I've bought and played almost all the combat flight sims since Dynamix's Aces Over The Pacific. In my opinion, the sim with the best multiplayer format has been Red Baron 3D.

Please don't get too fancy with K.O.E. multiplayer. Take a good look at R.B.3D Mmp. It just provides a place, a front line, and things to blow up, or defend. That's all that's needed to provide a healthy environment for the players and squads to develope their own rules for squad wars, and developement.

Provide a melee arena for folks who like that, and you've got it all. If you can do that, I'm sure that you can count on buyers from all my fine friends who've played Red Baron 3D.

The R.B. MMP format has provided the most freedom for player inovation than any sim I have flown. Please, please give us that that and I'm sure that dollars, pounds, and marks will flow your way.

J37 Zoltan Magyar

I'd like to see KOE's multiplayer game support mission based encounters. This somewhat akin to the co-op mode in 1st-person action games.

This type of online format would allow for a fully active arena where the AI would assume the part of aircraft crews not fleshed out by players.

In this way we would have a more diverse, filled, and realistic aerial world where Corps aircraft are going about their required missions whether there are human players to fly these craft or not.

Think RB campaign, but online!

As long as it has what FB has (dogfight and co-op) when it comes to multiplayer I'm quite happy. More advanced stuff like persistent worlds and what have you would be great, but I'd rather see them complete the game on time and on budget.

If given a choice I'd rather see the resources spent on graphics, flight models, more aircraft, and bug squashing. More advanced features can be added later in an update, addon, or even (shudder) sequel. In other words I prefer the LOMAC/FB approach to the Falcon 4 one.

I agree with zoltan.
The red baron multiplayer interface is simple and works great.The multiplayer arena and scenario is likewise simple...if its not complicated it cant be wrong...after all you will already have two career single play modes to mess with so lets not mess multiplayer up.

But as in rb the ability to create servers and choose planes must be there.I wouldnt like to see a situation where all planes were availiable all the time.You must be able to exclude any type you want to.

It is inevetable that after koes release one or two types will be superior in multiplayer, the ability must be there to choose which types you want in your server to make it fair or authentic.

Please dont include mission based encounters in multiplay, if you want a career or missions stick to single play.The two musn`t be confused.

With a console with a decent report and command set, not large just decent, and active log/input file capabilities there will be people who will provide campaign generators and melee server engines. Ummmm --- the missions need to run off text script files as well.

Commands:
-----------------------------------------------
Stats; all kinds on trigger - output to the log.
Load; mission on trigger - without kicking players off the server.
Run; external program on trigger.
Read; external script as commands on trigger.

Kick; player on trigger.
Ban; player on trigger.
Message; player or group on trigger.

Set Properties - for trigger conditions or other parameters.
-----------------------------------------------

Triggers? Direct host interaction. Lag detection. Abusive language (parse and compare to short list from user supplied file). Mission goals met. Timer reached zero. Hotkey pressed. Other sim-internal conditions.

================================================

With that much, there will be some very impressive dynamic engines made available not only soon after release but in an ongoing manner and getting better as time goes by and without any time needed by the development team as long as the interface works properly.

It's not just Maddox Games that's done these kinds of things either. ID was at it long ago!


Neal

Binky, I'm surprised you feel this way:

Furballing is great fun, but the real air war was based on fullfilling Army/Corps-level mission requirements, and without the Corps craft to do this work there's no apparent necessity for fighter squadrons to be battling it out above the trenches.

If you don't include the rationale for the air war, which was the tasking of army co-operation missions, well then what is the aerial combat simulating?

Let me explain,
While i totally agree with you the reason for the planes being there was the war on the ground, i wouldnt mind seeing ground action and aa fire in multiplay BUT not ai plane interference.
I dont want a situation to develop where i cant go 1 to 1 with someone or fly squad against squad without the game adding planes or changing the outcome by itself.
The point of multiplayer traditionally is that the input comes from the online players alone,i`m going to be pretty pissed off if im trying to dogfight a friend and an ai plane pops up and joins in .
I may be wrong but i think this is the sort of thing they were talking about implementing on the bop site.A world where everything interacts online...blah...blah....
Ive thought very hard about how they would achieve such a thing and i believe its almost impossible given different timelines etc.
Well no thanks..i want my online experience to be exactly that, an ONLINE EXPERIENCE where real folks play against each other and may the best man win.
There are two single play modes planned for this game already , lets keep the online part truly ONLINE.

Well there's certainly no reason not to have a number of multiplayer modes available in KOE either.

Frankly, after I delve into a sim's single player missions and campaign for the experience, it's the online play that ends up retaining my interest in the long run for any sim or shooter. With a 4-PC home-LAN, my buds and I crave to fight the action/sim games that allow cooperative play so we can function as a tactical "unit", whether we're gunnin' it out against insurgents, or are up there hunting for the Hun. Now I'm sure lots of simmers get into online squads for the very same reasons that motivates my group.........for organization, realism, and control! Still furball arenas or head-to-head bang-ups offer a mixed bag when it comes to finding organized team-play! In fact, sometimes a well-crafted AI enemy can offer more realistic maneuvering and competition than some of their warm-blooded counterparts do!

There's a whole host of reasons (no pun intended) why more involved multiplayer formats could or should be considered for KOE. I certainly agree with you Binky, that extraneous features shouldn't be allowed to slow down Aspect's timely work on KOE, but establishing the sim's core feature-set to me is more important than say getting hundreds of aircraft models available for release day.

Cooperative multiplayer modes are nothing new in the online sim world of course.........EAW did it well years ago for example, and IL-2 and FB have incorporated AI-controlled and mission-oriented action for us nowadays to enjoy..............no reason KOE couldn't do the same.

Hey, at least I'd like the choice!

im sure that no one is against choice..but if multiplay is the type you describe only its taking my choice away.

Binky,

Head-to-head multiplay, and Team H2H are probably the easiest online formats to implement (I would guess).

H2H will be in KOE I'm sure!