Battle Of Britain: Storm Of War - Pilot's Lounge

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by csThor

With all due respect, but ...

1.) Oleg already tried the road of communicating with the community. He has done it for years, but it didn't do him any good. He was flamed, belittled, accused of cultivating various bias, swamped with demands of small-minded "I want! Now! Gimme! Whine!" folks and ultimately people accused him of having no idea how to run his business. Why should he bother with this narrow-minded, greedy, moronic and impolite community? Why should he post updates when all he gets is a load of flak? *

that is only partially true, and only giving that angle misrepresents the change in attitude that took place towards oleg in some of the bigger il2 forums over the years

first, yes oleg was active initially in il2 forums and that was an exception compared to other game creators. but a couple of years after the initial il2 release several il2/PF problems were not being addressed, and as more ww2 enthusiasts with reliable historical data became part of the il2 forum community, it gradually became more obvious that a one sided bias had crept in with some aircraft performances (the i-16 comparison with the me109 is a good example of this) and that various aircraft/munitions had some errors which were not being fixed or even acknowledged despite good evidence being available.

with olegs very high aim of making il2/BoB the most realistic ww2 aircraft sim it can be, he also needs to be more open about the data programmed into the game for aircraft and munition performances. most of us are way past the old excuse of "everything is programmed perfectly correct, its the pilot making the error not the plane/munition performance being wrong". if we have clear tables and graphs of the data being used for climb rate etc, then even if they are "wrong" compared to what we think they should be, we can decide how to fly a particular plane in certain situations and make the most of it. oleg thinks giving us that data would lead to more arguments, but it would resolve more important issues instead for his hard core fan base, and that will then reduce the wine factor from the lost teens that blow in with the wind on a regular basis because there would be more self regulation in the forums to control the whine factor..

it also turns out that on some of the issue where we repeatedly were told "trust me, trust me, it is perfect" this was not correct, a good example is the 50 cal belting where simply the wrong munitions were being used, this would have taken only a few minutes to identify and correct (it is now in one of the mod's). there are other glaring examples where we were given wrong information, and in the end with the files being hacked open it turns out many of our concerns were justified. as frustration mounted with some of those issues, and it turned out we had been given (deliberate ?) wrong information on repeated occasions, the tone in the forums gradually changed.

with some of the russian bias this can be partially explained by the mainly russian reference texts oleg has used for his sim, and yes after all it is a russian flightsim, but some of that data has been shown to be incorrect and lots of independent expert sources are now available to have a better overview of what is right and what was dated wartime propaganda. if oleg doesnt become more global in his perspective and data sources used, we will continue to have the exact same problem the next time around (get ready for the mig-sabre problem folks )

[csThor]

The problem, zapatista, is that for any data sheet on any possible topic you could find a contradicting set of data. In the end it would simply be a question of POV and/or a personal bias. I never understood the need to dissect the data base of a simulation as a whole, even though I agree with the question of being open to community input. However this input needs to be

a) done in a professional way (not the "You ain't no idea! You hate [insert nation here]!" way it was all too often done in the past)
b) contain plausible data with known origin (i.e. the famous british "620 kp/h for a Bf 109 G-6" test which claims this was achieved with a clean G-6 while the plane carried two gondola arms under its wings).

This is the greatest problem - the community is not a homogenous group, but a collection of various groups of interest, some of which would rather fight each other than get along. So how should Maddox Games be "open" for input when it would be misused for petty squabbling among board rivals (as it happened in the past)? It's easy to demand access to the basic data, but this also requires a certain level of maturity within the community and I am highly sceptical if this community could ever be this mature.

[mazex]

When people point out that the emperor has no clothes, they get bashed for beeing weak of mind...

Oleg goes completely silent for four months while the greatest recession in decades rage around us and Russia is one of the countries worst affected by it. You think that he brings no news because they are working around the clock coding? Does anyone of you "beleivers" work in some position that is even close to the real market economy that pays for projects like this? As there where recent indications about 60% of the work done, does the term "sunk cost" make any sense to you? Wake up, there is a serious risk that this project gets axed. The only reason I come here is to know that there is still funding, I really don't care when it gets released...

/Mazex

[SlipBall]

The sky is falling attitude is funny to read at time's. After awhile the dire speculation's and fear of the worst, becomes annoying. If in the future the project needs to be scraped, I'm sure that we will be told about that. Untill that happens, why not take them at their word that they are working towards completion.

[mazex]

Originally Posted by SlipBall

The sky is falling attitude is funny to read at time's. After awhile the dire speculation's and fear of the worst, becomes annoying. If in the future the project needs to be scraped, I'm sure that we will be told about that. Untill that happens, why not take them at their word that they are working towards completion.

If you follow the RTS index I'd say that yes, the sky IS falling...

[IceFire]

Russia has gone through lots of economic turmoil over the last couple of decades (if not longer really). I doubt this has made things any different than when IL-2 was originally being developed.

Thor is right...Oleg was seriously lambasted by some notorious people in the community and I don't blame him for being more standoffish. On the other hand I really hope that Oleg does keep the lines of communication open. Many of us have had good conversations with the man via e-mail sending him data and looking to try and correct issues wherever they may be.

I sent him some data more than a few times. I was always courteous...I made my case, I presented what I had available, I noted the holes in knowledge, and I let Oleg and his team make a decision on what to update. On the whole thats actually worked out quite well. IL-2 had plenty of innacuracies that the community was able to have a hand in fixing...its not possible for Oleg and his team to have access to every piece of information but as a collective we have access to vast stores of historical documents that ultimately are useful one way or another.

Hopefully Storm of War will be open to some input where practical and useful.

[csThor]

Same here, Ice, but I think this time we (the players and Maddox Games) need to work out a standardized system for such data input which relieves Maddox Games from inaccurate, incomplete and/or "amateurish" input. It doesn't help to say "Plane X is off. Author Q quotes Ace K in his book Y saying ..." as this is anecdotal stuff and useless. We need to make sure Maddox Games gets this stuff as complete as it gets - including data which might contradict the other data. But if we exclude stuff we don't like for reasons of personal bias then how much of an accurate simulation do we really want?

[RCAF_FB_Orville]

Hehehe. Bottom line is, you are not going to please everybody all of the time, ever. Yeah, of course we all want as "realistic" a sim as possible, while we (lets face it) overgrown kids pretend to be WWII fighter aces sitting on our arses in front of a Monitor screen....wife/gf kids nagging in the background demanding you put up those shelves
Why do we do it? Because its FUN of course! Some people however seem to be intent on sucking the fun out of everything, treating a 5Kph perceived inaccuracy like a matter of life or death and of global importance, possibly even a threat to Civilization itself lol . These people will never let go of their grievances, real or imagined. For the most part, despite its faults (programmers of course being HUMAN like everyone else) IL-2 does a good job in terms of general accuracy.......Yes its right to aim for perfection as I'm sure they will do, but it will never be attained. Thats all.....Oh and did I mention its "just a game" ? (TM)

Carry on, you crazy kids!!

[SlipBall]

There in lies the problem, so many of you contacting him in the past. Telling him this is not right, or this should be this. I think just enjoy what is given, and try not to give advice on what you consider wrong. The early game really got f u, and dumbed down from peoples advice.

[KG26_Alpha]

The biggest factor most of the (my aircraft is porked "insert name here" whiners ) miss, is the fact that no two aircraft would ever fly the same as we have in the IL2 series, you get a perfectly matched unrelenting same data ac every time you fly.

Pilots have an envelope that their aircraft is to be flown within to keep the pilot safe and from damaging the aircraft, this allows them to familiarize themselves and get from A to B safely whilst gaining flying hours and competence with their plane.

The way we abuse these IL2 stock out of the factory set up aircraft, would seriously damage the airframes and engines from the first flight in them.

I'm sure none of you would drive your car full throttle everywhere at maximum speed, but we do in IL2 due to the "virtual" nature of the game, it allows you do do it, so we do.

So people who want "realistic/realism/as it was/full100%/actual FM & DM" then you should be prepared to fly in such a manner and not expect the game/sim be realistic but be realistic the way you fly yourselves.
I know though that they would not do this as its easier to whine about (my aircraft is porked "insert name here" ) rather than learn to fly correctly or historically.

Until 1c can explode your motherboard if you loose an aircraft its up to you to fly in a reasonable manner instead of blaming the FM etc etc etc etc.

Don't forget its really not real

No really its not !!!