Originally Posted By: - Ice

Originally Posted By: HomeFries
Of course, people also tend to look at the history of Falcon 4.0 with rose colored glasses. Many don't remember that Falcon 4.0 was virtually unplayable at release, and that the patches that were released often broke the game more than they fixed it (even more than DCS patches sometimes break things in missions). It wasn't until 1.08 was released a year later that Falcon 4.0 was considered stable, and even then the campaign engine, while groundbreaking, was still buggy. It wasn't until Allied Force that I could run a campaign and not have to pray that my results wouldn't be lost in a CTD exiting the mission.

I am not that well versed with Falcon 4.0's history, but what was the gap between Falcon 4.0 and Allied Force?

To be fair, I'm sure people are still finding "bugs" with the current version of BMS ("it's not a bug, it's a feature!!")...


Originally Posted By: HomeFries
Still, Falcon 4.0 created a high fidelity flight sim and an integrated dynamic campaign engine in 5.5 years. Unfortunately the effort also bankrupted Microprose/Spec Holobyte and effectively took Hasbro out of the videogame business.

Is that a fair statement? The DC alone was the reason it took down a gaming company?

Falcon's history is long and complex, but the Cliff's Notes version is that after the 1.08 patch, Hasbro laid off the coders and Microprose shut their doors. Following this, somebody (likely one of the coders) released the 1.07 source code, which was the basis for the eRazor mods. In parallel, the Realism Pack mods worked to improve the sim through the databases. Eventually, a company called G2 Interactive got the rights to Falcon, and they used the improved eRazor code along with the database mods now known as SuperPak as the basis for their code. As such, SuperPak 3 was the big effort of the day, because G2 was going to assert its IP rights. G2 fell through and another group called Lead Pursuit attained the rights and released Allied Force, which had code based on SP3 but with significant campaign improvements.

I left out FreeFalcon, BMS 1.x and 2.0, RedFalcon and OpenFalcon (now part of BMS 4).

As far as a DC taking down a company, I didn't say that. However, it has been implied that this was the long pole in the tent. Falcon 4 is a very complicated sim with systems modeling that was unprecedented. The sim was also built from the ground up to work with the integrated campaign engine, so the project would sink or swim based on its success. I recall reading an interview from one of the campaign coders saying that what they did was impressive and groundbreaking, but if they had known what they were getting into they would never have done it. Falcon 4.0 took over 5 years to develop (not counting the post release patches to 1.08), and it was still a hot mess when Hasbro ordered its 1998 release in time for Christmas. Falcon 4 was groundbreaking in many ways, but the market focus had also shifted at that point to first person shooters, and console gaming wasn't far behind. Falcon may have sold just under 200,000 copies (in a day where 50k was considered successful), but they weren't able to recoup what they put into the project.

-Home Fries

"Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty."
- Robert A. Heinlein

The average naval aviator, despite the sometimes swaggering exterior, is very much capable of such feelings as love, affection, intimacy, and caring. These feelings just don't involve anyone else.