Spoiled by Excellence!

Would it be okay if I disagree? Although gratifying to developer, I find this thread not useful. Why, you may ask? Because we are all customers.

 

While I wasn't fond of Falcon, I've been playing "sims" before 386SX came about. "Online", against distant players, even before there was a thing called Internet.

 

Last night, at one point, there were 277 "players" online on DCS including servers themselves. All of real players were playing at a maximum of 20 servers, while the rest had been empty. And it's usually similar to that, or worse. Although there are various reasons for such a phenomenon, I don't think it's because players are spoiled by excellence.

 

The last thing I would want with this response is to start a bickering why is something good or not.

Because flight sims of this magnitude are a niche marked. Also, there are far more sim flyers that do offline, for the simple reason that most populated servers are either quake servers or free flight. Quake is just Ace Combat with FFA, no tactics whatsoever, there is no value in flying on such server if you wish to understand real world tactics... Free flight, well although not unrealistic in any way, well, it speaks for itself.

Take for instance Open Conflict server. No dislikes, but it is an ace combat server if you wish. I`m sure its relaxing to do random objectives in an unconstrained environment where no one is given any responsibility or tasks. Instead, you can do everything you desire. Not exactly on the simulation part, is it now? And yet most people go onto it. Why? Because for many it`s just too stressful to go on an organised server and actually commit yourself to a tasking, where a whole segment of a mission might depend on you and your performance. Yes, it can be stressful as hell. BUT, that`s where the "Simulation" part comes into play.

With SP missions, you can and will be able to simulate real life scenarios, and as such, is in many instances a better choice. Does it even matter to anyone in DCS who is serious about flying whether there are servers online or not? How does "excellence" come into play, when it is known that the online community (official on DCS forums, not counting clan sites) is a fraction of the whole?

So true OP

+1

Reading some of the "disappointed" and "complaint" threads here I have to admit brings a chuckle and a smile to my face as well as some fond and very exasperated memories of flight sim software of the past.

 

How quickly we forget just how lucky we are today!

 

Never before have we seen software released to the public in it's Alpha state that works so well with so few problems. It's too good really! And it's ED's fault!!!

 

Anyone remember the frustration with the various Falcon releases through 3 and 4? I can't tell you how many times a Beta or Release version of that software completely crashed our computers and all but fried some of our hard drives.

 

Of course those complaints led to the developers of Falcon, the Janes series and others to simply put their coming titles on continual "hold" status with us waiting week after week, month after month and year after year on the next "release" downloading for hours or days on an old modem and installing the software hoping upon hope that we would at least get to the start-up screen before the BSOD (Blue or Black Screen of Death) locked up our computers for hours.

 

Your not really a seasoned flight simmer unless you've spent hours slogging through the DOS prompts trying to recover your machine after the latest new release of Falcon nuked your computer operating system.

 

What the developers of ED have accomplished with DCS is simply astonishing! Software released in it's "Alpha" and "Beta" stage in a state that has for the most part caused people to forget what those labels even mean. And to top that off, we get almost weekly updates to both the software and product news! ED "WHAT" pray tell are you guys thinking?

 

DCS has provided more fun, entertainment, consistency and reliability than most software has been able to accomplish in it's final "release" versions.

 

Sometimes you need to revisit the past just to realize how great the present really is. ED with the DCS series has "Spoiled Us with Excellence" There is simply no other way to put it and from time to time we all need to not only remind ourselves of that, but also be extremely thankful for the quality they have achieved and that we've come to expect.

 

Thanks guys!

Ohhhh Noooooo..........You didn't say "Dos Prompt" did you. Wow that brings back memories for sure. Loading the 13 or so floppy disks to get your Pc back up and running.

Or adding lines to the ini. or creating a batch file to get the pc to even load the Sim.

Youngsters have no clue how far we have come. If they did they would have no complaints.

Base memory issues! What fun that was.

I can remember my first PC (and fourth computer) - I had a HUGE 30Mb hard drive. Yes, that was Megabytes!

Before that there was the cassette player and 1K built in, with a 16K memory module, then there was a tiny data cartridge thing that went with the ZX Spectrum.

So yes, we have a lot to be grateful for, even if the numbers on servers aren't massive, the software is beautiful.

Spoiled by Excellence!

Absolutely agree

Imagine a world without dcs lol

War thunder and il2 (awful!!)

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Some only look and see the negative and get frustrated and I do understand, try and look at the big picture here, I very much like what I see and where it's going with ED / DCS.

You cannot compare the older simulators with DCS at all today, even tho some still do? The level of systems and flight model(s) just amazes me. Best simflight models available anywhere.

DCS just needs a little polishing and that is happening, such as with the weapons, AI, ATC. Once these things are to the next level DCS will be truly unbelievable ,even more than it is now.

Some only look and see the negative and get frustrated and I do understand, try and look at the big picture here, I very much like what I see and where it's going with ED / DCS.

 

You cannot compare the older simulators with DCS at all today, even tho some still do? The level of systems and flight model(s) just amazes me. Best simflight models available anywhere.

DCS just needs a little polishing and that is happening, such as with the weapons, AI, ATC. Once these things are to the next level DCS will be truly unbelievable ,even more than it is now.

:thumbup:

oh so apropos.....

Imagine a world without dcs lol

I just did ! It was the most awful second of my whole week :)

Totally agree, from what we first had as early flight sim, cartoon like graphics etc, ED are, IMHO top notch, yes things go wrong, but they do their best to fix thing, and if progress is too slow for some, their problem.

I'm happy where I am, as each week progresses and updates and things come out

Take a bow ED, and well said

Good post. I've been around much longer than my forum account and i've seen it grow. I started flying when Black Shark was in beta.

This place has literally become a part of my life. It's amazing how much ED has grown the simulator and the community. Bringing in all these talented 3rd parties to create even more content is just brilliant.

Seeing all the modules take shape over the years has been great fun. Now we have all these talented campaign developers too... It really is mind blowing when you think back 7 or 8 years. Even longer for you guys who were playing Flanker and FC1.

I have so many memories from this community, it's all good stuff. People who love it and stick around get used to the development pace. Considering the complexity of what they're doing and the size of the teams i'd say the pace is staggering.

I don't even want to imagine a combat flight sim community without ED. I buy every module. Even if i'm not particularly interested in one i'll still grab it eventually. Gotta keep these guys fed.

**EDIT Shout out to all the mod devs too. Seen so many amazing mods too.

one question

Would it be okay if I disagree? Although gratifying to developer, I find this thread not useful. Why, you may ask? Because we are all customers.

 

While I wasn't fond of Falcon, I've been playing "sims" before 386SX came about. "Online", against distant players, even before there was a thing called Internet.

 

Last night, at one point, there were 277 "players" online on DCS including servers themselves. All of real players were playing at a maximum of 20 servers, while the rest had been empty. And it's usually similar to that, or worse. Although there are various reasons for such a phenomenon, I don't think it's because players are spoiled by excellence.

 

The last thing I would want with this response is to start a bickering why is something good or not.

One question.. have you played the BlueFlag online dynamic campaign so far?

I believe it was self-evident.

I did once try to play the actual Blue Flag campaign long time ago, but gave up because of horrible performance and lag issues. Recently, yes, I did, quite a number of times during test phase. It does show that active online community is very small.

ZerO crash, I must say I realized what you wrote long time ago. Although, I must add there was a misunderstanding - I was never interested in Ace Combat.

What I disagree with is a complacency and in my opinion quite a strange attitude of customers who, in turn, contribute to this airframe sim becoming even more niche. I would refrain from discussing it further now because it would start a discussion completely different than original post.

You learn to filter out complaints from customers. A case like ED, they know they have a good product and they know people will pay for it.

It just needs a little polishing, that's all. It's not broken.

With their technical ability to make world class aircraft simulations they could market these modules as trainers for real pilots if the home user market dried up such was with the A10c.

They have nellis so it's not a far fetched idea.

I sometimes stand and admire the mustang at duxford thinking... ...technically I could start that now. Flying it might be quite a leap though! Real mustang pilots have flown the one in the game as they would their real plane and told the devs how similar. If I recall there were a couple of differences, but I forgot what they were.

For what it is, DCS is the best flight product current on sale. You can spend as little or as much money as you wish. You could easily only ever fly the tf51 and the frog foot which is one of the best planes in the game.

Just for fun - An Indonesian mustang and miss Velma.

More from the 51 pit - http://www.network54.com/Forum/149674/thread/1305301708/P-51+cockpit

With their technical ability to make world class aircraft simulations they could market these modules as trainers for real pilots if the home user market dried up such was with the A10c.

If I am informed correctly, actually they are so good at it, they do professional military aircraft training software.

DCS World for the home user market is only one side of their business :)

Excellence also in terms of ED Support.

Last week and even today - Sunday!!! _ I oppened a few tickets which were all promptly solved by ED's Support Portal.

Solving tickets during weekend is something I wouldn't expect!

Kudos to ED not only for the modules and DCS, but, and above all, for the Teams behind the scenes!!!

Exactly... how many wars you know took place over Nevada?????

@Neldrion:

"If I am informed correctly, actually they are so good at it, they do professional military aircraft training software.

DCS World for the home user market is only one side of their business "

My point.

I sometimes stand and admire the mustang at duxford thinking... ...technically I could start that now. Flying it might be quite a leap though! Real mustang pilots have flown the one in the game as they would their real plane and told the devs how similar. If I recall there were a couple of differences, but I forgot what they were.

From what I know one of them would be to properly manage carburator settings. Right now carburator icing isn't modelled in DCS so basically you don't have to touch the carburator controls. In real life, you always do it when you start an approach, basically when you fly low and slow.