OK sim fans, it's time for another poll, so step up and make your wishes known!

To sample the sim community's desires for what we each expect from KOE when it's finally released, the question is:

How satisfied would you be if the following features make up the only improvements included in KOE when it's releashed:

1) 100 airplane models
2) better flight models
3) RB-type Campaign
4) better missions
5) better AI
6) online action like RB

Please select either; very satisfied, satisfied, or unsatisfied as your choices, and feel free to elaborate.

Sound like fun.............join in!

Unsatisfied, this would be less than the sort
of dynamic carreer that I've heard about..

You forgot improved graphics... I mean really, you have got to expect some big improvements in that area. If the sim is just so so graphically I would be disappointed. I want a nice looking sim to go with the improved DM, FM, AI, Campaign, etc.

very satified as far as that list goes .. but of course the devil's in the details

Right Toadvine! I left good graphics purposefully out here, because wanting "ok" graphics is all that's being proposed as part of the list.

Flybert, those are the details.

Oh, and you can define the "better flight models" choice, as meaning "reasonably accurate FM's".

Ok, sorry to interrupt the voting!

No. That's not enough and it is short of what Aspect said the sim would be.

There needs to be the same kind of campaigns online as off except that more players can participate online. For that, there needs to be AI online unlike RB.

100 planes at release is not a neccessary thing unless there's no way to add planes. I'd much rather see 20 to 40 planes at release with the ability to add on to a total over 200 or even 300. How many plane models in one mission, map or arena doesn't have to be so many... 16+ would suit me.

RB MMP is a milestone in sims but there's still problems in the predictor code and latency that may be unsolvable in any sim. Being shot by someone pointing 45+ degrees away from you is a definite minus. So is shooting at someone who never seems to get hit (FB code, the other side of the same problem) because their client sees you pointing elsewhere. A fix to those or even a tightening up would be a gas.

And now I'll ask why the nasty, limited options poll with the very LIMITED answer set? It's obvious that you don't like the way that RB works. now we're supposed to either want what you listed or go along with your idea of the ultimate sim? It's not a bad idea till other more important features get lost over it, like the ability to fly for who you want in the role you want just for instance. We don't all want to be movie-role heroes much less stuck playing the same setup over and over till an equally limited sequel comes out.


Neal

I think RB's Campaign can be improved on a lot (see eg Pat Wilson's Mission Generator which makes the missions much more realistic, and the various rule sets people have produced to make it more immersive). And from the SimHQ interview it sounds like they are going for something better.

But basically - sounds good to me. Not that there's a snowball's chance in hell of anyone releasing a sim with 100 planes all with good 3D models, well skinned and with reasonably accurate FMs - it just is not going to happen. Forty or so is achievable but bloody hard work. So long as they make it easy for them, or possibly for 3rd parties to add more.

Rob

Neal - my "ultimate sim" for WWI would be a cross between a flight-sim and a MUD. The campaign would be a persistent world in which the player enlists in a squadron at a particular date, and then has a career as in RB - but this campaign could also operate on a server where any number of players ould have enlisted. Appropriate missions etc would be generated, and the career could progress as appropriate with promotion & squadron moves.

When you were in the air you wuold never know whether the plane you were about to fight was going to be an AI or a human controlled one, unless you recognised him by his paint scheme.

So kind of like the online wars, but needing no effort to run, no long term commitment from the players to another group of human beings, and no rules; the campaign itself would manage everything and enforce any appropriate rules. It would be an excellent single player campaign, with the added bonus that you would be flying alongside and against other humans.

Rob

Neal, you're a smart guy, but please cease and desist on dragging KOE back into the "Third-Coming of RB"!

Design creativity is all about the paradigm shift........new ideas.........new features........new way of looking at things.......and of course doing the regular things better!

This poll will illustrate (or not) what the greater sim community wants out of KOE, not what I want, not what you want, but what we really think would make KOE a hit from day one.......this means ideas are welcomed.

So the poll goes forward, and we will see if six features satisfies the wants of the sim community at large.

This process shouldn't threaten anyone.........we certainly should be able to listen to other people's opinions and to contemplate what they have to say!

So the poll continues..........

Now see there's an excellent concept!

Have you followed the Birds Of Prey design brainstorming on the Wings With Wires forum Mahoney (I think I recall that you popped-in every once in a while)!

Sounds like the BOP concept would be right down your alley, and maybe some of that "RPG approach-AI manned-persistant online world" idea could make it into KOE too!

That would be fantastic!

Keep those votes and the ideas comin' guys.

FlyXWire - this irrational attitude to any mention of RB is frankly weird. Neal was suggesting something very different to RB, something far more (sigh) immersive.

You seem to be under the impression that we are all stuck in a thought rut about RB, unable to think outside the RB box (to use one of the buzz phrases you seem to be so keen on) - but actually you are the one stuck in a bizarre anti-RB rut. RB is a deeply limited and flawed sim; but some aspects of its features give some of the immersion that a lot of us are looking for.

That's it. I derive my ideas on a WWI sim from all sorts of areas; my experience of Falcon 4, Il-2, Battle of Britain, EAW, RB3D & Flying Corps have all gone into the mix, along with my reading about the war and my experience of playing and modifying WWI flight sims over the last 5 years. Plus my own knowledge of programming, which gives me an idea of what is achievable and how it might be achieved.

I've no idea why you are trying to turn this into some bizarre FlyXWire v the RB supporters fight; to the point of insisting that you define what the RB supporters all think, even when they are saying something very different!

Rob

What you seem to have missed is that I was agreeing with and expanding on Neal's idea. Which you dismissed out of hand as "dragging KOE back into the "Third-Coming of RB"!".

Yes, I've been on the BOP forum. There are similarities with their ideas, but I would want a design much more closely tied to history than their online world was going to be.

Rob

This is a poll to contemplate some previously stated viewpoints put forth on this forum (it's an exercise in pulsing the thoughts of the overall WWI flight sim community, and other interested sim fans too).

Besides being listed briefly in the choice list, the discussion about RB originated from someone else's thread.

Frankly I think it a bit limiting that future concepts for our next generation of WWI sims be couched in comparison to a six year old game design, but it's what many members on this forum like to do, and so it's certainly open for discussion and debate.........don't you think?

Anyway, I tried to keep the poll choices as "unloaded" as possible, but the references did come from the forum discussions (shall I take them out)?

I defer to your judgement Mahoney!

I think this demonstrates a misconception; 6 years is not a long time in game design. It is a very long time in game technology.

The basic ideas of what people want from a sim could have been written down ages ago - I remember designing what would still be an excellent flight sim in my head when playing LucasArts Their Finest Hour about 13 years ago. It just wasn't remotely technologically practical on an Atari ST!

So there's no reason to reject a game design just because it's 6 years old, except in so far as it was limited by the technology available at the time.

I think people use the term "RB Campaign" as a short hand for the following:

1) A campaign focussed on the player *being* an individual pilot in the Great War. For instance in the Falcon 4 and Battle of Britain campaigns you take on the role of the overall strategic co-ordinator of the campagin, and then just hop into a particular plane when you feel like flying; most of us don't like that approach, we want to be pilot X assigned to squadron X and live the life of that pilot, being assigned missions from on high and trying to fulfil them and stay alive.

2) A campaign which is not linear; you can start it at the same point with the same squadron but you won't get the same missions because they are dynamically generated. Unlike say 1942 PAW, where there was just a succession of single missions in a campaign, and if you got killed you went back to square one and did it all again, with the same mission, same enemies appearing at the same time from the same place; very dull!

3) A campaign where the world seems alive when flying. In RB if you ignore your mission and just fly off into the wide blue yonder then you will bump into other planes from both sides fulfilling other missions. Unlike say EAW, where you could roam over the whole of occupied France with no-one batting an eyelid because it was empty!

4) A campaign where the world seems alive when not flying. In RB you can check out what's going on with the squadrons around you - where they are based, what they are flying, which aces belong to them etc. You can check out what's going on with other aces - how many kills they have, when they got the kills, when they die, where they are based. If you are flying with an ace and he gets a kill/ is killed, it's acknowledged in the campaign. You can transfer to another squadron. You can check out your own squadron and see how the non-aces in it are doing. You get notes about new planes being deployed to the front, or your squadron taking losses, or new people joining your squadron, or major war events like the Somme. This is in contrast to say Il-2, which maintains no such record.

I think all of those design features remain as relevant today as they were 6 years ago. And sadly no-one has really implemented them since! Apart from some 3rd party campaign generators for CFS3 and Il-2 Sturmovik (written by a prominent member of the *shudder* Red Baron 3D community!).

Rob

Just thought of a 5)!

5) A campaign that lets you mirror the progression of a pilot in the war; moving through the years and technology eras. Most sims have a number of campaigns which you fly and then complete, without giving a feel of where your pilot came from or what becomes of him at the end of it. In RB you could go into say the bloody April period as an existing pilot with a history; and if you survived it you could carry on.

Rob

Thought of a 6!

6) A campaign which lets you go to the parts that capture your imagination. Just been reading about Jasta 11? Cool, join Jasta 11! Fascinated by the Americans in the Lafayette squadron? Join them! I know from the RB community that people are fascinated by different bits of the WWI air war; I, for instance, have no imaginative interest in flying for the French or Americans, whereas I know lots of people who feel precisely the opposite.

All 6 of my points are, I think, totally wrapped up in the question of immersion. If I can be involved in something which immerses me in the role playing of being an individual (1), which never wakes me up to the fact that I'm playing a game by being totally predictable (2), which never wakes me up to the fact that I'm playing a game because the world around me seems real (3 & 4) and keeps that "I'm a real person in this war" thing going by letting me build up a history (5), all in a scenario that fires my imagination in the first place (6) - well, I'm immersed.

Rob

Nice expansion on the concepts of pre-existing formats, and this is not a criticism Mahoney, so please let's not get off on the wrong foot, ok?

Now, let's ask each reader here on how they would design the next flight sim blockbuster to hit the market...............and so now you're the manager in charge of this...............your own WWI flight sim design team (hey, we'll can call this our own exercise in "designing simulation")!

What might you do leader............of course you're probably already aware of many current and past sim developments (you're an expert), and you have your opinions about what is good about these previous efforts too, and you have some solid ideas of what's needed in the market! So now it's time to gather your team and brainstorm about what is expected and needed as far as that "must have" content, and what might really excite the potential buying public to want your new WWI sim project (afterall your project is a labor of love hoping to one day become a commercial success........gotta have a strong commitment, ample capital, and a vision from the beginning).

So the conceptualizing begins, and good ideas from past sims are discussed, and agreements are made of what content will be included, and a development plan is arrived at, but you ask yourself what will you build that improves upon these past efforts that might capture the imagination and interest of today's potential flight sim world?

Ahhhh.........this is where you plan on making your mark, you and your team have some new ideas to introduce that will knock the socks off of those scrutinizing types out there................you'll win their hearts and minds by giving them things they never even expected, nor even thought of!

YES!!!!

Now it's been roughly six years from the last commerical WWI sim, and you know there's certainly the demand out there for your type of product, and technology has changed too since then, with the benchmark for qualitative improvements constantly being moved forward (it's a good thing), but has the conceptualizing for new features and approaches to combat flight simming stood still in the past decade?

Well, would you be venturing into this financial real-life risk prepared only to copy ideas from the past, or are you moving forward with some innovative content that you hope further insures your project's success?

It's up to you leader............

Your team has come up with some interesting ideas, let's see...........cost, time, impact...............

Let's go for it..........afterall, nothing ventured nothing gained, and there's no turning back now!!!

OK folks, our desiging simulation sim has ended, and I'm sure you probably would have thought of some angles on what you might do differently if you had been the one writing this post, but while I've got you here reading one of my long entries (again ), I've got one final something that I just gotta add...........besides I can't stop now (it's become a habit)!

It's all about quality and immersion...............oh, and the road that gets us there!

Exactly Mahoney...........it's about building in the degree of quality and a level of immersion that takes WWI flight simming into the 21st century!

I like your Squadron-based concept, which allows for an in-depth flying experience with a high level of immersion, tied to an interactive sector where human players and AI flesh out our sim experience.............LOL.............I think we're moving forward indeed.

Keep it up, we're liking it!

S! Mahoney!

If I may add to your ultimate flight sim post:

Online

- players can jump onto a server to play "bit parts" without any history, an online equivalent of single missions. They can wait for a squad flight to meet in the Ready Room before going out (squad may be nothing but single pilots and AI just for getting them out or a mostly AI squad flying for fill in purposes) for briefing and choosing which open slot to fill and then fly the mission and either log off or stay for another. It could be a good alternative to mindless melee without a lot of involvement or commitment. It could be good practice without endangering your career pilot.

- career players can have more than one career.

- servers may be set up and run for private groups.

- the strategic decisions may be generated or they may be controlled by non-flying players. This would allow squads to be as in-depth about online wars as they want.

- newspapers, one for each side. Major events should get reported as news. Those being when a battle is on, an Ace is made or killed or reaches so many kills. The Kings' birthday. Home news like shortages, riots or support marches. Death tolls. Whatever can be generated or canned for inclusion or added by players. Also local news from scuttlebutt on up, hey the new planes just arrived kinds of things.

Offline -

Same things only you don't get other player inputs.


C'ya

Neal

1) 100? Well of course it would be a nice surprise but not needed IMHO. Satisfied I guess.

2) Better than what is the key here. If I feel like I'm actually flying something and can hamfist it into a unrecoverable spin, I'll be very satisfied.

3) Expected. This is a big one and the developers have already made it apparent this is happening. I hope they improve on it.

4) Again expected. The developers have stated this is happening, in two variations which I am heppy with.

5) A big Satisfied here. AI can always be improved and integrated better.

6) Satisfied I guess. Again, RB online is not the best sim to compare this to. Having a plane bursting into flames resulting in dumping all the players off is not good.

I am a big fan of the independant dedicated server though. Ensures the online keeps going no matter what happens down the road. Make it like Half-Life and I'll be very satsfied.

A few more:

7) Integrated Player Development Tools: Very very satisfied. This is crucial down the road. Create something like Battlecraft from BF1942 and have various avenues of export and import and this would keep people busy for years to come. I love BF1942's tools like full conversion mod add-on support. They are simply the best.

8) Future cross-platform integration. Very very very satisfied. I am really disappointed that they decided to pursue DirectX instead of Open GL here. It pretty well kills off any chance of cross-platform for the moment.

Mahoney's idea of Flight Sim and MUD combined makes me think I wrote it. Make that a very very satisfied 9)

S!