We've read threads over the years how some have lost that luvin' feeling and drifted away from simming for whatever reasons, so I thought I'd post some positive 'coming back' thoughts...

I'm feeling it again, and have been since Saturday's airshow. I believe too, that I'm coming off a midlife funk that started with a health scare and sudden lifestyle changes back in 2008, followed by a move back 'home' in 2009 and then various events hitting me all at once, including the death of one of our parents (memories can be overwhelming when going through their stuff). Mine wasn't a midlife crisis in the traditional sense, more of an awareness that I needed to make some major adjustments and life course changes. I've done that, especially over the past 3 or 4 years, to the point that it's routine now (in a very positive way).

Now I have to be careful, going back to a previous passion without neglecting my current ones. Balance has always been tough for my feeble one-track mind.

I also want to take a certain approach to it. For example, I remember years back enjoying the heck out of an EF2000 campaign, then taking a break with MSFS 2002/2004 (8/9). Went back to EF2000 and wasn't enjoying it as much, graphics were just too dated. Going back to EF2000 the past couple of days has been great, I've forgotten what newer sims look like (it really is all relative to me). So that's pretty much where I'm going to draw the line, the best that the DOS era had to offer.

But I also wanted to start fresh, to play something really seriously for once (to study and attempt to master), a sim that I never put any real time into. I've played with a few and it was a tossup between F-14 Fleet Defender and Tornado. Being that I've got fresh Navy afterburner noise still rattling in my brain, and an upcoming trip to the Naval Aviation Museum, I'm going to go with F-14 FD. BTW, the Tomcat on display outside the museum is the first F-14 I've seen in person, never got to see one fly.

I'm pretty excited to be getting my mojo back, and I really do have my wife to thank for that. She knows how to get me out and about, to be active and stay jazzed about life in general.

And yeah, this will be the path to *wanting* to get back to work on my F-19 redo project.

This weekend we're going to binge watch some of "Carrier" (she enjoys much more than "Dogfights") and maybe even watch "Top Gun".

I know the feeling about the mojo stuff for years I was a dedicated helicopter & fixed wing sim nut. Now, I can't be bothered with all the learny stuff and I've forgotten all that I once knew. I prefer a slightly "higher level" game now, so I still fly a helo but now I do it in ArmA, where it's more about the thing you're trying to achieve rather than the mechanics of the thing you're doing. i.e. get a group successfully to their drop-off point and return alive, rather than try to start the engines and manage your fuel :/

I know the feeling Mark since I've retired lost my mate..I was lost for awhile..Started back into EAW,,USAF and other sims/wargames...How did you get EF 2000 I'm on Win 7 still have the original disks and manual it's the Super EF 2000..Any point in the right direction would be appreciated..Looking at your pics makes me kinda want to drag out all my Jane's sims..Love the oldies they have what newer sims lack ,,,Soul

Sorry, but I don't remember how those guys are getting EF2000 to run on newer hardware. I use a Win98 box (my main PC is still Win2000, my Win7 laptop is only for posting and DOSBox).

I have to admit, this is the one that's most tempting to me (I kinda got this thing for bad weather )...



...but it's too advanced for me right now (and possibly always will be).

This thread is a great example of why the current hardcore/high fidelity flight sim genre is continually shrinking.


I'm not placing a value judgement on that but it's an observation that I've made over the past several years.

Thanks Mark that's kinda what I figured ,,just keep that MoJo workin'

I think in our cases (i.e. we're generally older chaps here right?) we've been & done all that, and now we're (possibly) after something more relaxing rather than hard work. We've "done our bit" as far as keeping the sims alive in our time. As to why the generation younger than us is not hankering for the hardcore sims in previous numbers (if that's true) - that I don't know.

An overall change in tastes in entertainment in my opinion. I like to compare it to the waning popularity of opera and it being replaced by the Broadway-style musical.

Will do, rwatson!

PM, I was never hardcore to begin with, the payoff was never there for me (balance of sim and game).

Let's say a new EF2000 was developed, same theater and scenario but with improved dynamic campaign to include those items in the Manual that never made it, plus additional information with the progress of the war to keep you more involved and interested with the overall picture (even if just text-based news articles).

But to play, you *had* to learn every procedure and switch in the cockpit, flying it as real as it gets. I'd do it, because the game would make the hard-core simulation worth it to me. It just never happened for me (F4 comes the closest, flying back to base at dusk with faint explosions off in the distance as the war rages on).

The "living battlefield" dynamic campaign of F4 was the ultimate form of immersion for any flight sim in my opinion. Nothing else will ever come close. At least not in my lifetime.

Right there PM,,Loved that sim but got away from it because it felt more like systems management than flying..Went to WWII and WWI sims I feel more like I'm flying Now it's EAW,Red Baron 3D and starting into IL-2 easy flight settings..But still have my F4 manual binder edition..

QFT

Kinda like Third Wire sims.

That's what I want.

Not something that requires me to work like I'm taking a college course just to learn to fire a missile.

Yep, it set the standard. Sadly it's in a hardcore sim that requires that "college level" work I mentioned above.

The irony with the Third Wire sims is that they ended up being poor sellers even with being more on the "lite" side. I think it just goes to show how much the overall flight sim genre has declined.

Other than the heavy crowds at airshows, who really cares about aircraft anymore?

I bought my first sim, F-117A Stealth Fighter 2.0 from CompUSA, only after watching CNN FLIR footage of laser guided bombs dropping on Baghdad, then the follow-up F-117 documentaries on Discovery and History Channel. In 1991 I was a fascinated 23 year old, also hanging out at the edge of the airbase in Marietta, watching all the activity of F-15s and large cargo planes (maybe C-5's, don't remember).

If you could text, tweet, skype and do facebook in the cockpit while flying, flight simulators would be popular again. /S

In seriousness, for the people I have talked about flight sims through the years (adults, young adults), the things that turns terms them off from it, in no particular order -

- The fact they need a good computer to enjoy the experience "as intended". PC gaming in general is on the up and up, but even other AAA types of games are suffering due to people not wanting to spend more than $600-$800 on a computer (or laptop, most likely) that they will ultimately use more for social media than for gaming. If you push out a great flight sim or FPS with great graphics, but runs poorly on an Intel GPU, it will probably be ignored by most people.

- Related to that, the fact that they need also to learn about what goes inside their computer and maintaining it. Newcomers want the console experience on the PC, plug and play, no setup (a lot of those people probably are unaware what are the options in the settings page of a game). They don't want to deal with errors either.

- These days you have to really look to find a decent joystick. They would not know what to select, and again, if it is more than $50, they will not want it. If a game cannot work with a controller, or a mouse and keyboard for those a bit more into PC, then it is seem as too complicated, even before starting to look into the mechanics of the game.

- An obvious one has to do with the complexity of the systems in a flight sim, but that could also be overcomed by more interactive and entertaining tutorials. A simple voiceover narrating what you have to do would not improve the situation. The best interactive tutorial I recall was for Jane's Longbow II. It would be futile to ask anyone to read a paper manual. I always point out they can follow up stuff on Youtube on a tablet and then pause and copy actions, but for some, it is still too complex to play "a game".

- The fact that military aircraft no longer are a mainstream part of popular culture. No TV shows, movies, documentaries on aircraft. The current generation of fighter aircraft has so much classified stuff in them, that we barely can learn anything accurate about them, and even if we did, it would feel like flying in arcade mode.

- Very few people are interested in old 16 bit graphic based games (even if they can run them), so you cannot hook them with old games. Newer sims?...

- ...sims are stale and boring these days. No pilot career, no protagonist of a heroic story of battles in the air. No "hook' to keep a newcomer engaged enough to motivate them to learn the actual simulation part.

I got one guy in the office interested (a 25 yr old intern...he is no longer working at my office) in giving flight sims a go. I showed him Falcon 4 BMS. I guided him to fly through the takeoff and landing tutorials. He did well. I thought I had a "pupil". He said it was OK, but it did not give him the feeling of flying...

Maybe developed VR systems will make a good gimmick to attract newcomers. But that will probably require new flight sims. I do not see much chance of that. Time will tell.

Great post Bib!

Like I alluded to before, flight sims and many other genres of entertainment eventually decline and fade because they fail to attract the next younger generation of potential customers.

So true, I loved Black Sheep Squadron (I thought it was called "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep") and Airwolf! Not to mention all the movies, speaking of which...

I remember standing under a friend's carport with a couple of other neighborhood kids, telling us that his parents had taken him to see Firefox (1982). He thought the plane scenes were awesome, just too late in the movie. Not long after, we would ride our bikes to a convenience store which had the video game (kind of expensive, IIRC), along with Battlezone and Defender. I remember being wowed because the background graphics were real (laser disc, I think) and the music was cool.

I don't know if this will help rwatson but there's a healthy, lengthy thread on EF2000 here. I got as far as gathering everything I needed(I think?)but have yet to try installing it. I still have a desire to get this one up and running but I'm just not ready to go through an install routine right now. I'm hoping GOG will continue to pick up these old sims. I had EF2000 back in the day but I can't remember spending a lot of time with it. I can't remember if it was too technical for me or if I had hardware issues. I do remember playing it though and attempting mid-air refueling and I also remember being excited about the nice thick manual that came with it. Reloaded seems like a great way to get EF2000 running on modern PCs.

http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3830314/1


MarkG I love your mojo thread. Stirs up all the right fuzzies and reminds us to just have fun with things. I hope it comes to pass but even if it doesn't, I still appreciate your dedication in learning how an old sim was made and how to revamp the software and potentially one day roll the ol' girl out of her hanger. I'd really like to see GOG go hog crazy with bringing in the old sims with their treatment as that would possibly take a one of the largest challenges out of the way to allow modders then to just focus on whether or not they can work magic on them.

Coot, I'm always watching GOG for something new, currently considering a 'sim' that looks very unique, from Disney, lol...
https://www.gog.com/game/stunt_island

...but being more serious, I have Apache Longbow and Hind in the queue (already purchased).