informative, appeals to

The real LACK for all the new sims (since il2 by the way) are not that they are hard, it's that they are LIFELESS!!!! I dream of a sim with the spirit of the old Microprose/sierra depth of their life/career PLUS a WT graphic engine and a decent physic engine... for me the ideal combat game of all: just imagine EAW, Red Baron 2, F117 Stealth, TAW, EF2000, F14 defender of the Fleet... with War Thunder graphics and today physics!!! I would give up all the "engineer driven push button hardcore lifeless scripted sims" for the pleasure to play again a game like this.

You forgot the $379 pricetag.

that's exactly the problem, today flight sim just focus on graphics and physics, generally because of small budget... As a result: the immersion is just not complete... sure the flying component is very satisfying, but there is something HUGE missing, the feeling to be in a random LIVE WAR, where other elements live outside the player bubble... the only game today that get this spirit is a the OFF mod of MS Combat III, all the recent games from the first IL2 were/are completely lifeless outside the player bubble and the scripted elements of the mission...

I remember the joy to play red baron, when on a return to base, you spot enemies planes returning to their airfield, you could choose to go on with your own return to base or try to bounce them during their landing. In another day of Red Baron, you hide in the cloud and spot a flight of enemy under, bounce and trap tactics were possible in these game and all was dynamic... when you flown over a friendly/enemy airfield, chance were that there was activity on this airfield! We NEED this LIVELY DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENT back!!!

Everything/point that you made was possible in CLod. It was dependent on creative thinking of mission designers or you yourself, to make such a campaign or mission...I'm talking about the creative use of scripts, timed delays, and triggers

Maybe but it was done in a very natural (randomly scripted like a roleplaying dice probability throw) and dynamic way in these old games with their immersive SP campaign gameplay, no need a third party to re-invent the wheel... You could have replayed the same game/campaign but with never have to fly the same missions/events twice...

Yes that's true, nowadays I think it is a money time thing for the devs, so they leave it to the community

No, you don't need that pricetag in order to make such a game.
Anyway if there's something that should be dropped in order to make a combat flight sim "cheaper" that would be stuff like having every friggin button or lever as workable/clickable, "zillions" of supercharger stages or "zillions" of blade propeller pitches, etc and etc... -> You just need the main and enough features to make a simulation authentic and realistic (at least IMO).

I prefer that devs worry more about stuff such as living worlds and/or dynamic campaigns than gun sights that should be 2 millimetres more to the right or to the left (or up or down) compared to the real aircraft. I don't care if some stuff is misplaced by a few millimetres or if some less important stuff regarding the aircraft's mechanics or instrumentations aren't fully modeled but I do care about the lack of living worlds and/or dynamic campaigns in combat flight sims!

Oh I like what you write Shar

Edit:
ricnunes, so true - All the "extreme level" sims (well, DCS P51D and Ben Dover) sure are impressive but I always endup closing the game session with a feeling something is missing. Being a long time Falcon4 e-pilot I think I know what it is.

On the other hand, War Thunder, which is as lifeless as they come, has the most users of all flight sims, even if its sim lite.

WT is more of counter strike source that also have millions of users. Those users seek instant gratification and internet fame.
I have absolutely nothing in common with them.

When the simgame is brilliant in SP, thats when some effort has been put into it and it becomes usuable in Coop.
Competitive flying is not relevant for this kind of simgame I have in mind.

it's more the WT engine that really appeal to me, extremely fluid with a lot of planes and eye candies, Extremely good VFR and altitude rendering graphics, nice shader effects, very decent physics... the engine itself would have an amazing potential if they would allow to "rent" the engine itself. Unfortunately, Gaijin is not interested to make an old fashion game with a strong single player experience "a la" Sierra/Microprose. They just want to easy cash in on their golden egg which is unfortunate. Now If a visionary indie dev could approach them with the old sim spirit, find a way to use their engine and hire some old Microprose/sierra campaign designers... I'm 1000 time positive it would be a sure success, hands down...

WT awesome graphic and smaller maps would be ideal for slower WWI planes, suddenly their map would look huge!!!

Another thing that WT engine shows is that lower polygons and texture could still look BETTER than DCS and CLOD and their bigger texture/polygons. Keeping fluid gameplay all the time and still allowing EAW's hundreds of plane missions...

Some points I would like to see one day in a future air war simulator:

- Red Baron 2 type of campaign with simple management of resources and personals and rookie rank beginning up to squadron leader/ace during the whole war), permanent death, etc...
- Live world ( AI friendly and enemy living their own war outside the player bubble, life on all airfield, towns, AI trains and transports, land battles)
- Real WWI/ WWII tactics (Defensive circles, Escape diving, bounce, lone wolf, ace encounter, large sweep, wolpacks, nation oriented combat tactics)
- Dynamic Weather and clouds providing cover
- WT engine type of graphics
- Decent physics (at least IL 1946 as a base)
- large spectrum of possible missions: special and risky missions, recco, sweep, fighter bomber, train/boat, troups attack, bomber protection, aggressive circus, scrambles under attacks,...)
- EAW battle size (up to few hundreds planes in the sky!!! fighter battles of 30-60x30-60 planes)
- Dynamic AI with different ranks skills ( you can ramdomly encounter experten or/with simple 10 missions rookies)
- Ramdom events (following event probability dice trowing): Mark a shot down friend for a rescue mission call, Stagglers bomber or fighter encounters, bounce from/to enemy, trains to destroy (or more generally opportunity targets), special missions, escort of wounded wingmen...)
- Coop full war campaign (up to 4-6 friends)
- Dynamic aircraft markings (victories crosses on your plane) and possibility to design your planes when you are an ace
- Real events and aces (and their correct time deaths)
- lively ATC (gives you realistic info on targets, cap for interception, return to base, opportunity targets in the area, etc...)
- Murderous flaks

I know that I'm dreaming but I hope I'm not the only one... like a famous song

That last video was great. DCS has a very strong interactive tutorial that is fun and you feel good after you get the engine started and humming the first time.

I look forward to Luthier using these tools to make an even greater experience. Training missions are so much fun in DCS! It's practicelly all I do when I have limited time.

I know exactly what you mean. Spectrum Holobyte made a sim of the GR4 Tornado many years ago. It had the well populated world and dynamic campaign design that sims today lack. I spent hours just planning my flights and objectives in that game.
1942 Pacific air war is another great one. You could actually command the carrier fleet movements and send out scouts to look for the enemy carriers.

Agree. I've written elsewhere that an "RPG life-like human experience" would be appropriate. That would include a "story" like an RPG.

That comment was frowned upon by some hard-core simmers because they felt it would "take away" from the hard core experience. True, development dollars would be needed -- and they may just not be available. Still, if it added more hard-core players (the ones looking for a life-like emotional experience along with the raw combat), it could dramatically pay for itself.

In any case, I don't expect that with the initial release. I have contributed $100, and I will be happy with what has been promised if the $100K goal was met (which it was)

I wish them all the best with this and have pledged and all, but my god they need to improve their video presentations... I felt myself going crossed eyed with the way he kept looking off camera throughout the presentation.

Maybe their next stretch goal could be for an autocue???

That's because Russians approach things that way. Modelling the perfect plane in every detail and just throw in the rest, instead of going the way of american developers, who put you into this huge ongoing conflict and you're doing missions where outcome really matters. They also knew how to make a bit of hollywood immersion, Top gun action instead of just boring tutorials.

EDIT: And incentive, that's the word i'm looking for. Something that pulls you forward to the next mission, gets you sucked into the game.

All of this has been said already:
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3821237/1

Lol! 100% agree.

I've also backed and also hope that they come up with something wonderful, but (IMHO) just about everything that Ilya does seems to smell strongly of amateurishness.

* The half-assed initial Kickstarter.
* The increasingly complex and confusing revisions to the pledge rewards.
* The constantly shifting goals ("We know what people really want! No - wait. What they really want is a B-17. No - wait. What they really want is an Me-262")
* The serious lack of communication with the community on the Kickstarter page and the official ED forums.
* The questionable disconnect between stated goal "We just want the money for extended Beta testing and polish" versus the financial realities of the project "We're doing this Kickstarter 6 months before we're ready".
* The very, very amateur videos.

As much as it might not look like it, I'm not looking to slam the man or the project. Nothing would make me happier than to see DCS: WW2 be a massive success. However, I think it's fair to say Ilya had a considerable PR mountain to climb after the disastrous launch of CloD and this project (from my perspective) has almost done the opposite. Instead of instilling trust and confidence in the man and his approach, it's tended to give an insight into how CloD was such an unfocused and poorly managed project.

Still, my heart's ruling my head on this one and I truly hope I'm very wrong.

its also possible in IL-2 1946 using the Command and Control mod