Mr maddox. Maby A2A is someone to talk to??

[philip.ed]

+1 BadAim, well said

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by swiss

Why would there be a gap if there's money to be made?

Just a thought.

That's exactly my point. MS is out of the game (at least until their MS Flight is on the shelves and we don't know how much of a sim it will be), so all these people will need an optimized, modern simulator to cut their teeth into sooner or later, as FS9 is showing its age and FSX is a resource hog. More money for team Maddox, more expansions for us

If you mean that MS closed it down because they don't make enough money out of it, this also depends on the demographic you are targetting. It's true that the base FSX package is something one buys only once and the real money comes from the myriad of 3rd party add-ons, which MS doesn't see a penny out of.

However, MS lost the combat crowd to IL2 so all they had was the civilian flyers. In that case it could be true that the profits didn't justify the expenses and effort required to keep making MSFS titles, since their target audience was limited during the last few years.

In the case of SoW however, the main audience is the combat oriented folks. Again, the civilian fliers will generate more income for the add-on companies that the developer of the base engine, but that's not a problem when SoW's main base of support will be the combat flyers. The success of SoW doesn't rest on the civilian crowd, they are just a welcome bonus. A guy like that might spend 150$ on various add-ons and only $60 on buying a copy of the SoW engine to run them on, but that's still a few thousand people spending $60 each on SoW. The sim can't float on them alone, but that doesn't mean they're not a welcome boost in sales.

[Splitter]

There really is a player in the civilian flight sim market: X-Plane. Version 10 is expected around Christmas. It's better than MSF ever was even in version 9 (doesn't have the greatest stock graphics though).

A lot of 3rd party plane makers do "for pay" aircraft for X-Plane. The flight model for the sim, however, is VERY complex.

Add ons work for civilian sims because of the higher level of immersion. Yes, complex start up procedures, weather effects, engine and fuel management, navigation, etc.. In these sims, you are totally engrossed in just flying the plane from A to B. The detail and complexity in each aircraft is amazing and players devote hundreds of hours perfecting their pilot skills in a individual model. So, third party "pay ware" is viable, even demanded.

As we have seen, most combat simmers are not interested in all of the aspects of a civilian flight sim. It's too complex in its' own way. Combat simmers want to be shooting down other planes which is a totally different set of complexities and skills.

So I am not sure a crossover is completely viable. No way is a combat sim today going to mimic all of the complexities of a flight sim. No way can a flight sim add in good combat from a resources point of view.

Civilian flight sims max out your computer without any shooting. Combat flight sims max out your computer without truly complex flight models and "management" (like approved by the FAA for training purposes where you can log flight time). I'm not sure what hardware it would take to combine the two but I do know that I can't afford it lol.

As good as I expect SoW to be as far as a flight sim goes, it won't replace a sim like X-Plane. Conversely, X-Plane won't have any combat which we know Oleg will do very well. Apples and oranges. Two different business models. I'll be buying both .

Splitter

[robtek]

Well Splitter,

i really don't see why SoW:BoB couldn't win the civilian market also?
Fuel and engine management, weather effects, navigation are present, all it would take is to implement more controls and the adequate planes.
I also think that BoB:SoW has a flight model which is at least as complex as any civil flightsim on the market, if not more, and could easily serve both worlds.
The civil sims i know are resource hogs, but i think thats just ineffective programming.
As the computers got faster and faster very quickly effective programming became redundant and the programmers just added content to a bad base, imho.

[Splitter]

Hey Rob,

Could SoW do the job? Yes. But it can't do it as well. If you read about how X-Plane calculates the flight model, all the different parameters and components in the aircraft, it is tremendously complex and resource intensive.

Now, it is perfectly possible (and acceptable) to "simulate" some of those calculations with a more simple flight model and many would never notice. A combat sim has to do this because to use all of the parameters would max out the computer before the bullets even began to fly.

Then there is the "world" map. Personally, I have very little interest in spending all of my "flight sim" time hopping around England or even France in 1940. I want to fly in the US, Caribbean, Alaska, Canada, and such. 70gigs of flight sim maps give me that option (less detailed obviously).

So can SoW do it adequately? For most, that's a big yes. For the devotees of flight sims, not in the near future as far as I can see. BUT! Neither does any flight sim offer any sort of decent combat in the propeller age. Nor can they to the best of my knowledge.

Maybe sims like X-Plane are overly complex in their flight models. Maybe each component of a plane having its' own aerofoil, lift, drag, weight, etc., can be approximated adequately. I dunno. Maybe the huge number of calculations that go into such a detailed flight model can be approximated in a more simple yet just as realistic way. I just doubt it, that's all. At least for the next few years.

If I am wrong I will be happy dude though .

Splitter

[Les]

In one of the interviews from a while ago, Oleg was asked about how the online/offline aspects of SOW would work. He said (in my own words) they were still deciding, but were considering making offline planes open to all, so anyone from hacks to pro's could do whatever they want. He also said online would be two-tiered, with one form of online play open to all, and with another form locked down and using only official or officially sanctioned Maddox Games planes.

I think that could be a workable solution.

In fact, something similar has been done with a racing sim called 'rFactor', where the sim developers made the overall sim, including some generic cars and tracks, then let the modding community do with it (almost) whatever they wanted. From there you got a huge amount of crap and uncompleted cars and tracks, but also some top quality stuff too. This is seperate to other developing teams who licensed the sim engine and released other commercial products (similar to the console games made from Il-2).

The thing is though, while racing sims for the PC are a niche market, flight sims are even more so, and combat flight sims are even more so than that. And (!) Oleg has raised the bar so high with the SOW plane models, I'm not sure how many modding teams there are out there who could actually model planes to that standard. Remember too that some of these third party developers just might not be capable of stretching their products over multiple sims, or might just prefer not to for whatever reason.

Same with the customers in that last regard. Some people could see their favourite third party plane modeller making a plane for SOW and still not buy it (and SOW) just because it's not in the sim they're otherwise used to and have often invested a lot of time and money in.

Not trying to be negative. I just felt like trying to sort some of this stuff out in my own mind by writing about it, and to maybe play devils advocate a bit too, by suggesting this reliance on third party content might not have the results we'd all hope for.

Like all of you I want all the best for the SOW series and its developers, but there's a gamble being taken here to some extent, and while not knowing of course all the plans and behind the scenes goings on, I can't help but be skeptical about the third party aspect of it.

I hope for example as many potential plane-modelling teams as possible have already been notified of SOW's development and that they're all lined up to get the SDK's or whatever info it takes to at least see if making extra content is viable for them, or will that all happen later (and delay by months or years whatever 3rd party stuff we do end up seeing)?

I'm just hoping Oleg and his team, with their limited resources, can keep the series viable on their own if they have to and that they haven't gone for a business model that's too dependent upon what just might not happen. That's not meant to be an insult to Oleg's business sense, I trust he/they know what they're doing, it's just me expressing some doubts based on a lack of knowledge about something I'm interested in (how the SOW series will play out).

I think too I'm just trying to keep my expectations in check and preparing myself for a much more content-limited series than we've had so far, by imagining what would happen if there were no or very few decent third party add-ons made for it.

I find that a helpful approach to take in general too, hoping for something good, but not expecting it. Saves a lot of unnecessary disappointment and resentment if/and when things don't turn out the way I'd like, remembering I'm owed nothing, and my hopes an expectations are two different things. Nothing worse than ripping yourself off by creating false expectations and then blaming others for it when they're not met...

Edit- Posted this and then saw the man himself posted just above this while I was writing, I would have talked to him and not about him if I'd known he was actually here at the time.

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by Les

In one of the interviews from a while ago, Oleg was asked about how the online/offline aspects of SOW would work. He said (in my own words) they were still deciding, but were considering making offline planes open to all, so anyone from hacks to pro's could do whatever they want. He also said online would be two-tiered, with one form of online play open to all, and with another form locked down and using only official or officially sanctioned Maddox Games planes.

Correct, I told such things and they are still in plan.
And you really said right about many done bad and just single good comparable to original or even better. (Better: But usually more later than original was released...)

[engarde]

Central to the entire development situation must be available resources.

Imagine if MAddox Games created a Spitfire sim..... all that talent focussed on a single point?

Instead we get many great aircraft in a sim crafted by experts.

Yes, other devs will have shiny things to show off too. And in themselves, fine things they are. But will other devs have such a range and proven dedicated background of playable shiny things?

Time, and money, arent infinite factors in this sims dev cycle.

I used to be a programmer for a govt business and I sometimes I had hours to produce a fix to a problem, including phone calls for updates and ETA for producing a -WORKING- release package so managers could brief heads of depts.

I can only wonder at the polishing and balancing and crafting going on to create such a product.

I believe, from past efforts, MAddox Games will produce the very best possible product from the money and time available to them.

Developing anything isnt easy. Wild demands and requests totally out of scope?

Pointless.

Im certain the time will arrive where the product is signed off, and I will buy my initial and a few other storage copies, and with a smile on my face

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by robtek

Well Splitter,

i really don't see why SoW:BoB couldn't win the civilian market also?
Fuel and engine management, weather effects, navigation are present, all it would take is to implement more controls and the adequate planes.
I also think that BoB:SoW has a flight model which is at least as complex as any civil flightsim on the market, if not more, and could easily serve both worlds.
The civil sims i know are resource hogs, but i think thats just ineffective programming.
As the computers got faster and faster very quickly effective programming became redundant and the programmers just added content to a bad base, imho.

SoW engine will be oriented at first time only for piston engines and WWII or near this era aircraft. Also for the sport planes.
And SDK that we plan to release will be at first for these planes.
There are a "bit" more complex task because we will need to include also tools for programming of weapons, etc....

Then if all is going ok there will be first jet engines and aircraft.

But probably we will not go to the MS area of civil aircraft.
There are so many things in WWII era still never modelled that for us and third party it will be enough for many years to do...

Our engine and its features are targeted for a combat, for adrenalin and at the same time to and extra quality

[SlipBall]

So Oleg how complex do you plan for the systems management for the sport aircraft?