The unfortunate turth

[David Hayward]

Tree_UK, it is not the fault of the dev team that you don't understand the purpose of a public beta test.

[SiThSpAwN]

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

Well Alpha or beta, its still a patch that as broken as much as its fixed like all previous patches, very shoddy work.

Works pretty good for me...

[Lensman_1]

Originally Posted by David Hayward

Tree_UK, it is not the fault of the dev team that you don't understand the purpose of a public beta test.

Firstly, you know what? Over the last year I've seen Tree_UK do little but state the facts, accurate facts, he's nearly always proved correct eventually and yet nonetheless there's a high number of forum members who consistently attempt to undermine him and ridicule him. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Secondly, I'm almost certainly about to get banned and I really don't care because for once I'M about to tell it how it really is.

I've been a passionate devotee of the IL-2 series since the beginning over a decade ago. I've purchased every iteration, run the software on 3 different PCs, bought Track-IR, CH-Products rudder pedals and throttle and cherish my original MS Sidewinder FF stick that has been with me all that time and flown all my simulated aircraft. I've been fully committed! I watched the progress of COD (or Battle Of Britain as it was originally known) from the earliest hints of it being worked on, I valued the DVD clips in the IL-2 1946 package, I trawled the web to find updates, I had an order in place with Play.com (UK) for YEARS (literally). When the sim was finally announced I placed an order for 2 Collector's Editions at once with UBISHOP and, despite the curious lack of revealing demo clips available on the web (odd that eh?) I still couldn't wait. I bought 2 GTX-580 gpus to run COD in the promised SLI and the promised DX-11. I was a full on fan and supporter of Oleg Maddox and his astonishing project that after so many years of development was PROMISED by 1C to be a new era in personal combat flight simulation. Then the game was released and immediately there was trouble. The epilepsy filter, the defects, the lack of SLI, the lack of DX-11, the lack of campaign mode, the appalling frame rate ... as has since been fully acknowledged by the development team the application was pushed out unfinished and in a terrible state. It was nowhere near a saleable commodity, they HAD to release it to recoup funds to continue and (as they promised) quickly fix all the issues.

Many of us felt cheated by that approach because it was obviously a con. They insisted prior to release that all was well, even after release they kept quiet about the problems until forced into a corner. It's no coincidence that the only real admission of the truth of the situation was AFTER the USA release when a lot more people had been conned and a lot more money brought into the 1C (and their backers') account.

Then they made a clean start, admitted what had happened, promised to fix it fast and asked us to please stick around and let them justify our trust and our investment. That, for the moment, appealed to me and I did indeed stick around but I didn't contribute to this forum because I wanted to wait and see what happened. Please bear in mind that in the good old days of 2001 to 2005 I was very active on the IL-2 forum and you can still see my posts there. I never courted controversy and I was never banned or warned by the moderators.

So ... in the last year what has happened?
Well, this forum is now effectively a fascist state. The moderators are completely intolerant of any legitimate criticism of the parlous state of COD and ban contributors who have PAID THEIR SALARY (if they're not volunteers) and those of the dev team. I've never seem an online community so denied free speech, democracy is NOT thriving here. This does noone any good. In that time we've also had several patches, I've applied them all, that have made minor incremental changes to aspects of the sim and virtually no improvements to the underlying issues that matter, that actually affect the immersive experience of flying an aircraft in combat. Then we got to the beyond surreal point where having not even vaguely completed the application that we've all paid a considerable amount of money for and which a year ago we got a solemn promise from the team that they wouldn't rest until our investment was justified and they'd finished the game, we're told that they're working on a SEQUEL, that we'll be expected to pay for and we'd have to wait for the engine being used for that to be completed so it can be plugged into COD. The smell of rat was getting strong now.
Even then I was patient, I believed them still, I awaited the uber-patch with great interest, I genuinely believed that they could do it. Then they kept us waiting and waiting. Weeks went into months. Then there was the propoganda of it being nearly finished and producing AMAZING results that would TRANSFORM the game's playability and quality ... oh, but then that code turned out to be full of defects and actually not quite ready for release after all despite being only hours away when last they mentioned it. THEN they released the latest patch, the one that we'd been told would only be released when it was actually going to REALLY improve the application, REALLY improve the gameplay, the graphics, the sound, the framerate ... Well it didin't did it ... it made things worse mostly and that's after they'd turned OFF some graphic features to save resource.

So, David Hayward, do YOU actually understand the purpose of a public beta test? Do you realize that a beta test is supposed to be of finished, bullet proof software? That you only release it because you're certain it's the finished product BUT you want one last mass test under real world conditions to check before GUARANTEEING it's worth? I don't think that you DO understand that and I'm CERTAIN that's not what happened here. This was mid development software released under duress and it's nowhere near ready for use by the end users.

In conclusion. We were conned. We are STILL being conned. They will NOT fix this application. Do NOT fall into the trap again and purchase the so called sequel. Open your eyes people, the game is over!

I fully expect to be banned for offering this truthful and non-troll opinion. As I said, I care passionately about the IL-2 series, and I've waited a LONG time before speaking my mind but this has now got patently obviously RIDICULOUS!

Goodbye all and good luck. See you in the ROF skies I hope.

Best wishes
Phil

[SiThSpAwN]

We are in Alpha of the Beta Patch for the graphics engine...

Alpha Test - A trial of machinery, software, or other products carried out by a developer before a product is made available for beta testing

Beta Test - A trial of machinery, software, or other products, in the final stages of its development, carried out by a party unconnected with its development

[David Hayward]

Originally Posted by Lensman_1

blah...blah...blah...

So, David Hayward, do YOU actually understand the purpose of a public beta test? Do you realize that a beta test is supposed to be of finished, bullet proof software?

blah...blah...blah...

If they thought it was a finished bullet proof product they would have released the patch. A public beta test is released so that the community can help find bugs. If you don't want to help find bugs you should not install a beta patch.

Bye!

[Fjordmonkey]

@Lensman_1: Asking for freedom of speech and democracy on a privately owned Internet-forum is like taking a piss in your pants during winter to stay warm. I.e. completely idiotic. It's their rules, their way, ALL the way. Technically you do have freedom of speech here, but then again, what you don't have here as in the real world is freedom from consequence.

Apart from that, you're not alone in supporting the company with procurements. You're not alone in being a fan. However, some of us have infinite amounts of patience, while others have not. And even those of us that doesn't have an infinite amount of patience (and there's a few of them), quite a few of those still at least try to contribute in a meaningful manner. The rest of the rabble are merely posting the same whines and rants over and over again. And some of the denizens of this plane of existence has taken to refuting those rants and whines as best as they can.

So you made a bad call in buying a game unseen and without knowing how it was beforehand like so many of us. Sorry, but the cake is still on your face much like it is on ours. You, like the rest of us, might have quacked up on that one, but stuff like that happens when we're blind to the dangers and blinded by both the hype and our own expectations.

Many of us will buy the sequel for the same reason as why we bought CLoD. We want a good WW2-flight/combatSIM, and this is the best shot at actually getting one. Sure, there's other WW2-flightgames out there, but none of those are even remotely worth calling a simulator in any way, shape or form.

[David Hayward]

By the way, Lensman_1's meltdown is an excellent example of why public beta testing is a risky proposition for a dev team.

[addman]

Originally Posted by Lensman_1

Firstly, you know what? Over the last year I've seen Tree_UK do little but state the facts, accurate facts, he's nearly always proved correct eventually and yet nonetheless there's a high number of forum members who consistently attempt to undermine him and ridicule him. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Secondly, I'm almost certainly about to get banned and I really don't care because for once I'M about to tell it how it really is.

I've been a passionate devotee of the IL-2 series since the beginning over a decade ago. I've purchased every iteration, run the software on 3 different PCs, bought Track-IR, CH-Products rudder pedals and throttle and cherish my original MS Sidewinder FF stick that has been with me all that time and flown all my simulated aircraft. I've been fully committed! I watched the progress of COD (or Battle Of Britain as it was originally known) from the earliest hints of it being worked on, I valued the DVD clips in the IL-2 1946 package, I trawled the web to find updates, I had an order in place with Play.com (UK) for YEARS (literally). When the sim was finally announced I placed an order for 2 Collector's Editions at once with UBISHOP and, despite the curious lack of revealing demo clips available on the web (odd that eh?) I still couldn't wait. I bought 2 GTX-580 gpus to run COD in the promised SLI and the promised DX-11. I was a full on fan and supporter of Oleg Maddox and his astonishing project that after so many years of development was PROMISED by 1C to be a new era in personal combat flight simulation. Then the game was released and immediately there was trouble. The epilepsy filter, the defects, the lack of SLI, the lack of DX-11, the lack of campaign mode, the appalling frame rate ... as has since been fully acknowledged by the development team the application was pushed out unfinished and in a terrible state. It was nowhere near a saleable commodity, they HAD to release it to recoup funds to continue and (as they promised) quickly fix all the issues.

Many of us felt cheated by that approach because it was obviously a con. They insisted prior to release that all was well, even after release they kept quiet about the problems until forced into a corner. It's no coincidence that the only real admission of the truth of the situation was AFTER the USA release when a lot more people had been conned and a lot more money brought into the 1C (and their backers') account.

Then they made a clean start, admitted what had happened, promised to fix it fast and asked us to please stick around and let them justify our trust and our investment. That, for the moment, appealed to me and I did indeed stick around but I didn't contribute to this forum because I wanted to wait and see what happened. Please bear in mind that in the good old days of 2001 to 2005 I was very active on the IL-2 forum and you can still see my posts there. I never courted controversy and I was never banned or warned by the moderators.

So ... in the last year what has happened?
Well, this forum is now effectively a fascist state. The moderators are completely intolerant of any legitimate criticism of the parlous state of COD and ban contributors who have PAID THEIR SALARY (if they're not volunteers) and those of the dev team. I've never seem an online community so denied free speech, democracy is NOT thriving here. This does noone any good. In that time we've also had several patches, I've applied them all, that have made minor incremental changes to aspects of the sim and virtually no improvements to the underlying issues that matter, that actually affect the immersive experience of flying an aircraft in combat. Then we got to the beyond surreal point where having not even vaguely completed the application that we've all paid a considerable amount of money for and which a year ago we got a solemn promise from the team that they wouldn't rest until our investment was justified and they'd finished the game, we're told that they're working on a SEQUEL, that we'll be expected to pay for and we'd have to wait for the engine being used for that to be completed so it can be plugged into COD. The smell of rat was getting strong now.
Even then I was patient, I believed them still, I awaited the uber-patch with great interest, I genuinely believed that they could do it. Then they kept us waiting and waiting. Weeks went into months. Then there was the propoganda of it being nearly finished and producing AMAZING results that would TRANSFORM the game's playability and quality ... oh, but then that code turned out to be full of defects and actually not quite ready for release after all despite being only hours away when last they mentioned it. THEN they released the latest patch, the one that we'd been told would only be released when it was actually going to REALLY improve the application, REALLY improve the gameplay, the graphics, the sound, the framerate ... Well it didin't did it ... it made things worse mostly and that's after they'd turned OFF some graphic features to save resource.

So, David Hayward, do YOU actually understand the purpose of a public beta test? Do you realize that a beta test is supposed to be of finished, bullet proof software? That you only release it because you're certain it's the finished product BUT you want one last mass test under real world conditions to check before GUARANTEEING it's worth? I don't think that you DO understand that and I'm CERTAIN that's not what happened here. This was mid development software released under duress and it's nowhere near ready for use by the end users.

In conclusion. We were conned. We are STILL being conned. They will NOT fix this application. Do NOT fall into the trap again and purchase the so called sequel. Open your eyes people, the game is over!

I fully expect to be banned for offering this truthful and non-troll opinion. As I said, I care passionately about the IL-2 series, and I've waited a LONG time before speaking my mind but this has now got patently obviously RIDICULOUS!

Goodbye all and good luck. See you in the ROF skies I hope.

Best wishes
Phil

+1 Phil. Look at that everybody a community member that's been around for while and doesn't trash post all the time, offering his opinion of the state of CloD, this my friend is one of the "silent majority" that people like to talk about.

Don't worry Phil, if they release BoM it will totally bomb because nobody except a handful of deluded fanatics will buy it. If you'd asked me 6 months ago or so if I cared about the success of this new series I would've said "YES" hesitantly, ask me today I would simply answer I DON'T REALLY CARE ANYMORE. The devs are full of it and 1c is full of it. I will care again if some other developer takes over or start a new flight combat series (highly unlikely but I can live with those odds).

The devs actually reminds me of a certain type of firecrackers that we had when where kids. These "special" firecrackers were cheap but they didn't go off sometimes, sometimes the fuse would burn all the way down but they still wouldn't explode. Sometimes the fuse would burn out so quickly we didn't have time to throw them away and they'd go off in our hands, ouch! Some of them had fuses that wouldn't even burn. We called these firecrackers "Russians"......

[David Hayward]

Originally Posted by furbs

Meltdown? I would bet he speaks for a lot of people on this forum.

Epic meltdown. If he's speaking for you, I assume you're also leaving?

[Pudfark]

.....+1



I'm sure others could