Saw this mentioned on Blues, it’s Tsuyoshi Kawahito and Third Wire’s successor to European Air War and Strike Fighters and the preview lists three dynamic campaigns as one of the features; though no information on what exactly they mean by dynamic. Looks like it could be interesting, provided that unlike Strike Fighters it’s actually finished when released.
SimHQ have the first preview (short as it is):
http://www.simhq.com/_air2/air_034a.html
Official site:
http://www.wovgame.com/
Well, SF was a decent sim, but being the flight sim nut that I am, I’ll buy this regardless.
No, SF:P1 was a bad sim. It’s like TK forgot all of the lessons he (supposedly) learned with the mighty Longbow and EAW. I could go on and on about why SF blew the pooch, but I won’t – and I’m not even counting the Strategy First Walmart release fiasco.
This next sim has a lot to make up for.
–scharmers
p p
For some reason, I didn’t HATE SF1. I didn’t really like it either, but I enjoyed it a tiny bit. I’ll admit it was disappointing, knowing TK’s experience and what not. Hopefully he will indeed learn from past mistakes and make this sim what SF1 should’ve been.
A little bit of trivia …
Wings Over Vietnam is published by Destineer. Destineer bankrupted Aspect Simulations (Knights Over Europe developers) because Aspect refused to make a console version of KOE. Instead we got the Wings Over War WWI action game made by an Easter Euro developer - Silver Wish Games.
:roll:
That’s very interesting…and distressing. Thanks for the trivia, Sean. :)
Well, the web site says release is next month, so it must be close.
Wow, that SimHQ preview reads like a Usenet post.
This game is retailing at just $29.99, so hopefully Those Who Hate Anything That’s Not Falcon (or IL-2) will sheath the fangs. Even if it’s just SF:P1 with carriers and F-8s, I’ll happily pay the $30, because it has carriers and F-8s!
Denny, it’s pretty much known that I’m not in the Falcon 4 or IL-2 uber-sim category … but c’mon. SF:P1 needs a lot more under the hood that what is there now. The sim’s single-player is about as sterile and pointless as any Eastern European sim right now. The engine used for powering everything but the aircraft meshes is merely a rewrite of the EAW graphic engine. The A.I. has all sort of problems, and I am still pissed and bitter that any sim that includes trim effects in the flight model DOESN’T HAVE TRIM CONTROLS. I will not buy SF:P1 1.5.
As for F-8’s…hmmm. Could it be that about, oh, 4 months ago, I myself MODIFIED the main campaign to include the decent community Gunslinger? And posted instructions on how to do it in the SimHQ board? :evil:
–scharmers
Man scharmers, you ARE bitter…;)
The engine used for powering everything but the aircraft meshes is merely a rewrite of the EAW graphic engine.
Wow, this couldn’t be any further from the truth. EAW was first written in the DOS days. SF engine was DX8 from the ground up. Not even close. Nice try though. You don’t write a gfx engine just for plane meshes…that’s a ridiculous assumption.
Chase is a grumpy futhermucker. I’d expect nothing less from him.
Wow, this couldn’t be any further from the truth. EAW was first written in the DOS days. SF engine was DX8 from the ground up. Not even close. Nice try though. You don’t write a gfx engine just for plane meshes…that’s a ridiculous assumption.
Really. Was it? Do you know this? And, perhaps, you can point out the specific places where them thar fancy-pants DX8 effects and shaders and stuff were used to make SP:P1 terrain look just like EAWs…only MORE boring? From what I can see, there pretty much isn’t anything in SF that couldn’t have been done in DX7…and, since T&L was fucked before three patches, DX6 would have worked.
I stand by my point that everything in SF:P1 looks either a)aged or b)like shit except for the aircraft. And I don’t care if TK hand-wrote the graphic routines in 6502 8-bit assembler and DX9.0c hooks. Sucks is sucks. The aircraft are pretty, though. When you throw 5000-8000 poly aircraft up on the screen, the results are nice. You don’t get lots of 'em (unlike the PAW throwback GLIDE tech of EAW), but they look nice.
Chase is a grumpy futhermucker. I’d expect nothing less from him.
SF:P1 is a sore spot with me. It’s like a sim BC3K, with a much more congenial and talented designer…which why it just puzzles and infuriates the shit out me why the sim came out like it did.
–scharmers
Why did it come out like that?
Because in today’s f’ed up sim market TK and crew had to develop the sim in their own time while maintaining day jobs to feed their families, because no publisher was fronting money for sim development. Not even for a group with the pedigree of TK’s team.
So compromises had to be made in where to put development efforts.
Yeah, I’d love FS2004-level terrain in the sim. But even if it’s a “B-movie” title in some respects, I can still find fun in it.
And, perhaps, you can point out the specific places where them thar fancy-pants DX8 effects and shaders and stuff were used to make SP:P1 terrain look just like EAWs…only MORE boring?
Wow, you really are dense. It’s the tile size that determines what the terrian looks like. Put sat terrain on there at a high res and it will look just as good. The reflection mapping, bump mapping and environment mapping aren’t in EAW. (yes, genius, the terrain does do bumpmapping) Clueless. I’m not saying the terrain doesn’t suck either, but your claims that it’s EAW code are ridiculous. And yes, EAW originally was a DOS game. Unlike you, I am in the know.
which why it just puzzles and infuriates the shit out me why the sim came out like it did.
Because from reading your posts on this thread and not listening to DennyA, you don’t have any clue how game development works and you simply CANNOT make a great flightsim without A)money B)decent length development cycle.
Hmm. DOS game?
(Scratches his head, digs out EAW box, reads the requirements):
"Windows 95 CD-ROM Requirements
133MHz Pentium and 3D Card or 166MHz Pentium
Windows 95 and DirectX 6
…"
Perhaps it started out development as a DOS game and eventually was shifted to Win95?
Perhaps it started out development as a DOS game and eventually was shifted to Win95?
Yep. EAW had a very, very long development cycle and was called vaporware more than once.
Because from reading your posts on this thread and not listening to DennyA, you don’t have any clue how game development works and you simply CANNOT make a great flightsim without A)money B)decent length development cycle. Unlike you, I am in the know.
How quickly we forget who the Grand Vizier of simdom was. I haven’t been listening to DennyA for years, even when he was my editor for a short period of time :)
And unless you are TK or DanW or have had consentual relationships with them, you don’t know any more than I do.
I guess my whole point is that while SF:P1 terrain algorithms and mesh sizes may have been substantially improved, the effort was wasted. That terrain doesn’t look any better than EAW’s. In fact, if you dump the lores EAW heightmap data and textures into SF:P1, the results look better than the standard terrain.
As for the whole development cycle thing: first, the development cycle for SF:P1 wasn’t exactly “short”, and if you can’t get the cash to develop an SKU in EB, don’t go that route. Shrapnel and/or Matrix probably would have killed to have a “real” developer on their rolls and the distribution results couldn’t have been any worse! To summarize: it’s not my fault that TK couldn’t fund anyone more than himself and a couple of artists.
Wow. This DOES give me that groovy USENET feeling, without the “GEORGE BUSH IS THE SECOND SON OF GOD AND/OR DEVIL” posts that have overrun that place.
–scharmers
Umm Chase, EAW wasn’t exactly a one man show.
-CJ
Umm Chase, EAW wasn’t exactly a one man show.
Not sure I follow here. I’m pretty much aware that EAW actually went through quite a bit of personnel, but in the end it was TK who was the one to save the sim. As opposed to SF, which essentially was a one-man show. So…?
So, is oldsimguy a member of the EAW team, etc. etc.? I’m pretty sure it’s not TK or DanW, simply because I have never seen them use a nym (I thought at first it was YOU, CJ).
–scharmers
Wow. This DOES give me that groovy USENET feeling…
Someone mention snap-rolls…go on, I dare you.