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#4027441 - 10/26/14 08:17 AM Got WOFF - great job devs!  
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heartc Offline
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Hi there,

after solving my technical issue I posted about in the techie forum, I could finally go ahead and enjoy WOFF. I want to say you did a really great job there, immersion is through the roof and I didn't see anything like it since ye old Red Baron II and Falcon 4! The sim you built is proof that an immersive and dynamic campaign reminiscent of or even exceeding those of our beloved '90s flightsims is indeed very possible to pull off also these days. Don't you hate it when someone asks the devs if the upcoming sim xyz will feature a dynamic campaign and then some fanboi (not even a dev most of the time) comes on and explains that it's too hard and can't be done, and everything we had before was just some kind of dream or not really working or bugged etc? Yeah, we have x-times the hardware resources we had in the 90s, but we cannot figure out how to get something going some 4 ppl did in say 1992-1998, as in

1942 Pacific Air War (1994)
European Air War (1998)
Falcon 3 (1993)
Falcon 4 (1998)
EF2000 (1995)
Gunship 2000 (1991)
EEAH / EECH (1998 / 1999)
Longbow 2 (1998)
AV-8B Harrier Assault (1992)
Harrier Jump Jet (1992)
B17 I / II (1992 / 1999)
Their Finest Hour (1989)
Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe (1991)
Ace of Aces (1986)
Flying Corps Gold (1997)
and of course Red Baron I (1991), Red Baron II (1998)

...and I'm sure there are some I forgot right now. But it is too hard and can't be done in 2014. We rather milk you with another single a/c download for 30 quids or so. Mind you, I realize that modelling a plane at this high level of fidelity as some hardcore sims do these days is a lot of work and takes a lot of resources and I love it, but I'd rather have less planes and an actual immersive environment where I can then fly the thing and reap the rewards of learning all its systems by putting them to good use. Not some 20 scripted missions that are fun exactly once or some heartless mission generator without anything like squadron / resource management embedded. The latter still better than purely scripted missions though.
Also, worst are the fanbois who will jump on ppl and try to silence any demands for a dynamic campaign from the very onset of developement. What they haven't figured out is when something takes resources, time and money to do, it ain't gonna happen if you don't demand it. Pretty simple really. You can't even blame the devs then. Why should they invest in something when there's no demand for it? Hey look, we got another 30$ a/c beta download for you! Enjoy it, put hours into learning its avionics suite and have fun til you realize you are flying the same damn missions over and over! What a waste of good work!

Regards,
heartc



#4027442 - 10/26/14 08:24 AM Re: Fix for low FPS on even decent rigs [Re: heartc]  
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elephant Offline
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Patras-Greece
I would love to give it a try but, does it work for Windows 8.1 as well?
It says (Win 98/2000/XP/Vista/7)...


WOFF UE, BOC member, Albatros pilot.

#4027444 - 10/26/14 08:28 AM Re: Fix for low FPS on even decent rigs [Re: heartc]  
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heartc Offline
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heartc  Offline
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I don't know elephant. Maybe just give it a shot (btw be advised that after you posted I have separated my post and put the technical discussion into the techie forum here).

Regards
heartc

#4027446 - 10/26/14 08:49 AM Re: Fix for low FPS on even decent rigs [Re: heartc]  
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ArisFuser Offline
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Glad you are enjoying it heartc, and yes, WOFF camapaign is , sadly, a rare marvel these days of WarThunderish egomaniac teenage centered air simu....er,...games.

#4027475 - 10/26/14 12:34 PM Re: Fix for low FPS on even decent rigs [Re: heartc]  
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ricnunes Offline
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Completely and fully agree with your post heartc!

Actually I just posted in a thread of the DCS forum following this same subject (people wanting a dynamic campaign while others saying "it's not possible").
Yes, WOFF is the proof that not only is possible to have dynamic campaigns in moderns combat flight sims but dynamic campaigns are also a selling point (both of us are living examples of this). Besides, there's Falcon4 which despite all DCS iterations/modules is still the favourite modern jet combat flight sim and because of what? Dynamic campaign!

Also dynamic campaigns are the reason why many and many simmers (and I believe even more as time goes by) still play old sims, like for example: Falcon4 which despite heavily "modernized" was released in 1997, EECH (despite being modded as well) was released in 2000, Combat Flight Simulator 3 which was released in 2002 spawned the heavily modified WOFF (as well as previous OFF versions). While other sims such as IL2 (up to version 1946) received external dynamic campaign generators (Dgen and DGC) due to a big demand for such campaigns.


But what's the reason for this (not having dynamic campaigns)? IMO it's quite hard to figure out for sure, but:

Economics? I doubt it. Yes, it costs time (and therefore money) to develop a dynamic campaign but it also takes time and money to develop several single missions linked together to form a (static) campaign and having a dynamic campaign will undoubtedly attract more costumers and as such there's a potential economical advantage (instead of being a disadvantage).

Complexity? Yes, dynamic campaigns can in some cases like Falcon4 be extremely complex to develop. But there are several types of dynamic campaigns with several different levels of complexity and approaches. Falcon4 campaign is NOT the only dynamic campaign in existence as we can see with WOFF. Yes, Falcon4 campaign is probably the best and most complex dynamic campaign in existence but there are many others that are very different and take very different approaches, most of them much simpler approaches and thus easier to model/implement such as WOFF campaign. If I'm not mistaken (forgive me if I'm wrong) the WOFF campaign was initially developed in the early OFF days by a single person (Winding Man) and there are others such as the DCG campaign for IL2 which was also developed by a single person (Paul Lowengrin). Both campaigns are less complex than the Falcon4 campaign but nevertheless still extremely immersive (specially the WOFF campaign) and are certainly within a reasonable "technical scope" of dedicated combat flight sim companies such as ED/DCS.

IMO, one of the main reasons or probably the main reason why we don't have dynamic campaigns nowadays is the following:
- Lack of imagination!
Lack of imagination hits not only the gamming sector/industry but also many, many other entertainment sectors such as the film industry. What we mostly have in terms of modern products in the film industry as well as in the gamming industry are under-imagined sequels with poor content and filled with a tremendous lack of imagination.
The Lack of imagination in the gamming sector, namely in the combat flight simulation gamming means that what we basically have are copies or airplanes with their avionics/instruments and flight models (which doesn't require much of an "imagination" but requires technical skills and existent information to reproduce them) while those greatly modeled aircraft fly over rather "empty" and un-immersive worlds. Having immersive and dynamic worlds require IMO great deals of imagination! Imagination is also IMO, required to implement those worlds in the fastest way possible since imagination makes you overcome more easily and faster difficult problems that may and will certainly occur.

Well, my 2 cents...

#4027482 - 10/26/14 01:10 PM Re: Fix for low FPS on even decent rigs [Re: heartc]  
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Hellshade Offline
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I agree gentlemen. And evidently it's going to get even better in the WOFF 2.0 patch. We don't have the volume of dynamic campaign air combat sims we had in the 90s, but the quality has definitely been raised to a whole new level with WOFF.


Flying Wings Over Flanders Fields: Between Heaven & Hell II
videos at www.youtube.com/hellshade68

#4027555 - 10/26/14 05:46 PM Re: Fix for low FPS on even decent rigs [Re: heartc]  
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ArisFuser Offline
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@ricnunes: great post!!

#4027595 - 10/26/14 07:17 PM Re: Fix for low FPS on even decent rigs [Re: heartc]  
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ricnunes Offline
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ricnunes  Offline
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Thanks for the kind words ArisFuser!

Sometimes I feel that I'm becoming nuts or insane with my "quest" (if I can call it) or "request" to have more flight simulations with dynamic campaigns (specially in other eras such as modern era or even WWII because in terms of WWI thankfully I'm more than satisfied with WOFF).

But it's post like yours that makes me believe that I'm still relatively sane. Or alternatively, all of us in this thread could be insane which I guess could be a possibility, no? biggrin

#4027600 - 10/26/14 07:30 PM Re: Fix for low FPS on even decent rigs [Re: heartc]  
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ArisFuser Offline
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No, you are not insane at all,...

I still remember Falcon 4 impact on me the first time I flew it in 2001. I remember myself thinking, oh man, this is ...epic!! Well, Microprose after all, all they did...will remain in pc gaming and simming Hall of Fame, Olympus,...well, you get the idea.

In fact, the dynamic campaign concept itself got corrupted, misunderstood somehow afterwards(except, maybe for Rowans BAttle of Britain, or Lucasarts Their Finest Hour or Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe..) Let me explain,...Dynamic it means changing, sure, but not scripted ; dynamic, at least in Falcon 4 it meant that you COULD change the the result of the war, albeit minimally, but you could actually bomb an enemy train junction, or airbase, or depot and those would be not usable by the enemy and would take time to be repaired. Flying over North Korea, to recce the zone and get look on airbases damaged and see them still under repair some days after you first bombed them, was,...priceless,...even better, notice less aerial activity after you demolished their front line airbases and see them retreat, modifying the front line was...DYNAMIC. I know WW1 simming can´t afford to be fictitious, but such an option would be,....EPIC AGAIN. Killing an/some aces an actually have him/them disappear from the campaing...I wonder if we will see this again. Dreaming is free....

Last edited by ArisFuser; 10/26/14 07:33 PM.
#4028013 - 10/27/14 11:01 PM Re: Fix for low FPS on even decent rigs [Re: heartc]  
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JimBobb Offline
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They don't make'em anymore like they used to.

#4028033 - 10/28/14 12:10 AM Re: Fix for low FPS on even decent rigs [Re: ArisFuser]  
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ricnunes Offline
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Originally Posted By: ArisFuser
No, you are not insane at all,...



Well, that's good news for me biggrin

For the rest, I fully agree with you! Indeed I fully agree that Microprose was the best PC simulation gamming company that ever existed.
I also agree that the best (dynamic) campaigns are the ones that let the player influence the outcome. However, I fully understand why WWI combat flight simulations campaigns don't let the player influence the outcome (like happens in WOFF or Red Baron for example) since airpower was in its infancy and aircraft in WWI really didn't have the (fire)power to influence a single battle, let alone an entire war.


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