I realise that in order to get help with a problem you have to first accept that you have a problem. I have been in denial of this problem for some time, even telling myself that I could give it up if I wanted to. But today I have come to accept the cold hard truth. My name is Frugal and I am a simmerholic.
It all started in the early 80’s when I was a fresh faced teenager unaware of the dangers I was getting myself into. I was just experimenting, nothing too dangerous, just B17 Bomber on the Intellivision. I thought it was pretty safe, I mean it wasn’t hard core, just the soft stuff. People will try to kid you that soft sims are safe and non addictive but don’t listen, soft sims invariably lead to hard core sims. The problem is that once you start these things it’s a slippery slope that’s hard to avoid. Inevitably you get in with the wrong element and they talk you into trying something a little harder and before you know it you are spending a fortune to feed your habit.
I progressed from B17 Bomber up to Psion Flight Simulator, I had also dabbled with Sublogics Flight Simulator on the Apple 2 then it was on to Fighter Pilot on the Spectrum, by now I was probably already an addict without even realising it. Having tried a cocktail of sims later I grabbed a commodore 64, this was where the addiction started to really bite deep. The problem with youth is that you think you are invincible and have no real concept of the harm you are doing to yourself. I was trying just about every sim I could get my hands on including Gunship, F15 Strike Eagle, F19, F117a to name but a few.
Then things got really bad, I got an Amiga. This is probably when I hit the point of no return. The problem is that the experience was being improved all the time with these new designer sims and at the same time you were building up a tolerance and so needed more and harder core sims. Interceptor really pulled me in deeper and then came the fatal blow – Falcon. I’d already dabbled with the AT version but this new version on the Amiga had a few new ingredients that really made it hard to resist. This was a dangerous time for me I was even starting to mix my sims and worse still taking double doses of the F16 with both Falcon and F16 Combat Pilot.
In my sim crazed state I’d started to get some pretty outlandish ideas. What if we had real looking mountains instead of these pyramids? What if the terrain looked more realistic? What if we had clouds that you could fly through? What if we could fly co-operatively instead of just dogfighting? Now things were getting really bad and to my shame I started trying to get others hooked. Go on, just fly one mission, you’ll love it. Look at those graphics, don’t they look good, just fly it around for a while. Before long my Brother was sharing my habit.
It’s frightening looking back, I went through every sim the Amiga had to offer but by now I’d built up such a tolerance that they just weren’t enough. I moved on to the PC with a 486 in order to fly Falcon 3. Even though I was now starting to spend a lot of money to feed my habit I was oblivious to the problem. Falcon 3 was the best yet but it wasn’t enough. Sim after sim they fed my habit but they weren’t enough. Something was missing. Then came the Internet and things went from bad to worse. Now I was able to hook up with a bunch of unsavoury characters that shared my addiction. I was drawn into the underground sim culture. Suddenly it was Falcon 3 on kali with others and later Ef2000 on Kali and Kahn. Now as well as simming I’m spending a lot of time thinking, reading and talking about simming and it is not enough. Over the years things steadily progress with each sim getting better until suddenly it appears that those outlandish ideas that I had all those years ago are no longer outlandish but exist in Falcon 4. By now I am a hopeless case but it still isn’t enough.
This brings us up to the present day where my whole life practically revolves around my habit. Between the website and all the sim projects that I am involved in and time spent flying Falcon 4, Mig alley, Janes F/A-18, BoB and EECH my habit is kept well fed but it isn’t enough. Maybe one day I’ll beg Chunx to take me to Mirimar to fly the military F/A-18 sim but it still won’t be enough. Even a ride in a real jet won’t be enough because it will make me want more.
So can I stop? Sure I can, when I’m ready, I just ain’t ready yet, maybe I never will be.
If I could go back and do it all again would I do anything different.?
Yeah, I’d join the RAF :o)
Frugal
fox44 [unregristered]
post: #1
Email: ern@c.dk
Posted: 11/5 at 10:42
IP: 62.243.17.143
Yes you are a totaly hopeless case and STAY THAT WAY
(please) :-)
Frugal: I was going to be Chunx for the Miramar sim ride...sigh. Hey, you should have signed your post with your new nickname...Frugalweenie :) I'm a weenie too. This stuff is awfully addicting and way too much fun. Oy vey.
One highly entertaining story Frugal!! You are a very good writer, and got a ton of humour.
BTW, I am myself in a state of needing treatment according to my friends, but I wish I could get some support from my family. Unfortunately that is a no go since my father is heavily into Jane´s WWII Fighters, and whenever I come over to get away from my habit he asks me if we could do some simming "now that you´ve come over and dinner isn´t ready yet.." Yeah, you know..
Keep it up Frugal!
Brooks
Like you, Frug, I took my first steps down the road to ruin with B-17 for the Intellivision
(remember "watch for flak"?) And then Strike Eagle for the Commodore, and so on, etc. etc.
For the last few years, I was doing fairly well on a methadone program
involving Microsoft Fight Simulator, but then a chance encounter with Frugals
World got me hooked on the hard stuff again(Falcon 4). Now I'm actually
suggesting to the wife that we put a homepit in the baby's room. Sounds
like it's time for an intervention....
work on and fly state of the art full flight military sims networked together
spend loads of dosh keeping my computer system up to date to play PC sims.
i probaly have just about every home computer flight sim ever made since 1980 those early ones had no graphics and you had to understand polar co-ordinates to navigate as opposed to the newer cartesian method.
i have a wonderful girl who puts up with me eating,breathing,dreaming aeroplanes 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
let me know when you are "really" addicted and we will have a beer
during a mission in something like 767 PIC or inbound on a B17 mission of course
Yes, I am a simmerholic too. But there is hope for the hopelessly addicted, through the power of prayer:
1. Pray for that Divine sound, that perfect combination of a rattle and a whine that announces a good Sidewinder lock!
2. Pray for the timing and Grace to execute a perfect nose-low slice into thy foe, and quickly vanquish him with a well-placed burst from your cannon!
3. Pray that your Holy RWS will be All-Knowing and All-Seeing, thus preventing any Transgressions by MiG or Fulcrum!
4. And when you are battle-weary and Winchester, your fuel state is Low, and your Enemies are Many, Pray to Our Lady Of Blessed Acceleration and the Goddess of the Heavenly Jink for a Safe Egress into the waiting arms of a Friendly CAP.
Tomb,
I don't think you are more of an addict than me just a luckier addict :o) I too have or have had just about every sim that has been released so far on the Apple, Speccy, C64, Amiga and PC. I didn't list them all becausethe article would be so long no-one would read it (and I'd probably still be typing now).
Hehe well I flew 5000 miles standby with practically no money just to attend a Falcon 4 lan (and drink beer), and I'll be flying another 5000 miles with even less money in August to attend the Tailhook convention. Does that qualify as addicted enough?
But for circumstance I would have joined the RAF. I was taking an Air Navigation Course with the Air Training Corps during the 70's and had been offered a place in the RAF on successful completion of the course and medical. Unfortunately my Father became ill and so I had to drop the Navigation course to spend time looking after him. When he died I was still too young to join the RAF and had to go out and get a proper job to support myself.
The rest as they say is history. Sometimes I wish I had made different choices at that critical junction in my life but the path I took shaped the person I am today, and I like that person so I guess I will content myself with living that dream in the virtual world.
Problem? Me? No, I don't have a problem I can quit any time just like THAT yep anytime just like that any time at all any time mm hm yep I'm not addicted I just enjoy it but I could quit any time yes I could really I could it's just that I don't want to quit you see so my friends and family never see me but LOOK OUT YOU'VE GOT ONE ON YOUR SIX!
Hey I have flown just about every title he mentioned (and on the same machines) Of course the thing he didn't add was that we now have to have the correct machine to feed our habits. If the next generation sim is too much for my current machine, well its gotta go.
My story is similat to you. I Started with Birds of Prey. Then came the great F15 III. after came TFX , EF200 anf F15 3dfx now I´m in Falcon 4.
Falcon 4 is un open SIM, it´s great.
My life is around Falcon 4 everiday I come to this site for reading the news and the forum, looking for latest files to improve the SIM.
I´m from Chile and I think there are few people thas is found of SIM. Some time a beleave that I´m living tow lifes one the real (I´m engineer) the other virtual like a combat F16 Pilot.
Fortunely I have only one daugther (she is electronic engieneer) 24 years old. I´m 48 years so my wife (she is an English Teacher). That mean that I have a lot of time for flying. Now here people talck a lot about F16 because Chile is buyin that figther for FACH (Fuerza Aerea de Chile).
Pijlie [unregristered]
post: #13
Email: jwpijlie@wxs.nl
Posted: 12/5 at 15:41
IP: 195.121.234.2
Frugal my man, I know what it's like. I started when my dad handed me a plastic Harvard some pre-computer millennia ago and said, go play with it son, you can quit anytime you want. Yeah right. But I am almost clean now, I haven't played for days and WHO PUT THAT JOYSTICK THERE IN FRONT OF ME ??? NURSE ! NUUUURSE !!!!
Wayne, yup that's me, well kinda, it's my face you can se behind the visor but it started life as a photo of Chunx. I originally edited the picture of Chunx to use in my Falcon 4 logbook. I pasted my face into the correct area of the photo then added a black layer with some transparency so that it looks like you can see my face through the visor. I also replaced Chunx' VX-9 Vampires patch with the Arctic Knights patch.
I know what you mean about addicted..In my case it started when I was about 5years old and we lived near the local airstrip and I used to watch those crop dusting yellow Piper Cubs flying in and out.
Model airplanes and lookingat the Sears catalog and drooling over the Cox P-40s, F4U, and reading Model Airplane News.
This continued on up untill I joined the Marine Corps . After a tour at the lovely place called Camp Lejeune, NC I made a lateral move to the photography MOS and a tour at NAS Pensacola ( Blue Angels and spent most of my liberty time at the flight line and at the Museum . I was getting worse.
By 1976 I was based at MCAS Kaneohe Bay Hi and sudenly got the opportunity to get flight status. Now I was flying on Hueys, Broncos, C-130s, CH-46 and 53s almost daily. And still I wanted more...
About 3months before I was due to go back to the Mainland, we got a frag for a photo mission in a jet and not just any jet but a F-4J Phantom.
I was the only one in the lab that was jet qualified so I got the ticket.
I can still remember the trip like it was yesterday.
By 1983 I was on my first Atari and trying to recreate in some way that trip in that F4.The closest I got though was the simulator then in a couple of years, I was out of the Marines and in withdrawl. I thought I had beaten it but by 1996 I got my first PC and the Black Knight F/A-18 sim..It's now 5 years and I'm back in deep. I have F4,JF/A-18, JF-15, EF2000v2, Red Barron3d, JWWII fighters, EAW, TAW,F-22ADF, F2, MiG Alley,CFS1/2,MiG-29 Fulcrum, and the various Space sims like WIng Commander, X-WingvsTie Fighter.And I'm anticipating adding Super Hornet to the addiciton...
Add to this mix the RPG sys.
you are nowhere near addicted enough...fer christ sake you waste valuble sim time flying in the back of an aerial bus to conventions..and then sit thier and get pissed wasting even more valuble flying time...
get a grip man and a least take a laptop with you...;)
i never really made a conscious decision to be who i am i just sort of arrived thier...i had only one thought on my tiny brain...
i must fly
i will fly
i ate a lot of crap to get thier
but get thier i did.
in terms of real flying unless you have the dough (and i did not then) you must have the will. I used to spend something like 14 hours a day doing crap stuff and freezing my ass off just to get 15mins flying in at the end of the day each weekend, It might suprise you that most sim dudes have absolutley no interest in flying at all...then thier are the odd fanactics like me who fly anything..real or virtual....many of my friends went commercial and lived in total poverty for years...not for me...having watched them watch the auto pilot..i bought my own and lived in poverty but flew when and where i wanted and it was all mine..the CAA in UK is busy wiping out none commercial flying in UK so i doubt thier will be much chance of doing flying that way any more.. i got lucky
my first home puter you had to build yourself and the flight simulator was the sort which consisted of only numbers on a screen..i still remember the first one with "gasp" visuals...a row of dots representing the view out of the window of the runway lights..then later an actual horizon...well a straight line which went jagged if you banked...then actual dials....them were the days...enough of this old timer crap...i aint that old ...yet . the only reason i got an interest in computers was for simulation....and i have to say its gone much further than i ever dreamed...something like falcon 4 was unimagible just a few years ago (and they still had the glass undercarrige bug...the more things change the more they stay the same). and the hours i spent on DI,s f15 ithink it was called with interface 1 and 2 on a speccy so i could have a joystick and link to another for multiplayer fun..man i thought it could not get any better...how little i knew ;)
never had an apple since all the good stuff came out on other machines (not much has changed thier either) and i always bought the macines that had the best flight sims on them (when i could afford to say eats beans on toast only for a couple months)..pretty much had the the rest though...
i must be getting mellow i have wasted flying time typing this
wacks self with nasty prickly looking branch muttering "mea culpa"...wack...mea culpa..wack....time for mig alley...bored of missiles for today....followed by a bit of 767 PIC...thier i was a double IN failure over the atlantic with nothing on the EFIS instruments but "failed"...what a flight that was.. i digress
you are nowhere near addicted enough...fer christ sake you waste valuble sim time flying in the back of an aerial bus to conventions..and then sit thier and get pissed wasting even more valuble flying time...
get a grip man and a least take a laptop with you...;)
i never really made a conscious decision to be who i am i just sort of arrived thier...i had only one thought on my tiny brain...
i must fly
i will fly
i ate a lot of crap to get thier
but get thier i did.
in terms of real flying unless you have the dough (and i did not then) you must have the will. I used to spend something like 14 hours a day doing crap stuff and freezing my ass off just to get 15mins flying in at the end of the day each weekend, It might suprise you that most sim dudes have absolutley no interest in flying at all...then thier are the odd fanactics like me who fly anything..real or virtual....many of my friends went commercial and lived in total poverty for years...not for me...having watched them watch the auto pilot..i bought my own and lived in poverty but flew when and where i wanted and it was all mine..the CAA in UK is busy wiping out none commercial flying in UK so i doubt thier will be much chance of doing flying that way any more.. i got lucky
my first home puter you had to build yourself and the flight simulator was the sort which consisted of only numbers on a screen..i still remember the first one with "gasp" visuals...a row of dots representing the view out of the window of the runway lights..then later an actual horizon...well a straight line which went jagged if you banked...then actual dials....them were the days...enough of this old timer crap...i aint that old ...yet . the only reason i got an interest in computers was for simulation....and i have to say its gone much further than i ever dreamed...something like falcon 4 was unimagible just a few years ago (and they still had the glass undercarrige bug...the more things change the more they stay the same). and the hours i spent on DI,s f15 ithink it was called with interface 1 and 2 on a speccy so i could have a joystick and link to another for multiplayer fun..man i thought it could not get any better...how little i knew ;)
never had an apple since all the good stuff came out on other machines (not much has changed thier either) and i always bought the macines that had the best flight sims on them (when i could afford to say eats beans on toast only for a couple months)..pretty much had the the rest though...
i must be getting mellow i have wasted flying time typing this
wacks self with nasty prickly looking branch muttering "mea culpa"...wack...mea culpa..wack....time for mig alley...bored of missiles for today....followed by a bit of 767 PIC...thier i was a double IN failure over the atlantic with nothing on the EFIS instruments but "failed"...what a flight that was.. i digress
Tomb
KC23 [unregristered]
post: #19
Email: kc23@simhq.com
Posted: 15/5 at 2:45
IP: 64.12.103.173
Its true, Frugal is perhaps worse than just an addict. I was already fully consummed by the drug ... errr hobby. But that wasn't enough for him. He had to drag me into writing about it and he made me help him pull other unsuspecting inocent individuals into his web of simming pleasure.
Oh sure first all he wanted was just a preview, then onto reviews. Then suddenly I found myself in a Meth ... errr ... MiG Alley lab making strategy guides for poor newbies who had no idea what it would lead too.
