Is historical campaign accuracy what Neoqb are about (after all RoF was [allegedly] designed primarily for MP) ?

Do they have an army of WW1 experts that can implement an accurate WW1 air war campaign ?

Is this a direction they really want to go in ?

Might as well let us all know now otherwise it will just be endless speculation, lots of blah blah blah and probably tears.

I'm not aware of any particular direction that they plan to go, or even if they plan to go. It would be nice to know. That's the odd thing about knowingly buying a half finished piece of software with the promise that there will be more. What will "more" be?

Lol sorry Pat my post comes across aimed at you. I meant for someone in Neoqb to chime in with their thoughts/directions with regard to a dynamic campaign. I know thay're thinking about it but they haven't exactly specified any details as far as I'm aware .... unless I missed something ?

From taleks, one of the developers, on the campaign:





On plane availability in the campaign:

Thanks for the link pixel. Looks like they'll consider a decent campaign when they have enough planes to do the job properly although this ....
"RoF initially wanted truly non-linear campaign, but there are some limitations" .... disturbs me somewhat.

Hi Pat - how are things? Seems a while since SWWISA was in full swing. Is Uhlan still involved?

I have a notion that you could actually separate the development of a campaign and a flight sim almost entirely - not exactly revolutionary, of course, that's what Lowengrim has doen on Il-2. But my thinking was that if the makers of the sim not only made missions generatable and have triggers but also allowed the actual flying part to be embedded in another app then you could produce a very seamless, professional experience.

It seems to me that the development skills required for producing the flying bit are highly specialised - 3D environment, flight modeling, damage modelling etc. etc. Whereas the skills around producing a good campaign are far more amenable to "normal" developers - I have a vague idea how I would model the history of WWI in the air, I wouldn't be able to start making a realistic flight model in a 3D environment. The sort of people who make flight sims obviously have those skills, and it's perhaps unsurprising that they focus more on that side of the product; it would be nice if they designed it to let those of us more interested in the campaign aspects build that around it.

Thanks pixelbaron.

I think we're all enjoying discussing our favorite wants here.

Something I've wanted from the beginning for the sim was an ability to have squadron paint schemes automatically loaded for the missions. To me this is one of the most immersive features of "campaigning", whether one is flying single missions in no special order, or as a linked series, or via campaign generation (that is, fighting against distinctive units and opponents). Lots of effort went into preparing for this eventuality. Some here might remember this preview WIP screenshot. At the moment we can only fly one of these schemes, but they're all for the US 94th Aero Squadron campaign, as are other Albatros D.Va schemes in-game (erwin-wenig, tiedje, zempel, and those for Jasta 64w, and Jasta 65). I hope to see all of these pilot schemes someday, as part of a campaign, and as squadron opponents in single scenarios too.

Theres seems to be the makings of a good campaign which with some new features could be good fun.

The issue atm is that Neoqb are concerntrating on releasing new A/C and patching the released game. Its hard to argue against the logic behind that. After all their business model requires the income and we all want the bugs to be squished.

I would glady pay for a full campaign as long as it had the features I mentioned.

I guess for Neoqb its about priorities. Im sure given an infinate budjet and timescale they would love to create all we wish for. Perhaps financial incentive is the way to go?

Would anyone else here pay for such?

I'd like to get campaigns and missions free (and/or bundled with new updates or aircraft), and look forward to also enjoying what the community makes with the ME. The US 94th Aero campaign needed the Pfalz D.IIIa included, and as Taleks mentioned these things and others led to outcomes concerning these missions.

They're working on multiple fronts, bug squashing/functionality improvements, content expansion, and future feature development.

I hope addtional campaign capabilites are implemented, and that Neoqb's new features come as soon as possible, in the meantime we fly.

So, calling me a sycophant and calling FR and I "delusional", "laughable" and "A S S" are your way of addressing other people? Is that, ahem, the level of discourse you want for our disagreements? Sorry, but you are obviously only interested in childish namecalling, not in any exchange of opinion. Why even get so worked up about this forum and a flight sim that you need to stoop to that level? I'm on holiday and enjoying myself tremendously, maybe you two should do the same...

It is terribly charming to see how all your innermost desires come out in many of your postings. You really live out your emotions through these forums and that is kind of cute in a slightly childish sort of way. Keep it up!

Freycinet,

I hope you're having a good vacation, are you still in sunny Mexico?

On the topic of campaigns, I'm with Dart on much of this campaign eye-candy (or maybe it's mind-candy), such as kill rosters, being challenged by the aces, or unit transfers, etc. This provides context for mission briefings or campaign progression, it can be nice to have sure, but again to me what's missing mostly in ROF now are having the aces, flight leaders, and other pilots in-mission, and that's by having their planes, emblazoned with their distinctive insignia and personal markings in the missions. I don't care too much about who shot down 2 planes in a scenario I just flew if I can't tell who anybody is when I'm flying with them anyway!

Historical accuracy can only be taken so far too, before any game's campaign mechanics will begin to fail. Here's the mission work-up I did for VikS on campaign Mission 19, or what could have been called "The Death Of Captain Hamilton Coolidge". At this point it probably can't be built, because there's no trigger in the ME that says "Destroy Aircraft By AA Hit here". I don't know, maybe Neoqb's ME can allow for it, or maybe later, but what I think is really missing for immersion now is actually flying with a squadron's pilots, and if you can't associate their name to their plane, then that can disconnect the whole mission/campaign from the point from which we actually play sims from, from within the missions themselves (irregardless of pre-ops or post-op goodies).

I think this mini-review deserves a link here too (thanks JG2Helmutt for the headsup).

"On the topic of campaigns, I'm with Dart on much of this campaign eye-candy (or maybe it's mind-candy), such as kill rosters, being challenged by the aces, or unit transfers, etc. This provides context for mission briefings or campaign progression, it can be nice to have sure, but again to me what's missing mostly in ROF now are having the aces, flight leaders, and other pilots in-mission, and that's by having their planes, emblazoned with their distinctive insignia and personal markings in the missions."

Do you not think that actually having progression over time in terms of rosters, squadron members, transfers, different aircraft types over the length of a pilot's campaign - ie, building a history for your pilot - is not slightly more important than being able to personalise your aircraft?

What's your take on the list of RB3D features that I posted, and the responses to that? I'm interested, because I suspect that your perception of what makes a good WWI game is not the same as mine.

My post wasn't about personalizing ones own aircraft.

You misread.

Did I?

I thought that this: "but again to me what's missing mostly in ROF now are having the aces, flight leaders, and other pilots in-mission, and that's by having their planes, emblazoned with their distinctive insignia and personal markings in the missions." referred to personalising planes.

Still, besides that - what's your take on the question of what RB3D had to offer, and the comparison to ROF on those points?

Yes, you actually did, and it sounds pretty clear to me (I even underlined the point in my original posting).

Ah, my apologies, I was taking 'their' to be a generalised 'all of us who play this game' sort of reference.

So, about the campaign comparisons with RB3D - what are your thoughts? I would have thought that, for example, being able to progress with a squadron from 1916 to 1918 - assuming you lived that long - and being able to experience X different aircraft during Y different periods covering (potentially) Z different campaigns would be an absolute prerequisite for the game. I'm certainly not sold on this being a major - or even likely - feature of ROF, if only on the basis that you'd end up having to buy each aircraft to enable this, and it's probably not that likely that (in common with other WWI games) you'd see the manufacturers of the game pumping out aircraft to fit these historical niches. I mean, other than fan produced ones, has any WWI sim ever featured the Big Ack, for example?

Yes indeed, would love to see highly accurate historical campaigns based on the war's fighter squadron histories (even for 2-seater squadrons eventually), and using actual missions as their basis, but then that's not dynamic campaigning at all.

What campaign would be more real or historically accurate I wonder? Would being challenged by a famous ace to dogfight in a dogfight that never happened epitomize WWI realism? Of course not, it's a game mechanism made to immerse a player in a feeling for the period, but it's a manufactured encounter. Nothing wrong with campaigns that do this, but to argue there's some inherent correctness or historical significance when your virtual player is offered a transfer to a squadron, or he fights an ace in a generated missions is just arguing that created fantasy is real.

My first interest would be to have historical paint schemes of squadron planes appear in ROF's missions, because this is how recognition worked in the air. I want to know who the squadron leaders are (would like the possibility for leader streamers too), and I want to see my opponents wearing their distinctive squadron schemes and insignia also. This is important to me for immersion, and this happens inside the missions, not outside of them. I'm less interested whether or not I get an offer to transfer to an elite squadron, or if I qualify for a grudge match with an ace, or how I ever somehow escaped from a POW cage.

C'mon SimonC, some of us just never got into believing all this dynamic generation.

Well I think many ROF off line players would love ROF to step up to a campaign with these features:

WW1 historic air battle campaign engine with a moving front, with a pilot belonging to a squad with member names, with real Squad missions flying from their real air bases with the correct A/C at the correct dates, with the correct researched skins and A/C squad markings for each Squad. Also I would like correctly named Aces, there at the right times, with their a/c skins, on real missions.

This to me is a historic campaign for WWI.