homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Rise of Flight - The First Great Air War Is RoF now dead!

Drivable tanks and AAA?

I don't believe either of those would be particularly rewarding inWW1 context, but that's my opinion.

However, it seems that when RoF2 is mentioned, people are looking for a whole new game, not just a few new features. I'd like a few things added to RoF - 3 early war planes and Zeppelin would be great, and an easy mission editor - but otherwise, it looks great, flies great and PWCG makes up for any ampaign deficiencies.

Pats work is amazing considering has no access to the sim code itself. I wish they'd at least let HIM work on the AI to beef it up a bit, even if they wouldn't release the code to anyone else.

My post was a tongue in cheek remark about battle of Stalingrad/ Moskau.

With all respect, you are entirely off-base.

You kinda missed my point. What I am talking about is the 'ROF isn't complete, 777 sucks' type of posts that seem to inevitably pop up.

Is development of the game at a standstill? Will we see any more updates? Your guess is as good as mine but if there isn't one I won't be surprised. What we have isn't perfect, no sim ever has been but it is playable. But I do think the game is at the end of its developmental life cycle. It happens, even to the greatest games. Developers and programmers make games because they love them but they also make them so they can eat. Once a game loses the ability to generate revenue either the team has to develop another game or they will end up going out of business.

Unless one of us gets that ever elusive 400 million lottery ticket this week then I don't see ROF getting much more development.

The big thing I am always waiting for with these sims, is an ongoing online persistent theater of war, where anyone can join/leave and complete missions across the frontline, with AI planes doing their job too.
Something like the good old Falcon4 thing, but in MMO style like Elite Dangerous.
Honestly, I don't know if its technically feasible or not, most probably you need a bunch of servers and separate areas into instances which you can move between seamlessly.
But hey, dreaming is not prohibited, right?

I would like that as well but the current sales of flight sims don't justify the extra expense unless flight simmer are willing to pay $100 or more for a flight sim (not counting extra planes, weapons mods, etc.)

No, it's not upfront money that would do it. You'd need to pay MMO costs, like $15+ per month, and you'd need thousands and thousands of people willing to stick with it, to make it work.

As we can all agree we're not going to get that for a realistic type sim (WT and its ilk are as close as they get), that will be forever the unrealized dream.



The Jedi Master

I used to dream about this being the future of simming, but I really can't see it happening now, even with the potential boost due to VR (although that's not going so soon either given the current price), assuming that new VR gamers will want a simming experience rather than an arcadey one. As far as I'm concerned, WT doesn't even come close to that dream, its small arenas do not feel like a simulation of historical theatres in any way.

If this VR would be successful and no fading away like the 3D shutterglasses, this would also bring in a new generation of games. Designed for optimum use of VR. Read this about a new VR system:
GLYPH




God damned, with all respect, I'm entirely off-base, sorry.

I think for MP they would be good. Maybe not the tanks as they were mostly trench weapons but the AAA guns on trucks or emplacements at fields would be nice.

Right now we have no real way to defend fields online except by upping the AI flak or flying caps. Then people just fly in low, bomb the fields and auger. If you could drive some AAA tucks somewhere and park them along the a-b flight line it would force people to either fly around a new direction or fly higher. Then you could also park a few at an airfield and guard.

I used to love doing that in warbirds and AH with the m16 truck. Sometimes you do not feel like flying but you still want to sit on comms with your mates on squad night.

Drivable vehicles would be the #1 addition I'd like to see to RoF.

Another good addition would be trains but only if you put them in as a simulation where people picked up cars and planned routes. There are a lot of train enthusiasts who would pay big dollars to drive trains online in a war zone and lots of others who would love to defend trains with AAA cars. But it would be a huge investment in tech and resources that might not pay out.


Back on topic. RoF is dead development wise IMO. But there is still 20-40 people online on friday night when we do our squad night. Still lots of action online. I just wish new wings wargrounds would get some new maps in rotation.

I think you could easily consolidate RoF into one big server if you incentivised all the squadrons to pay into one server. You could have it so that you had one MMO server and squadrons could pay a monthly fee (server host cost) to unlock perks like having 10+ member squadrons. Custom paint jobs, a specific number of planes that the general public didnt pull from (so you have 10 camels only your squad could use and 3 that the general public could use etc). You could build in game squad tools like squad chat and in game mission making (just placing waypoints and target marks on the map like wwiionline) type stuff.

Then the squad COs pay the money ever month and unlock these features for their squads. The price could be based on the size of the squad. Then you set it up for a persistent MMO style wwiionline esk server.


As for RoF2. The biggest thing would be rewriting the way the AI works and adding in a dynamic campaign that works online or offline. Also rebuild the way the game handles objects so you can have MORE AI planes and more buildings and more vehicles online. Then also add in a better weather system that is also dynamic.

I'd also like to be able to exit the plan (aces high style) Nothing fancy like a FPS but enough that you could get a bit of immersion. Ditching your plan and running from it as it catches fire and the enemy strafes it. That sort of thing.

Also the trenches could use a lot of work as both 3d objects as well as making them feel more alive. There needs to be pushes also so you could fly over an animation of 20k troops (total war style) charging the enemy front. They dont have to be amazingly well modeled. Just enough that if you fly over at 100m you feel like there is a war going on.

Actually... There are so many things you could add to RoF2 that I am starting to ramble... I hope one day we get a new WWI Sim. I love the way RoF flies but there is a lot it could get improved on.


A really short term fix for RoF would be 1) Ground vehicles, 2) zeppelins, 3) dynamic sp campaign 4) dynamic MP campaign

The by far biggest tweek that could be done now with minor changes... rework the way the game scores points. I mean FFS does anyone even know how it works? Or why it DOESNT work most times? We have online maps being won by a lottery draw by the master server. You just shot that guy down he crashed and died form it... you get the kill? Nope noone got THAT kill. You fly over the front for an hour then go to land and run out of fuel KILL of SUCKER by LUCKYBASTARD! I mean really wtf is that about!!!


Edit: Oh I almost forgot. The spectator camera needs to be changed. You should be able to spectate at whatever field you pick without cliking the fly button. A nice tower fiew or even a independent camera floating over the hangars lookind down the field where the planes takes off would be a great addition. Right now you cant see anything to know if the field is safe to fly from. You can ask online... but 9/10 time you will get ignored then click fly only to be vulched or bombed by a kamikaze 2 seater. (Im guilty of doing this online also...)

WW1 aircraft have been modeled in online games since Air Warrior. I know Warbirds had a WW1 arena a while back as well. Aces High thought about adding it but it never get enough people interested in its early WW2 planesets so I don't think it ever advanced beyond the think about stage.

Massive online games are a great idea and I used to play them all the time but a persistent virtual battlefield will probably never come to pass because the numbers needed to sustain it are simply not there. There may have been that interest 20 years ago but not now for sure. Attempts to create those kinds of things, even in primitive form in games like Aces High and Warbirds generally were considered failures. Almost all of the arenas in these games are taken up by people flying for specific groups, not specific planesets. That means you see plenty of P51 vs Spit IX engagements but not nearly the Allied vs Axis battles that many dream off. It would be the same with a WW1 planeset, the aircraft that is best suited for the environment rendered would be the major aircraft flown, not one that is correct for whatever country.

Correct. Who the heck would want to fly an Eindecker when everyone else on the server is flying SE.5's and Fokker DVIII's?

Well I paid for it, might as well fly it....

Yes, but you would probably hope to be flying with and against period-appropriate planes.




The Jedi Master

Kameraden,

Flanders in Flames Saturday turnout had more pilots than we had open slots on the server, this is great news as JG1 continues to fly and train in this great game.

S!

You would think that but my experience with most online flight sims is that people are more interested in their personal score than they are in actually experiencing what it was like to fly these aircraft in WW2. You saw it all the time on the AH and WB forums; people clamoring for the Stuka, or early year planes and then when they arrive they are never flown, except in special events. AH has an early and mid war arena, most of the time you are lucky to find 25 people in them.

Gamers are gamers no matter what they say. They don't want to lose. When you log in you want to play in the arena with 250 other folks. That means the late war arena. You can take a SpitI up in that arena but you won't last long against late model Corsairs or La7s. Eventually you either get frustrated and quit or you start flying the same thing that has killed you repeatedly. You should see the guys lining up when someone tries taking off in an A6M. It is boom and zoom heaven and usually the guy takes off two or three times before he says 'screw it'.

Exactly right Wklink. I've seen the behavior you described ever since the early days of "Air Warrior" in 1993!