And you have a background in computer engineering/programming I assume? No okay thanks for your input.

In case you missed it, the feature is being WORKED on and as stated by Luthier will be released at a later time. I personally would rather have the game sooner and wait for it whilst playing than waiting longer for the sim to release.

It's not like the feature was completely left on the floor, it's actually IN game (again as Luthier mentioned) as an "unmarked" feature for now. So turn it on if you want....or be patient and let them do their work.

There's a reason we never showed it.

I don't think anyone, you or us, is really happy with the way the clouds are looking. Complex clouds made up of these puffs look even worse. The puffs were never intended for large cumulus clouds or for overcast, so it looks as horrible as you would imagine.

lol

You are actually right. But this was one of the main features advertised already back in 2006, so my worries are not at all causeless.

Constantly amazed at people's attitude that the perfect sim is "owed" to them. :rolleyes:

If Oleg and Luthier were not donating their time to give us updates and insight on the development process, you would simply either buy it and take what's in the box, or keep your money.

"I'm entitled to the most realistic experience because I'm spending $50" is starting to get irritating.

It's a great feature, but understand it's very complicated so if it's been 5 years and it's "not right" ... it's obviously pretty heavy handed.

The good news is it's still a priority and will be worked on until it's right. Maybe Q4 2011...

Couldn't agree more.

Most developers stay completely shut in from the world up until a few months from release. We choose to interact with the community throughout the process because we feel that you are mature enough to understand the concepts of "work in progress" and "subject to change".

So I'm not sure how to react when people latch on to something said 5(!) years ago while ignoring everything that's been said over the past year and a half. I guess we brought this onto ourselves.

Luthier. Sry if I trod on your toes. You said it yesterday in another forum than the official.


But what exactly is so laughable about my question?

So whats going to happen with the clouds we are seeing now Luthier?
Are they staying? or is there a new build for the release or a later patch?

And thanks for the info.

Good news:grin: and thanks for the quick reply:).

~S~

Thanks for the update!

Now, some people seems to confuse criticism and complaining. I'm not complaining but I do share some concern with some of the other forum members also. Criticism is good sometimes, keeps people on their toes and I'm sure Oleg, Ilya and all the team are mature/professional people who can take criticism when it's to the point.

Looking forward to the game, wish some features would've been in it on release but I can live with it as we are not exactly spoiled with WWII air combat games these days.:)

P.S Follow my countdown on my domain: www.fanboy.se

I for one appreciate any video or screenshots of CoD and realise that it's a privilege, so thanks.

There are a lot of people on here who feel like they were 'promised' something and when they find out it's changed or been removed they spit thier dummies out and behave like spoilt kids. It's not your fault. It's theirs.

We are redoing everything about clouds from scratch, but not for the release. The puffs are going to be in the release. A completely different cloud system with much better visuals, especially in terms of light scattering, is pretty early in development.

I have to add a disclaimer here because when I don't it bites us in the rear. Everything I'm discussing in terms of future plans is a work in progress and is subject to change. As a matter of fact, it's pretty much a guarantee that the final feature will be different from what I'm describing today.

Please gentlemen, understand that game development is a very long, complex process. Plans we describe are just that, plans. Every single thing we said we were working on, we were indeed working on at the time. Working is the key work here. We're doing something no one, including ourselves, has ever done before. So when we tell you that we're working on something, that means we are walking down an uncertain road and we don't know when we get there, and what shape we're going to be in when we do.

WORK. IN. PROGRESS. Please understand these simple words.

YEH:eek:

Can't ask for more than that Luthier. Thanks for taking the time to keep us informed.

If we didn't listen to criticism, Il-2 would never in a million years get to where it did back in 2001.

So please keep it coming.

However it really is best to form your thoughts into a coherent argument in the shape of "x is bad because of y, it would have been better if z". That's constructive, drives the discussion forward, and is the best way to convince us you're right.

Quick question:Will the A.I be able to see through the "puffs" like in IL-2?

Luthier,

Are you able to tell us whether realistic wind modelling will feature in the initial release please?

A quick question - could you please add an option to disable TrackIR when in outside view? Most other games have it this way as it get's really annoying in IL2 sitting there with you head a bit to the side to look from behind your aircraft. And yes, many of us like to have external views on :)

If someone says "you fool, that can be done in IL2 to, just change the conf.ini value x=false" I would be very happy too...

When in external I want to control the view with the hat of my joystick (and yes, I know there is a "disable" button for TrackIR but no, I don't want to sit there holding that ;))

Yes, agree, it's called constructive criticism and not all people know about it.:)

Ok cheers Luthier...the clouds were seeing now arnt that bad to be honest...but hope the new ones are finished quickly.

Now get working on the translation for the videos, because i cant stand another vid of you pulling faces and making silly noises. :)

this year will be great for flight sim fans.

xplane has a new cloudsystem too. i guess most of you know this post allready? http://www.x-plane.com/pg_news.html

No use for a combat sim where you fly in and out of clouds in a tail chase though...

Dude... Grab a hold of yourself, the sky is not falling. Everything in a game is a compromise between game elements and the practicality of getting out and SOLD.

Sheesh they said it would be updated in due time.

Wind is a part of weather :) So whatever I said about the weather included wind.

Thanks for the info Luthier, it's appreciated. Far more so than the usual streamlined PR crap we usually get from most developers.

While some of the news may be disappointing, I'm glad the devs seem to have a good concept of priorities and are executing it. Too many previous sims suffered from feature creep, only to be released with bugs and problems throughout. I'd rather enjoy a limited featureset that works than another Falcon4-like disaster...

I recall a BOB pilot saying that clouds were odd, when you're in one you can't see anything, but that if you were above them you could see the shape of an aircraft in them.
It will be something very special to have a complete weather system in the sim. If this comprised time, ie earth rotation, sun position with clouds wind and rain (snow!) and ran independently of, as above or in parallel with the actual game, it could be used in any other title using the SOW engine. I hope you're thinking this way, Luthier....

Regards to the team, I'm looking forward to cranking up the 109!

Awesome!! Now we have a flight sim that will bump the top rated "most popular" game off the top spot at Gamespot. Note the top rated game at 9.2 rating:

http://www.gamespot.com/games.html?t...ims&platform=5

Are you familiar with the term selective perception?
Yes? Good, you must know it's that bad at all.
Why don't you try following: Focus one the nice words and the constructive criticism, and just ignore the bs some people give you.
Ready?
Great, you see - blue sky all around, right?

Main thing I got from the video was a shiny new mobile phone.
There was this game somewhere in the background, I'm not sure though.
;-)
I guess ppl should be waiting for the game itself, not for another 'dev update'...
...see the released game and then judge me thinks.

they fixed it with 4.10. ;)

Awesome update. TBH, Luthier's posts would have been enough for me! It's really great to see the way the developers interact with the community, as it really helps to push the project forawrd. So thankyou Luthier. ;)
And thanks for the word on the clouds, too. It's nice to see that you're on pretty much the same song sheet as the community is :D
Have a nice weekend.

Luthier, forget the weather for now, we english talk about it enough anyway ;)

I noticed that even in these latest ground shots there's no sign of drivers or ground crew/gunners, is this another feature not present at release, or are they just 'switched off' intentionally, so as not to be revealed yet?

A couple of thoughts.

It seems that those who waited to buy a new PC when SoW would arrive, will have to buy a new pc now and do another major and costly upgrade when new features are ready and implemented in the game. That's just guess, but a reasonable one with facts given so far.

People have been waiting for this game for 5+ years. Why do they have to feel guilty or become hardly judged when they express ther dissapointment in features they expected to see in this game after all these years of development? We'd be totally unfair if we didn't respect these feelings. After all they prove that these guys really love (and are obsessed!) with Maddox games. Writing a disrespectful post about them makes you no less "bad" than what these guys are.

About today's update: nice pictures! I liked the colours and the flames!

Sorry for my bad english.

Nice stuff, many thanks :grin:

Can I just say though that the roundels still look 'wrong' in colouring

Going back to the video, everyone knows you can go full screen and do 720p? You can actually see the game pretty well there.

(sorry about the cackle, gawd!)

The reason we made the crappy handheld video is simple. All we had was screenshots, and we wanted to give you a little more. Think of it as a guy going on a date with a wrinkled box of chocolates, only to hesitate at the door and rip out a few flowers out of the rosebush in the driveway.

Luthier,
Are you happy with the sounds of CoD? For example, engine noise, gun effects, etc.. Can you post a quick vid of the sounds at full blast? Are the sounds .wav files? Synthesized ? On a further note, can you hear outside noises such as other aircraft from within your own cockpit in flight?

We're still working on sounds. Engine and gun sounds are pretty good in my opinion, but a lot of people will take some time to get used to them because they're not what you expect, especially guns as heard from inside the cockpit. We got some funny bug reports about that from some beta testers.

You can hear outside noises, yes. As you should. We can argue this based both on memoirs and on scientific formulas.

Cool...BUT if you have to do it again...pls just make the cam guy point at the screen from about a foot away and not move...and turn the sound on :)

You don't have to worry about what to say to them, the best option is just ignore them. No motter what you said they will never accept the answer, what ever it may be.

good, i think you hear a shoot inside the cockpit more mechanic as a explosion

Pleased to hear we'll get 'the weather' in the FMB for us to try at our peril. Flying a Moth or that Su-26 on a small map with a blow coming will be interesting. Good shots, thanks for the up dates, can't wait for the opportunity to give you some more of my money.

Is it E6700 or Q6700, i.e. DUO or QUAD?

UPD.
luthier answered on the Russian forum that it is DUO. Sounds very promising. Still some room available for advanced weather )))

Thanks for the response Luthier. One other quick question about sounds of CoD is if the recordings of engine noises we have now in-game are from actual recordings of real engine counterparts...ie. CoD's Daimler-Benz in-game sounds like a real Daimler-Benz? Does the complex sound engine need alot of CPU horsepower?

luthier thanks for the vid!!!

with the rig you are using would you say the settings in the vid were "medium" or low? because if I didnt know any better I would have said they looked to be on the high end of the spectrum!... it looks that good!!!

Oleg and Luthier,

Thank you for taking the time to give us our addiction this week :)

Very lovely screenies and video. I know you guys are working tremendously hard. I know your whole intent is to release a sim that will do what it says. If that means holding back some features, so be it. I'd much rather have a sim that starts on the ground running than a few I've boughten that are still bug infested. Thanks for being upfront and honest. That's pretty much all anyone can ask for. I too wish other people knew what WIP means as well ;)

I can't wait for a copy to be in my hands!

Cheers and Thanks!

i really appreciate all the answers we have been given today!!!thx a lot to the dev team!!!!
ps:the screenshots look awesome!!!hope my rig will run it at medium settings without stutters.

Sad commentary, but it's a fact. Ignore their whines, complaints and other negative jabber. The community at large appreciates all the feedback, and discussion with the Oleg and yourself.

It is just a fact, you cannot please everyone.

One thing is sure. This community loves the update threads and many people get up early each Friday monrning to get a quick peak at what is new.

I love you guys! Great taste - letting us mess things up. I love the consumer being treated as an adult for once.

Luthier, arghhh give me the damn sim now man! I preordered and I cant wait anymore. Im serious! hah
seriously, thank you for all the work and passion you, Oleg and team invested into this sim...thanks guys

Thanks.
Screenshots are getting better all the time. I like the colours.

I'm very pleased to hear that the clouds might be improved in the future.

It would be nice to have some explanation or discusson on AI performance

Fans/we are junkies/spoiled kids, not the nicest people often, but when they have their drugs at least for a short term, you don't hear them anymore.
Since they love this product/genre so much, anything that isn't as good as they wished for, they get upset/afraid.

Now I do think Oleg and friends are not the best at selling/presenting their product(s) at the best way possible, so I'm sure it will good enough for them (for most) when they got it themself (at last). ;)

It's just with il-2 the bar was raised pretty high + all the waiting + the previous I mentioned, you just get this..

But in the end they all happy I bet, and il2 is a very different il-2 now then when it was first released, probaly this will be the same, which will make it long lasting and populair probaly as well.

What we haven't seen yet and never will really "see" is one of the absolutely most important sides of CoD: The characteristics of the airplanes in CoD and how this is simulated. Very few of us have flown these aircraft and are not able to judge how real the simulation will be. The bf109 for example was a lot less aerobatic than the Spitfire, from what I understand. This much because of heavy controls when speed started to pick up. How are heavy controls simulated? Some are stronger than others. The 109 could also be a bitch to handle on the ground. The Spit didn't like negative G-too much, which the bf-pilots soon found out. How all of this will be replicated in CoD is more interresting to me than how clouds look, how green the grass is supposed to be, the reds of the British insignia etc. I hope 1C has put these issues above the "how it looks" issues, even if most of us wouldn't be able to really appreciate the finer details that makes as Spit a Spit and a 109 a 109.

I asked if the A.I still sees through clouds a couple of pages ago. We already know that the A.I doesn't have "spiderman sense" anymore but does that include it not being able to see through clouds? I just finished read Christer Bergströms "Luftstrid över kanalen" (http://www.amazon.com/Luftstrid-Over...8&sr=1-1-fkmr0) about the Battle of Britain and most accounts from pilots indicated that surprise attacks were the rule rather than the exception. Many by chance of course but I was really surprised that most accounts contained the words "They hadn't even seen us, I lined up behind one of them closed in to about 100 meters (!) and fired all my guns. It went down in smoke but the others didn't react so I shot down another one".

This not a direct quote but a long those lines was many accounts that I read about. I'm really interested also what Oleg and team has in store for us A.I wise.:)

That looks like a woods/forest in the last screenshot. That is the first time we have seen such a concentration of trees.

Hi Luthier, Thanks for the screenies I think they are the best we have seen so far, I understand that you have had problems with various features, but now these have been disabled within the game what kind of FPS can we hope to see if we turn on AA + AF in high res, does the game run smoothly at all times or are there any Black death track moments when the two planes collide. I can certainly live without all the features if the game is able to run real smooth. If you could just show us all some proper video (in cockpit, doesnt have to be fancy) and then give us the system specs it would help all of us who are waiting to spend our hard earned cash on upgrades or new systems just to run your game.

Thank you.

OK a few concerns.

1. hardly any gameplay videos after 6 years of development time....are the devs hiding something? Most games have a plethera of information out on the game by this stage.

2. Rubbish release statement with misleading information.

3. Main attractive features of this 'sim' not included on release. i.e. dynamic campaign, dynamic weather andpotentially correct engine sounds (as they seem to be covert about this aspect).

4. Published by Ubi.....DRM crap

5. Silent Hunter 5 philosophy of releasing a half-finished product with the intention of introducing said features in point 3 at a later date (possibly by means of a paid addon) however if the game does not sell well it may be abondoned by Ubi like SH5.

IMO it would seem that Il2 1946 still surpases this title in all but AI (which has yet to be proven) and graphics.

Therefore, not a day 1 punchase for me...

They havent sold it to me with all the backtracking they seem to be doing

Thanks Oleg-Luthier....for the info and the video is amazingly life like.

It is sad how people can come off as completely immature asshats. Some people have no concept of the pitfalls and delays of complex development projects. Its no wonder that most developers can't be bothered posting info and having to weed thru crap posts like some here.

I'm not sure you would qualify anyway. This sim is for adults only.

Adults don't judge each other either, everybody is entitled to their opinion without being slandered.

I'd like to imagine that the apparent palette changes in the video from bright to blue-y inside the cockpit are a result of flying in and out of cloud shadows.

Anyone else?

People can reply in any way they like since its their opinion on the info and material they have seen so far isnt it? Negative replies are needed to have positive at all. And besides as long as negative isnt disrespectfull there is nothing wrong with it.

[QUOTE=Tanner;220440]Screenshots = perpetual jaggies
Video < fan-made videos of gameplay on YouTube from Igromir.

I do miss the sound of a record skipping, thanks for the nostalgic moment there tanner. Good for something.

Dear Luthier...
 

The game will be released in March...Lets say end of March... 7 weeks...So 6 friday updates before release.....Not so many...
Do you intend to wait for fridays to show us new stuff, or could it happend anytime, anyday from now to release date ?
Thanks..And you are a gentlemen sir ! ;)

Salute!

Nice update! Also nice to have the situation regarding the clouds and weather system spelled out, straight from the horse's mouth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17lkd...kAJOEBaihKPpAI

The Gap Band You dropped a bomb on me. Gotta love this guy!

The sim will need to be finished prob 3 weeks before the release date to get the pressing of disks and distribution done.

lol

No, it'll need a 'gold' version that can be pressed, work can continue as usual after and distributed by a patch. I know it's a new idea but I think it might just work.

Ok...the gold version that will have to be ready for use will have to be done by then...so that still leaves the same amount of time.

+ 1

We couldn't record the real Merlin or a Daimler Benz or basically any real engine from BoB era due to a limited budget. There aren't any in Russia, and we couldn't fly out our sound engineer to the UK or Germany with all his equipment.

We do have the recordings of the real engines of course made with various Russian aircraft this summer. Using advanced SFX magic we transformed our samples to sound the way we needed.

All settings maxed out except no AA.

Anything you'd like to know, besides my answers below?

That's exactly the situation you can get with a low enough AI level. One or two updates ago we actually showed a Hurricane attacking some Italian planes. When I took the shots, I did exactly as described, except I got even closer. I shot down three out of six before the rest of the squadron reacted.

My system isn't good enough to run the game at full settings while flying over populated areas, especially over London.

That's actually the fault of the CPU. Even if we replace all objects on the screen with single pixels, it doesn't run any faster. There's just so many objects around you being tracked - buildings and trees - that constantly updating their location relative to you takes a lot of resources.

My card is mostly maxed out by textures of tons of different objects, againt in populated areas. Airfields are the worst in this respect. You're seeing a ton of high-res objects at the highest level of detail. The game uses dynamic texture loading, and you'd see various textures cycle through lower LODs, try to load a higher one, run out of memory, and swap back to lower detail.

We have specific graphic options for that which allow you to limit the number of objects on the screen and their detail. Going to medium object density is hardly noticeable, especially compared to Il-2. Going to medium object detail is even less apparent unless you're taking an up-close look at a truck or a building.


That's it, I'm out for the night. I might be back tomorrow!

All I can say Is WOW! Just WOW! Some people just arent happy with anything.

X-planes new cloud system is Very very intresting. Not sure if Yall have seen the chatter about it but its suppose to solve both the Physics and the Graphical side of your issues Luthier.

Nice video, thanks.

I hate how Ilya has his TrackIR set-up, it's no where near sensitive enough and would make me physically sick. When looking left he has to turn his head a long way to the left, then actually look right (as he's no longer facing his PC screen) - yuk.

Luthier said-

My system isn't good enough to run the game at full settings while flying over populated areas, especially over London.

That's actually the fault of the CPU. Even if we replace all objects on the screen with single pixels, it doesn't run any faster. There's just so many objects around you being tracked - buildings and trees - that constantly updating their location relative to you takes a lot of resources.

My card is mostly maxed out by textures of tons of different objects, againt in populated areas. Airfields are the worst in this respect. You're seeing a ton of high-res objects at the highest level of detail. The game uses dynamic texture loading, and you'd see various textures cycle through lower LODs, try to load a higher one, run out of memory, and swap back to lower detail.
We have specific graphic options for that which allow you to limit the number of objects on the screen and their detail. Going to medium object density is hardly noticeable, especially compared to Il-2. Going to medium object detail is even less apparent unless you're taking an up-close look at a truck or a building.





Luthier, thanks for your reply, the answer is obvious, use a PC that is good enough. Recently the updates have been about what wont make the game, can we have an update of what will make the game, just show us a little clip of video, no fancy editing just record a track whilst attacking some bombers over land, if you also turn AA+AF on that would be a big bonus, if you also show it in high res even better, If you could then leave fraps running that would be the icing on the cake. Assuming everything is well with the game now that you've disabled all these features I see no reason why you cannot do this, It will genearte a massive amount of interest in the game. If then you could tell us the spec of the PC you've done all this on well im sure we would all be very happy. You could do all of this in a matter of minutes and it would put so many minds at rest. I appreciate you saying getting the use of the most powerful PC's in the office is difficult because of the programmers using it, but they must go home or have a dinner break or use the toilet at some point, what im asking for will only take a couple of minutes.


Many Thanks

thanks Luthier...the questions answered today are better than the whole update.
are the up and coming videos made on a high-end PC that can handle the load?
If it is can you post the specs the same time as the videos?

thanks

Your dual core and mid range graphics runs the game maxed out?

WoW. You can start scaling up already :grin:

You might want to go back a page and read Luthier's post.

You're new to Oleg and Team's work right? I would have pre-ordered even if there were no screenshots or videos. If CoD develops the way IL-2 FB did, all the naysayers will have to keep quiet for awhile ... but you probably wont.

Thank God for "ignore."

Cool! Good to hear.

That's what he said, and the video was fluent. With that CPU. Above water, yeah, but anyway.

Some people here just don't have a proper grasp on reality. Don't let them get you down. :)

+1000000000000000000000

Luthier, am I right concluding from the above that CoD (much like IL2) is mostly CPU bound, rather than videocard bound ? At least at "normal" resolutions (HD and below) and AA settings, IL2 doesnt care too much what videocard you have, you can increase resolution and AA and it barely makes a difference, even on my old 4870, but the CPU speed makes all the difference in the world, game performance scales almost linearly with CPU clockspeed.

Do you know how well the CoD engine makes use of 4 (or more?) cores, and whether or not that shifts the bottleneck towards the GPU again, or is even a Core i7 or whatever the main bottleneck?

There is an Ignore button on here? I need a see "Only" Button. I only care about the developers coments!

Very nice update!

The terrain has a nice hot summer feel to them now, the colour being spot on for England in August to my eyes. I would have liked to see some bushes though, not just trees (unless the ground shots are from a grazing pasture, in which case I miss livestock).

Ilya,

What is the status on the dynamic campaign system? We know from the announcement on the Ubi forums that it won't make the original release.

+100000 excellent post, and well worth taking note of ;)

Luthier made is clear about constructive criticism.

Mods are deleting whines, and other junk along with postings by members that are rebutting them.

If you can't say something constructive that means something... don't post.

As I recall all the dynamic campaigns were done by third parties for Il2 for the longest time. I think at one point Oleg just included a 3rd party campaign into an addon and stayed with the practice.

IMO, any computer generated campaign is nuisance. I only like human created campaigns.

I wouldn't even worry about it at this time. Campaigns will definitely be available.

I'd like to hear comments about this as well.

It's a personal issue, really. Personally, I have yet to experience a (modern day) combat-flight-sim campaign experience quite like BoB2. That, for me, is the benchmark I'd like SoW to exceed when I fly it.
I know some don't like the fact that you can take a commanders role in the aforementioned game, but one can fly as a single pilot.
Having said that, I have also enjoyed some great dynamic campaigns in Il-2, although on the scale of things they don't come close to BoB2.
Either-way, I will enjoy SoW in whatever form it is released in.

to luthier, or oleg, ... or olga:

i dont see to much Bushes Skins for planes:
bf 109 have 2 particulary bushes skins: white and red , and circles of red white and black.
spitfire have too , for example: cirle black and white

this is my crappy example:
http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/a...achoff/kkk.jpg

will be in the official release or we need to download skins in some future.

"" No, I am not shitting you"", my recuest of bush skin is true:
http://www.military-art.com/mall/ima...1321detail.jpg

Another question: where are the holes of 7,6mm in that HE111?
i cant see the holebullets.

pd:sry my fukcrap english :oops:

Damn missed you Luthier, but maybe you see this question tomorrow. When the video was at an end you was telling them to cut recording, is this because you did not want us to see the parachute scene? Also i noticed the eject scene was missing that animation you showed us of a bailing sequence, has this also been removed for release?


Thanks for taking the time to respond today and hope you get time tomorrow.

I can live with a scripted campaign but does that mean that damage and losses will not be carried over to the next mission? Perhaps someone can enlighten me please?

I think most people dont understand this because they are not creative. Has not created or produced anything for themselves. Its sad.

I haven't made many posts on the forum , but i read it every day.. This is great, I'm so excited for next months release.. Love the screens and love the video!!!!! TrackIR is so smoothly merged with the game. Going to be awesome! :-P

Hi! and thankyou very much for the update.

In the video Luthier is using a Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog. As I've recently got one I'ld be interested to know how CoD handles the On-Off switches on the throttle.

In IL2 many of the game commands are toggles, where the same key switches the system on or off (ie the engine switch where it is controlled by a single momentary switch ). Will CoD allow a latching OFF/ON switch (like many on the Warthog throttle) to be switched on and stay in that state until the switch is turned off?

I hope this makes sense.

Cheers and thanks again