Friday 2010-10-01 Dev. update and Discussion

[ElAurens]

Great post Freycinet. 100% spot on.

[brando]

Thank you, Freycinet.

It's good to hear a voice of logical reasoning in amongst the onslaught of requests for visual perfection and total accuracy. <S>

Brando

[Insuber]

Freycinet,

Well said. You argumented very well the opinion of many of us ...

[Baron]

+ 100

[Nattulv]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

Exactly. I like fliying full switch, but in order for "new blood" to come in and stick with flight simming, we need to entice them with relaxed difficulty settings and a way to gradually transition to the higher ones, trying to smooth out the learning curve so to speak.

I always used to fly full switch, except from single player where i like playing with externals on for enjoying the visuals and snapping screenshots. I have been flying full switch since i was 12, now i'm 30. During these 18 years however, there's a whole lot of difficulty and complexity added to what "full switch" means. Flying full switch in Red Baron or Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe which i used to fly on my first 286 PC is probably like flying -20% difficulty in IL2.

I had the fortune to come into the flight sim hobby relatively early, almost from the ground floor. As PCs got stronger the simulators were able to model more complexities and evolve, the main thing being that i could gradually adjust to the changes and learn over the course of months or years...from S.W.O.T.L and Red Baron, to Aces of the Pacific and Aces over Europe, to 1942: the pacific air war, to Red Baron II/3D, European Air War and B17:the mighty 8th to IL2.

It didn't happen overnight and the reason i stuck with it is that initially, as a 12 year old kid, i could fly my Albatross or P47 over finely rendered pixelated and blocky fields and actually win in many occasions, but even if i didn't win it managed to be balanced, encouraging and alluding to what i had read in the history books. This is what draws people in initially.

Today, as a jaded veteran of the sim hobby all i think about is technical accuracy and fidelity. It's ok, we evolve in the course of pursuing a hobby. However, you can't make a convert out of a 12 year old by teaching him about the proper operation of the internal combustion engine. The way you can entice him is by suspending disbelief and making it easy for him to step into the shoes of someone else from the safety of his small, dark room that glows with the flicker of the screen and resonates with the humming of case fans at 3am, sneaking in one more sortie with the headphones on because it's Sunday night, tomorrow is a school day and mom will throw a fit if she finds out you're "playing those pretend-pilot games again".

For me, i want a SoW that is as realistic as possible. I don't want it to default to the lowest common denominator, difficulty-wise. I want to be surprised, frustrated, overwhelmed and scared the first time i fire it up, set everything to 100% and go on my first QMB sortie to sample the goods.

For the survival of flight sims however, i want an options panel that can dumb it down as far as it goes to attract that new generation of the 12 year olds of today's world...the "new blood" will take it upon themselves to start enabling the options as time goes by, learn the proper way to do things and come shoot us down in a few years

Absolutly brilliant post
This mirrors my own experiance even if i have a handful of years more under my belt since birth. The line of sims he followed is the very same one I progress through too, with a few additions.

[philip.ed]

Freycinet, you neglect the fact that our views on how the sim should look are largely based around current models/sims. IMO, if SoW is to achieve graphically it should be the best in all departments (I'm focusing on graphics here) whilst your post sounds great, it is flawed in this sense.
For example, the current terrain doesn't look as good as RoF (or WoP although this is debateable). It may look different at Oleg's end, but from the shots shown to us that's my opinion. The grass and objects are completely different, they blew me away, but from a distance the terrain lacks realism IMO. I think this is due to the contrast of the tree colour with the texture colour, but also because the textures look quite low-res. I agree with the clouds; but whilst the texture may not need to be changed, the model of the clouds (IMO) is wrong, and based around my scientific evidence this is true. Editing the model should not be too much of a job I don't think, and in any case should not impact on FPS.
I think the FPS issue is a good point, but clearly in SoW it's the FM and DM models which will be limiting fps, as from what you've said they'll be impacting on the eye-candy available

An interesting concept; no doubt about that!

[Freycinet]

Most of the above posting was unintelligible to me, but I think I understood the last phrase:

Originally Posted by philip.ed

I think the FPS issue is a good point, but clearly in SoW it's the FM and DM models which will be limiting fps, as from what you've said they'll be impacting on the eye-candy available

I think there are some basic issues about making a flight sim that you don't understand.

Every single element of the sim takes processor cycles and therefore impacts FPS.

Rendering textures is one thing, FM, DM are other things, and several calculations and processes "under the hood" such as AI impact the fps as well. If we all had Craig supercomputers we could just pile it on, but we don't and we can't.

[philip.ed]

That's exactly what I meant! SoW seems so advanced, that it will probably limit how high we can turn the graphics up. My point is, the terrain we've seen looks worse than RoF, so if this is as high as we can turn it up without limiting the amount of planes etc then IMO this will mean that (in the short term) certain aspects of the game may not live up to everyone's expectations.
Of course, this may not be 100% true (as most of the game is still being worked on and will be post-release) so of course the terrain is by no means final. The same goes for the clouds too.

[Azimech]

I won't mind playing with settings at minimal if I can enjoy full functionality, FM and DM. Someday I'll build a new PC.

At worst it will probably look like IL2.

[ATAG_Snapper]

Originally Posted by Freycinet

Lovely clouds in the Wellington shot, btw. Spasiba for this weeks' update!

I'm late to the party here (this is the same Snapper from Air Warrior & Fighter Duel days) -- but I gotta say those clouds ARE breathtaking!!!!