When the focus went totally to the sim side, that is get the vehicle or whatever right (not a bad thing at all), the content to make it fun and interesting to use went missing. Perhaps instead of build the plane, tank, car first and use whatever is left to make the content is doing it backwards. that is make the missions and campaigns more the priority to make sure they are actually fun and good, then get the vehicle or whatever right. When the content feels rushed and not so compelling you have a problem.

An FPS with greatest shooter stuff ever will still suck if the level design and story are boring as heck. An RPG is a no go if everything is great BUT the story. A ww2 war film sort of blows if everything is JUST right historically but the characters are flat and daft.

If everything else is good but your air plane is only 80 percent right, you will still love it. Like longbow 2. Campaign was pretty good and interesting. The choppers certainly where not 100 percent there. Who cares, its just one more mission night, every night.

Looking at DCS, the last flight sim stuff I messed about with. In particular the KA50, loved the thing as far flying, but man, campaigns and missions where not super duper. Often making little sense beyond just go here and kill everything. Still liked it. But ya...

But never do sims seem to want to go with a real deal and interesting story. Even getting a campaign in there that is dynamic is rare. Static stale missions with good everything else that always feel tacked on. Or you try and make something more story based in sim where it was never designed with that in mind. Meaning doing dialog or cut scenes is difficult or impossible. And never that compelling.

Making a sim of something easier for average people to grasp with a great story and interesting campaign never seems to get done. Like perhaps a ww2 type of thing of scout unit. Play around with something easy to get like a jeep with jeep like missions. Drive the thing, try not stall the engine and get killed. go scout something. Go shoot something. Explain why with characters you sort of care about. Bump it up to something bigger. You get an armored car, muck about in that. Then get a light tank. Then get missions and a story where where select what you will use and how to use it to get something done. With the reason why this or that is important with characters you do not want to get dead. Seems like you might get simmers lite or gamers heavy to buy something along those lines. But that is not what we get. you get an awesome plane or chopper with a stale everything else. Sometimes it totally fine. But can never really grow as game or series as you throw average guy into a fully working craft, you are way out of your depth as average gamer type. Its good and bad all rolled into one. And not where the money is. So not much of it.

I think I have had that dream too. The pretty stewardess comes down the isle asking, "are there any pilots on board?". After I see no one answering the call, I stand up and say, " I once landed a 707 on MicroSoft Flight Simulator with the difficulty settings on high". I then land the plane safely and become a national hero. Pretty ridiculous, I know.

Pretty much what everyone else has said, especially concerning Il-2. EAW, Janes F/A-18, B-17 the Mighty 8th, the bug ridden Rowens BoB, and F4. These are the ones that I would get excited about every time I would watch the intros. My heart would start racing, and I would be going into battle!




Who among you can watch this, and and not be inspired to "kick the tires and light the fires"!??

Mine fantasy is similar

The closest I have ever come to actually flying an aircraft was about 30 years ago on a flawless evening, hitching a ride on the mail/freight flight from Hopedale Labrador. I was in a single Otter with just the pilot and a load of mail and misc "stuff". We were somewhere between Makkovic and Rigolet when the pilot ( who shall remain nameless) reaches down and comes up with a sandwich and a thermos and says " keep her pointed at that mountain over there ( pointing ) while I eat my lunch "....I just held the yoke and sweated for maybe 5 minutes

So of those who have lamented the demise of immersive, fun flight sims; how many also complain about not having any time to play them anyway?

I think many SimHQ old farts are past flying sims anyway if they don't lawn dart, they're just reminiscing.


Chaff... chaffff

OH cruel Fate, when wilt thou weary be?

Yeah, some of us have moved on to flying real airplanes.

Not since Macho Grande.

At one of the bigger RC float fly's I used to go to, one guy always flew in with his full size Cub and landed on the lake. He was really cool. To help out the event he raffled of a free ride after all the RC flying was done for the day. I actually won once and got to go up. As we were flying, I told him I was 'really big into flight simulators". He then surprised me and asked if I wanted to take control for minute. I nervously laughed and asked if he was sure. He talked me through a very small shallow left turn. Even though I pulled back on the stick a little, I was really surprised how the nose dipped as we went into the turn. My heart rate must have been way up there and my arm pits were soaked. Simulators don't prepare you for that.

Well that's not entirely the same thing. Having more "atmosphere" doesn't require more time, having more complexity in the aircraft does.


I have a limited amount of time I can spend in sims, I'd rather spend it actually flying in a not so hardcore aircraft but a really immersive environment rather than learning to fly an in depth aircraft stuck in a not so immersive environment.

Does that make sense?

No kidding. Jane's F15, Tornado, Jane's USAF, Jane's FA 18.... EAW...F4 (though that one is probably too complex for the time I have now)...someone remake those and charge me $500 a pop. If I were independently wealthy I'd probably commission a hunk of that just for my own entertainment....Especially the Jane's titles.

It just seems that back then I made time to fly something I was excited to fly. I don't get that feeling from sims made these days.

Force10,I was in exactly the same boat as you. I would go months sometimes without firing up a sim. That all changed though, when I got my Oculus Rift at the end of April. DCS World is now a totally different experience. It's a genuine thrill to tear through the mountain valleys in a F15 or the Mirage 2000, or go up against a MiG 15 while flying the F86. I flew a night time troop insertion in the UH1 Huey, into a mountainous region yesterday. It was absolutely awesome. Totally immersive. By the time I landed back at the base almost an hour and a half had past, but it didn't seem like that was possible . It was FUN. I haven't had this much enjoyment from simming in a very long time.

Awesome Paul!

Maybe VR is where it's at for flight sims moving forward. I would still like to see more attention to dynamic campaigns and the "fun factor" though.

VR COULD change the dynamic for the better for sims. But if so, it will have to start with more casual things with a larger base of potential users. More VR simmers, more titles. But its seems for many when they say "SIM" they mean flight sim. there is SO much more that can be done. If you can make something mundane interesting or I should say MORE interesting going VR, then you got something. But on the other hand, you got a billion bucks for track IR everything and some massive wrap around screens, what does goofy VR glasses really give you in a vehicle type sim? If it makes such things more accessible to more folks, yeppers good stuff.

Wow. Kinda glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. I uninstalled DCS about a month or so ago after I realized it just wasn't fun. And I know for a fact that no matter what my level of proficiency might be in DCS A-10C, if you plunked me down in the cockpit, the Air Force would be $30M poorer and I'd be dead.

A desktop computer lacks the power to be able to truly simulate the sensation of flight and I know this from my grandfather letting me take the stick in his Beechcraft Bonanza. The math needed to plot the effect of every molecule of air slipping past your airframe at 300 knots can't be done by a Core i7, let alone the fluid dynamics of everything else. You'd choke that PC to death.

Bring back the 'game' of flight simulations, and no, I'm not talking about turning everything into Ace Combat, for all you purists out there about to level that at me.

That's me. I wish I had more time that I do, but such is life.

Does anyone have any good ideas on how to get a developer who is not Russian/Eastern European interested in making a PC flight sim? I'm all ears.

Yes, absolutely. If you only have an hour or so to fly a certain night, who the heck wants to spend that entire time doing a 30 step take off procedure and then taking off and getting into formation and then doing a 30 minute flight to target?