For my 40$.

[Mardescrap]

Man what a mess!

I don't know exactly what went wrong over there, it feels either like the team wanted to do BIG things they weren't able to deliver or some guy of the marketing department wanted the thing to go out at a PRECISE date even if it wasn't finished. Marketing folks are funny, they think that a trailer with flames and epic (bad orchestral) music sell better than quality.

The AI is completely off (Bf110 rolling like crazy when pursued, gunner shooting at you between regurgitations), the ground is too heavy for most systems (drawcalls or polycount, whatever), the LODs have problems, often the textures don't load properly so that the models in CoD look worst than the ones in IL2. The gunsights are a pain to use along the now bad camera controls. The sounds are good, the problem is that there seems to be lots of placeholders left in the final product.

What I fail to grasp is why the need to fix things that weren't broken at first in IL2 made this actually worst in its functionality than the original. Why is there a need for a custom window full of information that remind you constantly that you are actually in a game (not flying), and why does it overlap over the radio menu? Why is the menu such a mess? Where is the quick mission screen? Why not just reskin IL2 with a deeper AI, better damage models and a better career? I mean the only complaints I had about IL2 was the AI (which is good since one of the last patches) and the shallow careers.

From what I heard the team is 26 guys strong? Over the course of development I saw some things like an autogyro (with a model that looked fairly final), pilot animations for bailing out and VERY high resolution ground vehicles. It sounds like zigzag development and leaders not grounded wanting every idea done. 26 people can't go like that and finish everything, that's sad because making this thing with 26 guys is still a feat even if it's broken... however this should have been done with priorities at the right places... but I'm just being captain hindsight here.

On the bright side, congrats to the modeler of the airplanes and cockpit, that's really a nice job. The textures on the airplanes, when they load properly, look right on spot, the specularity and the progressive weathering are near perfect. The normal mapping adds a lot, especially to the aircrafts covered by fabric. The damage model is REALLY nice. Water is nice too, best shader in a flight sim that I saw so far. The lighting is pretty good too. Under the problems there seems to be high potential for something awesome. The progressive weathering of the airplanes holds potential, for instance a career that you wear out your airplane by flying it would be awesome.

Anyway good luck cleaning this up to the team, I'll check after some patches what if feels like. I'm sure it will be better later, but I'll keep on flying the KA50 until my WWII airplane is fixed.

PS: I pre-ordered the game and got this after a delay, I think it was worth that post.

[Mysticpuma]

I hear the echo of many a previous post here :( but I think you do give a fair and balanced view and I agree with your summary. Sit back, wait for patch 1.07.3529 and all, I am sure, will be good in CloD again :)

[Tree_UK]

Well not to worry at least Luthier's happy,

heres the latest update form our comedy chum..

Yes, we're alive. Me especially. I rarely feel more alive than after a morning reading of the forums!

The sound is progressing well.

General mood:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3qbB4Kq3Y0

[robtek]

Some people could use this advice: Lighten up, take it easy, it's not the end of the world, everything will be all-right, ....

[6S.Tamat]

"Some people could use this advice: Lighten up, take it easy, it's not the end of the world, everything will be all-right, ..." but i paid so i'm a little bit irritated

[Mysticpuma]

Anyone else had posted that about the sound it would have been deleted and reported!

Disappointing to know Luthier can visit the forums to mock us, isn't it about time he took seriously the fact they have our money and should at-least spend time posting what they are actually doing rather than taking the mick!

Then again it would be nice to see some more party pictures from the inside of the office as they celebrate releasing the same buggy 'patched' game to the US without any update?

Harsh, but I'd rather see posts about what they intend to fix in a roadmap rather than mockery of those disappointed with what there currently is.

MP

[Mysticpuma]

Okay if it's alright for Luthier, here's video showing improvements over the latest patch in the next update:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyu0w1fzyIc

[furbs]

Welcome to the club Puma, every man has his limit.

[drewpee]

I've payed my phone company allot more than $40 over the last 20 years they still can't get it right. I've already had my moneys worth of fun out of this game and it's only going to get better.:)

[fireflyerz]

Mardescrap - probably one of the better posts ive read on this forum and you echo allot of my observations , to me its no longer about if and when will it get fixed but a fascination for how and why it all went horribly wrong .

[adonys]

ditto :(

[Feathered_IV]

Well not to worry at least Luthier's happy,

heres the latest update form our comedy chum..

If that is the new menu music, they have absolutely nailed it.

[PVT_Shepperd]

That is exactly my opinion. I preordered the collectors edition and was amazed about the quality of the box and the extras. But after looking more deeply to it I noticed missing pages, wrong information in the manual as well as some mistakes on the map.
It is the same with the game. There are many good looking things, there are amazing features but then you see it is not finished yet. I was aware that I wouldnt get a finished game when I preordered but I expected a flyable simulation. Till now many things have been improved and I enjoy flying around but fighting offline is still a mess.
I decided not to get upset about it but to leave it in the shelf till it is fixed in a way I can enjoy it. And I still think that CloD will get there. Until then I stay with the civilian aviation and enjoy the A2A Spitfire in FSX.

[Mardescrap]

Some people could use this advice: Lighten up, take it easy, it's not the end of the world, everything will be all-right, ....

It's not the end of the world I know.

But it's the end of the serie.

[robtek]

It's not the end of the world I know.

But it's the end of the serie.

Those doomsday posts are the funniest :D :D ;D

[kimosabi]

It's a broken computer game. Whoopdedoo.

[JG53Frankyboy]

Those doomsday posts are the funniest :D :D ;D

indeed ! There will be for sure (ok, 99,9% ;) ) the next AdOn that will focus an easternfront scenario. If that will be no financial success (and we know NOTHING about the financial success of CoD !!) - THAN, we might talk about doomsday again i guess :D

The pre-orders for this easternfont thing might be lower than for CoD, after the CoD release experience.

[hiro]

I learned along time ago its not numbers, its quality of the men (and women) and how you use them.

The ability to focus and concentrate . . .




What is crazy is how they could get IL-2 awesome off the bat, but the level of awesome this game (clod) was supposed to be but it didn't.

And the guys at natural point were saying Oleg was in it but walked . . . Maybe 5 years from now, when the game is going great, we'll hear the saga of what really happened. Was the developer blackballed by the publisher?




Some people don't get how difficult (to make) software is. Yeah Il-2 was good, but they did clod from scratch . . .



Luthier has to be happy, he could be negative and angry and pissed, and then we get a crap job. Captain Obvious will tell you happy people do good work, and angry birds destroy things.


And yes we got what we wanted! You forget all those posts in history wishing the game could come out early.

Wish granted, but remember everything (except being Christian Saved) has a price.


Oh we want realistic sounds . . . wish granted.
But wait, multiplayer sound broken for the next year.

I want a body like adonis (for girls a body like artemis), oh wait I have to eat like a bird and eat properly and work out two hours every day.


We need great pilots . . . whoops, you forgot you have to spend hours flight time, have skies free to train, and have planes to do so, millions of gallons of fuel, plus the blood, sweat, and tears of veterans returning home to give their valuable experience.


Granted Il-2 dev crew could have done a better job, but circumstance lead up to this.

Be grateful Il-2 Clod is being improved. The negativity would be right and justifiable if the game was left abandoned and the dev ninjas walked away.










10K maniacs

If lust and hate is the candy,
If blood and love tastes so sweet,
Then we give 'em what they want.

So their eyes are growing hazy 'cos they wanna turn it on,
So their minds are soft and lazy.
Well... who do you wanna blame?

Hey, hey, give 'em what they want . . .

[Chivas]

What part of the sim isn't finished yet do people not understand? It is possible that the sim could be left unsupported, but thats not how Maddox Games has done business for the last ten years. Some people suggest that doesn't mean anything, but it means everything in business.

[SYN_Repent]

How many games have mg made? I know of 2 flight sims

[Tree_UK]

What part of the sim isn't finished yet do people not understand? It is possible that the sim could be left unsupported, but thats not how Maddox Games has done business for the last ten years. Some people suggest that doesn't mean anything, but it means everything in business.

We get the sim isn't finished Chivas, we see it every single day, but the novalty is wearing off.

[robtek]

We get the sim isn't finished Chivas, we see it every single day, but the novalty is wearing off.

One could think you are talking about your posts with the last sentence. :D

[Tree_UK]

One could think you are talking about your posts with the last sentence. :D

Thanks heavens i took the precaution of wearing my corset this morning, otherwise I fear my sides would of split!

[Skoshi Tiger]

Personally, I've spent more money on backyard monsters than my steam download of COD. (There were some dweebs that said I was under their influehnce and had to follow their instructions! Hell hath no fury like, nor is as vindictive as an irrate skoshi tiger in backyard monster land!) Back yard monsters is as buggy as all-get-out!

Hey I even spent $80.00 on Call of duty modern warfare when my nephews came over for a long weekend and haven't touched it since - no I lie, I did do a zombie mission once!).

To me $40.00 doesn't sound too bad.

[Mardescrap]

It's not a comparison of what costs 40$, you can have a pretty good meal for 40$. 40$ is just a number, 10$ would still make this broken. But I don't care, either they fix or not.

I would like them to fix this BUT.

1) People need a salary to work. If an asteroid was to destroy the earth, nobody would blow it up for free.

2) Game developers get their funds either with their sales or dealing something with the distributor.

3) The game is a flight sim, they DON'T SELL. A broken flight sim sells even less.

4) You can tweak and polish with patches, but there is a lot of REDOING needed. So you need more people working on this.

So... can they work this out without selling? If Ubisoft paid in advance for patches and fixes, maybe.


I really hope to see this thing running good, believe me, I just have SERIOUS doubts about it, I am not holding my breath.


BTW you can call me doomsayer or whatever, but being a naive zealot about a game is just retarded.

[PaulWF]

I get a bit tired of the excuse making.

Why the hell should we, because we're simmers, suffer with utter shite that is the sim in it's current form - when nobody else does?

There's no justification. NONE. The product is being sold as a WW2 flight sim, not as "an unfinished alpha that is going to beta that will eventually become a functional WW2 flight sim as advertised.

I never thought The day would come when I would say Eagle dynamics did a better job than anyone else, or someone did a worse job than they did with LOMAC - but at least when they released A-10 before it was ready they called it a Beta quite openly and gave the consumer a choice to be part of that beta, instead of selling it as a retail ready product.

Let's just hope we're not screwed like LOMAC purchasers were, who never received working multiplayer code ever...not unless they paid extra.

[Hunden]

I feel most of you that can not get over the condition of this game is due to the fact that you have to much vested in it and no real life.

[Mardescrap]

I feel most of you that can not get over the condition of this game is due to the fact that you have to much vested in it and no real life.

Tell us about your exciting life then, it sounds great and full of action, fast cars, explosions, hot bikini chicks with machine guns, evil geniuses with monocles and arguments.

Still you get the time to enjoy a game and post on a forum.

[robtek]

Tell us about your exciting life then, it sounds great and full of action, fast cars, explosions, hot bikini chicks with machine guns, evil geniuses with monocles and arguments.

Still you get the time to enjoy a game and post on a forum.

While the first sentence in your post is crap, imo, the second sentence is already the answer.

He, as i and many others are enjoying this sim, even with bugs and errors.

It is not as much fun as it could be, but it is still fun and getting better.

And the Forii are quite entertaining, as one can see a minority throwing fits about unfulfilled promises and a lot of imaginary slights by the devs instead enjoying what is already there.

It seems some people thrive on negativity.

This sim is projected to stay with us for years and years, what is a delay of even a few months in relation to that?

[furbs]

Yes Robtek, but only if the COD gets there, and the signs are not good.

COD has been a shambles since its announcement, right through to the latest "update" from Luthier.

They can be no argument with that im sure.

[Hunden]

Tell us about your exciting life then, it sounds great and full of action, fast cars, explosions, hot bikini chicks with machine guns, evil geniuses with monocles and arguments.

Still you get the time to enjoy a game and post on a forum.

In my younger days as a Marine that would have applied but not so much anymore. But if you think real life is all the above than it is to late for you anyway.:confused:

[Chivas]

Yes Robtek, but only if the COD gets there, and the signs are not good.

COD has been a shambles since its announcement, right through to the latest "update" from Luthier.

They can be no argument with that im sure.

I would hardly call the release a shambles, it just unfinished, and there were two or three patches that greatly improved performance for many users. I'm not sure how you can expect the sim to make huge strides in four months when its taken years to get to this stage. I would also say the signs are better than you suggest. If there was no intention of finishing COD the development team would have shut down by now or moved on to other projects.

Anyone reading the forums thinking about buying COD would certainly shy away from investing. People being unconstructively negative ad nauseam may want the project to succeed, but their comments certainly drive away the customers required to make it happen.

[furbs]

Chivas, have you forgotten the epilepsy filter debacle? the almost nonexistent PR, no website almost until the relase date and then it was awful. no videos of in game footage....and dont forget NO sound of the game until AFTER release! Have you ever seen a sim or any game for that matter with that sort of release? then to top it off the lead developer leaves the day after.

Now if you tell me thats not a bleedin shambles then i dont know what is.

[Chivas]

Chivas, have you forgotten the epilepsy filter debacle? the almost nonexistent PR, no website almost until the relase date and then it was awful. no videos of in game footage....and dont forget NO sound of the game until AFTER release! Have you ever seen a sim or any game for that matter with that sort of release? then to top it off the lead developer leaves the day after.

Now if you tell me thats not a bleedin shambles then i dont know what is.


Thats exactly what you'll get with an UNFINISHED sim, so many aspect of the sim are not going to work until they can be finished. The lead developer who is still probably the owner of Maddox Games has hired Luthier to run the day to day aspects of sim. I don't doubt for a minute that Oleg is totally pissed with having to release COD UNFINISHED. Oleg would never have released the sim , unless there were no other alternative. The money dried up and the only way COD gets finished now is if sales are good enough to continue development.

Continually calling the development a "shambles" or any other derogatory word will only have the effect of driving away sales. Calling the sim "Unfinished" while adding that the developer is still working on the sim may help sales. A few of the more negative people say they'd like COD to be finished but their actions say otherwise.

[furbs]

We all know the maybe reasons "why" chvias, im talking about what actually happened.

I want it finished Chivas, ive had over 150 hours in it so far, prob half of those online, and im fed up flying with no flippin trees. :x

[Theshark888]

I'll say it too..this release is a shambles and part of the whole reason why sims do not sell like they used to. If this would have been a "finished" product it would have sold well and been able to keep the genre alive. You have to know your limitations when starting a project such as this and have a very strict schedule and guidelines.
Trying to defend this game by calling it "only unfinished" is mind boggling to me and tells me the depths of expectations that this community has sunk to. The reason for the constant belly aching about the sim is because of the terrible condition of this sim. Don't knock the bearers of reality...sales will be bad because of the condition of the sim, not because of the whinings on some forum.
Sorry for the rant, but I'm gone until next month to see if any progress has been made;)

[Chivas]

I'll say it too..this release is a shambles and part of the whole reason why sims do not sell like they used to. If this would have been a "finished" product it would have sold well and been able to keep the genre alive. You have to know your limitations when starting a project such as this and have a very strict schedule and guidelines.
Trying to defend this game by calling it "only unfinished" is mind boggling to me and tells me the depths of expectations that this community has sunk to. The reason for the constant belly aching about the sim is because of the terrible condition of this sim. Don't knock the bearers of reality...sales will be bad because of the condition of the sim, not because of the whinings on some forum.
Sorry for the rant, but I'm gone until next month to see if any progress has been made;)

You just don't get it. The developer didn't the time to finish the game because the funding ran out. They either had to release the sim unfinished to generate the needed cash to finish it OR CANCEL IT ALTOGETHER.

Which would you prefer??????

[furbs]

Ok Chivas, i know where your coming from.

But at least agree with me in a PM, and stop telling me what i saw with my own eyes.

[robtek]

So, furbs,

you still think that you are right? :D :D :D

To be in shambles now it should have been orderly sometimes, it hasn't reached that point yet as it is still unfinished.

Ok, enough fishing for arguments. ;D ;D ;D

[furbs]

No robtek, its a shambles now, but i hope it becomes orderly some time soon. :)

Yes, im playing alot, ive never said i dont like COD or want it to become the best flight sim in the world.

The core sim is fantastic and has potential to become a true great, but its not...not yet.

Some of the ideas inside COD are genius but its put together badly and lets its self down.

I call it as i see it.

If they sort it, fix the crap stuff, then i will be the first to shout praise from the high heavens on here.

[Tree_UK]

You just don't get it. The developer didn't the time to finish the game because the funding ran out. They either had to release the sim unfinished to generate the needed cash to finish it OR CANCEL IT ALTOGETHER.

Which would you prefer??????

There is nothing to suggest this happened.

[Caveman]

There is nothing to suggest this happened.

??? Nothing except every day of the past year...

[baronWastelan]

For your 40$, you got what you paid for: a video game.

[Chivas]

There is nothing to suggest this happened.

It couldn't be more obvious.

[Tree_UK]

It couldn't be more obvious.

lol, I seem to remember me saying these exact words during development. :grin:

[Blackdog_kt]

There is nothing to suggest this happened.

Actually, it was Oleg who said they had to release back in November due to lack of funds. I remember it very well, because when the date slipped everyone was up in arms as usual, with many quoting a famous phrase at that time by Oleg as an answer to releasing in November: "i want and i need".

This suggests that they got an extra "lease of life" so to speak to work on it a bit more, hence the delay to the spring Russian and EU releases.

All i'm going to say is, imagine getting a November release and the reactions it would cause, if half an extra year of development wasn't enough to produce a finished sim and resulted in the current forum wars.

Many of the people who are upset now over the unfinished state of the sim where the same people who were going grumpy about missed release dates back then and it just goes to show one thing: the community often has conflicting wishes and some time getting their wish can be detrimental to their own long term enjoyment of the product. Just imagine what state the sim would have been back in November and getting that version for your $40.

This should tell everyone to take everything with a grain of salt and not rush to speculation right away, nor think that everyone of us is always right, all the time.

We've all been going "let us have it, bugs and all, we can't wait to try it" and when it happened we all went "oh, i said i would be happy to just try it on my PC, but i didn't think it would be in this state".

Come to think of it we all got what we wished for all along, a premature release so that we can look at the pretty planes on our own screen instead of via Oleg's screenshots every Friday like we did back during development (even though it happened due to lack of funds and not our own requests), but not all of us could take the consequences of our demands being fulfilled. It's as simple as that really and it shows us all that we can make mistakes and have done so in the very recent past :grin:

Most of us regulars in this forum knew what we were getting into all along (especially after the initial reports from the Russian release).

Like it or not, there are things beyond our immediate control and that won't change, it's the nature of life itself. Lighten up and go fly in the meantime ;-)

[philip.ed]

Blackdog, any conflict of emotions is inevitable. Pre-release, any idea that the sim would be in this (dreadful) state was completely out of the question. The sim had been in development (at various stages) for years. It's like being set a disseration to write in a specific length of time, having that time extended and extended and then handing the damned thing in unfinished. I'd go so far as to suggest that such an event would be completely non-sensical, but the sad truth is that CloD's poor state is comprehensible; there were issues within the development team and, clearly, a lack of funds (and perhaps a feeling that they had all the time they wished).

So with this in mind, of course people who moaned about the length of development would moan about the state of the sim. It's just crazy that a game which had been in development for so long was in such a pathetic state. And, really, that word describes the game perfectly.

TBH Blackdog I don't think anyone realised what they would be getting all along. We had members saying the updates were all extremely old (Freycinet advocated that constructive criticism was unnecessary because the team already knew about any faults, and was thus fixing them) so this suggested that the team were withholding an absolute gem which would astound everyone on release. Even from reports from the Russian show, the argument that the machines didn't have enough RAM soon quashed any argument that the game was flawed (...) so realistically, the sim really did throw the cat amongst the pigeons (albeit an extremely old cat which was probably deaf, blind, and riddled with several diseases).
Whilst the community may have asked for the game, 'warts and all', I think from Oleg's comments about the photorealistic aesthetics, many thought the bugs would just lie within the gameplay. Clearly this wasn't the case either.

CloD can become something special, but it will be a long road. I don't think any more can be said about it. There are elements of it which can both astound you and frustrate you, but one would seriously hope that within two years, the former far outweighs the latter.

[furbs]

Oleg also said he needed to release in 2007, 2009 and 2010.