Realism - chance for redemption

[kfsone]

This puritanical "realism" word that is occasionally bounced around, is being degraded and becoming a cuss word. I hope I can appeal to some of the 'realists' and some of the 'gameists' and bring you to a common perspective on some points.

AH is a sim; it simulates. What needs to be decided is what it is simulating. As far as I understand it, it is simulating, modelling, various aspects of warfare during the WWII era.

The crux of what HTC seem to be set out to achieve is realistic combat; they want to try and give you as realistic as possible an engagement experience. That means that when you are flying or driving or sailing by the seat of your pants, scanning for that next enemy, your experience should be as like as a WWII pilot as possible. Lets phrase that a 'combat simulation'. Flight dynamics are intended to be accurate, balistics are intended to be accurate, damage models accurate, etc.

It does not appear to be intended as a WWII simulation. It tries to create an alternate realm where we, those who already know the outcome of WWII, can try to experience those same combat-moments to some degree of accuracy.

There will have to be concessions to try and achieve that; if you found yourself assigned to a squadron based out of RAF Binbrook near Hull in England, your first 6 month tour of duty might consist of long nights scouting the channel and never seeing an enemy - not once in 6 months. Your aircraft suddenly fails one night after struggling with fog on takeoff and intense atmospheric conditions during your eventless sortie, your chute fails to open, and you die a soggy death, and you are out of the game for the next 4 years until they start from 1940 again.

I'm sure nobody particularly wants that. Maybe some of the aspects, but I think I make the point clearly enough that there have to be concessions.

Some of the aspects of the WWII experience will have to be alternately presented. For a start, you won't be able to see around the cockpit of your plane simply by moving your head, that'll have to be represented virtually. You won't actually be sitting in a cockpit during your flights, and you won't come near to freezing to death if you fly a Lancaster at operational height. These could perhaps be modelled into the game, but then not everyone reacts the same way to the same temperatures, so that might be unfair. And people would quickly get frustrated at falling out of the air because the game modelled them getting cramps at a crucial moment.

As far as I can see, this is a combat simulation; it's about the fights, it's about those points where you are pitting your skills against those of one or more other human beings. It's not a total-wwii sim with the hours waiting to scramble, or the recon sorties, or the leaflet drops over intense flack fields.

A lot of recent realist-calls seem to be very pick-and-choosy. They want no icons, but they want to be able to choose any plane they like. No icons is a fine cause, but no icons and no planeset? How would you identify friend and fo? By plane markings? When did you last identify the guy who cleared your 6 by his squad logo?

Then there are the buff-haters who think that such-a-bomber-feature is unrealistic and want bombers removed from the game. WWII air-warfare was primarily about bombers. Certainly in Europe the vast, vast majority of sorties flown by fighters were bomber related (escorts or defenders).

There are those who say field-capture is unrealistic - but they rarely propose an alternative, in which case all we need is a terrain with 3 fields so we can fly endless furballs. Oh - the duelling terrain will do nicely =)

Why not propose something alternative, and realistic, instead? Like, having towns and cities around the airfields, which have to be captured. The airfields still have strategic components like ammo tanks etc, but to capture an airfield you must advance the front-line past it by taking towns and cities until the airfield falls behind the enemy line.

That's a lot of work; if HTC did that, it might be quite a nice system, but it's a heck of a lot of work to find out that nobody will fly that scenario...

So - if you're going to bandy 'realism', think what kind of 'realism' you're talking about. There's accuracy and there's realism. There's simulation and there's recreation... And do you want a recreation with only 4-5 people in? Or do you want a simulation with possibly hundreds? You can take AH and fly h2h with a handful of WWII buffs who will fly iconless at night with planesets, and it's cheaper than flying the main arena.


K

[jihad]

Why not propose something alternative, and realistic, instead? Like, having towns and cities around the airfields, which have to be captured. The airfields still have strategic components like ammo tanks etc, but to capture an airfield you must advance the front-line past it by taking towns and cities until the airfield falls behind the enemy line.

Thats really a nice idea, I think its possible to make a terrain like this.

 I'll try it out in the editor and let ya know - dunno about the MA but for scenario terrains this would rock!    

     

From time immemorial, the purpose of a navy has been to influence, and sometimes decide, issues on land.

This was so with the Greeks of antiquity; the Romans, who created a navy to defeat Carthage; the Spanish, whose armada tried and failed to conquer England; and most eminently, in the Atlantic and Pacific during two world wars.


The sea has always given man inexpensive transport and ease of communication over long distances. It has also provided concealment, because being over the horizon meant being out of sight and effectively beyond reach. The sea has supplied mobility, capability, and support throughout Western history, and those failing in the sea-power test also failed the longevity one.




[This message has been edited by jihad (edited 05-15-2001).]

[Ghosth]

Good post kfs, you raise some excellent points.

The only issue you didn't address that I see effecting all this is the age of Aces High.

It is a rapidly growing sim, and no one knows for sure exactly what HT has up his sleeve.

However I do agree that a lot more could be done, and like your ideas on base capture.
New airfield layouts for 1.07 I think are a step in the right direction.

[kfsone]

Just a couple of additional thoughts, now that I'm awake again =)

I've seen a trend by some pilots to hang on the realism of the Pacific war, and others on the realism of the Battle of Britain.

Guys - it's not either of those - not in the Main Arena. The MA has to be a mixing bowl that will attract all kinds and offer a variety of experiences.

HOs, Radar, one-ping-kills, uber[insert weapon name], everyone-flies-the-[insert plane of your detestment], all are annoying - granted. But the effect is that the MA isn't a simple action replay.

Lets concentrate on concepts that improve the accuracy of the combat-experience, forgive any inaccuracies in arriving there such as a graphical display of cons rather than a ground-controllers voice directing you, lets make this a simulation engine that more and more people want to fly, and then, hopefully, HTC will start looking at additional arenas with many of the settings many of you (we) are looking for. Perhaps when there are 15,000 active pilots they can afford to have an iconless, plane-setted arena.

Perhaps more options need to be kicked around - such as delayed or reduced icons - perhaps require the plane to be in your view for 3 solid seconds before iconising it, and perhaps make the icons transient, so that no more than one plane or vehicle at a time has an icon on screen, and there is a delay between each icon, and each icon only stays up for a second or two.

Perhaps allow setting of enemy-icon mode only at the start of a sortie, and provide extra points (extra perks?) to those who fly with enemy-icons reduced or disabled.

[Ripsnort]

The closest thing to realism that AH can offer would be Check Six events or Snap shots with historical and/or user made maps.

[jihad]

You might want to check your mail Ripsnort, are you still with Earthlink?

[kfsone]

Agreed, ripsnort. I think it's unrealistic to expect total-realism in the main arena - it'd just be too darn dull for most to be a 'massively' multi-player game. Just look at how hard it is to get someone to gun for a buff for 40 minutes...

I don't want to discourage anyone from calling for realism enhancements or refinements to the engine - I look forward to as much realism and historical accuracy in the snapshots and scenarios as possible, and that's really what this is about. The main arena and friends should be here to make those ultra-real events financally possible, and some of the uber-realism pundits need to get real on that issue and stop flaming AH because the main-funding, erm, main-arena has to earn a living =)