RoF ? Good or bad ? Statements wanted

[vonSchaller]

I wonder why nobody is posting any videos of RoF her ? So i went to youtube
and found this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9zEDKZctnE&fmt=22&annotation_id=annotation_554680&feature=iv]YouTube - [HD
So dearest Gentlemen (and Lady) can anybody tell if these ground-crashes are really that physically incorrect like shown in this video ? Is it true that enemys fly straight away even if the player is 5m behind anf firing from all holes ? Are the ground-graphics really that poor ?

Can anybody give a statement how good (or bad) RoF really is ?

Thanks in advance...

[Balloon_Buster]

I just got it yesterday, but haven't installed it yet. But I watched the video. Geez, he was right on top of a two-seater, and didn't seem to damage it one bit. And what's with the motor running after the prop stops? And what kind of Spad would hit the ground at that speed and not disintegrate? It was like "klunk", and the fuselage was pretty much intact...

[Toadvine]

I dunno about the damage modeling on impact but I have accidentally dropped a bomb while sitting on the airfield and my SPAD was blown to smithereens, so it can disintegrate!

As far as the overall sim, I am really liking it. Haven't gotten too far, just the 4th training mission, but my general opinion so far is Rise of Flight does the best job of recreating what it may have been like to fly one of these old crates than any other WW1 sim I have flown. Which is mostly Red Baron 3D and its many mods and patches.

I can't compare to IL2 because I haven't flown that game enough.

The overall graphics, aircraft modeling both outside and inside the cockpit, accurate and detailed terrain, flight model and damage model seem all to be top tier to me.

It is a hard core flight sim. Just flying these planes as well as landing and taking off, takes my full attention. You can hit A for auto pilot and take a break but otherwise flying is a full time job.

I did have trouble at the outset, getting my stick to map the controls, logging on to their servers, and even installing the game on my hard drive. But once I got over those humps it has been pretty much smooth sailing.

A couple of things you should know about the sim that has some peeps peeved. You need to have an internet connection to play the game. There is no off line play at all. Secondly there are only 2 available flyable planes at the moment, the SPAD and the Fokker DVII. with more to be added "soon" as an option and at additional cost.

If you can get past those two stumbling blocks you are in for a real treat imo.

I was flying over the front for the first time last night on a training mission to take out a German observation balloon. Crossing over the trenches I could see artillery explosions tearing up the ground and flashes from the muzzles of the big guns. As I passed over this poor bombed out town, I could make out the rafters of the broken roofs, windows in the buildings, even the stone construction. The detail in this game is pretty cool, coming off RB3D it just blows me away.

The other thing to mention is this game is not a slide show. I have a medium to modest system and I run this game in all its glory, that is all settings on high, with a smooth FPS all the time. I have never even bothered to FRAPS it because it is not an issue. It must be in the mid 30s at least to run as smooth as it does. But I haven't seen other planes in the air yet so that could make a difference.

The biggest selling point for me is that the game is enjoyable. I am having a lot of fun with it, and it is very challenging as well. At 40 bucks USD I don't think you can go wrong with this sim, its a work of art in my opinion.

my specs:
AMD dual core 4200+ (2204Mhz)
2GB RAM
XP os
ATI HD 4850 GPU
21 inch Vewsonic Prof. Series CRT monitor

[vonSchaller]

Thank´s Toadvine for your answer. It becalms me a little of not buying another WW1-Sim with poor gameplay. I played almost every WW1 and WW2 Sim over the past 10 years and nearly all of them were crap. I enjoyed "IL2 1946" and for instant action i liked "Wings of War" (with some patches). The rest was "for the ton" as we say here in Germany . And yes i played Red Baron, but to be honest i could not live with that poor graphics. Even with all these countless patches it is an old game. So now ì´m waiting for RoF......dumdideldum

Ah and btw......does anybody having some new pics directly from the game ?
just as a teaser...

Greetings
Armin

[JFM]

A couple screens I took a few days ago that show what Toadvine mentioned.

[Albatros_Ace]

does the paint scheme editor exist or do you have to choose from pre-made textures?

[JFM]

There is no in-game skins editor. You can select different skins, but to make new ones you have to do so with an outside program, such as Photoshop, for example. I skin planes I want to fly but right now the templates are not available. My understanding is they will become available shortly. Once they do, you can expect a magnitude of skins to be created by a host of people.

[Willi Von Klugerman]

JFM,I hope you don't mind me asking but would you take a few screenshots of the sunsets in the game please.How about a screen thats something like Russell Smith's painting Flight of Bluebirds with a formation of DVII's flying along clouds with a beautifull sunset.I would most appreciate that!

Danke!

[totalspoon]

The game was supposed to allow custom skins but at this point doesn't. Hopefully it’s another thing that will be fixed by Neopq.

I got my copy at the start of last week and seeing as I had the week off, gave it an absolute flogging.

Here’s my opinion so far

Gameplay
The graphics and flight models are stunning. Some people have complained of a little chunkyness out by the horizon but I haven’t noticed it. The damage models are good but have the potential to be excellent with a little tweaking. One of the reasons I love IL2 so much was the damage modelling. One diving pass was all you needed to destroy a target if you aim was up to the task. Achieving that was hard to do, but it did reward crack shots and made a boom & zoom fighter in the hands of a good pilot something to respect. ROF is very similar in that respect. Though I’ve only done it twice (from 30+ attempts), there’s nothing like diving down hard in your Spad to give that one perfect sort burst into that unaware two seater and sending it down in flames.
The AI is pretty good but does get a bit repetitive pulling the same manoeuvres a lot of the time. I’ve ‘flown’ Red Baron and OFF stage 2 and single seater combat in ROF is VASTLY better than either. In fact, in my opinion, ROF has the most immersive single seater combat of any flight sim so far. Two seaters though are a bit of a let down. While the gunners have quite limited arcs, inside those arcs they’re death incarnate. While you may get a luck shot in at 200 meters, like historical WW1 pilots, you really want to get within 50 meters to have most of your burst hit the target as your guns give a beaten zone of fire. The two seater gunners don’t have this problem. Theirs is a perfectly aimed lazer beam of bullets, complete with perfect allowance for deflection, range and speed. They do miss sometimes but it’s never by much. You can bring down two seater by repeated attacks from outside their gun arc’s but its so frustrating when, like last night, after repeated attacks on a single Breguet 14, I was stupid enough to fly parallel to it for a moment, took a burst of gun fire (three or four rounds) in the fuel tank and went down in flames, AT 426 METERS RANGE (I paused the game and checked)!!!

The real problem with ROF at the moment is lack of content. While a newby to combat flight sims may find months of enjoyable fun in getting his skills up and learning the best way to handle the two machines, a IL2 veteran is going to find himself with very little to do within a week or two. Of the three major gaming modes

Single player.
There’s only a few single mission for each of the two aircraft and there’s no quick mission builder to quickly generate a scenario to your liking. In half a day you could easily go through these.

Multiplayer (Online)
At the moment, the only mode available is 10 minute rounds of five-a-side team death-match with no respawns. This seriously sucks for new players who are killed early, time-after-time and have to wait 10 minutes to rejoin. Another problem is that the players online tend to be broken down into two groups. Those with thousands of hours of online flying in IL2/RB and those without. A whole new generation of virtual flyers now has access to an online battlefield in their favourite era but their being slaughtered by online veterans who know every trick in the book. While the vet’s are having a ball (and I myself am guilty of this), I’ve chatted to quite a few newbies who have given up as they’re simply not having fun at all.
Despite being a new game, I’ve never seen more than 11 players online at any one time, and this was despite getting up early in Australia to try and catch the peak US gaming times.

Campaign
The campaign is probably the biggest let down of the three gaming modes. While OFF has a brilliant historically-correct dynamic campaign but was let down by it second rate CFS3 game engine, ROF is exactly the opposite with a brilliant game engine and game play and a terrible campaign. I don’t think Neoqb could have made a more sterile campaign if they tried. To start with, you pick a squadron, but from that point on, you find out nothing more about them. Several times a day, you take off with four unknown strangers in four identically marked aircraft. You see them shot down and perish time-after-time but every mission starts again with those four unknown strangers. It’s hard to feel a connection. Irrespective of which side you fly for, you’ll always fly in a group of five and the enemy fighters in groups of two. Real combat in WW1 was about the side with the advantage (numbers and/or position) trying to come to grips with the disadvantaged side while it tried to get away. In ROF, the two enemy fighters will always fly up to you waiting to be killed while you fight for position with your wingmen for a chance to shoot down one of the soon to be victims. Jumping two seaters can be a mixed blessing due to their awesome gunners.
There’s very little variation due to the very limited plane sets available. Which ever side you fly for, their will only be two types of enemy fighters and one type of enemy two seater to find and shoot down. Neoqb haven’t tried too hard either in the historical stakes as I’ve shot down quite a few Fokker D.VII’s so far in my June 1917 Spad XIII Campaign and bags of Nieuport 17's in my 1918 Fokker D.VII Campaign. All missions have a primary objective, and a stack of secondary objectives which can be triggered by flying into a specific area to start them. It’s hard to feel like a WW1 pilot as you fly to the next area to start the next secondary objective. Mission debriefs are terrible with very little information being passed on about how you did, and it’s all wrapped in a mass of broken English.

Don’t get me wrong, the first ten missions or so are amazing but after that, it will all start to feel the same and you’ll rapidly loose your sense of being their. After completing 20 missions, I’ve had enough and will wait for at least some new aircraft before continuing.

Overall
ROF has more potential than any other flight sim out there. If neoqb keep working on it, one day it will be fantastic, but that day isn’t today. If your looking to learn or your willing to wait for improvements to flow it, its probably worth getting now, but for the seasoned hard core flight simmers, there’s probably not a lot of bang for your buck in the game right now.

[Albatros_Ace]

Originally Posted by JFM

There is no in-game skins editor. You can select different skins, but to make new ones you have to do so with an outside program, such as Photoshop, for example. I skin planes I want to fly but right now the templates are not available. My understanding is they will become available shortly. Once they do, you can expect a magnitude of skins to be created by a host of people.

one more let down as the game was supposed to include a scheme editor