Maybe folks who are getting WOFF now would like to offer their first impressions in common thread so everyone else who is interested could kind of get the gist who what people think about it in one common place? Make it as brief or as long and detailed as you like.

I've posted my impressions before but I will start the thread.

The graphics are a really big jump from OFF, especially the scenery. The scenery gives a wonderful sense of depth and the illusion of height and distance. Remarkable work there. Very detailed, working cockpits. All now consistent with it being an empty cockpit. None of the planes have the virtual pilot in them as some did in OFF. Good consistency there. The aircraft themselves are also well done. You can see a big improvement over the texture quality of OFF.

The Damage Model is a very welcome leap forward. Now your plane can take damage and still fight on admirably unless the pilot gets wounded, the engine taken out or substantial damage is done to the control surfaces. So too though can the AI, which is great. If you don't hit meat or metal, you might be putting a lot of rounds into an aircraft before taking it down. Nice graphical representation of damage to the planes as well. Holes in the fabric, broken wing spares exposed, wings that come off and float down seperate from the plane. Very immersive!

The AI can be very challenging. You get some easy kills now and then, but most often you must work very hard for what kills you manage to make. You won't be mowing down enemy aircraft 5 and 6 at a time in WOFF. They have much better evasive maneuvers and more importantly, they decide how to react based on a whole pile of factors instead of simply working from a small scripted bag of tricks.

The Campaign is fantastic. It offers a ton of options on how you wish to fly, what, where and for whom. Great training option to start off with for maximum realism, if you like but it is optional. An amazing number of historically researched squadrons to choose from, both scout and recon two seaters. Good mission variety and best of all, what happens in the air is reflected upon the ground. Saving your wingmen makes sense because the longer you keep them alive, the better they get and the more effective your squadron becomes. Making rank by completing your missions has a real bonus now, because the higher ranks get awarded the better planes first.

The sound effects are top notch and of course you can customize if you want realistically loud engine noise or have louder effects for a more "Hollywood style" experience. Matts musical score is great and really helps to get you in the mood to fly in the great war. Stirring, respectful, patriotic and somber all at various stages.

The overall "gameplay" experience is an extremely positive one for me. It was a long wait but I feel it has been worth it. An incredible amount of thought and effort has been put into bringing WOFF to life and it shows. What are the thoughts of others who are now flying it for the first time?

Installation was smooth, game is running fine.
Yes, the detail and graphics are a huge improvement over OFF. Just done the start of a career in 1916, doing the training missions, the first one as a passenger only, unfortunately the game would not allow me to end the mission and progress...
The GUI and interface are big improvements also.
Trackir works smoothly, all good...
A good positive start on first look, apart from the glich at the end of the mission.

Ending mission is ctrl+Q

cheers

Is there any other WOFF forum because I am shocked at the lack of "first impressions" here.

Having trouble pulling my jaw up off the floor...no time to write...just freaking amazing.

It,s probably because everyone is Flying Lanzfeld

I have already started a thread on this earlier today.

Just d/l WOFF..easy install..no problems whatever.

Started a training mission..this is just an epic piece of work!!
Devs..amazing job. Many thanks,

BTW..running XP, dual core, Nvidia 670TI..all looks and runs fine.

Regards,
Royce

Hard time getting it downloaded, Tried twice at home and they both failed after a couple hundred megs. Finally went over to work and downloaded it there and brought it back home. Took a while to load, but got it loaded, patched and tried it out.

Of course had to do the training portion of the campaign. Love the menus and campaign manager. Very nice! Well made and have a lot extra to them that draw you right in where OFF might not of. Like the layout of the workshop, like that you can change the graphics without leaving the game to the CFS3 graphics sliders.

Tried to launch my first training mission, got the sound effects of contact etc, never took me to a splash screen and would not load up the sim. Had wiped OFF and CFS3 from the computer prior to loading, figured it might be a problem the first time it launches the CFS3 portion, so restarted and away it went.

First time sitting on the ground ready for my trainer to take off, unimpressed, pretty bland landscape around the aircraft - for about 3 seconds until all the textures loaded, then I was amazed at how different and much better it was compared to OFF!!! Seems like it is a completely different game, very immersive feel to it compared to the last few missions I flew in OFF last week and the week before. Everything just looked different and so much better!!! I saw lots of preview movies and screen shots, but it doesn't mean anything until you bring it up on your own computer.

Did the 2 training missions with the instructor flying and then did the one where you follow him. Got too close to him when we were landing and tried to turn away and stalled, just about pulled out but clipped a tree and crashed. hit Cntrl-Q to end it and hit enter to end, got a black screen with the windows error tone dinging every second or so. tried switching screens, was able to get back to the campaign manager, but it was still dinging until I managed to click the quit button. Not sure what was going on.

Can't wait to try it some more tomorrow, hopefully neither of my 2 issues keep occurring.

Just got 20 min of flight time in a Strutter this night because after the instalation was finished it was allready 01.40am!
What I recognized: WoFF looks even on 52255 settings awesome. My NVidia 560ti has only 1GB of memory and doesn't
match even the minimum requirements for WoFF. But everythings run super smooth without any issues
or ctd. Even within this short 20min flight in the Strutter I was totaly impressed by the vast
and enourmous atmosphere WoFF creates! The scenery looks even on 52255 amazing. The cockpit of
the strutter was a beauty. The great sound which creates tons of atmosphere. Just passed a rolling train
and became goosebumps!
Im looking totaly forward to todays evening to get back in this immersive world.
Try out lots of stuff and start a career. Check out if 53355 will also work with my ancient videocard,
because this was set by default but I lowered the settings for the first try.

Sitting at my work and dream a dream of Flanders...

I have only had a couple of 'quick scenario' flys so far, but running very smooth at 53355 settings with an old Intel E8400 processor and a nVidia 570 vid-card.

In my one encounter with AI, they were deadly. I felt like a novice pilot in his first combat (that's a good thing).

Everything looks beautiful. Loving it so far!

Had a couple of flights today and really do enjoy the atmosphere and landscape of this beautiful sim! I was intenting to upgrade at least my graphicscar,d a Radeon 4870, but it handles WOFF smoothly, 5-4-4-5-5- setting with 60 fps, so I leave it like that for the time beeing, but have to look how it turns out in busier campaign missions... Anyhow WOFF runs smoother than OFF, must be the good programming, very well done, devs!

The scenery is a beauty, it's good fun to do low level flying alone and scare some cows...

Well done, worth the wait!

I purchased, downloaded, and installed it smoothly and without incident. I've only run it for 10 minutes or so, but thus far it's stable, fast, and very pretty. TrackIR works like a charm, and it worked without my having to download any additional game files. And the wind is a killer

Well done.

DKM

Only played for 10 minutes (was 2:00am by the time i'd downloaded and installed)..all went smoothly, was pleased that my GTX 560TI is up to the Job.
Need a bit of time to sort out the new Key/View structure, but that will come. Not tried Dogfight yet, but flew the Snipe in formation...looked fab!

Teeny-Weeny little gripe.... I wish the Desktop icon was not the same as OFF. (I will find a suitable replacement no doubt)

Was very impressed by the GUI..and the Music too

Hi All

Not downloaded yet, was going to wait a couple of days to let the servers cool down!!

Anyway if this thread's going to be used it would be helpful if people could add their computer specs? This would help put some context on performance.

Many thanks

Regards

Q

Quoth has a good point about mentioning computer specs. Mine is an i7-3930K 64 bit Win 7 system with 32 gb of ram and a GTX 780 ti.

Have to ask...where is the "HelP" file tutorial that used to exist in OFF when you pressed "F1"?

My first impression is simply "WOW"!!!!! I am very impressed!!!!!

After a few minor issues with WOFF quickly resolved by the OBD Team (Outstanding Customer Service and Response Time, many thanks), tweaks on the graphics card and WOFF workshop (thank you again for the advice Hellshade), I am in awe of what has been accomplished with CFS3 backbone. I am truly immersed in a world and war that has past us by from an earlier generation. The scenery is amazing, the level of detail on aircraft, aerodromes, atmosphere, ground cover, sounds and musical score simply unmatched IMHO. Track IR 5 virtually flawless. At first I jumped right in to fly some favorite machines and various missions, but then decided to start a career with flight training. It was during the British flight training when the immersion really struck me. Knowing that if I pass all the missions, I am actually going to be posted to the front somewhere and begin my piloting career in WWI aeroplanes. A fantastic romp around the homeland getting to know all the way points and terrain especially with free flight. I can honestly admit that excitement does not describe the feeling of receiving my orders to fly and fight in the great war.

Thank you OBD Team for all your hard work to allow us to enjoy the fruits of your labor! This is truly an epic release and hopefully will only get better with future releases. You should be proud of this accomplishment!!!!

The Tailspinner

What graphic card tweaks do you speak of? Do share!

I was experiencing stuttering in game and less than adequate graphic results with my Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7850 Graphics Card.

My Graphic Card Tweaks:
- Overclocked the card GPU from native 925 MHz to 1050 Mhz (Max)
- Overclocked the card Memory from 1000 Mhz to 1250 Mhz (85%)
- Changed fan speed to 50%
- Modified AA in Catalyst Software to 8x w/Supersampling Overriding Application Settings
- Morphological Filtering On (Full Screen Direct 3d Application Only)
- Anisotropic Filtering 16x w/High Quality/Surface Formatting Optimization On Overriding Application Settings
- Wait for Vertical Refresh Setting Off Unless Application Specifies Option
- Open GL Triple Buffering if set to Off
- Tessellation Mode set to 64X (Maximum Level) Overriding Application Settings

WOFF Workshop:
- UI Aspect set to 16:9
- Graphics Details set to 54455
- Terrain Detail Textures set to Normal
- Aircraft Skin Res set to High (No Bullet Decals)
- Woods/Forest Density set to High

This has yielded the best game play for me based on my comments earlier. Took a while to get it just right and everyone will experience different results.