winny

right on videos really tell a story. When we start seeing videos it would be pretty reasonable to think release of SOW is at hand.

I made an update video



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scZ_1-lhsIE

Nice one Richie, great edit.

Thanks drewpee. It does take time getting the switches right to the beat. I put in some real pics to get the mood going.

I hope he gets well soon!
Make him drink lots of that fin Russian tea!

I want meh SOW now! ;)

(seriously, hope he gets well)

Mommy!..... say it aint so !!!:cry::cry::cry::cry::cry:

****fixed****

I've finally figured out the 'Tree' phenomenon.

We've been working on the assumption that 'Tree' is a person posting on the forum, and trying to make sense of the postings accordingly. This has proved impossible, but if instead one assumes that 'Tree' is a computer-generated pseudo-forum-poster, his idiosyncrasies make sense. His endless predictions about the future release date for SoW:BoB, each different from the last, can only be indicative of a program which is reset on a regular basis, and thus has no knowledge of previous predictions.

Sadly, I suspect that 'Tree' isn't yet in the Beta stage, so accurate predictions may be some time coming. :wink:

hehehe good one. Tree reminds me of one of those relatives that we all have that we just have to put up with and be nice to at Christmas dinner. Mind you this place would be a little duller without him.

Tree is correct. Beta testing has not started yet.

Tree may well be correct. Beta testing may well have not started yet. But are you actually in any position to say conclusively one way or another?

May be I am wrong...may be the pilot is waiving his legs in to the air intentionally for some rest because of the long cross Chanel flight...

Insuber, I am sure that they will fix it. But I am afraid that, Oleg is hurrying for the 70-th anniversary of the Battle Of Britain, planing to issue the SoW-BoB at this time. But, SoW-BoB is not ready yet...

I'm not so sure that SOW will be beta tested like IL-2 was. The original IL-2 beta went very well as the beta was presented to the testers with very few bugs. Most of it was just nitpicking similar to what you see with peoples evaluations of the current update screenshots. They may just do an in-house beta test if the sim is coming together as well as IL-2 did. Or they could just sell the beta much like most of the other flight sims have done these days. ;)

Quit worrying already about things you don't have any control over.

Why is that something to worry about at all? As long as there are no mayor bugs an "unfinished" sim is better than to have no sim at all. Releasing a less than perfect version to finance future development worked well for Rise of Flight. Eyecandy stuff like correctly animated pilots, more realistically looking clouds or landscape isn't that essential for a combat flight sim and can be updated later.

Wise advice. Thanks.

Thanks for the update Luthier some superb work, so .....<Deep breath>......Is it possible that you could answer a few questions that most of us would like clearing up,

Anyhow here goes.

1. In May 2009 Oleg stated that it would be accurate to say that the sim was now 80% complete. Would it be possible to tell us what percentage we are currently at?

2. Would it also be possible to tell us if the sim is currently at the beta stage of deveolpment?

3. From the same simhq interview Oleg suggested that thousands would be playing SOW in October or maybe before. Is that still possible? If not will it be later this year or early next?


4. Will we see a dedicated SOW website?

Many thanks luthier.

Please note, these questions are for luthier to answer or Oleg if they choose to, If they choose not to answer then that is fine by me and understandable. If anyone wants to take issue with this post or make any snide comments or normal abuse then please pm me rather than post below.

And heres me thinking you had put me on your 'ignore' list!! lol.

Excellent post again from you Eries, its just like being back at school all over again, i take it your still at school though right?:grin:

+1 with greatest respect to Oleg and Luthier
I'm sure most of us would welcome an official update on the current status of the sim to replace the endless speculation and argument.

yep...if they cant or choose not to at this time its fine with me also...but would be great to get a heads up on where SOW is timescale wise.

new to forums
 

Hi there,

a quick question...will the game have support for Trackir?

Thanks!
Des

Sure. 6 DOF

Great!

Thanks Hecke

Well...16 months ago, Oleg did indeed stated that the game was 80 % done...

At a rate of 1 % progress per month, that would mean 96 % is done...That is a more scientific ;) and objective :rolleyes: way to predict that the game will be finished in 4 months, just in time for Xmas !!!! Yeah !!!! Merry Xmas everyone !!!!

Can anyone explain why Oleg should release commercially-sensitive information just to satisfy the cravings of a few dozen forum obsessives? As I've pointed out before, the release date may not even be his decision. He may well be in negotiation with publishers, or be contractually obliged to not disclose such information. Even if he knows the projected release date, and is free to disclose it, he may decide it is better left undisclosed. A surge of publicity about a finished product is likely to do more for sales than a dribble of information that only interests a few...

I refer you to a section of my post i made some while ago.

Please note, these questions are for luthier to answer or Oleg if they choose to, If they choose not to answer then that is fine by me and understandable. If anyone wants to take issue with this post or make any snide comments or normal abuse then please pm me rather than post below.

This forum isn't just about you, Tree. This thread isn't about you at all. If you didn't keep repeating the same tired old stuff at every opportunity, nobody would need to make comments.

You crack me up!!!! and your not a forum obsessive ? You just can't stop with the insults....LMAO!!

I thought the request for information was made respectfully and with full acknowledgement that the developers may be unable or unwilling to respond:
You make potentially valid points, AndyJWest, but I would point out that it was Oleg himself who made the original statements about the envisaged timing of the release, and as we've almost reached that date a question about whether it still holds doesn't strike me as being unreasonable.

I totally understand that Oleg or Luthier may choose not to respond at this time, but perhaps a respectfully-directed question to the only people who really KNOW is a better strategy than the endless arguing and in-fighting that has marked the debate on this forum for the past few weeks.

You could ask the same question about why Oleg decides to post an update every Friday...

Stop playing with fire. You saw that Tree wrote that, and deliberately responded to cause negative waves.

I see that kendo responded in a much more eloquent way above me.

Oleg and luthier; can the oxygen tank be hit on enemy aircraft meaning oxygen use is limited at heigher altitudes causing pilots to black-out...?

philip im pretty sure if the oxygen tank was hit, the pilot would be out of the fight :) but if you mean the tubes connecting the tank...then maybe.

I think it's been mentioned somewhere before that hypoxia and the use of oxygen masks (eg, having a key to toggle wearing the mask) will be modelled, as an optional difficulty setting.

:eek: oops, yes, that's what I meant :D silly me

I've heard of forums which have filters set to delay the publishing of any 'First p0st!!!11' replies by twelve hours... or which give short bans to users who post the stupid things :-)

The shots are looking awesome. Should probably start budgeting for a new PC about now!

pic5 - the falling guy is looking very upset, maybe because he can't find his ripcord? Or did German parachutes of WW2 not use ripcords...

Or maybe he's realised the thigh-straps of the parachute harness are too slack and when the 'chute does deploy, there will be severe pain in sensitive areas? :-p

Hi guys again.
I taught a lot, why the pilot legs do not reach the ruder pedals in Ju-88...
After all hard work, I have got 2 possible reasons.
Possible reasons:
1. It is because the Ju-88 model is wrong, and the ruder pedals are too far away from the pilot.
2. The pilot model is small - we have a kid in to the cockpit.

How this can be fixed:
1. Elongation of the pilot legs? NO! /not in Oleg's style!/
2. Bringing the ruder pedals closer to the pilot? NO! /not in Oleg's style!/

Knowing the precision of work of Oleg's team over the aircraft models, I am sure for just one thing:
We have a kid into the cockpit. This conclusion confirms that the pilot figure is TOO SMALL, as everybody mentioned many many many times.

Your conclusion is probably incorrect. Oleg mentioned that the figures are large enough for the time. In a Hurricane screenshot it was mentioned that the pilot appeared to low in the cockpit and the developers said that they mistakenly had the figure in a reclining position. Maybe this was also true in the screenshot your referring too.

They just have forgotten to slide the seat in the flight position.
By OM's realism ideas that will be a topic in the pre-flight check list:
"Seat in flight-position and arrested."
"Safety-belts tightened"
and if you have forgotten the position "parachute harness tightened"
you will get a surprise after bail-out. :-D

No Chivis it's Douglas Bader in their on his way back home after escaping from the Luft Stalag in that stolen 88. Unfortunately he was in such a rush he forgot to put on his legs.

The figures might be slightly on the small side. Especially if you compare side-to-side with that sreenshot luthier posted of the old Il2 Ju 88.

I'm sure it is something they have noted. I wouldn't call it a fault though, I'm sure there are far more important issues for the development team to contend with.
I'm sure his hands won't always be on the yoke either, at least not in exterior view (maybe the feet are in a usual position for sitting).
And in real life you probably wouldn't see through the plexi-glass so clearly.

Photo not showing much at all :-)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...kers_Ju_88.jpg

IL-2 figures are about 20% larger, then an average human. They are something like 2 m tall. BoB figures are about 1.7m. Since you all got used to the IL-2 look, you feel BoB guys are too small, which is not the case, actually.

I'd love to know this too but also will smoke in general be 3d and react when flown through?

Now that would be an awesome feature, Do you remember, in apocalypse now,
when those hueys attack the village near the beach, there's a shot rearwards from inside the heli showing the smoke swirling due to the vortex from the spinning rotorblades...

Interesting point here!

lol, Good answer Richie :grin::grin:

That last screenshot puzzles me. The white clouds in the background seem to be out of focus. I've never seen this before in the game or in SoW:WiPs.
It doesn't just look like smoke.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...3&d=1282924252

Good thing that he didn't have to kick start the engines. :)

Nice picture Major!

Once I have read, that in one case in the battle of Kursk - Prokhorovka, 1 Ju-88 attacked Russian infantry from a dive. Ju-88 droped all of its bombs. The Russian infantry opened fire from bellow with all possible weapons - pistols, guns, rifles etc. In to the following seconds, they succeeded to kill the pilot, and Ju-88 continued to fall down in diving. But then the bombs exploded from below, and the blast air wave pushed the nose of the Ju-88 upwards, and the aircraft continued to fly forward as a glider, an then later, crushed at the ground. I hope Oleg will implement such soft not-destructive air blasts.

Another awful moment from the war: Russian pilots of Il-2 reported that they often find after landing equipment and human meet belonging to the enemy infantry in some places of the aircraft. Such places are the air cooling orifices of the Il-2. The found objects: German belt buckles, Romanian helmet with human scalp attached to left front wheel of the Il-2 /the wheels where extended in to the attack, because the pilot was trying to imitate Ju-87 in order to mislead the Romanian troops/, pieces of enemy infantry jacket, etc. These objects have been thrown in to the air by Russian unguided rockets fired by Il-2 and than being "catched" by the aircraft in to the air. All this happens when Il-2 attacks the enemy troops columns. I think Oleg is able to give as more realism this way.

If they're not going to have blood in the cockpit when aircrew get hit, they certainly won't get bits of dead soldier on the outside of the aircraft. 1C don't want the game to be 18+ rated!

I think the Ju88 crews are looking ok in size and they simply feature a different default position in the screenshots. I can sit inside a plane, stretch my legs and place my feet on the pedals. I can also sit inside the same plane and stand with my legs forming a 90 degree angle at the knees, in which case my feet will be resting on the floor and not on the pedals. That doesn't mean i magically became shorter, i'm just sitting in a different position that doesn't allow me to reach the pedals ;)

So, it could be that the Ju88 pilot is animated with his legs in this position (viewed from the left side):

_|-


instead of this position:

_/-

Thanks mate :)

This kind of "realism" is better left to sick people.

It would be nice if earth/soil thrown up from an explosion could hit the plane if you were too low. I imagine that soil will be thrown in the air, so you would just need a few sounds added.

Sick of what? Sick of War? War is not a game or simulator - everything happens. Of course I do not mean intestines rotating over the air screw! Ugly but realistic, ugly but historic.
I am meaning only equipment to fly in to the air.

Here is what I have found - the same IL-2 Veteran memories:

"It happened on January 18th 1944 when I received an order to seek out and attack in two ship formation by any enemy means of transportation on the road Volosovo-Narva. After we took off I got separated from my wingman due to heavy snowstorm. Trying to locate him I opened canopy, so it froze in the open position. What’s worse – I was unable to find my wingman. To make situation completely awful I found out that the right undercarriage leg is not working and sticks out into the wind stream. Still, there was no other option for me but to try and accomplish the mission. So I flew at airspeed of 320 km\h, with an outside temperature - 18°?. Snow easily filled my cockpit, ice covered the instrument panel and I couldn’t feel my legs anymore. To be able to fly I had to clear most important gauges by fingers. This all seriously distracted me from keeping situational awareness at appropriate level.
When I noticed first trucks it was already too late to attack. I begun turning to set an attack pattern, but first trucks had disappeared under the trees. I even became upset – the target escaped! But then I flew out of the clouds, and in front of me I found a long snake of infantry column. It was a gift from God!
Infantry was not covered by AAA, soldiers had to fight strong wind blowing them into the faces, so they were not looking at the sky, and that same wind did not allow them to hear my engine. I simply pressed the trigger and saw blue traces disappearing in the column. When first soldiers disappeared under the nose of my Il I released bombs. That time my bomb bays were loaded with 16 AO-25 fragmentation bombs with a delay set for 5 seconds. I kept firing, but there was no end to this mass of infantry, so I fired all eight RSs. By this time I flew as low as tops of telegraph poles. I had to abort the attack.
When I begun gaining altitude with a turn, my engine begun stalling, from the sides I could see the traces of awakened small caliber AAA.
With great caution I piloted my airplane by the shortest route to our airfield. The good point – my engine seemed to begin recovering, it sounded more and more stable, the bad one – German small caliber traces were getting closer and closer. As I got to the home base it was clear that there was no way for me to land on Gora-Valday – the right leg did not lock, so I would get dragged from the runway right into other planes parked along narrow airfield.
Borki had a round appearance, so I had more freedom trying to land there. With lots of luck I landed safely. I tried to stand up, but couldn’t. Then I noticed some hands searching through the cockpit, and someone said:
— You idiot! You forgot to lower landing gear as emergency procedure says. You crippled the plane!
I wanted to say that airframe is not so seriously damaged, but then I suddenly was engulfed by undeserved insult.
I took out my TT pistol, and tried to hit the source of the voice. Somebody grabbed my hand and took away my pistol. I was escorted to the HQ. There I ripped off the face mole mask. Usually it protected our faces from frost, but this time it froze to my skin, so I took the mask with bits of skin. I reported to the 7th regiment commander Major Karasev that I attacked the infantry column, that AAA cover lagged 800 meters behind, and that the weather was getting better. The Major asked me to show on the map where I caught the Germans, and ordered to prepare 9 Ils for the mission. Meanwhile somebody called the doctor, he checked me out, but there was nothing but mortal tiredness and little frostbites. The regiment commander ordered me to go to the canteen and then to rest.
In the canteen girls gave me 100 grams of vodka with pepper as a medicine against flu. As I ate, Ivan Bezhanov, a pilot I knew, told me that their engineer was not too keen on trying to send me to the court martial.
When two girls guided me to the dug-out, where I was supposed to have some rest, they brought me to the newly-formed crater. As a passing by seaman described:
— In this crater you can see all that remained from the German ace. Some time ago four FW-190 tried to strafe the airfield. An ace from the 14th Guards fighter regiment Konstantin Kovalev shot two of them down. One fell right there.
In the crater I saw man’s “device” with no trace of the rest of the body.
It was warm in the dug-out, but I was still shaking under heavy fur coat. Then I got all sweaty. For a long time I was unconscious. I woke up from poking:
— Comrade Commander, the regiment engineer ordered to give this to you as a present... We recovered it from the cowling of the engine and from the wing of your plane.
However sleepy I was, I still understood that he showed me pieces of soldiers’ overcoat, belt and one German shoulder board. But I was too tired to think about it and dozed off again.
In the morning I woke up as good as new. I carefully examined my “souvenirs” in the daylight. After breakfast I was told that my plane was ready, examined it and flew home. But I forgot the “souvenirs”.
While I was resting after the flight thinking of the «trophies» that I left behind, I recalled events described in the brochure that I read in the flight school before being assigned to the Baltic’s. This brochure was about combat activities of the Black Sea aviation ground-attack pilot Captain Suslin who arrived to our flight school and spearheaded forming of our regiment. In Odessa area Suslin lowered his landing gear to pretend he is flying German Ju-87 and strafed a column of Romanian infantry. It became clear that it was Romanian infantry column only back at the airfield, where pieces of Romanian uniforms, a helmet and a scalp with hair were recovered from the wheel wells! At that time I did not believe that such an episode could be real. Any impact of the wheel creates a strong roll-over moment and the plane would be drawn to the ground. This is a 100% risk. But these bits were actually raised into the air by explosions of RSs, through which my plane flew.
Now we are flying with Akaev with a task to strafe Klopitsy airfield. He flies at an altitude of 400 meters in a straight line. It was shocking but I maneuvered to avoid the AAA explosions..."

These Il-2 Sturmoviks have been busy with the dirtiest job...
The rest is here - very interesting:
http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/pilo...batievskii.htm

The thing is this; if a simulator was bloody enough to make you feel bad, then that is good. I will explain. You see, in il-2 I always try and aim for the cockpit when I can and I don't feel bad about seeing a cartoonish character get killed. If, in SoW, the effect of shooting an enemy gunner/pilot was realistic and gruesome enough to make me feel bad about taking someone's life like that, I may be more chivalrous in my fighting in the game. So by this i mean that I may think twice about aiming for the pilot to at least give him a chance to bail-out.

Nice read BG, thank you! Don't forget nevertheless that Oleg expressed very clearly his position on blood and gore, and for very good reasons by the way.

Cheers!

I agree though that blood and gore are the last things to worry about modelling in a sim like this ;)

How about if you just witnessed your wingman's head being blown into a million pieces from that same 'enemy gunner/pilot'. Would that still encourage you to be 'more chivalrous'...?

My real point is not to forget that this is just a computer game. Although I personally like a lot of realism in my simulations, I do think that some people get a little carried away with their requests. Just my opinion, of course.

Aviar

+1 Aviar, its not necessary at all IMO, and it beats me why people would want to see things like that.....Strikes me as a bit freaky and Ghoulish. Watch a Freddy Krueger film or something if that kind of thing floats your boat lol. :confused:

If cockpit hits were 'realistic' in IL-2 dogfights would end a lot sooner, I'm sure Oleg was on record saying that in the past.

Hi all,

I just registered to get more details on the game as it's progressing in development.

To those who say that blood would be unnecessary and ghoulish / too brutal; I must wonder why do you play a game where you shoot down planes at all?

A plane exploding means death in the same way as a cockpit kill with the plane plummeling to the ground. Where is the difference between an explosion and blood? Both mean certain death. Would that mean explosion effects have to be taken out of the game as well or is it just a double moral here?

Also don't forget that in pilot view the screen turns red as well when you get injured. Red... the very same color and we all know it's blood. If it wasn't intended to be that way the screen could turn pink or green.

In the end shooting down a plane means being aware of the fact that you kill. I'd even go so far that taking part in any conflict means knowing you might have to hurt or kill people, no, that you even want to hurt and kill people. Even more so with bombing runs - these are always, like mentioned above, a gruesome deal for the receiving party and sometimes even pilots.

I can certainly understand when the developers don't want to add blood as it may cause issues with certain youth ranking systems (especially in Germany, my home country) but then again, pretending that blood doesn't belong there isn't right I believe. In Germany swastikas are banned as well, another sad thing. I'm not a nazi at all but see, what is realism for you guys is banned here because of the history. Isn't blood the very same?

Let me say it differently: it doesn't even matter if any lifeform out there bleeds if you kill it. Even if it doesn't bleed at all, and there are ways to kill like that e.g. gas or poison or whatever, it's still a kill! Everything else is just visuals. We can take them out of the game one by one (fire from burning, explosions, shockwaves, craters and bomb effects, bullets and ricochets etc.) and even make the games look like funny bubbles - it'd still mean you kill someone. So adding >some< realistic effects isn't gory, ghoulish or overly brutal - it's nothing else but what really happens.

Just my 50cents on that topic.

The game looks really nice though. Is there any way to get a decent DRM free pre-order deal of it outside of steam? :]
Regards,
Madfish.

I don't understand this idea that combat pilots should be chivalrous. They're not up there for fun and games, they're there to defend their country from the invader! (Or, to help conquer another country to get the resources needed to defend the fatherland from the big country that's about to become the invader.) (Or, to bomb the other country so they can't defeat your country and destroy it.) If you're fighting for your national survival, which I think the pilots of all nations thought they were, then you don't deal in niceties. You shoot to bring the other plane down, you don't try to aim to avoid harming the other crew and reduce your chance of a kill, that'd be ludicrous, possibly even traitorous! Are you a traitor, Philip?? :-P

This has nothing to do with survival or treachery. There have been many incidents or humanistic behavior and especially pilots aren't the murderous being you describe. There was in fact a lot of chivalry in the air and even bombing crews didn't tell the gory tales but usually they took pride in just downing planes. I believe that air combat is just not as involved as ground combat when it comes to really see the brutality. You usually just fought against "machines" and "pilots".

This said I might repeat that I wouldn't mind a little blood effect or two but things don't have to be overly gory just to show what happens. Also things don't have to be overly gory just to not be a traitor.
In fact downing a pilot and capturing him can be MUCH more useful than killing him mindlessly. A plane down is a plane down. What you describe, dozer, is only feasible in the act of attacking another country and thus fighting over enemy territory. Then it'd be reasonable to try hard and kill everything in side as they might go back home and get into another plane again.

Regards,
Madfish.

I think I've been misunderstood a bit here. I never said anything about 'mindlessly' or 'brutally' killing pilots. I was only talking about shooting at a pilot when he's sat in the cockpit of his plane. I'm not talking about gore, you can't see it from 150 yards back anyway! I meant that, as I understand it, when there's an enemy aviator in his aircraft, most pilots wouldn't hold back from shooting at where he's sat, because sensibly it's the quickest way to bring his plane down, and that's the whole point of you being there. That's not murderous, that's an act of war. Shooting a pilot in his parachute is murderous though, but that's not what I said. My tongue was firmly in my cheek when I wrote the last sentence too, hence the :-P

Some were famed for shooting at aircrew deliberately - 'Sailor' Malan of the RAF in the BoB, who ignored what I wrote in my last post, aimed to wound and kill as many aircrew as possible rather than bring the aircraft down, in order to demoralise the Luftwaffe. He probably should have just tried to destroy as many airframes as possible...

Interesting thought Madfish!

In a mission a pilot gets shotdown and captured - after a suitable delay a message gets broadcast stating the location of their airfield and what planes and numbers were located there!

It would mean a pilot could make the ultimate sacrifice for their team by riding his plane down at the expense of his own K/D ratio! It would also give a sense of accomplishment getting your crippled plane over your own lines before bailing out!

Cheers!

What about an individual option for "blood - gore" reality on a list. If you wanted to fly with or without it on it would all be up to the individual it could be turned off or on no matter if you were in easy or full realism mode....problem solved?

I am not a fan of spilling blood. Like an English pilot once said on the series World At War..I didn't want to shoot a German down I wanted to shoot an airplane down.

As far as I'm concerned, the only use for any blood/gore effect is to give the feedback 'is that guy dead or not?'. This is handled nicely by the character animations though, so there's no need for actually drawing blood on canopies etc.

In Il-2, you can tell when you've hit the pilot, because instantly all the target aircraft's controls are locked in the central position. Maybe a jerky movement of the controls, followed by them moving to a random position, would be more realistic (by which I mean, less immersion-breaking, and therefore making the game more enjoyable to play, by not giving the player the message 'Hey! You're playing a computer game!' which little things like, for example, the controls locking in neutral in Il-2, gives.)

I more or less agree with Dozer. I don't mind gore that much but i don't consider it necessary either, so in that sense i'd like to see the development time spent on something that has a more universal appeal on the potential buyers of this sim.

What would be nice to have though is some kind of feedback to let you know when you kill those little pixelated people. Simply having a randomized effect from a list of possible outcomes would be good enough.

Sometimes when flying straight and getting bounced the virtual pilot would remain in the upright position and the controls relatively centered. So, after a while the plane would roll to the side due to the torque effects being uncorrected by the dead pilot, Also, the loss of thrust from the damage and drag from the torn metal of the airplane would give a small amount of altitude loss...as this goes on, we'd get the kind of thing we see in movies with a crippled plane slowly making its way toward the ground in spirals.

Some other times, upon the game registering the pilot as killed it could force a random control input. In these cases the controls would be violently moved to a random direction, with the enemy aircraft jerking violently before losing control.

In other cases, the pilot would simply slump over and slowly nose over towards the ground and so on, you get the idea.

This would be nice visually, especially for people who like making ingame videos, lend some extra variety to the way kills are depicted, provide some kind of feedback to let the attacking player know that he scored a pilot kill and can stop shooting (or, in the case of non-violent jerking of the stick by the "dead" pilot, not provide enough of a feedback...games that keep you guessing are games that don't bore you easily ;) ) and it wouldn't even require the use of gore that would be detrimental to the game's marketing.

If gunner's could be randomly made to just silence their guns or jerk them violently to a random direction as mentioned before, that would round out the package for me. If we really wanted to nit pick, we could have the outcome of pilot kills dependant on plane attitude...a pilot killed during a dive will have more probability of slumping forward on the stick, pressing it down even more, than pulling it back.

Come to think of it, only FPS games show extensive gore and that's because they are usually taking place in an imaginary setting. Sure, there's blood in the ArmA series as well but not the amount of blood you see in games like left 4 dead or metro 2033. The reason is simple, some people get upset when seeing excessive blood effects in what they perceive as the transfer of a real-life scenario to their screens, but they are not affected the same when watching a thousand zombies get burned by a flamethrower, because zombies are not real. It's just human nature, most people have a built-in mechanism to show aversion to and empathize with harm done on whatever looks to us like a living person or animal, while we don't empathize with what can be clearly distinguished to be fake. That's why a game about killing monsters has no trouble selling copies even with over the top gore effects, but games with settings much closer to reality would face a problem if they used similar effects.

In any case, i think that some kind of death animation (that animation doesn't even have to involve the pilot, just the way he loses control of his aircraft) would be nice to have, not because i want to see blood and guts but because i want to know when the other aircraft is out of the fight.

I totally agree. I don't mind gore at all, but I really feel no need to see it in a game like this. If the devs included it (and I am fairly sure they won't) they would also have to put in a "no gore" switch.

Plus, "gore" in some other games is a real FPS eater. It can take a fair amount of rendering power to animate the little bits.

Like you, I really just want to know that I got the gunner or pilot. I don't have to see bits of him flying out of the aircraft. It wouldn't bother me, just don't need it.

Of course, I feel a little pang of sympathy every time I score one of the "insta kills" where the aircraft just blows up and you know no chute is going to pop out. Every time it happens, I think back to some pilot interviews I have seen where they get a bit emotional talking about such times in their flying careers. I'm sure those instances brought the reality to them that they weren't just shooting at planes.

Splitter

To be honest, many newcomers to flight sims get "owned" badly by experienced pilots or well-equipped pilots. Instead of worrying about a little gore and the mental health of the people who see it from 200 meters distance I believe the mental effect of newbies getting owned constantly is much worse. :P
Also I doubt there would be many flight sim veterans who'd get mad about blood effects.

I do agree on the added development effort though and that there would be better things to invest time on. For example my thread about new game modes! :)

Thanks Insuber! I am proud to be part of this community! I am just trying to help Oleg's team to recreate the Battle Of Britain in greater detail. The devil is in to the detail, as often people said.

Cheers!

+1 A pilot isn't dangerous, a pilot + a plane is dangerous.

Awesome shots as always :)

Question to Oleg / Luthier / anyone else who might have seen the "far away dot" in the screenshots.

I browsed through the development updates and the screenshots for the infamous dot, but didn't catch one. The question follows: How is the "dot"(plane that is so far away that it is presented as one pixel) handled in SoW? Is it still one pixel or does it depend on screen resolution?

I happen to own a 30" screen with 2560x1600 resolution which I view from about 1m away. In IL-2 if I use the native resolution the dot is quite invisible because the relative size of the pixel is so small. I have perfect eyesight, but it is quite impossible to spot the dot. Only when the planes come closer and occupy more than one pixel, then I can see them. I noticed this when flying online with a squadmate who constantly reported contacts, which I of course couldn't spot. Not until I lowered the resolution to 1920x1200 (75% of the native in both dimensions).

So, the point being(pun very much intended), will SoW accommodate large resolution screens so that the "dot" occupies more pixels than just one?

Quite optimistic of me to even think that SoW would run on my machine with that resolution, but one can hope ;) Some day it will :)

And get well soon Oleg!


-Untamo

Man, the whole chivalrous debate could go on for eternity and never reach a final conclusion :D

As I had said in my post before, the very fact that I wouldn't enjoy seeing blood/gore in the game would make it have an impact on me if I saw the results of killing an enemy pilot. Of course my PoV would be changed by experiences with seeing friends killed, but it could have the impact on one that a war game should have; war is never fun.

Anyway, back to the update ;)

Pictures are nice, but some movement would be a real tease. The detail and subject matter are first rate, but the apparent neglect off AA settings is a concern in these days of high resolution and 2GB GPU's.

Tossing a bone is appreciated, but we'll still starve on bones alone. Put some meat on the bones this week, eh?

;)

With the political debates going on banning gore/hard core violence games, this isn't much of an issue here, no gore means no problems. And i have no doubt whatsoever that Oleg will go this route...Furthermore, when you shoot down a plane, you not always see what's inside the cockpit...

Some of you have a wild fantasy of details here...:cool:

If a pilot was hit and his head + body would fall over, constrained by the safety belts, that would be more then enough. Like someone in a sleeping postion in a chair.

+ 1
and please lower leaves size - those cartoon trees (shape & color) are too visible.
(just a proposal...).

Here it can be also seen at 0:42 , propeller is pretty visible under some angle view with light reflection :shock: :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89ZAONQVF5I

[QUOTE=Jumo211;178110]Here it can be also seen at 0:42 , propeller is pretty visible under some angle view with light reflection :shock: :

Nice footage...Now they also have a reference of how a shooting p-51 should sound...:cool::idea:

Look at 1:58: the pilot bails out.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v9...aro/Mistel.jpg

Talk about gore, at 2:02 you can see the pilot of the mistel hanging under his plane by his chute and the P51 is still shooting.

I have to say I'm astonished by the belief that the sound on that video is accurate. It was obviously a real aeroplane making the sound, but which one I wouldn't like to say. Gun cameras did not record sound, it was added after the event most likely with whatever was convenient and hanging around.
A cursory watch of numerous episodes of German wartime cinema propaganda clearly show repeat film sequences in engagements that occured at different times and places. Particularly sad are the ones from 1945 supposedly reporting fighting against the Russians that are clearly manufactured to show that the Germans were winning although the Russians were probably shelling Berlin by the time they were shown.
Take it all with a big pinch of salt. Especially now it's possible to fabricate anything in this digital age. See Hollywood, wikipedia, lol!
Regards

Some of you don't seem to get this, so here it is in a 3 step formula that makes everything clear.

1. Blood/Gore = Loss of Available Markets for the Game

2. Loss of Available Markets for the Game = Less Profit for Oleg and Co.

3. Less Profits for Oleg and Co. = Less or possibly NO Future Development on the SOW series.

That means. . . .

Pilot having his blood and brains splattered all over the inside of the cockpit = BAD!!!:(
Pilot Slumping over the controls = Probably ok.:grin:
Bailed-out Pilot gibbing into a million bloody chunks = BAD!!!:(
Bailed-out Pilot going limp in his parachute harness = Probably ok.:grin:

Oleg is not going to add depictions of blood/gore/swastikas/naked women/animal abuse/drug use/etc... To do any of those would cause his title to be rated "adult/mature" in some countries and be banned in others. This is business suicide, something he can not afford given the markets that buy flight sims and the size and resources of his company.

Are there even mods here? How about throwing around a few bans/probations for people who keep going way off topic on things that have been beaten to death already?

(Back on topic)

Now the rear part of the canopy on the JU-88 being ejected from the aircraft (4th pic), would that be as a result of the damage from the Hurricane behind it, or is that part of the bail-out procedure for the gunner? I'm just wondering if MG fire is really going to cause the canopy to fall off like that. That seems to me to be something more akin to cannon or flak damage.

Also, I have to say that the tracers look perfect from what I have seen in person and on video.

Tracers at dusk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GJzi1PZ26A
Tracers in the day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx5aR1Knpb8

I should note that the videos are showing the use of tracers that have a delay before lighting up, so as to not give away the shooter's exact location. I believe tracers used in the air on both sides had no delay.

Great footage mate! :D It'd be awesome to see this in game. :cool:

On the whole blood/gore issue, personally I have no problem with it. In IL2 all it took was a conf.ini change to activate it, and I did. War is War.

I don't think the addition of blood/gore and consequential rating change would have much if any impact on sales. Haven't you seen the 12 yr-olds at EBGames buying games where the whole point appears to be to kill your opponent in close combat in the goriest way possible? Have those games' sales suffered? Are the 12 yr-olds a market segment likely to buy SoW:Bob?

That said, creating blood/gore would take resources away from far more important details and for that reason I'll happily do without.
I'm also happy that we'll never have to have 23-page discussions on how the depiction of blood inaccurately protrays the coagulation time of blood on a hot perspex canopy...

That is some of the most insane strafing footage I have ever seen! Talk about close. A well aimed rock would have brought down some of those planes. Plus, the danger from secondary explosions was very apparent. Wow.

Splitter

The problem is that the US, while great for sales of bloody first-person-shooters (biggest market) is a side market for a lot of flight sims, where as Europe/Russia are real markets you don't want to miss out on. If you wanted to make a version with blood you would miss out on Germany, who required cartoonish shooters to change blood to "green slime". Similar laws exist in other countries as well (Australia for example). Another problem would be adding a swastika. This, like blood, is all fine and dandy in the US/Canada, but Germany, France, and Russia have issues with this.

Strange as it sounds, this game is not being made with the American Market in mind, as it is not the cash cow of flight sims like it is with FPS.

Anyways, this thread is for discussing what has been posted by Oleg and Luthier in the updates.

There's a lot of great effects footage in that video that Oleg and co could use as reference's for SoW.

This thread goes WAAAAAAAAAYYY OFF topic... :-(
hope it's getting friday soon.

Off topic?Yes.
But very fun in the latest posts.
Better than the endless discutions about release dates.:cool:

You know guys this is just a bunch of Cannoli

Here it is Tuesday and it looks like the thread will have to be locked with half the week to go before another update.

Why don't you guys go back and delete your rodomontade ( junk postings) save me some work deleting them. This way the thread can stay open. There might actually be others that haven't seen the thread who would like to comment.

These posts are a lot more usefull than the posts on the update with the tree whining, although the trees looked fantastic, even that post didn't get locked. And it is still about the effects from tracers and the propellors and the bailing out what was a subject in the update.

The recent discussion about the prop effect and tracers is relevent. The tracer discussion has spurred from the great video Jumo posted which shows some awesome footage which could be useful to Oleg and his team.
but the gore discussion can be seen as junk. Not necesarily because it's spam, but Oleg has stated that there won't be gore in the game, so really the discussion is pointless.

nearmiss; shall I delete any references I made in this particular topic about gore? I feel that the rest is relevent ;)

Yes, it will be good enough. But mate, think about the realism: what will happens, when Ju-87 drops a 1000 kg bomb over double-decker bus in London, full of passengers /as Oleg is planing/ - every body of the passengers "will sleep in a chair"? It does not fit. Or may be, the passengers will fly "sleeping" a 100 meters away?

Cheers!

In that case disappearance would be the best option if teared limbs are forbidden. Seeing "sleeping" passengers 100 m away would be a strange sight;)

I don't think members are clear that you are a moderator. I only realised it after the last thread was closed.
I deleted 1 post.

The gore discussion is OT. It would be nice if the thread could be left open, in case Oleg wants to comment.

On the subjest of Tracers.. Lots of good footage here (you may well have already seen this)

One thing I never see in any game is the effect where the tracers bounce off something solid and spray around, that would be a nice touch..

More insanely low straffing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP-_cVgKSG0

Nice solution of the problem.
The best solution is very difficult to be found - we have to confess that SoW-BoB will have to depict real war, with all consequences of that war. WW2 pilots have done very merciless and severe damages to civil population. They were shooting virtually at everything that moves, and than stating that they were doing this for the fatherland. How now we can represent this, and even watch this without any censure?!

+1

Surely this whole issue reflects one of the 'benefits' of increasing screen resolutions - giving a more realistic experience. That is, real-life pilots equally would find it difficult / next to impossible to spot aircraft at extreme distances.

The extra 'ease' of spotting/rendering the far-away aircraft on lower-res screens is actually less realistic - resulting from the deficiencies of such screens.

Of course, from the perspective of making it easier for a sim pilot to see the enemy early and get a better chance of winning it might be preferable for some people, but I'd argue it is less realistic.

Just my take...

increasing the graphic standard and the level of detail, inevitable debate will emerge in near future also in combat flight simulations. How to make socially acceptable the sloughter caused by a fragmentation bomb on a concentration of troops? would you really want such a show is represented in a game? will we debate in a future if the textures of human innards are well represented, questioning on RGB values?
I like flight sims since F15 strike eagle on commodore 64, so as you I'm an 'avid' consumer of combat flight sim, but I prefere such things rest limited in terms of plane vs plane (or tank, truck ....).
In this days I'm practicing in mission building with an historical background. Reading different sources it's astonishing how the life of Mr X overlap Mr Y's live. Relatively at WWII period we know exactly when, were and why my grandfather killed yours relatives and viceversa. Are you sure all this should be belittled in a video game with plenty of detail ?
....Too much bigot? :) ....(in reality I'm the king of splatter-games ehehehe).
just a consideration . Cheers

A slumped/prone figure is all I need. Racing past at 300 mph, I doubt I would be able see much more anyway. The only situation where details would be visible is in multi-crew aircrafts like the Blenheim, where you potentially may spend some time looking at a dead mate. Even there, a slumped position would do. With the amount of clothing, a crewman killed by bullets or splinters may not seep blood to any discernable degree.