Commentary: Doctor, I've Lost the Will to Sim!

Doctor, I've Lost the Will to Sim!
Or, Have You Recently Lost Your HOTAS?
by Tom "20mm" Hayden

20mm takes a humorous look at the inevitable problem all simmers face at some point and time. No, not THAT problem.

http://www.simhq.com/_commentary/all_042a.html

Holy crap, Tom! I sure hope that you get better soon. Heed that Doctor's advice.

By the way, that SD thing isn't contagious, is it?

Has anyone seen the hand-sanitizer?



Nice article, bud. I think we can all relate to periods where real life commitments prevented us from enjoying our virtual hobby. Hope you can carve out some "personal" time in the near future for a little simulation entertainment.

Get well soon Tom.


Wheels

Good read. I sure can relate to that, I've actually been having the same conversation with myself for the last couple of days. I just don't sim enough anymore. These days I'm mostly flying liners in FSX, so I'm looking at a least one/two hours per flight, which is not always easy to squeeze in your daily schedule. My cure ? I started landing Cessnas in the brush again, like I used to when I picked up FSX. Great fun, short but intense, and there's always time for it.

Luckily I don't use a HOTAS, so there's no risk of loosing that...

Cheers

Nico

I can relate to a lot of this. Sometimes what is supposed to be fun feels like effort. This is the main reason I'm looking into building a pit - something I can just hop in and go. I also seem to start on new titles very late and it just seems like I'm way behind everyone else. I'm hoping that A-10 will be the first time that I get in when the door opens and learn as everyone else does. It's hard jumping in even a year later and having to go through mounds of information to get up to speed.

Ouch, that was a confronting commentary.
I feel that the more effort i put into my simming experience (tft MIP, customised joystick, GoFlight gear, simpit, etc.) the less i actually sim. I honestly think i had more fun back in the day with more immersion to boot. Of course, having a family with the associated life and responsabilities cuts in too.
I guess you just can't have it all. Last weeks i'm even considering to scrap the pit and get back to basic (well, maybe not quite "basic") a good sim experience has become too much of a hassle in my mind. I also experience that when i just do it and get in there there still is a gratifying thing to do but i don't feel "connected" to the sim anymore. it all feels mechanic, yet leaves me wanting more..

..and here i am posting on forums in the little hour of free time i have today, again! Please excuse me, i have a sim to boot, doctor's orders!

Did you consider plastic sugery ?!

Sorry, but you well provoked that one


But sometimes, I feel with you...

Hehe, fun write up.

And quite true in some aspects for me. There was a time when I flew 500 to 1000 miles a week in the cockpit of a Boeing 727 in FS2004, practiced and raced weekly in rFactor, and spent hours building missions and whiling away the weekend in ArmA.

But it seems like the interest isn't there anymore for the past few months. My mind (and time) has strayed to things like scratch building scale models. And now lately... boats. Real ones. And now I'm thinking about scratch building a model boat.

How do I get into these ideas?

Anyway, I've recently installed Harpoon, and look forward to learning more about it (boats again). I may do a race at SimHQ this month, as therapy, too.

Ironic. I'm working on a review of the Obutto cockpit for myself and that is the point-of-view I'm taking. Its become a PITA to have to set everything up, calibrate it, chase everybody away (2- and 4-legged) and acquire enough peaceful concentration time to enjoy sims. Especially after working a long day and doing a trek in rush-hour traffic. Maybe not a cave, but certainly someplace to get away and hide for a while may become the biggest performance upgrade yet.

I'll be looking forward to that review - although the unit looks like it won't accommodate the 46" screen I'm thinking of getting.

Like Derk, it seems that lately most of my sim experience has involved buying stuff. It's sad to consider that now that I can afford some major-class items for simming, I don't seem to have the inclination to just get in and fly. I seem to spend more time thinking about the perfect sim experience and planning that experience rather than living the experience.

Yep, I have three sims on my computer that I play with rotation - I rarely jump from one directly into another.

My cure is your cure.

I'm planning to hang a 37" Viewsonic on it. We'll see what kind of hell I get myself into.

Better make a Styrofoam frame for your monitor I think

Thanks guys for the comments, much appreciated. Yeah, back in the day, I really did sim surf. Meaning I would get into one sim, right to another, and so on. I had to discipline myself to stick with one, learn one. Tough though. I'd see a screenshot of a Spitfire and think I must fire up IL-2! Or see something from Steel Beasts and think I needed to do that too. Hard to really learn when you do that, but at the same time I'd feel I was missing out on other goodies!

Yep, same here too. I even have a pile of simpit-design scetches next to my bed, much to my wife's discomfort.
Either way, having to fiddle with controls, screen setups and controller software each time i want to take a flight really is killing the fun lately. Tomorrow is my day off, this just might be her last night here.. no, not the wife, the pit! Sometimes you've got to take a step back and i'm in need of a more user friendly sim(ple) rig.

I think just about everyone in my squad IL-2 squad III/JG11 are going through this or something similar, I sure am.

Life commitments, being exhausted after work, study, social commitments (especially the girl) all contribute to why I don't fly virtually any more.

I avidly read updates and commentary on Storm of War progress as I did with Black Shark... but I don't load up Black Shark or ever spent the time needed to get into it...

What is needed is for me to set time and make it happen like your doctor prescribed.

WRT to the difficulty to work yourself into a sim that you would like to play but never quite managed to do, go online and seek a tutor in multiplayer sessions. If you have gone through the tutorials and feel at easy handling one vehicle with some competence, most online gamers (at least in the Steel Beasts community) are happy to accept you to show you the ropes. I think SB Pro could work well for you since the individual vehicle isn't terribly complex (in comparison to helicopters or a jet), and you don't have to hone specific skills like memorizing a number of race tracks to become somewhat competent.

There are of course other challenges - reading the terrain and guessing the opponent's intent, masking your movement ... in short, stalking prey while being the hunted at the same time. But this is something where the AARs can help you a lot to identify what went wrong, and how. In a way a tank simulation can be a bit more forgiving, and you don't necessarily have to set up elaborate equipment to feel immersed, which might make it ideal for reconvalescence.

What a great article!

I know exactly how you feel! Sometimes I find myself surfing sites like SimHQ chewing up all my free time instead of doing the simming I was born to do!

And you are right, for all the complaining us hardcore simmers to, we do truly have a wealth of choices for good simming right now.

WRT tutors - without owning Blackshark I saw that the SimHQ community was very good at doing that with people just from the discussions that cropped up on the forum. I'm hoping the same thing happens with something new like A-10. I've thought often about a tutor for this title and that title - but first wanted to get myself checked out so I'm competent first. My new year's resolution was to start flying online and now in the 3rd quarter that hasn't actually happened yet - but that is mainly due to external problems.

Hoping I'll get up to speed on FC2 and then I can jump online and start learning something.

Son, you need a Man Cave. That's all there is to it.

(And no, you can't have mine!)

g.

Thanks Nils, once I get the upgrade installed and get some training missions accomplished, I shall give that serious consideration.

Great article! I felt like reading my own biography.
I also simming very little. Everyday work and family left you exhausted to have the patience to setup everything for simming once all went to sleep you are "free", and more since easily you know you will expend between one to two houres to setup everything and fly only one single mission. And going to bed very late and knowing the next day you will not have the strengh to get up from bed.
I don't know you guys, but since i get married and kids enter the equation, my simming time has been dropping more and more each year.

SIMMING TIME = (24 - Sleep time)/(Job time + Family time) - 1. Or something like that!

Okay so really looking forward to this Obutto review. Talked to HotSeat and was totally not impressed with them. First, the basic package was $1600 whether I got the speakers and sub woofer or not. Huh? That must be some high quality speakers you have there. In addition, she really didn't sound like she wanted to deal with me. I was given the impression as soon as she found out that I was a "flight sim guy" and not a military unit or flight school that the prospect of dealing with me wasn't palatable. Felt like High Rev Simulators all over again. So, this will not be a direction I will be heading in.

I'm hoping to clear out the room cave that it will be going into by end of next week, then probably a week after that. So...



Look for a "guod's gigantic garage giveaway and grab" posting in the Buy/Sell forum soon.

OOPS!



Oh yeah, this thread was about 20mm's article. Sorry 20.

NP, you know what a huge fan of alliteration I am. If only I could find a way to work that into a casual colloquial conversation, carumba!

Man this one sure did hit the nail on the head. Time to jump back in and use something instead of paying for something I am not using.

Tom,

Excellent article! That sounds like my story too.

I used to fly Falcon 4 religiously every night. One mission per night, filled out the lineup card, studied the target, the approach avenue, ingress and egress routes (I love bombing runways and bridges). It generally took about 1.5 to 2 hours every night.

Now work and family commitment take priority. I bought Black Shark and Lock On 2 but did not have a chance to start on either of them. I guess I just need to focus on 1 sim and finish the IL-2 Operation Barbarossa Campaign first. I am about 90 missions in, 200+ more to go. To make matters worse, my wife just bought me Rise of Flight for our 10th anniversary.

Decisions, decisions! So many sims, so little time

Never thought about talking to my doctor.

Now I know -
Its the hardware. Ive had feelings of inadequacy for *three* years now but the cure is near.

There are these two big spaces on both sides on my keyboard where an old Couger used to sit. But in the last two years I've found rFactor racing and the G27 - I'm re-invogoriated. Now to fill those empty spaces with a Warthog. (Thanks for all of the Thrustmaster reviews Dr. SimHQ)

Edited --
We flew F15 Strike Eagle III, Falcon 3 & 4, Lock On and most everything in between that offered multiplayer. In 2005 LOFC came out with the Star Force protection and some of my buddies wouldn't install it. Then about 2008 my Cougar profiles were erased by the commies and the old hardware just wasn't compelling enough to reprogram Foxy - and the unit would fail to show up lots of times - and I'd tried shimming the axles but didn't want to invest in Hall sensors because of the wobble (I never thought my old Cougar could hold a formation like the the Virtual Blue Angels do).

I used to think the same about the old wheels in the F15-III days, so I lost the will to sim.


But then I got onto the Motorsports Page here at SimHQ and found my way back. If you lost it, too, try a little racing - driving is really e-a-s-y and F-U-N.
SimHQ Motorsports


The reviews of the new Warthog got to me. I'll screw those puppies to my gaming desk and look forward to some new A-10 flying fun. And multiplayer co-ops.

Thanks SimHQ.

Wrecking Crew
Smooth Operators Squadron
We fly so that others may die!

20110121
From the looks of my desktop I declare myself cured. It took the Thrustmaster Warthog to get me back to flying, and the racing crew here at SimHQ are fun challenging folks to race with.





WC