| FS~Phat |
07-16-2012 03:00 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Codex
(Post 445589)
I totally get what you're saying Phat and you've certainly thought that through. I just hope you're right.
From my own experience working as a data analyst and programmer for a major bank here in Australia, I've survived 4 restructures in the last 4 years. I've seen how quickly things can turn around, and I've seen 2 close work mates loose their jobs due to their business becoming low profit businesses. Despite the banks record $4 billion
profit.
The fear that I have is CloD is becoming a financial black hole for 1C. I won't try and highlight all issues but the sore points for me aren't the graphics, but the missing or broken features. The AI sucks and frankley is the same as 1946. The full mission builder is not Full. The DM still is no where near complete and the network side is far from satisfactory. The FM is still incomplete and not all aircraft systems are modelled. But the biggest let down for me was and still is the lack of details about how to fly the aircraft. I had to rely on YouTube videos by some French dude to learn how to start the 110.
Not wanting bring kudos to the competition, but the DCS development and instructional videos are lightyears ahead of anything that shipped on day 1 with CloD and they were done in house. At this stage CloD is dead to me. I just hope something great comes when BoM comes along because it will take a lot of WOW factor to get me to buy in.
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Yes I know the feeling. I was a victim of a senior management shakeup a few years ago after surviving 4 rounds of restructures in only 2 years. Things can change quickly.
Having said that, the Russian IT economy is through the worst of it. At the height of the GFC in 2009 RU IT revenues were DOWN by as much as 50% but they now have a different problem. Coping with the demand and growth and providing enough skilled IT workers, particularly around programming. 1C also bought a 51% stake in a cloud computing company Megaplan for their enterprise products.
No doubt some of this "cloud" knowledge and capability will make its way into the gaming division too since that's where everyone sees the games market heading too. (BTW Im a Cloud specialist and evangelist in my day job)
Some of the spin-off MMO stuff that has been hinted at is cloud gaming at its core, so dont throw the baby out with bath water just yet! ;) Development no doubt has to be focused on the sequel as thats where the future revenue is. The core game engine as far as we still know is where a lot of focus is going and the sequel depends on this and CLOD will get the benefit of this in performance and functionality. As I have mentioned earlier in another thread, the sequel is probably a year away at best and all the development for the core engine will go into CLOD as patches.
So for me I guess I see another year of patches at least, why would they stop fixes for CLOD if they still have another year or 2 of funding for the sequel before its ready. They may as well keep feeding these improvements into the current game (testing) to make sure the sequel is a success when its launched.
So maybe we did buy a rough release version of what the final product will be, I dont mind, I have other interests and this is a passion so i look at it for the long haul and its now playable online and the offline campaigns by disastersoft are unreal. In anycase I wont let a game ruin my life! ;)
Sure, It doesnt do everything well and theres still a lot on the wish list but the developers havent lost sight of this. The licensing and spin off of the assets will likely come in the form of the hinted MMO and a console port at some point too just like WOP/BOP. Im sure the bean counters have their eyes on this too as the payoff for getting it right. I bet my "lefty" thats why Oleg changed from OGL to DX and rewrote the game to be able to more easily spin off parts of it for other gaming avenues. (err.. revenues) :) |
