I think such a product would have great appeal.

Oleg back in the days hinted that he would have liked to expend Clod as an Air/Land/Sea sim. What you talk about (and I've played Eve Online) would expand on the previous concept.

I think that this would be a great direction in which to stear Clod. The business model would make more sence also.

Can you imagine:

Trains controlled by humans (for those of you that don't know... people actually by train simulators). NEW MARKET

Tanks controlled by humans - NEW MARKET

Ships controlled by humans - NEW MARKET

ETC. - NEW MARKET :)

I can just imagine running industries, building planes, ships, tanks, etc. to supply the front lines. Having to ferry airplane to the front line, etc.

It's a world of possibilities.

Maybe 1c could leverage the work that they did in other games, and make the 3D models/content available to Maddox games.... If you go the Pay to Play route, they would be able to pay some royalties in order to use the content...

So a different business model opens up a lot of possibilities.

Only problem here: for finacially running a development of that scale it must be the wrong concept to adress a niche and try to expand from there.

If you would create a MMO game an have a solid base of consumers, it would make possible to pay for development into niche product in the very end.

Sorry I think the speculation about having the CloD Engine as a base for a MMo Sim is just a dream that will not come true. It´s simply not producing enough money to work out.

@drewpee:
MMO - Massive Multiplayer Online
Typically supporting hundreds (thousands in some games?) on one server.

Its not new. The original internet air combat game was Air Warrior, followed by Warbirds then Aces High. It calls for a really good server (AH used to run on a mainframe) and very good connection but I have heard there is a problem with CoD and IL-2 regarding the amount of data flow, not so much for the server as for the players' connections.

I took part in AW and AH scenarios that included as many as 400-500 players organised into say RAF and LW or USAF and IJN/IJA Squadrons (fighters, bombers) with campaign objectives and controllers. Typically Battle of Britain, Pearl Harbour, Midway, Big Week etc.. The sight of 60+ B17s heading my way in formation was awsome.

These scenarios called for pre-registration, Command staff appointment, organisation of units and personnel, mission planning and briefing with dissemination through passworded forums (or other methods). Arrival on the night 'in uniform' with Unit login names, redirection to appropriateTeamspeaks, reporting to your CO, pre-flight briefings, Scheduled takeoffs, the whole works.

Takes a lot of time and effort but well worth it. Guys are getting a light flavour of it in the JG27 BoB campaign running now.

Of course on a normal night there would only be around 200 guys doing what we do in CoD, uncordinated to a large degree but with plenty of scope to link up with other units on any night and we would often pitch our squadron against friends to fight over a corner of the map. The maps were objective based and you could 'win' airfields, after inflicting enough damage, with paratroops or ground forces and could 'win the map' if you won enough objectives, something the CoD server guys are working on I believe.

Bring it on MG!!

EDIT: there was a $10 a month subscription for that but the game was free. I should think $5 a month would be a huge boost to MGs income :) I'd pay that.

+1. This idea is good but would need to be approached from the other end. It would also need strong game aspects and I am not convinced that 1c is up to that particular challenge.

Sadly Klem, the numbers of people doing flight simming is going down. I had a chat with an NVidia engineer who said flight sims used to drive the graphic market, but no more.

I think it's a generational thing, people of our generation grew up with stories of WW2 and the huge importance the war in the air gained during it.

So the days of very large numbers of WW2 flight simmers are probably over. We can have plenty of fun with those left and some ai though.

56RAF_phoenix

S!

Would be a good idea if refined to suit a WW2 simulator. As I play EVE, for too long already, the examples can be taken from there. For example logistics..you need them to be successfull, not everyone can be the new Johnnie Johnson or Adolf Galland. Be it via air, JU52 anyone, or land..Opel Blitz or even a train. The options are there!

Now in Aces High you could hamper logistics by bombing certain strategic targets etc. Same in EVE..baited or intercepted other corporations' freighters and similar sure made an impact. In CoD we already have bombers to bomb factories, airfields etc. Add to this the ground element like manned AAA and there is more job to do. Always someone wants to blast away with a big gun and defend their field or depot etc.

So including more elements to CoD would propably bring more interest to it, if implemented right. EVE will get Dust 514 that brings the console crowd to the PC gaming MP in a nice way. Sure need to see how it will work in the end, but the idea is great :) So why not same for CoD..as Oleg envisioned years ago..

You guys are right, its my dream, but I just wanted to throw the idea out there. If you look at CCP, its taken them years to get EVE to the state its in today. 1c(Maddox games) doesn't have the money or the know how to do this. 1c would have to stop all the games they put out and make it one big MMO WW2 game.

A dream that some day may come true..

But for now flight sims are and have been a nitch marking among PC games.. Which means not alot of development $

Combined that with the old addaged of.. The more you try to be all things to all people the less you can be to any specific group

BF3 is a perfect example.. You got FPS, You got tanks, You got planes, etc.. So it has it all, but no one aspect is very detailed. That is to say everything is very dumbed down, more 'game' than 'simulation'

As a die hard flight sim guy, I got to have 'details' and 'realism' first and formost.. Which typically means I need a good flight model first and formost.. Everything else is icing on the cake! That is to say you can have the best graphics (icing) out there, but, if the filght model (cake) is bad no amount of icing will make it taste good

Which brings us back to the $

So what we have to do is get all the sim co. to merge to pool resources together. ;) Make sure it stays a sim. Dreaming again....