Wings of War + modding potential - WW1 sim fans please read!

Apologies for this long post!

I also posted this on the SWWISA (Society of WW1 Sim Artisans) forum but thought it might be
worth posting here too. I have put it in the KOE rather than general sim forum as this seems to be
where most WW1 sim fans post.

When I first played this game I fully expected to be disappointed with yet another
glorified shoot-em-up with a generic assortment of WW1 aircraft, simplistic combat, and a
fixed third-person view!
However instead I was pleasantly surprised. Firstly, the level of graphical detail and
accuracy in both the aircraft and terrain is amazing. Apart from a few things (like bright
green forest edges) the level of terrain detail is almost equal to IL-2 and really looks convincing,
(the terrain in the training mission really does look like England, not just a generic green landscape).
The aircraft are beautifully modelled and have detailed virtual cockpits with moving instruments.

Secondly, the variety of aircraft in the game is incredibly impressive. It's not just Camels and Spads versus
Fokkers. Amongst others, the game has the DH2, BE2, Dolphin, Breguet 14, Caproni Ca.33, Hansa-Brandenburg
seaplane fighter, Siemens-Schuckert, Fokker Eindecker, and many, many more. All are flyable, though you can't actually
pilot the multi-engine bombers unfortunately, only man the gunner and bomb aimer's positions.

Thirdly, the flight and combat modelling is not as bad as I thought. If you set flight modelling to "Classic"
and difficulty to "Hard" the game is much more of a flight sim than a shoot-em-up. Aircraft handling is still
more than a bit forgiving (hard to stall unless you virtually throttle down to zero) and damage modelling appears
to be purely hitpoint-based, but it is certainly not a "flying-on-rails" game like Secret Weapons over Normandy.
You can also turn off things like the targeting boxes that appear around aircraft. With this turned off, watching
for enemies, identifying them, and keeping track of them in battle is a genuine challenge in itself.

Basically, the flight model is not in any way detailed and highly accurate, but on the other hand it is not a simple
arcade model either. It does give a convincing feeling of flight, and things like machinegun bullet trajectories are
also modelled well which makes combat more challenging.

However, and it's a big however, even if you don't mind the FM, WoW is far from being the WW1 sim that so many people want. Mainly because the game has, currently, absolutely zero moddability and extendability. You are stuck with the 13 campaign missions, and though they are long, fun to play, and quite replayable, playing the same scripted missions again and again is not what most flight-sim fans, including me, enjoy. There is an instant-action mode but this only allows for simple dogfights; it's nothing like IL-2's Quick Mission Builder where you can specify the types of enemy aircraft, skill,
ground targets, etc.
All of the data files are packed into archive/storage files, so it is not currently possible to paint aircraft skins,
mod the FM, terrain, sounds, etc.

It doesn't have to stay this way, however! From looking at the data files in a hex editor, most of the data in them is
uncompressed or at most only lightly compressed, and certainly not encrypted. Anyone with programming knowledge and
an understanding of binary file formats and (maybe) basic compression techniques (i.e NOT me) would be able to write an
extractor. This sort of thing has been done with many games in the past, including some which use completely compressed
data formats (e.g BF1942).
All the textures and sound files are standard .DDS and .WAV which will allow easy graphics and sound modding once there is a way to extract them. Configuration files for aircraft etc. are stored in the data files, not hard-coded, however I don't
know whether they are ASCII or not.
Also I'm not sure in which format (binary or ASCII) the mission files are. Even if they are binary, though, it would still be possible to make a mission editor; again, this has been done for other games in the past
(e.g LucasArt's X-Wing/Tie Fighter series), by deciphering the original binary mission files, with no help from the developers as far as I know.

All it needs is a few people with good programming skills and an interest in WW1 sims. Then this would open the way to other non-programmer modders and mission creators who could work to improve the game.

Though this would certainly require some work, there are a lot of very dedicated people in the WW1 sim community. Apart
from the many RB3D mods, and the FS:SDOE WW1 project, some people have been talking about creating a new sim from scratch,
or modding other newer sims such as Strike Fighters and CFS3, simply because of the lack of any up-to-date WW1 sim.

I wrote and posted this because after playing WoW and feeling frustrated at how close it was to being the great WW1 sim
that so many people here wish there was, and then thinking; with some work from the community, it virtually -could- be.
I thought it would be such a shame for this game to just die away and be forgotten (like Wings of Honour); as the future
of KoE is now somewhat in doubt, WoW seems like an opportunity for a decent WW1 sim which is too good to miss.

Overall I would say that at £19.99 (the standard UK price) WoW is well worth buying for any WW1 aviation fan even if it does not have the world's most sophisticated FM.
But the game really needs the community to take it that final step to being a genuinely good sim.

Anyway, I'd like to hear everyone's views on this.

I'm pleased to hear that the planes actually have cockpits...the lack of internal screenshots on the website made me question that.

If this is as you say, then indeed it sounds like a good base for modding once someone breaks trough. Hey, EAW never was officially moddable, and look where they are now. Perhabs a crosslink to this post on the EAW board would get them interested.

So the PC version is available Drawde?

I found some more sceenshots of WoW (not sure if they're X-box or PC):









Looks purdy, but can it fight!

Maybe I'll have to drop that boycott of Destineer afterall.

Interesting post Drawde...........maybe you can you tell us more about how well joystick/rudder pedal control is enabled, and how the cockpits are rendered.........how bouts some screenshots from in-game?

I found those somewhere too FlyX - made my mouth salivate but I had mixed feelings because of the reactions on this forum to it. Definitely looks nice, and the arcade style sounds O.K. but it just doesn't feel right. Maybe arcade style will get people interested into WWI aviation though? If that's what it takes...

-FranksValli

It's out in the UK now but apparently not in the US. EBgames.com gives a release date of 6th September.
Who knows, maybe the US version will have additional fixes/improvements. It is also out on Xbox.

The "collectable power-ups" feature - the most "arcadey" part of the game and the most
off-putting part of the game's box description (it certainly made me hesitate a while before
deciding to buy it) does not appear to be present, thankfully, in the single-player campaign,
only in the MP deathmatch. As I said, with the realism/difficulty settings on max, it is definitely more of a
sim (with simplified FM and often rather Hollywood-esque missions, though not nearly as bad as SWON in this respect)
than a shoot-em-up.

It does make me really angry though when a game like this is released. Add a bit more detail to the
FM/DM, and include the mission editor, and you have a game which WW1 sim fans might be playing for years.
As it is, it will probably be played for a few days by action-gamers and then left to gather dust when they complete it
or get bored with it.
Do the publishers/developers -really- think that marketing it as an action game will make all the FPS-fans start playing it instead of Doom 3, and earn them vast amounts of money?
Surely it would make more sense to create a game which earns the respect of the sim community and which people will be playing and buying for years to come. It is true to an extent that the sim community can be very demanding and unforgiving
but this is generally much more the case with sims which cover an already well-trodden area - i.e WW2 Western Front, and modern jet fighters. Also, if you make your game easily moddable, people will be able to fix things themselves rather than complaining endlessly about it to the developers (e.g IL-2 with things like muzzle flashes and AI gunnery; yes, I know that on the other hand it prevents MP cheating, but you really have to wonder sometimes.. most moddable games nowadays have compatibility-checks to prevent people with dissimilar files playing together online)

It just seems a shame (referring to WoW) that all the time and effort put into creating the aircraft models and detailed mission environments might be wasted!

("Operation Tiger Hunt" was rather similar from the point of view of a tank-sim fan (as I also am), this
game was never released in the UK though so I have only played the demo. A pity because this game appeared
to be quite "moddable" looking at the demo files and could have been improved realism-wide)

About joystick control, this appears to be fully supported. Steering, rudder
and throttle all work along with the hat switch and various buttons. There is also mouselook
in the cockpit view.
I don't think there's any additional support for advanced joysticks though.

The control surfaces are animated on the aircraft (unlike Wings of Honour I think)
and the instruments in the cockpit (control column, pedals, gauges) also move.

I'll see if I can grab some screenshots later.

It certainly looks good, and if I see it in a shop I might buy it - but with simple damage modelling and presumably gameplay that's a world away from the missions and campaigns you get in games like IL2, CFS3, etc I can't really see it being that suitable as the next 'big' WW1 game. It's true that the nice scenery and large numbers of planes give it a good head start but I think most people agree that it's programmers not modellers and texture artists that are in short supply. And it seems to me that virtually the whole game would have to be tweaked/altered to make it into a proper sim.

In a perfect world I'd like to see a new sim egine with an open architecture aimed specifically at WW1. Unless someone drops a bombshell this isn't going to happen any time soon.

The next two options are equally attractive to me. First off an existing closed engine is licensed commercially as the basis for a WW1 game. This has the advantage of being an 'out of the box' solution would be great for an instant hit of WW1 action. I think IL2 would be perfectly suited for that and without a question I'd buy such a game immediately and probably play it to death. As I also like to help in the creation of add-ons though, this route would be ultimately very unsatisfying for me - especially as it'd be even more unlikely to get extra planes into the game than it would be with the standard IL2 game.

Second would be to take an open architecture game such as CFS3 and use that as a basis. I mention CFS3 as personally I think it is the best bet. The way the campaign works would be perfect for WW1, and the high poly capability of the game means that finally we could have some truly detailed internals and externals without too much of an fps hit - and that's something I think is very important for a WW1 game. It also supports multiple positions in a plane online. The downside is that none of the open architecture games are WW1 era so there's no foundation to work up from.

The final option is to push existing older engines to their limits and keep with them - engines such as SDOE and RB3D. Personally I think these are really starting to show their age now. It's quite amazing what's been done with them and I think this very success has prevented a move to another engine. After all, why move from a game with 40+ planes and all the scenery and vehicles to match to a game with none? Especially when there's no obvious single successor - some will say Strike Fighters, others IL2, others CFS3, Targetware, etc. It's quite possible that whichever of these sims gets a signficant number of planes, of a quality superior to what's possible in the old engines, will be the next 'big' WW1 game. And that of course is impossible to predict - if in fact it even ever happens...

Have fun
Finn

Well, I've just picked this up in PC World for £19.99. I'll load up and give it a go, and give my first impressions later.
I have flown them all, (and I don't understand the comments re FMs - who the hell knows what is authentic? ) and I will be rating it on comparison with FCG and Red Baron, what it looks like and if it is fun!!
In view of KOE not even existing yet, if ever, I don't see why Wings of War can't have a forum of its own?
Later...

Lookin' forward to hearing your impressions Cas141!

I'm wondering how accurate the cockpits look, and how well the instrumentation functions.......hope you can touch on that too.

Thanks!

Will post some screenshots soon, I'm having some problems with HyperSnap DX at the minute, it
seems to mess up half the screenshots I take (are there any other good DirectX screenshot programs?)

I'va had a half day at this and it is better than a curate's egg. In fact, in some parts it is very good. The first impressions are as follows and I agree with Drawde that this sim could become another EAW.
My system is Athlon 1800;512 Ram Radeon 9800 Pro Omega drivers for Win98SE.
I use a Cougar and trackIR. And a projector!

This sim can be a real arcade yukkie , but it can also be loaded to hard settings and then it isn't easy; but nor does it go into the realms of "realistic" (meaning impossibly hard to fly ).
1. As Drawde said, the FMs (I've only flown a Eindecker and a British pusher, so far ) are not detailed - no torque etc. In a dogfight, the throttle of the AI and yourself can be "matched" (sheesh!), but importantly this can be set off and so you can overshoot the AI etc - and the AI is a good fighter- scissors for instance.
The reason I have flown the two basic planes is that you don't get access to all the planes at first, they become available as you progress in the Campaign. They then also become available in the Instant Action mode.
This means,FlyXwire (S!), that so far I've not seen all the cockpits; what i have seen suggest the cockpits are basic, instruments work but they are not as well portrayed as RB. There is a funny HUD, but you'll want to "lose" that using the settings.
So, if the flying parameters were the same as Red Baron it would be hopeless in comparison;- but it has some lovely goodies, which make it fun for me, over Red Baron.
The terrain - Is very, very good. In parts it is brilliant.The buildings and railway stations and railway lines are excellent - Flying low level along them is a buzz. Low level is great.
The only fault of the terrain is, like EAW, they have attempted 3d forests/hills and it doesn't come off. (Job for a modder, as in EAW )The individual trees are first class, as is the rest of the terrain.
It is a pleasure to dogfight over terrain like this. In fact, as I was concentrating on one encounter I thought "what is this coming at me"-then a realistic flock of birds passed me . A really lovely touch.
By this time i was using trackir -ordinary mouse view as opposed to absolute - but nonetheless very good and keeping centre better than the original IL2. With trackir, the immersion is really there.
The guns are too accurate, but sound Ok and are not immediately lethal. As far as I can make out their accuracy cannot be adjusted.
There are rockets! IMHO, bloody ridiculous in a WW 1 sim ( Someone is going to tell me there really were rockets fitted to planes )and they are lethal. Spoils the dogfight when used. I don't know if /and how they are turned off from being used by the AI.
Padlock - There is a toggle type enemy finder, ie there is an arrow pointing in the enemy's direction which, when it comes in view, has a discreet box around it.This can be turned off. When it is, the ability to find the enemy is as "realistic" as any sim. Better than IL2 in this regard.
There is no padlock where the target is Centre screen or "held" as you "jink" to fight it. You keep it in view by using the POV Hat, or mouse ( or Trackir )

I run at 1360 x 1020 x 32; 2AA and it is smooth, even with several AI enemy - They build up , ala Red Baron style. The planes externally look excellent, better than any other WW1 sim!

I anticipate excellent ground attack missions, and I think - in fact, I'm sure, I will play this more than Red Baron.

I venture to suggest what this Sim needs to become a classic.
1. A forum here on Sim HQ,
2. An ability to be modded like EAW/ Red Baron etc. Do you think that possible Drawde?
3. A mission builder of some sort.
It is better than the originals of either of EAW or Red Baron, IMHO.

It cost me less than £20. Worth every penny. I really hope this progresses.
There was a thread recently discussing what may attract and hold new simmers. Tom Cofield made some wise telling comments in it. This sim could do that IMHO.
Give it a go - It deserves your support

Cas, Hello mate,
some screenshots would be nice! This sounds interesting.

Yes indeed! Although they were only intended to be used against balloons. I doubt they were ever used against aircraft, and if they were I doubt they ever hit anything. The Germans also had guided anti-shipping missiles, although these never made it past the testing stage.

Have fun
Finn

"It is better than the originals of either of EAW or Red Baron, IMHO."

Whoa, that is saying quite a bit! Especially since I was expecting total pap from this game. I am definitely picking this one up when it arrives here in Seattle.

Thanks Cas141 and Drawde!

We'll have to try this one for sure, and sounds like it has some serious potential.

Now what multiplayer modes are supported I wonder..........the game description mentions support for LAN gaming also!

I found some more X-box screenshots for WOW while searching the web tonight, this one includes a view of a Fokker D.VII in a paint scheme that looks like one flown by Ltn. Franz Buchner while he was Staffelfuhrer of Jasta 13:

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0TQDtAicYU...485698866759137[/img]

Here a Zeppelin goes down over winter's trenches:

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0UQALAzsa3...485698943039347[/img]

I also found this quote concerning multiplayer modes from one of the online game previews:

Co-operative and head-to-head multiplayer Net play for PC players.

Did they say Coop mode!!!

Found two more pictures from the sim.

Look at the frame work on the burning zep. That has to qualify as detail huh?

Can't wait for this sim to come out . Hope it comes out when planned unlike KOE . Have bought the Promised Land patch and it keeps kicking me out to desktop ... . Have myself and 2 brothers that love WW1 .

Dude, the sim is out! It is out in the UK right now.

But it's not out over here till Sept I think . Is multi not out yet as the one post mentioned only flying 2 early war aircraft . I think he was talking about this sim.. I can't believe those screens esp of the ground .Now if they'll make a good WW2 tank sim.

Try setting your game resolution to a different setting than your desktop maybe? That was often a problem with RB3D.

Thanks for the run downs and screenshots guys. I've preordered at Gamestop thinking that this one might be hard to find possibly. Heck, Circuit City never even stocked IL2FB Gold or AEP.

A frustrated update!
It seems there is a big difficulty, in that I cannot seem to get shot down!!
I mean, bloody hell, I can get varied and well modelled damage to my plane; I can crash into the ground and into my opponent; the opponent in my first "arena" can rocket me dead (not that I want that! ) but I don't seem to be able to be shot down by bullets.
Which no doubt dashes a lot of hopes!!
I cannot find a meaningful ini to see if this and other parameters can be changed. But I'm no big techie.
I cannot believe that a sim can fly so smooth, look as good ,if not better than F.B, (It has "perfect Water" in the Canals and rivers, with barges, and I run it smoother than I've run any sim,! ) -and not have what we simmers, as opposed to Arcaders,want.
I put the clouds on and they are brilliant!!!!!
I've had a look at the planes in the "hangar", and they are excellent, including the Bombers.
But I can't fly them 'til I "progress" and I can't do that until I pick up "markers" etc, and that seems almost impossible if flying in hard classic mode. i.e non arcade.

I really thought that I had found the WW1 flight sim, which when modded would become a classic.
Maybe it is able to be done, I dunno.
Drawde, have you found out any details to enlighten us as to whether there is any hidden depth to this sim?
Mind, It is EARLY DAYS. It hasn't been released yet in U. S. I have looked on the web to see what I can find out. Best I have come up with is
See http://www.dreamstation.cc/news/video_games/id4558

This says that the Parent Company is based in New York, and I wonder what their reaction might be if they realise that a patch ( or permission to mod etc ) may bring it into the proper flight sim scene, possibly a classic.
The developers are Silver Wish Games. I cannot find a website.
I hope to hell they are readers of this forum, and see what potential market there is, if they patch!.
The credits list all the personnel involved with the Sim's creation. If any SimHQ chaps know any of these guys, could a personal approach help this sim to be "amended"
Anyone who gets round to playing this sim, especially with trackIR, will know what I mean when I say
So near and yet so far!!

( I hope I've missed something )

Ursus S! - Hope you are well. If you see this sim run, just imagine FCG with these graphics and planes ( sigh!!)

cheers

Thanks for advice. I had already changed the res on screen down to nothing and it still does it . Oh well Sept 9th isn't that far off.

You can be shot down, for sure. Just try flying straight and level in the instant action mode, you won't last too long. The bandits don't seem to be great shots - they remind me of, but are somewhat better than, EAW1.2 where you could fly all day and they'd just weave about behind you and hose the sky. For some reason it seems safer in campaign but you are not entirely invulnerable to mg fire.

The visual damage is a bit overdone, lots of planes flying about missing fabric on an elevator or most of a wingtip. A bit un-nevring to hear a German for challenge you to a race in a mission! And the lack of hatswitch panning is an issue if you don't like mouselook or trackir.

A lot of nagatives for a sim but the potential is there "if only.." The environment (sky & terrain) has to be the most photorealistic of any - much better than IL2 or CFS3. Sure the edges of the 3d frests are not that great but the overall impression is much better than CFS3 with its forest textures with s few trees scattered about. Other trees line up in hedgerows like CFS3. The "maps" are distinctive, all are beautiful to look at, the Somme is just gobsmackingly gorgeous. You really have to fly around it to believe it. The fog isn't too far away as in IL2 but the terrain is much better than that or CFS3, it really raises the bar.

If this could be worked on to take out the worst of the arcady stuff, and even an FCG-style scripted campaign provided - which can be ok, even the best dymanic campaign missions are always "samey" - it would be a top-notch flightsim, one of the very best; but that's a very big "if"...but for sure, we've been presented with a fantastic game engine, if only its present limitations can be pushed back just enough to take it into the sim category.

Sorry about this fellas but I came in here to , thankfully, correct my earlier bit about not being shot down.
As Ivor says, in Instant Action, you can and will be shot down. I'm still not sure about the Campaign situation. I'll just use that to get to the other planes. If I could do that any other way i would and just play deathmatch scenarios.
I have to say that in Instant Action, albeit I'm only in an Eindecker, I haven't had such long, great dogfights as in this sim.
I now think that the damage modelling is very good, a lot of bullets is what takes you out, bit by bit!!
Ivor says it re the terrain - It is wonderful. I have just been one on one over a factory town /railhead, complete with coal stocks piled up, being shot at by ground troops. Try it on winter settings, starting with a crisp sky and as you fight over ten mins or so the weather closes in ever so gradually and then the vis is down and finally you are fighting in a snow storm. That is on one of the weather random settings. Of course, you can have constant weather and seasons.
The sound of wind is always there masking the engine sound just enough to seem right.
And, yes, if you hang up the plane on little throttle you will stall and then head downwards, but the engine throttles up as it gets the fuel back and, of course,the eindecker will glide quite slowly. Which did fool me re the lack of stall I thought the sim had.
A small bug I found was in this one to one scenario amongst the town, the voice over shouts at my british enemy to cease fire as if he were not the enemy!! These voice phrases always give problems, don't they, in all sims?
About the towns - If you think IL-2 towns are good wait till you see these.
The balloons are the best - burn lovely. I had one observer jump but he Roman Candled.
Ivor -S! Have you progressed in the campaign yet to get to other planes?

As I say, I'm sorry if my posts seem to contradict, but I am on a journey here to try to find the best way to play a sim out of this arcade game.
I begin to get the feeling, almost,that the makers having made an arcade game don't realize just how near they are to having made one of the best flight sims. It would be great if they did and issued a patch for us hardcore types,( or let our brilliant modders loose on it ) leaving the original for the first intended market!!!

Whatever, it is great fun.

No problem Cas141 about your first impressions (or if they change as you get more familiar with the game), for many of us right now you guys are our only source of in-depth information on Wings Of War anyway!

Hey, perhaps you can fly any plane you choose from within the multiplayer game?

If co-op is present, then maybe missions can be flown where you can choose the plane type you like, or switch-out the composition of the aircraft within the missions?

Have you ventured into the multiplayer component of WOW much yet.............can you fly solo in a co-op mission (whether hosting online or on-LAN)?

Hi Cas no I haven't unlocked any planes. Most of the MMP games avail are password protected and I can't get into the one that isn't (didn't bother installing gamespy as I'm an SP-only layer by nature). The few game files there seem to be, .dlls and whatever, are just gibberish to me. Almost nothing for an amateur to poke around with.

Another issue is that the maps/arenas - at least the instant action ones - are fenced in by invisible barriers in the form of magic winds which blow you & the AI back in. Haven't found this in campaign yet so maybe it's just to keep all the AI planes from getting to far apart. When you call up the map - the full one, not just the little "radar" - the arena seems reasonably big, not limitless but big just about enough for WW1.

Try a Somme instant action with just one enemy plane and a good few of your side. Then fly around low down, along the Lines. Look at the vehicles! Not just softskins, there are various tanks and armoured cars. For example I recognised one of the distinctive French WW1 tanks - a St Chamond or a Schnieder. There's what looks like one of the later British types too. The attention to detail in many places is unbelievable and it plays really smoothly! As you say the towns and buildings are exeptionally good. Listen to the effects if you fly around low in no-mans land in the Somme arena - in places there's ground fighting going on and there's a very convincing dim of battle with SA and arty fire going off. No people though but much else besides - and those bird flocks! Amazing!

Notice how your pilot figure (in one of the external views) looks around from time to time like in SFP1?

At one point I flew my Eindecker thru a Zeppelin shed (and got extra "shields" and an instant engine upgrade for doing so it seems!!). But I can almost forget the arcade stuff, the overall impression is so good; it's nearly cinematic, like being IN sequences from the Blue Max or Aces High.

For now, the trick would be to find a way to unlock all the planes for instant action. Or make hand-made missions that could be added to the game's listing. Presumably the voice overs can be dealt with by turning the voice slider down in options till a better way is found.

Albeit some of the skins available for each plane are gaudy, many are excellent as you've seen, and while they mostly have daft names and there are some oddities like the prototype Albatros triplane, they are very accurate models (though the Eindecker seems based on a restoration, as it has ailerons instead of wing warping).Like you I would be very happy for now just to be able to fly the other planes in inatant action, locking them till you progress in campaign was a bizzare design decision.

The game isn't yet on the take2games or gathering forums as far as I can see, just a tech spport e-mail. If the developer isn't going to build on this - I assume that's too much to hope for, but we must ask them - it would be nice if they could release a patch or some goodies to help along what could be a growing community.

I have been playing this for over a week find it quiet addictive due to the quality of the models, some effects and terrain.

Edit: Running @ 1600x1200 with AA and Anisotropic graphic filtering up full and it's stonking speed

In the "campaign" mode the missions are too many for a sim and total arcade (go here, shoot that, come back bomb this, capture that and don't forget to do this). However the individual components of the missions are sometimes excellent (shooting down zepplins for instance is nicely done, as are the many balloon model types in the game (more great attentiont to detail).

The plane models are fantastic, and include internal details, controls, internal frame etc. The cockpits are varied and less detailed but still not bad (mod fodder )

The skins on all models are really top notch apart from some horrible, over-the-top and totally non-historic paint designs for some plane skins but some are really very good.

It's 'almost there'. The FMs on "classic" mode and "hard" game settings make it more enjoyable from a simmer's perspective, also there's an option to turn off "combined" controls which basically gives you rudder control. The icons and helpful bits in the hud can all be turned off making it more like a sim as others have said.

As I said the models are exceptional and I have got to fly in more multi-seat plane types including 2 3 or 5 seaters (I think) than any other sim. There are a fair few models maybe not seen in a sim before, certainly with this quality/detail, including water based bombers, large early bombers etc. These are also sometimes flyable or you are gunner but usually you get to fly them too after doing the mission bit.

Also I got to fly my favourite Bristol Fighter with a good active co-gunner in some missions nearer the end (in team DM mode you have no backseater).

The terrain is excellent, the attention to detail phenominal for an "arcade" game. It makes me think the developers are big WW1 fans and were either originally aiming for an ultra realistic sim, then got told to make it arcady for xbox, or wanted to put all the detail in there as they planned to bring out another game more simmy based closely on this??

I will post some screenshots shortly, and might make a movie with gamecam or fraps sortly too.

The Co-op mode isn't bad, you can get the dogfights to last a while if people spread out some, dive low etc, the powerups all though spoiling the sim effect do make multiplayer extended and fun.

When I and others posted on SWWISA that this has a great potential for modding, there wasn't a great reaction for some reason. Yet this is as close to a "modern" and "quality" engine as most of us will get near right now. I was thinking an IL2 type campaign manager and some FM and gameplay tweeks and this could be a seriously good sim.

The tremendous detail such as moving rods/gears in the wings in the Nieuport (Silverfish?) when you effect a roll isn't in any other sim and all it needs is some serious modders to look at it baaah!. Give me some pointers where to look and I'll make a start

One thing.. whatever happens to this I am still buying KOE if it ever comes out !! )

Thanx for the info guys. Please keep it coming as this sounds like it has some potential.

Is it possible to rip the wings off when you exceed the G limit?... He, he I suppose not. But I dunno, looking at the detail on the burning zep I wouldn't put it past them.

There is nothing like a WWI flight sim that is out on the market and making money to resurrect KOE in a hurry! Those publishers could be back knocking on Aspects door with their hat in their hand! Ha, ha I really hope this sim sells well. If it does it could be a real procussor of more to come.

True Toadvine, I hope it sells lots on the PC and their forums get filled with "make it more realistic" messages

No the wings don't rip off

Do the devs have a forum? That would be great if they did.

Yes I hope it sells a lot also . That can only help . Lots of copy cats out there some good some better. They will always make a add on if it sells well enough if they work like other comp companies. I'd like to sell it sell like hot cakes just to show the people at KOE how wrong they are about us simmers. Will be 6 copies sold on my end at least.

I'll buy KOE either way also and any decent sim that comes out wings with wires etc. Same with ww2 tank sims with MP but that is pie in the sky . I too think this will help KOE come out sooner of later as was mentioned.

Maybe they have some sort of sliding scale for the AI gunnery in order to let people get "into" the game before giving up? Maybe the gunnery will become more deadly as you progress in the campaign? Wouldn't be a bad idea, IF it could be toggled.

Since this is Take2 Interactive, I've been wondering if the dreaded Starforce copy protection is on WoW? I hope not! Its probably the ONLY game coming out that I would buy even if it contained Starforce. I wouldn't be happy about it though.

Found a review at a german site, including screen shots. http://www.gamezone.de/reviews_detail.asp?gameid=21764#
edit: typo

As I understand, the developer Silver Wish games is a division of Illusion softworks, maker of Mafia and Hidden and Dangerous 1 and 2. If that is right, the developer is probably Chech. Could Wings of War have been made with the same game engine, the so called LS3D, that is used for both Mafia and HD2? I think there could be modding tools for those games around. Just a long shot...

Cas141, I'm fine, hope you are well too!

Found the answer myself - if I don't misunderstand, this chech review states that the LS3D engine is used: http://games.tiscali.cz/reviews/wingsofwar/index.asp

Ursus, thanks for that link, and there are some excellent screenshots available there too!

Here's one of those that shows the SPAD 7's cockpit:

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0UgAKA6oZ0...485884868944411[/img]

Looks pretty nice.

I saw that a cheat utility was linked that unlocks the planes and the game's campaign, but not sure how safe it is to use either.

You know what - there's also a fan site around! http://www.hubertovo.cz/wow/ in both english and chech. I guess this site has some connections to the developers, seems to have some "inside" material.

the .dta files that a lot of the game is packed into come up on a google search as among other things being Hidden & Dangerous 2 archives.

The credits looks like Chech names and the Orchestral score is by IIRC the Bohemia symphony Orchestra - and it's really a very nice piece. As I posted earlier, WoW's production values are very high, even down to fonts & menus artwork - it just oozes quality. Like Polovski, I strongly suspect that this started out being developed as a sim but got recast in arcade mode. It would be a lot to hope for that a sim version is in hand.

What we need is some cheat codes, to make all planes available in instant action (eg by counting the campaiggn missions as "won"), turn off the silly instant upgrades etc.

I haven't found a forum for this yet but we do need to speak to the devs to see what the score is.

S! - Povlovski, did you find a way of getting the other planes short of having to work through the campaign missions?

Here's some artwork of some of the available plane models:

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0UgADAwcav...485883569753391[/img]

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0UgAAAAga*...485883571916782[/img]

As was mentioned already, there's no reason to have an experimental Nieuport triplane (approx. 3 built) in the game, but all the other aircraft models are certainly welcomed!

And here's a link how to decompress .dta files in Mafia including a tool. Could perhaps work in WoW too. http://www.kamalook.de/Mafia/DTA.html

Ursus, I think you just found the keys to the palace............besides beautiful screenshots, there's even a WoW video available on that website!!!

Check out these visuals..........

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0WAAAADocn...485887759961663[/img]

As the website is being translated into English yet, not all site categories are available at the moment.

You know from what I've seen and read so far, you guys are probably right..........this game looks like it could very well have been written as a serious sim first........and perhaps there's internal code that will allow the difficulty to be ramped up later!

:)

LOL!

Hey the "videos" allow you to view the camouflage schemes of the SSW D.III, and the Nieuport 17 along with the experimental Nieuport triplane.

Not a bad website for being the "unofficial" WoW Page.

Thanks again Ursus!

Regarding moddability, as I have said before - the game will be moddable providing
someone can create a file unpacker for the game's .dta files. From looking at these
in a hex-editor, all of the game's resource files (skins, sounds etc.) are in standard
formats - .WAV, .DDS etc. No idea about what format 3D models are in though.
Aircraft data for FMs etc, and mission scripts, are also stored in the .dta files.

So if someone can find out how to unpack .dta files, it will be very straightforward to create aircraft
skins, terrain mods, sound mods, etc. Regarding aircraft data, missions, etc., these files appear
to be in binary format (with text identifiers) so would require further deciphering in order to
edit them. This happened with EAW though!

More info regarding .dta files, they seem to be in a similar format to those used in "Mafia" and
"Hidden and Dangerous 2" but (unlike these two games) they are either not compressed at all, or only very lightly compressed.
The file "rw_data.dll" in the game's root directory appears to contain the functions required to access .dta files so someone more skilled at programming than me could try and use this to create an unpacker.

Guys , this is unbelievable . I have just flown in a furball mostly at 55 FPS, sometimes down to 30 FPS. Using FRAPS I am at 1600 x 1200!!
And not a jaggie in sight.
That's not a typo -
I repeat my system - Not top end now- Athlon 1800; 512 Ram; Radeon 9800Pro, Omega drivers; Windows 98SE.
I have flown in a 6 plane furball, at this resolution, and all without a stutter; without a UFO, in other words Bloody near perfect!!
Detail - I set up a Team Deathmatch with 4 of us Germans and 2 RAF boys. The scene was Georgette, all else was Random.
When we set to I buggered off to have a look around the area. I found a gravel pit with a factory at the bottom of it. Looking up from my coward's position, the guys are all at it. Two or so have black smoke trails, then I see a collision, bits falling down, engines a lot faster than wing remnants, of course.
This is the most realistic looking air WW1 air battle I have seen outside the Blue Max.
I am still sneaking off and these guys are a long way away, but they are not pixels, they are still planes.
I get the idea it is mostly over and one seems to come looking for me. I see he has more than one wing so i figure he is a enemy . Then I see he is a triplane, and he isn't behaving like an enemy.
As I get closer to check, the others turn up.
I then realize that I had set for the "Bots" ( AI) to respawn after 12 mins ( optional ), so these must be they.
Anyway, off we go again, this time I'm looking to fight. But, what the hell, they are all triplanes and Biplanes. A lot of you expertchaps would be able to tell which models they were,'cos the detail is excellent, but I need to see the roundels and crosses.
I see one and go for him, but he seems to be possibly limping. I shoot a few rounds and in he goes, but I don't think it could really be my claim. ( Unless i am Bruno Stachel )
Eventually, I am zapped and so I close the game.

But i don't mind, cos I'm in a hurry to tell
you about the FPS and resolution, and how this "arcade game" is giving me such great fun....
Its not just an arcade game, it is that OR a Sim, whichever you want.
Look at the website which URSUS found, and the screenshots there. For flying in WW1 dogfights, I haven't found anything to come anywhere near it, and there is such potential.
You may have gathered that I haven't been so enthusiastic about a flight sim for a long time.

Great job finding that Ursus I had a look for the devs and didn't find anything but these links are good. I made a few gamplay videos, and a video of the menu system and all model previews. Total is arond 60MB so I need somewhere to post them, but if this website has sufficient videos and screenshots maybe there's no need for me to post them.

Runs very nicely with gamecam capturing 1600x1200 with 6x AA and 8X Ansi enabled too although this is on a high end system, but others say it runs great on their systems too.

No not yet, I'm going to look through the game files, maybe it's contained in the wow.sav in each players savegame? or the fact there are 12 major saves and the saves stages you have not done yet contain zeros.

Just went to our brand new local EB. They showed me that they expect WOW in store on August 31. The page date was the 18th of Aug.

There is an interesting bunch of sepia shots on the Czech page under "Archiv". Here's Cas's gravel pit with the factory, I think:

http://www.hubertovo.cz/wow/img/arc/WoW_vintage55.jpg

It would be very nice to have them posted, there are no in-game videos around yet as far as I know. I don't have any webspace, hope someone can host these.

I know nothing of these things but I tried to run the mafia .dta file extractor on WoW but it can't handle WoW's rw_data.dll file - or at least that's what the error message says. I've e-mailed the extractor proggie's creator to see if he can help!

The .dta files are not in exactly the same format as Mafia or H&D2. Both these games use
completely compressed .dta files, including the file directory (the data at the end of the .dta
file which lists the files stored within it). WoW's files, however are either uncompressed or only partly
compressed, and the file directory is certainly uncompressed. Therefore a standard Mafia file extractor
won't work - but writing a new one should be fairly straightforward. Compressed/encrypted files are an absolute
nightmare to write an extractor for, so if the creator managed to make a Mafia extractor, a WoW one shouldn't
pose much of a challenge!

I just managed to get into a team MP game on hard settings - first time I've played online in my life, but I had to see if I could get another one of those lovely planes! - and yes, I could choose them all, so I flew a Pfalz DIII in true Bruno Stachel style (Tho my kill ratio was crap)

Fantastic fun! A little lag at times but dogfighting over those beautiful landscapes and in or against those lovely aircraft, in brilliant and changing weather, is an amazing experience, not to be missed. Worth the price of admission for that alone. WOW! (pun intended!)

Another of WoW's nice touches is the way your engine noise really builds up when you're hurtling earthward and falls off as you labour upwards. And the ambient wind noises, real open cockpit stuff. Great feeling of being in a real plane, in a real world, even if you know you can't tear your wings off pulling out.

Now if the worst of the arcady bits can be disabled - got to be easier to remove stuff than add it - and simple campaigns of hand-made missions added, this will be a winner as a sim too. Even if we might never have structural over-stress damage and other finer points, the overall experience would be enough to lift this into a great experience. Well, it's already a great experience, but the potential...!

OK I posted the movies and a few screenshots (temporary). I have more, but no space. I may have to remove these if the bandwidth usage drives the SWWISA guys nuts

Note only some indicators turned off and you can turn them all off.
Although the campaign would be tough without them totally.
Luckily you can toggle things like the "radar" and info off in flight.

Settings are "hard" and "classic"

Around 6-7MB each.. (right click choose save as)

The external views of DH2:
http://www.swwisa.net/polovski/WoW/wow_int_view1.avi

The cockpit/internal view of DH2:
http://www.swwisa.net/polovski/WoW/wow_ext_view2.avi

DH2 downs Eindecker:
http://www.swwisa.net/polovski/WoW/wow_dogfight3.avi

Shows game menu (1.29MB):
http://www.swwisa.net/polovski/WoW/wow_menu4.avi

Screenshots @ 1600x1200 (jpeg) (around 600k each)
first 3 are from model preview ("hanger" menu)
http://www.swwisa.net/polovski/WoW/WoW-image-012.jpg
http://www.swwisa.net/polovski/WoW/WoW-image-024.jpg
http://www.swwisa.net/polovski/WoW/WoW-image-029.jpg
http://www.swwisa.net/polovski/WoW/WoW-image-057.jpg
http://www.swwisa.net/polovski/WoW/WoW-image-059.jpg
http://www.swwisa.net/polovski/WoW/WoW-image-060.jpg
http://www.swwisa.net/polovski/WoW/WoW-image-061.jpg
http://www.swwisa.net/polovski/WoW/WoW-image-064.jpg

S!

Sounds great Ivor H:

:D

Polovski.............man thanks so much for all the media!!!

Takin' a look now...............

No problem FlyXwire, it was hard to choose the best ones to show it off, to show what I think you guys need/would like to see, how the damage works, internal and ext views, landscape etc. As I say, I have more movies and screenshots all worth seeing but can't possibly host them all there

Let me know what you think. It's hard to do it justice in the movies so compressed, it looks stunning @ 1600x1200 etc and moves even smoother (movie capture slows things down slightly of course).

Hey those videos are great Polovski!!!

Except for your "pal's" voices, the dynamic flying certainly looks action packed!

Seeing some of the GUI artwork shows the designers put quite a bit of work into this game for sure.

Bravo!

glad it gave you a taste. Yes the voices are a bit odd (didn't see a radio ). Still, good fun.

Geesh Polovski, look at the Felixstowe's pilot taken from one of your screenshots:

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0UAADA2kZs...485968968392024[/img]

He even looks cold!

Yes I see what you mean, sort of a glazed "what the hell am I doing flying this piece of junk freezing my nuts off being shot at by 3 enemies with that idiot Polovski manning the gun" look.

LOL!

I'm very impressed with the modeling and animation details you've shown us here Polovski.

The Lewis gun pan rotates when firing as it should.

The DH 2 model has the "chin" fairing for the floor mounted compass........hey, Polovski......is the compass indeed on the floor in the game?

There's the "sharks teeth" motif under the DH 2's nacelle of No. 24 Squadron R.A.F.!

Super damage effetcs too, dig those splintered 'A' Flight wing struts!

More videos Polovski, more videos (or at least screenshots)!

Cas41

Thanks for post . Sounds like this may be the game that myself and 2 brothers have been looking for for 3-4 years . Seems it takes someone from old USSR to make games we need . This and IL2 . No one seems to mention much that they are doing all this for $20 not $40-50. I like the fact it has Arcade mode since I think that helps to bring in people who would otherwise be turned off by the hard flight model like in RBII that has you bouncing off the ground for 2 days before you get the hang of it. Later they can switch to harder flight mode . Otherwise it's like the modeling industry that makes $40 tank and plane models these days but no introductory priced kits so a kid can buy one with his allowance. Kills off the next generation.

Polovski

Man that was awesome .Thanks . Whoever said you can see detail down low wasn't kidding. I'm sure you noticed the spinning radials of the motor behind you .Sorry I don't have more to contribute to this thread but don't have game yet. Please post another video tomorrow if it isn't too much trouble.I'll look forward to it all day at work . I used to play RBII all night Fri and Sat and lose track of time . Hey why is the sun coming up it can't be more than 1 or 2 in the morning !!! Thanks Again .Going to go watch it again. Does anybody's family laugh at them when they are playing a flight sim and you find yourself leaning around in the chair like you are in a real plane without knowing you are doing it.

I've been gone for two weeks on vacation and now I see all these WoW screenshots and enthusiasm. Wasn't this the game we were all going to boycott? lol. It actually looks pretty good from the screenshots I've looked at. Have to go back and read more of this post.

VAPOR TRAILS and a revolving Magazine on the machine gun !!!! Are you kidding me!!!! I think whats happening is these companies from overseas know they have to make something outstanding to get noticed . Well them have. Sort of like what women say about having to do a job twice as good as a man to get noticed. Polovsky was "Giving it to him Proper as my brothers and I like to say.

I've been forwarding the links to screen shots of WoW to GS. So far his only comment has been,"Too bad we couldn't have combined the two together, taking the best from KOE and combining it with the best of WoW. That would've been something."

I've tried to download the avi's but they won't play on any of the software I have. I suspect I had a corrupted download.

It makes me sad when I read how excited people are getting over the fact that the magazine on the Lewis gun rotates. We had that in KOE a year ago. Now when we bring KOE out in a few months people will say, "Oh yeah, that's just like what they have in WoW"

I also find it very interesting to watch people making plans on how to hack into WoW and start finding ways to make their own mods for it, even before it gets released here in the States. Kinda shows where their priorities are at.

Needless to say, I'll be watching in the days ahead.

Hey X man .
When KOE comes out I'll buy it . Would also like to see their WW2 Pacific game and the Mercury rocket game. And I'm sure there is a lot of overlap between the 2 games .

Just ordered a copy from gameplay.com £17.99, can't wait...

That should not make you sad. All the comment is doing is trying to convey to readers of the thread how good WoW is- if the detail is that good , then it backs up the rest of the positive reports being made about WoW.
People here will buy KOE when (if)it comes out and no doubt comparisons will be made. But it is going to have to go some to be as good in some important respects,IMHO. IIRC, the terrain shots on KOE are not in the same class as WoW.
WoW is "arcaded" at the moment, but it seems possible to tweak a sim experience out of it, as has been said just a few posts back.
No, that's incorrect; it is NOW possible to tweak a sim experience- I'm flying it every day with Cougar and trackIR, and no dogfight in any sim is any better -period.
As for trying to change WoW, that's what all hardcore simmers want to do to every sim there is!
I would hope that would be regarded as a compliment to WoW developers for an "arcade" game to be so well regarded by hardcore simmers.
Believe me, this WoW is a quantum leap in many respects. When you guys in the States fly it and assess it ( with an open mind ), I'm sure you will agree.

Wings of Honor (the old DOS Game) had a rotating Lewis Mag already

I suppose if the guy who did the file packers for H&D2 can be arsed to create one for this engine (which seems to be similar enough) then the wait for KoE isn't going to be as bad...

It would be nice if someone release a "realism patch" for WoW (containing engine torque, stalls etc. - overall a complex flight and engine mangement model)

Xeidos2 don't worry I am sure most here will definitely buy KOE if it is released! You can see how hungry we are for a decent WW1 sim and there is certainly lots of room for more WW1 sims.

The problem with WoW is that it has so much potential and great features and lots of nice touches (which all adds to the atmosphere and are very important of course) but is basically arcade like. KOE is a sim and we want it that way, but if it helps get it to market maybe you could add a good arcade mode too then appeal to both sets of fans. As long as we can taylor it completely to a full sim and it has an excellent campaign I think it would be a mega hit.

WoW has some sim features but not enough so we need to mod it immediately

I think these AVI's use media player 9 filters
They mention making sure you have the right codecs installed on the gamecam website.
You could try installing the windows media player 9 codecs if you don't have them or try the one of the full codec packs (K-Lite, or All Codecs I have found to be good).
http://www.free-codecs.com

I'll try to post more avi's but I need more space somewhere.

FS-WWI has had revolving Lewis drums for ages, not that most people would know. The terrain is a different story.

The priorities are that they want to make WoW more realistic, naturally.

i just bought the game today, my first impression is very good. The graphics are phantastic, the flight model is forgiving even in hard setting and classic fm. I like the mouse view. These graphics with the flight modell of Flying Corps Gold and the mission of rb3d would be a dream.

Polovski - thanks for the movie clips and screens. It looks really neat.

WoW should be released here this week as I understand - guess I have to get it though it may be a bit of a "sim light".

Xeidos2 - we are starving for a real WW1 sim - keep up the work with KOE!

Well, I bought it this afternoon and rushed home to give it a blast and then discovered that it's a DVD-ROM which put the dampners on things seeing as my DVD drive packed up ages ago and I haven't got a new one yet..

Ah well, I guess it will stay in its box until I get my new machine. :rolleyes: ( WHich won't be that long with a bit of luck.)

To Polovski

Thanks for the help with the AVI's. I was finally able to view them. I suspect the problem was a corrupted file in the first attempt to download the avi's.

Although the FM and DM feels reasonable, my main problem with it realism-wise
is (a) the powerup system (which is unavoidable unfortunately - even in campaign
mode you get "engine boost" and "shield" bonuses, etc. just by doing well in combat sometimes)
and (b) the often rather unrealistic combat balancing which seems to pit you and your wingmen
against vast hordes of dim-witted enemies, rather than a more equally-matched battle against
enemies with better flying and shooting skills.
Hopefully it will get better later on, but I found in the first mission, the enemy Eindeckers were such bad shots that
they were no threat even when outnumbered 4 to 1. If they got on your tail they would seem to shoot randomly in your general direction and very rarely hit you. (The flak guns around the town/bridge area were MUCH more dangerous, as were, strangely, the rear gunners of the recon aircraft earlier on in the mission).

I noticed a Felixstowe F.2 flying boat in one of those screenshots - definitely my favourite WW1 multi-engine
aircraft, it would be interesting to create missions for if WoW modding/mission creating ever gets off the ground! The
Hansa-Brandenburg seaplane fighter (its main nemesis) is also modelled. Not sure if there are any U-boats in the game - patrolling for these was one of the Felixstowe's main duties AFAIK.

From the look of the shots, it looks like there is allot of up to date graphics being used. It's visually amazing.

Maybe the company would be interested in providing a developer's toolkit if they see that it will bolster sales for their product.

That way, one can play the original game on Xbox with your kids and then play a modified standard on one's PC catering more to our interests in producing a higher fidelity simulation.

I am torn though wondering how this arcady sim reflects upon the events of the past. Still, if it gets young people interested in the WW1 era and choosing to seek out more information about it that can't be a bad thing. Many of us found flying sims a catalyst to learning more about the people and times.

The irony being that they could potentially release an add-on much like FCJ to their own product to cater more to the realism crowd.

If it has the same attention to detail as Mafia, I may have to grab a copy. That is still one of the best crafted games I have ever played on my PC. The game’s race sequence alone is a sim in itself.

Xeidos2 wrote:

“I also find it very interesting to watch people making plans on how to hack into WoW and start finding ways to make their own mods for it, even before it gets released here in the States. Kinda shows where their priorities are at.”

I think it shows that our priorities are to try to get ourselves a new up to date WW1 sim by any means necessary. When KOE comes out, I’ll still get it. Still, beggars can’t be choosers and we don’t have allot of options currently at our disposal. It would be nice to fly something WW1 that feels up to date graphically.

Are there still plans for an interview of Aspect by SIMHQ? There are still matters of clarifying what there lies in store for the future.

For an arcade game, it looks like the developers paid a great attention to detail. This leaves me wondering what their original intentions were creating it and how they might have changed down the line.

The market for WW1 games isn’t exactly bursting at the seams and it's nice to see something from the era again being sold. I wish it had come out wihout the goofy arcade stuff but if it can be changed, there is a great deal of potential.

At least now it shows what can be done with graphic visuals without it coming from Maddox Games for once.

S!

This is blowing my mind

I just pre ordered mine from J&R for only about $18 + shipping.

The developer of the .dta extractor for Mafia has knndly replied, and reports;

Hi!

After a brief look at the rw_data.dll I don't think there is any way the
MafiaDataXtractor would work with this game. The dll has changed quite a
lot since then as you would expect from an engine that is constantly
used and improved. However it is quite possible that the file format
hasn't changed that much since then, but as I don't own the game I can
only speculate about that. I think with some extra work and further
reverse engineering it should be possible for someone to extract the
files using the new dll.
You might want to have a look at this:
http://www.kamalook.de/Mafia/DTA.html. This page contains pretty much
all I know about Mafias DTA files.

Regards,
Malte Thiesen AKA MassaSnygga

I wonder if there's anything for H&D2 which is a bit more recent. Hopefully someone with the right skills can look at this?

BTW WoW's SPAD looks like it has 3 Vickers and a Lewis on the top plane - ugh!

Had another short blast this evening playing team deathmatch online - this is addictive! But this time I gave up on the virtual cockpit and played in external mode, at least I took SOME names this time!

Hey folks, shouldn't we be interested that there's a new WWI flying game on the market that exudes quality, apparently plays well on medium performance PCs at least, and perhaps offers a hope for future development and/or expansion?

Let me offer a quote here drawn from another WWI game forum:

I do not recommend a boycott of any kind. It won't help us at Aspect. It won't affect the decision makers at TakeTwo/The Gathering. If getting a copy of Wings of War (card game or xbox/pc) gives you a chance to have some fun with your son, do so with my blessings. Just set aside some money so that you can also play our project A when it comes out as well . KOE revised should follow a few months after that.

Also from here on SimHQ:

It makes me sad when I read how excited people are getting over the fact that the magazine on the Lewis gun rotates. We had that in KOE a year ago. Now when we bring KOE out in a few months people will say, "Oh yeah, that's just like what they have in WoW"

First I'm pleased that the Lewis gun's magazine pan rotates in WoW, because this is not only historically accurate but also quantitatively immersive. Still (as RSColonel and Hentzau have already mentioned above), Wings of Honor and FS-WWI had this weapon animation years ago, so whom ever brings touches like these back to the mainstream matters little, as long as future sims recognize that such features do have significance for some of us!

Now in the greater scope of things I want to again highlight Xeidos2's words here:

Now when we bring KOE out in a few months people will say.............

John, I'm awaiting "Project A" to arrive in the not too distant future, and will buy it just to give Aspect the sale, but when you say you'll be bringing out KOE (revised) in a few months, then I will have to temper the ole "suspension of disbelief" and ask you to qualify your comments more here.

A few months is still Q4-04............are you saying that KOE (revised) is still on target for this Christmas sales seasons?

If so, I'll hold off buying WoW and wait for Aspect's new WWI sim instead!

WoW is a bargin based game is it not? I thought it was coming in at around $20. That is cheap enough to be able to afford it and a copy of KOE later on. I would love to have them both. There would be no more whining about the lack of a good WW1 flight sim! As far as modding, I am no modder. I can barely navigate around Windows. I just play what is available and the versions I like the most.

Also, I don't always prefer modded versions. I played the stock RB3D for many hours before putting in much time with any mods. They were just too hard for one thing and for another, they droped my frame rates into the toilet. So, what I played mostly was the stock RB3D with Rens terrain mods coupled with modded airplane skins. Also, I used Garps flamer patch. That was my favorite mod of all!

FCJ is a great looking mod but my comp wouldn't handle it very well at all. Plus for me, Kess has the difficulty cranked up pretty high. Hells Angles ran much better so I usually played that when I was up for a more challenging sim than the stock game.


So I guess my point is that not all sim pilots fly modded games. I never play the mods to the exclusion of the stock game. I mean in regards to the FM, DM, and Campaign. RB3Ds stock FM and DM on high difficulty was good enough for me most of the time. Sometimes I would fly FCJ or Hells Angels for some extra challenge, but I always came back to the stock game.

I said a few months simply because I don't think it's going to take us a year to finish project A and then have the first stage of KOE revised and ready for release. But it might be long enough that you should probably indulge yourself with a copy of WoW.

I'd be tempted to buy a copy myself if it weren't for two things. 1) I've been on a starvation budget since Destineer started messing around with not paying us (March 2004) so I have no money to spare for anything. And 2) If their contract was anything like ours, less than fifty percent of what comes in from sales of WoW will go to the developer. The rest will go to line the pockets of TakeTwo and The Gathering execs.

So I'd recommend that no one hold off getting WoW because they're waiting for KOE. Just don't forget about us and write us off.

KOE is on my shopping list and I haven't even seen a demo yet so don't worry X we will buy it

As I posted on the SWWISA forums,

"Yes it's damn fun, it grows on you. At first the arcade stuff puts you off, but once you realise you can shed most of it, it's amazing. Turn off all the arcade aids, setup 4v4 multiplayer bot match (you and AI). Try to stick to cockpit for some of the dogfight, use mouse look (or trackIR) and it's really great fun. Occasionally cheat and press R for the "radar" to give you an idea wtf is going on

Oh you might need to do some campaign to get the DRI which is so well done, rolls like a pig but turns on a sixpence. You can also get a 99.sav which gives you access to all planes and campaigns if you are desperate

Only slight oddity (mentioned before by someone) is the Eindeckers having AILERONS and no wing warping BAAH. Pity when there are so many well done craft in there.


I have done some more movies and screenshots in this mode (great fun making them) and I'll upload them hopefully tomorrow.

Even in total arcade mode it is fun for a blast can't lose really for such a low price, very slick game worth every penny/cent.

Looks pretty like any of the new console games.

I have no use for it.

Better than any console game . I'd really be missing out if I didn't play . Can't wait to get it and KOE ,Pacific War ,Call of Duty . Whatever . Don't care for console games . I leave them to my nephews . So I will be playing this game.

Yeah, what's with that, strut-mounted MGs?

Bought WoW last week for $29 Australian, only to find depite the box being marked PC-CDROM, there was a DVD-ROM in the box. Took it back, all the others at the shop were similarly wrongly packaged, so have to wait for more stock.

It was also sold out in a couple of Sydney Australia shops i tried, so maybe selling well here?

Xeidos - not to worry mate, from what i have seen of KoE, I'll be a cert to be buying it when it's out too!

smith

Your loss - for £20 UK or $20 US, don't you think it's worth a look. It doesn't look "pretty" - it looks damn realistic.
Go, try it - be a Philistine for once
I dare you - I double dare you

That's the arcade side of it the "bonuses" if you fly in the multiplayer type game with AI you can turn off the visual bonuses so you can't see them anyway (although you can occasionally pick one up when flying low by mistake )

More pictures
http://www.polovski.co.uk/WoW

More AVi's hmmm thought I'd posted this already?

http://www.polovski.co.uk/WoW/WoW_campaign_start.avi
-shows a bit of the mission brief when starting campaign
(3.5MB)

http://www.polovski.co.uk/WoW/WoW_models.avi
- run through of all the models via "hanger" menu"
30MB

This is large...multiplayer dogfight versus AI with most arcade stuff turned off..
http://www.polovski.co.uk/WoW/WoW_1_1.avi
59MB


If I go over my bandwidth limit bye bye AVI's

(EDIT 28/08/04: Ok I made some of these smaller now to hold off the bandwidth usage a little)

Hey Polo thanks for the videos. They are very entertaining and revealing!

Speaking of consoles anyone tried out the xbox version? I was wondering if it supports wide screen and progressive scan.

Polovski - thanks for the new pics and avi's. You've been busy mate! Great looks. Cheers!

I haven't kept up apparently... Is KOE dead or not? Thanks CJ

Huh? Wossat? 99.sav? Is that an in-joke or have you found a way of unlocking all the planes? Do tell!

Looking at the .sav files in a Hex Editor (know nothing about that but it sounds kinda smart, no?) the first three in my case have some gibberish in them, the rest of them it's just obelisks all the way. OK I can get the DH2 or Eindecker but I AM desperate to get the others in SP.

Please spell out how to get the other planes into the Hangar!
TIA

Ursus - I've sent an email to your address shown on your FCG website.

Does this have anything to do with it?:

http://gameguru.box.sk/cheat.php3?cheat=9669

Bingo! Works a treat! Thanks Q! So the mods have started already!

You're welcome. Keep posting. I'm following this thread with interest!

For Capt. Jack

KOE is not dead. It's been delayed. Please read the thread on this forum called, "An e-mail from the top about KOE." It should give you all the details.

http://www.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/boards/bbs/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=100;t=000184

That's the one sorry Ivor I should have posted a link

Yep Capt. Jack we are keeping this thread warm for Xeidos2 until KOE arrives

I was partly wrong about the SPAD's guns, what I took to be the recessed twin vickers of the S.13 are actually the fairings over the Hispano-Suiza's cylinder banks, it is a SPAD 7 with the correct single Vickers...but it does have a spurious Lewis Gun on the top of the centre section, as does the Brisfit, pity but not the end of the world. Funny, the Dolphin has Vickers but no Lewis Guns (which they often dropped anyway in RL).

Well, there's still a lot that could use fixing but so far so good. The planes do seem to pull off some UFO moves at times but in that sense it remnds me a bit of EAW, a great sim by most standards and still going strong, but until fairly recently the AI planes could pull off some fancy negative G stuff too.

The guy who posted that all planes fix was in an MP game I hosted (I think) earlier. Haven't a clue about MP so if anyone who's played online with me is reading this and has had probs with some plonker (me!)doing odd stuff like pulling the plug without warning, sorry!

From Polovski's Newcomer Campaign video (WoW_campaign_start.avi):

Settle down gentlemen!!!

Right then........

Ah Butch, this is your first combat mission so be a good lad and try to keep your plane in one piece.............recruits we have lots of, but good planes is another matter.

Right!

LOL.........too funny!!!

Reminds me of somethin' out of a Monty Python's Flying Circus skit.

Right then.......

Sounds like the WoW designers have a sense of humor too!

Polovski - thanks for the screens and videos - keep 'em coming please!

smith

Thank you very much - Appreciated!

No problem Brian thanks for the thanks
My bandwidth usage is shooting through the roof
might have to buy some extra this month or pull the vids at some point.

After looking at the jpegs I got to say this looks very good! And to think it is running well on everyone's machine is great. Is there a lot of FMVs? Is that why it's on DVD?

Just downloaded and viewed the AVI movies. Very nice work. Both me and my son are very excited, and I think even the Mrs. was looking at the flashy Camels. The Albatros DR I looks great! And all those balloons!?!? I live in the states so I stills gotsta wait a week or so.

OK, I bought WoW a few days ago, and I finally played it last night. It has generated a fair amount of excitement here (a good thing) and sparked a lot of discussion (another good thing), and might get more people playing WW1 flight sims (also a good thing). Plus it only costs twenty quid so really there's nothing to lose. However, with all that said, I got the impression from some of the threads here that WoW was going to be a bit closer to a 'real' flight sim than it turned out to be, so I thought it might be useful to give another, slightly less glowing, review here for those who haven't tried it yet. So here goes. (Quite long)

Graphics - well, you've seen the screenshots and movies. On the whole the graphics are very attractive. Some of the terrain is almost photo realistic. There are lots of ground features. Hills, trees, buildings etc are well implemented (though the blocks of forest less so). However, there is a strange fish eye lens effect (even though the view isn't very wide angle). Aircraft are nicely modelled from what I've seen so far. A variety of colour schemes (from realistic to fantasy eg blue with racing stripes) are available for each plane. Frame rates are consistently very high.

Weather - looks marvellous, with banks of clouds, blue skies, rain and snow, fog, all changing in the course of a mission. However, from what I've seen, these are all background visual effects - you can't get into or above the clouds, and weather seems to have no effect other than sometimes limiting visibility (for the player).

Flight model - well to be honest there isn't much of one. I started my first mission on 'arcade' mode, which seems to mean you can't roll more than 45 degrees. So I quickly switched to 'classic', which gives full freedom of movement. This was an instant action fight between me in an Eindecker and an AI oppoenent in some unspecified biplane, and I proceeded to follow him through a series of five or more consecutive vertical loops. Carrying out experiments away from the action, I looped a DH2 repeatedly from a start altitude of a few hundred feet, without losing speed or (much) height. Planes do lose speed while climbing, and gain speed while diving, and the nose tends to drop in a turn. but basically that's it for flight modelling. You are flying a spaceship, in effect. Not a criticism, as that probably suits the target market fine, but do be aware of this limitation.

AI - AI aircraft are agressive - they get behind you, fire accurately and shoot you down given half a chance. They are also tricky to shoot down, manoeuvring vigorously and using the vertical a lot (see comments on flight model above). It is very hard to stay behind an opponent, partly because all aircraft can turn 180 degrees in about 2 seconds and 20 yards horizontal distance (see comments on flight model above).

Damage modelling - aircraft (especially the player's) show a good range of visible damage, with buckled spars and ripped canvas. However, damage is clearly hit point based and basically attritional - pour machine gun fire into an opponent and his strength (indicated by a strength bar above his plane, unless you turn this off) slowly reduces. The player's aircraft (in campaign at least) has a shield that protects it from damage, Star Trek style. Rockets (all planes seem to carry rockets in instant action) can often cause an instant kill, even if exploding only in the general vicinity of the target. Shot down opponents (at least in instant action with respawn) either explode or spiral down a short way then vanish in mid air. Machine gun ammunition is unlimited, but rockets are so powerful that there seems little reason to use anything else, while they are available (they are limited in number).

Views - A range of external, chase, no cockpit and cockpit views. Fixed views, hat view and a nice mouse view. Optional markers (including off screen arrows) for all aircraft or your current target. No padlock. Simple instruments in the virtual cockpit give a suggestion of speed and altitude (I think) but are neither very useful nor really necessary. A HUD instrument (optional) shows speed, ammo, damage etc.

Production values - consistently high, with attractive and seamless UI, spoken briefings, very nice maps. All very slick and well put together.

Campaign - the campaign is a progression of scripted 'missions', each mission involving a large number of interim objectives, all described in an initial briefing, and on the lines of "Fly to railway station, shoot down fighters, go to factory, take photograph, go to artillery position, drop bomb" and so forth. In flight, coloured indicators show where to go and what to do, so you are rarely in any doubt. While these indicators can be turned off, it would be very hard working out what to do next without them. Pilots talk to one another in flight. The emphasis is on constant action and lots of opponents to shoot at. Progress is saved automatically at various points, and if you are shot down or (more likely) crash, you go back to the last save point and do it all again. (This happened to me three times in the first mission before I lost patience, but I am perhaps unusually intolerant of the 'repeat until successful' approach). Completing objectives gives powerups (more engine power, extra guns, extra shields).

Instant action (offline) - choose a plane (from those 'unlocked' in the campaign, initially a DH2 or an Eindecker). Choose a number of AI friends or opponents (up to 15 a side). I couldn't find a way to specify the aircraft the AI flies - they seemed to be some generic Allied biplane and German triplane. Action starts with each side lined up a short distance apart and a few hundred feet up, all armed with a number of rockets, plus guns. Close and start blasting. Kills are frequent and (with rockets) mostly instantaneous. Planes can be set to respawn or not. A fifteen a side fight is fast, frantic and fun, but the limitations are serious - rockets dominate the fighting (in fact I got into the habit, after loosing off all my rockets, of crashing so that I could respawn with a fresh load). AI aircraft types can't be specified. The very high turn rates make for tight twisting balls of aircraft all shooting one another. Fun factor is high (eg playing a time limited team deathmatch, scores even, with thirty seconds to go, trying to get that one last kill...), realism factor is very low.

Bottom line - it's a simple bit of fun, nice to look at, that gives a good visual feel of WW1 air combat, while playing rather like one of the 'XWing' or 'TIE Fighter' games crossed with a standard FPS. I enjoyed it. But I seriously doubt whether any amount of patching, hacking or modding could turn it into a 'serious' flight sim, and anyone buying it with that in mind might well end up disappointed. Buy it for what it is, or pass, is my advice.

Thanks, Von Stalheim. It's good to get some balance in the reporting of this game. The bottom line seems to be that it is very limited but fun.

Well Von, everyone is entitled to his opinion, but your last paragraph is a little unfair. Why?
Because of your suggestion that no amount of hacking or modding can make this into a sim!
It was able to be done with EAW and Red Baron,(and others) and the latter especially was awful at first.
Lets look at what you said

"Graphics - well, you've seen the screenshots and movies. On the whole the graphics are very attractive. Some of the terrain is almost photo realistic. There are lots of ground features. Hills, trees, buildings etc are well implemented (though the blocks of forest less so). However, there is a strange fish eye lens effect (even though the view isn't very wide angle). Aircraft are nicely modelled from what I've seen so far. A variety of colour schemes (from realistic to fantasy eg blue with racing stripes) are available for each plane."

I dispute a fish eye effect. Using trackIR
I found it no differenet from any other sim, which can use trackir. Red Baron, which I suppose is the simmest of WW1 sims, cannot!.
The colour schemes -skins- you can choose do have some garish choices. But then you needn't use them. You can stick to sim approved ones!

So, apart from the disputed fish eye, I see nothing here that is not sim-like, yes?

" Frame rates are consistently very high."

Is this only to be mentioned briefly? The highest FPS of any sim there is? Again, in Red Baron, more than one plane takes you to single figure too often.

"Weather - looks marvellous, with banks of clouds, blue skies, rain and snow, fog, all changing in the course of a mission. However, from what I've seen, these are all background visual effects - you can't get into or above the clouds, and weather seems to have no effect other than sometimes limiting visibility (for the player)."

What sim, apart from F.B and BOB gets you into the clouds? What WW1 sim?. What effect therefore do you expect other than limiting vis.?

"This was an instant action fight between me in an Eindecker and an AI oppoenent in some unspecified biplane, and I proceeded to follow him through a series of five or more consecutive vertical loops. "

Why did you choose to do that, and then make a criticism of it.? I certainly don't do that when I fight in Instant Action, and neither does the AI.. If I climb I will lose speed with the engine finally spluttering, then I begin to drop randomly left or right, then the engine whines as it gets turned by the prop until I rev up and pull out? If this is unsim -like,what should a sim do different? Are you sure you have not left an arcade setting on?
I agree there's no torque, but apart from that..
.
"AI - AI aircraft are agressive - they get behind you, fire accurately and shoot you down given half a chance. They are also tricky to shoot down, manoeuvring vigorously and using the vertical a lot (see comments on flight model above). It is very hard to stay behind an opponent, partly because all aircraft can turn 180 degrees in about 2 seconds and 20 yards horizontal distance (see comments on flight model above)."

I agree with this, except the last sentence. The only times I had this happen was when the opponent was a dridecker- I figure the've over modelled the agility aspect. Against other models, if you can keep them in view, you can get behind them. They lead you a merry dance, but my experience is a 50 -50 success rate. This is too hard for a sim then? It should be easier?
Those rockets are a complete arcade thing- the sooner they are rid of the better- You don't think a patch or modder could achieve that? ( if I read your last para !)

"Damage modelling - aircraft (especially the player's) show a good range of visible damage, with buckled spars and ripped canvas. However, damage is clearly hit point based and basically attritional - pour machine gun fire into an opponent and his strength (indicated by a strength bar above his plane, unless you turn this off) slowly reduces........."

This is what would happen with WW1 aircraft being peppered by machine guns bullets! Remember, in Blue Max where the CO rages at Bruno for leading them into a dogfight, the state of bruno's plane when it landed?. Ripped canvas doesn't make for efficient lift ! Strength bar?? Press letter "I" and its gone. Again, why didn't you turn these arcade features off?

"Views ..."

Same as all sims...yes? Except padlock of course. Don't want that. None of that newbie nonsense. So this is more simmy than the sims ?? .. well,well.

"Campaign - the campaign is a progression of scripted 'missions'"......

The campaign is total arcade nonsense having no place in a sim. I would have hoped that a review to ascertain its sim credentials would have ignored this campaign. You must have known from the manual that it made no pretence to be like other sims' campaigns , as understood by hardcore simmers.Because it can be ignored completely, especially now that access to all planes no longer relies on flying the campaign at all. ( see other posts re the "cheat" available )
To fairly judge whether this game has sim aspirations or not, I ask all fliers to judge only on Instant Action with arcade features turned off. This equates roughly to FB QMB situation.

"Instant action (offline) - choose a plane (from those 'unlocked' in the campaign, initially a DH2 or an Eindecker)....."

You're right, those damn rockets have no place in a sim. A patch could take them out. When that is done, then, how would the dogfight be compared to say Red Baron.?
I don't care for re-spawning myself, but it is a part of multiplay, is it not?
But no doubt, for offline,this would go when the missions got written ( patch or modders)

" (in fact I got into the habit, after loosing off all my rockets, of crashing so that I could respawn with a fresh load). "

Really trying to fly this like a sim, eh? Von. Don't worry I don't mind you having a bit of fun, !

"But I seriously doubt whether any amount of patching, hacking or modding could turn it into a 'serious' flight sim, and anyone buying it with that in mind might well end up disappointed. Buy it for what it is, or pass, is my advice. "

Come on now, after flying most of the (one ) night with arcade features obviously not all turned off, it is a strong summary to make and a little unfair in view of the fact that you are talking about whether patches , modding et al can or cannot make this into a sim.
Look what was done with EAW and Red Baron and F4 etc from what came in the box.
Oh, did you mention that it runs straight out the box, no stutters, CTD etc. ( The only bug I found was that the player shouts to the opponent as if he was being shot at by a team mate )

This is not a sim yet - but I'm sure, folks, that it can be if patched or modded. (It can be dogfighted (sic!) at the moment, if arcade turned off in Instant Action.)
All I ask when making your assessment, if you risk your $20 or so, is to ignore the Campaign and use the Instant Action in cockpit view, with all arcade features turned off.

cheers

BTW, the Lewis gun on the Brisfit is -not- an ahistoric feature.
Though it wasn't a standard fitting, some aircraft were fitted with a Lewis on the top
wing in a similar fitting to the one on the S.E.5a.
If you live near London in the UK, the Hendon RAF Museum's Brisfit has a Lewis gun on the top wing.

The SPAD VII's Lewis is another matter, though.. not to mention the bizarre Nieuport triplane (I know it did exist, but still, a late-mark biplane Nieuport would have been a more worthwhile addition.. particularly as the Allies already have a triplane in the form of the Sopwith)

I intend to give it a go when it shows up here. Thanks all for the input.

Thanks, Cas141. It's good to get some balance in the reporting of this game. The bottom line seems to be that it is very limited but fun.

It seems that people are moderately impressed with the scenery in WoW...so I thought I'd show off a little project that I've been working on for RB. I'll let the screen shots speak for themselves. Suffice it to say that this is in fact a seamless and continous ie; non repeating photorealistic terrain.

MM

Just installed my copy of WoW.

First warning, it does not recognize my CH Fighterstick Pro. Windows XP Pro recognizes it just fine as a game controller but not WoW.

Second warning, it flies quite randomly with the keyboard. Essentially impossible. You will need a joystick.

Third warning, it sounds like a Nitendo, and that's with an Audigy2

Fourth warning, the graphics look like something from the early 90's. And that's in 1600 X 1200 and full detail.

Fith warning, there is no .ini file to tweek things. You're stuck with the interface, which is rather limited.

I'm not sure what drugs you guys have been on. Either that or you are so starved for a WWI sim, you think that maggoty piece of bread is a banquet. So far, I am far from impressed by this even as an arcade game. I uspect it's a bin-job fairly soon.

I'm off to fly FB.

Alexi

P.S. I've just e-mailed take2games with thisproblem. So far there is no web site or support route for this game. We'll see if anything comes of this.

I haven't seen it yet but are you sure you have the right game? It wasn't Wings of Honour, was it?

Alexi - S! You cannot possibly have the right game, not with your description of the graphics.
Have a look at this website, which is devoted to Wings of War
http://www.hubertovo.cz/wow/eng/index.htm

Go to Media and look at the screenshots, and then tell us if they are of the game you have loaded.
Anyone else in doubt, have a look and decide if these are early 90s graphics.
I see no reason why your joystick should not be recognized , if it recognizes my Cougar!
Like Quasar says, sure you are not getting mixed up with Wings of Honor?


c

Midnitmike- S!

Very impressive. If the terrain is as good at low level, I think it will be excellent.
Is this to work in Glide only or DD as well?

I've been out of the flightsim loop for a while now, used to get really hyped about games such as B17-2 , BOB and even Janes attack squadron; but was always let down by something or other. Would spend ages trawling through forums looking for tweak posts, trying different drivers, buying new joysticks even reinstalling windows to try to get the game to run well. All I can say about Wings of War in the 2 hours I've had it (bought cos of the positive comments I've read) is :

1. it looks great
2. it runs like a charm
3. no bugs...so far
4. it is great fun, I even like the power ups
5. £20 well spent and if it gets more people into these sorts of games then fanruddytastic cos if more people buy them then more will be made.

cheers

amd xp2400, ati 9700 pro, xp pro, 1gig pc2700 ram, 1280x1024 res smooth as silk.

Midnitmike - WTG! Despite its rather whacky view system, RB3d is thill the Gold Standard with WW1 propsims and will take some beating, especially given the trend for recent sims to emphasise the eye candy, to an unfortunate extent to the expense of everything else than matters in a sim. So your RB3d terrain will be very welcome.

Alexi, if that's how you see WoW's graphics then you need a new monitor, or perhaps to increase your resolution a tad higher that 256 colours by 640x480, failing that a visit to the opticians is definitely in order Oh, and a new soundcard is definitely in order as WoW's sound effects are very good. I think I :can assure you those of us who think WoW's graphics are good are, contrary to your suggestion, not mad, desperate or doing drugs.


Wilder, spot on. WoW is fun. To what extent it'll make a sim remains to seen, but time will tell. Worth trying, as the game has many good features despite the limitations.

Through Polovski's screenshots and videos (along with the official releases), it seems that WoW's graphics and audio are first-rate (if a bit wacky at times).

I'm not expecting a sim here (yet), but WoW does look and sound like it's a very fun WWI flying game, and for it's cheap price tag no one should be complaining too loudly as a consequence!

Hey, very nice terrain textures Midnitmike!!!

Nobody has made comments about this (taken from Gamespot page):
"Not all of the time in Wings of War will be spent in the air, as some of the 70-plus stages require players to take the controls of antiaircraft guns mounted on boats and trains."

I'm primarily interested in the dogfighting as most of us are, but I am curious.

Sounds like we may have something , here! This could be the foundation of a really nice WW1 sim, it looks great. I'm gonna cross my fingers and hope you modders can do something with this.
If you can, please repaint that Camel!! Red Sopwith Camel or not, though, I may pick this up.

Wow Mike, looks really impressive!

Joe S! - In the game/sim already there are 9 skins available for the Camel. Half are very conventional, so you will be OK.
I haven't had much success with it yet killing the AI. Things are a bit skittish, but then that's what happens in an "easy to fly newbie's arcade game"
(sorry re the sarcasm, but it is not easy to dogfight in. How hard must it be before a game becomes a sim? )
Hope you enjoy it.

Hi Cas141 - yes, I think we all know you like WoW! That's why I was giving a second opinion. Your advocacy of WoW is appreciated I'm sure, but other opinions are useful too, I hope. To be clear - I'm not criticising WoW for not being a realistic sim. I think it does what it sets out to do quite well.

On a few points of fact and matters arising.

"I dispute a fish eye effect."

Maybe fish eye isn't the right expression. The view of the terrain has the look of being super wide angle - the same sort of effect you get when using eg 0.5 view magnification in FS2004. You can see this in some of the screen shots on the back of the DVD case. I didn't say it's a problem, but there it is.

"What sim, apart from F.B and BOB gets you into the clouds? What WW1 sim?. What effect therefore do you expect other than limiting vis.?"

Well, FB and BOB for a start. And FS2004. And for that matter Red Baron (the original Red Baron). And Chuck Yeager's Air Combat - came out in about 1992 (ah I spent HOURS playing that). What effect do I expect? I expect clouds to act a bit like clouds. If all they are is a painted backdrop then that needs to be pointed out, since otherwise people might reasonably expect that their presence has some effect on the game other than just looking pretty.

"Why did you choose to do that [repeated loops], and then make a criticism of it.?"

Sorry, I don't understand you. The point is that if in an EIII I can fly repeated loops, then the flight model isn't actually modelling real flight (or real aircraft). I'm by no means a "waah my airspeed in a dive is 2mph slower than it should be" type, but the fact is that WoW aircraft don't fly much like aircraft in the real world (evidence - I can fly a series of repeated loops in an EIII...)

"However, damage is clearly hit point based and basically attritional".. "This is what would happen with WW1 aircraft being peppered by machine guns bullets!"

Well, what I've read of WW1 air combat suggests that you could fire at a plane for ages not doing much harm, or you could fire a single burst (well aimed, at close range), hit the pilot, the engine or the fuel tank, and it would all be over. Or indeed you could fire a single lucky bullet at long range and hit the pilot (what killed the Red Baron?). My point is that you can guarantee that to shoot down a plane in WoW you will need to hit it n times with x bullets. One result of which, in gameplay terms, is that there's no point getting right up close behind your target and firing a carefully aimed burst into his fuselage, since you know that won't shoot him down. A modern game should model critical hits. In my opinion.

"The only times I had this happen was when the opponent was a dridecker"

Cas, is there a way to specify what aircraft the AI pilots fly in instant action? Sounds like there must be. If so then that would make instant action much better. As it is, the options seem very limited, the only parameters being the plane you are in, and the numbers on each side (and the backdrop - terrain and weather).

"When that is done [get rid of rockets], then, how would the dogfight be compared to say Red Baron.?"

Currently dogfighting is dominated by rockets, the exceptional manoeuvrability of the aircraft, and the lack of more than a vague approximation to real world aerodynamics, gunnery, and, therefore, tactics. Without rockets, the last two would still apply. So compared to RB, I would think dogfights would be quicker, more action packed, but with a more distant relationship to reality. Whether they would be more or less enjoyable to play depends what you are looking for. For myself sometimes I just want to jump in the cockpit and shoot stuff, and WoW might well fit the bill for that.

"Look what was done with EAW and Red Baron and F4 etc from what came in the box."

Well, EAW and RB3D have had their graphics completely overhauled, so I certainly think that it would be possible to overhaul the graphics of WoW. However, we are agreed that WoW's graphics don't need overhauling. I think the limitations of what can be changed in RB and EAW are a good illustration of why I don't have much hope of WoW being turned from a 'fun flight game' into an 'immersive flight sim'. To take an example - in EAW enemy aircraft are always encountered dead ahead, heading for you, at the same altitude. This is to my mind the greatest weakness of EAW. Yet for all the new terrain, new aircraft, new graphics, new theatres etc that have been added, this has never been addressed. Or take WoW's rockets - are you aware of the great difficulty a lot of skilled modders have had getting EAW's AI to use its cannon? I fear, as I said, that fundamental gameplay issues can't easily be addressed with mods. But we're talking hypothetically here, until someone steps in to start work on WoW - which is why my advice remains - play WoW for what it is, but don't count on it being possible to convert it into something that it currently isn't.

I hope to enjoy WoW for what it is too, and not regret what I think it is not.

If the game has possibilities beyond its present form, then these will probably be explored (as Cas hopes), in the meantime I'm looking for some dogfightin' entertainment..........for some diversion from the heaviness of looking up from the trenches and straining hard to hear the sound of an enemy Oberursel far off in the distance...................

There's no doubt at all that WoW (like anything else) has its limitations, and that it's a game with some sim qualities, not the other way around.

Re clouds, as you approach them they seem to melt away and you just see faint wisps of them floating past - not as good in some ways as IL2 or CFS3 etc but not all that bad.

There does seem to be an issue if you climb away from the instant action; power drops till you seem unable to climb further. Like the "wind fences" in instant action, this may be designed to keep planes (including AI) in a limited arena. May not apply in campaign mode. We'd need to be able to turn this off, if i'm not imagining it.

As far as I can see so far, 3d structures seem to stop outside the instant action arena, the visibility goes on quite a way but no trees, buildings etc just textures on the landscape. The full in-flight map shows a much more extensive area and it may all be "populated" in campaign mode, but it may be that the (largely) beautifully-rendered environments may be quite (=very!!) small. For that reason, and because WoW has too many structures in some places like watchtowers and hangras close to no-man's land, an ability to edit maps may be desirable.

Visibility from the Fokker DVII cockpit is unsusually bad, the pilot's eye level or default angle of view could use adjusting. It has crosses on top and bottom of upper wings (at least one of the realistic skins for it does)and none under the lower wings and if each uses the same texture top & bottom, one may need access to the source model files to re-assign textures and not just a re-paint. Some other German planes have similar anomalies ("Taube"/Albatros C-type).

Planes seem definitely somewhat overpowered and/or too agile even in hardest more, and I have definietly seen some very extreme (especially negative G) manoeuvres by the AI, reminding me of EAW without config or eaw.exe edits. Stalls are very odd, almost absent. OTOH as Cas141 says speed builds up realistically (and the associated engine and wind soulds are superb!) in a dive, and falls away in a climb. It's an odd mix of realistic and unrealistic, this FM, but overall it's very flayable and not THAT much worse than some aspects of some other sims. EG in RB3D the 2-seaters are rather agile, and the non-energy-bleeding Zero in stock CFS2 seems OTT; and EAW has/had a certain amount of UFO flying.

Above all else, after a session in WoW's instant action, I really feel that I have been in an incredibly hectic dogfight, in a way that real sims haven't captured so well. It has to be experienced to be believed. It's just an amazing whirl of twisting, turning, looping, diving, climbing planes, the skies criss-crossed with tracer, archie bursts (and some rockets too unfortunately!), smoke trails, planes breaking up, all in a beautiful environment. SP is almost indistinguishable from MP, the AI is so active and aggressive. Limited, yes, unrealistic in some ways, definitely, but hell, it is fun! OK it may wear off but I and I suspect many of us spend a lot of our sim time just firing up an instant action or two - certainly I do that a lot in FB - and WoW has it in spades, in that department.

We'll see how far we can go with this one. Already we can turn off much of the arcady stuff, and someone has already cracked accessing all planes in instant action. If we can disable rockets, if we can fly the full maps not just limited arenas (big issue here!), and if we can build and add new realistic missions without the arcady themes, in my books we'll have a sim here, and anything above that will be icing on the cake.

As it is we have a visually beautiful, smooth-running, intense, fun and cheap WW1 flying game and I for one appreciate it for that, already. I've still got RB3d and FCG on my HDD (along with FB, CFS3, CFS2 etc) and variety is the spice of life.

I think WoW will give FlyXWire exactly what he's asked for.

Superb midnightmike great job!

I agree pretty much 100% with von Stalhein's roundup. Basically the game is a lot of fun, worth buying if you even have a passing interest in WW1 aircraft but not in any way a flight sim as we know it these days.

First of, what recent sim doesn't have proper weather effects that you interact with in one way or another? Secondly all the aircraft are ridiculously agile in the way that vonS describes, even for WW2 aircraft never mind WW1 ones (including the more primitive planes such as the Fokker EIII or the Be2). I'm not sure that 'The Blue Max', fun film though it is, is really a suitable basis for justifying the WoW 'damage model'. Finally the 'quick combat' mode of any sim is the least 'realistic' way of playing - so I can't really see that being plonked in a swarm of 10 eindeckers (which would never have happened in reality) and shooting them all down (which certainly never happened) is in any way a mark of the simmyness of WoW.

Overall the game is certainly worth buying, but only if you're not expecting a sim. Possibly the game can be modded or developed (as a new game) into a sim, but right now I don't see it personally. I'm sure it can be modded into an even more interesting and fun arcade game with a WW1 air war setting though (in just the same way as TBM is an enjoyable film due to its setting rather than its realism).

Have fun
Finn

Yes, I do like this WoW- It's WW1, and cheap enough to speculate with, but mostly it's more sim-like than it is intended to be IMHO.
By that,I mean it depends on what parts of it you play and how you play it.
I have made certain caveats about this when reporting before; It would be nice if comments saying they disagree with me would recognize those caveats. I will repeat them;
This game is sim like if
1. You play instant action only- Von, far as I know you cannot choose the opponents type of plane,( which is a shame ).
2. Dismiss the rockets. I never use them and wish the AI didn't. When they have expended theirs in the first few minutes,usually, on a 1 v 1 dogfight, then the bullets-only fight starts, and this is where I say it is more "realistic" than any WW1 "sim", inc. Red Baron.and FCG.
If you get a dridecker as opponent, he dances all round you as such an agile plane did do. Get two wings against you, and he is only as agile as you. As it should be. I have had many twenty minutes and over fights on this 1v1 set up.

BTW - Why could not a real Eindecker fly loop after loop after loop? I would have thought any fighter plane with an engine could do so, provided the throttle was properly working? I do admit I'm not expert enough about WW1 planes to know for sure

"Well, what I've read of WW1 air combat suggests that you could fire at a plane for ages not doing much harm, or you could fire a single burst (well aimed, at close range), hit the pilot, the engine or the fuel tank, and it would all be over. Or indeed you could fire a single lucky bullet at long range and hit the pilot (what killed the Red Baron?)........"

I agree with this paragraph, but WoW only fails in not modelling the single bullet quick kill. That doesn't disqualify it from sim status, surely?
What you can do, is aim for parts of the AI and shoot them off, wing tips etc. And if the plane becomes crippled, he acts crippled, and you can relax and take your time to finish him.
BTW - If you evade and land when you are crippled, he will find and finish you off, the unchivalrous so and so. And yes - not sim like
3. EAW and Red baron can't model weather as good as WoW. - are they not sims then? In WoW, if you fix weather at random, you can be battling in sunny or cloudy weather, then you can see the weather closing in as you fight, everything becomes grey and next thing you are in a downpour or snowstorm.
Not good enough??

I fly with this set up. Cockpit on only; TrackIR; Cougar with rudder pedals; no music on. There is no padlock, no icons; I do not use the markers or pointers ( as CFS does )
What set up do you use?

Suggestion - Go to Georgette arena- fly on spawn time of 60; 1 v 1 ; time unlimited; random weather
And if you get twenty minutes dogfight, tell me it is not as good as a red Baron or FCG dogfight, and why.

The dogfight I get from this scenario ( apart from the rockets! ) is as "sim" as I've ever flown in WW1.
If other chaps, when they get the game,fly this scenario I think they will be pleasantly surprised.

BTW - I haven't gone online with this WoW- I haven't for years, from early EAW days at the Zone. Have you tried it?

You've got to stop this Cas:

Us guys w/o the game are just pullin' our hair out here!!!

I agree with Fly- I find myself looking for chores around the house so as to get my mind off WoW and the lucky ones who have it.

FlyXwire ,
I've got it so bad I've gone to the stores around just hoping someone mistakenly got it early! I'm counting the minutes, and man am I happy! I got a reserve for both the Xbox and PC. Xbox for me and the boy, and PC for all the mods and stuff.

Cas141 thanks for all your insight. Glad you can now be shotdown!

Polovski Thank you for all the fantastic pics and movies. A lot of work well worth it.

von Stalhein Thanks for your review, even if you gave it a days worth at the time.

Alexi_Alx_Anova When you say " Sounds like a Nintendo " You mean the Nintendo Cube right? 64 simultaneous channels, ADPCM & PCM encoding and Sampling Frequency 48KHz? Not too bad!

Alexi_Alx_Anova said"...the graphics look like something from the early 90's. And that's in 1600 X 1200 and full detail."
You mean theatrical graphics like Jurassic Park right?

Truly sorry we got this game/soon to be sim and you didn't get your horse shoe tossing game you always wanted.

Well thank you GSharp!!!

As far as I know you were the first one to give any of us the heads-up on Wings of War, exactly one month ago (over on Wings With Wires).

Was that only a month ago.............boy is waiting hard to do!

I've just found out that in WoW you can fly the whole area of each of the maps - Somme, Flanders, Verdun, etc, the "walls of wind" only cut in at the edge of each area. And the maps are filled with 3d stuff, including some really exquisite features eg in Verdun, appropriately enough, there's a fantastic WW1 fort. My DH2 bagged a Fokker right over it just now and he went straight into the "moat"!

But the maps are very small - estimated maybe 10km square. So a big limitation here even by WW1 standards, maybe they're longer N to S, don't know yet.

And that altitude limit means you can't climb beyond a few thousand feet.

However with a will, it should still be possible, even if these limitations are immovable, to make some quite good missions given the right tools and knowledge. I always felt that SDOE's concept of "reduced scale" theatres was not at all a bad idea; even in RB3D I suspect people fly a part of the time in compressed time between actions, with SDOE (and WoW) you can fly the whole mission in real time, which is no bad thing. If that's the price we pay for the fantastic environments in WoW, it's not too steep.

Another poiint on the FM. It may be odd in places but it does appear (at max setting) to replicate the real-life "secondary effects of controls", you know, rudder yaws but also causes roll, aileron rolls but also causes yaw.

Even tho I can now see plenty of WoW's limitations (as a sim) for myself, I'm still very taken with it. There are different elements to simulating an experience and while if judged (unfairly) as a sim WoW is lacking in many respects like FM and map size, it somehow largely makes up for it in simulating other aspects of the experience, at least if you approach it prepared to live with its limits. Not all will want to, but if you can, you may be in for some "serious entertainment".

And as a WW1 flying action game ie what it's designed as, it's already rather excellent! If anything, it will encourage me to buy KoE, if and when it finally appears.

Well Ivor H, in lieu of your "reduced scale" observations, would you say that these apparent limitations would impact less on WoW's multiplayer component, where assured contact with the enemy and localized combat is more desireable?

No, not all at all. A plane such as the E.III could certainly just about pull off a loop in the hands of a good pilot. It certainly couldn't do it starting at just about any speed, or repeat it. Indeed no WW1 or WW2 aircraft could loop indefinitely like you can in WoW.

To my mind a combat simulator is realistic if it encourages (ideally enforces) realistic tactics and leads to similar outcomes to what could be expected in real life. WoW doesn't do either of those.

I think it's not very useful to compare it to ancient sim engines like RB3D or EAW. In my opinion the next 'big' WW1 sim for me will be one that is comparible to IL2, CFS3, FS2004, LOMAC or SF when it comes to FMs and so on. RB3D had/has a great campaign engine and interface, but apart from that aspect things have moved on a long way.

Have fun
Finn

For the record Anthony Fokker looped his M.5 monoplane prior to the outbreak of WWI, and was decorated at the behest of Germany's chief-of-staff, Gen. Erich von Falkenhayn in June 1914 for his feat (duplicating Adolphe Pegoud's well-publicized stunt from a year earlier).

Looping the loop (repeatedly) became a popular barn-storming stunt during the 1920's. For example daredevil Adrienne Bolland (yes a woman), performed 98 loops during a 58 minute performance in 1923 (that's an average of one complete loop every 35 seconds)...........sounds pretty repetitive to me!

I'm not sure how often looping can be performed in WoW, and not sure if it matters, but successive looping is certainly within the realm of WWI aircraft performance......then again you guys are talking about an Eindecker, aren't you!

I second everything Gsharp said . Thanks for the info , movies etc. Just showed the movies from Pol to my brother and he keeps asking when it is coming out.

I think a big point that is being missed here is that this is a company new to this area and they appear to be trying as best as they can to bring us something no body else has cared to or been able to up to this point .

Let the game get out for a bit and then if they ignore us you can whine . Till then give them a break for heaven's sake . I think it is a miricle coming from Chec since no one in America , Germany or UK has put out anything in some time. A lot of people seem to get on a high horse like a movie critic who is afraid to like a regular movie thinking it will ruin their rep.

Give the young company a chance. !!!!

FinnN S!
The reason I compare to Red Baron and EAW, is that I suspect they are regarded as true sims by the majority of all flight simmers using SimHq forums, even if they don't fly them.
Each has been improved beyond recognition from its out-of-box state, and is a remarkable product now.
I particularly mention Red Baron because it is almost on its own representing WW1.
So if I give an opinion that you can set up WoW to dogfight at least as good as RB etc, then it gives the chaps a yardsick that they know I'm measuring by.
Whether I'm right or not they won't know until they fly WoW

cheers

Hi FlyXWire

Yup I'd say that in Instant Action, SP or MP, the map size limitations are virtually irrelevant. And if user missions could be built, with imagination one can work around that, in fact there's a silver (wish) lining because you just don't need to fly half the mission in time compression, and spend the other half climbing realistically but laboriuosly to 15,000 feet. If I could, I'd do in WoW the set of Biggles missions I was gonna do for FCG till I found out i could run RB3D with a glide wrapper. Those old stories captured the spirit of WW1 air was as well as many more adult tomes, IMHO.

What WoW gives you is a fantastic furball experience; as was often said of SDOE, it's a great dogfighter. The main limitation in this area is the FM. Planes are too agile and in particular can pull pretty wild & sustained negative G manoeurvres, bunting and rolling, rather more so than in vanilla EAW where this was also rather noticeable. However, WoW has such flair in doing what it was designed to do that, while I would prefer a more accurate FM, I can grin and bear it. Call me an optimist, but for me the WoW glass is (already more than)half full, not half empty. And I'm an IL2 fan so it's not that I'm adverse to harder (which may or may not mean more realistic) FMs.

Like some others here, I have nothing but admiration for the Czech team which has crafted this little gem, and I hope they are reading these threads. Even those who are less tolerant of the arcade elements, most of them can see the good stuff in there.

There's a file extractor which seems to be able to handle WoW's files at;
http://www.slunecnice.cz/product/Extractor/

but the shareware version's limited to 30 files a go, and I don't know what I'm doing anyway :rolleyes:

Just found something else that needs disabling - one of the bonuses you can get - along with an instant engine upgrade (wonder if that's why some AI seem so agile) and extra health - are extra guns, which appear magically on different parts of yout airframe - see the S.7 on the home page of the Czech WoW website. So we need all bonuses disabled, rockets disabled, a way build and add missions, plus anything else we can get.

Still no WoW forum on the Gathering website for us to serve our "petition", maybe for the US launch? Or maybe the Czech site - which I suspect may have some connection with the devs, even if not official - may have a forum first.

Just purchased - quick 1st thoughts

Looks and plays (computer wise) fab - WOW indeed

Instant dogfight a bit too frenetic - slow it down some and tone down the agility could be very, very good.

Plane models very good - terrain and skies excellent, variable weather effects, good visual damage. A grahical tor de force.

Get rid of the rockets in A2A - please!

Missions can obviously be scripted judging from the opening mission in the campaign I have played (actually quite fun). A mission builder would be a wortwhile pursuit.

Cockpits are 3D (mouselook) and actually very good. I personally really like internal and external padlock to target. If this could be added as a toggle a happy chappy here.

Summary - from out of the blue this is very impressive. If it can be modded it could make a lot of people very happy indeed.

Bravo to the coders, let's all give them the credit and encouragement they deserve Thanx.

Not one for the model every fuel cock and flutter brigade though. But it wasn't written for them so they have no right to complain or whinge.

Game screenshots I made into Wallpapers..

http://www.polovski.co.uk/WoW/Wallpaper/

I like em anyway

Like em.............they're terrific Polovski!

Now we can see the Wings of War terrain and aircraft in high-res, and everything looks uttery gorgeous!

TY, TY, TY!!!

The quality of these WoW wallpapers reminds me of avaition prints!

Here's some closeups I cropped from Polovski's collection:

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0WgDmAgMdq...486801989366350[/img]

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0WgDmAgUdO...486801992967760[/img]

This stuff is amazing!

That's exactly what I thought, just like aviation prints. I might use some to inspire some artwork

The one of the DR is a 15v15 dogfight

Hi, I've been working on a small mod for Wings of War.
You have two options:

1) no rockets for anyone (fairest)
2) no AI rockets - we can still use them

What would you prefer?

None for all please.

Flyby1

No rockets at all please! Pretty please!

Please also post how you do this; would be very interesting!

flyby1, that's fantastic!

No rockets all around (the French Le Prieur rockets used in 1916 against balloons were wildly inaccurate, and unless you can make them available only for anti-balloon or anti-Zeppelin missions we can do without the annoyance).

Thanks for looking into this, and what other modifications might you be able to affect?

I dont own the game...some people who do lets try this and check back?

Looks like I'll have to buy a DVD ROM drive! Curse you Polovski!

Smith

ps - Polovski, thanks for the screens and movies - brilliant.

1) for sure!

No problem Brian just curse me further when you play it for hours

one more quick movie.. shows inside Bristol Fighter cockpit, freelook with the moving parts in there..
Sorry it's windows media format this time forget to make it avi.

http://www.polovski.co.uk/WoW/WoW_BrisFit_ext_int.wmv

Rockets for us not AI . I had my brother fly in a straight line and I tried to shoot him down with one. Just think they add to variety in game and younger people will like them . Could limit to 2-4 to make accurate.

Well to be honest to have a choice would be good

>Originally posted by Ivor H:
>There's a file extractor which seems to be able to >handle WoW's files at;
>http://www.slunecnice.cz/product/Extractor/

Well I downloaded it and managed to extract some text files which pointed to locations for wavs etc, and some tga - it seems to work fine
I got some wavs out from 000.dta and they play ok but have a glitch at the end that causes a static type screech so maybe partitially encoded still? The sounds are basically speech so far.

I can just post the hex codes, and leave it to you guys to patch the file so it's permanent. Or, I can write a simple memory patcher that leaves the game intact, but allows you to change settings in the game on the fly (like a trainer). A trainer might make it easier to add extra options without undoing a patched file, then again you guys might just want to hack away regardless

The reason I asked about the preferred method, was I thought it might set a precedent regarding online games (one user has rockets, another doesn't). But if you want it all, that's OK too. At the moment I can set it so the AI has absolutely no rockets (and they don't seem to pick up bonuses). I can also set it so we don't get any intial (8), but that's not to stop us from picking up bonuses. It may be possible to disable that as well (extra work)?

I recommend geting the No-CD patch, it's half the size (minus all the Securom rubbish), so uses a small memory footprint. http://spacetarget.com/games/pc_wings_of_war.shtml

I've tweaked a few other settings, but need to test it further. e.g. 0 bots in Instant Combat (min=1), so we can explore without being bugged, also pushing the max limit of 15.

Andrew R.

Flyboy S!
These mods will be welcome, especially re the "no rockets" ( personally, I would like no rockets for anyone, but I'm not fussed if it will help kids ), but whatever you decide please make the mod easy to install for us none techies
TIA

Best bet for a patch is as full real as we can get. IOW disable all rockets, disable all bonuses (engine upgrade, extra health, extra guns are the ones I've seen so far). And for everyone.

Younger or less sim-oriented players can use the stock game, it's fine as it is for this kind of player IMHO, no need for a half-way house methinks. Leave all the fun stuff there for them, it is, well, fun, I can enjoy them myself.

Switchable in-game between stock and full-ish real would be an option but not worth any extra work I reckon.

But it's surely best to put the effort into making full real as full as possible.

OK, here we go...

Make a backup of WOW.EXE
Load your favourite hex editor. e.g. http://www.hexworkshop.com

Note: Ignore the assembly mnemonics if it confuses you, that's just for completeness. The AI rocket mod was a little tricky, the code would randomly allocate different rocket numbers to each AI aircraft.

Please don't steal credit for this , it'll effect my decision to release more.

Have fun

Andrew R.

flyby1, you deserve all the credit, and I thank you again!

As Ivor H said:

I concur completely!!!

Hi Flyby1

WTG!

I'd need to understand it before I could steal it

Anyway, it seems to work a treat - many thanks! Never used a hex editor before but following your instructions and using one called XVI32 I was able to make the edits (to the no-CD wow.exe) and not a rocket in sight! Well done! How on earth do you work out what does what? No, I don't really want to know, but it would be interesting to know what sort of stuff you think could be modded. For example, I would suggest the main priorities for WoW are, not necessarily in order:

1. disable rockets (done!)
2. disable all bonuses
3. enable mission editing, creation, and insertion
4. mod the flight model - bit less power all round, much less ability to pull negative G manouevres, make engine cut out under negative G
5. Remove (raise) the artifical ceiling (sudden engine power fall of at X,000 feet)
6. add an ammo limit for MG rounds - realistic per plane, or say, 500 RPG for all if it has to be universal.
7. enable editing of aircraft textures (so we can make new ones or if poss correct the glitches in the existing ones.
8. enable editing of the maps (so as to remove some of the arcady stuff or maybe even extend them).
9. improve the instant action (eg to enable choice of enemy planes and unlock all planes by default - latter done already - or some kind of IL2 QMB).
10. Add some king of dynamic campaign mission generator.
11. Add a pilot's logbook.
12. Add ability to insert new, user-made planes.
13. add ability to pan using the hatswitch (either instead of snapviews, or toggling between them, or as an alternative to mouse panning) both in cockpit and external
14. add padlock
15. add ability to zoon in either or both of the external and cockpit views
16. allow removal of the fixed projected sight graticule (create an option that's transparent for both components of the sight); or at least, disable it, in the external view)

Some of these are probably fantasy and even the ones that are do-able would presuably require different skills, knowledge or tools, but if we could get at least 1-3 and 6, and maybe 4, WoW would be well on it's way to being a sim.

Thanks a lot for that, it works great. This game just keeps getting better

Nice job Andrew thanks!

Another screenie showing WoW's attantion to detail.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ivor.hughes1/wow%202004-08-30%2016-46-13-10.bmp

Note the nice Spandaus including the ammo belt in the feeds, and the optical sight. also demosntrates that your pilot looks around and doesn't stare ahead all the time. In the background is a larger airfield with a nice row of hangars.

This is using the binocular view (hence the black corner areas) on an external view, and mousepanned around. Binos don't normally work in external view (no zoom either) but if you have the binos on, and you get zapped, you're resurrected with them on in external view. It's neat to switch the bino view on when in flyby and watch your plane zip around.

That's a great shot Ivor thanks, nice tip too.

Great work finding that extractor program!
I'll D/L it and have a look at the files. If it works OK this should be just the thing we need.
I just hope that the game is capable of reading files that aren't packed into the .dta files. Otherwise
we'll need some sort of .DTA RE-packer as well as un-packer..

Actually, maybe not..
The Extractor program seems basically to search through uncompressed archives (of any sort, not just WoW)
looking for known file formats such as .dds, .tga, .wav etc. This is certainly very useful for game editing,
but really for WoW editing what is needed is a program that can actually read the directory structure
in the .dta files to find out what all these files are called (Extractor 2.4 just numbers them, as it doesn't
know what their names are).
I managed to extract some aircraft and building textures, and mission speech, but unless I know what these files
were actually called originally, there's no chance of using them for modding. Also, things like mission scripts would
probably not be found by Extractor as they are not a recognised file format.

Plus there is the need to register the program in order to find more than 30 files. This costs 200 Czech Koruna (I think),
not sure how much that is in £ or $.

I am sure I read that the exchange rate is around 30 Cze to $1 US?

It seemed to find the names as far as I could see, some of the text files I opened refered to other files I found, but some seem to be still scambled.

Flyby 1
Thanks a lot for your work - and It's good that some have got the rockets out the the way.
Me? I completely and utterly lost by this. All I understand is
Make a back up of WoW exe

Can I be helped,please, or is this as simple as it gets?

TIA

Would the ceiling limit be due to the game using a skybox so people can't fly through the graphic texture?

I hope they open up the offical WOW forums so we can try to get some direct feedback from the developers about possibly releasing modding tools, etc. They may be able to help guide us if their original intention was to release a more in-depth sim. Hopefully, the code is there in some form and they had to alter the final game to suit the needs of the distribution company.

They may not have the time or inclination to chenge it directly but might be able to steer efforts in the right direction.

Oh man, I hope they release a modding executable or an extractor.

S!

Cas141

if you post me a PM with your e-mail address I'll e-mail you a copy of the hex-edited wow.exe. I can rename it if your system objects to getting .exe's as attachments. It's 1.03 MB.

Of if you'd prefer to have a go - you just open the wow.exe file in a hex editor, and find the address listed by Elyby1/Andrew. Look for the string and change each pair of characters in the string to the new ones, not that hard even I managed it Like Dantes said, hopefully we'll either get an official forum, or the Czech one will be operational soon, i have a feeling the author of the latter may be linked to the developers.


BTW, does anyone know if the WoW BE2 is accurate re pilot sitting in the front? Lovely model with a camera on the stbd side, tho the Lewis is in a very odd position. And while it's clearly a BE2e, most sources say only the 2d had the observer in the back seat. The Australian War Memorial site says pilot in front, but most say not; and the online photos of the Gardermoen museum BE2e show the pintle mount sited to be fired from the front seat (tho these photos show a WW2 Vickers K gun fitted, not a Lewis).

Well that's about a fortnight past and already we have a no-CD exe, rockets disabled, and all planes avalable, not too bad given the sim files aren't very user-friendly in format.

.....and so it begins.

............gettin' kind of exciting too!

Btw, you guys overseas get WoW all patched up, so that by the time it's released over here everything will already be done...........LOL!

Hey Ivor H, none of the B.E.2 variants ever had the observer seated in the rear position, however starting with the (d) dual controls were fitted.

Even with the B.E.12 (the single-seat "fighter" version), the pilot was still in the same location, with the forward position covered over.

You're not seeing the R.E.8 featured in the game are you (rear observer, side-mounted Vickers on the left nose)???

Hey FlyXwire,

I'll be playing my Xbox version tomorrow! Yeah buddy! That should keep me going until I get my PC copy. AAAAHHHHH HA HA HA HA !!!

Get an Xbox!

I'll stop teasing. Take care, Fly.

Ivor H

You're certainly ambitious

2. disable all bonuses - quite possible...
3. mission editing - req fully working data extraction/recompression app in order to access the data files. I tried the Nova Extractor util, but it's not 100% compat. I'm sure the author could tweak it, though you need more than just an extractor (not my forte). Also assumes we can make sense of any script files.
4. mod flight model - maybe, more likely if no. 3 is done, painful otherwise.
5. raise artifical ceiling - possible, but could be a hard limit in render engine
6. ammo limit for MG rounds - quite likely
7 + 8 relies on no.3
9. choice of enemy planes - looking at this now...
10. see no.3
11. logbook - dreaming...
12. user-made planes - req no.3 + inside knowledge (possible)
13. pan using hatswitch - most likely need src code
14. padlock?
15. zoom - an alternative to Binoculars would be good, talk to developers :p
16. removal of sight graticule - quite possible

Given enough time, almost anything is possible, but there is a fine line between reversing code and becoming a masochist

To make the most of this game, and to make it more than arcade, it absolutely needs a mission editor. If you just play in Instant Combat mode, the scenery is quite dead, it all comes alive in the campaigns. It would be great if the developers released a toolkit to allow access to the data and missions, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Some dedicated person can make that their mission. Best bet is to plead with the developers.
---------
Cas141

I was going to make a patcher, but I was too lazy.
If Ivor can't help you, I can email you instructions for hexworkshop.
It was your original post my Google search picked up this forum, I think I was looking for a texture editor, cheers.

Andrew

Hey Greg, I'm sure you'll enjoy playing that Xbox version too, and with all your family........sounds like fun!

Maybe we can play online together when we get our PC copies here shortly?

Hey Andrew, thanks for your help, and any of the other issues (that you might think possible to fix), would be greatly appreciated. I know the above list is a bit daunting, but is there anything else you might be able to change with the game presently?

Flyby1 I hope you don't mind I reposted your post on my website in the Wings of War tips section (just somewhere to keep all the info for the moment).
I gave you full credit of course!

Cheers

http://www.polovski.co.uk (see under Miscellaneous)

Polovski, I like your site, and you are most welcome to include my code.
The reason I mentioned stealing credit, may sound petty, but I spent a lot of time on a project in the past, trusted some people online, and was ripped off. It left me very disillusioned. People in this forum seem to be genuine though. I wasn't looking for any pats on the back, the whole cyberworld of the net is very virtual, and nobody is really identifiable, but we still like to put a claim to efforts.

I'm hoping that the arcadish elements of this game will be overlooked, and the enthusiasm catch on. It seems such a waste to leave this excellent product just short of perfection. There are some very bright programmers out there that will hopefully tackle the data file issues. In the mean time, I'll continue to dabble.

I'm currently tracing the code regarding the allocation of AI aircraft types for instant combat. There seem to be a total of only 4 possible allocations that I've seen. British: Fighter + Silverfish R, German: Fisch R + Dreidecker, these depent on the aircraft type you have selected for the combat. If you've noticed different, let me know.

This screenshot shows the detail of the models (including parts) on mid air collision.
http://rain.prohosting.com/katipo/pics/collision.jpg

BTW, have you seen the cool little train chuffing along, complete with sounds and smoke (The Somme), only seems to be active in Training Campaign (not instant). Has anyone seen this anywhere else, it's probably scripted. There's even a level crossing where little vehicles putter across.
http://rain.prohosting.com/katipo/pics/train.jpg

Ivor H S! And thanks for the offer. I like to learn if my old brain will let me, so i will have a go at what you say.
Couple of questions,though if I may?

"Of if you'd prefer to have a go - you just open the wow.exe file in a hex editor"

Do I have to download a hex editor from somewhere?, or is there one in my Windows system?
( I don't know what a hex editor is )
I know how to open files say in Notepad, but I suspect this is nothing like that.

I would make a backup copy of my WoW exe,and then proceed but how does one open the exe in the hex editor? Basic I suppose, but please imagine -I'm looking at the exe in Windows explorer. If I right click on it, what do I do next?

Sorry to be so dumb!!

Flyby1= Thanks for the offer. I wished guys had voted for the patcher , still I'll see how I go. BTW - Being able to choose opposition plane, or slowing the AI drideckers would be my choice of next project. I too hope the developers will help to mod this. As you say, so much potential.

cheers

Excellent work, flyby1.

Am I going to have to eat my words about the modability of WoW? I hope so!

hi again Cas & Andrew

Cas, you'll need to d/l a hex editor, I used XVI32 (X-Ray-Victor-India figures Three-Two), get it at

http://www.downseek.com/download/19214.asp

Open it like any proggie eg d/click its .exe after you've installed the download.

It opens in a window and has the usual Windows-type options on its menu bar.

Select File/Open and navigate to wow.exe. That's after you've made a backup copy of wow.exe, of course. I'd suggest editing the no-CD version, take it you've got that already?

When you've opened wow.exe in XVI32, you get a confusing load of alphanumeric stuff showing up in three panes inside XVI32's window.

In the LH pane you get what I'd call the addresses, listed alphanumerically, in a single column. This is where you look up Flyby1’s change location.

In the middle pane there's a grid giving two-digit alphanumeric values. row upon row, one row for each of the "addresses" in the LH pane. This is where you swap the old string for the new ones.

In the RH pane, there's another grid of, well, mostly gibberish, some digits, some "obelisks". Ignore this pane.

Watch the LH pane and scroll down till you get a value that looks like the one you want to change - see Flyby1's instructions. You probably won't see the exact same "address" but should be close (last 1-2 digits different, rest the same). First, you’re looking for 20FBF. I think I got to 20FBB or something like that, but that’s close enough for the next step; IIRC the LH column lists the address of the first pair in the middle pane, you’ll get the exact address by clicking on the correct pair of digits in the middle pane.

Now, look across at the middle pane. Look for a sequence of pairs of digits, which matches the sequence you want to change, as per Flyby1's instructions. For the first change, you’re looking for 8B.EA.83.C5.05. Each pair is in a little box of it's own, in a grid in the middle pane.

Click on the first box, in the middle pane, which has the first pair of digits. Note that in the little readout at the bottom of the XVI32 window, it will now show the precise “address” given by flyby1, which is further confirmation that you’re in the right place.

Overtype the first pair of digits with flyby1’s replacements. Click on the second pair, and repeat. Continue till you’ve changed all the pairs in the sequence. IOW, you’re replacing 8B.EA.83.C5.05 with 33.ED.90.90.90

Then do this again for the second change – this time there’s only one pair to change. At 20FF3, you’re replacing the value 08 with 00.

Save wow.exe and exit. Play WoW and bingo, no rockets!

This will sound confusing - written from work so from memory - but it will be easy to follow if you're doing it with XVI32 open and actually seing what I'm trying to describe here.

Flyby1/Andrew, yes, a mission editing facility is what's needed most, beyond what you can fix; even if we have to start by manually editing WoW's existing missions. Tom C at SimHQ has indicated he's not got any contacts at Gathering due to their limited sim output so we'll have to see how it goes, I'll have a go myself by or about this weekend if as seems likely there's no sign of any official or unofficial forum before then.

To make the most of instant action, it would be useful if we could disable all bonuses, and develop even limited control of other planes. For example, the protoype Albatros triplane (Fisch-R) and Neiuport (Silverfish-R) should rarely or never show up.

It would be nice, beyond that, if we got enemies from roughly the right era - say grouped into two, early and late - early being Fokker monoplanes, Alb C3, N.17, Roland C2, DH2, FE2; late being Dr1, D7, D8, Pfalz D3, Alb D3, SSW D4, H-B W39, Zepp-Staaken, SE5, Camel, Brisfit, Dolphin, B.14, Ca33 (?). But certainly drop (if they can't be greatly reduced in liklihood) the Neiuport and Albatros triplanes as routine enemies, they show up way too often. That sort of thing; random choice between appropriate enemies. Also it seems we only get fighters as enemies in SP instant action. Never bombers. It would be nice to get a random mix on the enemy side (or your won, simulating escort or intercept missions)

eg you might get X figthers, but a couple of 2-seaters - provided that 2-seaters or bombers spawned in IA fly defensively as they do in campaigns, not attack you head on, imagine being attacked by a dogfigthing Zeppelin-Staaken Giant!

Another change that might bring some life to IA is to make it less instant. IOW, can the opposing forces be placed further apart at the start, so they have to find each other? This might cause problems if (a) your side's planes aren't programmed by default to follow you in the absence of anything to attack, or (b) if the enemies aren't programmed by default to fly around withing the arena (what would happen if they flew into the "walls of wind", would they get blown back in and carry on OK, get sattered, or some crash?

Might be worth seeing what happens if you can increase the initial separatio on spawning.

Another thing that might be worth looking for, this time on FMs, is momentum. IIRC that's one thing the documantation says is "switched on" when you go for the classic FM. I have the feeling that if it's possible to increase momentum, this could reduce the ability of planes to make the more wild changes of direction that they do. There might be a variable that all planes would use, hopefully factoring in their own properties, and that could be edited. Crude, but might help with those unrealistic manoeuvres.

Just some thoughts, obviously you'll have your own ideas, and you know what you're doing while I'm just typing which like talk is cheap!

Ivor H -- Thanks very much for these excellent instructions. I'm going to give them a go.
Will let you know what happens!

Ivor H-
One very big thank you to you. I managed to do it and now i am flying rocket free
It makes such a difference! I had a go at a 15 v 15 DM over the Somme. Geez- it was awesome. Obviously guys didn't get shot down as often as when there were rockets, but there were planes going every which way! Bits of plane would comeout from a collision or a shoot down and hurtle past you. Within seconds I had a half a fuselage whistle past , then a wheel.
And not a stutter or freeze or pause. All those planes and me at 1360 x 1020 res.

But the biggest THANK YOU must go to FLYBY1 - Man , you must be a genius to have got those rockets out.
I am really excited about what else will get modded in this SIM - There, I've said it! It IS a sim. Because there is no sim which dogfights better than this one now.
One caveat. Amend the wasp like maneuvres of the drideckers, then that's it.
Wonderful!!

Cas141

try this if you haven't already.

Go to the flyby view, key 5, then hit the binos key, O. Sure you get the black corners but in the absence of a real zoom it's pretty neat. Cinematic. Not easy to fly but you get an excellent, movie like view of the excellently-detailed WoW planes zipping about the excellently-detailed WoW landscape. Then crash your plane and you get resurrected in the external view, and you can mousepan around your plane, still in bino view which won't come on in external view otherwise; and get some real nice close-up looks at your own machine. admire the camera on the BE2e's stbd side, or the detail in the Spandaus etc. OK there are some probs but these people did a damn good job.


I agree that in its present so-far-lightly-modded state, WoW provides an excellent simulation of a WW1 dogfight, possibly - no, for a dogfight, definitely - the best, with the superb visuals and the sense of being in a chaotic but deadly whirl of planes spitting fire, making up for it's limitations; yes it would have been nice with a better FM etc but it's an experience not to be missed by any WW1 fan, any more than modded RB3D is now or KoE may yet be. Anybody who turns up their nose at it for one reason or another, well it's their loss (though perhaps all, who would make flightsims for such a pernickety bunch as us simmers).

As you say Flyby1's mod has already made a significant difference, hopefully more will follow. I can't begin to imagine how he found this stuff, hats off there fella. We do need a mission editing facility pretty badly tho, maybe well get some results with the devs.

Thanks Flyby1, Ivor H, Polovski, and finally to Cas141 also for asking the questions on how to do the EXE modding through the hex editing process.

When the game arrives I'll be all ready to patch it up per the linked downloads and the editing process as explained above.

Much appreciated guys!

Couldn't see your screens Fly - looks like all the views sucked up your bandwidth - that's got to be a good sign!

smith

just flew an IA selecting the Albatros DIII (late) - in the markings of von Hippel Jasta 5 th the scheme has green wings top and bottom which I think should be lozenge or mauve/green on top, and the top wing seems to use the same texture top and bottom (so both have crosses, like the DVII). Neat though.

all my AI buddies were DIIIs or the Albatros triplane.

This time all our opponents were Brisfits (and boy, did they trash us! Even without rear gunners I think!).

So I'm beginning to think that the type of plane you fly, determines the type of plane you get as opponent. So maybe fair enough, though we still need to lose those protype triplanes. Best bet would be to make the Alb triplane the opponent for the Nueuport triplane and vice versa.

And like Cas, I'm beginning to think that the tripehounds, at least the Nieuports, are worse than the others at pulling off the most bizzare sustained negative G manoeuvres.

Thanks for the suggestions Ivor, I'll refer back to them later if I get a chance.

As I posted earlier, the AI wingmen and enemy is dependant on which a/c you have choosen. So far I've only seen the total of 4 though. For simplicity, and cause I'm not a historian, I'll refer to them as the game desc. British: Fighter + Silverfish R (Neiuport), German: Fisch R (Albatros DIII) + Dreidecker. If you have a name correction for the fighter and Dreidecker let us know. Basically, I've only seen the four, you may have seen others (let us know). I agree the priority is to tone down the super acrobatic antics of the Dreidecker, can't promise anything, but if we can force them to use a Eindecker, or make the Dreideckers handling more like the Eindecker it would be nice.

So far, I haven't been able to force the AI selection, but I've found some other interesting 'hacks'. e.g. Enable hanger option mid-flight to change your a/c, also enter a observation only mode where the AI ignore me. I've also found the unlock level cheat - without the need for the savefile hack, so we can use our own profiles not PiZZADOX (but thanks to them anyway). It's very slow progress though, and I will need a break soon. Anyway, when I've got enough to be worthwhile I'll combine them in one program and release for you guys to play with.

My next release won't be just a simple hex edit, but will require a separate 'trainer' app to interact with the game. This will take some time. I'll continue to look in here to see what develops, but you won't hear much from me for a little while...

Regards
Andrew

OK Andrew, sounds good!

It's probably fair enough that tripes are more agile than most but if individual planes FMs do vary (as the hangar info suggests they do), and if they can be modded, then what's probably best is if all are reined in a bit. For example, it might be more realistic if max speeds were all cut back by a certain amount. Or if everybody's weight or momentum were increased by a given amount; maybe quite small, so AI would not start flying into the ground etc. Anyway, will be interesting to see what you can sniff out. I'm just sorry I can't help!

Let us know if you are able to replace the plane's text labels which show up in the Hangar, and we'll provide the correct designations eg the RFC "Dove" is a BE2e although some have taken it for the similar RE8.

Thanks again for your efforts on this!

I can't resist posting this slightly premature message, just to annoy the heck out of you

I've found the code to choose my opponents, but still need to do some work...

I chose a Scout to fly and an Eindecker1 and Otter as opponents. It was like a turkey shoot, way too easy. They were slow and un-manoeuvrable, in fact I could tail them with ease throughout most of the dogfight. Actually the Otter was so slow I was in constant danger of rear ending it It was still trying to get me, just very bad at it!

As unrealistic as the Dreidecker seems, and to some degree the Fisch.R, better to leave them as more challenging opponents (still not that hard). If we tweaked them you'd need to make our aircraft more sluggish to remove the advantage. It seems that whatever the human player gets, we still have the advantage in handling. I'm not too keen to tackle altering the Flight Model, as I'd really be stabbing in the dark without source code. Unless it was as simple as finding the Agility, Speed, Endurance [X/9] values as per the hangar view, that's as much as I might tweak.

It would be good if some enthusiasts here could rate each aircraft, and see if there is really much of a difference in handling, then compare it to the AI in control of the same aircraft (oh, that's right you only get four of them :p ).
Yes, that's almost certainly possible, as are the pilot names. While I'm still playing, you guys could draw up a list of the correct aircraft names (equal text chars or less), and I'll try to ammend that later. It'll keep you busy :p

P.S. Cas141, Ivor, Polovski, & everyone else, thanks for your general enthusiasm, otherwise I might not be bothered so much.

Brian, for some reason linking to my pics from here doesn't work, but if you copy the link and paste it in a new browser window it works (stupid free web server ).

Flyby1, I think your instincts are spot on. The DH2/Scout should be a better dogfighter than either the Eindecker or the seaplane, the DH2 was instrumental in bringing the "Fokker Scourge" to an end, and it was another "pusher", the FE2, also modelled in WOW, that may have brought down Max Immelman. Early days yet, the FM is probabbly a rather ambitious thing to be thinking about at this stage.

Will get to work on the planes list & post back here.

Thank YOU for your pioneering work on WoW, which is already significantly the better for it, already. No doubt there will be many limitations we'll have to put up with, but, like the man said, "oh, that a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?".

Flyby, keep looking into the files pleeeeeease!

It's my impression that WoW is not yet available in a lot of countries, so you're early adopters, those of you who have it on your PC's.

Your efforts, Flyby, are very much appreaciated, even by someone like me who hasn't got my hands on WoW yet.

Flyby1, here's what I make of the WoW planes. I'm pretty certain this is accurate but would appreciate other's views, especially on the "taube", which is mostly an Avaitik B2 with some Albatros C3 features methinks. My major source on German planes is the definitive Putnam but mine is a 1970 edition so may have been updated by more recent research

I haven't checked all the data listed in the Hangar but there are one or two inaccuracies even on a quick run through. not sure how best to abbreviate if the existing name represents a limit for each!

German

Fisch - Albatros D III
(late model with D V rudder and offset radiator but definitely a DIII airframe regardless of most of the paintjobs being for the D V)
Fisch R - Albatros Dr 1
(inaccurately uses the Albatros D III fuselage, the real one(s) used the more rounded D V)
Trout - Pfalz D III
(late model, early had guns buried in fuselage, but this is not the later D IIIa which had a rounded tailplane)
Whiff -Seimens-Schukert D III
(later appearance with balanced, D IV-style ailerons - thanks to FlyXwire for spotting this)
Eindecker 1 - Fokker E I
Eindecker 3 - Fokker E IV
(both have ailerons, should have wing warping, my info is that the twin-gun E IV had 160HP engine not 100HP)
Fafnir - Gotha G V
Fenris - Zeppelin Staaken R VI
(has inaccurate gun positions in upper wings above engine nacelles, earlier 3-engined Reisenflugzeuge did have nacelle gun positions but not poking through the wing tops, and not this model)
Taube - Avaitik B II
(this seems to be a mish-mash - uses the gunner-in-rear cockpit layout of the Albatros C III, and tail is similar, but the unequal-span wings are distinctively Aviatik B-type and fuselage-side radiators were replaced by centre-section one on most if not all C-types)
Otter - (Hansa) Brandenburg W 29
Dreidecker - Fokker Dr 1
Hawk - Fokker D VII
Parasol - Fokker D VIII
(designation was E V at first)
Walfisch - L.F.G. Roland C II

Allied
Scout - D.H.2
Gunbus - F.E.2B
(should have a 160 HP engine not 120)
Silverfish - Nieuport 17
Silverfish R - Nieuport Triplane
Dove - B.E.2e
(some home defence ones MAY have had a Lewis in that position??)
Spade - SPAD S.7
(inaccurate Lewis on centre section)
Hunchback - S.E.5a
Fighter - Bristol F.2b
(centre section Lewis possible but rare)
Camel - Sopwith Camel
Dolphin - Sopwith Dolphin
Tripane - Sopwith Triplane
Fatman - Handley Page 0/400
(has fictional tail gun position)
Militaire - Breguet 14
(side windows of Br.14B2 bomber but flap-less & bomb-rack-less lower wing of Br.14A2 recce?)
Felix - Felixstowe F.2a
Corporal - Caproni Ca33

I am not 100% certain on this, but I think that the FMs and aircraft data are stored in tables
in the .dta files.

Good work on finding out the code for changing the enemy planes in instant action! Hopefully if the
aircraft performance data can be made more accurate, the earlier aircraft will make more challenging
AI opponents.
Anyway, really great work so far!

I am not much good at the technical side of modding but as soon as the .DTA files are deciphered, I'll
be ready to do some aircraft and ground object skinning, and possibly FM and general data modification
(if this data is in tables rather than in the .EXE)

Yep same here thanks Andrew for all your efforts great stuff. I think I put it down as a RE8 too Ivor_H, is is a BE2e then? Thanks for the excellent detailed list of planes too.

Great progress Andrew. The AI planes seem to be one way or the other. I can handle, just about , the two winged AI, but the dreidecker and triplane movements are too severe as they are.
I appreciate what you are saying re changing it, but i fear unless it is "quietened down", the community will find it hard to truly class this as a sim. As it is, the FM IMHO, is too way off.
I had a quick dogfight against Fokker triplane in Red Baron and that was a lot less skittish. I would have handled that OK if the sim had supported trackIR.
Better to have an easy victim (as those you mentioned ), and a good dreidecker fight, so that the kids and newbies can have some success, than it stay as it is and no luck at all against the triplanes- They look like wasps not planes
So, I hope you are right Drawde!!

That's my 2 cents as they say, but I am very much appreciative of your efforts, Andrew. Now that the rockets have gone I am having a ball with the Fiske ( sorry Ivor H, the Albatross
Thanks for that list by the way. It will be great when they have their right names, won't it?
(Thanks again Andrew)

This is always the best part...when someone pulls out the old Hex Editor and starts doing things to the exe the devs never thought would happen

Remember, EAW started like that. Look where they are now. You guys are off to a good start.

Yep Pov, the Dove is definetely a BE2e, the fin (more rounded on the 2e than the 2c and 2d) and rudder are distinctive. The 2e introduced the unequal-span, single bay layout later adopted by the RE8 so it's easy to mix them up. The BE fuselage is also fairly distinctive, especially the scoop in the rear cockpit coaming, and the lack of the "bent upward" look the RE8's rear fuselage had. I notice that WoW's BE2e actually seems to provide the duplicated flying controls that 2e models could have, just as well because they put the pilot in front in instant action, I think the BE2d was the only one where the observer normally occupied the back position.

The German Taube 2-seater is 90% Avaitik B II except for the crew positions (gun in back) and possibly also the rudder (not sure if the B II had the comma-shaped rudder, with triangular fin in front, adopted by the Aviatik C-types). Even the latter still had the observer in front until late production, with rails either side of the front pit to carry the gun, the only C-type to retain the old B-type layout. My first reaction was that it was an Alb C III but even if early ones had fuselage-side radiators - and i haven't seen that - nearly everything else is Avaitik. One of the few areas they didn't get quite right, but there are so many similar-looking German WW1 2-seaters that it's easy to mix them up.

OK thanks for the detail Ivor - very welcome.

DITTO, THANKS! Hoping that Gamestop preorder doesn't get lost in the hurricane!

I just breezed through the thread so if this is redundant, please forgive. WoW is out at the EB store where I work but they only got the XBox version in. I probably will experiment tonight and "preorder" the PC version to see if it shows up. However, I will also check the date of release for the PC version to see if it isn't delayed due to the conversion of the English to the English version... .

Also:

I believe that the 5 engine IV (or VI?) had forward engine nacel gunners manned by the engineers on each wing as well as above wing gunners poking through the upper wing. There were also 2 backseat gunners facing rearward and a pop down gunner position just aft the back seat (prelude to the tunnel gun?). It seems that every version of the Staaken had about 1 or 2 models made (except for the last rendition which had about 13 or so) maybe they were trying to do a V version? I'll have to dig up my old pictures at home...

If this sim could be modded, that would be way awesome. I know you can mod Mafia (from what I've read on the net) so maybe the data tools used for mafia will work on WoW?

Hi Whirlwind!

My Putnam book on German ww1 planes is a rather dated 1970 edition and shows earlier Gigants with 3 engines having gun positions in front or in the rear of the actual nacelle itself, depending on whether the version had pusher or tractor props. If you can check and confirm whether the R VI with its combined pusher and tractor nacelles had these rather draughty gun positions, poking out of the wings, that'd be helpful. They don't show in the photos or drawings in the book but as I say it's quite an old edition.

Re files, the chap who did the .dat file extractor for Mafia has looked at this and reckons the files have changed and that his tool won't work. We've so far found a payware one that extracts but the trial version only does 30 files a go. However, we're hopeful that when a dev forum comes online, or the "unofficial" Czech one, we can make some headway with Silver Wish, or otherwise make further progress.

The PC Version is out in California, USA. I got my copy sitting at EB. Will get it tonight. I am one of those wierdos who WILL play the missions to get the planes.

I have the XBOX version now and in one of the mission, and I got a big laugh out of this, I had to go take a photo of something found in a field by some troops. It was a crop circle!

****s and Giggles, some of it. Have fun with it first, then mod the heck out of it later. I am all for Modding, but I am having fun with the missions too.

LOL..........I saw that crop circle on the Somme map I believe, and it shows up very nicely!

I assume you got a good set of plates exposed of it Greg?

Just a little teaser pic...


Hope this graphic loads (picky server), otherwise copy and paste link into new browser window.
http://rain.prohosting.com/katipo/pics/wow.gif

Oh, and speaking of pics, don't know if anyone has tweaked, the in game screenshot key is [F11].

Woo nice Flyby1 ! That's a heafty tease too

Yeah oddly enough my default screenshot key is usually F11 so was taking screenshots using it without even thinking

Sorry guys, this question has probably already been asked but it’s going to take me a week to work my way through all these posts

WoW website shows a Nieuport XVII (N17) that looks nothing like a N17 (it was a biplane not a tripe) and what the hangar calls a Sopwith Dolphin is clearly an Se5/Se5a!!
I heard it was just a website error but from what I’m reading in here that dosen’t appear to be the case.

Now, as if that wasn’t bad enough I now see multiple references to an "Albatros Dr1"!?! Please tell me this is not supposed to be THE Dr1!!!

Is this simm based on any kind of historical aviation at all?? Or is it basically a work of fiction???

As an avid fan of the period I had every intention of going out and getting this simm but I’m having serious second thoughts. I might be better off with a copy of X-wing fighter.
And I was SO looking forward to jumping into the cockpit of a Brisfit. Is the rear gunner functional?

Bk
p.s. Re: Fe2 getting Max Immelman.
Well there were 7 of them Ivor, plus there is a good possibility that they didn’t get him at all and that it was the synchronisation on his machine gun which failed causing him to shoot off his own propeller.

Hi Bkdrft

Yeah, naturally I heard that story about Immelman. I seem to recall that a fee got the Red Baron too, back in July 1917. I don't think anyone managed to write off that one to a damaged interupter gear Didn't an FE2 get Schaefer too? Pusher yes, pushover no, at least not in 1916-17.

Slightly OT, but there's quite a convincing article in the current "After the Battle" mag, which presents evidence that Douglas Bader was brought down, not by a colliding 109, nor shot down by a 109, but in error by a Spit of 616 Squadron!


Anyway fear not, the planes in WoW arehighly authentic, despite being given odd names in the game. There is a Fokker Dr 1, tho there is also an Albatros Dr1, the only inaccuracies being that the latter did not see service and was based on the D V where the game version is based on WoW's late model Alb D III. The game's real Nieuport 17 is so accurate that in the virtual cockpit, when you move the ailerons, the actuating rods (running up from the deck in front of the cockpit into the underside of the centre section) actually move too. there are a few inaccurate, jazzed-up colour schemes, and a few boobs in the placement of crosses, but all in all it's very accurate. The SE5a doesn't have quite enough dihedral and one of the German C-types looks like an amalgan of Aviatik B II and Albatros C III, for example. But overall WoW's planes are easily the best WW1 planes seen so far in a commercial combat sim.

Thanks for the Reply Ivor. Thats good enough for me. I will be hunting for my copy first thing tomorrow.

Bk

yeah, a fee shot MvR in the head and he blacked out. When he came to he couldn't see and was in a dive. He struggled to pull the plane up and his vision came back just in time to see he was pulling out and skimming the tree tops.

He was never the same after that incident.

It was during the Black Flight vs Flying Circus summer.

That is teasing!
Keep up the good work!

flyby1,

Outstanding! I think that Silver Wish Games should put you on their payroll.

Best regards,
Tattered Boots

So this is what everyone's talking about!

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0WADlAmUcz...487810033902348[/img]

Perhaps a mission editor utility comin' down the pike?

Flyby -- Highly successfully teased by your latest bit of promised WOW magic.

Any idea when we might be able to untease ourselves and actually use your AI plane Selector
Cheers

Brilliant !Oh, boy- coming here to these WoW threads each time is like opening Xmas pressies when you were a kid :p

Got a pressie early this year, huh Cas!