Flight Sim vs Story

[republic]

I recently picked up IL2:1946.  Probably my favorite modern flight sim so far.  But...as I play it I can't help but remember flight sims of years gone by.  What ever happened to the story behind the flight sim?  The dynamic campain in IL2 is pretty neat but...nothing like the old days.

Remember those old games?  You'd sit in the briefing room and hear the dire news...you were needed to do X and X and blah blah, we are relying on you!  You'd land after a mission and get rewards, see the crew welcoming you back, yadda yadda.  The crew chief would gripe at you for damaging his plane.  

Anymore, it's just a text intro...sometimes not even that.  Sometimes just an objective and a map.  You land and are taken to another map + text screen...

Sure, the simulations are more accurate than ever but...I struggle with even wanting to play the game.  Who is my wingman?  Oh that's AI #322.  Noooo!!!  #322 you can't die on me!!!

What do you guys think, would you sacrifice some realism for story, or is realism king?

[Saintaw]

Having a storyline makes the game harder to replay for most pple. having a *cough* dynamic campaign also allows you to sell a box with 87657654 campaign missions instead of 13.

I like to have a story as well when playing a single player game, maybe not a sim... but that's my personal preference

[john9001]

need story, after mission go into town, get drunk, get in fight, chase girls.

[Airscrew]

I think thats one of the things I liked about the old Wing Commander 3 and 4.  there was a story, You got the feeling you were interacting with the game.  If you failed a mission it didnt necessarily end the game or you didnt have to replay the mission until you got it right, you just went down an alternate story line.  of course fail to many missions and you lost.
Privateer was similar also,  there were several small plot lines and missions that you could pick and choose.

[Pooh21]

storyline missions are boring though

Spawn
Kill 3 ships at this point
fly here
oh noes ambushed
dead

respawn
Kill 3 ships at this oint
fly here
kill ambush
fly here
oh noes mission scripted event fails

restart
Kill 3 ships at this point
fly here
kill ambush
fly fast here, do scripted mission event
mission complete
yay I have skills

[republic]

Those of you who prefer no story, how do you stay interested in the game?

I played LOMAC until i was reasonably able to perform A2A and A2G and then got bored and haven't looked back.  My connection prevents me from playing multiplayer, and the standalone missions in the game have long grown tedious.  Same story with Flanker2.

I used to play those old Janes combat flight sims for hours upon hours.  The flight model was comical at times, but at least there was a reason to play.  AH has the best of both worlds, but the other players make the story rather than developer content.  IL2 is just interesting enough to keep playing...mostly to practice techniques I've learned in AH. lol

The Wing Commander games, especially 3, kept me hooked until the very end.  Freelancer also was great, course neither one could be called a simulation.  Independence War and Independence War 2 both were excellent simulations with good stories to boot.  Aces of the Pacific and Aces over Europe were great fun at the time.  There was an Apache helicopter sim I used to play...I forget the name, but it had a good balance of story vs simulation.  Also a M1 Abrams tank sim that was great fun.

[tedrbr]

Privateer is a good example.  Several story lines as well as open gameplay and random encounters also available.  You could follow the missions, or go off and do your own thing.

Some immersion is nice.  In the original Starfleet Command from Activision, you acquired officers which grew in abilities, who you could transfer for better officers, and who could be lost in the line of duty if things went bad.

The story line of the Interstate '76 line from Activision were fun.  So were the Wing Commander series, although sometimes they may have inserted too much of it.


In Shadow Company: Left For Dead, you grew a roster of merc, which could grow, develop, or be lost.  You develop an in-game attachment or empathy toward these characters, in games like this.

[Halo]

I like Tank and Biplane.  I can't handle complicated plot lines.  

[Bruno]

The dynamic campain in IL2 is pretty neat but...nothing like the old days.

There is no 'dynamic campaign' in Il-2 - its all scripted and when using DGEN (Starshoy - ships with Il-2) or DCG (Lowengrin's 3rd party) it pulls missions from a base template / script.

AI in Il-2 is horrible - the 'campaigns' are sterile and mostly a bore. All this makes Il-2 as a 'boxed game' pretty poor overall - unless you like all the crap like 'buiilding' your own campaigns' or spending endless hours churning out 'skins'.

The online wars, not the 'pop wars' like AFW / Bellum, but those like Forgotten Skies and the various campaigns being run based off of the Scorched Earth Campaign System

see Scorched Earth: Xtreme

If I didn't play online I wouldn't play Il-2. Many of the older games had much better 'campaigns' and single player options.

[Ball]

Red Baron was the greatest game ever.

Knights of the Sky was close, with the newspaper cuttings and the "Ace Challenges you to a Duel!", and Flying Corps was also very good.

[SFRT - Frenchy]

I remember F19 ... u had a briefing, u came back with a welcome screen. I was a fighter pilot yay!

I can't handle scripted stories. I play them once then never play again. Like LOMAC, I loved the sim but man, those scripted

I'll take a Falcon 4.0 over a wingcomander. I plan my own missions, my results influence the war outcome on a strategic/tactical scale. IL2 semi-scripted missions is tolerable, keeps me playing a great flight sim, especially since they fixed the A.I. FM.

BTW  where did you picked up 1946?