Im confused

[philip.ed]

The reason the WoP/BoP maps are small are because a) it's for an audience who don't want hours of flying but mainly because they are based heavily on aerial shots and so are aimed to be as near to the exact look as the area would have been in WW2. I have heard people say the can follow streets in some of the maps to find their houses or their parents houses.
also I think processing power may be a part of it as well...

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by philip.ed

The reason the WoP/BoP maps are small are because a) it's for an audience who don't want hours of flying but mainly because they are based heavily on aerial shots and so are aimed to be as near to the exact look as the area would have been in WW2. I have heard people say the can follow streets in some of the maps to find their houses or their parents houses. also I think processing power may be a part of it as well....

consoles dont use smaller maps because they want to make the maps "better" (then pc's), they are limited by smaller maps because of their hardware limitations (and because they are aimed at an audience with limited attention span that wants instant gratification, and so this doesnt matter much to their average customer). technically consoles just dont have the cpu/gpu power to produce very high detailed objects in large maps as required for a decent full featured flightsim.

these console games, and the WOP like transplants, are also mainly intended/made for lower resolutions on big display, and it is a specific "feature" they use to maximize frame rates. its a fallacy consoles perform better then pc's (when comparing an up to date gamer pc to most consoles now available). when you occasionally see some high end multi monitor console setup, as is done for some racing games, they will use one console to drive each screen (sometimes even more then that iirc).

when you look closer at at WoP, there is only one altitude/distance the scenery look "good" at (medium altitude) , and even then it looks somewhat cartoonish and as if the scenery is painted with "low resolution" water colors on a single flat canvas. and when you get close to the ground and see buildings and trees up close these limitations become even more obvious. in the same way, the cockpits and aircraft look less good then even the latest oleg planes released with 1946 version of il2 (not to speak of those we have seen so far for BoB).

its a nice game for what it is, and helps introduce new people to flightsims (and made money for the company), after that stage it quickly runs into some serious limitations which are "built into" the game which are largely caused by its console origin

[philip.ed]

That may be a part, but WoP is for the PC (so in some sense it shouldn't be limited to poor textures) but the maps were meticulously designed and are limited in size due to their accuracy I can remember aerial photos being posted by the WoP/BoP team with a half-and-half image showing part photograph part screenshot from the map I'd be interested to know if maps for WoP could be expanded.