Why Not Multiplayer?

[falcon409]

In another active thread I made the observation that a separate thread probably needed to be started to address a personal favorite area of flight for me. . . .Multiplayer. I usually spend my time adding my worthless 2cents to other threads or piddling with VC textures, but LUCE1 (author of the active thread on MP in the FSX forum) got me thinking about MP again and why (the age old question here) do so few pilots utilize the Multiplayer Environment? I know this probably belongs on the Flight Server Forums page, but as with the Multiplayer Server itself, I don't think it would get much response since very few folks actually go there.

So voice your opinions, suggestions on what makes a "great" multiplayer experience for you, things you like about multiplayer, what you don't like, maybe why you personally don't find it exciting enough or even useful as an area to be utilized by other pilots. I've heard just about every reason in the book, so bring em' on!:salute:

 

[jetstreamsky]

I Duoplay once a week with a friend never knowing what we'll fly or where and we jump from one aircraft to another during the evening. That kind of freedom without worrying about procedures and structure makes it fun for us, I think the idea of all the potential rigid structure around multiplayer combined with fear that your flight skills might be less than perfect Leeds people to avoid multiplayer.

 

[falcon409]

I Duoplay once a week with a friend never knowing what we'll fly or where and we jump from one aircraft to another during the evening. That kind of freedom without worrying about procedures and structure makes it fun for us, I think the idea of all the potential rigid structure around multiplayer combined with fear that your flight skills might be less than perfect Leeds people to avoid multiplayer.

Yep, one of the many reasons I've heard over the years about Multiplayer the fear of not being as "accomplished" a pilot as the others on the server. If you fly on VATSIM, that may be the case. . .as a matter of fact that's exactly why I don't fly on VatSim. I don't have the radio skills for what they want and they have very little patience with folks like me. They would just as soon you park somewhere and be quite. Also, aside from "Virtual Clubs" like Commercial Airlines, Air Force, Navy/Marines and such, simple Multiplayer servers usually have very little structure other than to follow a few simple rules, otherwise you're pretty much on your own to either follow a flight plan of your own or fly a preset "Hoplist". The whole idea of Multiplayer though is to do it "with others" such as you're doing. . . .flying by yourself on an MP server defeats the whole purpose of it.

 

[Francois]

I used to do it a lot in the Emma Field days. The only reason I do not do multiplayer anymore, or much of ANY flying for that matter, is an enormous lack of time.

Maybe once I retire........

 

[falcon409]

I used to do it a lot in the Emma Field days. The only reason I do not do multiplayer anymore, or much of ANY flying for that matter, is an enormous lack of time.
Maybe once I retire........

Yep, miss the Emma Days for sure. You have good reason for not having much time though Francois. You're about as busy as anyone I know, lol.

 

[jetstreamsky]

I think it would be good if a 'home base' was established in the centre of various flight regions, somewhere to start from with enough variety of destination that various multiplayer sessions could egress from without necessarily having to go with the crowd. In this way a busy airfield would be created with many players starting or finishing their flights generating a realistic dynamic with little or no constraints involved, in fact it could lead to individual players making their flights without need to become part of the multiplayer scene, although caused by their familiarity with this scenario it could easily lead them to become more comfortable flying with other players over time.

 

[mal998]

A few years ago we had a little flying club comprised of several flyers from the US, the UK, and a couple of other countries. It was a pretty relaxed group and we spent as much time talking on Teamspeak as we did flying. We never had a "leader" because we were all pretty laid back. Sometimes it was really funny because nobody would make a decision on where to fly to. We had some laughs about that.

Some of my flying buddies included Frank S., Creepy, Mithrin, Expat, Guns, Storm, Scenium, Noddy and a bunch of other guys whose names some of you would recognize. We used to get together at a time good for both US and the Continent and would sign on to TeamSpeak. Then we would pick props or jets or helos and choose a location and fly for an hour or two. We spent a year or more running carrier operations and it was a fella in the UK by the name of Lynx who taught me how to fly helos.

For a while a few of us ran weekly VietNam ops. It was really a lot of fun and I made some really good friends because of it. The friendship factor was really the best part of the experience. Yeah, we talked a lot, sometimes about politics, and sometimes we disagreed but all in all it was a really positive experience. But as life would have it, people got busy with other things or got burnt out on the sim and drifted away. Some of those guys are still active in the community, and I talk with a few of them frequently. These days I spend most of my time developing flight dynamics and air files for payware products and don't do too much flying other than testing. But I do look back on those multi days with fondness.

If you can find the right group of guys who you develop friendships with, it makes all the difference.

 

[falcon409]

. . . . . . The friendship factor was really the best part of the experience. . . . . . .But I do look back on those multi days with fondness.

Yea I hear ya mal998. . . .during the time that Lago was so popular I set up a flying club with a group of other folks around the time they released their MB-339. We all had it and the idea was to form a group to practice formation flying and get as many people as we could to join and participate. We ended up with a group of probably 6 or seven (out of the 270+ so-called members who wanted to "participate") and we flew 3 times a week from around 9:00am CST until just after noon. We went everywhere and I usually made up the flight plans using FSNav. We had pilots from the UK, Israel, Germany, Canada and the US and we stayed with it for about 2 years until Lago began falling apart and nerves got a bit frayed, lol. Basically though it was a great experience even though we had a tough time for a while understanding some of the broken English, lol eventually we got past that and enjoyed the flights together.

By the way, the formation flight thing lasted about a week and then we decided to just enjoy flying, lol

 

[UKMIL]

I think it would be good if a 'home base' was established in the centre of various flight regions, somewhere to start from with enough variety of destination that various multiplayer sessions could egress from without necessarily having to go with the crowd. In this way a busy airfield would be created with many players starting or finishing their flights generating a realistic dynamic with little or no constraints involved, in fact it could lead to individual players making their flights without need to become part of the multiplayer scene, although caused by their familiarity with this scenario it could easily lead them to become more comfortable flying with other players over time.

that is exactly how we run our online server. We have our own FICTIONAL airfield, based in northumberland UK, and we have a VA type system, where most pilots fly from that base. We ecourage ALL flights to be done online, so even if you are not flying formation, or missions together, there is usually someone else landing, or taking off from that airfield. Our server is not strict, we allow you to just fly, no need for comms, but we have a TS3 server if needed.

 

[stiz]

why (the age old question here) do so few pilots utilize the Multiplayer Environment?

I just like being anti-connected and anti-social in a world that expects you to be connected to everything, 24/7, telling everyone else what your doing at that exact time!

 

[falcon409]

I just like being anti-connected and anti-social in a world that expects you to be connected to everything, 24/7, telling everyone else what your doing at that exact time!

. . .and that is certainly your right stiz. Thanks for your comment....:salute:

 

[LUCE1]

...
If you can find the right group of guys who you develop friendships with, it makes all the difference.

Imho that's one of the key points for "multiplayer why yes", but this thread speaks about "why no".

 

[GypsyBaron]

I pretty much fly MP exclusively these days, on the Digital Theme Park servers, with the
91st Bombardment Group (H).

About the only time I use free flight mode is when I am creating scenery/gauges
/modifications/etc or doing .

Just as TrackIR and A2A Accu-Sim changed forever the way I fly, so has MP
changed the environment in which I fly. Actually, I go back to about 1993 with
my multiplayer flying.

That was when I 'discovered' Air Warrior and the community there. Even at $6/hour
to fly on the old GEnie network it was an irresistible experience.

After Electronic Arts bought up Kesmai Studios and almost immediately KILLED
Air Warrior, I moved over to Aces High. Unfortunately that became less of an
air combat environment, such as AW was, to mostly a 'capture the flag' environment.
That's when I dropped out of AH except for the occasional scenario event.

The early Air Warrior community was so strong that it still exists to this day,
some 12 years after Electronic Arts killed it off! We have a nntp newsgroup that
runs on a server provided by one of the AW pilots from the early 'golden age'
of massively-multi-player flight sims!

'Community' is the essence of multiplayer, IMO. Without it, it is just another
ego-centric experience.

Paul

 

[Willy]

Some of the best online friendships I've had are with the guys that I fly multiplayer with. We've been flying together for several years now. Very laid back and informal, we kind of get a general idea of what we want to do and take it from there. The VA and ATC guys would probably have apolexy from the way we fly. But the main thing is we have fun which to us is what it's all about. If you're not flying multiplayer, you don't know what you're missing.

SOH has a multiplayer server that all are welcome on. The sad part is that it's not getting much use.

 

[rcbarend]

.....and why (the age old question here) do so few pilots utilize the Multiplayer Environment? ...

Hi Ed,

Simpel answer for me.
With all the developping I do for FS, I hardly have the time to fly SinglePlayer, let alone MP.

And a language thing (me being Dutch of course): does "age old question" mean the same as "old age question" ??


Best regards, and


Rob B.

 

[falcon409]

. . . . . . .SOH has a multiplayer server that all are welcome on. The sad part is that it's not getting much use.

Yep, something I made mention of in my opening post. Part of the reason, I think, is that other than the "Round the World" event, there's nothing to draw pilots over there to participate. The Hoplists stay up for months on end, way beyond their normal shelf-life and a couple have been up for almost a year now. Sadly, I think the server suffers from the same malady that some of the other sub-forums suffer from. . . .no one uses them because there's never anyone there to read their posts. If no one posted in the main FS9/FSX Forums about the "Round the World Race" event, do you think anyone at all would participate? I doubt it, because you have only to look at the frequency and number of post on the Server Forums to see that other than your group, Willy, it's rare that anyone posts anything except when I find a glitch in a hoplist.

This whole thread, whether anyone realizes it or not is about the SOH Flight Server. I can guarantee that when it was first publicized that SOH was going to have it's own MP Server, the overall consensus was. . ."Hooray". . . ."It's about time". . . ."Can't wait til it's up and running". . . . ."Great to finally have our own Server", yada, yada, yada. . . .and then it died about a month after it started. That's how long it took for the "newness" to wear off and everyone went back to business as usual and what I refer to as the "Few and far between" (the scant few of us that actually use it) took over and settled in.

You're right Willy. . .it is sad, that with the huge overall numbers that is the SOH Community, it comes down to a handful that actually use the server.

 

[falcon409]

Imho that's one of the key points for "multiplayer why yes", but this thread speaks about "why no".

Actually LUCE1 this threads speaks about both. It's just that as you may see if you read every post there are just a whole lot of reasons why people don't use MultiPlayer. I invited responses for both the negatives and the positives. So far though the negatives seem to be what most are speaking to.

 

[PRB]

So what's the answer? I've always though that Bush Flying Unlimited had a cool thing going. The idea of a set of "missions" that anyone can "sign up" for and complete, seems like a lot of fun to me. Of course you don't have to fly online at BFU. Wouldn't it be fun to have something "inspired" by BFU, but more along the lines of our "roots" which is combat type planes, but that would have to be flown online? Of course one of the probllems with such an idea would be scheduling. To complete missions online, with other players, would require that all participants show up at an appointed time. I think this would put a damper on the whole thing. One of the nice things about BFU is that you can complete the flights on your own schedule. Just thinking out loud. What is it that draws people to those online shooter games? Ok, dumb question. We need ideas that will draw people to MP. Hop lists clearly isn't it.

 

[Francois]

I feel that it is probably also a 'time' thing. We had GREAT participation when we started Emma Field Flying Club, and BFU at Avsim was also a very active group. I have been member on and off of a few small groups over the years, some are still running. But for some reason these things seem to have run their time...... people move on, start doing other things, not only FS related too.
It has been attempted to re-kindle interest in Emma-like clubs and multi-player... so far it keeps fizzling. Even the major Aerosoft attempt with Andras Kozma's Andras Field has never drawn the attention and enthusiasm that we saw in these 'first generation' multiplayer 'communities'.

I don't have the answer, it just seems there is less interest overall in these sort of things. Maybe it requires to much imagination and especially, to much time ? Today's average attention span for anything seems to be measured in seconds rather than years....

 

[falcon409]

I feel that it is probably also a 'time' thing. We had GREAT participation when we started Emma Field Flying Club, and BFU at Avsim was also a very active group. I have been member on and off of a few small groups over the years, some are still running. But for some reason these things seem to have run their time...... people move on, start doing other things, not only FS related too.
It has been attempted to re-kindle interest in Emma-like clubs and multi-player... so far it keeps fizzling. Even the major Aerosoft attempt with Andras Kozma's Andras Field has never drawn the attention and enthusiasm that we saw in these 'first generation' multiplayer 'communities'.

I don't have the answer, it just seems there is less interest overall in these sort of things. Maybe it requires to much imagination and especially, to much time? Today's average attention span for anything seems to be measured in seconds rather than years....

Mainly what I've seen as well. . .for all the hype that goes with starting up a new Multiplayer Server/Platform, the excitement is very quick to dissipate and everyone just kinda goes back to what they were doing before they got all excited, lol. I guess in the end, there is no real single answer to why people rush to MP and then just as quickly disappear. I think it comes down to the psychology of people and why we do what we do. . . . .what motivates us and what makes us go in another direction. It sure won't be solved here and nothing I say about the merits and ease of use of MP will change the minds of those who see no merit in it and find it difficult to get set up and running. We are who we are.