Microprose was almost single-handedly responsible for combat flight sims taking off back in the day, and none of their sims were what we would call "hardcore" these days. But they had atmosphere, were accessible, easy to get into(keyboard overlays anyone?), and a heck of a lot of fun--but it was the atmosphere I think that contributed the most towards their appeal, and this is something the Russian(especially the Russian) sim developers don't seem to understand or care about.

When I was a kid I wanted to feel like Tom Cruise or Clint Eastwood or Roy Schneider in Top Gun, Firefox and Blue Thunder, and their "sims" delivered.

They had enough atmosphere and fun to pull it off, while distinctly not being "arcade ace combat" by having rich underpinnings based on reality with fantastic manuals.

So I think for a modern developer to have a chance at bringing back the genre, they need to remember what helped it succeed in the first place--how the old games captured the imagination of our youth.

I completely agree with you that it was the immersion factor that made the Microprose games so popular in the 80's and 90's.


However, the PC game business and consumers have changed a lot since that time. So much in fact that I think even a flight sim with lots of immersion built into it would still only have niche appeal. Does anyone remember Secret Weapons over Normandy? Apparently that flight sim was very story-driven and had a lot of immersion and it followed exactly the same formula of the original game that was so popular back in the early 1990's.


The sim was a commercial flop.

Because before all they are Russian, and so hear Russian players - whose majority just want an MP "cyber sport" and not an "immersive historic recreation", the successful War Thunder was created for fulfill this players wishes.

But one can hope, is just need that War Thunder developers learn develop SP Dynamic Campaigns - the "Lite Flight Sim" part is already done - with modern visuals and "Hollywood" effects.

Sokol brings up a great point.


How many people on SimHQ play "War Thunder"? Would it be considered to be TOO far on the "Lite" side for most SimHQ members?

I tried it when I first got my Oculus Rift simply because it supported OR very well. It is a very "pretty" sim but the online flying that I took part in, which was admittedly very little, was a free for all with little if any cooperation etc. The flight models were decent but not hardcore, if War Thunder were a single player sim with a good historical or dynamic campaign I would buy it. But the online "grind" for upgrading aircraft etc. is just not for me. I much prefer the "Aces High" online model even though AH doesn't have the visuals of WT.

I would if it were not for the mouse flyers... Mouse gives them a ridiculous advantage over joystick pilots, and last time I tried War Thunder several years ago, the hardcore joystick only servers were dead.

I had heard that, how does that work??

Move mouse, plane automatically flys itself. Apparently War Thunder models damage to control surfaces, etc., but if you use mouse, the mouse autopilot compensates for it making flying silly easy, and to top things off, the crosshair doesn't shake or become unsteady and the external view allows them to follow and track their targets with ease.

I tend to come along in all of these threads to heap a healthy helping of rain on the nostalgia parade. These sorts of threads pop up every two months like clockwork, and right now there are a few on the board. You have to consider how you'd react to any of these games if they were released as new titles today. I bet in most cases, you wouldn't view it in nearly the same light as you do now.

People gush about how immersive these titles were, as if immersion isn't mostly the end-product of your own imagination. PM is spot on, that we've changed, What we accepted as amazingly immersive 15 years ago won't fly today. Think about those Jane's titles. So immersive ! Right? Why? Opening cutscene? The little base like in Longbow 2? Cheesy briefing videos? Was EAW immersive because it had a screen that showed a few period snapshots and maybe an old pocketwatch, a few shell casings and pilot's scarf?

I'd argue that we found these things immersive because we allowed it to be. But as time has marched on we have become more jaded and sophisticated and no longer allow ourselves to be immersed by such trinkets and shiny baubles. It's not that the games have gotten so much different, but we have.

I could go on, but I will mention something from popular culture that would illustrate the phenomena, If you're around my age you might remember a TV show called Welcome Back Kotter. Great theme song yeah.

Anyway, everyone loved the show. It's was very popular. Have you watched it lately? It sucks. If you haven't seen it in modern times you might even say how great the show was. You'd be wrong. And me too

For me, the window dressing elements didn't create a sense of "immersion" as much as the connection to my save. I remember when I'd finally face a critical situation, forced to eject or bail, and wonder whether that was the end of my career. Sure, I could always click "Revive" or "Re-fly" or something, but it was a fun bit of sweaty palms trying to NEVER click that button, as each new mission unfolded. The choice of pushing for mission success, or keeping my pilot alive to fight tomorrow.

A memorable situation with this was flying a bomber campaign in IL2FB. Several missions into my save, I'd come upon a target area with heavy flak fire. That was really a cold feeling, trying to keep cool amid those bursting clouds on all sides. Sometimes, those little metallic plinking noises would hint a possible damage.. fuel or oil leaks threatening my successful return home, in addition to fighters harassment.

^This i know what you mean I also have unforgettable memories of the eech missions.when my base was attacked from three different sides.everything around it exploded, most helicopters destroyed.
I started after a dozen or so fruitless attempts.
two Hinds and one ka52 at the same time were destroying the earth all around.Until the end of life, i do not forget this adrenaline and adventure

Before DCS World killed all my missions, I built both a campaign and a companion multiplayer map with triggers for dialog in Black Shark.

If one arrived late to rescue a downed pilot, he would say to tell his wife the love was truly gone, as he knows the child he has been raising is not his own, and his only regret in dying is that he won't be able to divorce her.

Hearing a squaddie laugh as he read it while we tried to get to him in our Ka-50's was golden.

Nothing wrong with a scripted campaign if it's done well.

And you do it well
But while I agree with what you're saying I think, using DCS as an example, the over-detailed modelling from A-10C and forwards killed the usability (is that even a word?) of said simgame and I want to believe that FC3 level planes in large numbers/eras along with a DC, be it a semi well done first attempt at a DC, would have made a bigger success and made the entry point much lower and as such far more accessable to new players.

Expanded FC3 would have been closer to the old fun games.

DCS really has become a Digital Cockpit Simulator (but thats OT here).

I tend to get glassy-eyed when moving past WWII in flight sims, as aircraft become "weapons platforms" more than the weapons themselves. Switchology leaves me cold.

Will always be one of my favorites...










Strategic Command add-on:

Yes, I agree. The main value of a campaign generator is replay value, with different paths and outcomes. But a well done scripted campaign can be excellent, especially in a lighter weight sim where I'll not be playing it for the next 11 years.

And regarding your comments on more modern aircraft being a platform... a good point. Coming from a WW2 background, the biggest issue I had moving into LockOn and jet sims was trying to learn how the battlefield works. Advances in weapons and technology seriously change how aircraft operate, compared to WW2 days. And when a sim includes minimal (or essentially zero) prepared play content, I'm left alone to build missions if I want to enjoy actually playing.

I did spend many hours researching the fundamentals, trying to learn what enemy units were included, how they would be realistically deployed on a battlefield. But mostly, this served to pull me away from the sim, and my interest fell off pretty fast. And I did download some player made missions when able, but they were sort of a grab-bag mix of experiences. Was a bad experience due to a poorly made mission? Was it my poor play?

So I kinda left air combat sims at that point, cold turkey. They just didn't present me enough interesting to play. I invested my mission making time into FS2004 and later Arma. Both also games where I always had to make 100% of my own missions to have any solid gameplay. But in FS2004, recreating airline or commuter air routes was easy and quick. And in Arma, the great players I met here at SimHQ helped and coached me on crafting virtual infantry battlefields for my missions. No way to even count the hundreds or even 1000+ missions I've made for those game series in the last 10 to 15 years.

Which is kinda why I'd prefer quality gameplay presented right from the box. All that time in study, learning editors, and how to craft decently realistic scenarios, and making missions isn't really gameplay. Repeating all that stuff is not what I'd be wanting to get into when I imagine buying a new sim, and sitting down to play.

True, but it severely limits replayability. For a new player, the "on the rails" nature of a scripted campaign can actually be a plus as he tries out different tactics or approaches to different scenarios and work out which ones succeed and which ones fail and why.

I don't remember there being much talk about the cut scenes for either JF-15 or JF/A-18 and I believe our briefings were all text and a map showing your mission (you might get some sort of video montage between some missions and at the end of a campaign). Fleet Defender had even less than that.

I think there are a few reasons why people remember them being immersive. First was that we were transitioning from a "you against the world" mindset to one where there were other groups doing their own missions on both sides. In F-15 SE III I don't think you could have more than 10 planes in existence at any one time. There were 1 or two doing touch and goes, you, another F-15 if you were doing co-op and the 4 other planes that would be spawned as needed. I don't think any would respawn until the whole group was taken care though I think they could respawn eventually. For Fleet Defender I could have up to 80 planes active and all aircraft would be allocated at the start of the mission.

Add onto that where machines were getting powerful enough and we had enough memory/HD space that you could hear the radio chatter going on. For JF/A-18 we actually had so much I had to put in the option so you could limit what you were hearing. That made it a lot more evident that you were part of something bigger.

Also it sounds like these days it's more important to accurately simulate something. I think it would be correct to say that while we wanted to try to be as accurate as we could be I think there was more interest in trying to create a fun game and craft an experience. For example getting blow out of the sky by a ZSU-23-4 without warning would be accurate but frustrating. Instead we tried to have them put their first few shots in front of your nose to give you an "Oh ____!" moment and a chance to react but after that the fire hose was heading right towards you. This was something TK showed me they did for Longbow which I really liked so I did something similar. You still had to use proper procedures to accomplish your mission.

I definitely won't deny that there could be a lot of rose colored glasses or people being more used to filling in the details with their imagination but I still can find people talking about how they still enjoy playing these games, even "Fleet Defender" on Steam which completely surprised me (and I hope it makes it to GOG someday), so I think we must have done something right.

Elf

That's how I remember playing Falcon 4.0 with an online squadron.

We did have to go through basic training with BFM then navigation and had to learn all the aspects of the sim before we got let loose on a mission with the rest of the experienced squadron. Which lead to going on that first strike mission with 7 other pilots, we all had our tasks to do be it SEAD or CAP or be the bomb truck, that first mission was really quite memorable and I miss being able to do that now.

I love the switchology but also crave that single player dynamic campaign (or co-operative). With how things are now, playing online with friends is not really possible due to the compromises I've had to make to be able to use my PC, I tried it for a while with Steelbeasts but voice comms is not possible from where I am sitting and it led to frustration on my part and complaints about my audio from others.

Would kill for a 2018 rebooted version of TAW, EF2000 & JSF.

Update with latest graphics and satellite imagery, VR , leave the gameplay (mostly) alone. Maybe update the ORBATs too to get rid of stuff no-longer in service (Comanche. X-32) and add a couple of new/near future platforms (PAK-FA, UCAVs) and Bob is your first cousin twice removed.

If you are feeling ambitious add coop online.

There is a one-min band beavering away at an old-skool type sim with a dynamic campaign - CAP2 . Slow progress so far but the VTOL handling/FM is fun and the devs I think deserve a bit more support from the flight sim community if threads like this do truly reflect want we really want.