Greetings Old Timers...long time no see. Question

[VMF-214_HaVoK]

Forgive me for my ignorance but I have been away from PC gaming and IL2 for a couple years.(turned into somewhat of a PS3 and 360 fanboy)

Is this Cliffs of Dover the much anticipated Battle of Britain? They changed the name and went for name recognition?

Im very interested in hearing opinions from the old vets of the franchise. Those who were flying with me back in 2001-2008. What do you guys think? I respect your opinions and I am very anxious to hear what you guys think. I guess I waited on this game so long it kinda just faded from my memory a bit. I still got my CH gear and TIR and it would be great to get up and flying again.

If you could shoot me a PM detailing what has changed and how the UI and online is I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,
HaVoK

FYI I will refuse to refer to this games as COD....bad memories.

[Blackdog_kt]

It's the same title. As for an actual evaluation of the game, it's going to take some time before it really gets up to speed.

Starting with the negative points first, my personal assessment after 50 or so hours of gameplay is that there are a lot of minor and some major issues to work around (minor/major as to the amount of work required to fix them, not just their importance to gameplay). Minor issues are mostly graphical glitches and a few instrument issues in some aircraft, the major ones are FM improvements, need for amended documentation (there are loads of features the manual talks about only briefly, if at all, it's mostly geared to getting a rookie up and flying) and mostly optimization issues to improve frame rates.

Which brings us to the positive points, there's the usual after-purchase support just like it was with IL2. Out of the box the sim was almost unflyable for me, but a few patches later i've seen a big improvement and i'm flying it just fine with playable frame rates.
Gameplay-wise, there are certain things the sim does very well even in its early, infant stage. I've found out that despite the issues mentioned above, there's a much heightened sense of visual immersion once you are in the cockpit if you can run the sim at medium to high detail levels, plus an increased sense of gameplay-derived immersion due to the complex DM and how the aircraft operate (even though some things are in need of extra tuning)

There's also a lot of things built into the engine that are aimed for future development and expansion of the sim. The most important one is the apparent lack of hard-set limits in the game engine. For example there have already been people setting up sorties with as much as a thousand aircraft in the air at the same time (made possible after the first optimization patches).
The maps load in square segments of 10x10km or so in order not to take up all your RAM space, so theoretically it's possible to have one single map for an entire theater of operations in the future.
There will be an SDK release in the coming months and everything from maps to interface can be modified, we already know all vehicles can be made player controlled, plus one of the developers stated "game within a game" possibilities.
All the above combined (customization, ability for huge maps and tracking a few hundred units) means that in due time, people could join a server with customized interfaces and the required 3rd party mods and have tank battles going on while they call on other players in aircraft to provide air support and so on.

There's already a scripting capability and mission triggers, enabling mission designers to load up missions within an already running map at pre-set intervals or once certain conditions are met without having to reload the map. Moving AI units are also included, as the DF and Co-op modes are now fused into one single multiplayer mode that combines the capabilities of both, how easy or hard or realistic the end result is rests on the mission designers.

This is obviously a pretty robust interface for creating dynamic online wars while still keeping performance manageable, for example populating the entire map with "ghost units" that spawn only when players are within a certain radius and they (or what's left of them) despawn with their damage state saved once the players leave the area.

Then, with a script-based mission generator and triggers it could be possible to have an online dynamic campaign that tracks supplies for each team, with the customizable interface it could be possible to draw up a sortie from within the game, complete with briefings and photos (briefings also have a hierarchy, so you can have a team briefing, a bomber or fighter briefing, down to individual flights) and import it on the fly to the map running at the time, with the scripts and customizable interface we could get virtual AI crewmen interfaces and overlay windows (eg, navigator script, you ask it for the nearest home base, set it to avoid known dangerous areas marked on a custom map window and it over-rides your current flight plan...quite handy when flying a shot-up bomber), etc etc etc.

The scripting is done in C# language, which means that it might be hard to get into for casually oriented folks but the possibilities for user-created in-flight tools, interface mods and mission triggers are huge.


That being said, the sim is in a very early stage at this moment and even the stuff that works hasn't been fully discovered or appreciated by the community yet. There's still a good amount of complex items that will take up your time just fine, learning about them while you wait for the patches. This tends to make the process slower, so there's not yet any kind of massive user-made single player content or the number of multiplayer servers you would find hosting IL2 scenarios.
What i'm trying to say is that despite having some things that don't work as advertised, the rest of what's there is already complex enough that it takes time for the community to catch up and come to grips with it. This makes it waiting for improvements much easier (as one tends to be busy with the current content), but it slows down the stream of user created contributions while we all come to grips with the new game engine and tools.

You shouldn't expect to just buy it, fire it up and jump into a community/scene that has all the bells and whistles of the IL2 one (which has been going for a decade), you'll be disappointed if you think this way.
What you can do is get it and start learning what's included and obvious for all to see and that would give you your money's worth within the first couple of months while the sim continues to grow.

My final assessment is that there's a lot of issues of varying importance and the sim is far from perfect, but with all the underlying capabilities in the game engine it will be killer in six months or so. Once the performance optimizations are complete and people have a stable, well-running common ground of a game to start off, things will pick up.
If you are a patient guy that can be happy learning about all the new stuff while they patch it further and the community comes to grips with what it can do, then go ahead and fly it. You might be disappointed in certain aspects initially, but you won't regret it overall.
If you expect the stability and amount of content that IL2 has reached after 10 long years, set the new sim on the shelf and revisit it after a couple of months.

[VMF-214_HaVoK]

Thank you for this in depth analysis. I really appreciate you taking the time to write it all out. It seems I have much to learn...feels like 2002 all over again.

This information is extremely valuable to me so thanks again. Good to see you btw!

S!

[Vengeanze]

Hi

I've done almost the same route as you, Havok except I bought a mac and got a kid so haven't flown since Pacific Fighters.

Just to add to what dog wrote, the details of this sim is incredible already in it's current state. How does working radar sound to you? And check out this thread for more kewl details:
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3284636/Details_you_have_found.html#Post3284636

/Vengeanze aka SKULLS_Ven

[Heliocon]

It's the same title. As for an actual evaluation of the game, it's going to take some time before it really gets up to speed.

Starting with the negative points first, my personal assessment after 50 or so hours of gameplay is that there are a lot of minor and some major issues to work around (minor/major as to the amount of work required to fix them, not just their importance to gameplay). Minor issues are mostly graphical glitches and a few instrument issues in some aircraft, the major ones are FM improvements, need for amended documentation (there are loads of features the manual talks about only briefly, if at all, it's mostly geared to getting a rookie up and flying) and mostly optimization issues to improve frame rates.

Which brings us to the positive points, there's the usual after-purchase support just like it was with IL2. Out of the box the sim was almost unflyable for me, but a few patches later i've seen a big improvement and i'm flying it just fine with playable frame rates.
Gameplay-wise, there are certain things the sim does very well even in its early, infant stage. I've found out that despite the issues mentioned above, there's a much heightened sense of visual immersion once you are in the cockpit if you can run the sim at medium to high detail levels, plus an increased sense of gameplay-derived immersion due to the complex DM and how the aircraft operate (even though some things are in need of extra tuning)

There's also a lot of things built into the engine that are aimed for future development and expansion of the sim. The most important one is the apparent lack of hard-set limits in the game engine. For example there have already been people setting up sorties with as much as a thousand aircraft in the air at the same time (made possible after the first optimization patches).
The maps load in square segments of 10x10km or so in order not to take up all your RAM space, so theoretically it's possible to have one single map for an entire theater of operations in the future.
There will be an SDK release in the coming months and everything from maps to interface can be modified, we already know all vehicles can be made player controlled, plus one of the developers stated "game within a game" possibilities.
All the above combined (customization, ability for huge maps and tracking a few hundred units) means that in due time, people could join a server with customized interfaces and the required 3rd party mods and have tank battles going on while they call on other players in aircraft to provide air support and so on.

There's already a scripting capability and mission triggers, enabling mission designers to load up missions within an already running map at pre-set intervals or once certain conditions are met without having to reload the map. Moving AI units are also included, as the DF and Co-op modes are now fused into one single multiplayer mode that combines the capabilities of both, how easy or hard or realistic the end result is rests on the mission designers.

This is obviously a pretty robust interface for creating dynamic online wars while still keeping performance manageable, for example populating the entire map with "ghost units" that spawn only when players are within a certain radius and they (or what's left of them) despawn with their damage state saved once the players leave the area.

Then, with a script-based mission generator and triggers it could be possible to have an online dynamic campaign that tracks supplies for each team, with the customizable interface it could be possible to draw up a sortie from within the game, complete with briefings and photos (briefings also have a hierarchy, so you can have a team briefing, a bomber or fighter briefing, down to individual flights) and import it on the fly to the map running at the time, with the scripts and customizable interface we could get virtual AI crewmen interfaces and overlay windows (eg, navigator script, you ask it for the nearest home base, set it to avoid known dangerous areas marked on a custom map window and it over-rides your current flight plan...quite handy when flying a shot-up bomber), etc etc etc.

The scripting is done in C# language, which means that it might be hard to get into for casually oriented folks but the possibilities for user-created in-flight tools, interface mods and mission triggers are huge.


That being said, the sim is in a very early stage at this moment and even the stuff that works hasn't been fully discovered or appreciated by the community yet. There's still a good amount of complex items that will take up your time just fine, learning about them while you wait for the patches. This tends to make the process slower, so there's not yet any kind of massive user-made single player content or the number of multiplayer servers you would find hosting IL2 scenarios.
What i'm trying to say is that despite having some things that don't work as advertised, the rest of what's there is already complex enough that it takes time for the community to catch up and come to grips with it. This makes it waiting for improvements much easier (as one tends to be busy with the current content), but it slows down the stream of user created contributions while we all come to grips with the new game engine and tools.

You shouldn't expect to just buy it, fire it up and jump into a community/scene that has all the bells and whistles of the IL2 one (which has been going for a decade), you'll be disappointed if you think this way.
What you can do is get it and start learning what's included and obvious for all to see and that would give you your money's worth within the first couple of months while the sim continues to grow.

My final assessment is that there's a lot of issues of varying importance and the sim is far from perfect, but with all the underlying capabilities in the game engine it will be killer in six months or so. Once the performance optimizations are complete and people have a stable, well-running common ground of a game to start off, things will pick up.
If you are a patient guy that can be happy learning about all the new stuff while they patch it further and the community comes to grips with what it can do, then go ahead and fly it. You might be disappointed in certain aspects initially, but you won't regret it overall.
If you expect the stability and amount of content that IL2 has reached after 10 long years, set the new sim on the shelf and revisit it after a couple of months.

Not picking a fight, I thought this was overall a good post/fair post imo, only thing I would contest is that the foundation is not yet fully implemented as they have said themselves, and until thats done we wont see many of the intended features unfortunetly. Also I would say to me (subjectivly) that many people are having lots of problems with glitches/bugs atm so its more than minor, but that is variable.

[MadTommy]

Blackdog_kt.. the words nail & head come to mind! :)

[Blackdog_kt]

Well, glad you liked my mini-"review" guys.

@ Heliocon: No worries, from some point on i can't really draw any authoritative lines since a lot of it comes down to what kind of problems bother us the most in any computer game, or how much we're willing to put up with in exchange for a completely new feature, the weight we put on any particular redeeming qualities or the lack of a certain feature, etc...there's just too much room for personal taste here for me to waltz in and throw a definitive "the state of the sim is such and such,now agree with me" statement.

That's why i tried to put it in a format that says "it does X well, Y doesn't work yet and it could do Z in the future" and let people make up their own minds.

What i'm trying to say is there's definitely no offence taken, i might disagree with some of what you say but i can also understand what you mean and your reasons behind your viewpoint, simply because there's no universal set of evaluation criteria that could simultaneously match what we all want and expect from the sim. ;)

[VMF-214_HaVoK]

Hi

I've done almost the same route as you, Havok except I bought a mac and got a kid so haven't flown since Pacific Fighters.

Just to add to what dog wrote, the details of this sim is incredible already in it's current state. How does working radar sound to you? And check out this thread for more kewl details:
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3284636/Details_you_have_found.html#Post3284636

/Vengeanze aka SKULLS_Ven

LOL...I hear ya bud, got 4 children of my own.

Thanks again for the information. I respect all opinions and different perspectives.
Has Jiri said anything about hosting Cliffs of Dover on Hyperlobby? Surely Maddox and crew would allow support. I like STEAM and all and use it quite a bit, but when it comes to IL-2 Hyperlobby is the only place to fly online. At least for me it is.