Well, sorry to hear that getting shot down immediately turned you off. It's tough dealing with a vulture, but it doesn't usually go unnoticed for long and you'll (usually) have help soon enough. If it happens 10 times in a row, well, start looking for better teammates, not easier competition.
Once you finally do get off the ground and climb, you'll be able to start making things harder for the habitual vulture by hanging out above the field (maybe in the clouds).

Or maybe you'll get shot down that way too, but at least you'll be playing defense. It might help if you look at the experience from the perspective of game versus competition. It's obviously fun for that person to shoot an aircraft as it's taking off. Perhaps at your expense (for a while), but what's wrong with that? They couldn't have that kind of fun without your help. So, keep smiling, dust yourself off and keep giving others the gift of a flaming crate that was piloted by a real human. Eventually, you'll start getting yours.

Ya think?! Do I appear bitter? What can I do to do more than simply appear bitter? Perhaps I could buy you a plane ticket so you could come here and taste me. I am completely bitter. I assure you... This bitterness I've attempted to convey about my brief yet wholely unsatisfying multi-player experience is not merely appearance.

Let me be extremely clear, however, that I did NOT at any point make any insinuation about cheating. I don't like that someone twisted my comments in that direction.



Pardon me, but I missed the requirement to make oneself out to be "much of a combat sim fan" before posting comments here. And my comments were about the sim experience, not personal toward any individual. However, as you have directed your comments at me personally, allow me to enlighten you.

I see that you have three whole sims listed under your tag. And two of them are actually combat sims! Very exciting! Come talk to me when your list of combat sims is well over 30. And when your sim stick time is in the tens of thousands of hours. And when you've served as Commanding Officer of no less than two different established squadrons. And when your ex-wife blames flight sims as the primary reason for your divorce.

Oh yeah, and you list "a lot of real world flying :)". [Nice job on the smily face, by the way.] We won't even go there, except to say if you want to compare xxxxx length, all I can offer is 22 years (and counting) real world military experience. Beyond that, I have to add that if I had the opportunity to fly real world, I'd not be wasting my time here.

I'm more than a "fan" of combat flight sims. It's a full-bore unhealthy obsession. The key word being simulation... an attempt to replicate or reproduce the combat flight experience. What I'm not a fan of is the online death-quake arcade experience, in which (as it was so elequently put by Inrptrn) "some dude named pimpslayer5000 is going to kill you in exactly 1.3 seconds."

That is not combat flight simulation. It's arcade gaming, and worthy of every bit of recognition as Super Mario Kart or Madden 2009.



Well, thanks for the encouragement, though I have more constructive and rewarding things to do this morning. Like trim my nose hair.

I hate the on-line options currently offered but if it makes you feel better the average life expectancy at it's worst for a WW1 pilot was 17.2 minutes

Reference

Hehe, fair enough! I'm surprised to hear that dogfight mode is even an option. I thought that co-op was the extent of it.

I've got just a couple more days to go before I can start playing target. This vacation has been bittersweet for sure.

"If it's available to everyone then it is not necessarily a cheat to use it."

Ah, the good old "bat turn" discussion ;-)))

Concerning this problem, the question, FOR A SIMULATION, is not if something is available to everyone or not, the question is to know if it was possible or not in the reality. If something, availabe to everyone, was not possible in the reality, again IN A SIMULATION, it should be avoided, of course if one is more interested in simming than in points chasing.

Btw, dogfight servers are unhappily usually pretty boring and useless and it's time that a serious developers cares of an online system WITH objectives.

I've never found MP dogfight servers much fun anyway so would never even bother to join one.
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The problem, again, is while the pure dogfight servers are so often boring, because they are only used as points-chasing arenas without any interest in the tactical aspects, is that playing again his own pc is even more boring.
We just need developers caring of servers WITH objectives.

Those type experiences are very frustrating, but good coops beat hands down retreating to play with ones self in SP.

"I thought that co-op was the extent of it."

Another problem, if the dogfight servers are so often uninteresting except for ego-chasers, the co-op servers are also boring in the fact that they are mainly reserved to squadrons and fact is that the obligation to belong to a squadron has too many über-boring aspects with it.

The best thing would be to have dogfight servers with objectives, a little bit in the way like a game in America's Army.

...and any exploits available.
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Btw, the concept of "exploiting" a game is just silly in a SIMULATION.
Even if an exploit is not a cheat, an exploit should be, in a ideal gaming world, be openly described and, as soon as possible, be corrected by the developer, always with this spirit in mind "to mimic the reality as much as it is technically possible".

That why I have been of the big mouthes against the bat turn, when it was ruining online games.

Agreed. Or at least a co-op mode where, if you're shot down, you can simply jump into the next available aircraft.

It seems like it took a while for IL-2 multiplay to evolve to the dogfight servers (w/ objectives) of today, so perhaps we won't have to wait so long for the WWI equivalent.

I don't understand the waiting until then end of the round part of this. That doesn't sound like dogfight at all. If what HH is describing is actually co-op, then he's the victim of poor mission design.