If you start catering to that market with all of the crazy on screen explosions, and high paced action, you're also going to garner the attention of gamers that think that after x number of kills without dying or getting so many points they should receive a free "upgrade." I play BF3, played BF2, and with BF3 you get your base kit and then as you do well and progress you get better kits. Same with CS:Source in a way, do better and get more money to buy more.

That drives a lot of those quick paced high intensity games. Apparently something World of Planes would be going for.

Basically, I doubt they'd buy more planes - they'd expect to get them for free after so many points.

The mode I am referring to wouldn't be aimed at you or any other member of this site. It would be to get NEW people into flight simming...

Then think of how you got into flight simming. For me it was through FS2, then Jet and F16 Combat Pilot on to 1942:PAW and RB2. I didn't get here through playing Afterburner.

To get new people into flight simming, you need a good flight sim, not an action game. Easily scaleable options from relaxed to expert, and the freedom to try things out (i.e., not having to do a mission over and over until you destroy a particular truck so you can get to the next level).

RoF does this pretty well. Sure, some things can be made more accessible/entertaining. I already mentioned an overal AI skill setting and an action camera. Another thing could be tooltips ("Your guns are jammed. Press R to unjam and don't fire more than 3sec bursts") because let's face it, the acting in the tutorials is a bit hard to stomach And finally, an option to advance time and ignore the results of a failed career mission. This day-by-day, dead-is-dead business can be rather tedious

From my experience, non-simmers have a different view of what is "real" and what is "hard." To them, you shouldn't have to worry about crashing your plane. A plane that's hard to fly isn't a hard game, it's an un-fun game. They think of hard as multiple enemies, dodging weapons fire, difficult objectives, etc. Scenarios that are rarely realistic and if they are more often that not were slaughters for one side.
"Real" to them usually means "looks like a movie" which is often their only point of reference. Few can argue that the least realistic console flight shooter still looks a lot better than most of the sims we've been flying for the last 10 years. To people used to watching Jurassic Park, getting them to sit and watch a Ray Harryhausen stop-motion animated flick and believe it just isn't going to happen. They will be unable to make the leap to simming with lesser graphics, they need it to be equivalent in appearance.

The biggest problem is usually there is no middle ground. You have your "flight games" where it's easy to fly but hard to fight and live, and you have your sims where it's hard to fly and often a LOT harder to fight let alone survive against just a couple of enemies. Few have been able to find a formula that can sit in the middle.



The Jedi Master

I think you guys think this will be like a gateway drug to get more people to invest money in our sims.

I'm not sure it will work that way.

What is the conversion rate for HAWX players who look for more? Air Combat? Ace Combat?

It's like martial arts. YOU might learn the most from getting you butt kicked, but other people might just want to watch it on the movie screen, and then kick butt themselves in a video game.

I'm saying that people that want to play Ace Combat and HAWX are right where they want to be. I'm not sure a light version will get the sim world more members. Simmers are a different breed, its not that you have unlocked the true depth of available gaming, you are seeking a different experience. I've watched people play Angry Birds. That's a special kind of time wasting there. See, I played it once, it wasn't a gateway to anything more eyerolling myself.

You and I, we might have played f-15 Strike Eagle, or Airborne Ranger on the Commodore, or one of the Jane Titles, and thought "Yes, this felt so good and real. I remember how exciting it was to fly from LA to Boston on some flight game in my dad's compaq, i would run over and check my dials, while reading the manual. It was a 4 hour flight.

"I would check my dials while reading the manual."

I guarentee you, most regular people would roll their eyes at that comment.

So, if you can easily Mod ROF to make it have 100 planes fly out of no where with unlimited machine guns and rockets and you never die and there is a hud with flashing triangles, and it will get ROF more money so that they can make our favorite sim even better, go for it! But if you think you can make more simmers by tricking them into having fun... one in a million baby. You know that you areieare.

I think you are right, but the idea is also valid if more people just buy RoF for the bling gaming and then want more planes to play in... But maybe they won't CARE about different planes... Ooops.

You really need to make your arcade mode comparable with a gamepad. If people like the sim then they may invest in a joystick.

Just make sure every DR1 is painted solid red.

Okay, except for one that is black.

I agree with the OP.

I think that there is room for a combat flight game/sim/whatever that plays like Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe did. SWotL wasn't silly. The flying was simple and the campaign required some thought. And it was a lot of fun.

Some folks just want to steer the plane around with a modicum of performance accuracy while they indulge in the fun parts of a flight sim i.e. the bombing and gunnery.

ROF is already playable with a gamepad. When I downloaded the demo I didn't have a flight stick so I used my xbox 360 controller and it worked fine.