Finally!
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Just wanted to brag a little bit as I am finally able to launch my F-18 off the carrier deck and then, using the proper procedures, land the thing!!! Funny how if you really study the manual, everything works out!
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Itās funny I was talking the other day to my son why I hate so much of the entertainment of this century. Itās so dumbed down. Movies are written by talentless hacks. Games are designed to rot your brain and pick your pocket. Where is the artist that challenges our faculties and creates the thing firstly for the love of it? Iām a meat and potatoes free market type of guy, but God as my witness Iām starved for meaningful and uplifting art. So I guess thatās why I am here, even with its rust and thorns she is truly a thing of beauty made so and kept so by its passionate caretakers.
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ā¦hookinā is easier than plugginā.
Unless youāre hookinā after darkā¦
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Your totally right Vandal, I would of thought by now we would have a lot more āProper Flight Simsā among other hardcore sims. But most games, sims, and entertainment really are dumbed down, and just want your money. I too am a meat and potato guy and love reading big manuals. Where are all the sims with awesome campaign with depth and immersion? Besides the 'King of Sims," the only other sim I know of these days with a proper campaign is āWings Over Flanders Field.ā The campaign in that is fantastic and very immersive with very good AI. (A WW1 sim) DCS with its scripted missions and lifeless world is not for me. Donāt care how pretty it is. But thatās my opinion.
Stevie, your right brother! Have yet to tackle that and many other things.
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Sorry, but I disagree. I donāt think things have dumbed down all that much. Back when I was growing up in the 80ās/90ās most of my friends were also not interested in study sims because it required too much work. And I think there are quite a few tv series/movies now that are of higher quality than many of the cheesy tv series of the 80ās and 90ās.
Anyway, congrats on the achievement! Nice job taking off and landing the F-18!
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Sorry, but I disagree. I donāt think things have dumbed down all that much. Back when I was growing up in the 80ās/90ās most of my friends were also not interested in study sims because it required too much work. And I think there are quite a few tv series/movies now that are of higher quality than many of the cheesy tv series of the 80ās and 90ās.
Anyway, congrats on the achievement! Nice job taking off and landing the F-18!
Oh yeah I agree that there is a lot of dumbed down games, movies, tv, and music back in the day. But letās take flight sims for example. The trend was going for more and more features and fidelity say going from Gunship to Apache Longbow, etc. And evidently the market didnāt support this ā thus my meat and potatoes statement ā you canāt make too many games at a loss. So we lost Microprose and the Janes line and pretty much everything else.
And there are some amazing games that came out in the past few years. It seems a couple each year, anyway. Iād say Red Dead Redemption was a cinematic treat (though overshadowed by some buffoonery and out-of-place narratives as well as the non-sequitur Marston epilogue and ādo the mission my way or failā mechanics." But the portrayal of Arthur (up until his failure at the end) and the natural world was grand. But the RDR Online, nothing but a poostickery cash grab in regards to it. But the darn thing was still dumbed down. So I donāt know if the devs know this but cowboys at the end of the 19th century didnāt have GPS maps. Why include one? Because of the market factor, not because the art cried for it.
Another amazing game was Kingdom Come: Deliverance but suffered to some of the same issues that Iāve cited regarding Red Dead.
All the shooters that give you x-ray vision, or let you see around corners, or you run around the map hyped up on meth apparently. And loot boxes and skins to buy and on and on. Compare Star Wars now to Knights of the Old Republic. Again, normally Iām a free market guy but this stuff where games are regressing instead of advancing is heartbreaking.
As for Movies and TV there are high budget programs and have great visuals and even sometimes really good acting in them, but the stories have more and more glaring plotholes in them. Star Wars didnāt get better, it got worse. Star Trek didnāt get better, it got worse. As far as TV shows go and digging in deeper to Movies and Music, I canāt go too much into those because of the forum rules. Letās just say IMO many portrayals used to make you question what is right or wrong on many issues but seldom treated wholesome family values as regressive. Presently, you are presented with Hollywood values as being righteous and if you disagree with them you are a [blank]ist. That isnāt art in my view, thatās propaganda without a veneer.
In contrast Falcon didnāt get worse, it got BMS and got better. Itās got little political agenda. It is just strives to be a great sim.
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Rtoolooze, Great job and I concur . Thereās nothing quite like getting through a tough mission , then landing on the Boat (especially at night, Stevie )
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Iāve done pretty good in RL Trainers getting aboard the CV in the daytime, but night? I know how to divertā¦:)!
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LOL Stevie!
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Iāve done pretty good in RL Trainers getting aboard the CV in the daytime, but night? I know how to divertā¦:)!
Blue Water Ops, Baby
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Itās funny I was talking the other day to my son why I hate so much of the entertainment of this century. Itās so dumbed down. Movies are written by talentless hacks. Games are designed to rot your brain and pick your pocket. Where is the artist that challenges our faculties and creates the thing firstly for the love of it? Iām a meat and potatoes free market type of guy, but God as my witness Iām starved for meaningful and uplifting art. So I guess thatās why I am here, even with its rust and thorns she is truly a thing of beauty made so and kept so by its passionate caretakers.
100% in agreement here . . . I started āgamingā with Richard Garriotās ULTIMA series (6, 7, 7 pt II) The depth involved in those games was incredible. As an example, when my son is playing an RPG and the story requires talking to someone, there is a place you go where they ALWAYS are. Day, Night, Rain or Shine they wait for you to wander by. In Ultima the NPCās had schedules - They had homes they slept in, places they worked, places they ate (and Drank!!!) and you had to work around that. Yea the graphics were lacking but the story made up for it. This is kinda how I feel about Falcon BMS . . . The eye candy may be a bit lacking (not much though) but the game play depth is outstanding. And the combo of AI with multiplayer makes the sim really shine. In all honesty I have free time for one āgameā - I picked Falcon. I bought a new PC and a bunch of other hardware as well as printing and binding all the manuals to have and thumb through and learn when Iām not actually in air learning. I completely rearranged my office and desks just to suit one game . . . Falcon. Iām sure some other sims out there may look better, but under the makeup they are just tramps compared to the Lady that is Falcon BMS.
āHi, Iām Dega and Iām a BMS-aholicā
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Oh yeah I agree that there is a lot of dumbed down games, movies, tv, and music back in the day. But letās take flight sims for example. The trend was going for more and more features and fidelity say going from Gunship to Apache Longbow, etc. And evidently the market didnāt support this ā thus my meat and potatoes statement ā you canāt make too many games at a loss. So we lost Microprose and the Janes line and pretty much everything else.
And there are some amazing games that came out in the past few years. It seems a couple each year, anyway. Iād say Red Dead Redemption was a cinematic treat (though overshadowed by some buffoonery and out-of-place narratives as well as the non-sequitur Marston epilogue and ādo the mission my way or failā mechanics." But the portrayal of Arthur (up until his failure at the end) and the natural world was grand. But the RDR Online, nothing but a poostickery cash grab in regards to it. But the darn thing was still dumbed down. So I donāt know if the devs know this but cowboys at the end of the 19th century didnāt have GPS maps. Why include one? Because of the market factor, not because the art cried for it.
Another amazing game was Kingdom Come: Deliverance but suffered to some of the same issues that Iāve cited regarding Red Dead.
All the shooters that give you x-ray vision, or let you see around corners, or you run around the map hyped up on meth apparently. And loot boxes and skins to buy and on and on. Compare Star Wars now to Knights of the Old Republic. Again, normally Iām a free market guy but this stuff where games are regressing instead of advancing is heartbreaking.
As for Movies and TV there are high budget programs and have great visuals and even sometimes really good acting in them, but the stories have more and more glaring plotholes in them. Star Wars didnāt get better, it got worse. Star Trek didnāt get better, it got worse. As far as TV shows go and digging in deeper to Movies and Music, I canāt go too much into those because of the forum rules. Letās just say IMO many portrayals used to make you question what is right or wrong on many issues but seldom treated wholesome family values as regressive. Presently, you are presented with Hollywood values as being righteous and if you disagree with them you are a [blank]ist. That isnāt art in my view, thatās propaganda without a veneer.
In contrast Falcon didnāt get worse, it got BMS and got better. Itās got little political agenda. It is just strives to be a great sim.
Not too familiar with many games today. So canāt really judge there. I mostly play sims, either flightsims or racing games. But while you had great games back in the 80ās that I enjoyed very much as a kid, there were also plenty dumbed down games. So Iām not so sure that in todayās world everything is so dumbed down compared to the old days.
With movies you mention Star Wars. But doesnāt a lot also have to do with expectation? I mean, they were fun for what they were, but itās not like the original movies were all that great and had a great in depth story. When you look at Galactica the original and remakeā¦. the remake had a far more in depth story and better acting than the cheesy original show of the 70ās. And plenty of good shows came out, like The Wire. The propaganda or Hollywood values have always been there I think. Movies and tv shows in the 80ās were full of that as well.
Maybe itās just a case that we are getting old and start to go that things used to be betterā¦
In contrast Falcon didnāt get worse, it got BMS and got better. Itās got little political agenda. It is just strives to be a great sim.
With this I fully agree
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I donāt think I said āeverythingā is dumbed down now and āeverythingā was better when I was a kid in any post I made? Certainly I havenāt left that impression from the totality of the conversation?
New Star Wars is poo written by talentless hacks and I can back that up ā but I donāt think anyone wants to read a 10 page analysis of it here on the forums. So Iāll be brief (I hope). Itās not about expectations, itās about poor storytelling over time. Itās about backstabbing the fandom. Itās about taking the money from fans that loved Star Wars for what it was for years and years and then instead of paying them back and respecting their loyalty, the powers that be decided to deconstruct everything the fans had been loving and supporting for years.
Old Star Wars (or anything else) isnāt perfect, but that it is better for the soul than the new stuff and thatās a crying shame. Old Star Wars stirred up good emotions, promoted a work ethic, mentoring and respect between the generations. This new trilogy does the exact opposite of all that and mostly self-indulges in youth power fantasies (i.e. we have bigger special effects in our Disney Star Wars therefore we are literally geniuses). New Star Trek disrespects the legacy from which it came, revels in dropping the F-bomb and having genuinely unlikable dark characters and despair. Old Star Trek promoted stoicism, courage, cooperation and civility and hope amid all the turmoils the crews found themselves in.
I am looking for something that is well-written, well-executed, and uplifting that speaks to us as men and women ā of that there is precious little going around.
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This might be because the internet revealed that an average person is a dick and an idiot. Itās hard to be as optimistic as people were in the days of old. Itās not necessarily the quality, but rather that writers can no longer believe in a future imagined by these old shows. Once, it was much easier to believe that we can reliably get people like that, just because there were either these or the really horrible ones that people heard about. Garden variety dolts were out of sight, and we could imagine them as upstanding, intelligent and noble citizens. Now, everyone can be a ālegitimate news sourceā, everyone can post comments, and the flaws of an average human are in full view. Itās hard to believe you could find even one idealist who can actually make it work for him/her, much less fill a starship with them. Iām afraid that these days, the best you can hope for is āa few good people among the crowd of jerksā kind of thing.
With that said, Iād recommend The Martian. Itās one of the few modern works where people, even from different nations, actually work together to do some good. Spaceflight does have a way of bringing people together. Then again, to even get close to working with anything space-related requires a functioning brain, and people of that description tend to have an easier time getting along.
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I enjoyed both The Martian and 2010. :thumb: