There is a certain forum member known for making poor videos that was reporting all my posts. Probably the same guy who does it here, still it keeps him happy. :grin::grin:

I'd noticed that. I'd imagined the fellow to have a bright red telephone with a clear plastic dome over it. Every time you posted, it would ring and light up.

In all fairness the two of them are a match made in heaven...like twins from two parallel but opposite universes :-P

Actually no, you need to finish your point which is to discredit Tom's observations and comments he made in his article because he is a gamer. Sorry your argument is flawed. It doesn't take a developer to point out the problems with CoD.

If anything you're biased as a developer.

I get it now... Anyone that writes anything negative about CoD has no credibility. I get it now. Hooofaa... Makes zero sense.

Who says you can't be critical of a game? Completely flawed thinking.


It's pretty dang simple when you break it down. The game is far from being complete period.

I think you should have a nice day though.

Ok I get ya, accurate blather. Glad you cleared that up.

+1

Personally I think that it's about time someone with a bit of weight echoed what seems to be the general concensus, ie. CoD is buggy.

The original SimHQ 'review' was actually pretty gentle, it cut the developers a bit of slack, referenced the RoF release which had problems and left off with an optimistic 'hopefully this bugs will be ironed out soon' feel. They could easily have absolutley slated it, and nobody could have really complained.

But,that was months ago. I'm glad that SimHQ decided to have a go at 1c/Ubi. I think the article has made some valid points, it seems that there's a genuine anger behind it. I don't agree with all of it, but at least it's not just some dude on a forum moaning, it's SimHQ moaning, it carries a bit more weight.

The problem with the 'whiners' is they were getting very little feedback from the devs so they just kept on repeating the same gripes. The problem then is that the whiners opinion becomes devalued because everyone just thinks they are moaning for the sake of it. So they get ignored.
I'm not making excuses for some of the real whiners, but there are a lot of people here who don't whine but would like to know what's going on.


Hopefully this whole debate will reach someone at UBI/1C/Maddox.
All that is needed is some good PR, even if it is just a weekly update of a couple of lines to let people know where they are up to.

I'm sure that if we got a "we're working on xyz this week, we've tested abc and that's ready to go, we're looking at releasing something in the next 2 weeks" message once a week then people would relax a little.

I would be with you on this point Blackdog but I think the reason people are still taking time out of there lives to "beat the dead horse" :) (funny caption by the way) is because to a great many of us (about 50% according to the last pole on the subject ) still do not find the game in a condition that makes it enjoyable over other options.

Even though it has been improved to a point where you can play it, all of the stuffing so to speak really is not that interesting to play for a big chunk of the fans yet. At least not for more than a few minutes at a time. This is the category that i fall into at the moment :)

Now the writer of the article may have had ulterior motives but after reading it word for word I think if he really had intent to destroy the game no matter how improved it is, it could have been done much more viciously. In my opinion the article sounded very accurate and even reminds the reader that this company has a long standing history of constant and free improvements of their products LONG after their release. For me as I read it I got more of a frustration, and disappointment feeling, not a malicious I hate this game no matter how good it gets, feeling. :)

I am am an electrician by trade so even though I still choose to play IL246 over CLOD for what i find to be its better aspects I.E. Offline campaigns, sounds, Stability, e.t.c. If I were a video game reviewer and had an interest in flight sims, because I do not find the game in a state that keeps me busy playing it instead of thinking up reasons why it didn't have the success of its predecessor then I might find myself writing a similar article :)

Again I do not know this person and have no idea of his motives but their are two sides to every coin and it its possible that the reason that anyone including this reviewer are still beating this so called dead horse as some of you put it :) is because the game still really is not fun enough to keep them quiet:) I have a feeling that when it does reach this level for most of its target audience there will be an abrupt and lasting silence with very few exceptions:) until then the repetitive and often very accurate reviewing done by professionals and amateurs alike will likely continue. In the end I guess its all subjective.

one last thing on the constant repeating of peoples opinions good or bad. They are really both very necessary, weather you want to hear them or not. Any time you have a product out on the market and your intent is continue to grow and sell more of them, every day you want as large a group as possible to be telling you what they like and don't like about your product. I feel that this also goes for your business practices, customer service e.t.c. The more repetitive the feed back in either direction the more it drives a company to improve on its existing product or to move on to the next step in its evolution. So some see the beating of a dead horse, others see a constant and continuous improvement opportunity. :)

Cheers

lol well I am 32 and I would still buy IL246 over CLOD but only because there is much more to the game that makes it fun to play for hours and not just for a few moments. This may shift over time as CLOD gets Modded up but currently I would say your statement is a little premature. :) The new graphics are great to look at but after about a half hour I find my self wanting more options, better sounds, and a more stable game play experience. This brings me back to IL246 where I can jump on to any of huge number of campaigns and different aircraft and get a very fun and entertaining experience for hours and hours until I finally look at the clock and then yell "YIKES" i have to get up for work in 4 hours i better get to bed. :)

CLOD is still very lacking in this department and I would think that this would draw a new player that was new to flight sims over to the IL2 46 camp for now.

It should also be mentioned that new players, (especially in the 10-20 year old category) :P do not usually have a computer with the power that CLOD really requires to run to the nines. This is also a big deterrent and the the gaming experience using both games on an entry level or mid level machine would also lead to a much more enjoyable IL2 46 experience over all.

Cheers

Its both funny and sad watching people try to protect this thing like its one of there kids.

Meh ... nothing new under the sun SimHQ, we all know that UbiSoft screwed it launching the game when is not ready.

And UbiSoft screwing a PC game launch is usual, I´ll say more, that it is a non write rule but that´s another history ...

Ubisoft screwed the development team pushing a release when the game is not complete and that drives the team to compile a incomplete build of the game engine and rush a player interface, delaying in this way the engine development.

Also that the game is already out screwed even more the engine development route, pushing the team to release small patches to fix things instead concentrates in push the engine build.

Looking the last patch objectives you can realize that the team just drop this bad path, drive there for a early release, and returns to where they are before UbiSoft screwed all, the engine development.

Because the game engine is not complete, it still in development right now.

Drops small patches to push the engine development cost time and the patches will be bigger, but its the correct way.

The new sound build and a engine core more streamed looks promising, looking for the best in this new build http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/images/icons/icon14.gif

This article has one big fault, imo.
It was published before the first real, opposed to the "shot from the hip" patches we had, patch was released.
So it repeats only the stuff we all already have read somewhere, nothing new.
Nobody would have shown any interest in those "yesterday news" when the patch delivers what is promised.

I think its hilarious that Tom Cofield has a C.B. handle he goes by and some people call him a "senior editor" like he's the editor of the New York Times. I think he should have called himself a senior fellow that's much more elitist.

And now I will try to derail this thread...

http://www.patricksaviation.com/uplo...ages/18670.jpg

She is doing what we all pretend to do in our basement :D

Well I never made any flight sim's in my life, but I do know that CLOD is frustratingly bad, and that Luthier has told more whoppers than Pinocchio, and continues to do so.... 'community manager my arse'!.

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha :-P:-D

Thank you, and well played sir.


I find it humorous that everyone still blames UBI, when quite clearly it is The Russian publisher 1C that forced the early release, forced the adoption of Steam, and forced Oleg out.

I guess it's just fashonable among gamers to blame every problem on the planet on UBI.

:rolleyes:

I'm not sure I'd call it an early release, after six years in the basement. It was more like making it get a haircut and a job.

I bet with you, that 99% of the Forum users didn't even saw the F-16. :cool::grin:

Of course it was a early release, there can't be any question about that!

If a developer strives for perfection, changing things, adding things, making it possible to include future developements, he will never finish as there are always things to improve.

The problem, imho, was that there was nobody who set a timeline, who said : freeze developement now and debug the actual state to get it publishable.

If they had stopped developing on their own accord and started debugging all the bad pr wouldn't have happened.

My opinion to that.

Another developer - Dave Kaemmer at iRacing had this to say in response to some critics of their new tyre modelling which some felt should not have been released when it was:

We demand greater better graphics, more realistic performance, greater accuracy on cockpits etc, I'm not a sim developer but appreciate the huge task at hand. Thats not to say I'm excusing the state IL-2:CoD was released in, it should not have been released at that point in my opinion as an end user. The SimHQ article smacks of being a little bitter they didn't get the interview time other sites did on the run up to release or a review copy for an exclusive review, lost the chance of an exclusive because Europe got the game first.

i bet you that 99% didt saw anything But the f16.

Here is something that keeps coming up in my mind that hasn't been adressed yet, that I have found.

What was the team doing for 7 years?? I know it's something that takes time, however we saw lots of screenshots over the years that really looked promising and it looked like progress was being made. There where a few times that the sim was pushed back, this happens, and usuallys for the better.

BUT, how is it that so much could be broken after all this time of them working on it? We are talking about fundamental things like sound, graphic glitches (sli), etc. Now we are told that these major game engin parts are being rewritten and are given a relatively short time frame for these new parts to be released (a month or two IS very short for a ground up rebuild of key game parts).

I really love this game, even at it's current state.

But personally I would rather the devs not say much of anything, than give us so many stories their credibility comes into question and we don't know what to believe.

I can only imagine that there have been a lot of internal personnel and financial problems over the years of the games development.

In some respects I guess I'm glad we have the game at all, someone was able to keep the project alive, over it's long dev time.

I guess it could have been worse: ie Derrick Smart, if any of you remember that name and his project.

It might have been in developement for seven years but I doubt any company could afford or justify paying a full time team to do nothing else but develope such a niche game. I would not be suprised if many doing work on CloD were doing it alongside other more profitable work to maintain some sort of cash flow. It also seems clear from what we have now most of the time spent has gone into developing the incredibly detailed objects. It must have taken months of man hours to fully create each cockpit we have alone. The biggest problems seem to be in the game engine itself which is exactly the area where the skills of the developers would be more profitably used else where leaving a lot still to be sorted when CloD was finally released. Just my thought.

Most of those cockpits were finished back in 2006, personally i don't think much work was done until after Luthier took over, Oleg had given up on the project and was more interested in taking pics of girls backsides. Oleg wanted his money and helped in the whole deception that this would be the best flight sim ever, when you think back to the development days the effort they went to keep us in the dark about how bad this sim would be and to have us believe that Oleg was still working his nuts off when he was long long gone was quite extraordinary. The faked 'leaked' video of CLOD running smoothly as to be up there with the moon landings!!:grin::grin:

There was a plane in that photo?

:-D

It is, but the majority of overzealous posters are on the other camp, trying to shoot it down like it's the spawn of the devil, that's funny too.

Most here don't have a problem with people being critical, what they have a problem with is people being intolerant of other opinions. Does it work/not work well enough for me? Ok, i just give my outlook on things and that's it, i'm not going to try and ram my opinion down other people's throats.

It's the "game is broken and you're an idiot if you like it" mentality that annoys people. Trust me, if you saw the comments i get on reported posts and my PMs since i started moderating, you'd be able to easily reach the same conclusion: the vast majority of the community is comprised of very reasonable people, it's just that they are not usually the vocal ones ;-)

It's not what we say, it's how we say it that carries potential for bothering people and boring them senseless.

There are many ways to draw attention to flaws in the game, but most people are too bored to do it correctly so they just vent and that is the boring way which naturally tends to be sidelined, ignored and ridiculed.

I have no problem with anyone dishing out the verbal hurt, they'll just have to live with the consequences of their actions and it's a conscious choice they make on their own ;-)



I think the remake of graphics is a big task to do in such a small time. My theory is that it was probably baking in the oven for some time, they just had to put it on hold due to the forced release and having to focus on band-aid patches early on and now that things are somewhat better they are going back on it.

Something like being working on it say since January, pausing from March till the last patch and picking up from where they left. Then, when things were looking like the new system is actually good and will work, they go ahead and announce it. I don't think they would intentionally drop a bucket of sharkbait here and jump in the pool if what they announced wasn't almost finished and they weren't sure it would work.

I mean, we get the same "how long till next update/they can't do it/we're abandoned, hold my hand" threads before the previous ETA is even met every single time, imagine what would happen if they said "hey guys, we have new graphics coming up" and it took 5 months for it to happen :-P

Blackdog, thanks for the reply, good points on timing etc.

Really its not our right that we HAVE to know anyhow, we purchase cars for thousands and really dont know anything about the designers and engineers that worked on them. And we trust our lives with them!

The hand holding that is expected by some, is true (again refer to my car analogy).

I guess it's all about the surprise release (to all and presumably the devs too) that there has been a lot of backpedaling from the devs.

Ever stop to think how difficult it might be to get someone to agree to manage the communications in this community - at a salary commensurate with the actual profit potential of a flight sim?

I can imagine how the interviews have gone:

Luthier: "Look, we can start you at salary of 20K per year, and your job will be to manage communications with our customers, in a positive manner. I wish I could pay you more, but our industry is based around the PC market and simulations are not currently in a growth spurt. All of us here at Maddox games, are really working out of passion for flight sims. Look, if you have a positive impact on sales through your communication skills with our clients, your salary is certain to grow."

Applicant: "Well that's not a lot of money. Tell me about the benefits?"

Luthier: "Standard benefits for Moscow - no health care, no retirement - but possible in the future".

Applicant: "Can you tell me a little more about your customers, the community?"

Luthier: "Sure, in fact I can do better - here are links to our forums here at 1C, our publishers forum at Ubi and another at SIMHQ. Why don't you spend a little time going through user posts at these sites. It will give you a good idea of our customer base, their issues and the general nature of the Combat Flight sim community"

Applicant: "Sure. I'll spend a few days reviewing the customer base - and I'll get back to you, thank you so much for this opportunity."

After the applicant departs the Maddox Games office......

Office Manager: "Well Luthier, how did the interview go?"

Luthier: "I don't know, I told him the same as all the others and sent him off to review the forums...."

Office Manager: "You sent him to the forums! Luthier I thought we agreed that you would not do that anymore! This is the 67th interview and I can't find anymore fools to take this job, in all of Moscow! Why can't you stop giving them these damn links......!!!"

Luthier: "I know, I know - but we have to be honest with them - they'll eventually have to confront the community anyway..."

Office Manager: "Please stop this insanity Luthier. We've been rejected by every applicant. We can't even get "Lefty" from the old Neoqb to take the job part-time for any amount of money. Look what happened to him. Maybe we could compromise? Send him to our forums but not SIMHQ. Whatever you do, don't send him to SIMHQ and don't tell him the publisher is UBISOFT. OK?"

S!

Gunny

Well maybe Luthier should of thought of that before saying were getting a CM then.
Or maybe we wasn't ever getting a CM in the first place.

Funny though gunny :)

She is a ride along guest.

Thanks Gunny,

made me smile :)

Probably end up with some Indian call centre type as community manager. Goodness gracious me yes.