Quote:
Originally Posted by SIDWULF
I think this idea is ridiculous, Let me explain.
Cliffs of Dover is a Flight simulator. The whole point of this game is to focus on the "Flight" part of the sim.
Or else you have to have a balence and quality would suffer in the flight aspect of the game. For example WWW2 Online tries to cover all areas, infantry, vehicles, airplanes, ect, but none are even close to simulations of the real thing.
Cliffs of Dover is a flight simulator.
|
Cliffs of Dover is NOT just a Flight Simulator.
Cliffs of Dover is a combat simulator with a high-spec combat flight simulation within it.
What has been done before - and is still being done - is the addition of a reasonable standard of ground war vehicle simulation to enhance the flight combat/simulation aspect which is still the main focus. It is not the same as trying to be a WWII-online all-things-to-all-men and fail on all aspects.
The ground war already exists in a limited AI form. The opportunity to jump into an AAA emplacement and defend your airfield, especially in scenarios that add realism by giving you limited air lives, adds another element to the game and it does not need to be sophisticated. Likewise, driving tanks or troops (or having defendable/defeatable AI doing it) to capture a base or other objective by driving simple vehicles including manning AAA wagons, or dropping paratroops from Dakotas that need to be flown, with a definition of 'capture' within the game, enhances the flight combat aspect of CoD. End games like 'capture' are needed to enable the air war to have meaning. It does not need to extend to a FPS ground army war, estabishment of forces on the ground would be enough. You cannot take ground from the air and the air aspect is enhanced further by having to attack or defend those ground forces.
If you limit 'winning' a mission to just shooting down all the other aircraft or just flattening buildings and walking away you are in the wrong game/mindset. But I wonder how many 'its only a flight sim' guys have ever experienced a broader simulation than that.
Oleg always wanted it to be more than just manned aircraft and if CoD is to survive it needs to compete with the other on-line air war games which is where its longevity will lie. Offline play becomes stale after so many times playing it and people move on to something else once it has been exhausted. Only on-line play is continually unpredictable.
Also, think about the current business model where income is only from the short life release of a new phase of CoD which takes ages to develop. Its a poor business model and more needs to be made from all that input and what do you do when you run out of history to simulate? It may be fine for the guys that are game-hungry and move on after a while to something else, leaving CoD behind, but if MG could develop CoD into a MMO, then support it with a powerful server supporting a few hundred players and charged a low monthly subscription for those that were interested in large scale play, they would have a steady income and I would bet money that many of our players would take it up and players currently on other MMO air combat sims would take it up too because its a better simulation. At the moment there is, I think, only one half-decent air combat sim that is a MMO game. Those that aren't interested can simply continue as they are.
And don't tell me it can't be done due to connection speeds, a few short years ago people were fighting to get 1Mb down/200k up. Now 30, 40, 50Mb down and 2, 5, 10Mb up is widely available. The clever part is designing it so that current generation PCs (which we'll
all have in a couple of years time) can handle it.