Borsch
01-28-2013, 12:36 AM
Salut pilots! :S!:
This concerns the future of IL2:BoS and (hopefully) RoF, and I know that there are many talented mission makers lurking in these waters- why not discuss or even contribute to the future of IL2? :)
The situation:
LOFT (the head of all IL2 now) has asked for a person with Photoshop +Flash skills to give him an interactive model of a more User Friendly Mission Editor that would make the community happy so he could look into it. http://forum.il2sturmovik.su/topic/234-?-?????????-?????????-???/?p=12643 (use google translate if necessary)
The reasons for bothering with this:
1. It concerns more than the proverbial 1% that use ME, just the 5 IL2:1946 campaigns created by FlatSpinMan alone were downloaded by around 120.000 people. http://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads&file=search&sa=104
Altogether there are around 500 English language campaigns and 1000 missions available for Il2:1946 http://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads&c=1
(+Russian, French, German, etc)
There are around 5 campaigns created by users in the 4 years that RoF was with us.
2. RoF editor is a powerful but difficult to use software. Professional IL2 campaign maker BlackSix (Roads of War was just one of his works for Il2: http://www.1c.ru/news/info.jsp?id=8813) had unlimited access to RoF's programmers, but had to gave up after a month and a half of trying. Unlike IL2, current RoF ME requires one to not only be an artist, but also a programmer. http://www.sukhoi.ru/forum/showthread.php?t=56886&page=242&p=1787763&viewfull=1#post1787763 (use google translate if necessary)
The already small proverbial 1% of sim's userbase that create missions for other 90% of offliners are *artists*, the requirement for *artists* to be programmers as well shrinks the user group much-much further (to 0.1% ?) - and this mathematically leads to decrease in quantity and quality of Campaigns/Missions output.
3. There is a connection between ME and plane sales (which is the main business for this sim maker) - good content created for a particular plane nudges a user to purchasing the said plane even if he had no interest in the plane itself to begin with.
4. From the history of flight sims we see that Static missions are more varied than Dynamically generated ones. The variety helps pilots to remain interested in the sim which again relates to purchasing planes.
Plan of Action:
The requirement is "interactive ME GUI that demonstrates what we users mean by improved user friendliness".
The best way to achieve this aim should be discussed among us, but it should probably be something like collecting ideas, making comparisons of RoF editor to the famously user friendly ME from IL2 (1946,CLoD/LockOn?), collating and then producing the flash version.
For simplicity, its maybe best to post in the same forums - maybe ROF or IL2:BOS forums (http://forum.il2sturmovik.net/ ) although initially I will post this message in SimHQ, Aviaskins, ROF forums, Suhkoi, IL2:BOS, SAS, ATAG, 1C Yellow.
Thank you for your attention and lets cooperate for a future that will not limit us to DGEN Career and Quick Missions - let's face it, they get boring after a few months, and sim's life is always much longer than that ;)
N.B. If you have never created much in RoF ME, only played around with it somewhat, please do not post that it is the easiest and best thing since sliced bread
This concerns the future of IL2:BoS and (hopefully) RoF, and I know that there are many talented mission makers lurking in these waters- why not discuss or even contribute to the future of IL2? :)
The situation:
LOFT (the head of all IL2 now) has asked for a person with Photoshop +Flash skills to give him an interactive model of a more User Friendly Mission Editor that would make the community happy so he could look into it. http://forum.il2sturmovik.su/topic/234-?-?????????-?????????-???/?p=12643 (use google translate if necessary)
The reasons for bothering with this:
1. It concerns more than the proverbial 1% that use ME, just the 5 IL2:1946 campaigns created by FlatSpinMan alone were downloaded by around 120.000 people. http://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads&file=search&sa=104
Altogether there are around 500 English language campaigns and 1000 missions available for Il2:1946 http://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads&c=1
(+Russian, French, German, etc)
There are around 5 campaigns created by users in the 4 years that RoF was with us.
2. RoF editor is a powerful but difficult to use software. Professional IL2 campaign maker BlackSix (Roads of War was just one of his works for Il2: http://www.1c.ru/news/info.jsp?id=8813) had unlimited access to RoF's programmers, but had to gave up after a month and a half of trying. Unlike IL2, current RoF ME requires one to not only be an artist, but also a programmer. http://www.sukhoi.ru/forum/showthread.php?t=56886&page=242&p=1787763&viewfull=1#post1787763 (use google translate if necessary)
The already small proverbial 1% of sim's userbase that create missions for other 90% of offliners are *artists*, the requirement for *artists* to be programmers as well shrinks the user group much-much further (to 0.1% ?) - and this mathematically leads to decrease in quantity and quality of Campaigns/Missions output.
3. There is a connection between ME and plane sales (which is the main business for this sim maker) - good content created for a particular plane nudges a user to purchasing the said plane even if he had no interest in the plane itself to begin with.
4. From the history of flight sims we see that Static missions are more varied than Dynamically generated ones. The variety helps pilots to remain interested in the sim which again relates to purchasing planes.
Plan of Action:
The requirement is "interactive ME GUI that demonstrates what we users mean by improved user friendliness".
The best way to achieve this aim should be discussed among us, but it should probably be something like collecting ideas, making comparisons of RoF editor to the famously user friendly ME from IL2 (1946,CLoD/LockOn?), collating and then producing the flash version.
For simplicity, its maybe best to post in the same forums - maybe ROF or IL2:BOS forums (http://forum.il2sturmovik.net/ ) although initially I will post this message in SimHQ, Aviaskins, ROF forums, Suhkoi, IL2:BOS, SAS, ATAG, 1C Yellow.
Thank you for your attention and lets cooperate for a future that will not limit us to DGEN Career and Quick Missions - let's face it, they get boring after a few months, and sim's life is always much longer than that ;)
N.B. If you have never created much in RoF ME, only played around with it somewhat, please do not post that it is the easiest and best thing since sliced bread