Very good conversation and good points made by all contributors.

I am a fan of DCS, but not a "FanBoy".

I remember when I purchased Falcon 3.0 in London in the early nineties, the back of the package promised me integrated warfare in a dynamic campaign environment - which was to come after you had bought the product!

This is what we are all still awaiting.

Improvements in graphics engines and consumer processing power (my iPhone now has more oomph than my hugely expensive work PC, which I initially used for Falcon 3.0) have meant that in each category, we are getting a pretty amazing experience relative to the nineties - I am thinking of Arma 3, Steel Beasts and DCS World 2.0. Put that together with Oculus Rift, or even Track IR, and you get an incredible experience relative to Falcon 3.0, or indeed Operation Flashpoint on a 486Mhz with a 200Mb HDD and very little RAM.

My issue with all of these companies is that they either go deep or go wide.

DCS wants you to click every cockpit button and have a 50 page start-up list for a plane/helicopter (nothing wrong with that - I love it!), SteelBeasts wants you to do pretty much the same with each tank, including versions of the same base model which operate differently - Leo/Abrams etc - going deep.

Alongside that, Arma 3 provides awful helicopter, airplane and AFV models which are usable, but provide no real satisfaction but you can use them to support your buddies on the ground - going wide.

The last thing, in my humble opinion, that DCS needs is another map or another module, which is what is coming down the pipe.

Instead, they need to make a more compelling environment, where ground forces can integrate with artillery, attack and support helicopters, CAS aircraft up to the cool guys fighting the air superiority battle above them in their fast jets.

The main technical weakness with DCS at present is the Combined Arms module, which makes it debilitating for humans to run the ground forces, which in the real world are the be-all and end all - after all, war is about taking ground, which is done by ground forces and not air superiority fighters.

On a software/product level, the mission editor is a pretty rubbish tool for creating a dynamic, random campaign environment - the number of if/case statements, unit routings, triggers and lua routines make replicating the Falcon campaign a real labor of love!

These are my high level thoughts after playing these games for many years and prompted by your discussions.

I just want the game I thought I bought in London in about 1992 - integrated, dynamic, multiplayer, modern warfare.

Nearly 25 years later, is it too much to ask for one of the software companies (RIP Microprose and Spectrum Holobyte) to focus on that, so we can have a game that is both deep and wide??

Would be very interested to read your comments on my thoughts.