Missions and better graphics are not going to grow this genre. It'll have to be bigger then that. The interest in aviation is simply not there among the general public for it to be that simple. ARMA3 has sold almost 2 million copies in less then two years. The military simulation genre was practically non-existent after Operation Flashpoint until Bohemia moved ahead with the ARMA series years later

 

Its an interesting view of History, but military simulation has pretty much always had a steady market, Even if it was set on other worlds. Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, America's Army..... it was hardly a time of drought for military simulation. Some think of Arma 3 as more sci-fi than real world. Would you accept Space fighters (imaginary planes) in a new sim?

 

The thing these all have in common are a large unlimiting scope

 

These games all in fact have very limited environments of a few hundred square miles, A size that allowed the developers to fill that relatively small area with a high degree of believable detail.

 

"But if it were profitable someone would of done it by now!!!" is not a valid proof of anything. People would of said the same thing about space sims five years ago until someone had the balls to come up with a big idea, present it properly, and appeal to their base for funding.

 

Again, the point does not hold. Space sims never completely stopped; a steady trickle appeared, many of which I purchased, Like Dark Horizon, anything from the "X' Series, Galaxy on fire, which successfully made the jump from tablet to PC, Eve online, Evochron Mercenary, Darkstar One 

 

Not nearly the years-long dry spell that has struck civilian simulation, even as military flight simulation continues to receive new titles. To me the reason is simple: Accessibility. In the recent interview, DTG acknowledged some of that:

 

The biggest ongoing challenge is how we allow a wider range of fans to engage more deeply with our sims. We have loads of ideas (and are always coming up with new ones) to bring a new generation of players into the hobby. We want to stick to realistic simulation - this is what we do - while balancing authenticity and accessibility.

 

You know how many people are flying around in Elite Dangerous right now simply delivering cargo? The reason it's so popular is the world which surrounds the activities, the authenticity and complexity of the game play, and the scope of the universe along with the feeling of achievement. Flight simulation can tap into those same things.

 

You realize that one of the largest complaints from old fans of the Elite series is that the game has been "Dumbed down" (I hate that term) to allow for accessibility to a wider audience? The tons of screens drilling down to endless minutia that made the sim/game a long-term slog to get into, were eased by a simpler interface that allowed people to do those cargo missions without devoting what to many people was an inordinate amount of time just to learning the basics. The "X" series had to go through the same transformation to bring itself from a niche circle of devoted fans to a wider audience not scared away by the exceedingly steep learning curve.

 

As that quote from DTG acknowledges, finding the correct balance is iffy, but I think the current iterations of Civilian Flight have gone too far to the complex extreme, and the genre is overdue for a market correction.

There is an old saying: if can't take the heat get out of the kitchen.

 

Lots of people (new generations) don't know how and what it took to get to FSX. FLIGHT was >>"Dumbed Down"<< all the way to the very bottom and got what it deserved for it.

 

Now, DTG wants to move forward FSX, why? Because they are a philanthropist organization, right? A charity one, right? Remember the naysayer's before FSX-SE came to the market? "They will do this and that and we all perish in ...". Of course not. Moi? But they didn't. The just improved FSX installation, Simconnect and Multiplayer and oh my God helped 3rd parties with the new improved platform. What the naysayer's said then? Thanks? Yeah, right.

 

Of course DTG is now thinking to go further because they  FAILED with FSX-SE, right? Yeah, right. Of course they did. NOT!!!

 

They did right the first time and they will keep doing that right again written on a wall by Sublogic so many years ago.

 

No need to reinvent the wheel just improve upon it.

 

Cheers,   

Now, DTG wants to move forward FSX, why? Because they are a philanthropist organization, right? A charity one, right? Remember the naysayer's before FSX-SE came to the market? "They will do this and that and we all perish in ...". Of course not. Moi? But they didn't. The just improved FSX installation, Simconnect and Multiplayer and oh my God helped 3rd parties with the new improved platform. What the naysayer's said then? Thanks? Yeah, right.

 

They have protected their flank. Nobody can now say that the previous market was not treated respectfully and served well, Nor that it is going unsupported.

 

With that market serviced, they are now free to bring their resources to bear on a slightly different market.

 

Take a look at DTG history and of the original Rail simulator by KuJu entertainment; a "serious" simulator suffering the same symptoms of nichedom as modern civilian flight simulation. Follow what they did to it over time, slowly doing what was necessary to expand the audience.

 

Look at the game on Steam. The individual areas, the DLC.......

 

Look at DTG fishing. Simulation Outlines with an easy and accessible play mechanic. Reducing what could easily have become confusing and complicated to instead provide ease of use and accessibility. It even has hoops to aim at. 

 

It strains credulity to think they won't bring those same sensibilities to Flight Simulation. (With a plane academy, lots of achievements. missions and Steam stuff.... and an in-game store..... etc)

 

And...... where have we seen that before?

 

For DTG, it has to be close to a no-brainer.

 

 

It strains credulity to think they won't bring those same sensibilities to Flight Simulation. (With a plane academy, lots of achievements. missions and Steam stuff, an in-game store..... etc)

 

And you would see that as a good thing ?

 

I can say with some certainty that 90% of the folks here at Avsim  would not give such a product a seconds look.

 

Sad if if future of Flight simulation is reduced to this, but  great for you if that's what you really enjoy, for the rest of us (the majority here ) we have P3D and Xplane.

for the rest of us (the majority here ) we have P3D and Xplane.

 

But that's kind of the point. P3D and X-plane are there, and now maybe there is also something with wider appeal. If that new something is commercially successful, don't you think that eventually more complex aircraft would arrive just as a natural occurrence? The trick is in building a broad and at least partially stable base, then build on that slowly, not to start with complexity and a steep learning curve at the beginning that frightens off the very people needed to make the sim a true financial success.

 

I can say with some certainty that 90% of the folks here at Avsim  would not give such a product a seconds look.

 

Do you believe that supposedly over one hundred thousand unique people, from all over the world is that monolithically single minded as a group, then? I would say the various forums reflect a very wide range of interests and styles, and that the magic of Avsim is that no single viewpoint is allowed to to dominate.

Its an interesting view of History, but military simulation has pretty much always had a steady market, Even if it was set on other worlds. Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, America's Army..... it was hardly a time of drought for military simulation. Some think of Arma 3 as more sci-fi than real world. Would you accept Space fighters (imaginary planes) in a new sim?

 

 

Call of Duty and Medal of Honor are not military simulations. They are arcade shooters with military textures. The genre that ARMA3 inhabits is totally different and draws a completely different kind of player. And aside from a few new startups that have yet to be released, it's the only real mil-sim game town for slow, ultra-realistic coop play.

 

There's nothing sci-fi about ARMA3 aside from the fact that they didn't license equipment names. Everything is based on real weapons and real capabilities. 

 

 

These games all in fact have very limited environments of a few hundred square miles, A size that allowed the developers to fill that relatively small area with a high degree of believable detail.

 

No, they are very large for what they are. Everything is relative. 

 

A game where you are on foot with hundreds of kilometers is extraordinarily un-limiting the same way a flight sim with thousands of square miles is. There are still places on Altis (ARMA3) I haven't been. And the universe of Elite: Dangerous is going to be astronomically huge.

Again, the point does not hold. Space sims never completely stopped; a steady trickle appeared, many of which I purchased, Like Dark Horizon, anything from the "X' Series, Galaxy on fire, which successfully made the jump from tablet to PC, Eve online, Evochron Mercenary, Darkstar One 

 

Not nearly the years-long dry spell that has struck civilian simulation, even as military flight simulation continues to receive new titles. To me the reason is simple: Accessibility. In the recent interview, DTG acknowledged some of that:

 

 

 

I've heard of exactly zero of those games. That's the point. The space sim genre was completely niche and small until Star Citizen came along and pulled in 100+ million. Brilliant marketing and a big vision works.

You realize that one of the largest complaints from old fans of the Elite series is that the game has been "Dumbed down" (I hate that term) to allow for accessibility to a wider audience? The tons of screens drilling down to endless minutia that made the sim/game a long-term slog to get into, were eased by a simpler interface that allowed people to do those cargo missions without devoting what to many people was an inordinate amount of time just to learning the basics. The "X" series had to go through the same transformation to bring itself from a niche circle of devoted fans to a wider audience not scared away by the exceedingly steep learning curve.

 

 

 

What exactly is hard about flying a C-172? You act like FSX was not accessible. It had a full training suite for new beginners and like 80 missions of varying difficulties. No one has said to not have that again.

 

Sometimes I get the impression that you think FLIGHT invented having missions. FSX had them and a lot of them. 

 

As that quote from DTG acknowledges, finding the correct balance is iffy, but I think the current iterations of Civilian Flight have gone too far to the complex extreme, and the genre is overdue for a market correction.

 

 

Vanilla FSX was not complex. The extreme you are citing has been with add ons and those are simply a product of what the market bears. They aren't indicative of the base product. 

 

We'll just have to disagree on the direction. I just don't think an extremely limited, simplified game is the solution or that it will draw new people in with any real numbers. I think something with the kind of vision and breath of scope like Star Citizen but with airplanes is the solution. In many ways, our desires overlap. I like missions, MP, instruction, and achievements just like you. I just think everyone is better served (including the developers if they crowd-source it correctly) by a more ambitious project then a civilian themed War Thunder.

Call of Duty and Medal of Honor are not military simulations. They are arcade shooters with military textures.

 

I would see the difference only in focus, and would call it a tactical shooter, rather than an arcade shooter. Like most games/sims, its what the user decides to make of it. People play as stormtroopers, use sci-fi weapons, control giant robots..........  Alternately you could play Call of duty much more "realistically" The genres are interchangeable and elastic, though to me, if you are using fictional vehicles from 20 years in the future, you are treading the lines of sci-fi. There's no such thing as a To-199 neophron, for instance, nor are there stealth a-10 tank killers. (A-164 wipeout) How do you "simulate" non existent vehicles?

 

No, they are very large for what they are. Everything is relative. 

 

A game where you are on foot with hundreds of kilometers is extraordinarily un-limiting the same way a flight sim with thousands of square miles is. There are still places on Altis (ARMA3) I haven't been. And the universe of Elite: Dangerous is going to be astronomically huge.

 

I remember older flight sims that took seemingly hours to cover the map. They were sufficient for the time, and even today the success of things like Aerofly, and even the startling success of tablet sims shows that the whole world is not an absolute necessity. Attractive, but not the only way to construct a sim. Or to attract an audience.

 

I've heard of exactly zero of those games. That's the point. The space sim genre was completely niche and small until Star Citizen came along and pulled in 100+ million. Brilliant marketing and a big vision works.

 

As far as I know, Star citizen is still less than 90 million. (actually when I logged in a few days ago I think it was a little over 80 million) An amazing sum, but don't forget that much of that money is for tangible objects: Ships, to be exact. I've paid for a few ships myself, but the thing about Star Citizen is that it's a wargame, explosions and the whole nine yards. Excitement! There there is even a first person shooter mode, and many more things promised. Put those things in a Flightsim and with a few changes you have War Thunder 

 

I would be fascinated to see a Civilian Flightsim kickstarter, but I suspect the income would be disappointing. Lets start one and see! I'm actually waiting with some curiosity to see how the Nexgenflightsim comes along.

 

What exactly is hard about flying a C-172? You act like FSX was not accessible. It had a full training suite for new beginners and like 80 missions of varying difficulties. No one has said to not have that again.

 

FSX was accessible, but the issue is that the community has changed over the years to an almost entirely enthusiast mode. Look at videos from the FSX early years of people doing crazy things and having fun, and look at so many of the videos now about somebody carefully flicking switches for 20 minutes before even getting in the air, or you have a half hour of looking at a wing. Beyond that, the attractiveness of the base sim is now near nil without lot of expensive add ons (that bring their own problems) and once you've spent that money, you're treated to an experience that it appears few but existing users see as anything but a snooze-fest, after flying around a few hours and crashing a bit.

 

Why go through all that when you can pay $60 for GTA5 and have a much more varied, immersive and interesting experience (in a limited world) without half the trouble. Theres a reason that GTA makes a zillion dollars and no civilian sim survives today unless it has some other revenue stream besides enthusiasts.

 

FSX-SE has brought a breath of fresh air back for a while (and a return of funny videos, which we also saw a lot of in FLIGHT) as new people jumped onto the Steam Sales, but I wonder how long they will last.

 

Sometimes I get the impression that you think FLIGHT invented having missions. FSX had them and a lot of them.

 

Not at all, but I was there throughout all the complaining about how flights missions made it a "game" (apparently a horrible thing to be) and instantly disqualified it from sim status. Some even denied that FSX had anything like flying through hoops or dropping sandbags on bullseyes. I never understood it. There was a thread recently on the X-plane forums recently where somebody suggested missions, and was instantly told that that would turn X-plane into a game.

 

I like missions, but I have seen the reactions.

I would see the difference only in focus, and would call it a tactical shooter, rather than an arcade shooter. Like most games/sims, its what the user decides to make of it. People play as stormtroopers, use sci-fi weapons, control giant robots..........  Alternately you could play Call of duty much more "realistically" The genres are interchangeable and elastic, though to me, if you are using fictional vehicles from 20 years in the future, you are treading the lines of sci-fi. There's no such thing as a To-199 neophron, for instance, nor are there stealth a-10 tank killers. (A-164 wipeout) How do you "simulate" non existent vehicles?

 

You really can't play Call of Duty that way. The AI don't let you, the maps are too closed off, and the mechanics aren't there to do so. And you sure can't do it in MP. I'd call something like Insurgency a tactical shooter or the original America's Army. That game is nearly defunct now though.

 

The same way FSX players disparage other, shallower simulators...ARMA3 players make fun of Call of Duty and the like. 

 

The aircraft and tanks are sand box pieces ARMA3. They aren't really meant to be simulations but to complement the simulation of ground combat. The magic is in realistic combined arms assaults that are impossible in most other games. The A-164 is simply an A-10 with a weird tail just like the Ghosthawk is just a pointy Blackhawk based on the Bin Laden raid chopper. Most of the tanks and guns are prototypes from various armed forces or hybrids of existing designs so as not to look identical. 

 

There were a lot of people ###### about the "future" setting as well though.

I would show you some people playing COD more tactically but that would take the thread even more way off topic than it is veering, and if I was a mod, i would step in, then.  :unsure:

 

Right now we are going back and forth, and I don't think we are getting anywhere. In the past I've usually ended the impasse by simply proposing that we see what the future brings and see then who was closer to the correct call. Thats what I intend to do.

I'm not sure what your point is. You could play GTA5 tactically on some level if you really tried and I'm sure you can find someone who does. That doesn't make it a military simulation. Call of Duty and ARMA3, along with their fan-bases, are light years apart to anyone who plays them. Saying "well mil-sims aren't niche" because of Call of Duty is like saying DCS isn't niche because of War Thunder. Comparing the similarities of different niche markets and how they've expanded was my point before we got into this circle-fest about whether Call of Duty is the same as ARMA3. 

 

Right now we are going back and forth, and I don't think we are getting anywhere. In the past I've usually ended the impasse by simply proposing that we see what the future brings and see then who was closer to the correct call. Thats what I intend to do.

 

It won't be you, cause if they choose your pass they will kill the FS base with a huge disappointment once again like FLIGHT did.

 

You compare FSX with any other GAME under the sun of any another arena which is not FS instead of treating it for what it is, unique. Comparing oranges with any other fruit under the sun but oranges.

 

 

FSX was accessible, but the issue is that the community has changed over the years to an almost entirely enthusiast mode.

 

No, the community hasn't and it never had changed. That's the issue. And It never will except by evolution not but revolutions.

 

The FS community want/like the simplicity and the complexity of FSX, DTG improved the nightmarish installation of FSX which for certain folks made it easy now as compare with the box. They didn't change FSX, they just correct/improve it for better access to more people. Keep on improving it and that is the sure bet.

 

The FS community wants more of the same of FSX but always better and faster. Just that simple.

 

Cheers,

I'm not sure what your point is. You could play GTA5 tactically on some level if you really tried and I'm sure you can find someone who does.

 

The point was as originally stated. No matter what the label, it's how a person decides to play that matters. I'm not stuck on labels or particularly on boundaries, which perhaps explains why whether FSX is called a sim or a game, or even whether it's a sim or a game matters not a bit to me.

 

That would apply to Arma, Call of Duty and yes, GTA as well.

 

It won't be you, cause if they choose your pass they will kill FS base with a huge disappointment once again like FLIGHT did.

 

I am willing to wait and see.

 

No, the community hasn't and it never had changed. That's the issue.

 

We disagree.

 

They didn't change FSX, they just correct/improve it for better access to more people. Keep on improving it and that is the sure bet.

 

DTG is not allowed to do very much more to FSX, and again, I'm will happily wait to see what the new sim looks like.

The point was as originally stated. No matter what the label, it's how a person decides to play that matters. I'm not stuck on labels or particularly on boundaries, which perhaps explains why whether FSX is called a sim or a game, or even whether it's a sim or a game matters not a bit to me.

 

Go try to play ARMA3 like Call of Duty and see what happens. Go try to play DCS like War Thunder and see what happens. You are completely ignoring that mechanics, difficulty, damage modeling, pace, etc. do affect gameplay and by virtue, labels do help in describing the experience you'll get even within overall genres. If you want to pretend they are all the same, ok. It's not true, but ok. 

 

Getting back on topic, I've conceded I don't need the whole world modeled. So I'm curious as to what size world you think is needed initially? 

Hi everyone,

 

It's nice to see this thread has picked up here on AVSIM. Thank you for your continued feedback  

 

-Aimee

Hi Aimee,

 

Can you let the community know if DTG has at least decided on what will be upgraded improved upon given the constraints of improvement allowed? Is this due for 2015..as I see the debate is still open on the steam forum

 

If you could at least fix the mouse FPS drop that would be a good start!

 

All the best

 

Mark

Go try to play ARMA3 like Call of Duty and see what happens. Go try to play DCS like War Thunder and see what happens. You are completely ignoring that mechanics, difficulty, damage modeling, pace, etc. do affect gameplay and by virtue, labels do help in describing the experience you'll get even within overall genres. If you want to pretend they are all the same, ok. It's not true, but ok. 

 

You can always call in extremes, but it does not invalidate a general point. Its not even a hard search to find videos of people playing COD style in Arma. More to what I actually meant, in FSX you can fly a plane as rigidly as if it's your job, or you can try to land your glider on top of somebodys roof. Whether it's a simulation or game at that point becomes up to a user. In DCS I can do a complicated full engine startup, or ignore all of that entirely and barnstorm. Again the usage trumps whatever the designer intended. In GTA 5 I can fly around like a maniac, or I can attempt to keep the flight as far within "real" parameters as possible. Again, intent (and some modding) is the key. As many rigid examples as you can draw, I can point to more flexible ones, and in modern gaming flexibility, essentially sandbox worlds that let the user decide, are the future.

 

It would be nice to have a true sandbox sim, but I don't expect thats where DTG is heading.

 

As far as the size of a potential Flightsim world, I will leave that up to DTG. My point originally was that while full world coverage with a zillion airports is certainly nice (kind of) quality over quantity is a valid consideration, and I would be just as happy with limited areas of higher quality (maybe more so) than with a whole world of lower quality. We already have multiple sims that have made the latter decision.