Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: AKSWulfe on March 01, 2002, 10:56:28 AM
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(http://fighterace.vr1.com/museum/images/us/FIGHTERS/F4F3_Wildcat_03.jpg)
Puhleeze!!!!!!!!!!!
(http://4f7220656c73652049.276c6c20626520696e20.796f757220647265616d.73206861756e74696e67.20796f7521203a303ac.amg.sytes.net/smile2.php)
-SW
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Whoaa! That IS a beautiful model...
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?? What is FA3? I been outa town a lot lately and away from news and internet.
Mav
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It is. I'm not crazy about the heavy weld/rivet lines and I vehemently HATE the latest trend to model those thick black lines for antenna's. Otherwise it is a fine looking plane.
Westy
(bet it flies like a Spit IX and it's four guns shoot like 50mm cannons ;) Just look at that "BFG" under the port wing-root!)
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Well actually, I was referring to the plane... the terrain graphics are horrid and that looks more like a CAD model to me than an actual in game screenshot.
I want the plane... nothing else. :)
EDIT: Mav, FA3 is Fighter Ace 3... another Microtoejam product, hardly worth a download.
-SW
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They are also gonna hve P40's A20's +(
SKurj
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"They are also gonna hve P40's A20's +("
edited: never mind
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Microsoft dumped Fighter Ace. It's solely a VR-1 product now.
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Ah, didn't know that Raub.
Either way, FA3 appears (by this SS) to be a long, long, long ways away.
-SW
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fa3 is open beta.
Its a huge Download check it out.
Personnally its not for me. The biggest draw there is invisible cockpit arenas.
they have a ju-188 :)
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It is serious competition to AH for those that favor eye candy over substance and have the computing power to get a decent frame rate. With a sizable planeset as well. Cheaper too at 9.95 per month. :eek:
But better graphics don't necessarily make it a better sim or a better game. I don't think all that much of WB3 despite the bragging about how superior their graphics are and now it is higher priced too. ;)
I doubt the final version of FA3 is gonna improve much over the current free beta, and in its present form, I still find AH to be the better sim. If VR1 aggressively continues to improve their sim the way HTC does with AH, then HTC going to be facing some serious competition.
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Ok, I have no desire for this to turn into FA3/WB3/AH who's better thread...
Now, if you wanna discuss the F4F-3 as a viable plane in AH or how cool it looks, or how stubby and perty it is and would be in AH, then that's okay....
But nothing else! mmmmkay?
:)
-SW
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Funny title for a post that doesn't want to compare FA3 to AH.
By virtue of the original post, you are explicitly comparing planeset and/or models and asking HTC to beat out FA3.
F4F most certainly belongs in AH and will one day be there so why mention FA3 at all other than for comparison?
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How so?
Let's analyze it right quick... "HTC!!!" That calls HTC's attention.
"Don't let", means do not allow
"FA3" Fighter Ace 3
"beat you"... get there first
{picture of Wildcat}
Should be pretty self explanatory since that plane is not in AH, and I have been asking for one for quite some time now.
-SW
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Since FA3 is already in open beta...
FA3 already beat AH to having the F4F, P-40, A-20, B-25..., so what are you really saying?
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I did not know FA3 was already in beta until Wotan pointed it out.
So what I'm really saying is, I want HTC to model a F4F-3.
You are looking for something that isn't there.
-SW
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I had thought the same as streak,
I didnt really know what you were talking about since fa3 was already in beta with that plane and may others not present in AH.
Anyway like I said if ya care dl'd it I bet like me you will remove it from your HD right after.........
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Nah, I have no intention of d/ling it. AH and Il-2 are all I want to play.
EDIT: I've been here since beta tour 3, why would I ever go to FA3? and if you still question my motives, read this thread I posted to not more than a week ago:http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45899
-SW
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Originally posted by streakeagle
Since FA3 is already in open beta...
FA3 already beat AH to having the F4F, P-40, A-20, B-25..., so what are you really saying?
LOL! I bet they all have the same FM/DM too ;)
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Nah, I have no intention of d/ling it. AH and Il-2 are all I want to play.
EDIT: I've been here since beta tour 3, why would I ever go to FA3? and if you still question my motives, read this thread I posted to not more than a week ago:http://www.hitechcreations.com/foru...&threadid=45899
-SW
question your motives.......???
I could carelees about motives.
I just did not understand your post given the current state of fa3. I know now you stumbled across a screenshot with no background information.
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Not you Wotan, you didn't say anything to make me think you were implying anything.
-SW
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Bloody beautiful!..My new wallpaper!..Bring F4F to AH!!!
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I will not blind myself and say AH is uber no matter what else is on the market. Like any good consumer, I will gravitate to the product that gives me the best value.
AH is the only online game I have ever played regularly and the only one I have ever paid for. When someone consistently provides me with a good product, I tend to become a "loyal" customer.
But, if product x is superior to AH in many ways that are important to me and inferior in only a few ways that are not important to me, HTC will fully understand why I would cancel my service with them to get the new product.
For me, WB3 is not that product x. Based on present trends, I doubt it ever will be. Seems the majority of online gamers feel the same way.
FA3 as it now exists (and is implied by your post whether you intended it or not) actually has some advantages over AH. FA3 appears to be serious competition in aspects that are important to most gamers: planeset, graphics, and price. As you have pointed out, HTC does need to take notice.
For the moment, I agree with you fully. AH is still the superior product and will continue to receive my dollars. They tend to cater to my needs: fidelity of flight and gunnery physics with a planeset that includes both the aircraft I like to fly and the aircraft I like to fly against.
If HTC gives you your F4F, I want the P-40B and/or A-36 :)
Where have the people clamoring for the Brewster Buffalo gone? That would be an original addition, though I doubt there would be any significant numbers of people as devoted enough to fly it regularly.
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As for the Buffalo, the proponents of that plane still lurk here. I wouldn't mind seeing one, I would certainly take it up a few times. Some of the guys who want the Buffalo are trying to get the facts about the FAF "swastika" straightened out in that other thread. So they really haven't gone anywhere, they just fly only one plane. And possibly left to go to Il2 where there is the possibility to fly 109s&190s with FAF decals on them.
Anyway, that's besides the point... Sure they have a planeset, although I'm not sure how much of one? This is honest, I know not a thing about FA3 except what has been told to me in this thread and what I see in that screenshot.
I'm sure they are still lacking the FM/DM/gunnery dept, and even when they were supported by M$ unlimited flow of cash, the updates were still few and far between (I followed the devel of FA1 from the sidelines and watched for a few months how FA2 worked out)... to say it was less than desirable is an understatement.
Anywho, I've been following HiTech, Pyro and their crew around since the early days of WB (aka CK)... and to this date they have not let me down and I don't foresee them ever letting me down.
So as long as I keep getting paid, they'll keep getting my subscription- no matter what planes they choose to add or not.
This is all IMHO of course.
-SW
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Originally posted by AKSWulfe
Anywho, I've been following HiTech, Pyro and their crew around since the early days of WB (aka CK)... and to this date they have not let me down and I don't foresee them ever letting me down.
This is all IMHO of course.
-SW
HT let me down once and only once. ONCE :D Back in the CK beta the big video card to have was the diamond stealth S3 card. I saved for a month to get that card and finaly that wonderful payday friday I got it and rushed home to install it. I go to log into the CK server and I get nothing, nothing for a week or 2 :( Finaly one day I check back and CK is dead and changed to WB with a new graphics engine, that was not optimized for the S3 chipset:mad: :mad:
But still I was left with a nice card wich worked well for my other games :)
Did I ever tell you guys that HT has directly caused every computer upgrade I've ever made?
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AH has may things going for it besides just eye candy.
I think what HTC has to watch out for is playability for newbies.
If we keep a playable planeset available where newbies can have fun, we will probably be more than competative. If we keep the present perk system we may be competative. If we revamp/scrap the perk system to make it easier to fly perked planes we will be more than competative. If we keep adding more planes to the perked list, we IMNSHO will lose a lot of newbies to FA3 and other sims.
Newbies are the life blood of a sim. Lose them, and we all lose. Attract them, and we have a target rich environment, and we can keep this great sim going and getting better. :D
AKEagle+
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Originally posted by streakeagle
FA3 as it now exists (and is implied by your post whether you intended it or not) actually has some advantages over AH. FA3 appears to be serious competition in aspects that are important to most gamers: planeset, graphics, and price.
Are these really the important points for the AH core audience? They certainly aren't for me. Well, two outta three aren't for me and the other is marginal.
Price, up to a point, doesn't factor in my decision. I thought I was getting a great value paying $2 an hour for Warbirds, way back when. How many other forms of entertainment give such varied, exciting, interactive environments? Hell, I even paid WAY more than that playing AW for a time (though affording it was a bit of a stretch for me.) So even if another game was half the price of AH, it'd hafta simply be a better game to get my patronage.
Graphics? C'mon, really here. Are we a buncha Quake kids? (Yeah, I know it seems like the skies full of them these days.) How much time do you spend outside your plane admiring it in a view like that F4 above? How often are you close enough to the enemy for long enough to really admire the awesome detail?
Planeset? This is more important to me. But even if the AH set didn't advance from here, I'd be satisfied. It's fine for MA use. Sure we need a buncha other stuff for scenarios, but the big draw of these games is really the MA.
What's important to me, and probably to most of the AH user base? Realistic, believable flight & gunnery models. And at least a limited strat aspect so there's some sorta goal in the MA. A fairly simple user interface so that flying & fighting isn't too difficult.
AH has these last aspects in spades. Until some other game is able to surpass them, prettier graphics or a lower price isn't likely to draw away many users.
D
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Just for the record: After seeing the title of the post and who posted it, I was 99% certain what the content of the post would be. (Get an F4F in AH, puhleeese). Really, it's the only thing that SW begs for. OK, well that, and sex from prostitutes at a discounted rate.
SOB
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and sex from prostitutes at a discounted rate.
Wulfie! Have you given up on the AK sheep?? :(
They are gonna miss you :(
AKEagle+
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Sneak advertising for FA3, O'Club...
Besdies, way more important things to fix before making better grpahics, also remember that there are people who can't afford new system every 6 months.
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I appreciate AH graphics: look reasonably good yet permit high framerates, but I want planeset! planeset! planeset!
No sim will make me happy til everything from the Wright Flyer to the Space Shuttle is covered in full detail, and I want nothing short of perfection in flight models and 3d models. Weapons too, from pistols and steel spikes in WWI to AMRAAM and beyond. In short, I want it all! and I want it now!
Gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme!
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I've played FA3 a few times. It's got better graphics yes.. But playability is just not there.
FM is *cough* not complete, FOV is so narrow that you lose several degrees of vision between 2 different views --> you lose the enemy for 2-3 seconds in turns unless you use padlock.
And no, I dont think that picture above was a real screenshot. At least it looks much worse on my geforce3 and all details to the max.
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Yeah FA3's graphics look good, but that's as good as they are going to get. AH players don't have to wait on a AH2 for improvements or additional planes, boats, guns, or vehicles. Heck wasn't that long ago I remember AH didn't even have clouds or flak burst, or even blue water that splashed for that matter .
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Hi,
I have actually flown both and do like FA3 for what it is. Exactly this discussion happening in the FA community as well. And they have the same comments about AH as we have about them.
I would say that what we are used to we like and protect. FA3 has a great planeset and actually has a pretty good physics. Vr1 is a great vendor and my impression is that since M$ got away they are doing a honest job to keep the community happy and working very hard. I have tried Arcade, Intermedia and Advance and it does work quite good. Hitech should be worried.
FA3 is only for piloting and no 'extra' goddies as in AH, but love the flying bit so it may fit me. This i thing Hitech should leverage on for future development because Vr1 have promised the community that FA will have similar features as AH in not a distant future.
I have only been flying FA3 for about a week now together with some other friends from AH. Because this is a "free" BETA until April why not. There seems to be a lot of people from WWII Online in there as well.
The current "free" BETA is a MAJOR download but it is worth while trying. I do like AH as well and its great community. I have however decided that i need something new and fresh so i am going to give it a go. If its better, i am going to stay if not i will return to my beloved AH. I did the same thing with WWII Online but that sucked and i dont care if it has improved.
I did try FA2 and did not like it and started AH and i do love AH for what it is, a game. There will always be new products announced that will attract communities such as AH, FA WWII etc.
Another thing is the community! AH community is greate but so is FA and WWII also, if you play those games.
Quite frankly i dont care what anyone thinks as long as me and my friends have fun together.
Have fun
Zipper9 aka ?????
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These discussions degenerate into "big dick" contests no matter what board you see them on. The original intent of the thread was an F4F lobby, but you can see how quickly that changed. Take no offense, play what you like.
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Kieran m8,
I agree 100% with you!
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I tried it out (see my comments in the O'Club).
I don't think HTC has too much to be worried about.
As for the graphics, the ONLY part that looks good are the airplane models and clouds, and the airplanes only look good at less than D2.0 - more than that and it transforms into a square.
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Originally posted by Zipper9
Hitech should be worried.
No he should not... and neither should VR1.
I bet there is room enough for both of these arena sims.
... but I do agree.. play what you like.
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sheesh, just get the damned F4F-3 into AH ASAP!!!!
along with the early Zeke, the Kate (or Jill), the Val (or Judy), the Dauntless and P40. ;)
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Originally posted by Sandman_SBM
No he should not... and neither should VR1.
I bet there is room enough for both of these arena sims.
... but I do agree.. play what you like.
I agree, apples and oranges. Tried it for a while last night. Not my cup of tea.
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What Nifty said. :)
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Look at those rivets around the wing joint..Bloody beautiful!!!..Bring F4F to AH..!!!This is the best screen shot I've ever seen..:)
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Originally posted by mrsid2
I've played FA3 a few times. It's got better graphics yes.. But playability is just not there.
FM is *cough* not complete, FOV is so narrow that you lose several degrees of vision between 2 different views --> you lose the enemy for 2-3 seconds in turns unless you use padlock.
And no, I dont think that picture above was a real screenshot. At least it looks much worse on my geforce3 and all details to the max.
You poor lost NVidia soul. All of my games look that smooth at x2 FSAA :) I just don't have the speed to use it at higher resolutions than 1280 x 1024. Of course it looks so good at 1024 x 768, that's what I normally run at :D
I seem to be hijacking everyone's threads lately, so why not hijack the same thread twice ;)
I finally tried some offline practice combat with FA3: the F4F looks pretty, but the ACM/view thing is going to kill this game. AH still has the best view system by far. If only HTC would fill my view with all of these great early war planes before I hit retirement age :D
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it does look that good. I just came out from a rainy Guadalcanal night fight.
Again i do agree and take back my previous statement there are pros & Cons in any game and there should be room for more than one. I guess it is up to what we want.
Thats it from me on this topic.
Have fun
Zipper9
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Streak: Pretty is pretty and performance is performance. I'd lose eye candy over a smooth FPS anytime.
I could use FSAA with my geforce3 but I choose not to. There might be a time when my framerates would chop simply because of eye candy, losing a fight because of that is not worth it.
Offline sims I have no problem to play even with choppy framerates, those you can pause, change settings and continue :)
Edit: I take my words back about the graphics, they really do look that good in the correct light and external view.
The view from the cockpit portrays the skin as very low res blocky bitmaps, at distance it looks much better - especially with a light source reflecting from it.
Too bad the game is still ruined by the poor view implementation and rubber-band FM. It's pretty.
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If pretty didn't matter, we would still be playing wireframe games like Battlezone.
If performance didn't matter, we would just stare at a photo on the desktop: 0 fps permits the ultimate in pretty ;)
I reserve the right to demand pretty eye candy with high performance, its up to the hardware and sofware people to deliver the best possible compromise.
FA3 has a different balance compared to AH. Of course, different is only better or worse based on personal taste. I prefer photorealistic images at 40+ fps to jaggedies at 80+ fps. I prefer poor graphics at 30+ fps to great graphics at 10 fps. Having tried nearly everything I can find, AH with the Voodoo5 gives me the bestest :) But FA3 gets the same comment our cook used to get on the submarine, "Nice try, VR1!" :D If nothing else, it sure does look pretty and it has so many planes.
I am always going to keep hoping that all the best aspects of all the flight sims that have ever existed are somehow rolled into one giant uber program. HTC seems to have taken it several steps further by simultaneously addressing land and sea aspects as well. But in the not too distant future (as will all pc games), the graphics engine for the current version of AH will look as backwards as the Atari 2600. It does't make it any less fun, but I currently play AH rather than my Atari 2600 games (which coincidently include Battlezone).
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Something isn't right about that picture.
Either the cockpit transparency is wrong or its been cut and paste onto that background.
And the lightsourcing looks wrong. It appears the sun should below the wingline which doesn't match up with the rest of the pic or the ambient light levels.
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While I didn't take that screenshot, I can say it looks almost identical on my screen. Anything that looks funny is a result of poor coding or DirectX design failures. :p
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Yes Vulcan,..good eye. There is a reflection of light on the left fuselage, above the left wing, but the left wing is absent of much light. Looks like either the normals are whacked or the materials were not set up correctly for any of the upper wing surfaces.
I bet they used a Blinn material for the fuselage, but forgot to move from a Lambert material on the wings to Blinn.
The reflectivity is way off on the wings, as compared to the fuselage, making them look as though they were made of completely different materials.
The cockpit glass appears to have lost its alpha, as you should be able to see the terrain through the glass. Hmmm,..I bet they did not make the poly face for the glass double sided (i.e. face normals only pointing outward instead of 2 face normals for both sides of the poly. Could be an error in the graphics card/driver that this shot was taken from as well.
The seams in the fuselage are too pronounced as well.
I will give them credit for nice usage of bump mapping textures on the fuselage though. Notice how the reflected light breaks up. Nicely done, but a bit too harsh. Kind of makes the fuselage look like it was made of a really rough wood.
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The difference in texture appearance is a matter of lighting. As you can see in this screen shot the wings do reflect light if the light source has a higher angle of incidence.
The screenshots look pretty good. Unfortunately, the game in motion doesn't do the screenshots justice.
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Uhmm. the reflection of the light off the wing surfaces is still wrong as compared to the fuselage.
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I tried it for a bit- I don't know, I thought it was ok. Reminded me a lot of the WWIIOL flight model. The graphics were mixed, but you guys have talked about that already. What was definitely cool were the explosions. Dropped a big bomb from a stuka and saw the best mushroom cloud I have seen in any sim. Truly awesome!
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"the game in motion doesn't do the screenshots justice."
No MMPOG does unless you fly in a 3rd person mode. I love some of the screen shots of planes from WB III and these from FA3 look ok (gross panell/seams/antena lines to say the least) but AH is not slouch at all either. I put many (if not all) of the aircraft modelled by HTC in the last year on par with them.
Westy
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Originally posted by SOB
Just for the record: After seeing the title of the post and who posted it, I was 99% certain what the content of the post would be. (Get an F4F in AH, puhleeese). Really, it's the only thing that SW begs for. OK, well that, and sex from prostitutes at a discounted rate.
SOB
I guess that must mean that pimpjoe is an AK now...
Those damn AKs get all the perks
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if they were folks in the full real rooms (and if they were to make them just that) I would have given a better look.
I just dont care for the no cockpit rooms. The cockpit povs are bad imho and the tracers and dm are bothersome as well.
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Take a look at this: http://fa.vr1.co.jp/
Click second last button on the left.
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It's a shame that the great engine is crippled by a poor FOV implementation and rubber-band FM aircraft.
None of the aircraft have any stability whatsoever, allowing the pilots to yank about twice the AOA compared to AH. The problem is even worse as there is no way to progressively setup your stick sensitivity. Just one slider..
This results in a bouncy ride and also to the fact that the ACM we're used to in AH no longer work in FA. If someone gets to your tail, he's going to damage you with 90% certainty. Turn radiuses are so small that a tailing plane has no trouble pushing the AOA enough to make guns solution. In the intermediate g-force levels are also setup so that it's not practically possible to blackout. I never experienced 1 redout during my couple days of testing. I'm not sure if this is realistic or not, but it was the thing that bugged me most in flying FA.
I found out that there were two commonly used ACM options: Wingman :) or flying at deck, causing enemy to crash due to confusing padlock and FOV limitations making it hard to tell which altitude/attitude the plane is.
P47 and 190 series sustain turned with or outturned n1k2 if they used flaps..
The full realism arena was empty, intermediate (no cockpit, even more bs FM) about 50+ players.
There were also players in FFA (airstart, the most relaxed realism)
If the FOV wouldn't force everyone to use padlock (big blind spots between different views makes you lose the enemy in turns) I probably would have stayed to practise it more.
I could barely maintain 1:1 k/d in the ffa or intermediate arena as my usual acm didn't work there - so I got frustrated and left.
Full realism seemed much more fun, but I only got a chance to fight once against 1 another player LOL.
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As the films show, from Zipper9's link, the huge yellow "cone of direction, glass cockpits and other arcade concessions pretty much asure FA's rep as simply a "gamers" game. Otherwise the aircraft, gunfire and ground/aircraft explosions look very nice.
Westy
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I for one wish they would put out a stand-alone. I could turn off all those features I dislike and have fun. I don't have the time to fly online right now, and the graphics/performance combination is about where I like it on my rig. As far as the f/m is concerned- hey, I don't have to have realism in everything I do. This game looks like it could be a nice diversion when I need a break from work.