It was great meeting you and your son, hope you and he had fun!
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It sure was sir, thank you! While I usually donāt care much for celebrity culture, shaking your hand made me understand it a little 
I hope you are well rested and ready to face the hordes again!
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Yeah, me too, I guessā¦ I donāt picture myself killing anybody, when Iām playing on my computer. And as such, combat flightsimming is much less graphic about this than your average FPS.
But people sure are differentā¦
Like war and battle re-enactors who dress up in Union or Confederate uniforms and play out US Civil War battles, some go to greater lengths than others to immerse themselves in the game. And from an outside viewer it may seem strange that someone would even dress up as a Southerner waving the Confederate flag. Are they celebrating the values of the south or do they simply want to keep the memory of a brutal Civil war alive, perhaps as a warning to not go down that road again..? I think there are more of the latter than the former, although there definitely are some who wishes the South won. And it can be hard for the uninitiated to differentiate between them. Am I making sense?
What Iām trying to say is that people play war for a variety of reasons and some are moreā¦involvedā¦than others. What is a clear line to some, may be more blurry to others.
So, whereās my point in all this..?
When we read, or hear, about someone expressing what we consider to be tasteless and cruel, they may still be operating within what is culturally acceptable in their environment.
Regardless, when you are dealing with a multicultural group of customers, you should put someone in charge of the news who know a thing or two about how the world outside worksā¦
Just my thoughts on the matter.
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Yeah me too, martial arts to be precise. And just as fencing, judo and archery have little to do with actual warfare, neither does flight simulation. (And if DCS bfm is judo, does that make aerobatics kata?) It is however closer to it, in that it has more of the trappings and forms that mimic aspects of actal warfare. In those aspects indeed often closer to reenactment.
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Fully agree, and want to add from own experience, ofc in shooters without any reality related like fortnite/marathon/ā¦ no issues. But in shooters very political related, like as you mentioned, sadly some is infestated with extremists.
I play many many hours of ww2 shooters and play always from allied, but sadly not exist one single round where not exist 3 or 4 oposite players with their nickname that in mayority of the foruns they were banned because of that. They use these shooters to reanecment for their dreams/brotherhood etc
But also true that i know that exist people that simple see it as a game and dont care with ideology behind it. But as the same way that also exist people that dont care nothing about politics and when they go to vote they vote in a ramdom political party or the one that have a more pretty face
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IMHO It must all be recorded (akin to a ādebriefingā if you will) - the good, bad, and the ugly. Stored, protected, and treated as the most valuable bits we own.
If I was in charge of education everyone would major in History, first.
How one ārecitesā history, the reinactments, never thought about that. Seems more like a social event. Only watched one, briefly, decades ago. Lotta BBQ being slayed though. Culture thing?
As for combat games: Iām an adult. I know the difference. My youthful version consisted of us boys (what the girls were doing Iāve no idea) chasing each other around the woods/swampy areas. Got dirty.
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Definitely!
But I think the reasons behind the āwhyā are as many as there are participants.
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Oh yeah. Perhaps contrived example butā¦
I play in a yearly Ryder Cup competition (golf thing where its the USA vsā¦most everyon elseā¦from Europe)). Last year I was picked to be on the Euro team. I gave my best āOle, ole, oleā¦ole..ole (not sure the spelling) as we broke up to start. Got some barbs chucked my way too. The Euroās trounced the USA in our reenactment.
It was fun assuming anotherās identity in this context. Those that may have had an issue with my āexpressionā lack imagination - a sense of humor (worse).
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does anybody recognize the map in the mig29 track while scan video
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Exactlyā¦ Humor is tricky. I mean, who decides whatās funny..?
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Kola
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Koka-Kola 
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Really Good Goss in this one
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I wanted to weigh in on the above. But it seems like i may be the minority in separating the equipment from the ideology.
Personally, I have no issue driving a BMP or a bradley into combat in GHPC. Or a tomcat or a mig 19 in DCS.
I have never ever found the machines of war to be an issue. They to me, are nothing more than interesting exercises in engineering. Be it a tiger 1 or an oshkosh m1070. All are tools. There is no difference to me in opening a bottle of beer on the back of a humvee or driving round a muddy field in an m113 with a load of mates. Its just tools. Curiosities.
The maps on DCS, however āwordedā have a little more bearing on life, with our want to simulate more realism, i think comes an innate need to be sensitive. You wanna virtually bomb my house? ā ā ā ā , Iāll be the first one to join in and judge your accuracy for a laugh. I would actually find it absolutely hilarious. But Iāve never been bombed. I might find it a bit more hard to deal with if i lived in baghdad or aleppo. That much would be true Iām sure
You also have to factor in the innate innocence of people playing war, who have never experienced it. I know that some of us here, have. But most of us have led sheltered and cosy lives that allow us to live out these fantasies. I have 3 actual war machines. I purchased them to live out a fantasy. Iāve never served, never been shot at (that part isnāt true) and despite American failings on the world stage, still see humvees as a symbol of freedom, not oppression. That may make me a bad person, its certainly a possibility, but my heart says it probably isnāt.
My point is, that we are playing games. It might not be in the best taste, it may not be politically correct. But Iām pretty sure that playing Call of duty, world at war if available in 1942 would have severely pissed a lot of people off as well.
Ease up on yourselves. You arenāt hurting anyone by learning how to drop virtual Jdams on tanks. Its play. Me and the boy still play with micro machines and guess where our carrier groups and amphibious landing craft are based at the moment? Can ya guess? A 9 year old at the helm wants to play war to rationalise what he hears in the world news. We are in the waters of Kharg island.
It might not be tasteful. Its probably even wrong. But if he understands it, and he plays it out, heās not scared of iranian missiles landing on fairford..
Its ALL play. Ease up on yourselves.
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Nicely written @Victork2.
In this DCS topic case I think itās more about the direct purchase of stuff that seems to come from morons. It was more in this particular case of DCS that Ugra making bad jokes about Gaza and then me reaching into my wallet to give them $80 feels more direct than buying an old truck. They did remove the comment so they like money but yeah, feels icky. Icky is a personal and solely individual thing. 
I personally donāt feel bad about pretend JDAMs on pretend people but the single and only influence you have on a company is if to give them your money or not: Everything else is just noise. Arguments can be made on either end like āBut I really want it, itās cool and pretendā vs āAnything you do makes no difference whatsoeverā which are all fair enough and I have no problems with any of that.
Fun fact: that war lasted about 11% elapsed of the current run of The Simpsons. The secret sauce is actually just racism, sorry for the spoilers.
Separating out the art from the artist isnāt going to be solved here (shockingly) but there are lines where it feels pretty on the nose, and turning into logic pretzels to try to justify other sides good intent is basic asymmetric empathy.
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Whenever this kind of debates pop up, Iām always reminded of one of Carl Saganās quote:
āWitness mere F-14s taking off from adjacent flight decks, gracefully canting left and right, afterburners flaming, and thereās something that sweeps you awayāor at least it does me. And no amount of knowledge of the potential abuses of carrier task forces can affect the depth of that feeling. It simply speaks to another part of me. It doesnāt want recriminations or politics. It just wants to fly.ā
I know this isnāt what weāre talking about here but I feel like the spirit behind the quote is similar and also applies to these situations.
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āIāve seen things you people wouldnāt believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the TannhƤuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.ā
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I love this. Blade runner is such a wonderful allegory for this situation
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Well said my friend
Now speaking of playing with toys that spectacularly go boom, you have been conspicuously absent from the mudspike foothold happenings sir!
@EightBall what an awesome quote. Thank you for that 
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