Why there hasn't been any Star Wars simulator for 16 years

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Why there hasn't been any Star Wars simulator for 16 years

Youda008
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Post by Youda008 » Fri Nov 27, 2015 1:55 pm

This might be a stupid or overly asked question, but do you guys have any clue, why the game developing companies aren't willing to create any new Star Wars space combat simulator? If i don't count the pure arcade point&click games, then the last one is X-Wing Alliance, which is from 1999!

Is it the fear, that such game won't be sold well, and they won't get their costs back?
I understand, that space combat simulation isn't one of the mainstream massively played genres, but c'mon, it's Star Wars! I mean SW has a really huge fan base, and it has it even in its name (star wars = wars between stars = wars in space). Which kind of SW fan would not like to pilot an X-wing or TIE fighter?
I totally don't understand this reluctance of making games of this kind.

It looks like, that what we (player base) won't make by ourselves, we won't have. Therefore i would like to express great thanks and appreciation to all of you guys, who are working on this upgrade, although it isn't exactly what i search for.

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Jaeven
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Post by Jaeven » Sat Nov 28, 2015 3:16 am

Personally, I think it's a number of reasons. As you said, the genre is kind of dead, so a developer would already be worried about the sales from the get-go.

The other issue I think that would come up, is that today's gamers are.. more casual, I'd say. A flight sim is more complicated compared to today's arcade like games, so any potential flight sim would have an already limited audience.

It's a great shame though. The Fighter squadron mode in Battlefront is tremendous fun, but made me yearn for a modern flight sim. Would love to see how the Battle of Endor missions would look on a modern engine with modern graphics.

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Trevor
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Post by Trevor » Sat Nov 28, 2015 11:33 am

Jaeven wrote:Would love to see how the Battle of Endor missions would look on a modern engine with modern graphics.
haha, just get Jeramy to patch in specular highlighting, bumpmaps, reshade all models used ingame to use a compressed luminosity range and then apply reshade over the top. Anything white (greater than compressed luminosity range on models) will flare up on screen/burn the screen.

Probably the biggest hurdle is reducing the luminocity of all the models without somehow automating it. Since dx6 supported specular, Id assume there was a command to use it.

On my luminocity compression theory, I had before said about compressing shadows. I am now going to retract that and suggest dissabling shadow enhancment. All reshade needs is to be able to burn/flare the screen on bright points. this means all on-screen elements not ment to burn are to be 0-230, allowing 25 degrees of screen burn.

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Post by crazyewok » Sat Dec 26, 2015 11:45 am

Not sure why people say the genre is dead or there lack of money.

Elite Dangrous, EVE, X3 Franchise show there is a deffinate market for well made space sims games.

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Jaeven
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Post by Jaeven » Sat Dec 26, 2015 2:17 pm

crazyewok wrote:Not sure why people say the genre is dead or there lack of money.

Elite Dangrous, EVE, X3 Franchise show there is a deffinate market for well made space sims games.
Yeah, but compare the amount of recently released in that genre to others. Personally, I believe a new space sim would sell well. It's just the perception that it won't that stops gaming companies from making them.

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Post by Mark_Farlander » Wed Feb 07, 2018 2:58 am

I know this sounds like a strange observation, but the main problem with space simulation games is the high contrast they require to be played.
X-Wing Alliance had been designed to be played with CRT monitors, which have a much higher contrast than the average modern LCD display.
You can't enjoy stars and ships if the deep space has yellowish IPS glow, not to mention TN panels.
Hopefully things are going to change https://www.anandtech.com/show/10874/pa ... brightness
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keiranhalcyon7
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Post by keiranhalcyon7 » Fri Feb 09, 2018 9:24 am

My $0.02: Consoles. A game of the complexity of XWA is a non-starter on consoles - even with command wheels and overloading, there just aren't enough buttons. And outside of console-exclusive titles, most AAA games need to be cross-platform nowadays just to get greenlit.

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Post by Mark_Farlander » Thu Mar 01, 2018 11:47 pm

A new Starfighter or Rogue Squadron title could be cross-platform, and that's surely a viable option for Disney.
And then we'll convert those missions for X-Wing Alliance.
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Post by Safe-Keeper » Fri May 18, 2018 8:27 pm

My fear is that if some AAA dev does it today, it will be dumbed down for the "too complicated!!1" crowd. I think it would better be handled by some indie team, to be honest, like when a team of X-Com aficionados made Xenonauts. If it was made to be compatible somewhat with .tie mission files, that would be even better.

My dream is a kind of dynamic campaign where you play as a kind of wing commander and you have pilots, fighters, and warheads and whatnot that carry on from mission to mission. So you need to conserve warheads, fighter damage is persistent (so if a fighter loses an s-foil or some cockpit instrument or sub-system in one mission it will still be missing it in future missions until it is repaired), and you could run low on experienced pilots if you take too many losses.

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keiranhalcyon7
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Post by keiranhalcyon7 » Sat May 19, 2018 12:27 am

An indie dev would never get a Star Wars license, though, so it would also be an indie setting. Which could be fine, I guess. Maybe Starfighter Inc. will have some of those features.

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Post by Safe-Keeper » Mon Jul 16, 2018 8:46 pm

keiranhalcyon7 wrote:
Sat May 19, 2018 12:27 am
An indie dev would never get a Star Wars license, though, so it would also be an indie setting. Which could be fine, I guess. Maybe Starfighter Inc. will have some of those features.
If it was a freeware project, I doubt anyone would care.

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Post by Rookie_One1 » Wed Jul 18, 2018 12:21 am

Oh they care, Disney is notorious for cracking down on what they see as threatening
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Post by Rich C » Wed Jul 18, 2018 1:02 am

It's already happened, at least twice in the last few years:

Galaxy in Turmoil

Double Damage Prototype

EA has the final say, due to their exclusive license for non-mobile games, and they aren't buying.

No (corporate) interest in the genre is nothing new; LucasArts used to have regular polls on their site asking which series should get a new instalment. Pretty much every time, X-Wing won, and every time it did, they ignored it, lol.
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Post by kronovan » Tue Jul 31, 2018 4:52 pm

Don't want to sound the cynic horn too loud, but IMO the biggest current factors against another SW spacesim, is the lack of imagination and inspiration by Disney-Lucas Arts and EA. I know there's some fans that like what they're churning out (my son among them for the movies), but other than Rogue One everything coming out for those 2 has seem uninspired and lackluster to me. No surprise to me, that despite recent and excellent successes by some studios with spacesims, that those 2 overgrown giants can't see any potential for creating one.

I'll add the Startpoint Gemini series (specifically SG 2 & SG Warlords) as examples of Spacesim games that work on both console and PC. They're definitely sim lites when compared to XWA, yet still provide a decent simulation play experience. They're much more capital ship focused though, so not as much appeal for the spacesim-fighter fan; you do play fighters and corvettes, but the game design is such that you can't wait to leave them behind. Warlords has a nice fresh take on the genre by blending some 4x RTS elements in with the simulation, that work surprising well and are easy to learn. For sure a hybrid spacesim targeted at consoles puts limitations on how sophisticated a control scheme you can implement, but the SG series (2 better than Warlords) does it decently. The one knock against the series, is that the PC edition doesn't have full HOTAS support and is much more funneled towards a mouse+KB control scheme.

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Post by Phoenix Leader » Wed Jan 09, 2019 8:05 am

EA seems to be more oriented towards games with some sort of versatility.
I mean in Battlefront 2 you can fight as a foot soldier or fly a starfighter.
Obviously all the complexity of the X-Wing series is lost, but EA doesn't care much.

Another factor against a new X-Wing game is the continuously growing "mobile" sector, which was nearly nonexistent compared to desktop computers in the 1990s.

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Post by kr1z » Mon Feb 04, 2019 11:37 am

I should hope that the succes of the Ace Combat 7 ìs gonna have positive influence on potential future xwing games.
But after all these years and the fact that ea doesnt give a damn about gamers and good games i dont.

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Post by GavUK » Mon Apr 27, 2020 12:37 pm

There was a game in development, that would have been kind of a cross between a FPS and a game like Elite Dangerous. It was showing great progress and promise when Lucas sold everything to Disney... who immediately killed Lucasarts and all related projects... and hand the gaming license over to EA... who have shat all over it ever since.

All they care about is console gamers and micro transactions... or pay to win

EA lacks the ability, skill or comprehension to create a game that would blend all elements of the SW universe into one great game... so whilst they have the license... there will never be another SW game... so we have to make do with XWAU and the XWVM

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Post by Ace Antilles » Mon Apr 27, 2020 1:57 pm

Battlefront 1 and 2 killed any other chances of SW flight games.
I have to say I do enjoy the BF2 space side a lot of times. Gets repetitive on the maps and I wish you could choose them.
Graphics are great though. I went from pad to keyboard for flight and it was easier. Have to say I can own quite a few novice players ;)
But then that isn't always fun for everyone. Some pilots are amazing and get lots of "fans". But if the game isn't fair or people camp spawn points it's crap.
Also because the space part was made by someone else they never improve on it. No one ever plays the Heroes vs Villains either. I HATE matchmaking games.

Microsoft are going to release the new Flight Sim game and it's over 100gb in size! I think XWAUP shows what can be done with a good space game.
Also I don't know numbers but the X-wing series is still being sold but without the XWAUP it wouldn't be playable.
I can't wait for EA license to end and someone else get Star Wars games
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Post by Rich C » Mon Apr 27, 2020 2:17 pm

Not that EA is any better, but to be fair, Lucasarts had been dropping the ball for a while before Disney came along.

We could've at least had Factor 5's Imperial sequel to the Rogue Squadron series, but Lucasarts decided to pass on it for some Chewbacca game, which they then cancelled for some other crap, which then also got cancelled. :irre:

EA's holy grail is to make all games like EA Sports games; minimum effort, maximum playerbase, and a "new" one every year. Complex simulations take time (which is money) to develop, and that's basically why we won't be seeing anything like that from them.
Ace Antilles wrote:
Mon Apr 27, 2020 1:57 pm
I can't wait for EA license to end and someone else get Star Wars games
Disney is highly unlikely to drop EA as their go-to game publisher; they specifically partnered with them because EA are the only publisher that deals with anywhere near the kind of dollars Disney moves on a regular basis. I don't really see where else they could go, lol.

The only way I see that contract not being renewed is if one of the two collapses, but since both of them are monolithic, "too big to fail" organizations, it looks like it's here to stay. :/
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Post by szoreny » Thu May 07, 2020 8:28 pm

I hold out hope that a new combat sim will be made out of star wars someday - something modestly produced just to test the waters, maybe contracted with one of the indie studios they run into in the EA Originals program.

Easy on the plot and concourse visuals but with a great looking and feeling flight engine. But then I hope for a lot of foolish things.

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Post by Tuskin » Sun May 31, 2020 4:39 pm

EA Motive is working on a Star Wars game which is either called, or codenamed 'Project Maverick', it's rumoured to be a starfighter combat game. The rumour specifically said 'simulator', but I doubt that if it's also going to be on consoles.

The name came from a new entry on the Playstation store database in March: https://www.inverse.com/gaming/star-war ... -ea-motive

It's also rumoured (by trustworthy industry people) to be announced on Tuesday. Sony's PS5 event is Wednesday, so my guess will be trailer on Tuesday, with gameplay reveal on PS5 hardware on Wednesday.

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Post by haui » Sun May 31, 2020 4:50 pm

But we all know the best grafik is nothing with out a great game.
SW battlefront 2 looks fantastic but i don't like the flying parts
It's better to burn out than to fade away .

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Post by Ace Antilles » Sun May 31, 2020 4:54 pm

Tuskin wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 4:39 pm
EA Motive is working on a Star Wars game which is either called, or codenamed 'Project Maverick', it's rumoured to be a starfighter combat game. The rumour specifically said 'simulator', but I doubt that if it's also going to be on consoles.

The name came from a new entry on the Playstation store database in March: https://www.inverse.com/gaming/star-war ... -ea-motive

It's also rumoured (by trustworthy industry people) to be announced on Tuesday. Sony's PS5 event is Wednesday, so my guess will be trailer on Tuesday, with gameplay reveal on PS5 hardware on Wednesday.
Hope it's not a console only job! Not going to be a very advanced Sim on consoles.
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Post by Tuskin » Sun May 31, 2020 4:58 pm

Ace Antilles wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 4:54 pm
Hope it's not a console only job! Not going to be a very advanced Sim on consoles.
EA has yet to release a console only Star Wars game. Then again they've only released 3 games so far. (not counting mobile)

I don't think it's going to be a full sim, unless PC was their target platform with consoles being secondary, but I doubt that, EA would want feature parity between platforms.

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Post by Driftwood » Mon Jun 01, 2020 12:49 am

I don't think EA would know a simulator if it hit them in the face.

Battlefield series is about as close as they are likely to get into that genre, and that's "Simulator ultra-light" at best.

Now an EA/DCS partnership could be interesting, but that's never gonna happen...

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