Mission or Sortie (what should flights be called in SOW:BoB?)
 

You take off and you fly. During war time this has a term attached:
Sortie = The Commonwealth/United Kingdom term (and the term used by continental forces fighting in the RAF)
Mission = The equivalent term in the United States

The reason why "Mission" is used is simply due to the early predominance of American made flight simulators. The term Sortie was historically the one used, that sortie is the term still used in non-American history books. As SOW:BoB is set during the Battle of Britain when the majority of pilots were Commonwealth in origin it makes sense, from a historical and political point of view, that "Sortie" be used in the menus (and possibly mission file headings).

I'm not inclined to start a discussion of the politics of Americanisation or to trivialise the war by arguing about language. I'm curious if others agree with the above.

(Note: If the filename was changed SOW could be programmed so as to use both endings. Another alternative would be a neutral term such as *.flt)

As germans dont know what a "sortie" is (Saurer Tee??), I vote for something neutral. Mission is just fine.

That post looks to me like a complete waste of time.

Well he's obviously asked it for a reason Robtek, give him a chance hey?

Avimimus - can you explain more pls?

I vote for mission or flight.

Sortie by definition is a single mission for a single aircraft and it is not used in all languages this way, whereas mission or flight promises more content.

On the other hand flight has a number of meanings, like a group of planes, a plane flying from here to there, a group flying formation, etc.

All of which fit, though, IMHO.

Maybe to investigate what is corect historicaly? What was British and German expresions for that, and then use that.

I might think that the programmers already know how they want to call those things and
i also see no reason why they should deviate from their decisions because somebody starts
a poll for names.

You have some informations we don't?

@Avala
That's not the best way. There are also Italian and Polish forces simulated and other allied nations will follow. You wanna change that for each addon?

@feuerfalke
no, but then, i didn´t imply i did, didn´t i?

if i would produce something i would call it my way because of my reasons.
i wouldn´t want somebody else impose on me who doesn´t know what i am thinking.

Why not? Or it could be English expression as international and also each nation its own word for it. Of course simulation should be translated in entirety for that. We already have something similar in IL2 FB . . .

Hmmm, you noticed that there are different file-formats suggested? Think about having to make new missions, campaigns and tracks for each patch released. Not funny, IMHO.

Who cares? :rolleyes:

Mission seem's just fine for me...was the word sortie used by Britain during Bob? :)

It's getting a bit hard on Aviminus here...just wanted to say that I like most of his posts.
This one isn't "stupid" either. I just think that the game will most probably be in english anyway.
It could be nice though to hear correct expressions in the radio chatter of each nation. IL2 is ok "soso" right now when it comes to german....Truly impressed in the time I was (suprisingly) by the old Medal of Honor shooter (first parts on the PS1). That was amazingly correct german, even with typical words of the 30's and 40's. I don't know where they had found those guys, but they had done an excellent job.

German's used the word Einsatz for missions/sorties and Auftrag for mission/sortie briefing so it all could be very complicated if we want it to be.
Current media reports still refer to US Military combat sorties in Iraq which strengthens the claim for use of sortie. But in the end mission is generally accepted for a single operation involving a group or single aircraft.

SOW is about BOB, right?
Only the Americans called them missions, and they werent in BOB !
The RAF called them sorties, and (less formally) "trips" or "ops". Any of these terms would do, as would the German (or Italian?) equivalents. But not "mission" !

Hi. You seem to be forgetting that "The Americans" are not the ones who named the missions in Il2 " *.mis "

"The Americans" had nothing to do with it. I'm sure the Germans and the Soviets didn't use the term "Mission" on the Eastern front, and yet 1C:Maddox Games, a Russian company, saw fit to use the term "Mission"

Now, as far a the term "mission" goes, I can't see how the naming convention matters. If you'd look at the actual question addressed by the poll, you'd see that the extensions are listed:

.mis
.srt
.flt

That is how the sim reads the nuts and bolts so to speak, of the missions. For example, when I make a campaign, the missions must be in a list as follows, with each name before the .mis corresponding to the correct files, so the mission will play:

nameofmission1.mis
nameofmission2.mis
nameofmission3.mis

So I really can't understand why the fuss is being made over the naming convention used by the simulation to identify files. I really can't understand why anyone gives a damn; those extensions are not used for voices or in mission briefings; those extensions are 100% for the benefit of the code- when the sim reads the list and sees ".mis", it knows those files are for a single mission to be generated, corresponding to the name before the ".mis"

This naming convention does not cause the sim to generate any terms at all, whether or not they were used by "the Americans". I'm a little concerned over the immediate assumption that Americans have one bloody thing to do with this use of the term "mission"- the Russians who made the damn sim did it

Now as far as "Americans" not being part of the Battle of Britain, the members of the Eagle Squadrons would beg to differ, but that's plainly observable history, not a topic of debate. But I really cannot understand this hub-bub over the term "mission". The use of this term actually offends? I do not believe it. And if by some chance it actually produces some type of ill feeling, try blaming the Russians who made the sim, not "Americans" who use the term "mission". That's just silliness. This is absurd on many levels. If Maddox Games chooses the term "mission", are you honestly going to be unhappy? And are you also forgetting that the name of the sim is not "Battle of Britain: Battle of Britain"?

The name of the sim is "Storm of War:Battle of Britain". The BoB is simply the first installment. You do realize that you are arguing that the entire simulation series get something like ".ops" as a convention for the whole series, of which only one segment will be covering the Battle of Britian? What makes the British term more suitable than the American one in that light? The fact that somehow an "American" naming convention will always be "wrong"?

Such short sightedness on one hand, and such a tempest in a teacup on the other

What does it matter what the missions get as an extension? They can name them "nameofmission.bhs", with ".bhs" standing for "Big Ham Sandwich" for the amount I give a damn. Just so long as it works, what does it matter?

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We luv it!:cool:

I would disagree. The industry naming convention was generally established as "mission" prior to Oleg entering the scene in the year 2000.

A quick stop at Migman's aviation museum (compressing series, ignoring scifi or mercenary themes, and ignoring a couple of cases) shows that during the 1990s:
- At least 47 flight sims had essentially American only content (and were mainly produced by American teams)
- 14 had some U.K. content (does not include apache simulators or late model harriers)
- 12 have some Russian themed content
- 6 are world war one era (and not included above)
- 3 had notable international content

It seems to me that this strongly supports the idea Mission is primarily an American naming convention and has become the norm due to American influence in the industry.

I do agree that it doesn't necessarily make sense to use Commonwealth mission extensions either. I do think correct menus would likely be appropriate in this installment, though. The language is a relatively trivial issue, and as I said, my goal was to see what other people thought.

To think about it, though, the American influence is a bit less trivial: No one considered making a sim about the Great Patriotic War except a few early modders. Almost no one had heard about it, it wasn't considered commercial or even of significant historical interest. At least not until a Russian team decided to do it.

Now that this team has moved on to other stories from the war it is good to keep this issue in mind. I'm not against making another eighth or another pacific sim or trying to diminish the American war effort. But there are things like the night war that need to be covered. Il-2 did so much to get Russian history more widely known its hard not to have hopes that they will manage to do it for ours (Commonwealth) as well.

S!

-Avimimus

Thanks :D

I admit that I do come up with some stupid ideas sometimes though... ;)