More Statistical Ratios

As faultless as we all believe Dynamix and Red Baron to be I don't believe we can use it as a testing ground for our hypotheses considering the fact that they used a lawnmower for engine sounds in the game. Somebody tell me if Red Baron 2 is better than the original? Red Baron 2 got some bad reviews from several gaming mags.

[Billy_Bishop]

The bad reviews were mostly due to a premature release. (can I say that here?). Sierra should have tested the game for at least 6 more months. There was a beta patch in January, or February that fixed a lot of problems, but a LOT of people who no NOTHING about WWI aircraft complained that the "joystick centering routine" didn't work. What they didn't understand was that Sierra/Dynamix was trying to model the way WWI aircraft REALLY flew, i.e. (or should that be n.b.??)you have to constantly correct your line of flight, unless you're using the auto-pilot feature to speed up time.

The Next patch came out in April (?), and that dampened the effect enough that people stopped complaining. Except for us realists, who want it back. Now the latest Flight Model patch is out, adding 3D effects for those with VooDoo II accelerator cards (leaving out your's truly with his OpenGL card), Is it perfect?? No. Is it the best WWI flight sim availble??? With the features it has, Yes. Is Sierra/Dynamix working on making it better??? Yes, it's an on-going project. Right now they're concentrating on the Multi-player aspect, hopefully that will be finished within a month or so.

Best Regards,

Al Lowe 'Honourary Canadian Citizen'
"On the edge of destiny, you must test your strength. "
-- Billy Bishop
"Variety may be the Spice of Life, but I'm diabetic, and the spice is Sugar."
--Al Lowe

This digression should probably be happening on the RB II thread, but why fret.

I imagine the greatest general complaint from a gaming audience would be the nature of a WWI scenario. Looking at the leading popular games, and judging the reactions of friends that I've tried to get hooked on RB I, gamers are expecting victories every ten seconds, brilliant explosions and graphic depiction of blood and dismemeberment. I cut my teeth on Wing Commander II, a space battle sim, and it really got me hooked on the dogfight. The action is 360 degrees, with no stalling and no crashing into the ground, no wind effects and straight firing lasers complimented by heat-seeking missiles and mines. Video communication with the enemy cockpit allows you to yell bravado back and forth, keeping the shortest of attention spans entertained.

Sitting a true gamer in front of a WWI sim and he'll be bored stiff, especially if he typically knows nothing about WWI itself. It's kind of like making a die-hard (or Die Hard) action movie fan watch a good, well-made suspense film. There's not enough explosions.

[Richard_Schrader]

I've never played a RB 1 or any other game, so I'am kind of lost about what your talking about. I have been flying for 34 years, 10 of them in the military so thats all I have to go on. I may have to check out some of these games.

Ray, Mike, Al, & Stephen:

I don't really know about a lot of flight sims, but RBII is pretty good for me. I REGULARLY get my head AND my ass handed to me by ordinary run-of-the-mill scrubs. The one time I flew against Guynemer (sp?), I never even got him in front of my DIII. He ripped my wings off.

I cannot say that RBII is a substitute for actual flight, but I can tell you this, I have as much trouble landing flight-sim aircraft as I do the real deal. The only difference seems to be that I don't wipe out anyone's classic Piper when I muff a RBII landing!

r/s

Bill

Two aspects of RB 2 drive me nuts: the "spins" are typically unrecoverable tumbles, not spins. I've done hundreds of spins in real a/c and the difference is noticeable to say the least. WW 1 a/c wouldn't tumble, nor will most modern a/c. (When RB 2 actually does spin, however, the recovery is fairly realistic, if somewhat slow). I'm told they were working on that and it may have been corrected by now. The other problem is that every time you are hit it degrades your aircraft's speed and other capabilities. In reality, of course, the stories are legion of guys who got chewed to pieces, but were largely unaware of the dire condition of their kite until they were on the ground. I recall a photo of a horrified Rickenbacker looking at an upper plane, the upper side of which had shed about half its fabric. According to RB 2 he should have been unable to maintain flying speed due to "damage". My recollection is Rickenbacker didn't even know he had a significant problem until he was on the ground.

[mike_baram]

I've noticed (quite painfully, I might add) that the D-VII seems to crash quite easily when maneuvering close to the ground...sluggish responses and poor turning in comparison to higher altitudes. I wonder if this is a glitch, or what.
The mission recap says "player crashed", and often there is no sign of being hit prior to that....
Was the D-VII better at higher altitudes?

[Reinout]

Yes, the DVII was better at higher altitudes. Fokker had designed a plane for lower altitudes, the DVI which encompassed a fuselage of the DrI and some components of other designs. It looked quite beautiful but only some 50-60 were built. It was faster than the DVII at lower altitudes. They were most probably sent to the homefront (Kest). At higher altitudes the later DVII (not much time between these two types) was better and had a better allround performance. The DVI's performance was seriously reduced when at higher altitudes.

Kind regards,

Reinout

[Billy_Bishop]

I hope you have the latest update, which came out just last month. It's an 8 megabyte file, so it pays to have a fast modem to download it.

The game does have it's problems but they are still being worked on. Right now they're working on the multi-player part of it. Then I suspect they will go back to the basic game it's self. I can't say much more since I'm involved in playtesting it, except to try to be patient. I know that's hard sometimes but I'm sure that the different problems will be fixed in time.

Al Lowe 'Honourary Canuck'
'Semi-Official Billy Bishop Booster'
'NO, not the Al Lowe who created Leisure Suit Larry. sheesh'
"Whaddya mean I can't drink regular coke no more?"
--Al Lowe