Reviewing Luthier's roadmap
 

Remember Luthier's roadmap? (As if you could forget with JG52Krupi's constant reminders... ;))

I thought it would be good to review the roadmap since the dev team has come a long way since release and I think this is quite good progress. Hopefully a new roadmap will be shared soon since I think this one is now out of date although for good reasons (i.e. a lot of stuff on it has been fixed).

1. Performance increase. Over terrain, the two things that slow things down the most are trees and buildings. We are currently in final stages of testing optimized buildings that almost double the FPS over London on a test machine.
Tree optimization is a little farther away. You will probably see changes in how trees are rendered, they’ll take longer to appear over terrain, but once again, performance increase should be significant.
If everything tests correctly over the weekend, both of these should be released by early to mid next week.

- Achieved. Always room for improvement but do you remember performance before the Kegetys mod and subsequent official patch?

2. Enhanced multicore support. The mode that we unfortunately were not able to finish in time is sending all render to a dedicated CPU core. The mode is working but somewhat buggy. It easily doubles the FPS, and the performance boost is especially noticeable in larger missions with lots of stuff going on.
This is probably at least two to three weeks away, and we will probably do a short public beta of this major change before it’s made live to everyone.

- Achieved as above, implemented in a patch (can't remember which one). Probably further room for improvement with dedicating rendering to a core if I remember correctly but still mostly achieved I think.

3. Multiplayer. There is something in steam filters that prevents game servers from being found. This is only happening with live retail versions of the game. This apparently isn’t caused by us – hopefully it’s just a simple oversight somewhere and the fix will be a simple flick of a switch.

- In progress I think. The specific problem referred to above was fixed but MP is obviously stuffed at the moment with the sound problem.

4. FM and ballistics. We have already addressed the issue where rounds appeared to leave aircraft sideways. This was caused by the difference between physical and rendered position of the aircraft, i.e. the rendered position lagged behind the actual aircraft position.
Our aircraft programmer has a huge bucket list of things to check, which he’s going over at a rather brisk pace.

- In progress but FM will always be in progress if IL2 is anything to go by. Quite right too.

5. Resurrecting SLI support. This is our next biggest priority; it’s done by the same programmer now in final stages of optimizing buildings. We are really hoping this will be a quick task, but I don’t have an ETA at this point. It’ll either be a couple of days, or a much longer undetermined amount of time if we have to submit versions to card manufacturers and ask for their input.

- Fail. This should have been fixed by now or at least a status update. I know that there are non-CoD profiles available that 'work' but I doubt these are optimal. SLI is just not optional in game development these days with many new since cards being multicore.

6. Bug fixes and support. We are reading this forum a lot and some Russian-language forums, and working very hard to address all issues as they are being reported.

- I don't know how to rate this one. Luthier, if you are reading the forum please leave a comment from time to time! Especially in the bug threads (Insuber's, beta bug threads) to encourage quality feedback otherwise these will inevitably degrade with less and less valuable input. Why bother going to the effort of accurately describing bugs if you think no-one is reading it?

7. New stuff – larger online maps, some new aircraft such as the 109E1 and E4 etc – are all in the pipeline too, but obviously we need to solve the bigger issues first and then deal with the freebies.

- Achieved with the new plane in the last patch but this will obviously be ongoing as well.

All in all I think the progress is quite good. My current major gripe is the lack of feedback from the devs rather than the rate of improvement. A formal recognised bug list would be tremendously useful for the community to build on.

If you want to post please try and keep the thread positive with comments on what you think the next roadmap should be in general terms (there are more than adequate existing threads for both bug reporting and ranting). Mine would be:

1. Online playability (sound and FMs)
2. Formal bug list for the community to build on
3. SDK and FMB documentation release
4. Offline playability (dynamic campaign or at least a decent set of static campaigns). Note that #4 would be assisted by #3 due to quality community development.

Nice very good post Jimbop.

Let's hope this thread can be kept civil :D

Xfire is certainly a fail for me :( using pseudo fullscreen to disable my 5970 I get around 10fps gain from turning my fantastic gpu into a 5870 :|

+1 but I won't bet on the second :rolleyes:

I started posting in this thread, then I realised I have not played Clod since the last patch and to be honest I no longer care if it is fixed. The game is shelved next to my copy of Silent Hunter 5.
Team Dalious are doing wonders with Il2 and honestly outshining the crowd here. :(:(:(

Bob... I'm with you on this one. This game while some would argue has a long ways to go before I spend the time. I'm currently enjoying DCS A10. I'm holding off until some major portions of the game are fixed MP and some Offline stuff.

I think a fail was trying to say the FULLSCREEN is fixed when its not.
We have fullscreen (i think) when actually flying, and not proper fullscreen when in menus. The flashing desktop issue makes me feel ill it happens so often.
Why on earth has this been left this way? Its fundamentally wrong that they should be working on anything else till fullscreen is fixed, ie my game switches to full screen on start up without all the crazy desktop flashing, and doesnt change back till i exit the game.

But i think the biggest fail is that they said we would have a community spokesman to keep us fully informed LOL.

Just out of curiosity, where have you seen a game that has a stellar, frequent dev-community communication? What are your real life comparisons, that make you realise that there is "lack of feedback"?


All for it. The multiplayer is what the dev team nedds to repair and quick. Even simple squad to squad coops will do for few months. This means sound bugs and a completely new UI which is similar to this of Hyperlobby.

I`m pretty sure that`s recognized. The feeling of being ifnored by the devs may come from the fact that they have different priorities. We don`t exactly see the repairing of multiplayer interface, but then again what good is it without online sound?

It seems this is a question of both decision making and lots of work. The SDK has been announced unofcially, though we know nothing else as if the team decided to refrain from releasing the SDK in current situation. Documentation is lots of work and I think that the user community will sooner make it on its own.

That`s one step away. Though how do you think they can create such campaigns if they do have a whole lot of highier priority work?

Dude i hear the black beauty main theme when i read your posts listing excuses for why this game insnt right, you obviously are on a crusade to shut down any thread that you think may be negative or maybe have uniformed information contained within it. Why not just leave people to their opinion instead of pulling apart what they have said? Oh... are you our Community Guy in disguise? Incognito Car Guy shhhh

I'm confused.......all the time now I hear DCS is better, ROF is better, I have shelved COD and just don't care for it any more, I'm not playing anymore wah! wah! wah!........so why are these folks here?.......constantly, shouldn't they be filling their time playing DCS and ROF because they are just so brilliant? instead of coming to this forum and making comments about a game they just 'don't care for'.....constantly.

Because they can, "they" have always been here, and they love the game really, i feel its frustration. I agree with both sides of the fence in all honesty all joking aside, Sorry car guy just messing around.

You know i was going to explain this for you Bongo, but i wont bother because if you dont understand after this long, you will never understand mate.

I'm going to refer you to my last post in this thread.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...=24431&page=10

Think before posting please, your manner starts threads off in the wrong direction with your "not thinking" before posting attitude.

You are not the only one guilty of this but you seem not to have learned much during your time here.

Same old stuff..........
.

Have the moderators gone all school teacher on us here? Or is it just Alpha who's taking his job a little too seriously?

Go read the rules then come back here and post something of use.

No please feel free......as long as it's not the same old cliches like principles blah blah, I bought Duke Nukem just recently, 12 years after the first you'd think something special was coming......but it is garbage and I turned it off after a couple of levels, but I haven't as yet felt the need to invade a fan forum and tell them all about it, I figured it's best not to spoil other peoples happy parade with my own selfish oppinions.

Alpha, may I advise you to read up on civil disorder and especially the causes related to it. No one can or should blame these guys for how they act as they have every right to it and oppression won't solve the problem of the general atmosphere here, which is fueled by the lack of interaction by the developers and not vis versa.

Of course, you are in the worst position of all having to play police in here, I feel for you, but you know as well as all others that we have been screwed over and that the devs saying "Hate us, we deserve it!" won't make it any less of an unforgiveable offence.

Alpha, I think it's pretty obvious that a large portion of members don't think before posting, given the bans which are being handed around for either swearing or quoting posts with swear-words in them. It's one way of showing how not to run a forum (especially given that I could search your past posts for swear-words with results; so yes, you are a hypocrite).

@Bongo; the reason why they are still posting is because they want the game to succeed; isn't it obvious? If everyone was a devoted 'fan-boi' there would be no constructuve criticism, so the devs would be lulled into a situation where they thought that everyone was happy with the sim. Most poeple aren't happy with the sim; they're just content with the possiblity that the sim could become something great (if pushed in the right direction).
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Luthier himself has advocated constructive criticism. The only times that criticsm breaks down and becomes de-constructive is when there is a major silence from the devs, indicating that they are either unaware of the community, or immune to it. I doubt both of these examples are true, but people won't stop being 'negative' until there is official word on all areas of the sim under the spotlight.

Doffs cap to the mighty moderator!

Alpha ~ Ok fine mate, I wont joke, but whats really ironic is that you are reduced to name calling such as ungrateful kids etc when your telling me off for name calling and joking around.

+1 Philip you always can say what I want to say but dont have the literary skills to do so.

Me 2:grin:

Phil,

I understand the concept of criticism and how fanboi'ism will not help, but the criticism is becoming a stuck record, and I don't think a constant barrage of DCS is better or ROF is better will help the sim suceed, rather it will make people go and buy DCS and ROF and forget COD......no? but how about this for a concept, every aspect of the games bugginess has now been discussed to death, and there have been sadly only a couple of threads that really go into highlighting the bugs, the rest is just mud slinging, this is why I see no logic to the current form of criticism....it just wont help the sim suceed at all.

This thread has potential but unfortunately shows all the signs of becoming another flame fest. :(

Anyway, yes I think so far so good. The MP sound issue is the most critical of fixes at the moment, but we have been told to wait a few months for a complete rewriting of the code. Perhaps this is the best way.
Nobody knows the game code better than the devs, and if they think it neccessitates a complete overhaul, then there must be a good reason for it.
Frustrating for the online gamers for sure, but let's hope the wait will be worth it.
I'd like to see how this thread develops in the coming months.

Really i think making fullscreen through-out the game is the most critical, but definately the MP sound bug is a killer.

By the way is it just ATI that still has the crazy flashing of desktop or does Nvidia have it too?

I understand the rules on swearing, but a 7 day ban for quoting a swear word seems a little over zealous and just looks power hungry. Sorry alpha it just does.

No ones being oppressed, just being asked to read the rules :)

Yes I'm a hypocrite.

And doffs mine if you went and read the rules :)

Didn't call anyone names just made an observation and asked for some thought process before knee jerking into their keyboards ;)

Nothing to do with power hungry, I have better things to do like sit my sunny garden sipping on tea munching cucumber sarnies, unfortunately if members here cant be bothered to read what they are reposting its their responsibility to take control of what they are reading and responding to, because of this I have to get off my deck chair and respond to the complaints.

:grin:

Then i did nothing wrong too by trying to be humourus, and i always think before i type, unless being honest about my feelings about not liking the outright FIB's we are told in this forum, Fullscreen & Community liason being just two. But I shall let it drop :)

But a 7 day ban for first offense!!

I think it had more to do with "who" than why.

ah yes that would be right.

Nobody got banned on this thread did they?

Hate to say it but I don't think this one's been achieved. My 4 cores show 100%/30%/30%/30% or around those levels, and I've seen a fair few other reports that CloD isn't making proper use of all 4 cores. I'd wager we'd see a hefty performance boost if this was properly achieved. ;)

3. Multiplayer. There is something in steam filters that prevents game servers from being found. This is only happening with live retail versions of the game. This apparently isn’t caused by us – hopefully it’s just a simple oversight somewhere and the fix will be a simple flick of a switch.

- In progress I think. The specific problem referred to above was fixed but MP is obviously stuffed at the moment with the sound problem.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also i would say this is still failing...servers disconnecting and also kicking players for no reason.

Plus no CO-OPs and the sound bug.

Very strange I have logged quite a few hours online now and have never being kicked or booted from a server, had the game crash once and my overclock overheated (like my 109 :-P) but I have never got kicked... :confused:

Exactly. Sorry for the off topic tangent, but this needs to be stressed somewhat and maybe hammered into some of the thicker skulls.

The difference between a whine and a legitimate, constructive complaint is the tone the message is delivered in.

If people think there's things broken in the sim, they want to tell us about it and expect some reasonable feedback to their posts, they should at least put some effort in how they tell us about it all.

I have a bucket load of things i would like to see fixed, but my description of the issue is generally a bit more eloquent and detailed than "plz fix the crap ai/sounds/green fields/flavor of the month whine".

Is it because i'm smarter than most? Not really. So what gives? Well, i'll just go on out on a limb here and make a guess, i think it's e-laziness.

You know, the kind of laziness where i want things to work without any intervention from my part as an end user but at the same time i hypocritically rely on a bunch of other people getting knee dip in it, not all of them developers on a payroll but members of the community as well, to do all the testing, bug hunting/reporting/fixing, FMB tutorial publishing, making new missions/campaigns/tools/etc and what not, so that little precious me can enjoy CoD with all the shiny graphical and audio features of DCS:A-10, ROF and CoD itself combined while at the same having the content, multiplayer user base and seamless functionality of the 10 year old IL2:1946...all that without ever lifting one finger to that effect myself but on top of that, constantly berating those who are trying to move things in that direction.

You see it's a win-win situation: if the other people make it work i get a functional game, if they don't i can gloat and go all "i told you so" on everyone and all the while, i don't really have to do any of the hard work myself and i've talked so much hot air and contradiction over time that i can easily have a bunch of different, conflicting quotes bookmarked to quote depending on how each argument is going, so that i always end up on top...the true essence of a forum warrior. :-P

They just seem too lazy to describe the problem properly, too lazy to try and come up with a workaround, too lazy to search the forum on their own for existing fixes, even too lazy to read whatever little stuff is included in the manual (which usually ends up in hilarious "bug reports" that are actually a case of the user not understanding why things don't work the way he expects, but work perfectly fine if he follows the manual's advice) and the list goes on and on ad nauseum.

If i had a penny for every time i've heard "i'm out of here, game XYZ is so much better", only to have them repeating their message and still be here constantly debating what needs to be fixed in a game they supposedly have no interest in, i'd probably be able to afford a real aircraft by now or at least hire a few extra developers for Luthier. In reality they are not leaving us, they are just trying to coerce everyone else into fixing the gameplay experience for them by a constant stream of complaints :-P



As for the main topic of this thread, i think it's a very balanced assessment of how things are going. Like i said before i've got a load of things i'd like to see getting fixed or improved upon, but it's perfectly clear that if we care to apply a bit of deductive reasoning and revisit older threads to make a comparison between today and how things were immediately post-release, we can all see that:

1) Targets were set and the most pressing ones were met pretty fast.

2) The developers are out of the woods financially (they are planning expansions and hiring a new sound engineer to remake all the sounds from scratch), so work continues on the issues still remaining.

3) Feedback or no feedback, the developers are in fact reading the forums. This can be clearly seen from the fact that they react on the issues mentioned, either by the infrequent development updates or the actual changelog on the patch readme files.

It's just that some people want their hand held more than others, or a bird's eye view of their offices to feel content, but in reality nobody can say they are oblivious to our bug reports, especially since various little details, some of them pretty obscure stuff, that was spotted by certain knowledgeable, dedicated community members has been fixed at various points in time (small details on aircraft and how some aircraft systems operate).

lol, reality and fiction converging! I've come pretty close to melting my 480 overclock but that's a notoriously hot card. Possibly time for an upgrade to 580 since I've been thinking about watercooling but the 480 plates aren't forward compatible.

@furbs: Like JG52Krupi I've never been kicked either. Crashes yes but not kicks specifically.

Alpha, sorry, I was extremely rude. I have never ever had an issue with you mate, but some of the recent forum policies do seem a little extreme. Just my 2p. I don't want to see this forum degenerate to the zoo. ;)

@bongo. I can see what you're saying mate, but sadly these topics will continue until there are official words from the developers. Mark my words! :cool:

Who the heck is "Luthier"???

Good post, Blackdog_kt. Very true and I agree with it all except this bit. It seems to me there are a few cases where people with IL-2 history have a somewhat more direct channel to the team but more broadly I don't think much attention is being paid to this forum. This reduces incentive to properly report.

Take my case which I'm sure is not unique. Between work and family I have very little time for gaming. When I can actually sit down in front of my gaming machine I have a choice of a) playing a game and unwinding a bit, or b) hunting down bugs, reproducing them and properly reporting them. I would be willing to do b) but only if I am sure that my effort will be useful to the dev team. Otherwise it is a waste of time and time is valuable to me.

Now assume it is the same for many others which I think is a safe assumption given the average age of this forum. The result is that you have many poor quality reports (i.e. 'game is broken constant ctds plz fix yesterday') but relatively few good quality ones.

I would really like to be proven wrong! If the team is reading then let them post. It wouldn't even need to be exhaustive feedback, just the occasional reminder that they are using our feedback.

LOL

Unfortunately that post was some what spoilt by his quote in your sig ;)

Aaaaaah yes! A clue. It's the guy with the mustache, who used to post the funny Russian-English translations on the forums? Jog my memory here... :confused:

:-)

No No No... that was someone else but I can't recall his name now I am sure it began with an O.. :confused: :-P

Spot on.
Unfortunately I don't expect things to change.

Not to say a little verbose.:) - Sorry mate, you know I respect your views.

What we're talking about here is a piece of computer software. If you'd paid Norton or McAfee some money for a piece of software, you'd expect it to work out of the box, without any input from any kind of 'community', yes?

Imagine describing 'bugs' to the Adobe company. Are there 'bugs' in photoshop? I don't know. But I'm a consumer, not an unpaid worker for a software development company, and if I was as positive in my approach to the problems with 'Cliffs' as various members evidently are; sorry but I'd expect to be paid for my services.

The work being done by the community in researching online bugs, offline bugs, and designing and building the kind of campaigns I expected when I purchased what was purported to be a 'Battle of Britain' simulation is exemplary, and indicative of the dedication of the community's enthusiasts.

I wish I could be one of those people but unfortunately real life takes up most of my time.

When I want to escape from real life, I'd like to be able to turn to the same software company I've relied on for the last ten years of good times, especially as they promised to produce 'Storm of War - The Battle of Britain', a subject very dear to my heart.

I'm still waiting patiently for this to happen.

I believe you are thinking of 'Ogel', the famous developer of "Wings of Fury: Paper Plane Simulator 2"

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zYDntm2krA...0/IMG_4080.JPG


Here's a development screenshot that Ogel posted, notice the skybox isn't fully aligned;

http://geekoutnewyork.com/images/200...1031_plane.jpg

Regarding behaviour: There are all sorts of ways of giving 'constructive criticism'. If the critics on this forum acted the same when they were giving constructive criticism when their steak was under cooked or their cappuccino was a little cold, I'm 100% sure that it would come back with excess of the normal allowance of e-coli or human spittle! ;)

The roadmap: according to Luthiers’ roadmap, we're fairly well on track. Hope they get the multiplayer sound issues cracked ahead of schedule.
Cheers

It doesn't, it is continually getting patched just like anyother peice of commercial software. These companies continually seek information from the community to keep their products up to dates with bug logs and beta programs.

I use CS4 at work, Adobe Photoishop has ongoing patches just like any other peice of commercial software.

I'ld say very little work is being done by the community on this forum. And the problem is that the format that the critics are using to state their problems is next to useless to the developers.

As with the beta patches, Luthier was quite specific about HOW to report the bugs with log files, hardware, software and the setting that the issues. All we got were endless pages of whining.


I share your frustration over some issues but I don't consider myself wasting time, I'm having a hoot playing the game. But there are plenty of other good sims arround! If you think your wasting your life here why continue?

Maybe there are alot of people who stay around here our of loyalty for the "last ten years of good times"? If so many have a very funny way of showing it.

Cheers!

Reviewing Luthier's roadmap!



I think The CLoD team have said all thy need to say about what thy are doing.
The sim is getting better with every patch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN3Vc...eature=related


This is a business and thy know there are other software company's and 3ed party developers that would love to know what and how thy are doing things with the best flight sim ever made.

Just like FSX has been made into a 3ed party developers money tree CLoD has not been.

And some of the 3ed party developers are going to try making CLoD look as bad as thy can unless thy can make CLoD into a money tree also.

It comes down to this.
Are you going to buy a plane that fly's around different airports on a out dated sim or buy the most up to date flight sim that has ever been made for the same price?
Of coarse thy what you to buy there plane that has to be parched severely times before the thing works like it should!

CLoD is the biggest thing to hit the flight sim hobbyist PC in some time other then RoF.
But to see what some of the posters say on here thy just can not fly this sim, with a better PC then what I have and I can fly this sim just fine. Matter of fact I can fly this sim better than FSX!

I have FSX and enjoyed FSX until I got CLoD. I find it near impossible to fly any MS sim with a FFB joystick and hard to see with TIR5, with out sticking your head thou the roof of the plane.


And that is why I do not think the CLoD team are saying anymore than thy are.
And IMO thy shouldn't.

Sorry but i have to completely disagree. It has been the only WW2 flight sim to hit the shelves since IL2 1946.

Biggest implies to me that it is really good, sadly at the moment it is not in my opinion, but it could be a taster of what could be done by the time the next add-on is ready and the good patches keep coming.

So to be perfectly honest at the moment i feel its not worth the money untill it is fully working.

That is why we need to be patient.

I, on the other hand, have played this game of a time three times the average fps game sp. I feel it is more than worth the money.

Really what specs you got? mine is only mid/low so i have to accept low end graphics setting but I'm ok with that cos it still looks great to be honest. Just a shame about the lack of content, but yeah as you said it is coming.

Hmm, ongoing patches to keep this type of software improved or up to date isn't really the same thing as bugs and probs in 'Cliffs', but maybe the comparison wasn't ideal.

Let's alter the analogy to something more appropriate.

Dateline - July, somewhere in England.....

After warming up the engines for what seems like an age, you trundle down the runway and the Blenheim reluctantly leaves the ground, slightly crablike. You should have dialled in a bit more rudder trim. Gear up, throttle back, coarsen pitch, let her gain some airspeed and then settle down, set course and trim for a gentle cruise climb.
After what seems like no time at all, you're halfway across the channel, worrying about engine management, because they're sensitive these babies. You're really worried about whether you'll get hit by flak, or whether the fighters will find you. The tension rises as the target area approaches. You give the southern area a wide birth because that's where the flak seems most intense, and turn precisely in order to line the crate up for the best angle to the target. The tension is growing, the moment of truth is upon you. The flak intensifies and you're getting very nervous.

'For God's sake this flak is heavy - and oh my goodness there're two 110's in the sun!!'

Your gunner shouts - 'Drop the bombs! Drop the Bombs and let's get out of here!!'

Then your Bomb Aimer comes through on the intercom;

'Sorry skip, looks like the ground crew forgot to load the bombs!'

You immediately turn away, the sweat is streaming down your neck, your heart feels like it's going to burst out of your chest any moment, but you're getting away. Suddenly a flak burst on your port side. 'Jesus! there's a hole the size of a dustbin lid in the port wing!' After trimming her out as best you can, you nurse your damaged Blenheim back across the Channel and back to base. You wrestle with the controls, the trims won't compensate for the hole in the wing, but you line her up adequately and come in for a bouncy but safe touchdown.

'Where's the blasted ground crew, I'll tear their silly heads off!'

You run across to where the ground crew are on their third cup of tea of the day and scream,

'We just went through hell over the Channel! We got hit by flak, the 110's almost got us, the engines were overheating all the way back, and you bunch of fools had forgotten to load the blasted bombs!!'

The ground crew don't even look at you, they just stand up, turn around and walk away.

Then you feel a tap on your shoulder, it's that pretty girl from the NAAFI that makes such wonderful buttered scones, and she says;

'What you need to do is go into the Full Mission Builder, find the Blenheim in the objects viewer, select the Blenheim, go the armament bit and change the default loadout to the weapon of your choice, not forgetting to select the correct fuse type, make sure you click save, then go back and do the whole mission again'.

'Thanks darling' you say 'But I would have been far happier had the ground crew loaded the bombs in the first place. Are you doing anything later?'

'Well I'm going to go on the RAF forum and have a damn good moan, fancy coming along?'

'You bet, I want to see if other squadrons are as fed up as we are. I'll get a few cans in first.'

:grin:

Did you check in the bomb bay for a receipt from M&M enterprises for "1 Bomb Load"?
But, Hey! I've had similar expriences in IL-2 but couldn't blame it on a bug in the software!

Hopefully it's on the short list for things to fix.

Cheers!

My game runs worse than it did when it first came out before the first patch.

Or ...

"And there goes my 145th kill, now home!" you say into the radio to your wingman.
"you see fritz, i told you all you have to do is wait for the spitfires to disengage then you can fly right up behide the whole sqd and shoot the whole lot down with out worrying!"
The trip home was uneventful until your wheels touchdown on the runway, when the rest of your flight piles into the ground in a huge ball of flames for no reason.
you shrug your shoulders and sigh "oh well, that always happens"

Catch 22 is the perfect book to quote mate, given the circs.;)

where's all the cool stuff that has always been in IL2 that not in this game, like blowing wings off and the airframe ripping apart. I have seen 1 wing get blown off in over 70 hours worth of play and i havent seen anthing disintergrate like in IL2 46, those were features that i felt were great!
Dont get me wrong i love the dmage models we have now but it feels like the weapons cant do nearly enough damage to see the extent of the damage experience.

I think that given we mostly have small caliber MGs and 20mm without mine load it is about right. Once the 20mm is fixed and the first Fw190 makes an appearance things will start to be torn apart with no problem.

Yup. Essentially our 20mm's are slugs/armour piercing with the possibility to detonate the second the tip of the shell hits the aircraft skin.

What this does is create a loud bang that sends miniature debris and a small shockwave towards the surface, perhaps shredding it a tiny bit and denting it.

Once we get the proper mineshells which I believe were designed to explode a little after impact (inside the fuselage) this should severely improve damage dealt to aircraft structure. Once the 110's get their proper MGFF/M's and the 109E4 with MGFF/M's make their appearance the brits will be suffering wingloss syndrome all the time.

That's all perfectly fine and valid and i'm not going to pass judgment on what is actually a very reasonable viewpoint of yours. I happen to have a bit more free time currently but i know i wouldn't be so active in the forums if real life issues were more pressing, so i perfectly understand what you mean.

It's when some of us with a bit more free time try to make what you describe happen for the rest and the "usual suspect squad" crawls out of the woodwork and saps all our enthusiasm and incentive with their negativity that grinds my gears because like you said, i'm essentially an unpaid volunteer here and they go crapping all over my efforts to improve THEIR enjoyment of the game. That's why i've said a few times recently that some are not worth the time others spend to improve the sim and i'm firmly standing by it.

As you can see, i'm making no mention of how the game happened to be shipped in such a state or whose fault it is or even whether it's an allowable business practice. All that matters to me is getting things fixed, i happen to have some free time so i roll up my sleeves and get into it. I don't care whose fault it is at this point, i just want to expedite the process with what little bit of personal testing results i can supply to the developer team.

Spending my free time for the benefit of others (giving tips left and right when i could just as easily keep what i know to myself and fly more, since the sim works fine for me) only to have some of the same people i'm trying to help drag the whole effort through the mud and derail every single thread, i guess you can understand it feels like getting spat on the face after giving your seat to another person in the bus.

Long story short, if we don't spend time on the things other can't deal with and rush off to fly other sims while telling us to quit trying, it's them first and foremost that won't get their wishes granted in terms of what CoD should be. They are biting the community hand that feeds them because they feel slighted by the developers and are acting out of spite, plain and simple: "if i can't have fun nobody should", but they don't realize that in order for their fun to materialize someone else must find the sim interesting enough to tinker with before he can give them player created content or compile the list of bugs the developers need to fix, it's a very shortsighted attitude that completely defies the fact that their enjoyment depends on having other people do the work they are not prepared to do themselves.

I'm not talking about you specifically, we might disagree on many things but you actually take the time to word your posts in a proper, non-offensive manner. It's the one-liner brigade of "mix a valid complaint with a bit of whine and a touch of thinly veiled snide remarks and insults" i'm referring to ;)

Have you tried a full re-install from steam, most people have seen a large improvement since the early patches, I know CoD has lots of issues but I would suggest in this case the problem may be at your end, worth a try, if you have enough spare bandwidth to download the files again.

Take a look at the DCS forum. But I think you knew that already ;)

A good roundup jimbob. Its a shame this thread couldn't have remained uncluttered/diverted and run alongside Insuber's excellent effort on bug reporting although in a sense his 'improvements' listing could serve as a basis for a roadmap. A nice try at a positive approach, foundered on the rocks of the usual OT opinionating. It might still work if we ignore 'those' posts and you keep your original post updated with the useful contributions if you can weed them out.

Here's my contribution to add to their existing unfinished work (SLi etc) and yours:

1. Improve FPS and playability by replacing Trees. I suggest Forest 'blocks' with damage-effect instead of indivdual trees with none. And I don't care if the branches don't wave around.

2. Ref FMB Manual, if that's too large a project for now give us a guide including some scripting code block samples to work with.

3. Work even now with Nvidia, AMD and Naturalpoint for them all to optimise the game.


However, as the thread has become what it is and as it relates to a Roadmap in the sense of knowing what's happening, I'd say that Blackdog hits the nail on the head again but I would disagree on one point. The level of disappointment/frustration does call for a locked thread from Luthier to give us his latest roadmap followed by a weekly progress update. No-one can deny that we are on the poor end of this and, having paid for it, a brief weekly update would keep all the paid up customers at least informed if not happy. I say a locked thread because I want to know from the horses mouth and not have it drowned in pages and pages of other people's opinions. I just want to know what's happening not what everyone else thinks, there are pages and pages of other threads for that.

Surely having to do a reinstall everytime a patch comes out is ludicrous? We shouldnt be wiping anything. Is it a steam fault as files are not being replaced properly or is it the game not redirecting updates correctly to the right places?

What actually happened is that they got rid of a bunch of legacy settings in the .ini files that were leftovers from the pre-release testing times.

This happened 2-3 patches ago but steam doesn't include the documents folders in its patching routine, so it's perfectly possible to be running a current patch with outdated configuration files.

The way it seems to work is that the .ini files in the main game folder (steam\steamapps\common\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover) are used as an initial "blank" and when you run the sim they are copied over to the documents\1c softclub\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover folder. From that point on, whatever change you make in your controls, on-screen overlay windows and so on are stored in those .ini files within the documents folders.

The way to correct it is delete both sets of files and have steam do a file integrity check. This will pull the up to date .ini files and place them in the main game folder, then when you run the sim it will copy them to the documents sub-folder. From that point on you have updated files.

You will need to reapply your realism settings, controls and graphics options. To save you some time, it's possible to go to the controls options screen and save your keymaps to a separate file before you go about deleting and validating files. Then, after you get the new .ini files you can load that custom file back in the sim, its structure is compatible with the new .ini files, to save you the time of having to redo all your controls.

*timesink on* yep, because you should have to do all that with every patch on every sim. :rolleyes:

Yes, I just did this a after latest patch... Still no AA, still FPS drop since 2 patches ago, Still studders since 2 patches ago. Also, noticed deteriorating performance if I play a mission and then play another one afterward.

Performance was poor last time I tried MP too. Game worked great before 2 patches ago. I have a high end computer. I'm just worried because the 4 items mentioned above are not found anywhere on the devs "to do" list. They did mention "comparatively minor" performance items to be fixed in 2 months time but these don't seem minor to me.

I don't mind waiting for them to be fixed if they take a while but it seems as if they aren't working on them.

-Gollum

Maybe i didn't make myself clear enough, so let's clarify. This is NOT required for every patch. It's only required ONCE if you installed the sim before mid-May or thereabouts and not at all if you installed at a later date, since you have the latest version through Steam. Hope it helps, cheers ;)

My most humble and sincere apologies. *bows out gracefully and retires*

Try to think about it. Communication costs are covered from marketing budget by a publisher. DCS and ROF devs are the publishers at the same time. You pay them directly and they have the whole amount of your payment to cover both development and marketing expenditures including international forums and communication with community.

MG and 1C get only a part of your money which is supposed to cover only development expenditure. 1C also gets the publisher's part but only from sales in Russia as they are publishers for Russia only. UBI is the publisher for the rest of the world. You paid UBI for forums, community manager, support, internet site, etc. If you are not happy with communication feel free to demand improvements from UBI at UBI forums.

All communication you get from the devs at this 1C forums is a bonus compliment and 1C and luthier's goodwill only including the forums themselves. We are just lucky that 1C has international forum for other games it publishes abroad and that luthier speaks English by chance.

I would not be surprised if luthier would visit these forums more and more seldom as his goodwill is not perceived correctly.

What exactly in postings like:

Helps the game succeed or is constructive? I agree that it's important to share the concerns, bugs and dissapointments in an attempt to influence and inform the dev team. Maybe you should post them even a few times to make sure they're acknowledged by atleast someone.

But lurking around the forums repeating the same mantra over and over again, or as in this case: just hanging around to be able to post that you don't play the game anymore is just sad. What the hell can one achieve with that except to look for revenge of some sort to dry the tears.

But there is no denying that the biggest fail has been communication. Maybe it's a known decision as the percentage in these forums are just a drop in the ocean compared to the masses not worth the effort, maybe it's just inability to do a decent customer service which is not unheard of with dev teams. Whatever it is, it's a fail.

For the record here, to all the haters - I was right about multicore support/use (being one of the biggest performance boosters while others argued that it was not even worth it).

Just keeping a tally.

And good to see some tangible progress!

+1 you were right on the money.

Actually, I'm not sure you're right about that one. There is a definite performance decrease over time that isn't solved by deleting the cache folder or by having the correct config files.

As a case in point, I've been using Original textures for about two weeks, since my 'wow full reinstall actually does improve performance' thread. About 3-4 days ago I started getting launcher crashes, increases in stutter and today (literally half an hour ago) I was forced to drop to High textures (again), which is back where I was before the last retail patch. Something is dragging down performance over time and increasing texture stutter.

It's also been confirmed in another thread that CloD is using more memory since the last retail patch than it was before (based on Repka server performance, link below). Multi-core processing is also not quite there yet (my cores register 100/30/30/30 or so and I've seen a good few similar reports). Then you have the decreasing performance which some have noted that may relate to the memory not being properly flushed between missions, the weird sound error in multiplayer which only seems to occur when the server hits a certain amount of load/number of players, and the fact that XFire (and possibly still SLI) still don't work for a fair few of us and it's quite clear that the code for this game is all over the place.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...4&postcount=12

Until such time as the game code stabilises properly and issues like inefficient multicore use, mystery performance drains, increasing memory usage and the like are visibly solved, I'd recommend to anyone that they re-download the whole thing and run all included distro's before playing. It's a terrible thing, especially for those on slower connections, but with a game this broken, it's the only way to be sure. I honestly am stunned that a game in this state could even be considered for release.


As for the rage there'll be a lot more of it when CloD hits US release in this state. I actually think the EU community (for the most part) has been quite decent and accommodating about the truly appalling state the game was released in and the subsequent poor communication. Yes there have been trolls but nowhere near on the scale of some game forums. Come the 19th, assuming it's not delayed again, a whole new wave will be discovering bugs that turn out to be 'features', and all the other fun we've had.

And where else can they go with complaints that are - despite being poorly worded/spelled/raging/ignorant or combinations of the four - usually entirely legitimate?

Interesting about the core use - a similar thing/problem is in HOI3 FTM just released with multithreading support. It uses 1 thread very heavily for a task while many others have a very low load - I am guessing here, but I think it is because they are assigning a specific task to each core and the 1 core with the heaviest load basically holds up every other core/thread. The way around this would be to break up a specific task or pipeline and run it on more than one thread, instead of just assigning other threads minor tasks. (for example in HOI3 FTM the performance boost was no where near what it should of been because it maxes out a thread which requires all other threads to wait on it almost like a single thread).

That is interesting, if one of the threads is making the other three wait, that might explain why cores 2, 3 & 4 always seem to show the same (equal) level of lower usage while core 1 runs at maximum.

When an obvious fanboi, and believe me I was one stops playing a game they have spent years dreaming about playing, that is constructive critisim at it's best.
I fly IL2 everyday, if I am not flying IL2 I am flying RoF. I am not flying Clod and have not flown it since two days after installing the last patch.
If I as an avid flightsimmer feel let down by the lack of sound in multiplayer (and please the morons who say but they are working on it need to ask themselves one simple question, how the hell could such a glaring error have escaped even the poorest of quality control.) For that matter how the hell did this game even get the green light from Ubisoft in the first place?
To say i am bitterly disappointed in the game would be an understatement.
The fact that I come back to the forum every now and again is in the hope that Liuthers road map actually is going somewhere.
You read thread after thread, all complaints, whines and moans and you have to say to yourself, surely someone in the remnants of Maddox Games should be actively engaging the community timelining when things will be fixed.
And honestly when you have to show pictures of your team hard at work, that is a sure sign the community have stopped believing a word you say.

But yes, I will be back next week and Clod remains installed on my computer in the hope that some uber patch will be released that lifts this brilliant shell of a game to where it belongs, as a classic, a living masterpiece.

My original post was an honest statement, nothing else.
When a game developer starts losing people like me, they are in trouble because I live eat and breath flight sims. Trust me I have every copy of IL2 ever released. I have downloaded almost every mod. I have thousands and thousands of hours flight sim flight time and yet in clod I only have 40hrs plus some change.

If you have logged only about 40h in CoD then you are waaayyyy too easy to disappoint!
in 40h you are just able to scratch on the surface, imo.

Sorry i should have been more specific, 40 hours online :grin:
I did not count the countless hours messing about offline seeing what was under the hood:(

@ Bobb4,

I don't think MG given the choice would have released it in its current state. Obviously if it was up to them the game would not even be released yet. UBI didn't look at it and say 'OK MG, its obviously not finished but we'll go ahead just for you' - UBI doesn't give a flying cheese board as long as they've got your money. Look at almost all of their PC releases over the last few years, it is very apparent that quality control is not something they like to spend money on or care about in the slightest. MG does care however and IS working to resolve the problems and finish the product. At least thats the impression I get from reading their posts which have been regular and informative. There have been many demands that they communicate more. IMHO Its our privilege that they communicate at all, they certainly are not required to as part of their job description, or because they personally owe us anything.

Thankfully (as I suppose all financial support from UBI has long since ceased) 1C has distribution in Russia meaning they will still be getting money to work on this product. UBI cut the money from Silent Hunter 5 after 2 patches which fixed very little. The Dev team was UBIsoft Romania so when the plug was pulled, that was that. Now if you think CoD is unfinished in its current state it is certainly more finished than that turkey will ever be. Also, they are still working on it so be patient. People here are busy trying to trash it comparing It to DCS:A10c - which is a fantastic simulation - but the marketing strategy was totally different, DCS sold BETA copies (unfinished! bugs! errors!) as pre-orders I.e when they release you get the finished product for free for helping them financially develop the program, and guess what? there are still bugs and errors in it! They still have no decent cloud or weather effects and many other features are unfinished or even unstarted as of now, etc. after half a score of patches. And their last official communication about updates was about 3-4 weeks ago now but funnily enough there isn't a single moan about that fact on their site.

Hey, showing pictures hard at work shows they're in trouble? after so many here screaming about communication well I guess you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. The moral of the story is if you want CoD to develop quicker, best start giving MG some more money (MG not UBIsoft). Otherwise, patience.

Nope, it`s a sign for you. You are not the community. The moaners say the same thing, though they are just the loudest ones.

+1 and great post. I could just copy and paste it and call it my own. I am the IL-2 series. When someone like me starts doubting the development team then that's a sign -FOR ME- that something is wrong.

Couldn't agree more.

I haven't been that disappointed with a sim since Micropose's "1944: Across the Rhine".


I

Well...this is the last time for a patch before the US release. lets hope enough is fixed.

Agreed let's all hope for the best for the next patch.

First things first, I didn't post that (I can't tell whether or not you were alluding to an idea that I posted that, and thus supported that sentiment.)
However, I explained that in my posting; it is only when there is a lack of correspondence from the team (or tangible steps to improvement) when constructive criticism breaks down and postings like that appear. In short, it is not constructive; however, it could easily be used in an opinion poll to show the discontent for CloD. Clearly these users want the game to work: they wouldn't be hanging around here if they didn't! But rather than post useless dribble about how much of a fan-boi they are and how much they love the game, they choose to highlight the flaws (mostly large ones) and, in this case, show how such flaws are putting them off even playing the game.
It gives the team nothing useful to work with, other than the incentive that people are not playing the game, and that apathy could very well take hold. I doubt that many would become apathetic (if a monster patch came along that dealt with everything, everyone would be wrapped) however it is naive to believe that criticism wouldn't entail, purely for the fact that most people realise the game could still be bettered, and if it can be bettered, then why not better it?

But yes, I agree completely with your last points. I think that when there is a lack of communication, people expect a patch that will improve everything. Sadly, this is probably not going to be the case (I hope I'm wrong in assuming this).
Being a pessimist is depressing, but it saves for disappointment. Add this post to my ever-growing list of long-winded postings. :cool:

In a poll you pick one answer and confirm it, period. The wortless moaning doesn`t serve any purpose here. To say otherwise would be stupid.

You are right on. Those users DO want the game to work AND NOW. No patience, no taking into account that a flight sim is not an FPS, not thinking about that it is the only WWII new sim out there, no thinking that the team is not 100 men, no thinking that it costs less than a AAA title. In short, no thinking nothing, just demanding a perfect game. And yet even if they want it to work, they are hellbent on shutting it down using the word of mouth. Yes, we want it to work. Bot for the time being let`s flame the hell out of the dev team and shout out loud how we hate them. By George, I haven`t thought of that!
The patient users kept telling you to post constructive stuff and everytime you do, no one has any objections. When people read the same stuff about OLEG WAS LYING ALL ALONG for the 100th time, it is full understandable that you don`t deserve any kind of a polite answer. Highliting the flaws has ended a few weeks ago. If you don`t have anything more constructive to say but moan some more, you are going to be faced with an adequate answer.

You are wrong once again. Moaning is not criticism. It is moaning.

Nice. Waiting for more I TOLD YOU OLEG WAS LYING threads.:eek:

Yeah i agree, if the patch to fix MP sound isnt in the American release then its goodbye CLOD.

In the opinion poll the answer, then, would fit into this category: 'we are discontented with CloD' (of course, is this opinion poll generated towards the academically minded, or the more simple mind individuals who need questions of less than 7 words? It makes a massive difference)

You miss the point; they want the game to run, but simultaneously they want feedback from the devs on how these issues are coming on. Complain all you want about how the devs shouldn't be held to account for issues like this, but it doesn't change the fact that without communicative support, the criticism will continue. If Luthier wrote a response detailing how they would deal with each issue, then we would know the team's approach and be able to take a step back, loosely-secure in the knowledge that the team were aware of the issues.

Moaning is not criticism. It's a negative response to an unfortunate and unwanted situation. In short, it highlights that change is needed.
But I stand by what I say, if I post a detailed topic about how the RAF flight kit is wrongly modelled in the game (despite the pages of information I sent to Oleg) that would be constructive criticism. There is nothing constructive about you moaning at people for moaning.

For me the moaning about people moaning is because the moaners have a weird idea that their moaning is going to be of some sort of interest in general, but in reality the moaning only appeals to other moaners and entire threads build up from the moaning club with the subsequent anti-moan moaning club obligedly countering the moaning with anti-moan.....moaning.

This is why in my oppinion there needs to be 2 dedicated forum sections, 1 for the 'moaners' and another for the 'anti-moan fanbois', they must be clearly labelled as to their function, in this way any wandering forum surfers will be able to pick and choose which sub section most appeals to their tastes.

No, people should just understand that the mature way of approaching someone who's been critical is to just leave them alone. And likewise for a 'fan-boi'. Obviously I'm probably being hypocritical in saying this, but it would help things. What annoys me is that people should be able to post what they want without questioning. Obviously certain posts may stand out as being outlandishly stupid, but if you're looking for a 'solution' complete seperation shouldn't really be initiated.

Personally, things are OK as they are; it's just internet banter.

We all know that 'mature' isn't going to happen any time soon here, so in short moaners should carry on moaning and anti-moaners should use their right to free speech to let the moaners know how they feel and vice versa.......or even shorter change nothing.

yeah I know.....you just said that.......I'm a bit blonde today

Yes; exactly :cool:
It's just the vicious circle of development; people will all have differing views on the process for improvement (in the same way that political parties offer differing ideological perspectives).

Lets face it people moan, myself included when things are not fair.
So as the developers said yes its not fair, we are responsible give us time we will keep you updated with a community spokesman.
Peoples views can be as different as you like, as long as theirs a mitigator, at the moment we are mitigating each other with admins mitigating the mitgators.

Lack of meanful diaglog, 1C holds the key to stop this rubbish from going on, they know this or they wouldnt have promised a spokesman. But why make that empty promise, its only gonna fuel the flames, so its their fault the forum is left to wildy speculate and has become an unhappy place. Sorry but its the truth.
It could all gave been sorted by now if they had done what they said they were gonna do. Because then people have facts, and if they havent heard them they can be linked to them.

But hasn't it been hypothesised already that if the devs take time to communicate then that is time out of their day developing....and also the community manager idea has had a reasonable conclusion as to why it hasn't happened, pretty much for the same reason.

so given that the devs 'have' explained what they are working on...oh yes they have, then is it not reasonable to take the attitude that it will take as long as it takes? you know....like when the kid in the back seat is asking 'are we there yet?' no matter how often he asks the journey will take as long as......

this is why some cars have dvd players in them now, to shut that bloody kid up, so while you are waiting is there nothing that will distract you? not even a good old session on that supersmashing Rise of Flight game that is totally lorded around here all the time?

I'd just like to say that having a moan about the people who moan at the moaners is just another new wave of moaning.

only until someone moans about it enough.

theres only one good kind of moaning...but it takes more than just a keyboard..it requires flowers and dinner and wine and some times jewelry...but it does end in a smile :twisted::lol:

S!

Regarding communication, CoD is 1C's baby, not Ubisoft's. Rightly or wrongly this sort of thing always seems to end up being done by the people who care the most (and that sure isn't Ubisoft). 1C owns it and thus has the long term interest in this game. They have to do the work to build the community up. Otherwise the only comfort they will have for failure is that Ubisoft should have tried harder. Much better to just get it done regardless of who 'should' be doing it and succeed.

Anyway, do you honestly think Ubisoft knows what is going on? I doubt it. So they would have to ask 1C, receive the email and then post it! Ridiculous. 1C not communicating on their own forum is only going to end badly, especially after a North America release when we will (hopefully) have an influx or new players who all want to know what's going on!

:grin: those 2 comments absolutely slayed me. Like out of Red Dwarf or Blackadder or something. So there's people who moan about the thing, then there's people who moan about the people who moan about the thing... what does that make you 2?
no offence intended folks honestly that was just too funny. Keep 'em coming, Sorry for off topic.

Cheers,
Sam.

It makes us 2 guys who retain a sense of humour :)