making CloD a success

[Stublerone]

@bliss: but what you also have to see is, that approx. about 80% of former pilots are simply not playing clod until it is flyable. So the number of sufficient coop evenings will raise up later (hopefully). It sure was mainly provided by the comunity and third party in the past, but it will be great to have it easier at all. U must also think of the fact, that the source code was cracked or made available, so that the com had more possibilties. I do not see that in clod and it will be very difficult for any creator to max out the possibilities in this more complicated game.

What I want to say is, that everything is welcome, to do things easier directly from the original game. I would appreciate any ways to make the whole gui more handy and that there are no differences in mission types. Jist make every ingame plane flyable from the beginning in the gui, no matter what mission type.

It would be a good start..

[furbs]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Bliss

The difference is huge. In one scenario people have to join a server to start at the same time, in the other scenario, the server makes you start at the same time.

What a deal breaker eh?

You'd think if 12 people wanted to play a coop they'd all be on coms and just say "everyone ready"? "Ok, lets go" and all go flying together. If the lack of the current GUI is the excuse for people not flying coops all I can do is laugh.

And as this thread pertains to HL, I've yet to see any big event COOP war EVER on HL. Every COOP I joined was a basic meet in the middle and shoot at each other with random people, none of which were probably on coms.

@carguy - I'm fully aware of SEOW and the likes, but those weren't hosted on HL (the point of this discussion in the 1st place) That is a completely different animal and one that vanilla IL2 could never do. The online Wars were all made 3rd party including the software to make it possible.

Bliss, you just cant help yourself can you?

HL hosted over 4000 missions for VEF.

16 vs 16 people plus AI flights, ground targets, recon missions, CAP missions.

Im not going to start going over this again, Bliss i get it "you" dont like them or want to play them, but can you not understand other people prefer COOP's for certain situations?
These people, mostly squad members want them, so why cant you get it?
you dont have to fly them, but we want to.

[ATAG_Bliss]

Originally Posted by Ataros

1. AI does not wait for human players and flies away.
2. Harder to limit available aircraft and control correct numbers of limited aircraft.
3. Harder to make all people start at the same time (avoid cheating with earlier start) in a competitive situation.

Of cause other issues the game had also made coops unpopular. No one has even started working on a coop-based online war AFAIK. One or 2 squads use Banks' COOP lobby that eliminates above issues but others consider it too complicates to press keyboard keys in game instead of clicking a mouse in GUI.

Starting this week sukhoi.ru plans 12 vs. 12 scenarios to be played on weekends with preliminary registration (in DF mode). Maybe coop enthusiasts would want to organize something similar here. Enough human bombers may register to avoid using AI at all.

1. AI will fly in formation with any human as long as they are setup as a group in the mission. You can use as large or small of formation as you like without a single waypoint. By doing this the AI simply flies in a circle at the altitude you have preset for them. As humans hop into the AI positions (again when set as a group) the AI mask the human movements to a letter. So when more humans join in they are still flying in formation. If you do this with single planes (not groups) obviously this doesn't work.

2. Yes and No. This limit can all be scripted or at the very least, you could simply use AI planes as your spawn points. (See #1) When there's no more planes to spawn into a particular group, you have to choose another group to get into.

3. I agree. It's harder, but again using the AI method. When you hop in you'll still be in formation with the group of the 1st person that spawned in (IE - no advantage)

[ATAG_Bliss]

Originally Posted by furbs

Bliss, you just cant help yourself can you?

HL hosted over 4000 missions for VEF.

16 vs 16 people plus AI flights, ground targets, recon missions, CAP missions.

Im not going to start going over this again, Bliss i get it "you" dont like them or want to play them, but can you not understand other people prefer COOP's for certain situations?
These people, mostly squad members want them, so why cant you get it?
you dont have to fly them, but we want to.

Then fly them right now. If you really wanted to you would. I guarantee I could get 16 members of ATAG on coms and we could fly a COOP mission where we all started at the same time.

As I've already stated, if you can't fly a COOPerative mission RIGHT NOW. It's because you don't want to. Not because the game won't allow you to.

Would you care to wager $100 that I could make a mission where we all started at the same time and flew a COOP mission? Because I guarantee I could make it work. Put your money where your mouth is or you're simply arguing to argue as you don't have the 1st clue about anything in this game.

[csThor]

The difference is simple: Bliss sees a battlefield as a fluid environment with surprise developments and multiple time scales whereas the fans of the old Coop format essentially want a team-based "Meet in the middle and let's have it out there". That has a lot more similarities to a sports match with a level field and a defined starting point, though.

I doubt we will see a Coop format in the way people are used to it. For that the basic mission format of the current engine is too open and universal. It does no longer produce a self-containing "sandbox" for that one mission but provides the basic characteristics of a dedicated server for both offline and online. Changing that back to a "canned format" looks like a very tall order in my uninformed eyes.

[Ataros]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Bliss

1. AI will fly in formation with any human as long as they are setup as a group in the mission. You can use as large or small of formation as you like without a single waypoint. By doing this the AI simply flies in a circle at the altitude you have preset for them. As humans hop into the AI positions (again when set as a group) the AI mask the human movements to a letter. So when more humans join in they are still flying in formation. If you do this with single planes (not groups) obviously this doesn't work.

If I understand correctly this will not work for non-flyable AI like Wellingtons? Also when hosting a coop it is not known in advance if anyone will fly bombers thus it is necessary to set waypoints even for flyable bombers and they will fly away.

The easiest way is still to use Banks' COOP-Lobby IMO:

1. copy any coop or offline mission to a missions folder
2. copy Banks' script to the same folder
3. rename the script file to match the name of mission file
4. GO.

Maybe after patch when crashes are fixed more people test it and provide feedback and bugreports.

[ATAG_Bliss]

Originally Posted by Ataros

If I understand correctly this will not work for non-flyable AI like Wellingtons? Also when hosting a coop it is not known in advance if anyone will fly bombers thus it is necessary to set waypoints even for flyable bombers and they will fly away.

The easiest way is still to use Banks' COOP-Lobby IMO:

1. copy any coop or offline mission to a missions folder
2. copy Banks' script to the same folder
3. rename the script file to match the name of mission file
4. GO.

Maybe after patch when crashes are fixed more people test it and provide feedback and bugreports.

I'm only talking about spawning. The rest of the mission's AI planes (if are being used can be blocked from jumping into) For even easier access to spawning you can make a single spawn point for red and blue where the planes being spawned into are with 15km of that point. That way when chosen the only options you have to spawn into are the groups you put into that vicinity. That will not affect any other bombers, AI as part of the mission, etc.

I agree with what Banks has done and hopefully he can make it absolutely idiot proof in the future. But if you know how the game works, setting up a way to start at the same time, in the air, in formation, is really easy to do without a single line of code. Even better is an AI formation on the ground with a timeout command. That way all ground starts are also lined up with plenty of time for humans to jump into them so everyone can start at the same time.

[JG5_emil]

Oh yes I can just see it...The Luftwaffe take off to fly to their pre designated target and then decide to split up and fly 50 ft off the deck over the enemy airfield until they are all shot down. That's pretty much what happens on a DF server because people generally join them for a quick combat fix.

This is a ludicrous argument. Just because you can fly as you would on a coop in a DF server doesn't make it a coop. More functionality is going to attract more people in from IL2 and other sims. If people want COOPS (and they do) then give it to them. The more people that are playing CLOD the more everyone benefits. What do you think people do when they aren't waiting for a COOP? Yes they join a DF server.

Don't get me wrong as DF servers go ATAG is great (not great ping for me in the UK) but it isn't a COOP and I can't see it as more realistic either. On numerous occasions I fly around at 6k looking for targets and in the end just like everyone else I get bored and go and hover over Hawkinge where I know nearly everyone else is. Sometimes I escort a bomber formation and if I am lucky I see a single RAF aircraft come to intercept. The reason for this is because a DF server has the freedom to do what you want so that is what people do. I am yet to see coordinated battles at altitude over a 20-30 bomber formation in fact I am yet to see more than 2 RAF aircraft flying together at altitude (the same applies to the LW).

The point of a COOP is to simulate an aerial battle using the limited resources of everyones CPU and the limited number of people that can join. This way you get the feeling of being part of the big battle and you guarantee that everyone gets to feel like they were a part of it. The map is way too big for 50 people to be scattered to the winds.

P.S RE the Banks COOP Lobby. You can't have everyone chose their own load outs unfortunately. We tested it and it does work pretty well but the loadout issue is a problem especially for the RAF pilots. Hoping to get some time off work to spend some more time on it.

[ATAG_Doc]

Originally Posted by csThor

I doubt we will see a Coop format in the way people are used to it. For that the basic mission format of the current engine is too open and universal. It does no longer produce a self-containing "sandbox" for that one mission but provides the basic characteristics of a dedicated server for both offline and online. Changing that back to a "canned format" looks like a very tall order in my uninformed eyes.

I think you hit the nail square on the head.

As I said in a previous post I have a feeling we'll see people - like today that design skins and give them away - missions built to extreme detail and very accurate sold and licensed for use on multi-player host. I may be wrong but I can see it happening. Remember no one saw the iPad 5-6 years ago either.

[JG52Uther]

Thousands of people in hundreds of squads flew coop online wars for ten years in il2.
CoD needs to get those people back.