Originally posted by Squire
Nobody has yet come out with a stand alone WW1 sim, designed that way from the ground up, and backed by some hard cash.
Wrong. For example Flying Circus was an attempt to make a online WW1 sim from the grounds up. It was good, enjoyable and died the moment the developers tried to charge money for it.
Red Baron 3D was excellent WW1 online sim as well, and it did run at the Sierra Network for a long time. Yet, it died as well.
On more recent grounds, there was a fantastic offline-WW1 sim being done by a small US studio, can't remember its name now, my notes are at the office. I think it died off last year.
Currently Gennadich studio is making a WW1 sim called Knights of the Sky, and it looks nice. But offline, primarily.
But anyway, there's been serious attempts on online WW1 sims, and those have failed. Even Dawn of Aces, when it was fresh and well supported, with steady development, died early death when players moved back to WW2 arenas. It still exists, in its 3rd major version, or is it Dawn of Aces 2006 these days. Yet, it is tiny niche and doesn't attract any meaningful number of pilots.
WW1 online sims just don't have enough sex appeal for any longer periods, and developing one is a good way to waste money.