That’s fair. I can definitely understand the need for a more-or-less stable build that can stand on it’s own for a couple of years while a DC (among other additions) are built on top of it. Has anyone seen signs that multi-core is also on the table (seems necessary for the amount of objects that will be present during a mission)?
Wags mentioned multi-threading support in a Q&A last summer, but could not comment on any details.
Const has also commented on work towards a more multithreaded architecture being done. IMHO there’s no way forward for ED unless they split at least some more tasks off from the currently still monolithic main engine thread. Single core performance is hitting a serious cap.
Like this?
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This. I remember MBot complaining about broken base features in ED’s engine. You can not rely on features which have been around for years (like SA-6) still working after a patch.
IMO, ED has to concentrate on getting a stable release channel (preferably merging all DCS Worlds into one). After that, make sure all the existing base features of the engine work (again) and keep it that way. Only then you can dedicate resources to Dynamic Campaign / Dynamic MP Missions.
Anything else is like chasing your own tail.
Not serious enough. Make it Schnaps.
Out of the 20 plus years I have been playing multiplayer flightsims, I can probably count a dozen times when I have felt pure joy while playing. Half of those joy-filled moments were playing BMS with a server that ran a campaign continously to the end with plenty of potential for both coop and p2p play, depending on target and time. To try to explain what that is like to someone who hasn’t experienced it is like trying to sell VR.
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I’m a known, avowed single player gamer. The better the campaign, the more I’ll play it.
Very few sims hit the mark in this regard, the ones that stand out most are Total Air War and EF-2K. Both were outstanding titles and you felt like you were in a large scale conflict, but your actions mattered.
The problem with DCS (at least with me) is that it is still too complex, but for others, that’s its entire appeal, complexity. To me, it’s not realistic, it’s just difficult. It also does some really inconvenient things for the soloist. Like, spawning enemy aircraft directly over the airfield you’re taking off from in the random mission generator.
Don’t get the wrong idea. DCS is stunning. It does a lot of cool things. I wish it would reach out to a wider audience, but it doesn’t. I’m okay with that.
I’m watching Combat Air Patrol 2 to see what shape the campaign takes.
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Eh, I think you would like a slightly older sim…
IIRC it’s called Strike Figthers 2.
You see, there’s a bunch o’em. Vietnam, Europe, some desert one… figure that- there’s one that’s only about Israel vs its neighbours…
Sorry, having a go at you.
It’s just that I feel quite like you do.
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LOL. What you did there. I see it.
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My favorite campaigns were in EAW, Jane’s F-15, and a now-forgotten line of sims that included iF-22 and iF/A-18E. I can’t even remember clearly what I liked about them so much after all this time…
I’ve not really sat and played an entire campaign of more than 3-4 missions in the 21st century. That includes F4 and its iterations, I played one through in the original 1.08 release, but none since with F4:AF or later.
I got close in CFS3, but there although the campaign was great the stock planes had the most #%&#$%^ damage models ever created. I quit until the 1% planes started coming out for it, but it was a laborious manual process to add 3rd party planes to the campaign and I never was able to get it to the point where I could have a stock plane-free campaign there.
(for those who didn’t know, the CFS3 stock plane DM’s had ridiculous parameters such as 70% chance of damaging flight controls when hit in a P-47…so yeah, one minor hit from flak or a 109 and suddenly the B-17 has a better roll rate than you do…stock planes were useless in combat)
It just seems like the recent sims have campaigns that have lacked soul. The scripted ones have been too scripted, and I feel like there is always a “trick” to beating them and I then get frustrated and give up when it gets tough. The dynamic ones feel shallow, where it seems like every missions is “take off, fly to target, encounter enemy near target, deal with target, encounter enemy coming back from target, land”–the templates are too few and too repetitive.
I freely admit there are tons of campaigns I have in DCS, RoF, Il-2/BoS, and CloD I have never even started because I can’t even muster the enthusiasm to try them. Instead, I fly single missions or random generated ones and fly for no more than 30 minutes before I either win, die, or get tired. 
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I think that part of the problem is that the emphasis these days is on multi-player. When online multiplayer started becoming mainstream there was a decline on good single player campaigns.
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Is it a good reason that multiplayer can let the human create content instead of coding in scripted content.
I mean with multiplayer, just create a sandbox and if the tools are there, humans will create the life.
Eve online is probably the perfect example of this
Yes, except there are multiple downsides to MP that SP does not suffer from. Eve is an MMO, not a standard MP title, and the rules are different for those. That’s why I have not touched an MMO since 2002…the entire structure holds no interest for me.
One–technical. Where the customer lives may or may not have reliable, cap-free, time-free access. If you have miserable pings and dropped packets, zero value to MP.
Two–timing. If you don’t live in the same time zone, or at least adjacent, to a large number of players, it’s a ghost town. Hardly fun to be in a mission designed for two dozen players when there are 3. Likewise, if you have an uneven schedule and can’t commit to “Wed night at 7PM PT/10PM ET” regularly for whatever reason, you may be stuck just playing with Random Pilot #67234, who could be a complete jerk, and not people you know and like.
Three–skills. A large portion of MP consists of player v player action and not player v AI. This means the possibility of going up against someone who is either far better than you (so you spend your whole night dying and respawning) or far worse (so you spend your time waiting for them to appear and then downing them in seconds and then waiting a loooong time again for them to reappear) with zero challenge. Not to mention cheaters who can fly around in their supersonic, Phoenix missile equipped Mustangs knocking you out while you’re still taxiing.
Four–mindset. It’s child’s play to create a mission with AI escorting an asset, or interested in bombing a distant target, or patrolling a narrow sector. Tell a human they’re supposed to just fly CAP and wait for enemies to appear and there’s a real good chance they’re going to fly in the direction they think the enemies will come from and try to engage them without the wait. After all, there’s no CO enforcing their behavior, there’s really nothing but their own interest in entertainment driving them, and if that interest is in shooting down enemy planes without regard for protecting a depot or a bomber, it’s hardly as enjoyable for the players on the opposite side.
For ALL of these reasons, and probably others that escape my mind right now, I prefer my MP to be coop only, usually with a very small group (2-4 max), and split my time with SP fairly evenly. Both require robust AI and excellent mission design to make sure the scenarios come off as plausible if not realistic. That’s what campaigns today have been lacking for me.
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Mindset is a huge problem for any multiplayer game, co-op or otherwise.
Griefers, trolls, or just lone wolf types can derail a multiplayer session with ease.
I agree with everything you said there Jedi. I don’t play multiplayer for several of the reasons you mentioned, mainly my shoddy internet connection and fluid work schedule. I also need the ability to hit Pause at times without causing disruption to other players.
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Yep. You guys are pretty much hitting all the high points. I like my little world. MP simply has too many moving parts and I have too busy a schedule outside of gaming to dedicate any time to stop myself from getting embarrassed on an MP server. “Play more and get better skillz” I hear being said most often. Sorry. I have kids that need me, an attractive wife, a house that needs work, a second graduate degree in the works, and a job that pays for it all. I don’t have that kind of time.
So, my gaming needs to be easy to get into, but challenging enough I’m not bored and go do something else. I keep hoping GOG will remaster games like JF-15, JF-18, EF2K, and TAW. I’d never have to buy a new title ever again.
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I wouldn’t get too worked up at multiplayer as the root of your lack of dynamic campaign.
I can’t speak for the IL2/BoX sphere, but ED apparently has firm data the majority of its players are single player enthusiasts, and development and marketing decisions will favor that demographic just about every time. There is still no dedicated server for DCS, the map DLC purchasing model penalizes server operators by forcing them to purchase every map and asset pack twice, and said asset pack divides the multiplayer community in an effort to add more granularity for single-player purchasers.
The only MP specific features pushed in the last year were the map marker system, and the IC changes. The former is helpful but undeveloped, the latter is a solution that rips off one’s own nose as a solution in want of a problem.
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It is an interesting discussion.
Mindset, yes it is interesting in online games. Take GTAV, when you get a troller or cheater, you die very often and get instagriefed on respawn. GTAV is a very fun game online, but when someone decides to ruin your game there, well, they certainly can.
But is that a problem with the player or a problem with the sandbox.
GTAV has some serious flaws where “modding” commands (cheats and hacks) are available to those who spend a little amount of time finding out where to get those tools. Not to mention that when you die or the person you kill. Both will spawn in a location close to where the death occured leaving you in a precarious predicament.
Its not really the mind set that’s at fault, for it is part of the game to be killed. Its the sandbox thats at fault for letting cheats happen, spawning after death in close prox to the killer and my position on map being permanently displayed so if someone gets a hard on for me, they can hunt me over and over.
That is not the fault of people’s mentality. That is entirely the sandbox’s fault.
But i think flight and combat sims are totally different. Simulating a war environment has large open areas. we are not constrained with “quake” type arenas where it is a philosophy of design to force players into each other with relentless repetition. We can have maps with no markers, so players have no idea of who or where you are.
I have dabbled in many games, fps to sims. Quake arenas to dynamic campaigns. Eech, falcon, dynamic mission generators of many various guises from devs or 3rd parties. I can see your concerns, and the list @JediMaster posted above are valid…in a casual gaming environment.
I think in a simming environment in a simulated war, most of those concerns are negated.
Aside from the technical aspect of availability and quality of internet the other points can be reasoned.
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timing? always an issue. But i have been on blue flag peak times with no players and crazy times with more players than i thought would be on. Point is. If the server is decent enough, it will have some population. If the sandbox is good enough, you will have something to do as a solo participant.
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Skills in a simming environment is a weighted advantage for sure. but why is this a negative? its a positive isn’t it. You will always fly against someone better and worse than you. If we have dynamics in a mission, they non skilled guy can get the drop on the skilled guy and vice versa. But its not like quake. You won’t spawn next to the person that killed you, you may not even go to the same target.
As for pvp action as a majority…no. A good sandbox should be able to negate this. Falcon did, eech did, scorched earth (one of the best dynamic campaigns i have seen) did.
As for boring missions of zero interest. Well i have experienced those in dynamic campaigns. I.e. Didn’t see a target, didn’t get any contacts of relative interest. On the other hand i have had missions where the proverbial has hit the fan and total catastrophe. Take those two extremes and everything in between and thats what makes a great dynamic campaign. The unknown skill level for that engagement. When, where, who and how. If you ask those question in a mission. Its a good mission even if the difficulty slides between super easy to death trap. Not knowing is the key to enjoyment and longevity.
- mindset. Already touched on above. Cut out cheating (which i don’t think i have seen hardly any of in dcs) then mindset isn’t a problem. Its a question of design of the sandbox to allow access to all. You want a2a pew pew. Good. You want logistic running. Good. You and some others want surprise attack on a target other than main push. Good. You want to avoid engagements but set up sam sites, good. You don’t want to fly at all but be a radar controller for your team informing them of contacts and co-ordinating strikes. Good. Blue flag currently does all that. Add to that airframe tracking where you only get small amount of a type of aircraft and that takes away air quake. Your airframe is important and if you loose them all, you are out for a period of time unless you jump into a different role with different capability aircraft.
There s a common theme here. Its not anything other than a good sandbox to create a dynamic campaign. The other negatives you posted above have all been solved in one or more iterations of a dynamic campaign either freeware or dev created over a decade a go.
Business and markets have changed a hell of a lot since those decade(s) ago as well. Hell one of the best dynamic campaigns (scorched earth for il2) was a user made masterpiece and free…and over a decade old.
I just wonder how long we are going to hang on to the stigma and mysticism that a dynamic campaign in todays market IS AND WILL FOREVE BE a company killing whirlwind of blackhole destruction.
I don’t see it. Hell star citizen has raised +140 million dollars on a website concept. And if users without acces to dcs code can and are making iterations of dynamic campaigns that tick some of the requirements FOR FREE then i can’t see why dynamic campaigns are still the taboo talk of industries.
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