Contents:
Flawed
Beginning
History
Begins
Early UOP's
"The Dr.1 is Porked!"
SWWISA
The Last Classic UOP
To
the East!
Revolution
of CdT
A New Breed of UOP
Pat Wilson and WFP
Stachel's Hell's Angels
The Promised Land
The End of the Road
The End of the Road
Much
has fallen silent along the Flight Sim forums of Delphi and SimHQ, among
other places. But it is a silence brought on by unparalleled success.
There is simply nothing left to improve that is within the scope or
abilities of Red Baron. The phrase “it’s all been done” is apt here,
Red Baron has been saved. A few closing projects are in the works, such as
the Moving Front Patch, or MFP, but for the most part, Red Baron is
considered a mission accomplished. The patch makers are busy actually
flying and enjoying the game, or have moved on to other things in life.
Red Baron, the flawed title that seemed doomed to fail has lasted longer
on most of our hard drives than any other game of any kind. With all of
this accomplished, one has to ask, why write the history of the long
strange trip of an obscure Flight Sim?
Red
Baron was always the unknown game. The game that friends and spouses of
those in the community would have never heard of if it wasn’t for this
bunch of enthusiasts (nuts) that spent so many hours either making the
patches or loving newly released works. While I never created a single
patch for the community, my flying ultimately benefited from all those
mentioned in this work. I have spent hundreds of hours enjoying the
product of other people’s labor and this is my attempt to give something
back to the community that has given me so much. This work however, barely
scratches the surface. For every major release, there were countless other
people involved. Those like Steve Fabert, who provided treasure troves of
information on WWI aviation to every patch maker in the community worked
largely behind the scenes, working tirelessly to help create the end
product. Just because Red Baron was largely unknown by the gaming
community, does nothing to tarnish the affection shown to it in the years
following its lack-luster release. The patches created for this Sim
matured from infancy to all encompassing in the years that passed. Red
Baron is now complete and it is the hope of this history to remember those
who helped the game complete that journey. Hopefully, the history
presented here will lead those mentioned to write their stories as well,
and fill in the gaps left by myself.
Respectfully,
“CaptSopwith”
December
19, 2004
