Falcon Online - Don't call it PvP
In 2001, I got really involved with playing World War II Online. I remember reading an article about it while I was still in high school. PC Gamer did a whole spread about it and I thought it was going to be my Woodstock.
It turned out to be a religion. I lived, breathed, ate, and, on rare occasions, even slept Battleground Europe. I was in my late teens and early 20s. Jobs existed to pay the bills, pay for the internet, and slay the Hun in virtual Europe. It was all I could talk about.
Can you see where I am going with this? Enigma did a good video on it, and it's probably where I picked up this idea from because it's friggen true. It feels like World War II online.
I mentioned that BMS before made me feel a lot like World War II; online, it made me feel like a game. It involved coordination on a massive scale, with combined arms working together to capture choke points. Due to the scale and how the game worked, it never really felt like any other game out there.
Operation Flashpoint and later ArmA came close. They just missed something that WW2OL had; it was, in a sense, a dynamic campaign that was entirely player-driven. Ta -Da , so is Falcon Online and that's why "we" love it so much.
Setting aside the fact that you can't play as infantry or ground vehicles, it is the same game. Massive-scale battles with real-world-sized formations. The entire battlespace is the size of multiple countries and is filled with these units.
In Falcon Online, you take on the role of a pilot for the Red or the Blue faction. Once signed up, you are given permissions on your side, and you learn how to connect to the server. The rules are tight but not so strict that they limit the fun.
Both teams fly the F-16C and F-15C. Red has aggressor paint schemes and appears hostile on the RWR, datalink, IFF, and all that fancy modern new stuff. You really have to go out of your way to smoke a friendly.
Each team has limited resources, objectives, and only players can fly in the Vipers or Eagles. AI F-18s can be fragged for different roles and missions to support players, and the AI still has taskings for flights. AWACs, Tankers, CAP, and the like are still there, like any other campaign.
This is why they chose their words very carefully. Falcon Online does not refer to their experience as PvP but rather TvT. From the outside looking in, it's the same thing, so why not just call it what people call it now, PvP? If anything, TvT is a game mode found within a PvP game,right?
The campaign is driven and influenced by the packages flown by the players. The players are the only ones who can put warheads on foreheads to destroy enemy vehicles, infrastructure, logistics, and everything in between.
24/7, the war in the server rages on. The players' actions as a collective, not as an individual, matter and directly influence the flow. Every action has a consequence that affects EVERYONE on your team. Biff a landing and lose a jet? The team lost the jet, not you. Those losses matter, and they add up. When you return to your routine, boring, dull life that isn't spent in thrilling air combat, someone else will use that jet. So you have skin in the game and a reason to keep the jet alive.
It's not your jet, it's the team's jet.
Falcon Online is the most non-social social experience I have seen. It is also the most team-based and structured single-player coop experience in existence. They literally cater to introverts, extroverts, neurodivergents, and people with insomnia. This is the diversion and equality the elites don't want you to know about.
I am having the best time I have had in gaming. Ever. This tops WW2OL because I like the Viper more, I have VR, and a cool sim-pit. If I had all that in WW2OL and was in my 20s again...
YOU COULD CALL ME DOUG MASTERS FOR THE WAY I'D BE GETTING SHOT DOWN SO QUICK IN THE SEQUEL!
So to Archer and the team over at Falcon Online, THANK YOU! Seriously if people thought I had a hard-on about BMS before, the more I get into the TvT the hungrier I get.
It turned out to be a religion. I lived, breathed, ate, and, on rare occasions, even slept Battleground Europe. I was in my late teens and early 20s. Jobs existed to pay the bills, pay for the internet, and slay the Hun in virtual Europe. It was all I could talk about.
Can you see where I am going with this? Enigma did a good video on it, and it's probably where I picked up this idea from because it's friggen true. It feels like World War II online.
I mentioned that BMS before made me feel a lot like World War II; online, it made me feel like a game. It involved coordination on a massive scale, with combined arms working together to capture choke points. Due to the scale and how the game worked, it never really felt like any other game out there.
Operation Flashpoint and later ArmA came close. They just missed something that WW2OL had; it was, in a sense, a dynamic campaign that was entirely player-driven. Ta -Da , so is Falcon Online and that's why "we" love it so much.
Setting aside the fact that you can't play as infantry or ground vehicles, it is the same game. Massive-scale battles with real-world-sized formations. The entire battlespace is the size of multiple countries and is filled with these units.
In Falcon Online, you take on the role of a pilot for the Red or the Blue faction. Once signed up, you are given permissions on your side, and you learn how to connect to the server. The rules are tight but not so strict that they limit the fun.
Both teams fly the F-16C and F-15C. Red has aggressor paint schemes and appears hostile on the RWR, datalink, IFF, and all that fancy modern new stuff. You really have to go out of your way to smoke a friendly.
Each team has limited resources, objectives, and only players can fly in the Vipers or Eagles. AI F-18s can be fragged for different roles and missions to support players, and the AI still has taskings for flights. AWACs, Tankers, CAP, and the like are still there, like any other campaign.
This is why they chose their words very carefully. Falcon Online does not refer to their experience as PvP but rather TvT. From the outside looking in, it's the same thing, so why not just call it what people call it now, PvP? If anything, TvT is a game mode found within a PvP game,right?
The campaign is driven and influenced by the packages flown by the players. The players are the only ones who can put warheads on foreheads to destroy enemy vehicles, infrastructure, logistics, and everything in between.
24/7, the war in the server rages on. The players' actions as a collective, not as an individual, matter and directly influence the flow. Every action has a consequence that affects EVERYONE on your team. Biff a landing and lose a jet? The team lost the jet, not you. Those losses matter, and they add up. When you return to your routine, boring, dull life that isn't spent in thrilling air combat, someone else will use that jet. So you have skin in the game and a reason to keep the jet alive.
It's not your jet, it's the team's jet.
Likewise when you hit targets, protect assets, coordinate packages, plan missions, and blow things up. It has an actual butterfly effect that transfers to every human pilot in the sky and to every little AI idiot tank on the ground.
Everything is amplified because the stakes are higher. The server is not paused when no players are present. Players can come and go anytime they please and do their part in eating the elephant. Each time a singleton goes out and hits a target, another bite is taken. Soon, 4+ ship packages will be going out and deleting entire formations. You see the map shift in the JSTARS relay and it really...it feels fucking good to see shifts happen. The pathway to that comes from the little bites all day, every day.
The only genuine fault about Falcon Online is that I did not understand the campaign. I have no problem talking and getting people together. I enjoy that. It's fun to organize gatherings when we get to blow things up in virtual time and space. I just don't know what to blow up.
So I am still reliant on the kindness of strangers. Which works out because there are plenty willing to help. Just be prepared for the fact you will need to ask for that help and guidance. If you wait to be told what to do and where to go you will have a bad time. Ask me how I know? I waited for orders, and none were given.
Now that I have connected with more people and have learned more about the game, it has become less of a problem. I still of course have no clue what the hell to blow up, but at least now when I suggest something, someone else tells me how fucking stupid that is, and that's how I learn.
What I am getting at is that I am seeing a trend where there are people who know what they are doing and people who do not. The people who know what they are doing are more than willing to help, but they have to assume you know what you are doing because you didn't ask.
Communicate. The second I opened my big, stupid mouth and let everyone know I am big and stupid, people rushed to me like moths. Not because they give a shit, they just don't want some dumb ass breaking another jet. Valid.
You get out of the TvT experience what you put into it. If you want to play it like an extension of your single-player experience with that added feeling of "I'm helping!", perfect. It matters, and you are helping. If you want to coordinate with others in real time and do shit, hell yeah brother that matters too!
This means that if you are missing something in the experience, you have the tools and ability to resolve that yourself. There is active discord, with people just itching at the chance to fly with others. If this is you, say something. Right now, there are 2 - 5 people wishing someone would speak up and say something.
If there is one thing I have learned in BMS, it is that the community wants to help you. They also want you to put in the effort, learn the jet, and ask dumb questions. If you don't ask the dumb questions, they won't know you aren't getting it and will assume you do, because they and everyone else around them do.
Everything is amplified because the stakes are higher. The server is not paused when no players are present. Players can come and go anytime they please and do their part in eating the elephant. Each time a singleton goes out and hits a target, another bite is taken. Soon, 4+ ship packages will be going out and deleting entire formations. You see the map shift in the JSTARS relay and it really...it feels fucking good to see shifts happen. The pathway to that comes from the little bites all day, every day.
The only genuine fault about Falcon Online is that I did not understand the campaign. I have no problem talking and getting people together. I enjoy that. It's fun to organize gatherings when we get to blow things up in virtual time and space. I just don't know what to blow up.
So I am still reliant on the kindness of strangers. Which works out because there are plenty willing to help. Just be prepared for the fact you will need to ask for that help and guidance. If you wait to be told what to do and where to go you will have a bad time. Ask me how I know? I waited for orders, and none were given.
Now that I have connected with more people and have learned more about the game, it has become less of a problem. I still of course have no clue what the hell to blow up, but at least now when I suggest something, someone else tells me how fucking stupid that is, and that's how I learn.
What I am getting at is that I am seeing a trend where there are people who know what they are doing and people who do not. The people who know what they are doing are more than willing to help, but they have to assume you know what you are doing because you didn't ask.
Communicate. The second I opened my big, stupid mouth and let everyone know I am big and stupid, people rushed to me like moths. Not because they give a shit, they just don't want some dumb ass breaking another jet. Valid.
You get out of the TvT experience what you put into it. If you want to play it like an extension of your single-player experience with that added feeling of "I'm helping!", perfect. It matters, and you are helping. If you want to coordinate with others in real time and do shit, hell yeah brother that matters too!
This means that if you are missing something in the experience, you have the tools and ability to resolve that yourself. There is active discord, with people just itching at the chance to fly with others. If this is you, say something. Right now, there are 2 - 5 people wishing someone would speak up and say something.
If there is one thing I have learned in BMS, it is that the community wants to help you. They also want you to put in the effort, learn the jet, and ask dumb questions. If you don't ask the dumb questions, they won't know you aren't getting it and will assume you do, because they and everyone else around them do.
Falcon Online is the most non-social social experience I have seen. It is also the most team-based and structured single-player coop experience in existence. They literally cater to introverts, extroverts, neurodivergents, and people with insomnia. This is the diversion and equality the elites don't want you to know about.
I am having the best time I have had in gaming. Ever. This tops WW2OL because I like the Viper more, I have VR, and a cool sim-pit. If I had all that in WW2OL and was in my 20s again...
YOU COULD CALL ME DOUG MASTERS FOR THE WAY I'D BE GETTING SHOT DOWN SO QUICK IN THE SEQUEL!
So to Archer and the team over at Falcon Online, THANK YOU! Seriously if people thought I had a hard-on about BMS before, the more I get into the TvT the hungrier I get.
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