Quote:
Originally Posted by Julhelm
On the subject of what a sim should be like, there is no one size fits all. I personally would not be interested in a hardcore DCS-style sim. I can say categorically that the one sim I had and still have the most fun with is the old Red Storm Rising, with Fast Attack and the original Silent Hunter as runners up.
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DCS has a lot to teach other sim, granted the hardcore simulation and study sim style is not for everyone which is also why the developers of DCS have the Flaming Cliffs series allowed to operate side by side.
What do I mean by that...
- Free downloadable simulation with very basic units for players to try out and get a feel for things.
- Free and regular updates to the core simulation with a mixture of improvements, bug fixes and new major releases every few years.
- Players pay for naval units of their choosing with the developer focusing on the most popular e.g. U-boat type7 & 21 and more modern units like a Vanguard class nuclear sub, perhaps patrol boats too anything playable basically but non-playable is all free in the core sim
- All about attention to detail and immersion, knobs and switches doing things, radio chatter, VR
- Having a lite version which includes many playable units but at a lower level of simulation e.g. not being able to walk around a sub interior, but you get many subs
The point is to have a model that continues to fund new development on the base simulation for all by selling new simulation modules to players that want them. From my observation what doesn't work well in sims is where players make a one-off payment for a sim and then require (no fault of their own) updates, fixes and improvements over many years and sims need this.
DCS and Falcon4 are the only sims that seem to have nailed that model and for different reasons. I'd just forget Ubisoft at this point this way of games development is incompatible with their business model... they wont share their code and they wont do rolling updates.