I don't envy luthier...

[addman]

So much time spent on developing this game and to be released in this state. Progress have been made with the patches but it seems to me that in every new patch introduced problems are fixed but also new problems are caused by the patches. It's like 1 step forward + 1 step back, like treading water. If they can fix the game to "out of the box" playable before the US release I'll be amazed.

Don't get me wrong here I'm a supporter (since the bluebyte forums for those of you that remember) but when people say the original IL-2 was equally flawed at the beginning I tend to disagree. The original IL-2 was missing some content and demanded powerful hardware BUT there were solid foundations in place. The CoD engine seems fundamentally flawed, I'm not a programmer but that's the impression I get when a new patch is released, 10 things fixed, 10 new bugs/glitches appears.

This is not a rant, I'm just venting my thoughts on the current state of the game. With all this said I want to give Luthier and his team my biggest gratitude for putting this game out there and for supporting it with such enthusiasm and passion, the kind of passion that we all share for this particular genre. The game IS getting better in all the right places and let's hope it will continue like this until the game is the polished jewel that we all want it to be.

[Langnasen]

I see the game as like a person on life-support with meningitis, he'll probably survive but nobody knows if it'll be with permanent brain-damage or not, and all that goes with it. Can still walk but a bit blind, paralysed from the waist down, slurred speech, yada yada.

Hoping for a full recovery once all the tubes and wires are removed.

[addman]

Best analogy so far.:)

[ParaB]

After 60+ hrs I've shelved the game for the time being. I really hope over time CoD becomes a great sim, but for the moment I'm back to DCS:A-10C.

There's just too much missing/bugged/annoying stuff in CoD for me at the moment to really enjoy the sim besides some fun dogfights.

BTW Germany's biggest gaming mag Gamestar yesterday reviewed CoD, and rated it 63/100. And I can't blame them. I myself would probably add 10 points due to the "simmer bonus", but all in all it was a fair and balanced review. That's the same mag that gave good reviews in the past to sims like the original IL2, Falcon 4.0 or Black Shark.

It's just...sad.

[whoarmongar]

I want the game to succeed, but every time I launch the game it makes me depressed its so disapointing in so many ways I just shut it down and cant play it.
So much of it is so wrong it just destroys the immersion and my will to continue playing.
I have given it about 50hrs to get to this state, I keep hopeing that upcoming patch(s)
will fix its many failings so I wont be uninstalling it I just cant bring myself to play it.
I dont regret buying it and I hope it continues to get fixed, perhaps in a little while it will fullfill its potential and become a "must have" flight sim.

[Rattlehead]

To me the game needed another six months or so of development time before being released, and I suspect it will take about that long before we can say CoD is what we were expecting it to be upon release. Maybe a bit longer.

Obviously the team is working hard to sort things out and kudos to them for supporting this sim like they have been. This game is going to have to be fixed one little bit at a time...there won't be one magic patch that cures all the problems.

The game is not in an unrecoverable state by any means, and we must remember that whatever they learn from fixing the problems in CoD is something that can be carried over to the next expansion pack or installment of the series.

Even if CoD does not reach the heights expected, and the game sells poorly, I still think Ubi would support the series because the next expansion or installment should have a much smoother ride, on account of lessons learnt
with CoD.

While this is a niche market and a comparatively small fanbase in relation to some other genres, it is obviously a market passionately supported by it's fans.
And I think that oddly, it's that very niche quality that puts CoD in a strong position. There is no direct opposition to CoD...nothing new, anyway. There is no modern rival WW2 flight sim doing it better, and there are a ton of WW2 era fans.
Let's face it, can we really play 1946 forever?

[addman]

Let's face it, can we really play 1946 forever?
Haven't we already? LOL!

Seriously though I'm looking forward to the next instalment already and to be totally honest I'm getting a little bored with WW2 and would really like a Korea jet sim. It would be like a breath of fresh air and I think a jet sim have greater commercial potential, also we would DEFINITELY get new engine sounds then.;)

[Feathered_IV]

I want the game to succeed, but every time I launch the game it makes me depressed its so disapointing in so many ways I just shut it down and cant play it.

I must admit, I can't go more than about twenty minutes before I quit out of it too. It's like having a gorgeous, genius girlfriend. Unfortunately you can't tell what she's thinking and she won't clean herself up. She also has a bit of a stutter...

:rolleyes:

[ATAG_Dutch]

I must admit, I can't go more than about twenty minutes before I quit out of it too. It's like having a gorgeous, genius girlfriend. Unfortunately you can't tell what she's thinking and she won't clean herself up. She also has a bit of a stutter...

:rolleyes:

Yes but at least she's good at something that occupies you for twenty minutes.:rolleyes::grin:

[xnomad]

What have the patches broken? I've found they've improved the game each time, but the game has always been running fine for me since day 1. I'm just a little bored with the QMB and the useless campaign.

I've been enjoying multiplayer lately but the problem there is the numbers, nobody flies red. I've never seen the bf109 being so popular before, a shame really as I've always been a 109 driver and almost feel forced to jump in the Spit to make up the numbers. My kill ratio is 10:0 right now (I don't count the one time I got bounced by two AI planes and crashed into the channel and the two crashes I had because of lag.)

I hope things change quickly and the Spit drivers come back in force and teach me a good lesson as I was never this successful online in IL2.

[BadAim]

Yes but at least she's good at something that occupies you for twenty minutes.:rolleyes::grin:

Odd, I can go at it with her for hours.

[617Squadron]

The problem is that Luthier is "up to his arse in alligators while he is still trying to drain the swamp". He is doing his best to fix one part of the game whilst the constant trolling about "this-and-that-and-the-other-and what-about-the-engine-sounds" is going on.

The right question to ask yourselves is this, as I've seen this situation a lot of times before; how long do you expect Luthier to take all of this crap before he blows his stack, pulls teddy's head off, tells everyone to FRO and walks off into the sunset?

The guy needs support, not endless trolling. Criticism is easy and requires 0% effort, doing something about it takes a lot more and unless you are a coder at Luthier's level of expertise, just STFU, have some patience, accept that you know jack about game coding and give the guy some credit and space to work without the constant trolling background.

The Sistine Chapel ceiling wasn't painted in 5 minutes; this is like the Sistine Chapel ceiling of flight sims.....

Those who can help are helping, with patches and bug fixes. Kudos and respect to them for helping a drowning man out.

[Redroach]

I want the game to succeed, but every time I launch the game it makes me depressed its so disapointing in so many ways I just shut it down and cant play it.
So much of it is so wrong it just destroys the immersion and my will to continue playing

This.

After checking the changes in the Hurricane's flight model (while still not being able to select custom loadouts and so on and so on...), I wasn't even surprised anymore that there were multiple new bugs. Heavy engine misfires at all altitudes, in every conceivable setting, while it gets even worse at high altitudes. In my humble opinion, the hurricane isn't flyable anymore.
This was something like the last straw for me. I've reverted back to Il-2 1946 for the time being and, after so much sorrow in CoD, I've had a real blast. Dated graphics or not, this will be my flight sim (again) until (or better, if...) things get sorted out in CoD.
As stated, apart from graphics and the 'improved' damage model in CoD, everything is there in Il-2 1946. No Steam b**ls**t, Campaigns (dynamic or not), more aircraft customization (paradoxically, heh), proper mission briefing/debriefing, radio commands actually working, advanced navigation (besides it's actually working, too!) and so on and so forth.
I'll worry about the defence of London, or bombing it, again when it doesn't physically hurt anymore to witness the sorry state the game is at. Imo, CoD is maybe the worst piece of software any company really dared to take money for. It's a late alpha version, at best.

But it was interesting to see through which different stages the community went. There was:
a) Enthusiasm about the graphics, with strong hopes that the bugs and performance issues will be solved in no time
b) Enthusiasm gone, while hope was still going strong
c) Annoyance sets in, with some people being really angry about performance
d) more Annoyance as more and more bugs surface
e) After a new glimpse of hope as performance was improved, questionable patch priorities (new things get 'implemented' - i.e. new menu options introduced without any functionality whatsoever) and deeply flawed patch releases ('beta' patches or not) led us to the current and possibly final stage,
f) Heavy frustration, with community support dying away...

Well, at least I got a printed Spitfire manual and a cloth map covering a region which isn't there in stock 1946 :rolleyes:

[ATAG_Dutch]

Odd, I can go at it with her for hours.

Quite right.
I was surprised to note in the Steam window that I'm already up to 70 hours with her in one month.
For a bloke of my age that's not bad going. Or indicative of my stamina, one of the two.:grin:

[ElAurens]

Online is dead.

I flew on the Syndicate server last night and there were only 8 to 10 people in there. On a Friday night.

On a map that size it makes for a snooze fest. I patrolled in my Hurri and used up half a tank of fuel just puttering up and down the coast near my base when a lone 109 shows up. We did a bit of scraping about then he just broke off for no apparent reason and flew away across the channel. No way to catch him so I landed and shut the game down.

You need 30+ fliers plus AI to make a map that size, and of that historical context, work.

Couple that with the high altitude problems suffered by all aircraft and it really makes it hard to keep with it.

As for Steam being the magic bullet of sales success that all the Steam fans promoted early on, ummm...

I suspect that the reports from the FPS kiddies that have tried it, and there have been several posts at UBI from this demographic, have already doomed CoD to the wider Steam "community".

Steam is a double edged sword. It can be a great avenue to open up new market segments, but by the same token, news travels fast there, and the initial reports have probably done more harm than good.

1C shot themselves in the foot on that one.

Oh well.

I'm not going to uninstall it. I'll wait to see how it plays out.

But my online time is going back to IL2/46.

[Sven]

Online is not dead as it was never alive in the first place, patience young padawan.

[ElAurens]

Young?

I wish.


:grin:

[Sven]

Hehehe ;)

I wish MP was alive though, I really like this sim, but its limited time-frame and current performance problems have me playing IL2 1946 MP more then ever. Time is the cure, and it's not that I'm fed up with playing 1946, not at all:)

[smink1701]

I agree with all.

I have been pretty content and impressed to just fly around England and France and marvel at the beautiful details inside and out of the plane. But...yesterday I tried a number of missions and what a mess...sound dropping in and out, a few freezes, stutters, many, many things that took me right out of the experience.

Time will tell but I can remember when CFS3 came out and it was such a disaster it ended the MS CFS franchise. Hope the same doesn't happen here. I would love for someone who really has the inside track to report on how a sim that is in development for six years gets released like this. And the whole Oleg thing. What a mess!!! I just hope they have the time, money and talent to clean it up.

[kalimba]

Well, I think that North America's release will be the real turning point...It is 1C's last chance to make COD come back on the track...and get enough good reviews to bring new players along and getting back those who quit...
And the fact that Oleg, the father of the mighty Il2 sim is now gone, will contribute to the falling prestige of COD. Luthier has a huge cliff(!) to climb back...Both technical and marketing wise...
COD needs to get at least 80 % grades to keep the community interseted...and UBI' support to "finish " the game...But that is my personnal conclusion...

Salute !

[AARPRazorbacks]

I agree with all.

I have been pretty content and impressed to just fly around England and France and marvel at the beautiful details inside and out of the plane. But...yesterday I tried a number of missions and what a mess...sound dropping in and out, a few freezes, stutters, many, many things that took me right out of the experience.

Time will tell but I can remember when CFS3 came out and it was such a disaster it ended the MS CFS franchise. Hope the same doesn't happen here. I would love for someone who really has the inside track to report on how a sim that is in development for six years gets released like this. And the whole Oleg thing. What a mess!!! I just hope they have the time, money and talent to clean it up.

This is the first IL-2 flight sim for me to try. I very much like the sim.

The things that are in CoD are second to none.

I also see CoD as fixing the problems.

I also think that alot of the problems of the sim not working on some of the players PC is strange. I have a upper middle range PC and the sim flys good. The big thing is in my case I need 64 bit os. Cod tryed to reach a wide range of PC with XP and up. Thanks for that. But CoD is a 64 bit sim.

I can live with the sound problems. The controls is what needs fixed. Such as the ammo load outs and the gunner positions. To me you get that working and CoD is on its way.



I think this Sim will be fixed by the time it hits the USA market.

flyer01

[Gerfaut]

The Sistine Chapel ceiling wasn't painted in 5 minutes; this is like the Sistine Chapel ceiling of flight sims.....


How many years to paint the Sistine Chapel ? 6 years.
How many years to build COD ? Some say 7 years, some say less.

Result ? The Sistine Chapel is completed, COD isn't. It's a matter of fact.
So before comparing the Sistine Chapel with COD, may I suggest you to wait for the completion of the latter ?
:rolleyes:

We all paid after all. When I pay, I expect to get what I just paid for, nothing more, nothing less.

[GOA_Potenz]

Yup that's the point after 7 years of development, how they could release a product in this state??? Plus the cheat they used to record videos, and make us belive that the game
was running perfect. IMO the frustration showed by the community is exactly that, we've been wainting 7 years for this sim to be out after all that expectation, watching screens and videos for so many years, finally you bought the game, install it, and then you realize that after all that time and money spent on harware, performance is crap, so many bugs, glitches etc, FM/DM problems, then 1 patch, 2nd patch and the game isn't even close to what you saw on devs screens and videos. That will make a whole community to explode in anger.

[617Squadron]

Yup that's the point after 7 years of development, how they could release a product in this state??? Plus the cheat they used to record videos, and make us belive that the game
was running perfect. IMO the frustration showed by the community is exactly that, we've been wainting 7 years for this sim to be out after all that expectation, watching screens and videos for so many years, finally you bought the game, install it, and then you realize that after all that time and money spent on harware, performance is crap, so many bugs, glitches etc, FM/DM problems, then 1 patch, 2nd patch and the game isn't even close to what you saw on devs screens and videos. That will make a whole community to explode in anger.

So, how many versions of Windows were released in a similar condition? Even the best software developers are fallible; Windows ME and Vista are very good examples of their versions of 'Betaware' and are testament to the best being human. People paid good money to Microsoft for those too (and more money than you paid for COD, incidentally). I just feel that people need to get some perspective here.

@ Gerfaut

Nobody's stopping you from helping Luthier out here (and that goes for all of you other people queueing up to take a pop at him when is doing his best to make a bad situation good). If we could replace criticism and trolling with talent and help he'd get things finished so much quicker.

I can't believe the number of software 'experts' there are in here...... although I've yet to see code snippet suggestions to Luthier in threads, instead of script edits.... I freely admit I am no games coder but I sense a witchhunt is in progress and that ultimately, Luthier and Co. could be on a hiding to nothing....

[Redroach]

yeah, this is the assumption I'm making, too. CoD seems to be developed just to the point where you can make pretty advertising videos. Then, they called it a day and released it, with 3/4 of the features not even implemented, I fear. And performance optimization seemed to have been skipped totally, too.

It's like making a sportscar prototype. It looks fast, it does 330 km/h on a straight-line test track (though the engine sounds a bit flat :rolleyes: ). Okay, cool, you put it up for sale and the buyer has to find out that it can't get around corners, rear mirrors have been left out, you have to sit on a wooden box - and it consumes 5litres per km....

P.S.: The fact that they release patches now (as said, beta or not) that do AGAIN provide nothing more than new menu points without functionality is almost an insult to me...

[617Squadron]

yeah, this is the assumption I'm making, too. CoD seems to be developed just to the point where you can make pretty advertising videos. Then, they called it a day and released it, with 3/4 of the features not even implemented, I fear. And performance optimization seemed to have been skipped totally, too.

It's like making a sportscar prototype. It looks fast, it does 330 km/h on a straight-line test track (though the engine sounds a bit flat :rolleyes: ). Okay, cool, you put it up for sale and the buyer has to find out that it can't get around corners, rear mirrors have been left out, you have to sit on a wooden box - and it consumes 5litres per km....

P.S.: The fact that they release patches now (as said, beta or not) that do AGAIN provide nothing more than new menu points without functionality is almost an insult to me...

Everything you have said there could equally apply to Microsoft.... in fact, there was quite a famous quote about cars and software, as below:-

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with the technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating, "If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1.For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
2.Every time they painted new lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3.Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
4.Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5.Only one person at a time could use the car unless you bought "CarNT," but then you would have to buy more seats.
6.Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive -- but it would only run on five percent of the roads.
7.The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "general protection fault" warning light.
8.The airbag system would ask, "Are you sure?" before deploying.
9.Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the antenna.
10.GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally Road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50 percent or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.
11.Every time GM introduced a new car, car buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
12.You'd have to press the "start" button to turn the engine off".

That says it all.....

[Blackdog_kt]

I think there's just too much panic for no reason. The team got some sales in EU, Aus and Russia to keep paying their bills while they work on the bugs, they'll use that time to get it to an adequate standard for the US release and that's all there is to it.

On top of that, we have a good starting package with a bit of everything thrown in and a few tools to create extra content ourselves (more than a few but not all work or are properly documented yet), a good amount of flyables and AI units and none of the "pay-per-plane" hassle that another recent sim had to use to fund itself through its own initially troublesome launch. Other titles have had an equally rocky start or had it even worse than CoD, starting out with similar optimization troubles, having a much lower amount of content and being more expensive to own and improve and guess what, they are doing just fine now, so what's all the panic about?


Anyone with half a brain that's been following these boards knew that the game would be incomplete upon release, the massive scope of all the new features coupled with the small staff and budget would guarantee a lot of bug-hunting and so on, so if people knew all that and still went out and bought it with the aim of simply having something to complain about its incomplete state, well they only have themselves to blame.

Doubly so if they were among the people who were constantly demanding a release date and just bought it out of impatience, so that they can be even more impatient for the bugs to get fixed, this actually borders on masochism :-P

I'm not denying the game's issues but neither am i denying the fact that they are working on improving it. We'll probably have a fully working product in 6 months or so either way, the way i see it is that i pre-ordered and got access to the open beta as a bonus.
In fact, that's the only mistake they did with this launch. They should have labeled it an open beta and give access to people who pre-order and deposit a token amount as down-payment, something similar to what DCS:A-10 did. Not only would nobody complain in that case, the exact opposite in fact: everyone would be rushing to pre-order and put down $10 for their copy in advance, just to get in on the beta. That's the gamer mentality, tell him he's somehow special and bugs won't bother him one bit as long as he knows he's elevated to the revered status of beta-tester.

So what happens from now on? Well, whether you choose to fly it in its current state, shelve it for a few months or not even buy it and wait until it gets fixed, they are all valid choices and nobody's going to call foul on that.

What i don't get is people who demanded the moon and stars in terms of features while at the same time complaining about the release delays and now state that "it should have been delayed for 6 months", when there's already been 2-3 cases of renewed outrage for the US release being pushed back. Now this is the point where i start laughing because the inconsistency is reaching comedy levels.


This is not aimed towards anyone in particular, i don't keep tabs, i don't take down names, i don't need to defend the sim as long as i'm having fun with it, everyone is free to have their opinion and even change it as time goes by.

All i'm saying is that if i don't just change my opinion on what should be done or should have been done with the game/sim every few weeks but go from one extreme to the completely opposite one, then nobody in their right mind will take me seriously after a while and with good reason.

I mean, let's just all have some consistency and common sense for a change ;)

[617Squadron]

What i don't get is people who demanded the moon and stars in terms of features while at the same time complaining about the release delays and now state that "it should have been delayed for 6 months", when there's already been 2-3 cases of renewed outrage for the US release being pushed back. Now this is the point where i start laughing because the inconsistency is reaching comedy levels.

Trolls have no sense of reasoning or logic; maybe that's where you are going wrong....

I agree with your comments entirely though - some people on here need a life transplant urgently.....

[Redroach]

Everything you have said there could equally apply to Microsoft.... in fact, there was quite a famous quote about cars and software, as below:

Right here, right now, I'm using Linux, FYI. I play my games on a windows partition on another PC.
That said, Windows was always a step ahead in terms of user-friendliness, while keeping its flaws at least down on a reasonable level. CoD is just unusable, at least for my purposes.
And... 2x bad doesn't make it good, does it?

[robtek]

All this whining is so pathetic!
All buyers of CoD have bought, what they thought, the best WWII Flightsim ever.
When the patches are done this is the best WWII Flightsim ever!
So we have to wait a few more months to get it as perfect as possible, beware, the sky is falling, the sun won't rise anymore...etc,etc...
Those, with so little faith, can give it back and be quiet, they have sworn off from CoD.
Those, which know that there is no alternative to CoD lurking around the corner, might take the delay to reach perfection like a grown man.
CoD, as it is now, IS already fun to play for the majority of buyers.
Have i already said that there is no alternative?
I always read " it's a beta" or "it's only alpha", so what, even as a alpha or beta version it is good.
Even CoD's precessor, il2-1946, is so shallow when one has flown CoD, for me, i haven't started it since i've installed CoD.
By the way, it seems as if Maddox Games HAD to sell something, just to be able to continue their quest for the best WWII Flightsim ever.
I, for my part, have happily spent the money for the CE, just for the chance to play this Flightsim in the years to come.
And if now comes the calls "fanboi", so be it.
I am a fan of WWII Flightsims, as everybody who bought this game.
Whining only show immaturess in my eyes, constructive critisizing is not whining.
Sorry for the rant, but this "instant gratification crowd" gets to my nerves, where is my ginseng now

[617Squadron]

@ robtek

If I was to bet money on who are among the worst whiners on here, I'd be putting my money on the "Playstation generation", i.e. those who have come to expect instant gratification, as you pointed out.

The old 'uns amongst the members on here who remember having to type for hours in BASIC to get a program into a computer in the '80s, then spend hours debugging the code to find out why it isn't working properly, are most likely to be the ones on here asking people to calm down and get a perspective on the whole thing (this includes me).

I doubt that a lot of these whiners could write an autoexec.bat and config.sys file in DOS, let alone code games software.

The problem is, consoles and Windows patches have spoilt these people rotten and they simply don't realise it. they don't know they're born....

[Rattlehead]

In fact, that's the only mistake they did with this launch. They should have labeled it an open beta and give access to people who pre-order and deposit a token amount as down-payment, something similar to what DCS:A-10 did. Not only would nobody complain in that case, the exact opposite in fact: everyone would be rushing to pre-order and put down $10 for their copy in advance, just to get in on the beta. That's the gamer mentality, tell him he's somehow special and bugs won't bother him one bit as long as he knows he's elevated to the revered status of beta-tester.

So what happens from now on? Well, whether you choose to fly it in its current state, shelve it for a few months or not even buy it and wait until it gets fixed, they are all valid choices and nobody's going to call foul on that.

What i don't get is people who demanded the moon and stars in terms of features while at the same time complaining about the release delays and now state that "it should have been delayed for 6 months", when there's already been 2-3 cases of renewed outrage for the US release being pushed back. Now this is the point where i start laughing because the inconsistency is reaching comedy levels.




Fantastic post.

[Rattlehead]

CoD, as it is now, IS already fun to play for the majority of buyers.
Have i already said that there is no alternative?


I have logged over 60 hours in the game so far. 1c must have done something right. :)

[Redroach]

Okay, so 6 months is it then to make my $$ worth a while? Fine, let's wait and see...

What's the matter with writing/editing batch files anyway? Hehe, that sets you folks really apart from us "instant gratification crowd", doesn't it? :rolleyes:

[617Squadron]

@ Redroach

Let's leave the script kiddies out of this, eh?

I am talking about people with *some* programming knowledge and appreciation of what is involved with programming a complex game such as this, rather than just having the ability to press the "Add Troll Comment" button...

To be honest, I've not seen fanboi trolls like these on here since the late '80s / early '90s, back when there was the Amiga vs. Atari troll war...

[Redroach]

No one is "warring" anyone; at least I'm not. If you want to go ad hominem, thats your call, dude.

My statement still stands: CoD is in no way, shape or form to be considered a finished product.

Btw: I've worked on certain large-scale programming projects, too (nothing graphical, though). Don't pretend you're the only one who knows what he's talking about.

[ATAG_Bliss]

My statement still stands: CoD is in no way, shape or form to be considered a finished product.

Well I think we can all agree that it's obviously not finished. But I hope it never is. That's the IL2 legacy. It's an ongoing WIP. The original series (10+ years and still going) is still being updated/patched.

Virtually every single Friday update that was shown for IL2COD clearly stated WIP as well. I'm just going out on a limb and saying bugs, problems, faults with the game, were almost expected to be there based on the WIP part alone. What I don't get is where the devs ever said anything along the lines of "Our perfectly finished game is being released on March 25th." Instead, the last couple friday updates shown before the release even clearly said WIP.

If you can find me a link to where the devs ever said anything about finalized or a perfect running game (especially after seeing years of updates stated WIP) I'll eat my shorts.

[617Squadron]

I'm not pretending to be anything... I also don't wish to allude that you are trolling me either or that we do this ad nauseum (yes, I do understand Latin).

All I'm saying is that I agree with you that this game is a "work in progress" just as much as Windows Vista was until it was patched. Maybe the pictures and videos released before the launch got people so worked up about it that 1C felt that they were heavily pregnant with obligation to launch it, even though it wasn't 100% finished. There may have also been pressure from Ubisoft to launch no matter what, while the community was sexed up about it.

Either way, it's out now and it's being worked on. It just needs time and patience, something that seems to be sadly lacking. If people think they have been sold a pup and it's not fit for purpose, they can always ask for a refund, although the fact that they have signed up on here to vent their spleens about it tells me that they want something more than a refund, as they can see a diamond in the rough.

If people want instant gratification that badly, they should maybe go and rent a hooker...

I've had my two cents now.

[tagTaken2]

Time will tell but I can remember when CFS3 came out and it was such a disaster it ended the MS CFS franchise. Hope the same doesn't happen here.

CFS3 was a real pig, alright. By the time I had a PC capable of running it on High settings, it looked totally obsolete.

But I think what killed CFS3 was mostly Il-2. Especially after the Aces Expansion pack, when you could compare the planes in CFS3 with Il-2 versions.

[Redroach]

I'm not pretending to be anything... I also don't wish to allude that you are trolling me either or that we do this ad nauseum (yes, I do understand Latin).

All I'm saying is that I agree with you that this game is a "work in progress" just as much as Windows Vista was until it was patched. Maybe the pictures and videos released before the launch got people so worked up about it that 1C felt that they were heavily pregnant with obligation to launch it, even though it wasn't 100% finished. There may have also been pressure from Ubisoft to launch no matter what, while the community was sexed up about it.

Either way, it's out now and it's being worked on. It just needs time and patience, something that seems to be sadly lacking. If people think they have been sold a pup and it's not fit for purpose, they can always ask for a refund, although the fact that they have signed up on here to vent their spleens about it tells me that they want something more than a refund, as they can see a diamond in the rough.

If people want instant gratification that badly, they should maybe go and rent a hooker...

I've had my two cents now.

Yeah, well, I'll opt for "Instant Gratification" then (isn't that the whole point of buying a game in the first place? Otherwise, you could just... start to program). But if burning 50€ for half the game now, half of it maybe later fits your needs better, then hey, more power to you!

[617Squadron]

TBH I burned more cash than that on a crappy version of Windows Vista.... until I saw sense and replaced it with Windows 7. maybe I should have waited, but this sounds somewhat familiar.....

I could argue that the money spent on Vista was for a half-finished version of Windows 7, but that's another story.

For now, I'm prepared to wait it out and have faith, as I see this game evolving into something truly epic.

[GOA_Potenz]

@ Redroach

Let's leave the script kiddies out of this, eh?

I am talking about people with *some* programming knowledge and appreciation of what is involved with programming a complex game such as this, rather than just having the ability to press the "Add Troll Comment" button...

To be honest, I've not seen fanboi trolls like these on here since the late '80s / early '90s, back when there was the Amiga vs. Atari troll war...


I'm not going to make any mod for this till it's optimized as i don't want to do what devs didn't

[Bakelit]

My big disappointment does not come from the fact that some finer points of the CEM might not work well, or some über shaders or next generation features are not implemented yet.

It comes from severely lacking documentation, not even an intro movie, poor interface and things you take for granted when you buy any game or sim. Add that the studio has the best WW2 sim under its belt, lots of community feedback and experience and then had quite some years of development.

And then look at the state CoD came in. I wish I could be as positive as some others but if they haven't got it together in six years how can they do it in the next six months?

I still cannot comprehend what went wrong and as much as I want to love it I can't.

[CharveL]

I look at it as a groundbreaking sim that's about 6 - 12 months before its release date where we were given the opportunity to buy in early to beta test it. Currently it's more of a technology demo than a sim/game.

But that's an optimistic view from my perspective and I've already got my fifty bucks worth out of it, despite expectations for it to be more finished than it is.

So I don't take the bugs too seriously myself, given the understanding that they are being fixed over the next 6 months, so long as they do keep at it.

I understand also those who are severely disappointed because it's not a finished sim/game and fully expected it to be so because it was released as such. Most people require more or different things from a sim than I do after waiting this long and it's not because I'm complacent, just that I have enough to do to keep me busy while new features make it in. Others don't or have more time to burn through the rather skeletal features than I do.

If I get bored in the next few weeks I'll just do something else while it catches up.

[dali]

omg...what a bunch of suck-ups...

[swiss]

I look at it as a groundbreaking sim that's about 6 - 12 months before its release date where we were given the opportunity to buy in early to beta test it. Currently it's more of a technology demo than a sim/game.

But that's an optimistic view from my perspective and I've already got my fifty bucks worth out of it, despite expectations for it to be more finished than it is.

So I don't take the bugs too seriously myself, given the understanding that they are being fixed over the next 6 months, so long as they do keep at it.

I understand also those who are severely disappointed because it's not a finished sim/game and fully expected it to be so because it was released as such. Most people require more or different things from a sim than I do after waiting this long and it's not because I'm complacent, just that I have enough to do to keep me busy while new features make it in. Others don't or have more time to burn through the rather skeletal features than I do.

If I get bored in the next few weeks I'll just do something else while it catches up.

+1

[Theshark888]

omg...what a bunch of suck-ups...

+1

I know some of these fanboi posts make my eyes bleed:rolleyes:

[Al Schlageter]

My big disappointment does not come from the fact that some finer points of the CEM might not work well, or some über shaders or next generation features are not implemented yet.

It comes from severely lacking documentation, not even an intro movie, poor interface and things you take for granted when you buy any game or sim. Add that the studio has the best WW2 sim under its belt, lots of community feedback and experience and then had quite some years of development.

And then look at the state CoD came in. I wish I could be as positive as some others but if they haven't got it together in six years how can they do it in the next six months?

I still cannot comprehend what went wrong and as much as I want to love it I can't.

Russian (Soviet) perception of the West. They think bling sells in the West, and it does somewhat, but 'All Show and No Go' doesn't get to far either and that is what has been produced. There was too much concentration on the show (bling) and not enough time spent on the go (coding/testing).

[capt vertigo]

Well. I guess I can put in my two cents.

I have flown the game eleven hours over the weekend.

My opinion.

I love the cockpits. The shadows. The head shakes.
I also like the look of the surface of the sea.

The rest looks like old IL2.
Rivers look dumb. Trees look dumb. Shorelines look dumb..
Buildings are too cookie cutter to be convincing.
FM feels easy. Ground model feels dumb.
Airplanes wings lack detail.

I give it a six stars out of ten.

I don't mind paying the fifty bucks though, if that's what it takes to keep things rolling. (The world is in a recession after all...)

[Redroach]

Russian (Soviet) perception of the West. They think bling sells in the West, and it does somewhat, but 'All Show and No Go' doesn't get to far either and that is what has been produced. There was too much concentration on the show (bling) and not enough time spent on the go (coding/testing).

I am of the opinion that 1C/Maddox messed up with CoD, but:
This is probably the most disturbing post I've read in a while.

[Hunden]

I'm not going to make any mod for this till it's optimized as i don't want to do what devs didn't

Love your work by the way.

[Blackdog_kt]

I look at it as a groundbreaking sim that's about 6 - 12 months before its release date where we were given the opportunity to buy in early to beta test it. Currently it's more of a technology demo than a sim/game.

But that's an optimistic view from my perspective and I've already got my fifty bucks worth out of it, despite expectations for it to be more finished than it is.

So I don't take the bugs too seriously myself, given the understanding that they are being fixed over the next 6 months, so long as they do keep at it.

I understand also those who are severely disappointed because it's not a finished sim/game and fully expected it to be so because it was released as such. Most people require more or different things from a sim than I do after waiting this long and it's not because I'm complacent, just that I have enough to do to keep me busy while new features make it in. Others don't or have more time to burn through the rather skeletal features than I do.

If I get bored in the next few weeks I'll just do something else while it catches up.



That's pretty much my take on things as well. I would still want it to be much better than it currently is, but the fact that all my time is taken up just learning about the stuff that is included and works makes it a whole lot easier to wait for the patches. That being said i started flying it almost "full real" from day one (i use external views in single player because i like looking at the aircraft, plus i disabled anthropomorphic controls due to the fact that it doesn't filter spiking and thinks you are using your controls all the time if you fly with an older stick like i do), so i have a lot of stuff to keep busy with.

On the other hand, if people want to fly around in reduced difficulty settings, no CEM, etc and have some quick action fun then they are going to be disappointed, they are seeing maybe less than 50% of the gameplay experience and that takes a lot less time to do.

Also, there's a whole lot of people who only think in terms of graphics and not much else, completely missing the underlying capabilities of the game's engine in terms of mission scripting and lack of apparent limits in map sizes (they load in segments) and units (there's a recent youtube vid with a thousand aircraft in the air on the current, unoptimized build).
We could be flying online in a bomber raid from the UK deep into occupied Europe and the Reich with in a few months, 500 bombers, 200 escorts, 300 fighters intercepting them and all that being part of a dynamic online campaign, but some people just can't see past graphics. The functionality complaints are valid, some of the sounds need improvement to aid with immersion, but other than that in a "cosmetic" sense the game is as good looking as it needs to be, let's focus on its "brains" a bit, shall we? ;)

I've clocked about 50 hours or so and i still haven't managed to master all of what i've discovered to a degree similar to how i can do things in IL2. By the time i best my manual prop pitch technique in the luftwaffe fighters and master my level bombing techniques, it could well be another 50 hours and 2-3 patches down the line.

[mazex]

I think there's just too much panic for no reason. The team got some sales in EU, Aus and Russia to keep paying their bills while they work on the bugs, they'll use that time to get it to an adequate standard for the US release and that's all there is to it.

On top of that, we have a good starting package with a bit of everything thrown in and a few tools to create extra content ourselves (more than a few but not all work or are properly documented yet), a good amount of flyables and AI units and none of the "pay-per-plane" hassle that another recent sim had to use to fund itself through its own initially troublesome launch. Other titles have had an equally rocky start or had it even worse than CoD, starting out with similar optimization troubles, having a much lower amount of content and being more expensive to own and improve and guess what, they are doing just fine now, so what's all the panic about?


Anyone with half a brain that's been following these boards knew that the game would be incomplete upon release, the massive scope of all the new features coupled with the small staff and budget would guarantee a lot of bug-hunting and so on, so if people knew all that and still went out and bought it with the aim of simply having something to complain about its incomplete state, well they only have themselves to blame.

Doubly so if they were among the people who were constantly demanding a release date and just bought it out of impatience, so that they can be even more impatient for the bugs to get fixed, this actually borders on masochism :-P

I'm not denying the game's issues but neither am i denying the fact that they are working on improving it. We'll probably have a fully working product in 6 months or so either way, the way i see it is that i pre-ordered and got access to the open beta as a bonus.
In fact, that's the only mistake they did with this launch. They should have labeled it an open beta and give access to people who pre-order and deposit a token amount as down-payment, something similar to what DCS:A-10 did. Not only would nobody complain in that case, the exact opposite in fact: everyone would be rushing to pre-order and put down $10 for their copy in advance, just to get in on the beta. That's the gamer mentality, tell him he's somehow special and bugs won't bother him one bit as long as he knows he's elevated to the revered status of beta-tester.

So what happens from now on? Well, whether you choose to fly it in its current state, shelve it for a few months or not even buy it and wait until it gets fixed, they are all valid choices and nobody's going to call foul on that.

What i don't get is people who demanded the moon and stars in terms of features while at the same time complaining about the release delays and now state that "it should have been delayed for 6 months", when there's already been 2-3 cases of renewed outrage for the US release being pushed back. Now this is the point where i start laughing because the inconsistency is reaching comedy levels.


This is not aimed towards anyone in particular, i don't keep tabs, i don't take down names, i don't need to defend the sim as long as i'm having fun with it, everyone is free to have their opinion and even change it as time goes by.

All i'm saying is that if i don't just change my opinion on what should be done or should have been done with the game/sim every few weeks but go from one extreme to the completely opposite one, then nobody in their right mind will take me seriously after a while and with good reason.

I mean, let's just all have some consistency and common sense for a change ;)

+1

Best post I've read here for months...

[airmalik]

An insightful and well reasoned post Blackdog. A rarity on these boards.

In fact, that's the only mistake they did with this launch. They should have labeled it an open beta and give access to people who pre-order and deposit a token amount as down-payment, something similar to what DCS:A-10 did.

My thoughts as well but I think DCS were able to do this because they publish the game themselves. I doubt UBI would be interested in this early access/downpayment deal.

Despite all the initial problems, I'm glad that this sim was pushed out the door when it was. You've GOT to just ship sometimes. The pursuit of perfection in a sim with as ambitious a scope as COD's would take forever otherwise. With the sim in the market the dev team is definitely better focused on the critical stuff. There's plenty of time to polish other aspects of the sim during it's hopefully long lifespan.

Disclosure - I've purchased the game on Steam but haven't installed it yet. Only have a MBpro at the moment and am holding out until the performance issues are sorted out before I put together a purpose built rig for COD.

[GOA_Potenz]

Love your work by the way.

Thanks mate