LCJr.
Erudite
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2003
- Messages
- 2,469
As part of an effort to promote their continuing rape of the Red Baron franchise Sierra Germany has put up Red Baron II for download.
http://www.sierra.com/de/home/games/gam ... 12115.html
The fine folks at JG5 have put up instructions for getting the game patched up to Red Baron 3D and as they put it "98% in English". Also be sure to check the bottom of the page for the XP fixes if you're using that OS.
http://www.jasta5.org/Jagdstaffeln_5/re ... _j5_3d.htm
Next you'll want to head on over to Polvoski's site and get a Glide emulator. Let us take a moment of silence to mourn for our dear parted 3dfx.
http://www.polovski.com/RB3D.htm
For those of you not familiar with the history of RBII/3D development was an absolute trainwreck. Red Baron II was pretty bugged and was DirectDraw only at a time when games were making the switch to 3D. The original team was canned and the new team got the game lined out somewhat and added 3dfx Glide support. Still many issues remain and even by the standards of the time the game had some ugly graphics. The grass in particular makes el cheapo Astroturf knock offs look realistic. So what you're going to want is a mod that improves the terrain, 3d models and aircraft textures.
If you're new to Red Baron mods you'll want Hell Angels SuperPatch. It's a good mod with a simple straightforward install.
http://www.hellsangels.firstflare.com/main.htm
If you like the game and don't mind putting some time into reading instructions on getting von Tom's Campaign Manager and some other advanced features working there's the Western Front Patch which adds over a 100 new aircraft to the game based on their historical dates of service and squadron deployment.
http://swwisa.net/wfp/
As an alternate there's Revenge of the Jastas by Baron von Helton. An interesting persona if ever there was one. Truly someone who would be at home here on the Codex. Actually I think I'm going to go over our Helton's posts after I finish posting all this.
http://www.vonhelton.com/rotj3.htm
If you want to see some of the older mods von Oben archives some of the older stuff. I spent a lot of time playing Beery's back in the day.
http://vonoben.free.fr/
OK I've already stated that development was a trainwreck so why am I reccomending it? Because in spite of it's flaws it's a damn good WW1 flight sim. Not only that but it's good in both MMP and Single Player something not many games pull off well.
Let's talk about MMP first. When WON.net was actively supporting the game it truly was Massive Multiplayer, servers could hold and run with up to 128 players. And this at a time when broadband was practically non-existant. When I first started playing this game I had 28.8 kb/s modem and on a good server would average around ~220 ping. The game was quite playable as long as you were under 400 ping. If what I've heard is true the RB netcode was later used in Starseige Tribes. Believe it or not you can still find servers for this game. Just I doubt you're going to find any that host 128 players finding ones with a 64 or 32 player limit are more likely.
Online play itself is pretty straight forward. When the server is setup a gametype and map is chosen and a historical date is set that limits the aircraft choices. Maps are either based on the historical sector maps or the small MMP only Island map. The sector maps go about 90% unused since there's usually one area on each map with opposing airbases a very short distance from each other that everyone uses so they get into the action quick. Basic gameplay is about the same as an FPS in 3D. There's melee(deathmatch), team melee(tdm) and Get the Baron(king of the hill?) which you almost never see.
Instead of clans you have squadrons and they get together from time to time to fight organized war events. These are team melee's with a lot of extra self imposed rules in an attempt to replicate something more historical.
Single player, now for me this is where the game really shines. RBII/3D is one of the very flight sims to have a "dynamic" campaign. There isn't any story or "canned" or scripted missions. In most flight sims the missions require you to go through a series a waypoints where you may or may not encounter enemies and perform whatever duty you've been assigned. If you go off the preset course you won't encounter any enemies because as far as the designers are concerned you're not supposed to be anywhere but following the path they set. For me anyway canned missions=no sale. They kill the replay factor and I just don't have any real interest in MP anymore.
So how's RB's SP campaign work and what's so great about it you ask?
You start by creating a pilot. You give them a name, pick their nationality(English, French, German or American). You then pick a start date between Jan. 1 1916(March 1918 for Americans) and Nov. 1 1918. Then you pick your starting rank, your starting sector and squadron. The game then runs until your too crippled to fly, killed or the Armistice signed on Nov. 11 1918. Which squadron you're with and the date determine what type of aircraft will be available. If the squadron has more than one type of plane the best planes will go those with the most kills or highest rank. Rank itself doesn't really do much unless you take squadron commander which I'll get to later. Also this part of the game is bugged so promotions will be few and far between. In other words if you want to lead a squadron start with the highest rank.
Do to the limitations of the computers of day squadrons only have 12 planes of which around 8 will active at any one time. Reinforcements come in on a more or less weekly basis so depending on how things go squadron strength will vary some. Missions come down from the top(read randomly generated) and you have zero control over what missions you will be flying or even which type of aircraft if more than one is available. The only exception to this is if you start as a squadron commander. As a squadron commander you still have no control over what missions you are tasked with but you can decide who goes on which(including yourself) and who flys which aircraft. Now some people may not like this lack of control but for me it's part of the charm. You could say it's realistic(it is) but more importantly it helps with the immersion. You're not the chosen one, a super secret agent, an uberkommando or even Jack Armstrong the all-American boy. You're just a piece of meat shipped to the front.
Now the missions themselves aren't anything special. They're an attempt at duplicating the types of missions that were historically flown. So don't expect to be bombing secret doomsday weapons factories. The types of missions you'll flying are a variety of patrol and bomber/recon escort missions with the occasional balloon busting, trench strafing and aerodrome attack thrown in. The aerodrome attack is the only mission type that will have the majority of the squadron flying together. Most of the time you'll be in a flight of 2-4 planes.
Now we finally get to the special part. Anytime you go on a mission the game also generates missions for every squadron in a 100 mile radius of yours. Considering the fastest plane of the era had a top speed of ~130 mph that puts everyone, friend or foe, within an hours flight in play. Now I've already used the "I" word once but this feature is what really makes the game immersive. You're not dealing with scripted events but watching everyone else go about their business. You'll see other friendly aircraft patroling, bomber/recons going out and doing their missions. A lot of times you'll see dogfights and planes going down in flames in the distance with no idea whose they are. You'll have missions with absolutely no combat at all other than buzzing back and forth along the front being shot at by enemy AA. And other times you'll have multiple groups of aircraft running into each other. If you go off your assigned route you'll still have groundfire to contend and possibly enemy aircraft. There is none "You're not supposed to be here so there's nothing see" design you get with scripted missions.
Suppose I should also mention the frontlines and all installations have permenant AA installations. You can destroy them during a mission but they'll be back next week.
The AI is best described as meh. It's not too bad but it's nothing special and like every AI out there it can be exploited. You ignore it though and it will kill you. In quantity it's especially dangerous, not so much for it inherent skill but just the fact that you only have so much ammo. Once you're empty all you can do is run.
Another nice feature in RB is the Paint Shop. Character customization another nice buzzword. Not sure if this feature puts them ahead of their time or not. Anyway once you make ace(5 kills) you can go into the paint shop and create your own custom paint scheme from existing paint schemes or export the parts as a bmp and do your own. If you're playing as a squadron commander you can also do a custom scheme for the entire squadron.
Sorry for such a long rambling post. But much like a lot of us here wish rpg developers wouldn't be truly influenced(not just paying it lip service in interviews) by the design. I'd like to see more flight sim developers take a good look at this games design. That or I'm trying to jusitfy all those hours I wasted playing it.
http://www.sierra.com/de/home/games/gam ... 12115.html
The fine folks at JG5 have put up instructions for getting the game patched up to Red Baron 3D and as they put it "98% in English". Also be sure to check the bottom of the page for the XP fixes if you're using that OS.
http://www.jasta5.org/Jagdstaffeln_5/re ... _j5_3d.htm
Next you'll want to head on over to Polvoski's site and get a Glide emulator. Let us take a moment of silence to mourn for our dear parted 3dfx.
http://www.polovski.com/RB3D.htm
For those of you not familiar with the history of RBII/3D development was an absolute trainwreck. Red Baron II was pretty bugged and was DirectDraw only at a time when games were making the switch to 3D. The original team was canned and the new team got the game lined out somewhat and added 3dfx Glide support. Still many issues remain and even by the standards of the time the game had some ugly graphics. The grass in particular makes el cheapo Astroturf knock offs look realistic. So what you're going to want is a mod that improves the terrain, 3d models and aircraft textures.
If you're new to Red Baron mods you'll want Hell Angels SuperPatch. It's a good mod with a simple straightforward install.
http://www.hellsangels.firstflare.com/main.htm
If you like the game and don't mind putting some time into reading instructions on getting von Tom's Campaign Manager and some other advanced features working there's the Western Front Patch which adds over a 100 new aircraft to the game based on their historical dates of service and squadron deployment.
http://swwisa.net/wfp/
As an alternate there's Revenge of the Jastas by Baron von Helton. An interesting persona if ever there was one. Truly someone who would be at home here on the Codex. Actually I think I'm going to go over our Helton's posts after I finish posting all this.
http://www.vonhelton.com/rotj3.htm
If you want to see some of the older mods von Oben archives some of the older stuff. I spent a lot of time playing Beery's back in the day.
http://vonoben.free.fr/
OK I've already stated that development was a trainwreck so why am I reccomending it? Because in spite of it's flaws it's a damn good WW1 flight sim. Not only that but it's good in both MMP and Single Player something not many games pull off well.
Let's talk about MMP first. When WON.net was actively supporting the game it truly was Massive Multiplayer, servers could hold and run with up to 128 players. And this at a time when broadband was practically non-existant. When I first started playing this game I had 28.8 kb/s modem and on a good server would average around ~220 ping. The game was quite playable as long as you were under 400 ping. If what I've heard is true the RB netcode was later used in Starseige Tribes. Believe it or not you can still find servers for this game. Just I doubt you're going to find any that host 128 players finding ones with a 64 or 32 player limit are more likely.
Online play itself is pretty straight forward. When the server is setup a gametype and map is chosen and a historical date is set that limits the aircraft choices. Maps are either based on the historical sector maps or the small MMP only Island map. The sector maps go about 90% unused since there's usually one area on each map with opposing airbases a very short distance from each other that everyone uses so they get into the action quick. Basic gameplay is about the same as an FPS in 3D. There's melee(deathmatch), team melee(tdm) and Get the Baron(king of the hill?) which you almost never see.
Instead of clans you have squadrons and they get together from time to time to fight organized war events. These are team melee's with a lot of extra self imposed rules in an attempt to replicate something more historical.
Single player, now for me this is where the game really shines. RBII/3D is one of the very flight sims to have a "dynamic" campaign. There isn't any story or "canned" or scripted missions. In most flight sims the missions require you to go through a series a waypoints where you may or may not encounter enemies and perform whatever duty you've been assigned. If you go off the preset course you won't encounter any enemies because as far as the designers are concerned you're not supposed to be anywhere but following the path they set. For me anyway canned missions=no sale. They kill the replay factor and I just don't have any real interest in MP anymore.
So how's RB's SP campaign work and what's so great about it you ask?
You start by creating a pilot. You give them a name, pick their nationality(English, French, German or American). You then pick a start date between Jan. 1 1916(March 1918 for Americans) and Nov. 1 1918. Then you pick your starting rank, your starting sector and squadron. The game then runs until your too crippled to fly, killed or the Armistice signed on Nov. 11 1918. Which squadron you're with and the date determine what type of aircraft will be available. If the squadron has more than one type of plane the best planes will go those with the most kills or highest rank. Rank itself doesn't really do much unless you take squadron commander which I'll get to later. Also this part of the game is bugged so promotions will be few and far between. In other words if you want to lead a squadron start with the highest rank.
Do to the limitations of the computers of day squadrons only have 12 planes of which around 8 will active at any one time. Reinforcements come in on a more or less weekly basis so depending on how things go squadron strength will vary some. Missions come down from the top(read randomly generated) and you have zero control over what missions you will be flying or even which type of aircraft if more than one is available. The only exception to this is if you start as a squadron commander. As a squadron commander you still have no control over what missions you are tasked with but you can decide who goes on which(including yourself) and who flys which aircraft. Now some people may not like this lack of control but for me it's part of the charm. You could say it's realistic(it is) but more importantly it helps with the immersion. You're not the chosen one, a super secret agent, an uberkommando or even Jack Armstrong the all-American boy. You're just a piece of meat shipped to the front.
Now the missions themselves aren't anything special. They're an attempt at duplicating the types of missions that were historically flown. So don't expect to be bombing secret doomsday weapons factories. The types of missions you'll flying are a variety of patrol and bomber/recon escort missions with the occasional balloon busting, trench strafing and aerodrome attack thrown in. The aerodrome attack is the only mission type that will have the majority of the squadron flying together. Most of the time you'll be in a flight of 2-4 planes.
Now we finally get to the special part. Anytime you go on a mission the game also generates missions for every squadron in a 100 mile radius of yours. Considering the fastest plane of the era had a top speed of ~130 mph that puts everyone, friend or foe, within an hours flight in play. Now I've already used the "I" word once but this feature is what really makes the game immersive. You're not dealing with scripted events but watching everyone else go about their business. You'll see other friendly aircraft patroling, bomber/recons going out and doing their missions. A lot of times you'll see dogfights and planes going down in flames in the distance with no idea whose they are. You'll have missions with absolutely no combat at all other than buzzing back and forth along the front being shot at by enemy AA. And other times you'll have multiple groups of aircraft running into each other. If you go off your assigned route you'll still have groundfire to contend and possibly enemy aircraft. There is none "You're not supposed to be here so there's nothing see" design you get with scripted missions.
Suppose I should also mention the frontlines and all installations have permenant AA installations. You can destroy them during a mission but they'll be back next week.
The AI is best described as meh. It's not too bad but it's nothing special and like every AI out there it can be exploited. You ignore it though and it will kill you. In quantity it's especially dangerous, not so much for it inherent skill but just the fact that you only have so much ammo. Once you're empty all you can do is run.
Another nice feature in RB is the Paint Shop. Character customization another nice buzzword. Not sure if this feature puts them ahead of their time or not. Anyway once you make ace(5 kills) you can go into the paint shop and create your own custom paint scheme from existing paint schemes or export the parts as a bmp and do your own. If you're playing as a squadron commander you can also do a custom scheme for the entire squadron.
Sorry for such a long rambling post. But much like a lot of us here wish rpg developers wouldn't be truly influenced(not just paying it lip service in interviews) by the design. I'd like to see more flight sim developers take a good look at this games design. That or I'm trying to jusitfy all those hours I wasted playing it.
