Combat Pilot

[CptTrips]

That said, I love being wrong.

It must be all the practice.

When he said, “It didn’t catch my attention”, he was referring to WWIIOL not AH.

 

[whiteman]

I got the feeling he was talking AH, either way it was just a passing mention.

[CptTrips]

I got the feeling he was talking AH, either way it was just a passing mention.

Enigma talks really fast.  At least it seems that way to a Texan. 

@41:27 he lists Aces High and WWIIOnline as examples of the subscription model and then says, "I dunno, did you ever play WWIIOnline?"  That is when Jason replied he did but it never caught his interest.  Enigma said he liked WWIIOnline.  He didn't mention playing AH.

It was brief, but the interview wasn't about AH or WWIIOL, it was about CP so not surprising.

I sent Enigma a msg asking if he ever had a subscription to AH.  I asked if he would ever consider doing a retrospective video "How We Got Here" spotlighting the foundational MP combat flight sims (He is MP focused usually) like AW, FA, WB, AH.  I asked if would he would do a survey vid on AH and it's pros and cons of design.  But I don't know if he will ever see it. I'm sure he gets messaged a lot.

[Edit] From his Youtube description: "This is the same Enigma from WWIIOL and I continue to fly with the same group of people from then. I go by Enigma or Enigma89 depending on the game."  So he was obviously referring to WWIIOL in that exchange.

I also just posted in his discord asking if he would do a AH vid. One video from Enigma would get a ton of eyes on AH.  That Combat Pilot video is only 2 days old and already has 9,000 views.

[Nefarious]

I have so much to say in both this thread and the Vote thread.

Just can't find the time to write a wall of text.

[CptTrips]

I have so much to say in both this thread and the Vote thread.

Just can't find the time to write a wall of text.

Please do.  I would be interested to read your thoughts.

[Brooke]

That sort of game, geared toward the limited play of a tiny plane set, and either single player or small number of online people playing some pre-arranged mission, has no appeal to me.

Actually, anything that doesn't allow scenario play isn't that appealing to me anymore.

[CptTrips]

Actually, anything that doesn't allow scenario play isn't that appealing to me anymore.

Understandable for you.  But there is nothing about AH that makes it the only one capable of Scenarios.  It didn't invent Scenarios.  It was cross-pollenated from Warbirds and Air Warrior before that.  No reason that tradition couldn't also be cross-pollenated elsewhere as well.  It's just a cultural tradition\education issue.

I think "that  sort of game" is unfair.  He stated they don't know yet how things will be structured or the style of MP they will have.  At this point it is Proof of Concepts and Funding stage.  The only thing that can be said about "that  sort of game" is that they intend to target high fidelity, WWII, PTO, SP first, then add MP.  I wouldn't assume more than that because they themselves haven't worked out the final design.

I think they are smart getting a single player layer first.  As he stated (and he has tons of insight and internal data as producer of the IL2 series) single player numbers are an order of magnitude larger than MP.  So if you can do that, you now have tons of funding to finance your MP effort the way it should be. 

SP is harder than MP because passable AI is hard and missions have to be painstakingly hand crafted, but it can be a revenue generator because of the differential in numbers and exposes you to a much larger audience and some of those might eventually be encouraged to try MP later.  I wish AH could have packaged a passable SP value priced sim to put on Steam and use it as a feeder to the MP sim.  HT never seemed enthused about the idea.

But CP is years and years away.  Like I said, no threat to AH realistically, IMHO.

[CptTrips]

Well, I tried.

"Enigma — Today at 12:06 PM
I played ah for a minute
But not enough to really talk about it."

I did suggest Hitech would make an excellent interview vid also.  He could talk a lot about the evolution of MP combat sims because he was at the center of half of it.  Again, doubt it will happen but I tried.  I do believe it would make an fascinating interview.

[Brooke]

Understandable for you.  But there is nothing about AH that makes it the only one capable of Scenarios.  It didn't invent Scenarios.  It was cross-pollenated from Warbirds and Air Warrior before that.  No reason that tradition couldn't also be cross-pollenated elsewhere as well.  It's just a cultural tradition\education issue.

Scenarios started in Air Warrior in about 1993 or so before there were any other such multiplayer flight sims.  Invented by DoK and some other players in Air Warrior back then.

True, nothing precludes it being done elsewhere.  But other than AH, most other air-combat sims don't seem to be built for it.  Can't control maps, plane sets, settings, spawn points, have a separate arena for it, create logs for scoring, etc. as far as I can tell.

HiTech was an Air Warrior player before he embarked on making great flight sims.  He knew about scenarios, and so AH has the systems needed to run them.  But most players and designers have never experienced scenario play and it doesn't enter their thought process of how gaming can go.  Even most players in AH haven't tried scenarios and don't know what experience is like. 

I think "that  sort of game" is unfair.  He stated they don't know yet how things will be structured or the style of MP they will have.

Maybe.  But I'd bet money they won't have scenarios ever given the above (i.e., most people don't know to even think of it).

To me, single player is McDonald's.  I get it -- it has easier mass appeal.  By comparison (again, to me, not everyone), mutliplayer is Ruth's Chris.  And Scenarios are St Elmo Steakhouse.

I'd like it if more people knew what scenarios were like.  But it's a very small group compared to the gamers of the world.

[CptTrips]

True, nothing precludes it being done elsewhere.  But other than AH, most other air-combat sims don't seem to be built for it.  Can't control maps, plane sets, settings, spawn points, have a separate arena for it, create logs for scoring, etc. as far as I can tell.

DCS has a quite power Lua scripting engine.

I've participated in Scenarios.  I saw nothing that couldn't be implemented.  All those types of control are either natively supported or could be scripted.  I wish AH had scripting support.

I'd expect CP and all modern sims to support scripting.  It leaves so much flexibility open.

[Devil 505]

DCS has a quite power Lua scripting engine.

I've participated in Scenarios.  I saw nothing that couldn't be implemented.  All those types of control are either natively supported or could be scripted.  I wish AH had scripting support.

I'd expect CP and all modern sims to support scripting.  It leaves so much flexibility open.

Well, the point of a scenario is to portray something historical, or at the very least , plausibly so.

Take DCS, you have a P-47D, P-51D, and a Spitfire mk IX vs. 109K-4, 190A-8, and 190D-9. And the only WW2 map is Normady.

Well, neither the K-4 or Dora were in use on D-Day, or in the subsequent battles in France. So unless it's A-8's for all on the Axis you've lost using the map in it's historical context.

The available plane set and terrain is incongruous. Might be just fine for a layman, but for anyone interested in the history, it's an issue.

Furthermore, after you do a pseudo-D-Day scenario, what's next? You've only got the same planes and the same terrain.

[CptTrips]

Well, the point of a scenario is to portray something historical, or at the very least , plausibly so.

Take DCS, you have a P-47D, P-51D, and a Spitfire mk IX vs. 109K-4, 190A-8, and 190D-9. And the only WW2 map is Normady.

Well, neither the K-4 or Dora were in use on D-Day, or in the subsequent battles in France. So unless it's A-8's for all on the Axis you've lost using the map in it's historical context.

The available plane set and terrain is incongruous. Might be just fine for a layman, but for anyone interested in the history, it's an issue.

Furthermore, after you do a pseudo-D-Day scenario, what's next? You've only got the same planes and the same terrain.

Agreed.  The DCS WWII planeset is immature.

People could do some great Cold War scenarios now though.

[LCADolby]

Well, I tried.

"Enigma — Today at 12:06 PM
I played ah for a minute
But not enough to really talk about it."

I did suggest Hitech would make an excellent interview vid also.  He could talk a lot about the evolution of MP combat sims because he was at the center of half of it.  Again, doubt it will happen but I tried.  I do believe it would make an fascinating interview.

HiTech and AcesHigh are a part of history, and I sincerely hope that very soon HiTech sits down on a panel and chats with a host and guests about what he has created.
It would be good for the soul.

[Dadtallica]

Had my own radio show and produced several others back in my day. I was thinking of asking him to let me to an interview since so much speculation swirls in the BBS

[Brooke]

DCS has a quite power Lua scripting engine.

I've participated in Scenarios.  I saw nothing that couldn't be implemented.  All those types of control are either natively supported or could be scripted.  I wish AH had scripting support.

I'd expect CP and all modern sims to support scripting.  It leaves so much flexibility open.

Scripting alone isn't necessarily enough.  Depends on what capability is in the scripting.  For scenarios, you need a supply of historical maps and a big enough plane set.  You need an arena to run it in, where someone has control over things like who can get in, when flight is enabled, what the weather is, what terrain is loaded.  You kind of need the ability to put in custom spawn points, ability to move around ships/fleets, ability to set hardness of various targets, ability to set lethality of ack, ability to disable this or that ack, ability set down times, ability to reset targets individually or in groups, ability to adjust working of radar.  You need a logging system to log points or actions so that you can generate scoring.

Any game could do this.  But I'm not aware of any but AH that do.

AH has scripting to do all that arena setup described above.  There are a couple hundred parameters you can adjust in an arena.