Cas141, I too have thought back to this thread as the discussion around Wings of War continues, and as we dance around the issue of what hooks new players to a gaming genre, as well as what keeps established gamers in a genre happy.

Call it a bit of foreshadowing, but the very points made in this discussion here have preceeded the release of WoW, and are especially appropriate now after its release!

Perhaps the most important thing for all of us simmers to admit to ourselves, is that our interest evolve over time, and that we don't always need ever increasing levels of difficulty to be able to take our next sim experience seriously, but that things like playability and balance, and feature sets can have just as much impact on our enjoyment level as increases made to perceived "realism".

I once had a discussion with a cost accounting manager here at the automotive plant I work at, and it revolved around customer satisfaction and perceived levels of build quality. I insisted that manufactures like Toyota have acheived the level of customer satisfaction they enjoy because they have attempted not only to satisfy the customer's expectations, but that they routinely attempt to exceed those expectations! Now our cost manager insisted "we give the customer what he wants", and if he's not complaining about something, then we have met those expectations. I again insisted that this is not enough, that the competition will always win against an attitude like this, because if the competition continually exceeds the customer's expectations, then they will earn greater customer loyalty because they incorporate things that the customer doesn't even know to expect, but once made aware of will be grateful to have benefitted from nonetheless!

It's called driving the marketplace, and it doesn't only apply to automobile manufacturing.

There's many hidden features and design ideas that reside in a successful computer game, or within the build of a combat flight sim. We as customers may not always be aware of these features, but they are often reflected through an overall sense of game playability/replayability, immersiveness, and the degree of fun we enjoy from the gaming experience.

I'm going to give Wings of War a try, even though my first reactions against the game's marketer once led me to call for a boycott of the product because KOE apparently had been dropped as a result.

Yes, sometimes we have to admit there are things we might not know we even want.........or are unaware that we eventually want!

LOL......tryin' not to be that "old dog".............and maybe there's a few tricks we all can stand to learn, if we just give em a chance (that is).