Oleg's Russian Interview Translated

[Chivas]

Originally Posted by Feuerfalke

Well, that's where Oleg is in a lose-lose-lose situation.

- If he says nothing about release-dates and estimations, especially in this forum SoW is declared as vapour-ware, Oleg is flamed for lack of information and threads demanding information fill the board.
- If he posts his estimates, he "puzzles" people, because they take his estimates for dates written in stone and personal promises. But nobody ever did such a tremendous project, nobody had such variables as third-party modellers, texturers and researchers, as well as other dev-teams joining his own.
- If he'd post a date he could surely hold, a LOT of people would get pretty p*ssed. Lets take the interview for example. He said that IL2 took 4 years to develop, SoW so far only 2 as a dedicated project and with the setting of making it a standalone game. Realistically considering the complexity of IL2 and SoW, a secure estimate would be 2011-2013.
Who here would not be disappointed, if this was posted, even if Oleg knew it would be released much earlier than that?

+1

[msalama]

Thanks for the translation, very nice to see Oleg shedding some much-needed light on this project! This however caught my attention:

Some number of developers internationally that worked with MSFS, and probably a large part of them too, will convert to our side.

I see a problem here. The man has stated many times that they won't model interactive AC subsystems and/or cockpits for their own planes, and that's all well and good of course. But do they make them implementable for 3rd party developers? Because this definitely doesn't happen if they don't...

PS. Hiya guys, long time no see BTW. Still think the enemy has über planes and you p0rked?

[Skarphol]

Hi Feuerfalke and Chivas, I think you are very right about what you say in your post.
But what still makes me wonder is the lack of logic in what Oleg actually says.

Like the thing with the SOW:BOB-site. If he at the beginning of December really thought the page would be up by end of December, then he has been greatly misinformed by the team that developes that site. Or (more possibly) someone at the publisher has stopped the launch of it. But obviously, Oleg was not informed aboout this in the beginning of December.

And what about updates on this page? He says in october 2007: "I hope once per 2-3 weeks or so .... and more close to beta - each week like in old good time with IL-2"
I think it is fair to say that his hopes has not come to fruitition. We may or may not be close to beta yet, (60% finished doesn't sound like beta to me) but he is obviously giving us far less information than he planned to, or hoped for.

These, and other messages given during the years gives the impression that he doesn't have the control of the progress he should have. One thing is that creating a sim like this takes a whole lot of time (the timeconsumption is probably difficult to estimate), but Oleg seems to be at one stage of development one month, and then at a completely different stage the next month.

As I said, I don't think he is trying to confuse on purpose, but to me this is really weird.

And for release date; he hasn't given a hint for many years, so if he now says that he is 60% finished then that can be understood as a release around 2011. Time will tell.

Skarphol

[II/JG54_Emil]

Well the least thing we know now is that the project is not dead!

That´s happy news.

[zxwings]

Doing something creative is contradictory to having a definite timetable for it.

[mazex]

Originally Posted by Skarphol

...it seems to me like they had stuff like flightmodels, cockpits, dynamic weathersystems, squadron-size takeoff etc up and going allready in 2006. That's not bad for not even having really started working yet.

In 2007, SaQSoN or Luthier (don't remember wich, and can not find the post) said that 1C could not afford NOT to release the game in 2008. Such a statement would normally indicate that the product in 2007 was in it final stage. If they had only started working in 2007, that's a little short funding for such a complex product.

The thing that Oleg said in December that he hoped to have the SoW:BOB site up and running around the end of December is another weird mismatch between what he says and what we see.
Skarphol

Well, I get a strong feeling of some kind of a restart in 2007. Like many have said there were indications from MG of a release in 2005 way back when (so they must have been working on it since 2003 at least). Then we had the Ubidate of 2006 and indications from Oleg about 2007... If they are at 60% now and talk about a "start" in 2007 I guess that they scrapped large portions of the code in 2007 and started from scratch? The 3D code would become rather out of date in a prolonged project like this after 5+ years...

If a restart was made in 2007, I'm gladly waiting until it's done...

/Mazex

[SlipBall]

(quote) Well, I get a strong feeling of some kind of a restart in 2007



This was my take as well...It seemed to me at the time, that the hack of IL-2 forced them to go back and re-write SOW, in a effort to close the way in.

[Bewolf]

I really doubt online hacking was the reason for a possible restart, even though such a restart would make a lot of sense going by the huge confusion going on in the 1C information politics.
It's more likely the scope and projections of BOB were raised quite remarkeably with the realisation of the the online game market and the industry that was created around the Microsoft Flight Simulator series in developing third party content, one of the biggest points in the FS series success. I have little problem imagination that 1C wants to expand upon these expiriences and offer a broadband product suitable for all kinda tasks, in which BoB, like Crysis for Crytek, is more or a less a "very good" tech demo for promotion. That does not nessecarily make it a bad game, but from what I read about the egnines and games refinment with the engine the BoB scenario would be a complete waste, with possible further theater expansions taken into account.

With other words, I think BoB will become much more of a 21th century product with all the features and possiblities in professional gaming for a wide audience instead of an old fashioned straight to the point flight simulation as was IL2 the last real incarnation of.

As with all the other points, purely speculative however.

[Chivas]

Originally Posted by mazex

Well, I get a strong feeling of some kind of a restart in 2007. Like many have said there were indications from MG of a release in 2005 way back when (so they must have been working on it since 2003 at least). Then we had the Ubidate of 2006 and indications from Oleg about 2007... If they are at 60% now and talk about a "start" in 2007 I guess that they scrapped large portions of the code in 2007 and started from scratch? The 3D code would become rather out of date in a prolonged project like this after 5+ years...

If a restart was made in 2007, I'm gladly waiting until it's done...

/Mazex

The "restart" moving BOB from the IL-2 engine to a SOW engine started in approx 2005. A full compliment of staff didn't start working on BOB SOW until 2007 after the completion of IL-2 1946.

[Feuerfalke]

Originally Posted by Skarphol

Hi Feuerfalke and Chivas, I think you are very right about what you say in your post.
But what still makes me wonder is the lack of logic in what Oleg actually says.

Like the thing with the SOW:BOB-site. If he at the beginning of December really thought the page would be up by end of December, then he has been greatly misinformed by the team that developes that site. Or (more possibly) someone at the publisher has stopped the launch of it. But obviously, Oleg was not informed aboout this in the beginning of December.

And what about updates on this page? He says in october 2007: "I hope once per 2-3 weeks or so .... and more close to beta - each week like in old good time with IL-2"
I think it is fair to say that his hopes has not come to fruitition. We may or may not be close to beta yet, (60% finished doesn't sound like beta to me) but he is obviously giving us far less information than he planned to, or hoped for.

These, and other messages given during the years gives the impression that he doesn't have the control of the progress he should have. One thing is that creating a sim like this takes a whole lot of time (the timeconsumption is probably difficult to estimate), but Oleg seems to be at one stage of development one month, and then at a completely different stage the next month.

As I said, I don't think he is trying to confuse on purpose, but to me this is really weird.

And for release date; he hasn't given a hint for many years, so if he now says that he is 60% finished then that can be understood as a release around 2011. Time will tell.

Skarphol

I don't see what logic is refering to with the statements you posted?

People demand something and Oleg gives the best guess he can offer given the momentary status and going of the project. That has nothing to do with logic, continuity, wisdom or lack of project management.

That is called life, you know, the thing what happens to you while you are busy making other plans



Besides that, the "60%"-thing is a great example of how even an actual statement based on facts is turned into rubbish and estimates again. 60% of work done does not equal 60% of the project done or 60% of the time used, the project needs to be finished.


So, you obviously can understand everything the way you want it: Guesses as facts, facts as guesses. Taking your initial point about Olegs logic: What is the readers logic in interpreting so many facts in so little statements? Just wait and see.