German cockpit reply thread

[Anton Yudintsev]

Originally Posted by Whiskey Red

However, with that said, even arcade games have full cockpits now (Ace Combat, BS Midway, and Blazing Angels), so don't think it silly of us to have expected more. Maybe 40 planes was ambitious. I agree. But we still ended up with 12, not 40.

I don't think you get it right.
40 planes were not ambitious, it was actually hadn't been planned to made 40 playable planes.
Originally, we were going to start with 12, and all others only for AI.
But because we had physics flight models, exterior models of good quality, and also because it is console game and most players will definetly play not in cockpits-only view (that was true even for PC game), it was decided (our idea, not publisher's) to make these planes playable as well.
Timeline and budget hadn't allowed to make all other cockpits, so it wasn't an option.
As you can see, the game was even announced with 12th playable planes - and only than appears information, that in MP there will be more.
That's because publisher have checked with plans/agreements, not with us, before releasing this information.

I think, 12th planes are also pretty good for a re-starting franchise for consoles, but my opinion, that 40 are still better.
And, unfortunately, if we would make ultimatum to publisher (9 months or no game), it would mean cancelling game, that's not talking about business ethic and ruining relationship.

And, also comparing our planes/cockpits with BA - isn't fair. Their cockpits are pretty useless in any case, and the quality is incomparable. We were able to make hundred of planes of that quality, but that's not something we were going to do.