Back after almost 1 year, whats the status Gents...

[ga_332]

Ok back after almost 1 year since last time played, is the game playable? Downloading the last patch now.

And dos it work onlie on server etc............
Can you guys recomend a server thx ;)

Short feed back on the above to get me up to speed had been great thx ;)

[CWMV]

Perhaps come back in another year.
Much has been lost in terms of visual quality from the original release, with little gains in departments other than FPS.

[Robert]

Not sure of your system specs but most are reporting great improvement with the last BETA patch. Hopefully you found the instructions on how to patch correctly. It's listed several times in the latest patch release topic. LOOK CAREFULLY, some have had errors by not being exact. I think that even goes for using the right file unpacker. WinRAR I think.

People are playing on line. ATAG seems to be the most well known of the servers, but since I don't play on line I couldn't tell you the best server.

There are a lot of tips and tweaks in the forum. Look in the respective catagories for specific issues.

[Blackdog_kt]

Come on guys, it's a legitimate question.

To answer your briefly, we've had a series of beta (aka testing) patches dealing with the following:

Lot's of tweaking in graphics. Essentially they rewrote about half the game engine from scratch. People debate whether there is loss of quality or not, what i can certainly say is that the colours have been redone. As for missing features and resulting complaints, a lot of people don't really read the updates. What usually happens is something gets turned off until its optimized, then enabled again in the following patch. Some features might get cut or have already been however, but the majority is under recoding (eg, distant clouds, hit decals, etc).

Lot's of new sounds. Still room for improvement but much better than on release.

Some AI improvements.

100 octane versions for the RAF fighters, still need some FM work though.

Various FM fixes.

Some very important bomber fixes. The Blenheim has been flyable for quite a while now, but it's still too sluggish during taxi. The 88s and 111s can now aim their bombs thanks to working autopilots and debugged bombsights.

To sum up, most of the work has been on rewriting the graphics code, with additional fixes in other areas being squeezed in as time permits.



Issues not yet addressed, which we all assume will be taken up once the graphics patch goes out of the beta stage and becomes official on steam:

Comprehensive debugging in aircraft systems (eg, reversed pitch levers in the 109s, things like that)

Final FM/DM improvements (who are we kidding, these are never final anyway :-P)

Netcode and scripting/mission builder issues.



Overall, most people report better performance with the latest beta patch, a few report no changes and a few report worse performance. I would make the balanced assessment that while the sim is far from complete there is a momentum, more people are starting to fly the sim and the number of people with problems is decreasing as each individual issue gets solved.

I think this is a fair assessment, judging also from the fact that there is less trolling and bad behaviour on the forums. We don't have so much moderating to do lately, which means that people are probably busier flying the sim than attacking each other over differences of opinion about the sim. Of course, some have moved on or are taking a break too, but in general i see an increase in actual gameplay related threads. There is an increase of "how do i do this in that specific plane" and a decrease in "how can i make this work in the first place", so we're slowly getting there.

[Bryan21cag]

hey blackdog has the same over all positive trend been seen with Dual card set ups do you know? I am just curious. :) i haven't been patching the beta's as i was having some trouble noticing any difference but could not rule out set up/install issues vs game related ones. Just wanted to see if the single card users were still having far less issues then the dual card ones. thanks for the response.


Cheers
B

[zapatista]

Ok back after almost 1 year since last time played, is the game playable? Downloading the last patch now.

And dos it work onlie on server etc............
Can you guys recomend a server thx ;)

Short feed back on the above to get me up to speed had been great thx ;)

hiya viking,

your timing is good, the most recent beta patch seems to have at last made a significant improvement in performance (grafix engine wise) for people with mid range pc's (high end pc owners had the least problems with performance in the last year). a lot of bug fixes were also included in that last beta patch, so some major annoyances (like bomb sight errors in some planes) have been fixed

to sum things up for the current state (afaics)
- online play is now worth while the price of the game, it looks much better then il2-1946 and plane detail quality and damage models are much better
- offline play is still severely limited by the lack of decent campaign and missions, and the fact some AI commands dont work (a number were fixed in that last patch), and still some odd AI plane behavior at times (but again many fixes were recently included). there is a german company who has started making CoD mission/campaign addons, and several people here have reported these as being very good. these addons exist in english versions, i think the company is called something like "desastersoft" (bit of an odd name :) )
- i suggest you pick one or 2 planes you really like, get to know them (and their bugs, which are mostly not "show stoppers" anymore), and start enjoying what is good in this very complex and advanced sim.
- when you think you find a problem or bug, report it in the bug threads and search the forum for info to see if there is a work around identified by other users. there is also a new ""fan base" website (cant remember the url) which is setup as a central "bug reporting" system, where people report and vote on bugs and try and have others vote on their importance in priority-fixing.

now that luthier and Co have significantly improved the main problem (poor performance of gfx engine and some glaring bugs), the hope/intention is that the other lesser bugs and residual main missing features (like lack of coop, and no dynamic campaign engine etc..) will be addressed in subsequent patches.

when you install the beta patch, make sure you read that thread to know exactly how to install it correctly, otherwise you might still be experiencing problems that dont really exist anymore. also make sure you turn down some of the very demanding eye candy settings in the options (unless you have a monster pc) like, tree density, building number and detail etc...

in summary, its very playable now for mid range pc's, as long as you are prepared to put up with a few limitations and residual bugs

[zapatista]

Perhaps come back in another year.
Much has been lost in terms of visual quality from the original release, with little gains in departments other than FPS.

since your comment is deliberately aimed at misleading and misinforming genuine players who come looking for assistance and information in good faith, you have just outed yourself as being nothing more then a little wanker

[JG52Krupi]

since your comment is deliberately aimed at misleading and misinforming genuine players who come looking for assistance and information in good faith, you have just outed yourself as being nothing more then a little wanker

+1 :lol:

[Ze-Jamz]

Perhaps come back in another year.
Much has been lost in terms of visual quality from the original release, with little gains in departments other than FPS.

Completely disagree with that...

To sum it up..yes game runs a lot smoother that what it did a year ago..still some bugs and minor issues but with every patch things get better in some elements and not so much in others..this patch has seemed to tie a lot of those things together making it much more enjoyable for those who were having a lot of issues..

Get amongst it...

S

[tintifaxl]

Ok back after almost 1 year since last time played, is the game playable? Downloading the last patch now.

And dos it work onlie on server etc............
Can you guys recomend a server thx ;)

Short feed back on the above to get me up to speed had been great thx ;)

Come on, GA. Head over to the new squad forum! If you don't know where it resides now, ask Leimboy or Rolfy :-P

[skouras]

Come on guys, it's a legitimate question.

To answer your briefly, we've had a series of beta (aka testing) patches dealing with the following:

Lot's of tweaking in graphics. Essentially they rewrote about half the game engine from scratch. People debate whether there is loss of quality or not, what i can certainly say is that the colours have been redone. As for missing features and resulting complaints, a lot of people don't really read the updates. What usually happens is something gets turned off until its optimized, then enabled again in the following patch. Some features might get cut or have already been however, but the majority is under recoding (eg, distant clouds, hit decals, etc).

Lot's of new sounds. Still room for improvement but much better than on release.

Some AI improvements.

100 octane versions for the RAF fighters, still need some FM work though.

Various FM fixes.

Some very important bomber fixes. The Blenheim has been flyable for quite a while now, but it's still too sluggish during taxi. The 88s and 111s can now aim their bombs thanks to working autopilots and debugged bombsights.

To sum up, most of the work has been on rewriting the graphics code, with additional fixes in other areas being squeezed in as time permits.



Issues not yet addressed, which we all assume will be taken up once the graphics patch goes out of the beta stage and becomes official on steam:

Comprehensive debugging in aircraft systems (eg, reversed pitch levers in the 109s, things like that)

Final FM/DM improvements (who are we kidding, these are never final anyway :-P)

Netcode and scripting/mission builder issues.



Overall, most people report better performance with the latest beta patch, a few report no changes and a few report worse performance. I would make the balanced assessment that while the sim is far from complete there is a momentum, more people are starting to fly the sim and the number of people with problems is decreasing as each individual issue gets solved.

I think this is a fair assessment, judging also from the fact that there is less trolling and bad behaviour on the forums. We don't have so much moderating to do lately, which means that people are probably busier flying the sim than attacking each other over differences of opinion about the sim. Of course, some have moved on or are taking a break too, but in general i see an increase in actual gameplay related threads. There is an increase of "how do i do this in that specific plane" and a decrease in "how can i make this work in the first place", so we're slowly getting there.

now that was an excellent brefieng...

[PotNoodles]

what? You've been missing a year and expect everyone else to bring you up to speed?

There's an old english expression which begins and ends with the letter 'f'.

LOL - Will you also hold all my calls until 2pm and order me a a chicken and mayo sandwich for dinner.

[Rattlehead]

I've also been AWOL for about a year or so, although I have logged in here and there to check on progress.
It's good to see that there has been some progress regarding the state of the sim, although I'm still not ready to jump back into the fray just yet.

[ATAG_Dutch]

Rats - Someone quoted me bofore I could delete it. Sorry Mods. ;)