Answers to Community Questions

[Vaxxtx]

I guess what I got after reading all that is:

CLoD is pretty much done. We need money and CLoD aint it. Everything that you thought CLoD should have been will be in our sequel. Buy it if you want a working game.

Thanks for coming around to answer those questions, but for me personally, it doesnt shine light at the end of this tunnel.

[NervousEnergy]

First of all, I see that my brand of humor offended some people. I forget sometimes that some fans are so passionate about this game they can’t take anything but straight out plain answers, so I’ll answer some of the earlier questions again.

Hell, I thought it was brilliant. I think MysticPuma needs to rap his knuckles against the Sarcasm gauge in his 'pit; it appears the needle is stuck.

I agree with the short fix list above... if you could get AI working at least a little better for the offline players, get the netcode a bit tighter for the online players, and improve the particle system you'd silence a huge chunk of the criticism.

It's an enormously ambitious game that's still a lot of fun even in the current state. People are really, really wrapped up in it as it's the only thing we've got that's moving the state of the art forward in high-fidelity WWII air combat. 1946 with HFSX 6 is pretty nice, but technically doesn't hold a candle except in community where it rules the roost.

I'll buy the sequel. Probably pre-order.

[hiro]

Thanks for answering the questions.


but dude (Ilya) some of those answers made me think for a second that all the negative nayswers were correct with some of the unprofessional (official business to business conduct).

And I was pissed man. But then I saw the second posting, and looking back, you're trying to be funny and also you're coming from a perspective of you're tired of all the bashing you've received and all the rampant speculation that's worse than every sewing circle and gossip columnist in history.


Also the answers to the patch fixes, it seems to me that there is so much on the patch that's promised, it may be too much to be actually done. Too big to deliver.

But since you know more about whats going on that us here on the forum (and me), I'll take it up on hope that all you stated in the patch will be said and done.





There is some hope the following means CoD will be fixed and I like the hope for community SDK tools to come later, so the 3rd party support can take up the mantle of making Clod better.

Originally Posted by luthier

The only reason we ever did anything with the game, starting as far back as about last May, was for forum brownie points. It was clear enough even then that any additional fixes won’t pay the bills, that the only way for us to survive financially is to release a good sequel, fix any issues with Cliffs of Dover while making the sequel, and grandfather CoD content into it.

Aircraft – as I wrote previously, they won’t be abandoned with the upcoming final patch. We are carrying everything over to the sequel, and they will get the same attention as new sequel aircraft and definitely benefit from our future efforts.

So its going to be similar to IL-2 but also the model will change . . . as they are not exactly following the IL-2 . . .




I think alot of the "attitude" Luthier has is that he's confident the sequel will fulfill most of the expectations we've had for the IL-2 successor series.

Also the man himself backed up what csThor was saying, and also that working on the game is primary and speaking with the forum is tertiary or quaternary . . .


I can understand the frustration and its a let down. Don't get me wrong, my initial impression was one of being upset.

But I remember you are putting all in the sequel and you did take the time to fix the sequel as much as your resources will allow.


It's funny, as the answers would only lead to more answers and also that the community would get what they want (the answers) and still gripe about it.

One of the points of hilarity was the SU 26 let down, but now that its out, someone was complaining about the SU 26 with lasers and not fixing Clod all the way.

Well . . . life goes on.



I think and hope that the sequel working and being a great game will help things.


Remember folks, history can change, with enough effort, focus, drive, and will. And doing what is right and good.

If you look back at the Americans at the start of WW 2 in the pacific, prior to Midway . . . you'd think they couldn't win.

That's what I'm hoping. Yes this series is the laughingstock of the gaming world. Yes it brings beast PCs to their knees. Yes they could have had it working, and had lot more content and features. But remember, yes they did fix it what they could. And yes the sequel is promised to be opposite of CoD's bad release . . .

Originally Posted by MadBlaster

Here is a very sad video on the story of the Kee Bird. For those who need "closure".

sad, I was so bummed out ( I saw it when I was in highschool) . . . and couldn't tell no one that would really understand because the nerds were all into fantasy or sci fi, and the closest was the racer or car guys, but they didn't even get much since they knew about cars and not planes.

but that story isn't 100% accurate for this game . . . nor although we've the end of the road, still i can't let go . . . Because the sequel will come out and whats fixed there can aid in Cod, and tools for 3rd party improvements for Cod will be coming . . .

[planespotter]

People need a Russian culture adapter here. Luthiers responses were FUNNY. Russian humour. Give him a break!

Here is another Russian joke...

"Russian Quality Control"

[csThor]

Originally Posted by luthier

First of all, I disagree with it being “below standard”. Your definition of single-player standard is probably different from mine. If you expect Mass Effect or Skyrim, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
Cliffs of Dover was intended to be a sandbox game more than anything, expansive, open, giving complete freedom to the players. If you’ll remember, the original Il-2 owed much of its success to user-made content. We aimed for the same with Cliffs of Dover. Instead of building complex single-player content in-house, we gave the tools to the community. Cliffs of Dover has a much better mission builder with scripting support, supports complex moddable briefings and debriefings, and so on.
Unfortunately 3rd party support never materialized the way we hoped it would, and we ourselves cannot at this point go back and redo single player.
Still, I strongly disagree with your criticism of the single-player. The two campaigns, quick mission builder, and the full mission builder offer a lot in terms of single-player. Standard? I’ve played plenty of AAA games where the entire single-player content is under 20 hours with 0 replay value, and I didn’t even feel like finishing the entire thing. At the same time I’ve logged way more than 20 hours in quick mission builder alone. What does that say about industry standards?

You're joking, right? You aren't really saying that CloD contains any offline and/or gameplay content worth the bits on my HDD?

As for the rest. Building a sandbox for the customers to play in is all fine and dandy if the karking thing had a solid fundament! In the current situation you're essentially saying "You want offline gameplay? Code it yourself." Yep! *shattering round of sarcastic applause* Brilliant. Marvelous. Sorry for the sarcasm overflow. I couldn't help myself at this apparent disregard of an entire slice of your community.

On a more serious note. Yes, the overwhelming majority of good offline content in 1946 came from external sources. But ... you know there was going to be a but ... they had a solid fundament to build their campaigns on. There was a campaign module with rank system and medals (regardless how primitive), but CloD doesn't have any of that. Hence my "Code it yourself" statement. Well ... I can't code, programming languages don't make sense to me. Desastersoft did that, but they have their own style of campaigns and won't (for obvious reasons) release their campaign module for public consumption. Not that this would make much sense given the issues with the AI and the problems with player - AI interaction. Or has there been any addition to the radio menu with ground-attack options? Not? Oops!

So ... bottom line for me is that luthier apparently thinks that gameplay is a luxury and not needed at all. Interesting perspective, especially when you remember that Maddox Games wants to sell computer games. Unless, of course, MMO's are all you're interested in (what a coincidence, isn't it? ). I'll keep an eye on further developments, but I won't expect anything anymore. Have fun with your sandbox in which nothing but the usual clusterf*ck between fighters is possible. Too bad about the possibilities. *shakes head*

[Feathered_IV]

Not much room for jokes here. For luthier it's just a job. He can always get another one. But for us, where will we ever get another WWII flight sim from?

[Fjordmonkey]

Originally Posted by Feathered_IV

But for us, where will we ever get another WWII flight sim from?

Straight from 1C, once they release BoM?

[luthier]

Originally Posted by csThor

You're joking, right? You aren't really saying that CloD contains any offline and/or gameplay content worth the bits on my HDD?

As for the rest. Building a sandbox for the customers to play in is all fine and dandy if the karking thing had a solid fundament! In the current situation you're essentially saying "You want offline gameplay? Code it yourself." Yep! *shattering round of sarcastic applause* Brilliant. Marvelous. Sorry for the sarcasm overflow. I couldn't help myself at this apparent disregard of an entire slice of your community.

On a more serious note. Yes, the overwhelming majority of good offline content in 1946 came from external sources. But ... you know there was going to be a but ... they had a solid fundament to build their campaigns on. There was a campaign module with rank system and medals (regardless how primitive), but CloD doesn't have any of that. Hence my "Code it yourself" statement. Well ... I can't code, programming languages don't make sense to me. Desastersoft did that, but they have their own style of campaigns and won't (for obvious reasons) release their campaign module for public consumption. Not that this would make much sense given the issues with the AI and the problems with player - AI interaction. Or has there been any addition to the radio menu with ground-attack options? Not? Oops!

So ... bottom line for me is that luthier apparently thinks that gameplay is a luxury and not needed at all. Interesting perspective, especially when you remember that Maddox Games wants to sell computer games. Unless, of course, MMO's are all you're interested in (what a coincidence, isn't it? ). I'll keep an eye on further developments, but I won't expect anything anymore. Have fun with your sandbox in which nothing but the usual clusterf*ck between fighters is possible. Too bad about the possibilities. *shakes head*

Finally a comment that got to me. Today's a bad day after all.

It goes without saying for me, and that's why it might be hard to gather that from my reply, but it's obviously OUR fault for single-player being what it is and 3rd party support not showing up.

Your general criticism is spot on. We shipped a product that had too many technical issues for us to really focus on finer elements of gameplay. There had never been a point, we're not even there today, where we could sit back, look at the code, and say, hell, what a great foundation, let's build a great game on top of it.

The GUI especially is our Achilles heel. Like I wrote earlier in the thread, somebody somewhere before I ever showed up chose to make it in a horrible clumsy environment called WPF. By the time I showed up it was too late to go back, and going forward proved extremely painful. Each new screen took forever, everything was clunky, tiny changes or bug fixes required insane amounts of effort, and in the end it took a tremendous painful effort to reach the decidedly insufficient GUI that we have today.

It's extremely painful and frustrating for everyone involved. Believe me.

[RedToo]

Quote:
Any chance of stopping the trees and their attendant shadows looking like they're having an epileptic fit?

I would think most of the community should know by now that mentioning epilepsy to the team is a very, very bad idea.
Unquote.


It would seem that humour does not translate well either way. Then again we are always being cautioned about using humour in the workplace.


To re phrase the question:

One. Clod uses Speedtree. Trees in Clod 'shiver' all the time causing their attendant shadows to shiver all the time. Easily seen when flying over them. This is not how trees look from a few hundred feet.

Two. Lots of other games use Speedtree. In these games the trees and their shadows do not shiver from a distance, but individual leaves do move when close up.

Any chance of stopping the trees and their attendant shadows shivering/ shaking/ moving in a completely unrealistic way from a distance?


RedToo.

[hiro]

Originally Posted by Feathered_IV

Not much room for jokes here. For luthier it's just a job. He can always get another one. But for us, where will we ever get another WWII flight sim from?

Originally Posted by Fjordmonkey

Straight from 1C, once they release BoM?

BOM is like Luke in original three . . . but DCS might be Leia or even ROF devs or some others off the horizon (and I'm being serious, if the ROF guys wanted to WW2 they could pull it off)


Yoda: Told you I did. Reckless is he. Now, matters are worse.
Obi-Wan: That BOM is our last hope.
Yoda: No. There is another.