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Author	Topic: SDOE..Past..Present..Future
Private Roger Pilot	posted 01-22- 12:28 PM Sitting at my computer after just flying the latest installment of Pete's F14 I began, once again, to think about where we were almost a year ago, where we are now and where we are going in the world of SDOE. When SDOE released we had what...10 planes? 35 missions? Germany, USA, and England. Today we have.....gosh, I'm not really positive. Maybe 25 aircraft? More if you were to count the Beta builds and WWI, and modern day planes. We also have people working on Russian, Japenese, and Italian sound packs for the pilots. New aircraft carriers with arresting wires are being designed, the Tank has been made much more operational, and some have even begun to tackle the daunting task of expanding the map size! Those are pretty immressive and exciting things! Add to them the aircraft being made for the contest, and those being made outside the contest, and within the next couple of months the total number will double again! Heady stuff for any sim. What about down the road? Will anyone ever crack the water properties to allow movement of ships? This would create all kinds of possibilities, i.e. Fleets of ships to battle, moving subs, torpedo bombing! With time comes faster machines. Will we one day see the SDOE Skies black with Bombers? At a good frame rate? Will the dreaded CTD ever go away? Will someone make use of the small map we have and make Hang Gliders..with guns? Will I ever shut up? HEY!!!!! O.k., maybe I've gone to far. Just some mental burps from an old SDOE head. PR=FC= IP: Logged
Pete Hawk Pilot	posted 01-22- 12:49 PM PR, as I was "dofing" the night away, I too had similar thoughts. And it seems almost every waking moment these days all I can think about is this sim! It's such a great sim! Anything that allows so much creativity has GOT to be good, and thank goodness it is. I mean look, what other sim can take you from being tired at 11:00pm at night, all the way to 11:00AM the next day (yes, no sleep once again) and you STILL feel too excited to sleep? SDOE!! I've got LOTS planned. The F-14 is just the tippy tip tip of the iceberg to come. I'm trying to show people that I can do a decent plane. I hope those who don't care for jets at least try it out. And thanks PR for trying it. I need motivation to keep going and that helped. Although really OP is motivation enough. It is just SOOOO COOL! My next attempts at "strangeness in OpenPlane" hopefully will blow everyones minds. It'll be nothing that's been attempted before. > IP: Logged
Raider Pilot	posted 01-22- 01:07 PM Yea, I am glad that we do not have to pay for the hours of enjoyment by the Hour. I have spent more time with this game than any other and did that without having to buy an upgrade or addition. I will just be glad when a new product is released so Michael H. et al can get something back for all their efforts to make this game so great. Best part WE the users are almost unlimited to how much more fun this game can become. I bet that even Michael H. and crew are impressed with some of the things that the users have come up with. IP: Logged
Mirthain Pilot	posted 01-22- 01:16 PM Well, I left a huge rambling message under Siggi's post, but here is a synopsis... ;} Some of the problems may need a newer version of the OP engine to be fixed, but so long as MH and CO. write the newer OP engine to integrate and update the older OP code then we will continue to have this sim till they get tired of writing code for us. ;} I love the diversity that is going into this, everything from the Dawn of Aces, to the jet age, to Helicopters. (Here is challenge to your modellers, do an OSPREY ) We are standing in the ground created by someone who obviously loves sims, and took the "Toy" principle from Maxis (Sim City, SimWorld ETC.) and coupled it with the knowledge that people like to learn and make thier recreation a personalized experience. Genius. If we keep up our communications with MH and let him know what we want, it will help to bring people over and keep this sim alive for as long as this community wants it to be. Mirthain=FC= IP: Logged
Falck Pilot	posted 01-22- 01:37 PM I wonder if, with the popularity of paytoplay online sims MH ever considered making the next openplane one like that. Only instead of pay to play you'd just pay for the boxed version and use it online like that. Something like aces high that has a constant objective instead of small skirmishes like SDOE. IP: Logged
Michael Harrison General	posted 01-22- 06:17 PM "I bet that even Michael H. and crew are impressed with some of the things that the users have come up with." You are absolutely correct. It's a continual pleasure to see what you guys have done and are doing in OpenPlane. IP: Logged
Michael Harrison General	posted 01-22- 06:30 PM We've talked about pay-to-play options many times over the past several years, but I've yet to see a scheme for which is good for both the company and the users. Most that I've studied are either good for the company (IE, steady money makers) that tend to short-change the users just enought to annoy them but not necessarily drive them all away (can you say, Warbirds?), or they're good for the users and don't make any money for the company. Ideally, I'd like to find some method which will keep us going successfully and keep the users happy. Single projects are expensive and often don't return a profit (much less the investment) unless you manage to produce a AAA title. I personally am not interested in a flash in the pan one-off success, but am more interested in a long-term relationship with the users which results in me and my team being successful (professionally and monetarily) and the users continually coming back for more. The difficult part is convincing the people with the big money (which unfortunately, I am not one of) that a taking the long view is a good idea (which is why so many people in the US are in credit card debt up to their eyeballs. They figure if they have the money in their hands, it must be ok to spend it). Oh, well. I'm starting to ramble. The upshot is that I personally want to find some way to keep this train rolling profitably for us and you. Hopefully the SOS project (for which I hope to get the NDAs back from the sharks, er, lawyers soon) will help to provide that critical mass of talent which will help to keep OpenPlane going in directions to benefit the users and us. IP: Logged
Private Roger Pilot	posted 01-23- 07:06 AM I was just thinking again (I gotta stop doing that), this game of ours may one day have the entire progression of the History of Airwar all in one little sim! Think about it....WWI is well on the way to being a reality with SV and others fine work. Make some old looking airfields and throw in a Zepplin and were halfway there. WWII, well we have that, and it's only getting better! Korea & Vietnam??? Not there yet, but isn't someone working on a Korean Jet? You know it's a matter of time before......coughPetecough..........someone starts a whole series. Modern day, thankyou Pete Hawk for getting us a foothold into the new century! And ya know, I don't think Pete has begun to scratch the surface yet. I spoke with him yesterday, and his enthusiasim for SDOE and Openplane ia greater now than I have ever seen it. So watch out for the train of aircraft being pulled out of Pete Hawks Hangar. He just needs to watch out for burnout. Now if we could only get the Pacific theatre completely done, we would stand alone, as the only WWII sim with one. Note I am not counting the ABacus addons for MSCFS. I mean.... Please. I'm tellin ya, the future looks bright for SDOE! PR=FC= IP: Logged
JV44Siggi Pilot	posted 01-23- 08:44 AM I had an idea. Of course it depends on a couple of factors; a)A big enough customer base. b)Code that is able to detect when a player loses his connection. c)Game quality. Let's take a pacific arena ( ). Carriers, fighter and bomber/torpedo a/c, run from a dedicated server. Instead of paying by the hour, or a flat fee, every player/pilot has to PAY PER PLANE! YES!!! There's the incentive to stay alive, or at least to not have one's plane shot away from under one, cos you know it'll cost five or ten bucks to be issued with that shiny new Corsair back on the carrier. A player could buy any number of planes up-front, or one at a time, by credit card. As long as the software could detect if a player lost his plane through lag or disconnection nobody would get ripped-off, just respawned back to the carrier for a fresh take-off. How many people play Warbirds at $2 per hour? How many would be happy to pay-per-plane? $1, $5 or $10 per plane, so the crappy pilots get poor quick but the aces get hours of play for the price of one/two planes per session. What say MH, is that a goer? IP: Logged
Falck Pilot	posted 01-23- 08:57 AM LOL siggi Ill never profess to be a fan of pay to play, but that idea would ensure that everyone will be flying their best and really concentrate on making it home alive IP: Logged
Falck Pilot	posted 01-23- 09:00 AM PR imo openplane is best suited to WWII (perhaps korea) and earlier. As cool as it is to have an F14 in the game Openplane just doesnt allow for the avionics youll find in sims like F15 or Falcon4. OTOH Im always hoping that it will be an ever expanding API to include these. IP: Logged
JV44Siggi Pilot	posted 01-23- 09:13 AM That's the best thing about it Falck! It would forever do-away with that online mentality of not caring about dying. Every pilot would be determined to survive...if a pilot is alone, and sees a bunch of enemy a/c cruising 5000ft below, he'll choose to behave realistically (climb higher and leg it) rather that making the usual gung-ho suicide run. The extra depth that would bring to the game would be worth the money spent on the plane. But, to make real tactical flying possible the arena would have to be capable of allowing large numbers of a/c, 'massively multiplayer'. Choosing the pacific carrier scenario would do-away with the need for land...all that frame-rate sucking terrain could be dedicated instead to the carriers and a/c. We're getting "SurfTime" from BT in the spring; 24 hour/7 day flat rate connection fee of �35 per month. I, for one, would buy planes and fly every day. Anyone else? IP: Logged
Werner Molders Pilot	posted 01-23- 11:13 AM Sorry Siggi, not me. One of the reasons I chose SDOE was because I knew it wasn't going to drill a large hole in the bottom of my bank account. That arrangement would work fine for you, heck, you could probably make one of those $1 planes last a month! I'd have racked up a $60 bill in one evening easy. Sorry, if this is where SDOE goes one day, I'll look for somewhere else to fly. That's not a threat or anything, so don't take it that way. It's fact, that's all. Werner ------------------ Do you support SDOE online? Email Werner to be listed in SDOE's online phonebook today! IP: Logged
JV44Siggi Pilot	posted 01-23- 11:22 AM Werner, why DO you get shot down? Is it because you're a crap pilot or is it because you happily take-on three Spits in your lone Fw190? None of us fly realistically for the simple reason that we know we aren't going to suffer by dying online. But, if we had to pay a dollar per plane, we would be more interested in making it home than gratuitously mixing it with the enemy. Maybe the result would be a far lower kill-ratio..we would get one kill per three or four missions maybe. But how much more satisfying those kills would be, knowing they had been gained under realistic circumstances without the loss of one's alter-ego pilot. Pay for play sucks, I agree; but when that payment actually ENHANCES the online experience, rather than soley profits the owner of the server, I say it's a good thing. Think about it. IP: Logged
Private Roger Pilot	posted 01-23- 02:49 PM Well Siggi, while I'm not totally onboard with the idea, I like the concept. You are of course absolutely right. The knowledge that our ridiculous actions, and wild chances will cause nothing more than a restart makes everyone fly differently than they would if more grave circumstances were on the line. I just wonder if maybe we could find another solution. Maybe your pilot dies and you can't fly under that name for a week, or you lose all your accumulated kills, or your forced to wash Michael Harrison's car. Something needs to be figured out. Hmmmmmm....must keep thinking. PR=FC= p.s. My brother LOVES your idea completely, but then he always shoots me down! IP: Logged
robert s Cadet	posted 01-23- 03:04 PM How about a yearly license agreement? Say $40 will allow use of the follow on SDOE product (assume there is going to be one) for one year. This would allow Inertia a stream of revenue while the end user wouldn't be soaked. As a commitment to the end user, Inertia would continuously improve the Sim engine with new features, i.e. sun, rain, snow, lightning, a plane editor, etc. This should provide a win-win situation since Inertia stays in business and the end user has a continously improving product. IP: Logged
JV44Siggi Pilot	posted 01-23- 03:55 PM I don't want to piss all over your firework Robert, but a simple idea always seems to mutate into something horribly complex on these boards..hehe. Pay-per-plane is so simple I'm staggered it was actually my idea at all. One measly dollar gets you a plane and a MASSIVE immersion factor. The difference it would make, psychologically, would be INCREDIBLE. Not for the casual player maybe, but for the hard-core element it would be glorious indeed. Suddenly that VR plane, that worthless one-molecule thick layer of pixels would assume a real-world value. The plane would, by virtue of one dollar, become real. One would care about it's welfare and, by association, it's pilot (YOU!). A simple, powerful and effective idea. File it in the bin then. Sigh. IP: Logged
Werner Molders Pilot	posted 01-23- 04:03 PM Siggi- You're right, to a point. We haven't flown together in quite a while, and since that time my approach has changed. It used to be that I'd be hell-bent for the kill, even if it meant eating Kopper's tail feathers. Now, I realize that I gain nothing from the experience by doing that, so I don't. I'm no expert on tactics, but I make a conscious effort to keep my pilots polygons in one piece by the end of the mission. IMO, most users will discover this sooner or later in their gaming career. Since it tends to be more experienced gamers who fly in squadrons, and who try to fly realistically, I'd suggest that the kind of foe you want is sitting right in your backyard- the EAF. So what if you go online one night and a bunch of newbies are yanking-and-banking their way into shallow graves. They're still going to do it if it costs them money. Trust me, my learning curve would not have changed one bit had SDOE online been pay-to-play. If anything, this business about paying to play will put yet another obstacle between prospective players and our community, and its not like there is an abundance of online action right now! Siggi, I agree with your idea. The best flying is done by people who know how to use their planes the way they were meant to be used. I just don't think I, the user, should have to shell out $$$ to have that experience when it can already be achieved with some slight modifications to the status quo. In any case, I respect your opinion. Werner ------------------ Do you support SDOE online? Email Werner to be listed in SDOE's online phonebook today! IP: Logged
Private Roger Pilot	posted 01-23- 04:08 PM Siggi Just for fun (because I do like the concept) what would the virtual pilot do with a badly damaged plane that he was able to bring back in? Woud it be repaired? What about the poor slob just learning that goes through 4 or 5 planes taking off? Could a arena be setup for practice for him? Just questions buddy, I think you may be on to something. PR=FC= IP: Logged
Raider Pilot	posted 01-23- 04:23 PM Great Idea Siggi, I would rather pay per pilot - or one life. That way I have the option to Bail out before I explode or get killed. Maybe have a limit of 1 or 2 Bail outs per life. Bail outs should count as kills for the other pilot. If you are Killed you would have to pay for another life and your Kill Score and Rank would start back at 0 / Cadet. (Loseing Kill Score would hurt worst that paying for a new Pilot) Rookies would sure want to stick to an experienced wing man. I would not mind paying MH and Company a fee for that. Imagine if we could share an aircraft (Lancaster for example) It would add a whole new experience to being a gunner. Shoot you before you shoot me and my crew. LOL and you could bail even if the pilot wants to stay with the plane. (of course he probably would not want to fly with you again.) Again Great Idea Siggi. IP: Logged
Tailslide Pilot	posted 01-23- 04:37 PM How many new players is a dollar a plane going to attract considering newbies die hundreds of times before they get their first kill? A dollar a pilot will mean that people eject as soon as you get on their six. The next big openplane combat sim will be hugely popular since there will be so many addons and tools available from day 1. Why not do like quake and release stand alone server software people can setup on their own servers? Robust software that lets users connect, play and disconnect on the fly. Even give programmers hooks into it so they can write their own rolling campaigns. The developer gets a cash flow by constantly improving the engine and releasing new boxed games without having to start from scratch. The users get to have stable servers and don't need to pay to play. TS IP: Logged
Werner Molders Pilot	posted 01-23- 06:00 PM YES!!! Tail's got the right idea! Werner ------------------ Do you support SDOE online? Email Werner to be listed in SDOE's online phonebook today! IP: Logged
JV44Siggi Pilot	posted 01-23- 06:06 PM Damaged planes that get back to base, or land anywhere on friendly territory without coming apart are automatically recovered/repaired. Newbies could practice both offline and in a special arena online where their kills don't count. Dollar per pilot...maybe the server owner would not be able to generate enough revenue from that. It would depend on the number of players taking part. Or, as it's a lot easier to save a pilot than a plane, charge $5 per pilot. In real life, a lot of pilots DID bail the minute they had an enemy a/c on their tail. I wouldn't care if they did...I get the kill regardless, so long as I've put at least one round into their plane before they bail. I hear what you're saying Werner...some of us DO regulate ourselves; but it's galling to be rammed by someone who doesn't share our passion for realistic behaviour. $1 or $5 dollars a pop eradicates TOTALLY any question of generally bollocks online behaviour. However, assuming a company is prepared to run a zero-profit server, online attitude could be regulated by the kill-board method. If your pilot dies he loses his kills and has to start again from scratch. That's already how we run Jv44. I'm not prepared to pay a server unless there is a reason for me to WANT to pay that money. Making people value their pilot is a reason. It would TOTALLY change the psychological environment of online play. Aircombat would become that much more real, death, or plane loss, would MATTER. All I know is the fact that Warbirds charges $2 per hour...and they are making big dough, without offering anyone anything that we don't already have on SDoE's current setup. That $2 dollar fee doesn't make people care about their plane or pilot, so they suffer the same crappy Kamikaze environment. I reckon a $1 dollar plane would give a pilot at least an hour, in realistically structured missions, before he might be shot-down. This spawn-gulp-fight-die system we have now is arcade bollocks. What's wrong with starting on a carrier, taking off, flying to the target, maybe getting bounced on the way, fighting, flying back to the carrier and carrying-out a harrowing landing? Aircombat flying is so much more than just the dogfight. It's about the other skills, taking-off, tactics, landing. I really enjoy flying to target for half an hour, or longer. The anticipation has time to build and I enjoy the combat all the more for it. I believe it would catch-on. [This message has been edited by JV44Siggi (edited 01-23-2000).] IP: Logged
Falck Pilot	posted 01-23- 06:31 PM I think other good ideas for the next openplane sim would be... A.) Find a way to put at least 32 people on an arena. B.) Make the arena persistant ala Aces High IP: Logged
robert s Cadet	posted 01-23- 07:21 PM I still think the yearly license idea has some several advantages. 1. There are already enough pay to play games out, why add another one to the mix? 2. How many owners of SDOE play online? 10% ?? I have only played SDOE online 3 times since I bought the game in March. This is mainly because of my poor connection. A yearly license method might have a broader base support then a pay to play method. 3. Personal reason - I don't want to be nickel and dimed to death. IP: Logged
nealg Pilot	posted 01-23- 07:36 PM Only thing I have to say about it is...no matter how good it is, no matter how great the community is, I will only pay once for any game. And that amount would have to be reasonable - by my standards. Even if I were the one making any money off of it. Pay to play? I would be out. Period. My worthless 2 cents. ------------------ nealg=FC= IP: Logged
Nat Pilot	posted 01-23- 07:40 PM Thought I'd add my lil bit to all of this... Well, what Siggi says makes sense, ofcourse it does, but I'm thinking one thing.. what was said just last night about flight sims dying a death very soon, to me that seems almost inevitable, it may not last long,or it might last an age, so I have to look at it this way, if we want to keep this alive in the world, and not just for us here, we need to make the game popular both for online and offline play, if pay per play in any form whatsoever was started for this or any other flight sim, then I think you can be pretty sure it'll speed up the death of sims, what you think me as a newbie will go online with SDOE and pay to get my ass shot off.. I think not..lol, and I'm pretty sure that the general game player that buys the game and finds it pretty neat, but wants to play online would sooner buy something else rather than have to pay for playing a game he already paid for. I don't think pay per play in any form is good for the game, or flight sims in general IP: Logged
esox Pilot	posted 01-23- 07:46 PM Siggi, Somewhere in there is a GENIUS idea. That is the kind of thinking that changes things. Somehow, we would need a way to deal with server problems, CTD's and lag collissions. How about two arenas? A "realistic" arena where you pay per pilot and a "general" arena which would work the way our lobbies work now. That way, people could practice in the general arena and move on to the realistic one as their skills improve. Squads could still get together and practise and have fun without worrying about losing their pilot ($), but then set up wars in the "realistic" arena for squad to squad battles and missions. Also, the folks that are staunch "NO PAY FOR PLAY" people (thus far, I am actually one of them ) Wouldn't be forced to go that route. IP: Logged
JV44Siggi Pilot	posted 01-23- 07:56 PM Once we have flat-fee connection rates here in the UK (coming around april) I fully intend to install a majorly powerful server here in my den that will be online 24hours, seven days a week. Then all I'll need is the right sim for it. It's obviously futile waiting for some company to do it. The only problem I can imagine will be one of bandwidth. As far as the psychological environment is concerned, I'll go with the kill-board method. When the time comes I'll be looking for some knowledgable advice. Watch this space. IP: Logged
Hawk JAG	posted 01-24- 11:25 AM I find it hard to believe we are going to ruin a good thing by even thinking of pay to play. This sim is the Microsoft Flight Simulator of wwII flying sims, it will go on forever as long as tools and people are there to make planes and objects. Look how big the MSFS community is and think this sim could grow that large. Bottom line, pay to play, loose a lot of guys like me that just want to have fun and really don't care to pretend we are really dying. RC Warbirds http://home.earthlink.net/%7Epgrubich/ [This message has been edited by Hawk (edited 01-24-2000).] IP: Logged
JV44Siggi Pilot	posted 01-24- 12:16 PM Well Hawk, what are you going to do when developers give up on WW2ACsims because not enough people are buying them? Maybe the only way they will be able to justify developing them is if they can recoup their investment by running pay-per-play servers. I will never pay an hourly rate, but I think paying per plane is wholly different. That kind of system would actually benefit the player as opposed to simply making the server richer. That's if one is a hard-core player of course. The others can stick to CFS and the playstation with it's over-priced shallow software. IP: Logged
Stark Pilot	posted 01-24- 12:32 PM I think a variation on the licensing scheme would probably be the most workable way to do something like this - provide the company a decent revenue and not screw the users in the process. It would work something like this - you buy the game for say $35 - $40 with full offline capability and a time limited on-line capability, although a number of mission limt might be better with SDOE. When your mission limit is reached you are given the option to subcribe to the on-line game for a year - during which time you will receive any upgrades to the engine within the current major revision - not bug fixes (free anyways - unless your Mickeysoft) but actual upgrades (ie. night-day cycle, engines with wheels as targets, etc..). This way the developer has a semi-constant source of income against their continual work on the sim and the user gets added value - not just pay-to-play. In this scenario, the user gets the game - which he can learn to fly and even fight off-line with - a taste of the on-line play to see if they even enjoy it (some actaully don't you know..). And then, if they are hooked they pay another $35 or so for engine upgrades and unlimited on-line time for the year. Whilst some would choose not to pay, the majority of folks who already fly on-line probably would - I mean lets face it, even the less experienced here would fall under most peoples definition of a serious simmer. This would of course rely on the developers commitment to do the upgrade work and provide the added value to the user, but, with an income source this might not be such a big deal for them. Just my .0342 cents (I went a little over the .02 I think ) -Stark IP: Logged

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