nor would they therefore have gotten any money for sales of the P-51D. Owners of the P-51D might be DCS supporters, but not really RRG supporters. It might be a nice PR move though, sure.

 

the main real three factors are:

a) the immersion (the "be-there" factor - which was present in the each flight sim which had success: the old ones from the golden era, the old IL2, and the Birds of Prey. IL2 CoD partially had it, but it was doomed to the disastrous technical state of its software). the immersion is mainly provided by eye-impressing factors: the graphics, effects and animations. compared with 2013 game's standard, DCS world videos are looking sterile, some machines flying in a lifeless world. a real pilot model in the cockpit for the user to impersonate with, visual & voice commands, and the 3D vision (Occulus Rift) are additional helpers for the 2014 year.

 

I wouldn't be so quick to throw a bunch of new features at a genre and hope they stick. In flight sims, more so than other genres, I think the existing base it key to a game's success. Obviously new things can add to the experience (I have high hopes for the Rift in particular), but such additions should be made carefully.

I'm also not sure if it is a winning strategy to try and compete in today's video game market with graphics. The bar is being set so ridiculously high by games who spend mid-8-figure sums on their graphics engine, we may just have to accept the fact that flight sims may never be at the top of the graphics-game again like they used to, back when graphics development made up a significantly smaller part of a game's budget. But I am not one to turn down a little bit of eye candy, so we'll have to wait what EDGE brings, I guess.

 

b) the easiness of doing things. you've wrongly identified the not fun learning curve as being the main culprit, but the truth is a little bit different. SC2 and DoTA are the perfect contra-examples: they have an difficult learning curve, comparable with the one of a flight sim, but they are still played. why? because you can do things even from the beginning. you might not beat a decent SC2 or DoTA player, but you can play, and still enjoy the gameplay. in a 2013 flight sim, as a novice, you can't even start the engine, nevermind taking the plane off the ground!

 

The comparison might not be quite fair. In sims, even a novice can do an air-start and fly around without any previous experience. The fact that the easy things in flying are also the more boring ones is an unfortunate truth that flight sims have been finding out these last years.

I can't do a rocket jump in Quake, but fortunately rocket jumps are a small part of the game. In a flight sim, the complicated things like start-up are just more frequent and integral to the experience. A real-to-life startup sequence will always be what it is, so unless you are advocating the simple reduction of complexity at the cost of fidelity, there's really only better tutorials that will soften the blow of having to study that part of the game. There's no fixing that problem without compromising on fidelity, so I think they're going the right way.

 

c) the control system. a 2013 flight sim requires additional input devices from the player: at least a joystick and a head motion tracker.

 

Agreed, although that's nothing that can be changed on the software side and yet other sims like Il-2 still sold a million copies. I think that hurdle is in actuality less than one might think.

 

d) longevity. mostly given by the (3rd party) modules and community development (via SDK's and scripts), and multiplayer

 

Agreed.

 

At the current state, DCS WWI won't attract more then the current KS supporters number, which can be safely named as the whole 2013 flight sim community/enthusiasts. For bigger numbers, you need to attract people from outside flight sim genre.

 

That is a very naive statement. This forum alone has about 50.000 members. Only a minority of game owners will generally even make a forum account - some estimates are 1 in 10. Certainly not every flight sim enthusiast will be playing DCS. The "market" for a high fidelity flight sim within the established flight sim community is easily a few hundred thousand people. The rest is marketing.

 

All points above are demonstrated against any successful/unsuccessful flight sim that was ever delivered:

- the huge successes had all three of them: AOE, AOP, SWoTL, RB, 1942 PAW, EAW, B17, Rowan's BoB, RB2, CFS, CFS2, IL2 Sturmovik, Wings of Prey.

- the partial successes: Warbirds (multiplayer), WWIIO (multiplayer), Falcon 4 (community development), BoB2 (community development) LockOn/DCS (graphics, community development, modules), RoF (partially graphics, modules)

 

Of the ones you mention, only a couple come close to what RRG are trying to make.

 

The best example for all of this is the Wings of Prey/War Thunder, which is the only one who made the transition from mainly the flight sim niche to the mainstream, via consoles.

 

Again, I'm not sure how helpful it is to tell the developers "There may not be much money in the genre you want to develop for and are experts in, but if you made a game in a DIFFERENT genre, then you'd be golden". That may be the case, but the fact that low-fidelity sims make money isn't really anything I would call "actionable information" for making a high-fidelity sim, because the main difference to those games is not accidental, it's intentional.

Edited September 30, 2013 by Keyser

[VincentLaw]

1) only two planes for free (one for each side) is the minimum acceptable for a successful F2P model

The mistake here: That is only true for a competitive multiplayer oriented game. Unlike War Thunder, DCS has never been multiplayer oriented. There is no global ranking system, mandatory connection, dedicated servers, or matchmaking. One airplane is just fine for single player or cooperative multiplayer.

 

I do think that more free airplanes would make the game more popular, but the question is how many people would be willing to buy more planes after that. There is also the fact that the community can make free airplanes with the resources currently available. (I am working on such a project, but not for WWII) This is not as easy (if even possible) in many other games.

 

c) the control system. a 2013 flight sim requires additional input devices from the player: at least [...] a head motion tracker.

While head motion tracking is basically mandatory for effective dogfighting. I do just fine on air to ground without one. When I am stuck dogfighting in single player, I "cheat" and use target view (F8 I think). Other games like MSCFS have used an arrow pointing to the enemy to make up for lack of head tracking.
Edited September 30, 2013 by VincentLaw

[hegykc]

1) only two planes for free (one for each side) is the minimum acceptable for a successful F2P model

 

Do not compare this to an arcade game like War thunder where you have dozens of planes and after a couple of days you're looking to trade up.

 

A single DCS module can keep you busy for years.

[gavagai]

DCS WWI won't attract more then the current KS supporters number

 

DCS is going to make WW1 planes, too? I would buy them.:smartass:

[mmaruda]

To be honest, the whole discussion is beginning to get futile. DCS WWII will probably get the "most stiff KS campaign ever award" no matter what we say here. No thought has clearly been put into how successful KS projects work and that is the main reason DCS WWII is not the hottest thing around.

 

People pointed those things out early when there was still time to improve, but those post were mostly flagged as not cool, since "flight sims are dying and we need to help out, and you are just hating" bla bla bla. The thing is, there was some really CONTRUCTIVE criticism on this board that could have helped, if the devs listened and if the critics didn't face instant opposition from over-optimistic fanboys.

 

In short: too much secrecy, not enough promo material, lack of clear financial strategy, too much talk about how someone want's to make a flight sim game, and not enough about what the game is going to be like.

 

This could have been a success, if someone planned this and marketed it properly. The fact that Luthier or whoever they might have on the team is not good at this sort of thing is a poor excuse. It's a business and you are trying to sell something - act like a salesman.

 

The problem with flight sims is not the fact they are so inaccessible to new people, nor that you need to read those long and complicated manuals - with proper tutorial missions we could ditch the manuals as a necessity to fly altogether, but I guess noone want's to get out of their nieche thinking comfort zone set in a weird space and time somewhere around 1999.

 

It's the fact that the graphic engines are ancient, the hardware to run them costs a fortune and the controllers cost just as much (why not figure a way to play DCS without TrackIR and just a Logitech Wingman?). Instead of starting to brainstorm and get their heads wrapped around possible solutions to those issues, simulation devs prefer to conceive that this is a niche market and nothing can be done.

 

Well here is some news for everyone:

the current KS supporters number, which can be safely named as the whole 2013 flight sim community/enthusiasts.

This is the biggest single piece of plain wrong information I have read regarding sims in general for the past few years.

 

There is a whole large community who does not care about this project, because they prefer WWI planes. There is also a similarly large community of people who, through their experience with the WWI plane sim, decided to put their money and faith in the competition. There is also a whole bunch of people who could not care less about any new flight sim, because IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 with mods is all they will ever need and it doesn't require a computer made by Satan in the depths of hell to run. There are also those who play War Thunder and also don't care, because nothing around looks prettier and runs better. There is also the BMS community, whole likes dynamic campaigns. And there is the FSX community who don't like shooting things and are probably the largest group of them all. Some of these groups overlap, some of their members even play DCS and some people have never heard about it.

 

You want to promote your products, you try to get everyone you can on board. So far nothing has been said around these forums or through KS that would convince me to back this project. Off this forum, on the other hand, I have heard and read a ton of rather discouraging stuff from cautious options that, considering past DCS modules experience, there is no way to develop this within a year, to straightforward claims that DCS WWII KS looks like a textbook scam.

 

Now that said, I'm done wasting my time on following discussions on DCS WWII. I hope RRG succeeds and you can be sure that when this comes out and gets positive reviews I'll gladly pay for it, even if it means $60 per plane, but currently if the development goes the same way promotion does, this project looks like vaporware or eternal beta at best.

[Mattressi]

As others have said, your claim that the current backer are the entirety of the 2013 flight sim community is just ridiculous. You're telling me that roughly 2000 customers make up the entire DCS, IL-2:BoS (which has more pre-purchasers than this project has backers...), IL-2:1946, RoF, FSX, X-Plane, all of the hundreds of module makers for the previously mentioned games, and all of the joystick manufacturers? How much must these customers each need to spend, in order for these businesses to be viable??

 

The problem is not trying to make the game more mainstream; it's trying to attract more simmers. I think that Kickstarter might just never be a great place for flight sims - perhaps most simmers need to be able to get something right away for their money, instead of a promise? It's how I feel, but I don't know if I represent the norm.

 

Also, I don't think Wings of Prey sold well. Birds of Prey (the console release) briefly made it to 6th place on the PS3 sales chart, but only on the day it was released, I believe (maybe from preorders?). PC WoP was a pretty average game and a terrible sim. The servers are dead -they don't even work any more - but a few years ago when they worked, they had less than a dozen players on. I'm not sure why you think WoP was more successful than DCS and RoF; I'm not seeing any evidence of that at all.

[hegykc]

If someone would have asked me before kicstarter how much of the 1 million final goal it would get, I would have said between 10% and 20%.

 

It's not that hard, just crunch some numbers.

 

Il-2 sold 1 million copies, that's 1 million potentional customers. Let's say 1/3 of that is a viable number for our estimate, so 300.000.

 

The team has split in two aftel the CoD scandal, so let's split that fanbase in half, you're left with 150.000.

 

ThenThen since it's a kickstarter with only one month time frame, projects tend to make 1/12 of what they would in the first year, money wise / customer wise

 

So you get 12.500 potential backers.

 

Since the kicstarter was launhed on nothing but promises and all the other problems, only 10% of those potential backers are ready to part with their money on those basis and there you get 2.500 backers.

 

With 40$ being the most interesting pledge, you get your 100.000$ minimum kicstarter result. If we count in best case scenario, we can double that, so 100.000 - 200.00$.

 

Now you can take that number and go back to the begining to see what's the real number of potential customers.

 

Many, many more than the 1700 backers it has now.

Some more numbers to take into account:

 

Hotas warthog must have been produced in more than 10.000 units to be profitable. If you look at some of the serial numbers, they're 17.000+.

And those are used by the most hardcore of simmers.

 

As I previously stated, Il-2 sold 1 million copies.

 

There are 2.000+ privately owned 737 cockpits, with more than a couple being built every month.

 

War of thunder has 3 million players, that are obviously interested in WWII and dogfighting, you think we can't get 10% of them interested in a more hardcore level of that?

[mazex]

War of thunder has 3 million players, that are obviously interested in WWII and dogfighting, you think we can't get 10% of them interested in a more hardcore level of that?

 

Like I wrote in some other thread I think that it would be rather easy to get a number of those War Thunder pilots over to a sim like DCS WWII if some "fast and fun" multiplayer modes are added. And yes, all the hard core sim enthusiasts here naturally frown at an idea like that by lets look at why study sims have become a small niche when obviously War Thunder that is very far from an all out console arcade game is so successful?

 

I mean, War Thunder actually has a rather OK FM compared to the other arcade stuff we see with fancy looking Spitfires and gigantic explosions after one hit on PS3:s and Xbox:es. We "real nerds" feel that it's to "arcadish" and that the aircraft are not detailed enough etc - but it really is not THAT easy to be successful in War Thunder if you don't have a joystick and fly the planes with "real inputs", using rudders etc. So how hard would it really be for the people over there to fly a DCS plane instead? Probably not that hard, and after a while I guess they would appreciate that it behaves more realistic etc...?

 

But - in my opinion we need a serious high fidelity simulator like DCS WWII with the OPTION to fly in "cheesy" fast multiplayer modes that the 3 million players seem to like? There should naturally be the "normal" historically correct missions with 30 minutes before you even see an enemy too!

 

So - add the classic "Warbirds multiplayer mode" where you capture airfields by taking out the AAA and some other ground structures - and then drop paratroopers (the War Thunder mode of landing on a field to "capture it" is too cheesy for me at least). But don't copy the whole Warbirds concept there you have four sides with fancy colors that can use any plane etc. Have two sides with the correct equipment and planes.

 

And for the D-Day scenario - how about making a multiplayer mode where the map displays a number of "choke points" (with clearly marked flags). After the landing of troops on the invasion beach the "flags" closest to the beach start flashing and if you click the flag while in map mode it shows a list of the targets that you need to take out to "take it" - with the status of the "sub targets". The targets should naturally not be flashing on the map in the standard mode - but what the heck, if the option is there and it seems that the "arcade bunch" likes it that way - why not? And when you have taken one "sector" the maps adjacent to that one starts flashing - and you can make strategical decisions about which one to focus on. Maybe add some rudimentary "support line" system so that sectors that are "cut off from supply" are easier to "capture"? And when a sector with an airfield gets captured you can "spawn" from that base? Yes - it is a cheesy idea from a hard core perspective, but that is the point! ;) We now have hard evidence in the form of this Kickstarter campaign that there are too few people willing to support at study sim - we just have to face it?

 

Then it's up to the bombers/CAS aircraft to take out a number of clearly known things in that area. If it's a bridge flashing it's a no brainer what to destroy, if it's a rail junction you maybe have to take out some trains and some AAA defences etc. After the targets are down the area is captured by your side and the "front line moves".

 

For online a mode like could be a lot of fun if well implemented even for us hard core guys as an alternative, and I guess it could work good for off-line to?

 

But finally - this is all about getting more people to fund our own interests with having meticulously researched aircraft in a historically correct environment!

[Boris]

Thanks for posting those numbers. That certainly looks encouraging.

 

If DCS WWII delivers what it promises, then I don't see why it won't be the most successful WWII flight sim for years to come.

[PeroperoDokkiri]

DCS WWII will probably get the "most stiff KS campaign ever award" no matter what we say here.

Agreed 100%. We even make jokes about it on other flight sim boards. It's a shame, because as little as I personally care about WWII airplane sim, I wish the best for sim community, so I hoped You'd get another nice product to buy. Too bad CoD left so much bad memories, people are not forgeting the past that easily.

[Scarecrow]

...

+1 What he said.

 

@ Adonys If you think the moderators on here will be as lenient as the 1C mods were think again. KS isn't about slick PR campaigns, its about idea's and the DCSWWII idea has been proven to be marketable due to the fact that it worked. :smartass:

 

Are you really gonna spend the rest of your life chasing these men round the internet bashing them with your superior Dev/PR skills :smilewink:

[NoCarrier]

First of all—and this is the biggest reason why I think combat flight simulators will remain a niche genre—the potential audience is only a minority of a minority. How many gamers are potentially interested in playing a flight simulator of any kind? One in four? One in five? Whatever the exact number, it's bound to be a minority of the gaming community at large. Then, a large part of those interested people are just not into shooting things. They are perfectly content to load up their human mailing tube of choice in their modded-to-the-hilt X-Plane or FSX installations and fly from Heathrow to Frankfurt all day long. The flip side of that coin are the people who just want a no muss no fuss aerial deathmatch and "put the thing on the thing" and pull the trigger on another player, so they can claim their XP and be a little closer to the next tier of aircraft. Finally, we are left with a very small audience of medium to high fidelity combat flight simmers, who might or might not be interested in a high-fidelity WWII combat flight sim. Some of them might prefer a medium fidelity survey sim like Il-2 Sturmovik. Some of them are jet jockeys and not interested in flying WWII fighters at all. How large is the potential audience for a WWII combat flight sim of high fidelity? It can't be that large, not nearly as large as Ilya most likely thinks it is.

 

Yes, I think it's true that in the 1990s, the audience for flight simulators was larger, relatively speaking. Gaming was much more of a geek hobby back then, and the PC market share was much larger. Hardware limitations prevented flight simulators from growing too complex, especially in the early 90s. This is the golden age of PC flight simming that many of us remember so fondly. In the early 90s, we had both Lucasfilm's Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe and Dynamix' Aces Over... series, which were fun and accessible. The diehard simmers played Falcon 3.0 or Tornado, but whatever sim was played, it was probably played with mouse and keyboard. I don't remember many gamers having joysticks for their PCs even then, when they were more widespread than they are now. Then came the sims that were more complex than before, and could only sorta-kinda be played with the keyboard, like 1942: The Pacific Air War and EF2000. Finally, we get to the classic sims of the late 90s that are being modded and played even today—Falcon 4.0 for the jet jockeys and Il-2 Sturmovik for the propheads. It's at this point that a joystick became damn near required. This requirement for a proper control set-up, and the growing complexity of the combat flight sim, finally made it a niche genre.

 

I feel it's this additional hardware requirement that's the absolute biggest stumbling block for the flight sim genre today. Cheap HOTAS set-up—100 dollars. TrackIR 5—150 dollars. Set of rudder pedals—another 100 dollars. That's 350 dollars right there, a very steep investment for an interested gamer who's not even sure he's even going to like flight simming. I'm part of a large gaming community, and I've seen too many potential simmers try out DCS A-10C and be turned off by poor controls. They try the sim with an Xbox 360 controller or an old joystick if they have one, and they can't do it. With poorly suited controllers like those, the realistic flight modeling proves just too big a hurdle. As Ilya already admitted in a post around here, he doesn't know the answer to this problem. I think, as long as you'll need a 350 dollar setup before you can even hope to master the advanced flight modeling in modules like DCS P-51D, there'll never be a cheap solution to this problem. Maybe the flight sim will rise again when we can directly plug computers in our brain, but in the mean time, the smart solution would be to include some kind of autopilot functionality so that gamepad and simple joystick flyers can compete on a more or less equal footing. It's not an ideal solution—and yes, it's gamey—but it's better than the alternative, i.e. no customers at all.

But Ilya, if you're reading this, I'll tell you this much: the problem isn't the lack of a manual. Screw the manual. Nowadays, everyone's hitting Google the moment they hit a snag. Just put everything on an informative and properly structured wiki, with hyperlinking and plenty of illustrations, animations and videos, and you'll be set as far as the manual goes. Well designed training scenarios are nice, I suppose, but what we're really lacking in all commercial combat flight sims are multiplayer training tools! I'm talking about ACMI-like functionality, and multi-crew functionality that allows you to see a trainee's input. Design a training syllabus, get a a cadre of RRG-sanctioned volunteer instructors together, and start instructing. Or leave instructing to the many on-line virtual squadrons out there on the internet, but robust multiplayer is the way forward and all flight sim developers had better embrace it! There's this whole on-line community of enthusiasts out there, ready and willing to start instructing the newcomers. Give them the tools to do this, and press ED to fix the multiplayer side of DCS World posthaste. The current state of DCS multiplayer is nothing less than a disgrace.

Edited October 1, 2013 by NoCarrier

[Haukka81]

Curent sims (dcs) are way to sterile, thats the one big broblem that holds people.

 

Why learn something hard if there is nothing to use those new skills (good reason to learn, DC campaing, winman skill, morale etc.. ? )

[Chivas]

The future of combat flight sims looks very good. Warthunder is a decent sim for the arcade crowd. COD, BOS, and DCSWW2 will provide three different theaters of war for the simulation crowd. It will be interesting to see if Luthier will be able to develop a pilot training program that will attract more new users to the genre. Especially since DCS aircraft may be more technical than the other sims.

 

I don't have a problem with Luthier starting kickstarter early in the development, as its the perfect venue to start, judge his market, and make adjustments according to the kickstarter feedback. Its quite laugable that people are critizing the development for changing rewards based on customer feedback. The same people would critize them if they didn't adjusting the rewards. Especially since there is very little change to the actual development plan, its primarily reward changes. The only development changes would have happened if kickstarter monies had allowed the hiring of more personel to facilitate more content earlier.

 

The fact that the sim was being built on an existing game engine, with a working example of a P51, and screenshots of the capabilities of the new EDGE graphic engine should have given people more than enough info on how the sim might play out, and pledge accordingly.

 

It should have been obvious to people why there was little actual DCSWW2 content to show, or why Luthier wasn't able to mention the IL-2 successes made by Oleg and himself. It just made me shake my head when people wondered why Luthier couldn't do promo videos that included images of the original IL-2, and COD, when individuals like Mystic etc were able to do so.

 

It will be tough to complete four more aircraft, and the terrain in a year, but they don't have an unfinished game engine eating up resources. Which was the elephant in the room with COD, so they have a chance, but there are always delays in this very complex work.

[Merlin-27]

The future of combat flight sims looks very good...

 

Well written. I think you expressed some excellent points.

[adonys]

some fast points, as I don't have time for more atm:

- it was obvious (at least to me), than when I was talking about the "whole flight simmers number" as being around 2k (ie DCS WWII KS supporters) I was meaning WWII flight simmers

- IL2 CoD sold more (nearly 1 mil, if you say so), because.. guess what? it was advertised and sold on Steam, and it had awesome graphics (see point a)). it could have even better graphics, and it could have sold even more because of that.. difference between AAA and AAA+ graphics (mostly immersion and effects)

- War Thunder is the living proof that the number of players willing to play a WWII themed game is in the number of millions, one just needs to correctly identify WHAT made them play and pay for WT, and not for RoF/IL2 CoD/IL2 BoS/DCS WWII and add that in the same basket with a flight sim core, in order to have it all together. That's why I've posted my thoughts above, as it seems no WWII flight sim developer was able to figure them out yet.

- the additional input devices needed for a good flight sim will be almost completely solved by the Occulus Rift (virtual reallity + head tracking), XboxOne (head tracking + gestures + vocal commands) and maybe.. Star Citizen (basic joystick for most of its customers). Even if Star Citizen players having joysticks won't be too numerous, the investment for a decent joystick is less than 100$.

- making gamepads usable for decent flight control is a MUST (as the number of gamepads out-there is huge - ie all consoles plus a good number of PC players)

- aircraft control additional automatic systems, allowing beginners use the keyboard only, keyboard + mouse or a gamepad are a MUST

 

And lastly, I'm not bashing anyone. I'm just saying what I do believe, and I will say it again even here and now: Ilya's past projects outcome it more than enough evidence that the man is not a good project manager. Look at IL2 Pacific Fighters, RRG's never launched Coreea/Vietnam IL2 based flight sim, IL2 Cliffs of Dover and now the KS campaign. Maybe it was all circumstantial (and for IL2 CoD it was at least partial circumstantial), but it seems there's no contra-example from him..at least not yet.

 

Saying the truth is not bashing, even if it's a hard truth. Recognizing the current problems and proposing solutions to overcome them is the only way towards making WWII flight sims viable as games. A thing I'm sure ALL of us really want to happen. And would help to happen. And even more, even if I do not believe Ilya will be able to pull it off (above a barely acceptable state), I am still backing the DCS WWII. Because I LOVE WWII flight sims, and as long as there's hope, no matter how fragile, I'm a sucker for it.

 

I've bought RoF and most of its aircrafts, even if I've barely opened it. I've bought DCSW P51-D, even if, again, I've barely opened it. I've pre-ordered the premium IL2 BoS even if I hate 1C for pulling the plug on IL2CoD and actually blocking the community fix it (by not releasing the code to the community, it seems at the express request of 777). Again, I've supported DCS WWII, even if I do not believe that Ilya is able to ever pull good project management until the end of a project. Because I LOVE WWII flight sims.

 

Games like War Thunder and Star Citizen and their success are really giving me hope and prove that there IS a future for the WWII flight sim. There's only the need of some really good developer to figure out these things, pick up the gauntlet and make it happen!

 

PS: and btw, I still believe IL2CoD is better and has the greatest potential from all of them, present or future. And it had reached this state, and will be further improved, only due to a really loving and hard working WWII flight sim community.

[mazex]

 

Yes, I think it's true that in the 1990s, the audience for flight simulators was larger, relatively speaking. Gaming was much more of a geek hobby back then, and the PC market share was much larger. Hardware limitations prevented flight simulators from growing too complex, especially in the early 90s. This is the golden age of PC flight simming that many of us remember so fondly. In the early 90s, we had both Lucasfilm's Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe and Dynamix' Aces Over... series, which were fun and accessible. The diehard simmers played Falcon 3.0 or Tornado, but whatever sim was played, it was probably played with mouse and keyboard. I don't remember many gamers having joysticks for their PCs even then, when they were more widespread than they are now. Then came the sims that were more complex than before, and could only sorta-kinda be played with the keyboard, like 1942: The Pacific Air War and EF2000. Finally, we get to the classic sims of the late 90s that are being modded and played even today—Falcon 4.0 for the jet jockeys and Il-2 Sturmovik for the propheads. It's at this point that a joystick became damn near required. This requirement for a proper control set-up, and the growing complexity of the combat flight sim, finally made it a niche genre.

 

Even though I think it's a good resume of the golden era of flight sims I can't believe that you actually played the Dynamix series etc with a keyboard/mouse? I am pretty sure the majority of the people in the golden era used joysticks. I remember buying my CH Flightstick in 1990 or so for the original Red Baron - and when 1942/EF2000 came out I don't think that many dedicated sim pilots played them with keyboard? When I was studying at the University in early/mid 90:ies we where a bunch that flew sims (and we where poor students). Not one of us would dream of flying with keyboard. We did not have rudders so that was mapped to keys - accept one guy who had ch pedals.

 

But those where the days ;)

 

But I fully agree that even though it hurts to say it, there has to be support for the ones connecting their Xbox controllers to their PC to use it and get a feel for a real simulator before buying a real setup. And like I said above - I am pretty sure we "need" more fast paced multiplayer "action" modes even in the study sims to get people to give them a chance. Sometimes on Hyperlobby playing IL2 you can feel the pain and potential loss of a "could be community member" when you shoot some poor rookie down 5 times in a row and you then get a "TurboSuperWings has left the game"... And I'm not that good compared to the real "experten" :) Below average I'd say - but when someone who has not played sims for decades get in there it must hurt a lot - especially as they never realize what is the objective etc and just fly around getting shot down. And it's really our loss!

[Keyser]

- it was obvious (at least to me), than when I was talking about the "whole flight simmers number" as being around 2k (ie DCS WWII KS supporters) I was meaning WWII flight simmers

 

Nono, I think we got you on that, it's still a ridiculous statement. If you want to think about the whole WW2 flight simming community, think hundreds of thousands, not a few thousand.

 

- IL2 CoD sold more (nearly 1 mil, if you say so), because.. guess what? it was advertised and sold on Steam, and it had awesome graphics (see point a)). it could have even better graphics, and it could have sold even more because of that.. difference between AAA and AAA+ graphics (mostly immersion and effects)

 

I'm getting the feeling you are overly quick to jump to such conclusions. "X had good graphics, X sold a lot of copies, therefore X sold a lot of copies because it had good graphics". I'm sorry, but that faulty logic doesn't prove your point at all. CoD likely sold as well as it did for the most part because of the goodwill that IL2 and 1946 garnered for 1C. I wouldn't claim to know for sure, but your simplistic view is certainly doing the flight sim community a disservice.

 

- War Thunder is the living proof that the number of players willing to play a WWII themed game is in the number of millions, one just needs to correctly identify WHAT made them play and pay for WT, and not for RoF/IL2 CoD/IL2 BoS/DCS WWII and add that in the same basket with a flight sim core, in order to have it all together. That's why I've posted my thoughts above, as it seems no WWII flight sim developer was able to figure them out yet.

 

War Thunder is not a game like RRG are trying to make. There's planes in it, but that's about it as far as similarities go. You might as well bring up Battlefield 1942 as an example of a well-received "WWII themed game", it's about as helpful. Catering to the lowerst common denominator in the high-fidelity study sim market is a one-way trip to Failureville. Everybody will agree that arcade air combat games sell better, but the solution to the current drought in flight simulations can't be to make future games less and less like actual flight sims.

 

- the additional input devices needed for a good flight sim will be almost completely solved by the Occulus Rift (virtual reallity + head tracking), XboxOne (head tracking + gestures + vocal commands) and maybe.. Star Citizen (basic joystick for most of its customers). Even if Star Citizen players having joysticks won't be too numerous, the investment for a decent joystick is less than 100$.

 

You might well be right about that, time will tell.

 

- making gamepads usable for decent flight control is a MUST (as the number of gamepads out-there is huge - ie all consoles plus a good number of PC players)

- aircraft control additional automatic systems, allowing beginners use the keyboard only, keyboard + mouse or a gamepad are a MUST

 

Additional options are always nice, sure.

 

Games like War Thunder and Star Citizen and their success are really giving me hope and prove that there IS a future for the WWII flight sim. There's only the need of some really good developer to figure out these things, pick up the gauntlet and make it happen!

 

See, when you say stuff like that... People playing DCS are likely a specific kind of gamer, i.e. those that enjoy mid- to high-fidelity flight simulations. The games you mention may be fun, but they are not high-fidelity flight simulations. They are games of a different genre. As for Star Citizen, I will judge for myself after it comes out, but War Thunder is more like an arcade air combat game. It's hard to see how those games can ensure the future of WWII flight sims, if they aren't really WWII flight sims to begin with. Heck, World of Warplanes may be a blast to play, but it's not going to bring the revival of WWII flight sims significantly closer in my opinion.

[hegykc]

War Thunder is not a game like RRG are trying to make. There's planes in it, but that's about it as far as similarities go.

 

 

Isn't there a difference in every plane in WoT. So you still need to know that a zero will out turn you in a P-47. That a 109 will out climb you in a spit.

 

That a cannon is more deadly than your Spitfire bean shooter. But it has slower rate of fire so you better be more accurate to compensate for it.

 

I don't play it, so I don't know about other details such as prop pitch, mixture, flaps, stall and all...

 

I think a game like that can be a VERY good school for DCS.

 

I remember my first Il-2 experience. All I know about planes is they can move in 3d space, that's about it. Now why can't I catch a plane 1000 feet ahead of me and 2000 feet above me??? What the hell is prop pitch and mixture.

And not to even mention real world tactics like turn 'n' burn or boom 'n' zoom.

Energy management, that's quantum physics.

 

Getting a twist rudder joystick is the easiest part of the "getting them to play DCS" mission.

 

I think Ilya hit the nail on the head on that one. It's about getting them educated in aviation skills, in a fun way because it'll take time.

Forget about trackir, you could also claim it's needed for FPS. Because once you try it you can't do without it. So will be oculus rift or some "gun" controllers that come in the future.

 

People have been flying with just a twist rudder joystick for decades and that is ALL you need to start enjoying the basic thrills of full real flying.

What would be very helpful is curvature setup for different joysticks so newcomers don't end up in flames for trying basic maneuvering.

Edited October 2, 2013 by hegykc

[Keyser]

Isn't there a difference in every plane in WoT. So you still need to know that a zero will out turn you in a P-47. That a 109 will out climb you in a spit.

 

That a cannon is more deadly than your Spitfire bean shooter. But it has slower rate of fire so you better be more accurate to compensate for it.

 

I don't play it, so I don't know about other details such as prop pitch, mixture, flaps, stall and all...

 

I agree that it's definitely not as clear cut as I made it sound in my previous post - there is obviously a continuum with many greyscales between something like the A-10C and something like HAWX.

Personally, I just put the bar a little higher for something to be called "simulation". In Counterstrike an AK-47 does more damage than a Glock and has a higher rate of fire than an AWP, but I wouldn't call Counterstrike a ground combat simulator. I would reserve that for something like the (properly modded) Arma games.

 

Anyways, my point wasn't to bash War Thunder. I'm sure it's a lot of fun. I was saying that it's not really helpful to tell a developer of a high-fidelity sim and the high-fidelity sim community: "Look at all these low-fidelity sims! Just become more like them and all the problems will be solved"... Yeah, except the one where we lose the most central aspect of why we play the high-fidelity sims in the first place.

[hegykc]

Don't worry, it's not about bashing this or that.

It's about dissecting good and bad from both, and combing the best of both worlds.

 

My point regarding WoT was that it's player base wouldn't be completely lost in DCS. Many of them, certainly not 3 million, but if only even 10%, have very good basics for graduating up to a more hardcore sim. And they probably have the hardware needed.