Reviewing Luthier's roadmap

[tintifaxl]

Originally Posted by carguy_

Just out of curiosity, where have you seen a game that has a stellar, frequent dev-community communication? What are your real life comparisons, that make you realise that there is "lack of feedback"?

Take a look at the DCS forum. But I think you knew that already

[klem]

A good roundup jimbob. Its a shame this thread couldn't have remained uncluttered/diverted and run alongside Insuber's excellent effort on bug reporting although in a sense his 'improvements' listing could serve as a basis for a roadmap. A nice try at a positive approach, foundered on the rocks of the usual OT opinionating. It might still work if we ignore 'those' posts and you keep your original post updated with the useful contributions if you can weed them out.

Here's my contribution to add to their existing unfinished work (SLi etc) and yours:

1. Improve FPS and playability by replacing Trees. I suggest Forest 'blocks' with damage-effect instead of indivdual trees with none. And I don't care if the branches don't wave around.

2. Ref FMB Manual, if that's too large a project for now give us a guide including some scripting code block samples to work with.

3. Work even now with Nvidia, AMD and Naturalpoint for them all to optimise the game.


However, as the thread has become what it is and as it relates to a Roadmap in the sense of knowing what's happening, I'd say that Blackdog hits the nail on the head again but I would disagree on one point. The level of disappointment/frustration does call for a locked thread from Luthier to give us his latest roadmap followed by a weekly progress update. No-one can deny that we are on the poor end of this and, having paid for it, a brief weekly update would keep all the paid up customers at least informed if not happy. I say a locked thread because I want to know from the horses mouth and not have it drowned in pages and pages of other people's opinions. I just want to know what's happening not what everyone else thinks, there are pages and pages of other threads for that.

Surely having to do a reinstall everytime a patch comes out is ludicrous? We shouldnt be wiping anything. Is it a steam fault as files are not being replaced properly or is it the game not redirecting updates correctly to the right places?

[Blackdog_kt]

What actually happened is that they got rid of a bunch of legacy settings in the .ini files that were leftovers from the pre-release testing times.

This happened 2-3 patches ago but steam doesn't include the documents folders in its patching routine, so it's perfectly possible to be running a current patch with outdated configuration files.

The way it seems to work is that the .ini files in the main game folder (steam\steamapps\common\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover) are used as an initial "blank" and when you run the sim they are copied over to the documents\1c softclub\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover folder. From that point on, whatever change you make in your controls, on-screen overlay windows and so on are stored in those .ini files within the documents folders.

The way to correct it is delete both sets of files and have steam do a file integrity check. This will pull the up to date .ini files and place them in the main game folder, then when you run the sim it will copy them to the documents sub-folder. From that point on you have updated files.

You will need to reapply your realism settings, controls and graphics options. To save you some time, it's possible to go to the controls options screen and save your keymaps to a separate file before you go about deleting and validating files. Then, after you get the new .ini files you can load that custom file back in the sim, its structure is compatible with the new .ini files, to save you the time of having to redo all your controls.

[furbs]

*timesink on* yep, because you should have to do all that with every patch on every sim.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Tiger27

Have you tried a full re-install from steam, most people have seen a large improvement since the early patches, I know CoD has lots of issues but I would suggest in this case the problem may be at your end, worth a try, if you have enough spare bandwidth to download the files again.

Yes, I just did this a after latest patch... Still no AA, still FPS drop since 2 patches ago, Still studders since 2 patches ago. Also, noticed deteriorating performance if I play a mission and then play another one afterward.

Performance was poor last time I tried MP too. Game worked great before 2 patches ago. I have a high end computer. I'm just worried because the 4 items mentioned above are not found anywhere on the devs "to do" list. They did mention "comparatively minor" performance items to be fixed in 2 months time but these don't seem minor to me.

I don't mind waiting for them to be fixed if they take a while but it seems as if they aren't working on them.

-Gollum

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by furbs

*timesink on* yep, because you should have to do all that with every patch on every sim.

Maybe i didn't make myself clear enough, so let's clarify. This is NOT required for every patch. It's only required ONCE if you installed the sim before mid-May or thereabouts and not at all if you installed at a later date, since you have the latest version through Steam. Hope it helps, cheers

[furbs]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

Maybe i didn't make myself clear enough, so let's clarify. This is NOT required for every patch. It's only required ONCE if you installed the sim before mid-May or thereabouts and not at all if you installed at a later date, since you have the latest version through Steam. Hope it helps, cheers

My most humble and sincere apologies. *bows out gracefully and retires*

[Ataros]

Originally Posted by tintifaxl

Take a look at the DCS forum. But I think you knew that already

Try to think about it. Communication costs are covered from marketing budget by a publisher. DCS and ROF devs are the publishers at the same time. You pay them directly and they have the whole amount of your payment to cover both development and marketing expenditures including international forums and communication with community.

MG and 1C get only a part of your money which is supposed to cover only development expenditure. 1C also gets the publisher's part but only from sales in Russia as they are publishers for Russia only. UBI is the publisher for the rest of the world. You paid UBI for forums, community manager, support, internet site, etc. If you are not happy with communication feel free to demand improvements from UBI at UBI forums.

All communication you get from the devs at this 1C forums is a bonus compliment and 1C and luthier's goodwill only including the forums themselves. We are just lucky that 1C has international forum for other games it publishes abroad and that luthier speaks English by chance.

I would not be surprised if luthier would visit these forums more and more seldom as his goodwill is not perceived correctly.

[whatnot]

Originally Posted by philip.ed

@Bongo; the reason why they are still posting is because they want the game to succeed; isn't it obvious? If everyone was a devoted 'fan-boi' there would be no constructuve criticism, so the devs would be lulled into a situation where they thought that everyone was happy with the sim. Most poeple aren't happy with the sim; they're just content with the possiblity that the sim could become something great (if pushed in the right direction).
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Luthier himself has advocated constructive criticism. The only times that criticsm breaks down and becomes de-constructive is when there is a major silence from the devs, indicating that they are either unaware of the community, or immune to it. I doubt both of these examples are true, but people won't stop being 'negative' until there is official word on all areas of the sim under the spotlight.

What exactly in postings like:

I started posting in this thread, then I realised I have not played Clod since the last patch and to be honest I no longer care if it is fixed. The game is shelved next to my copy of Silent Hunter 5.
Team Dalious are doing wonders with Il2 and honestly outshining the crowd here.

Helps the game succeed or is constructive? I agree that it's important to share the concerns, bugs and dissapointments in an attempt to influence and inform the dev team. Maybe you should post them even a few times to make sure they're acknowledged by atleast someone.

But lurking around the forums repeating the same mantra over and over again, or as in this case: just hanging around to be able to post that you don't play the game anymore is just sad. What the hell can one achieve with that except to look for revenge of some sort to dry the tears.

But there is no denying that the biggest fail has been communication. Maybe it's a known decision as the percentage in these forums are just a drop in the ocean compared to the masses not worth the effort, maybe it's just inability to do a decent customer service which is not unheard of with dev teams. Whatever it is, it's a fail.