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Campaign yays and boos

Posted By: HeinKill

Campaign yays and boos - 06/22/13 02:59 PM

Yay
When you begin the Historical campaign you'll be prompted to choose which one of operation's phases you want to start in


Sounds like the campaign will have some depth.

Boo

Your progress to the next phases depends on successful completion of missions in each phase.

What is this, Call of Duty? If you don't destroy three bombers out of six because your dumb AI wingmen didnt do their job, you have to redo? If you don't destroy the bridge, you can't go to the next mission? Because in real life, pilots had to keep going back to the same target, add infinitum, until they destroyed it? Rubbish.

Yay

When you enter a phase you'll be asked to join a regiment. The regiments available vary from phase to phase the way it happened back then during Battle of Stalingrad: some squadrons leave, some come to the front lines, join other units or get renamed. Which regiment you choose defines which side you server with - Soviet Air force or German Luftwaffe. You'll be free to change sides before every mission.

Good for replayability. Sounds like the single player mode in CoD where you can jump into any side or any aircraft when you start a mission. Interesting to see how this will work in a campaign context, but very creative.

Yay

Every regiment has a home base and specific aircraft in service. You can use any plane that your regiment has available. Remember, that a plane's design defines the type of mission you'll be offered to play. If you choose a fighter, ground attack or bomber the gameplay will be different which helps us bring you three different flight-sim experiences. The types of missions that are offered are very diverse and give you the freedom to choose one that suits you best. Some players prefer intense dogfights or ground assaults against armor or massive bombing raids hitting transportation lines or troops.

Ahh, ok, that sounds cool

Boo

Weather is taken into account as well. We've preset certain rules for weather in every phase.

Dynamic weather would have been nice, but this is better than the 'no weather' we got in CoD!

Yay?

Along with you and your AI controlled enemies, a whole bunch of other AI planes will be active in every mission. You may meet friendly or enemy units flying by, scouting, bombing or fighting each other. Both the air and ground will be filled with action and your mission won't be fought by you alone, but with friendly AI crews. Should you engage a hostile recon unit? Will you try to help a pair of friendlies outnumbered by an enemy squad? Can you protect a group of ground assault planes from a sudden attack? It is up to you to decide, but remember - you're on your own mission with its own priorities!

This is a very qualified 'yay'. Big Yay if the AI is good, Very Small Yay if the AI is dumb. Nothing destroys immersion more than a bunch of dumb AI getting in your way or bumping into each other in the sky a la War Thunder.

And I'd love some more detail on the ground objects and vehicles, and their AI. WIll they be smart or dumb. WIll the ground war be visible or invisible...will the landscape be littered with ground targets eg tanks engaging tanks and vehicle convoys and trains criss crossing the landscape or empty as a Siberian tundra.

Yay

3) Every time you launch you'll be offered to choose between Online and Offline modes - choose Online to play Online;

4) To play Historical campaign and obtain all bonus content we're preparing you need to be connected. The network bandwidth requirements are really low and the amount of sent/received data is minimal. This is how we ensure that the provided experience in Campaign is absolutely original and everyone's progress is fair;

It's up to you to choose between Online and Offline modes, however the Historical campaign is only available Online, it is the key component of the initial game and it brings you over 70% of the overall new IL-2 Sturmovik experience.

5) The Quick Mission Builder and Custom Single Player Missions are 100% available in offline mode without restrictions of any kind;


This setup suits me fine as I do most of my gaming at home, not on the road. I know there are people who hate any forced requirement to be online, because it means they can't play from their EMP proof survivalist bunker, so this will annoy some people.

Boo

But a big boo depending on how it is implemented. If my mission freezes or drops out or I lose my progress if I lose online connectivity, I will spew huge chunks of online ire. Nothing sheets me more than battling your way to target, getting your kill, nursing your wounded machine/player/tank/kite halfway home and then getting a lag problem or wifi dropout and losing it all.
Posted By: speck01

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 06/22/13 04:18 PM

Quote:

Boo

Your progress to the next phases depends on successful completion of missions in each phase.

What is this, Call of Duty? If you don't destroy three bombers out of six because your dumb AI wingmen didnt do their job, you have to redo? If you don't destroy the bridge, you can't go to the next mission? Because in real life, pilots had to keep going back to the same target, add infinitum, until they destroyed it? Rubbish.


I read that and was bummed too, but I'm hoping what they mean by "successful completion" means what it means in the Rise of Flight career, i.e. you finish the mission without dying and move on to the next (not that you have to kill X number of targets to move on).

In other words, the next phases of the campaign won't be available to you until you complete the first phase. Still not ideal (why limit people?) but not nearly as terrible as having to fly the same mission over and over until you "win".

Lots of people with same worry as you and I are posting their feelings over in that latest developer thread, hopefully our concerns will prove unwarranted.
Posted By: Chivas

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 06/22/13 05:09 PM

Having to complete the mission before moving to the next one is a mistake. Its certainly not historical. Most single missions weren't critical to the success of the war. The "best" option and most historical option is the player's option to move on or not. I really don't care if a player plays historically or not, its all about having options. Options make more players enjoy their experience, and help make the sim a success. If the developer is worried about "stats" then there could be a penalty of sorts. Flyer's success depended on their ability, but ask any WW2 ace, or read their accounts, it also included a whole "shyte" load of Luck aswell.
Posted By: bisher

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 06/22/13 07:41 PM

An impressive yay and boo list HeinKill

Don't see many lists of this sort these days smile
Posted By: SneakyPete

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 06/23/13 06:10 PM

Good post Heinkill and I'm mostly in agreement with your 'Boos and Yays' smile

When I first heard that this sim would be based on the BOS my heart sank as the scenario holds very little interest for me personally. Along with that I think it's been done to death ie the original IL2. I'm in the minority I know but I'm still hoping for a decent campaign based Korean war sim with Migs v Sabres etc. One day maybe!

Having said that the last couple of weekly dev diaries for BOS have made me sit up and take notice and I'm now looking forward with interest to see what develops with the sim.
Posted By: bonchie

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 06/23/13 11:27 PM

I think it sounds good.

To be honest, my biggest beef is that 777 said they still aren't developing ground troops. I'm ready to see a real ground war going on to add to the immersion instead of scattered static objects.

There should be a lot of ground pounding in this sim with the planes being modeled.
Posted By: Chivas

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 06/24/13 05:02 AM

Originally Posted By: bonchie
I think it sounds good.

To be honest, my biggest beef is that 777 said they still aren't developing ground troops. I'm ready to see a real ground war going on to add to the immersion instead of scattered static objects.

There should be a lot of ground pounding in this sim with the planes being modeled.


I'm sure we will see plenty of tanks, trucks, cars, trains, artillery, gun emplacements etc. for our ground pounding pleasure.
Posted By: Trooper117

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 06/24/13 10:58 AM

Yes, but it will be pretty sterile if we don't even get people debussing and legging it for cover when vehicles are attacked (as in the old IL2)
Hope they include this feature.. fingers crossed!
Posted By: toonces

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 06/30/13 06:13 PM

I can't believe, really- I can't believe, that in 2013 developers are STILL creating flight simulations without some sort of dynamic campaign engine.
Posted By: 777 Studios - Jason

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 06/30/13 06:44 PM

I can't believe that in 2013 there is only ONE developer left in the entire world who can find funding to build a hardcore prop sim of any kind let alone actually attempt to build it. Don't trash it before you fly it, otherwise this will probably be it.

Jason
Posted By: Lasstmichdurch

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 06/30/13 09:01 PM

Originally Posted By: toonces
I can't believe, really- I can't believe, that in 2013 developers are STILL creating flight simulations without some sort of dynamic campaign engine.


You know that until 2013 only 6 in word "six" Sims had a dynamic canpaign...RB3D, EF2000, Longbow 2, F4 and EECH(all before or 2000) and CFS3/OFF-Mod(2002)...
For me, no big surprise...cause the great age of dynamic campaigns were when? Right...more than 10 years ago...

Thx for the tipp from Heinkill, yes BoB has a dynamic campaign also...(theres a gap in my sim career, never flight this one...)
And i looked into my shelf, Tornado (1993) had a dynamic campagn also...
So the counter says 8 now...not pretty much in 20 years of simming...
Posted By: HeinKill

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 06/30/13 09:06 PM

BoB2 should be added to your list, but that doesnt change your point much, it was a 2005 sim, though much updated, as recently as 2013.

Yes a dynamic campaign would be great, but I like the way BoS is shaping up - at least the devs realise the demand for a good single player experience.

H
Posted By: NattyIced

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 06/30/13 10:51 PM

RoF's beta campaign is dynamic in that it can never be replayed if you start a new career, replaying the same mission is the same but that hardly defines it as not dynamic.

Dynamic is a broad definition and can be interpreted in many different fashions.
Posted By: toonces

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/01/13 12:49 AM

Originally Posted By: Lasstmichdurch
Originally Posted By: toonces
I can't believe, really- I can't believe, that in 2013 developers are STILL creating flight simulations without some sort of dynamic campaign engine.


You know that until 2013 only 6 in word "six" Sims had a dynamic canpaign...RB3D, EF2000, Longbow 2, F4 and EECH(all before or 2000) and CFS3/OFF-Mod(2002)...
For me, no big surprise...cause the great age of dynamic campaigns were when? Right...more than 10 years ago...

Thx for the tipp from Heinkill, yes BoB has a dynamic campaign also...(theres a gap in my sim career, never flight this one...)
And i looked into my shelf, Tornado (1993) had a dynamic campagn also...
So the counter says 8 now...not pretty much in 20 years of simming...


You're making my point for me.

A dynamic campaign isn't some sort of new technology. It was perfectly possible to create dynamic campaigns even given the limitations of computers 10 years ago (or more) and yet, despite all the additional computing power we have today it seems like the single player experience is regressing rather than moving forward.
Posted By: toonces

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/01/13 12:56 AM

In my opinion, the reason why Rise of Flight doesn't completely and utterly dominate the WW1 flight sim market is because the single player experience is far superior in Over Flanders Fields...despite the limitations inherent in it being a mod for CFS3, having a horrible UI, and looking like #%&*$# compared to RoF. The underlying reason is because of the dynamic campaign running in the background of CFS3/OFF.

If you're building a flight sim from the ground up, and you KNOW how successful a dynamic campaign can be, why not design your sim to feature something along the lines of CFS3/OFF from the beginning? Players demand this over and over and over on flight sim forums.

I'll admit, I just don't understand the thinking behind the design decision to not follow the well-trodden ground of optimizing the single player experience through a dynamic campaign.
Posted By: Trooper117

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/01/13 08:18 AM

Its because there are people with 'new ideas', and they always 'know best'... (not)
As a mainly offline player I'd love to see more emphasis on that experience, but in all games now it seems to be mainly MP orientated...
Posted By: NattyIced

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/01/13 02:03 PM

Well, OFF is a mod. So in that case, you should compare it to PWCG - which by all accounts that I've heard is pretty outstanding.
Posted By: Trooper117

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/01/13 03:02 PM

Yes it is, I use it a lot!
Posted By: Mogster

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/01/13 05:16 PM

I suspect having to "complete" the mission will mean surviving as it does in ROF. Reflying after your death is up to you, not being able to continue to the next mission unless you survive is reasonable imo.
Posted By: LukeFF

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/02/13 08:21 AM

I have to sometimes wonder if the people who trash ROF's career mode have actually played it, or rather they're just basing their opinion on what others have told them.
Posted By: Trooper117

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/02/13 11:11 AM

Luke, I fly them both, and have fun on both, plus I know you are doing a lot to improve the stock career on a regular basis.
Keep at it mate, your efforts are appreciated.
Posted By: toonces

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/02/13 08:26 PM

Luke-
If you're referring to me then yes, I have played the RoF career beta a few times (although not in the last 2 months or so).

If you could make it about 10x busier in the air, I would find it completely satisfactory, and if BoS has a similar system (about 10x busier) then I'll have no problem picking this sim up.
Posted By: NattyIced

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/02/13 11:32 PM

What sort of processor do you have?

I had an i7 870 with HT disabled (saves on heat, overclock higher, most tests show it's not utilized in games) and it was clocked at 4GHz, 8GB 1600MHz DDR3, and a 3GB GTX580

In a QMB with full flights each flight being a different plane and all objects selected, it was okay.

I can see a need for spawn/despawn flights, which they currently do, based on how close a player is to make it playable if it was just 2x as busy. 10x as busy would require quite the system.

I currently have an i7 4770K at 4.2Ghz, same memory and GTX770 2GB. Runs same scenario on the full western front at above 50fps which is much better.

Having the option to scale AI units up or down would be nice, but going up is going to come at a pretty good cost to the CPU.
Posted By: Georgio

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/03/13 11:46 AM

Even though I love off-line dynamic campaigns aka Bob II, they cost and with a limited budget it's more important to cater for the majority of the user base than the minority who want something niche like an off-line dynamic campaign.

Times have changed and now with the internet the dynamic is the randomness of other online players.
Imo it's more important to have massive co-op battles that are epic in their execution and give participants a real feeling of what Stalingrad was about.
These days my personal ideal would be to have historical battles where players can fight in first person both on foot and in ground/air vehicles, something like Planetside 2 but using historically accurate weapons.
Throw in a day/night/weather cycle and I think I'd be in heaven... biggrin


Originally Posted By: toonces
I can't believe, really- I can't believe, that in 2013 developers are STILL creating flight simulations without some sort of dynamic campaign engine.
Posted By: LukeFF

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/04/13 06:22 AM

Quote:
Times have changed and now with the internet the dynamic is the randomness of other online players.
Imo it's more important to have massive co-op battles that are epic in their execution and give participants a real feeling of what Stalingrad was about.


Not everyone has the time, desire, or inclination to play online.
Posted By: Zakzak

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/04/13 07:46 AM

Originally Posted By: Georgio
Throw in a day/night/weather cycle and I think I'd be in heaven... biggrin

Day/night cycle is in it already working in real time
Posted By: Zakzak

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/04/13 07:47 AM

Originally Posted By: LukeFF
Not everyone has the time, desire, or inclination to play online.

That's why BoS will have both online and offline missions
Posted By: LukeFF

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/05/13 12:25 AM

Originally Posted By: Zakzak
Originally Posted By: LukeFF
Not everyone has the time, desire, or inclination to play online.

That's why BoS will have both online and offline missions


And that's a very good thing. smile
Posted By: HeinKill

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/05/13 05:31 AM

Originally Posted By: Georgio
Even though I love off-line dynamic campaigns aka Bob II, they cost and with a limited budget it's more important to cater for the majority of the user base than the minority who want something niche like an off-line dynamic campaign.


Doug: What do you think about having players connect to the Internet 100% of the time as they are playing?

Oleg: I am not a big fan of these things. Many players, especially in less developed parts of the world, still to this day play only single-player and barely use the Internet even if they have Internet access at all.
Posted By: EinsteinEP

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/07/13 04:12 PM

Originally Posted By: HeinKill
Boo

Your progress to the next phases depends on successful completion of missions in each phase.

What is this, Call of Duty? If you don't destroy three bombers out of six because your dumb AI wingmen didnt do their job, you have to redo? If you don't destroy the bridge, you can't go to the next mission? Because in real life, pilots had to keep going back to the same target, add infinitum, until they destroyed it? Rubbish.

Whaaaat?

How did we get from "campaign progress depends on mission success" to a Call of Duty comparison? I, for one, see this as a "Yay". I've never felt immersed in a campaign where the only progression criteria is to "survive". Of course, I'd rather see a dynamic instantiation: if your mission is to intercept a flight of bombers and they succeed in accomplishing their mission, there should be consequences (e.g., an airfield is taken out of commission, fuel/ammo supplies are low until the next major resupply convoy comes in, etc.), but that's just me dreaming out loud. I'd be very satisfied with mission success criteria.
Posted By: Matt W.

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/24/13 08:54 AM

Wasn't the original IL-2 setup that way? Didn't you have to just survive the mission to advance? I don't think you had to complete your objective, but you did have to at least takeoff and land successfully to move on.
Posted By: Bearcat99

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/24/13 12:41 PM

Originally Posted By: SneakyPete
Good post Heinkill and I'm mostly in agreement with your 'Boos and Yays' smile

When I first heard that this sim would be based on the BOS my heart sank as the scenario holds very little interest for me personally. Along with that I think it's been done to death ie the original IL2. I'm in the minority I know but I'm still hoping for a decent campaign based Korean war sim with Migs v Sabres etc. One day maybe!

Having said that the last couple of weekly dev diaries for BOS have made me sit up and take notice and I'm now looking forward with interest to see what develops with the sim.



I know what you mean.. but then the BoB held little interest for me either.. but I have conme to the point where I really don't care where a sim starts.. it is where it is going and where it can potentially end up that intrests me more.. In 2007 by now I expected CoD to be going into it's 3rd or 4th theater by now.. I think that BoS will in the end have far more Yays than Boos to it's credit and regardless to what many detractors (and there will always be some detractors no matter how good it is..) say and regardless to what ever comes down the pike.. be it a full blown WWII "study" sim or a more well realized WWII MMO .. BoS will have it's place carved out two years from now.. or the genre will have tanked.. I'm leaning toward the former.
Posted By: Chivas

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/24/13 07:54 PM

Originally Posted By: Matt W.
Wasn't the original IL-2 setup that way? Didn't you have to just survive the mission to advance? I don't think you had to complete your objective, but you did have to at least takeoff and land successfully to move on.


I believe this has always been an option you could set at the start of each campaign.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/29/13 05:29 PM

Basically BoS is going to be a LOT like RoF in how it works by virtue of the fact that it uses the same engine. No real surprises there.

Now it's not really clarified here, but will BoS have 2 separate campaign modes like ROF does? It has the 2 scripted campaigns (plus the extra St Mihiel one) and then it has the career. Similar ideas, but done very differently. It seems like the ROF career method is what is mentioned here, but I don't think there's a scripted campaign, correct?

To add to the list of dynamic campaigns, though, many were left out. Before Falcon 4 was Falcon 3, it had one. No one mentioned 1942 PAW or EAW. Strike Fighters has one. Il-2 has had one since FB (can't believe no one mentioned THAT one). All the Dynamix sims, from Red Baron 1 through their WWII offerings, had one.
It depends on your definition though. If it's no more than a series of randomly generated missions, there are a large number of titles that did it. If you start talking about the movement of the ground war and all that, the list shrinks.

The fact that OFF gets to capitalize on work done by MS for CFS3 gave them an advantage that 777 didn't have when it started from scratch...after deciding NOT to use Il-2 for its basis. Funny how things come full circle.
KotS was to be based on the Il-2 engine, but instead they went fresh when it became ROF...and now the new Il-2 will use THAT engine. smile




The Jedi Master
Posted By: Peally

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/29/13 05:52 PM

No infantry? Darn. Otherwise the sim is looking good!

I still want infantry in RoF....grumble grumble biggrin
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/29/13 06:13 PM

I remember infantry in Red Baron 2. And its deletion in RB3D upgrade. frown




The Jedi Master
Posted By: Peally

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/29/13 10:41 PM

Yeah there's something about the scale that comes together when foot traffic is modeled. It goes from feeling like a bunch of ground units with AI moving around to an actual believable world and battlefield. Might just be me but I love seeing infantry in flight sims. When it comes down to it the whole purpose of aircraft is to get your boots on the ground to run over the other side's boots. But I'm preaching to the choir.
Posted By: RoFfan

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/30/13 12:21 AM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
To add to the list of dynamic campaigns, though, many were left out. Before Falcon 4 was Falcon 3, it had one. No one mentioned 1942 PAW or EAW. Strike Fighters has one. Il-2 has had one since FB (can't believe no one mentioned THAT one). All the Dynamix sims, from Red Baron 1 through their WWII offerings, had one.
It depends on your definition though. If it's no more than a series of randomly generated missions, there are a large number of titles that did it. If you start talking about the movement of the ground war and all that, the list shrinks.


I don't see where people are getting this "it depends on the definition of dynamic." In flight sims the word has always meant that the outcome of one mission can be seen or felt in the subsequent missions. The only way in which the Red Baron campaign could be called dynamic is that if you killed an ace he would not show up later. That is all.

The really good dynamic campaigns make it possible to lose a battle that was historically won. Imagine the fate of Stalingrad depending on your career of successes and failures, that would be something! A lot more pucker factor than just having to complete a mission in order to proceed. soapbox
Posted By: Aero

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/30/13 05:02 AM

I fly pretty much exclusively offline, have marginal interest in co-op (a little too much trouble to arrange most of the time), and virtually no interest in pvp (especially not arena-style, team deathmatch affairs). To me, the most important parts of a "career" mode, is that:

a) The battlefield feels like a battlefield (ie. there are other things going on not directly related to my mission), and there is a sense of grand scale to it (even if that requires some smoke and mirrors).

b) The missions themselves work (the bug in ROF where your flight leader would go chasing after a lone scout 10,000 feet directly above your airbase that we were never going to catch really screwed up a lot of missions and existed far too long).

c) Survival counts, meaning I have a pilot that I'm attached to, and I don't want him to die. I have to more seriously consider my odds of survival when eyeing that AAA emplacement thats on my route home.

d) Enough variety.

Beyond that, a full blown F4-like campaign with AI generals (or me, though I don't really want to) controlling every unit in the war is certainly welcome, but not absolutely necessary. It would definitely be preferable if my actions dictated all the events to come (so maybe I should have gone for that AAA emplacement because it might get me in the next mission). I can live without it, though. Ultimately, given that I can't have everything, I'd rather have more effort put into A, B, C and D. To me, those are the things that matter most while I'm actually flying the missions, which is the real reason I bought the sim in the first place. ROF does that well enough for the most part and it has been gradually improving over time so I feel pretty positive about what I've heard of IL-2's career mode.
Posted By: csThor

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/30/13 05:41 AM

Originally Posted By: RoFfan
The really good dynamic campaigns make it possible to lose a battle that was historically won. Imagine the fate of Stalingrad depending on your career of successes and failures, that would be something! A lot more pucker factor than just having to complete a mission in order to proceed. soapbox


Good lord, what a horrible idea! Determine the winner or loser of historical battles via some convoluted mechanism based on player performance (in the air forces to boot) is about as believable and realistic as expecting a straight answer from a politician. That is the greatest sin a campaign system can commit in my book. Dynamic in the campaign sense should be limited to what is realistic and possible - which essentially means the type of missions generated. For example if your Stuka Staffel is supposed to wipe out a russian artillery position but fumbles the first mission you're going to go at it again until it's done. Otherwise history should be both yardstick to measure accuracy and timeline for specific events since nothing a single player does can change the course of events so much that history is altered to a noticable degree.
Posted By: JG301_HaJa

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/30/13 07:16 AM

+1 on that.

You can't change the outcome of a battle or campaign with the performance of the single individual and his/her plane.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/30/13 02:11 PM

Especially in WWI. If it's WWII, well, I suppose a lucky Japanese pilot with prior warning might've shot down the Enola Gay...

Anyway, dynamic and random are often synonymous, with the other option being scripted. If the missions are not scripted, playing out the same or almost the same (if there are some random events in the mission) each time, then it's considered dynamic. Dynamic only means that the mission you get is not preordained to happen. There is no requirement that success or failure have specific effects. Things like shooting down more planes = fewer planes to fight are pretty standard, but usually campaign success is defined simply as "X% of missions are successful = win" regardless of whether your side totally wiped out the other or not.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: RoFfan

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/30/13 02:37 PM

It works in Falcon 4.0, which has the best campaign system ever featured in a flight sim.
Posted By: csThor

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 07/30/13 04:39 PM

Faclon 4 stopped halfway down the road with its campaign. The engine was brilliant, no doubt, but presentation and all that creates immersion was sorely missing. But then I have a rather hardcore attitude - switching between aircraft in flight, cherry-picking missions from different units or entering a mission that is already underway are pretty serious flaws for my understanding of a good campaign.

Besides, what worked for a fictional conflict with modern aircraft doesn't necessarily work for a historical conflict with vintage warbirds. Both firepower and situation are incomparable ... as are resources available to both.
Posted By: Ian Boys

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/01/13 09:50 PM

It only really works for me if there's a decent FMB. I hope there is.
Posted By: Nimits

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/04/13 01:16 AM

Originally Posted By: RoFfan
It works in Falcon 4.0, which has the best campaign system ever featured in a flight sim.


You have to consider what Falcon 4.0 was doing as well. F4 was set in a fictional 2nd Korean War, where there was no historical outcome to compare it to, and with planes (F-16s) that are individually as lethal as a flight or even a squadron in the WWII setting. For F4, it was (more) plausible that a single flight of F-16s could have a significant effect on a campaign lasting a couple of weeks. For WWII (outside of a carrier fight) it is absolutely ridiculous to think a flight or squadron of Stukas on its own could change the outcome of the Battle of Stalingrad.

The best approach, I think was EAW. While you could (somewhat unrealistically) change the outcome of the Battle of Britain, the ultimate ending of the 1943-1945 campaign was set in stone, but you could change the exact sequence of events (i.e. move D-Day right or left a day or two) if your performance was significantly above or below what was considered the historical norm.
Posted By: HeinKill

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/04/13 04:14 AM

Originally Posted By: Ian Boys
It only really works for me if there's a decent FMB. I hope there is.


The devs advice to keen mission builders who want to get up and running quickly in BoS is to learn the Rise of Flight mission builder, as this is what it will be based on.

H
Posted By: toonces

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/04/13 08:52 PM

Great.

So all the things I DON'T like about the RoF campaign engine I can expect to see in BoS? That's awesome.

I'm sitting here with a fist full of money that I really want to spend, but I'm not buying another scripted mission campaign flight sim. I'm just not going to do it.

I want to give this company my money, but not until they build me something I want to play. I don't think I'm alone in feeling this way.
Posted By: Chivas

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/04/13 10:20 PM

Originally Posted By: toonces
Great.

So all the things I DON'T like about the RoF campaign engine I can expect to see in BoS? That's awesome.

I'm sitting here with a fist full of money that I really want to spend, but I'm not buying another scripted mission campaign flight sim. I'm just not going to do it.

I want to give this company my money, but not until they build me something I want to play. I don't think I'm alone in feeling this way.


I like what the original Il-2 FMB and especially the COD FMB with Triggers. I don't think the developer should spend to much time building a campaign as they never seem to have to much time to dedicate to it. That said BlackSix has been involved for quite sometime doing the research. Il-2 supplied the FMB for the community to make descent campaigns, and there are thousands of the them to download.

I have no experience with the ROF campaign builder other than seeing a few posts complaining about its usability, and don't know how many user campaigns are available. I know 777Studios is tying harder to involve the mod community, so hopefully the BOS mission editor be relatively easy to use and involve Triggers, which is a key to decent replayable missions. Again I have no idea what the ROF mission editor and campaign builder is like, so maybe someone can chime in here.
Posted By: HeinKill

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/05/13 05:32 AM

Me either, though I understand it is not easy to use. Here is a snippet from a dialogue I had with a 3rd party commercial add-on maker who has done work in CFS, IL2 and CoD.

"Today I was the whole Day in RoF FMB… this is so buggy. I made some bomberfligth to intercept and it steady gave me an error that bomber 1 is not linked with entity… but it was, and all lines were correct. So I deleted the whole flight and began, same procedure, same triggers, timer aso. And: it worked… NOTHING was other than before, but no more error… A bit crazy, isn’t it?"

I told him if a guy like him takes a whole day putting together a simple mission, it seems pretty daunting, and his comment was to hope they throw out the RoF mission builder and start over, but it doesn't look that way.

Then again, if the company staff are the only ones who can really master the mission builder, it gives them control over the content being developed I guess, enabling them to sell more content, like campaigns, because user made campaigns won't proliferate.

H
Posted By: Prangster

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/05/13 10:37 AM

I've used the RoF mission editor quite a bit as well as making hundreds of missions in IL-2 for my Squadron so I'll add my observations on it.

Firstly the ME is a lot more powerfully than the IL-2 version but nowhere near as intuative. The reason for this is that processes that are automatic in IL-2 need to be added manually in the RoF version. An example that people will encounter early on in there attempt to make a mission is adding waypoints. In IL-2 you just select your plane and click to add the waypoint while in RoF you have to add the waypoint then link it to your plane and add a trigger to start the waypoint. This is cumbersome when you just want to create a simple mission but when you are used to the RoF logic you realize that you have a lot more freedom in what you can do and can do things that were impossible in IL-2. One example from a Biggles themed mission I was working on last night where the player had to shootdown a Camel flown by a dastardly enemy. With RoF I was able to change the nationality of an AI from friendly to enemy when the player starts to fire at it.

Yes the RoF editor does take a while to learn and people are often frustrated when things don't work. As you get comfortable with it you realize that the problems that you blamed on the editor were actually just you not connecting the triggers and links correctly. Overal it still takes me far longer to make a mission in RoF compared to IL-2 but a lot of that comes from all the extra details you end up adding due to the greater flexibility that you have.
Posted By: HeinKill

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/05/13 03:28 PM

Really good insight, thanks P.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/05/13 05:10 PM

As always, that's the Catch-22. In return for the gifted mission makers being able to make much better missions than we could have in Il-2 or other sims with simple MBs, we get far fewer capable of doing it AND having the time to dedicate.

So we're going to get a far smaller number of hopefully better missions. While no one likes crappy missions, I'm not sure that every one will be a gem just because the bar to entry is higher.





The Jedi Master
Posted By: toonces

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/06/13 01:30 AM

You know, last weekend I started up a new Korea campaign in BMS Falcon. I flew 4 missions in one afternoon. One in particular was quite intense, providing TARCAP for a flight of F-15E's doing interdiction IVO the FLOT. It turned into quite a mess as both enemies and friendlies were drawn to the carnage, giving me plenty to do.

Now then, I played those 4 missions and they're over. I'm going to guess that a talented RoF mission creator MIGHT have been able to create those 4 missions over a weekend...I mean we're talking about 20 or more aircraft involved just in the immediate area of my plane during that one mission. So I played them and they're over. If I'm in RoF and they were "created" with the ME, then I can pretty much assume that if I play them again I can expect generally the same mix of aircraft and air defenses, like that SA-4 that wasn't on my planning map but popped up on my RWR and gave me a good scare. Won't be surprised by that the second time I replay that mission!

Except, here's the thing. If I boot up that Korea campaign in BMS from the beginning again, I won't get that same mission again. I won't get those same 4 missions again. Because it changes every time I play it. A butterfly flaps its wings and by the time I get to mission 4 nothing will be the same every time I start over.

That's what makes Falcon so magical, despite its limitations. This is why I want something like this in BoS. I don't want to play the same user-created missions over and over. I want to press "start campaign" and have no idea what the next 20 missions will have in store.

Why is this so hard to understand?
Posted By: Peally

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/06/13 03:08 AM

I'm no expert but I started to get that feeling from the RoF "dynamic" campaign. Honestly I've been quite impressed with it compared to the static ones.
Posted By: NattyIced

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/06/13 03:56 AM

Yes, in RoF in the beta career each time a new career is started new missions are generated. It's possible that if you start in the same squadron at the same time hundreds of times you'll eventually get a mission generated that's similar but still not quite the same.

There's also the possibility to use a 3rd party campaign generator (Pat Wilson's) if the beta career isn't enough. Perhaps someone talented will create something similar for BoS.
Posted By: komemiute

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/06/13 06:56 AM

I'd like to point out that aerial warfare in WWI was quite limited in scope. You either are in a fighter or in a two seater, you either go for a fighter sweep or some other mission.

It's quite agreeable that missions are going to look more or less the same.
As in Falcon 4, for god sake, there are MANY MORE variables available...
Posted By: BKHZ_Furbs

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/06/13 07:00 AM

Originally Posted By: NattyIced
Yes, in RoF in the beta career each time a new career is started new missions are generated. It's possible that if you start in the same squadron at the same time hundreds of times you'll eventually get a mission generated that's similar but still not quite the same.

There's also the possibility to use a 3rd party campaign generator (Pat Wilson's) if the beta career isn't enough. Perhaps someone talented will create something similar for BoS.



Same for BOS.
Posted By: HogDriver

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/07/13 07:43 AM

Their Finest Hour and Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe had good singleplayer campaigns. I don't think you could call them "dynamic", but you could plan the missions yourself, execute them, and the outcomes affected the next missions. Even though it came out in 1991, I still honestly believe that SWOTL remains the best singleplayer WW2 sim experience.

My wishlist for BoS (and any sequels) would include...

1. A really fleshed out career mode. You make a pilot for either Russia or Germany, choose his unit or aircraft type, and fly missions with him. You'd earn medals and promotions etc. Death or POW status would be permanent. (or possibly with a chance to escape as a POW) That way you'd are about your pilot, and the medals, promotions would reflect his progress. It makes it way more interesting than "oops, I'm dead, I'll just respawn as another nameless pilot whose career isn't tracked at all."

2. Squadron management. I want to be able to name my squadron mates, assign them to flights, and watch their careers progress as well. Their Finest Hour and Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe both did this.

(ROF currently does most of this, although I'm not sure if the ability to change the names of the people in your squadron is there)

3. A dynamic campaign would be nice, but seems to be an impossible task these days.

4. Get rid of the "must pass campaign objectives to proceed crap". There's nothing worse than hitting a brick wall in a campaign because you can't complete an objective for whatever reason. Personally I don't think that belongs in a flight sim anyway.

5. Video replay mode. What ROF and IL-2 had before would be fine, but improvements would always be welcomed.

Don't really care much about multiplayer, since I don't play it. I'm just in it for the singleplayer.

Just my input, for what it's worth, if anything...

Honestly if 1 and 2 were confirmed, I'd go ahead and preorder it today. Still holding out for now though.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/07/13 06:04 PM

SWOTL's campaign was a bit different, though. No other campaign that I can recall had you working on that strategic level of determining what factory made what, protecting it against attacks and feeling the effects if you failed, of being in charge of things that no fighter pilot or even general ever would do.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: TheBlackPenguin

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/08/13 01:18 AM

I liked Tornado's campaign system too, you'd attack a lower defended target and the enemy would then pull units in from other areas thereby lowering their defense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado_%281993_video_game%29

http://www.mobygames.com/game/tornado
Posted By: RoFfan

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/09/13 02:40 AM

Originally Posted By: komemiute
I'd like to point out that aerial warfare in WWI was quite limited in scope. You either are in a fighter or in a two seater, you either go for a fighter sweep or some other mission.


Your statement belies how little you know about WW1 aviation.

Originally Posted By: Peally
I'm no expert but I started to get that feeling from the RoF "dynamic" campaign. Honestly I've been quite impressed with it compared to the static ones.


The beta-career is not a dynamic campaign. Sometimes you'll be tasked to destroy the same target over and over again like groundhog day! burnout
Posted By: Force10

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/10/13 12:06 AM

The list of Yay's is pretty nice...my one main Boo is of course having to be online to play an offline game...BOO!

As far as the dynamic campaign issue goes...I'm just quoting what I posted some time ago that I think still applies


Quote:
I'm really getting tired of this "myth" that creating a Dynamic Campaign would bankrupt a developer.

Pat Wilson developed a Dynamic Campaign generator for Rise of Flight before the devs even came up with one. It keeps getting better as
he refines it with every patch. This is something one person created in his spare time.

TheEnlightenedFlorist created a Dynamic Campaign Generator for Cliffs of Dover that works well even though the sim it's built around is porked.
This is something one person created in his spare time.

A Dynamic Campaign Generator was created for Combat Flight Simulator 2 by somebody in their spare time


You can see that anything that has a good mission editor can have a dynamic campaign. I doubt these individuals gave up their day jobs and went bankrupt creating these for us. It's a difference of creating something out of passion instead of profit.

I would agree that multiplayer is the main focus these days...I find myself playing older titles for a good single player experience.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/10/13 01:00 AM

I don't know exactly how BoS will do it, but ROF only requires you to be online for certain parts of the game. MP, naturally, the beta career, and possibly the scripted campaigns? Maybe not them, I don't remember. The single missions and quick missions certainly don't.

I've never played ROF without having an active internet connection, so it was never a problem. I've also yet to play the campaigns (other than the brief training one) or the beta career! I just last week started a PWCG campaign, but purely for the coop generating side of it.




The Jedi Master
Posted By: RoFfan

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/10/13 12:41 PM

Again, PWCG is not a dynamic campaign either. It is a mission generator that tracks your kills and the stats of your squad mates. If you blow up a railyard it will be intact the next day. Dynamic Campaign = persistent virtual world where past events affect future missions.

I don't believe any combat flight sim has had a dynamic campaign since Red Baron 2 or Falcon 4.
Posted By: TheBlackPenguin

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/10/13 04:10 PM

RoFfan is spot on, in a dynamic campaign you would see the destruction wrought on an airfield as an example over the next few days (depending on how long repair is coded) and may even have the chance either through a mission or chance to have a shot at extending the damage even further out.
Posted By: Force10

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/10/13 07:23 PM


Yes...for the sake of argument, the ones I listed are more like a "Dynamic Career" type system. This is enough to keep us offline flyers
happy for the most part. Persistent wingmen that you care about, when killed stay dead...a squadron kill board, Medals/Awards, varied missions that are not scripted and linear with differing amounts of enemies so you have no idea what your facing when the wheels are up...etc.

It doesn't have to be a truly "Dynamic Campaign" in the strict sense of the word to be immersive. Sadly, I doubt we will ever see a "true" dynamic campaign again in our lifetime. The new business model now embraced is geared toward churning out the next DLC that you can charge for...without the core experience changing that much. To make a true dynamic campaign or even a dynamic career system takes passion and cuts in on profits too much IMO.
Posted By: RoFfan

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/10/13 08:29 PM

Maybe....

At the very least the developer has to aim for a dynamic campaign from the outset, and for that the developer has to believe it is important. There seems to be a disconnect between what simmers want and what developers believe simmers want. We are partly to blame, too, because the first thing many of us look for when we buy a sim is the graphics, and we shell out inordinate amounts of money on hardware upgrades for the newest, most subtle reflections, etc. We're not going to see flight sims with good campaigns until it's the #1 thing we look for before buying.
Posted By: toonces

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/10/13 08:48 PM

At the risk of angering the sim gods, if money and profit are what are holding developers from creating a dynamic campaign, then just release it as a DLC. That would be fine with me.

Using DCS as the example, if they released a "Dynamic Campaign Module" similar to Combined Arms or Huey and charged $50 for it I'd have no problem buying it as an add-on. This is win-win; I get my campaign and endless replayability, they make a module's worth of profit.

Ditto with RoF, BoS, etc...
Posted By: Force10

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/10/13 09:44 PM

Originally Posted By: toonces
At the risk of angering the sim gods, if money and profit are what are holding developers from creating a dynamic campaign, then just release it as a DLC. That would be fine with me.

Using DCS as the example, if they released a "Dynamic Campaign Module" similar to Combined Arms or Huey and charged $50 for it I'd have no problem buying it as an add-on. This is win-win; I get my campaign and endless replayability, they make a module's worth of profit.

Ditto with RoF, BoS, etc...



Exactly! I would pay and buy un-Godly amounts of modules,extra planes...anything they offered if they just made the offline play more immersive and dynamic! I have been in a spending holding pattern on ROF for a year and a half waiting for the career mode to get lively and more war like. Same with DCS...A-10 is the last thing I purchased from them while I wait to see some offline goodies. People like me that love offline play are probably the minority though.
Posted By: toonces

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/10/13 10:59 PM

^ same here.

Well, not exactly. I did stop buying RoF stuff, but I have a fairly robust hangar anyway. I cleaned up the DCS shop during the last sale, except for P-51, so...

I don't know where the "majority" is anymore in flight sims. So many people seem to be perfectly happy with DCS and RoF and their mission editors, plus online multiplayer. I don't sense an outcry for more robust single player...I feel like I'm a lone voice sometimes. I know I'm not, but I don't sense the community desire like I would expect.

People seem to be in the camp of either desiring ultimate systems realism at the complete expense of everything else, or of the multiplayer trumps everything else, or like the fella in the other thread that want a one-price, everything included business model.

I can't say I know for sure a DC module would sell. How many of us are really willing to spend more money, and I'm talking $40-50 money here, not $5-10, for an additional module for something that many people feel should be included for free?
Posted By: Pizzicato

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/11/13 01:03 AM

I would very, very happily pay top dollar for a good offline dynamic campaign engine.
Posted By: Taxman

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/11/13 01:47 AM

As Pizzicaro said, I also would be very happy to pay top dollar for a good offline dynamic campaign engine.
Posted By: 2Lt_Joch

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/11/13 11:59 AM

a Dynamic campaign is the Holy Grail, but they are very costly and complex to program. Micropose blew their brains out on F4, 7-8 years to develop and the game was a POS when it came out. It was not until F4AF that the campaign was stable. As others have mentioned F4 also models a very short war, 2 weeks at most. Plus, there are a lot of inaccuracies in the type of missions generated and coordination of friendly flights. I played F4 extensively in all flavours since 1999 and love the sim, but it is not perfect.

Given the nature of the market and costs involved, I doubt you will ever see a true dynamic campaign again in any flight sim.

That said, the RoF campaign engine is quite good. I have a couple of RoF campaigns on the go now. The RoF campaign is very open ended, good mix of missions and ground/air activity. I personally have never had the same mission twice.
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/11/13 03:47 PM

The problem is the developers listened to the loudest voices--who were the MP dogfight lobby that complained that plane X should beat plane Y, and this time to climb is too high, and that ceiling was too low, and that boost should last only 35 seconds, not 40!!!!!!!11111111111111111

The SP players are far quieter. Why? Well for one thing if they mostly play offline, there's a greater chance they don't hang out in online forums talking about the game! Those of us who frequent forums AND mostly play SP only are irregular in that we're social when we DON'T game but are antisocial when we do. smile So we are a tiny voice compared to the others. They do have the stats to know how many of their customers play SP vs MP, they just don't get good feedback from them by comparison.

But the loud mouths all talked about realism this and accuracy that, and what we got in Il-2 CloD was a sim that (when it wasn't broken) had accuracy in flight and damage and whatnot...but was far less entertaining than the 1990's era ones like EaW was, when they couldn't be that accurate but they could have ambience and atmosphere that made it feel better.

The only solution is to have far MORE people working on the sim, so that you have people working on the realism AND the game, and that means the final product needs to either sell a lot more (hardly likely) or cost a lot more (not usually acceptable for marketing).



The Jedi Master
Posted By: RoFfan

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/11/13 05:42 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
The problem is the developers listened to the loudest voices--who were the MP dogfight lobby that complained that plane X should beat plane Y, and this time to climb is too high, and that ceiling was too low, and that boost should last only 35 seconds, not 40!!!!!!!11111111111111111

The SP players are far quieter. Why? Well for one thing if they mostly play offline, there's a greater chance they don't hang out in online forums talking about the game! Those of us who frequent forums AND mostly play SP only are irregular in that we're social when we DON'T game but are antisocial when we do. smile So we are a tiny voice compared to the others. They do have the stats to know how many of their customers play SP vs MP, they just don't get good feedback from them by comparison.

But the loud mouths all talked about realism this and accuracy that, and what we got in Il-2 CloD was a sim that (when it wasn't broken) had accuracy in flight and damage and whatnot...but was far less entertaining than the 1990's era ones like EaW was, when they couldn't be that accurate but they could have ambience and atmosphere that made it feel better.

The only solution is to have far MORE people working on the sim, so that you have people working on the realism AND the game, and that means the final product needs to either sell a lot more (hardly likely) or cost a lot more (not usually acceptable for marketing).



The Jedi Master


Sorry, I don't think the "us versus them" mentality is helpful for the cause. A good campaign without good flight modeling isn't much fun.
Posted By: bolox

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/11/13 05:54 PM

Quote:
The problem is the developers listened to the loudest voices--who were the MP dogfight lobby that complained that plane X should beat plane Y, and this time to climb is too high, and that ceiling was too low, and that boost should last only 35 seconds, not 40!!!!!!!11111111111111111

The SP players are far quieter. Why? Well for one thing if they mostly play offline, there's a greater chance they don't hang out in online forums talking about the game! Those of us who frequent forums AND mostly play SP only are irregular in that we're social when we DON'T game but are antisocial when we do. smile So we are a tiny voice compared to the others. They do have the stats to know how many of their customers play SP vs MP, they just don't get good feedback from them by comparison.


Quoted for truth
Posted By: theOden

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/11/13 08:46 PM

Jedi Master, very well stated.
I applaud you.
Posted By: Nimits

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/11/13 08:58 PM

Originally Posted By: RoFfan


Sorry, I don't think the "us versus them" mentality is helpful for the cause. A good campaign without good flight modeling isn't much fun.


There is a balance, and as an almost exclusively SP simmer, they have already gone as far in FM'ing as they need to go. Or in other words, there is nothing more they could improve in the FM/technical aspects of RoF that would make me want to spend more money on their product.

However, I would gladly pay more money for a campaign as immersive as EAW or RB3D.

Or quite simply, I will much sooner pay money for a great campaign with passable FMs, than great FMs with a passable campaign . . .
Posted By: Sethos88

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/11/13 10:04 PM

Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
The problem is the developers listened to the loudest voices--who were the MP dogfight lobby that complained that plane X should beat plane Y, and this time to climb is too high, and that ceiling was too low, and that boost should last only 35 seconds, not 40!!!!!!!11111111111111111


Actually it's 37
Posted By: RoFfan

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/11/13 10:29 PM

Originally Posted By: Nimits
Originally Posted By: RoFfan


Sorry, I don't think the "us versus them" mentality is helpful for the cause. A good campaign without good flight modeling isn't much fun.


There is a balance, and as an almost exclusively SP simmer, they have already gone as far in FM'ing as they need to go. Or in other words, there is nothing more they could improve in the FM/technical aspects of RoF that would make me want to spend more money on their product.

However, I would gladly pay more money for a campaign as immersive as EAW or RB3D.

Or quite simply, I will much sooner pay money for a great campaign with passable FMs, than great FMs with a passable campaign . . .


You "singleplayer only" folks are just as uncompromising and self-satisfied as the multipalyer only folks...as if the multiplayer guys have nothing interesting to say when it comes to the technical aspects of the sim, but you have a valid opinion when it comes to the campaign.

Got it, not a conversation worth continuing. reading
Posted By: Taxman

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/11/13 10:50 PM

Originally Posted By: Sethos88
Originally Posted By: Jedi Master
The problem is the developers listened to the loudest voices--who were the MP dogfight lobby that complained that plane X should beat plane Y, and this time to climb is too high, and that ceiling was too low, and that boost should last only 35 seconds, not 40!!!!!!!11111111111111111


Actually it's 37


Make that 37.5 to be completely accurate. winkngrin BTW any one remember the rivet counters? sigh

For me as a single offliner player, it only needs to be close to accurate, not a 100%. What I would like to have is a good campaign that follows history, maybe there could a bit of history change, with a good story line. A feeling of being part of a larger picture and that the efforts of my sq. did have a part in victory, or not in that battle. If I remember EAW has that feature, but not having played it for many years its hard to remember. If ROF has such a feature I would hope that it will be incorperated into BOS.
Posted By: TheBlackPenguin

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/12/13 12:54 AM

Originally Posted By: Taxman
As Pizzicaro said, I also would be very happy to pay top dollar for a good offline dynamic campaign engine.


Why not make it an online dynamic campaign with an option to go offline? Its certainly technically possible.
Posted By: Pizzicato

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/12/13 01:15 AM

Originally Posted By: TheBlackPenguin
Originally Posted By: Taxman
As Pizzicaro said, I also would be very happy to pay top dollar for a good offline dynamic campaign engine.


Why not make it an online dynamic campaign with an option to go offline? Its certainly technically possible.


I'd be totally fine with that as long as I could fly offline.

It's all a pipe dream anyway. biggrin
Posted By: Jedi Master

Re: Campaign yays and boos - 08/12/13 04:22 PM

Originally Posted By: RoFfan


You "singleplayer only" folks are just as uncompromising and self-satisfied as the multipalyer only folks...as if the multiplayer guys have nothing interesting to say when it comes to the technical aspects of the sim, but you have a valid opinion when it comes to the campaign.

Got it, not a conversation worth continuing. reading


Please name what aspects of ROF, and many other flight sims to boot, are currently lacking that are NOT under the heading of "flight modeling".

It's not that the MP-only have nothing interesting to say about the technical aspects...it's that they have nothing interesting to say about anything BUT the technical aspects. They're one-note talkers. What the SP players object to is the MP players' belief that 100% of the developers' time should be spent tweaking this flight model or that damage model or this engine overheat curve while things like the campaign should be done "as time permits."

The so-called "technical aspects" affect everyone who flies the sim, online or off. Yet the parts of the sim that have no bearing on online play are just dismissed! So you have no problem with single players being screwed out of a decent SP experience, but you DO have a problem with plane X being a little too good vs plane Y as it was historically, and THAT is where the efforts should be focused? Don't want them spending a minute on anything that you won't be using?

Just as Nimits says, what improvements could be made to the planes already in the game that would make more people buy it? Extra features like a new SP campaign sell, revised FMs and ballistic calculations and texture mapping corrections do not. I would dare say that the field and weapons mods did not draw in a single new customer, but rather sold to existing customers who wanted to improve the planes they already had. Likewise I doubt anyone bought the Felixstowe or Channel Map as their first purchase, they were marketed to existing customers. The major planes like the Camel and Dr.I were the draw to new customers, and tweaking the torque or overheat profile for the Camel is not going to compel a holdout to suddenly say "ok, NOW I'll buy."

It's the classic business dilemma of "drawing in new customers" vs "maintaining existing customers' satisfaction." Focusing on the satisfaction of only those who do NOT play SP as well as NOT working to draw in new customers is a failure on both fronts.





The Jedi Master
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