[zapatista]

Originally Posted by kendo65

On Luthier's Questions.

With the continued complete radio silence on this I'm starting to think the unthinkable - maybe they've decided if they don't mention it again we'll gradually forget about it?

That is, we won't be getting the answers at all.

Even a month ago I wouldn't have believed this. Now, I don't rule anything out - even some of Tree's wilder conspiracy theories are starting to look plausible.

Like others here I also wasn't impressed by B6's vanishing act all last week, only to reappear on Saturday with the excuse that he couldn't tell us anything because it was the weekend. A little transparent that one.

your getting exhausted from the waiting and are falling under the spell of the whiners, be aware its a fatal contagious disease if you let it develop

lets look at some of what we do know
- CoD was a disaster because it was a forced premature release 1 yr to early
- the initial scramble in the first 6 months to try and plug the holes and patch it didnt work to make it playable (other then for people who have a monster PC) or improve completion of content. some bug fixes were provided, but many bugs remained.
- 1c/luthier then decided to rewrite the gfx engine from scratch and by doing so had to decide to largely abandon work on fixing CoD bugs or add features (this was bluntly stated months ago, yet people here keeping choosing not to accept this). obviously fixing the gfx engine was the most important issue for CoD, so it was in fact fixing CoD but was going to cause a MAJOR delay in time before it could be completed, but had the advantage of addressing the main issue for making BoM a success, so we cant blame him for making that hard choice (imposed by the bean counters). personally i see this as problematic for the reputation of il2-1C, and a big comprehensive final patch is badly needed to recover some of their reputation and prevent the bad reviews from not being revised later on as patches were released. this initial release of a "bad CoD" however provided them with enough funds to continue (rather then shut down the product series completely, so however counter intuitive it seems releasing it like that was actually good news odd as it may sound)
- from then on 1/2 their programing team then worked exclusively on BoM as the next release (planes, game object, scenery) while the other half focused on the complete rebuild of the gfx engine and game engine
- then for a long period CoD patches were non existent, communication ground to a halt (till B6 recently appeared), customer speculation mounted in the information vacuum. frustration increased in the forum and bad reviews online increased, but there is/was simply no manpower or resources to address CoD problems, no matter the volume of complaints.
- august 2012 the first good performance patch was released, indicating the work to date from the gfx engine rebuilt the previous 12 months
- september 2012 luthier confirms that there will only be one further bug fixing patch together with the further improved gfx engine work. after that BoM will contain any further fixes and can then be installed over CoD. luthier also indicates that the continuation of the whole SoW series will depend on the success of BoM, eg if these sales are NOT good within the first 6 months and they generate positive reviews to recoup their high standing in the sim market (which was going to be opened to 3e party designers of planes and scenery etc, remember ?), then they might have to close shop completely. this is something many people here fail to grasp !

meanwhile the little forum'itis in residence here keep running around in circles chasing their own tails by asking, demanding, screaming to fix this and that, and throwing insults around that they "want it now and deserve it now" and that luthier should talk to them NOW and is accountable to them personally. when luthier or B6 do appear they are subject to abuse and disrespect, who would stay around and try and have a normal conversation under those conditions ? and is anybody here providing them with the means to put more of their limited resources into fixing CoD, err no ! it is what it is, CoD was a forced release that has largely been abandoned, we were told as much over 9 months ago

if you (and the others here) like flight sims ? want a chance to ever get a decent next gen ww2 flight sim ? then how about doing something positive to help it become true. that doesnt mean you cant be frustrated with the delays, but it would mean you actually help to do something to help it NOT FLOP ! in comparison, if you take somebody like Tree for ex, who was here for years constantly speculating on the negatives before it was even released because he felt hurt and slighted by the previous delays, then see how he rejoiced and was in glee when the release was problematic, and in a perverted sense of seeking attention he then continued to focus ONLY ON THE NEGATIVES since then. he even does so by giving new forum members deliberately misleading information and undermining their possible enjoyment of the sim. even now in a predictable fashion he would like nothing more then for BoM to fail as well, and even if it is reasonably good on release (yes, and with a few bugs omg the sky is falling) and this better product allows the series to continue to improve further in the next years, it is easy to predict tree will STILL do nothing but complain about it. is that what you want to become a part of ?

given that progress on CoD is very slow and BoM some time away in the future, rather then be frustrated with CoD's problems just see yourself as a highly trained beta tester who is perfectly placed to provide constructive feedback for a great ww2 flightsim in the making (the fixed CoD and BoM), and do something about helping it become true (while you go off and play other games you might find less frustrating). the most practical thing i can think of in that regard is for the community to get an organized and provide well documented list of major bugs and gameplay problems, and have them in priority of importance and focused on addressing both general gameplay issues (like lack of multiplayer co-op) as well as bug fixes (reversed controls, some gauges not working), FM errors in aircraft performance, specific DM errors, and important lack of features (inability to set specific FoV's for monitor size for ex). and no, a user run bug tracking website and a few long technical threads on some frustrating bugs for CoD is not enough in that regard, we cant rely or depend on luthier and their tech's to go trawling thru those and pick out a few snippets of wisdom. there is only going to be ONE more chance to get some badly needed fixes and (small) new features in CoD, if we want this to be as good as possible we need to help present this information in an orderly and systematic fashion to luthier (because his lack of time doesnt allow him to be as thorough as we would like, and the current "bug report" thread in this forum is a major jumbled cluster of bugs/errors/missing-features that sets no indication of priority or significance) )

so what is your choice, the blue pill or the red pill ? life will never be the same after (choose between hammering nails in the coffin of CoD and sabotage the development of BoM, or help create a fixed CoD and a decent BoM).