Please indulge me for a moment... or three...
HERE, HERE! ! ! I've considered myself an avid PC Gamer since I first loaded Tie Fighter back in the early nineties. I prefer sims, but love a good RPG or FPS (been playing Fallout 3 and Quake Wars a lot lately). When I discovered RB, I played it to death until RBII came out (remember that buggy piece of crapware?) and was thoroughly disappointed. I felt like a paying beta tester, but my love of sims and WWI kept me at it. Finally RB3D became a great game partly due to the company (Dynamix?) putting out patch after patch, but primarily because of what the community provided. I didn't have a reliable internet connection back then so didn't fly online much, but I loved the sim all the same. As my computers became upgraded, I continually hoped that there would be an RBIV, but it never materialized, so I contented myself with Janes sims and MS's combat sims, all the while hoping for a good WWI recreation. Sure I played Flying Corps and all the rest, but they just weren't the same. One day, some five years ago I ran an internet search for "WWI simulations" and got a link to some obscure little thing called "Over Flanders Fields". The first phase was expected to be out soon, all I had to do was submit my e-mail address and they would notify me when it was available. As I had CFS3 (and HATED it!), I figured what the hell. When I got the note that it was available, I downloaded it and was very impressed. (It was my best Christmas in years.) This, made by some random bunch of guys, in their spare time? Wow! It wasn't much, but it was already better than any WWI sim I had seen since RB3D. I was hooked. I frequented the Outhouse regularly looking for updates and was AMAZED at how that random bunch of guys responded to every little question about their work. They helped everyone, regardless of how stupid the question sounded to me, they took the time to help out the questioner. I had NEVER seen this, in all my years of gaming and dealing with supposed "support". This was definitely one to watch. Now, after playing P2 every day and being happier than the proverbial pig, I have what is not only the finest WWI air war recreation I have ever experienced, but the best flight simulator I have had the distinct pleasure of flying, fighting, and crashing in! I think Microsoft should include OFF's dev team in their royalties budget, because I know for a fact that the crap they put out as CFS3 has been purchased by many, only so they could load OFF.
I, for one, cannot express my grattitude enough to the OBD boys.
THANK YOU, THANK YOU , THANK YOU!!!
As a gamer I must say :woot::woot: :woot:!!!
...and of course, S!
P.S. Thanks for letting me rant... I so rarely do...
) then it's a sim I'll be playing for a long long time.