hello luthier!

[Heliocon]

Originally Posted by SYN_Bliss

I waited 7 months in ROF just to be able to play a MP mission for longer than 10 minutes without a server crash or a master browser crash. I waited 2 years for them to fix an annoying ROF.exe error that would have you crash to desktop when an AI spawned. Now we just happily crash to desktop when a new mission loads. Still not fixed!

IL2COD is 100x the game engine ROF will ever be. The current mission I'm running has well over 200 AI and 15,000 objects in it. Go ahead and put 200 planes in a ROF mission and see if it will even load. Go ahead and put 500 objects in one see how long before it crashes the dedicated server when 40 people are playing.

ROF's potential is used up. Only a complete and utter redesign of their game engine (which they've admitted) will change that. If I wanted to make a bridge from one side of England through the English Channel to the other side of France I simply put it on the map in IL2. That's 100's of miles of bridge. Do you think the IL2 engine has any problem doing something like that? Now how about we add an invasion fleet of 300 tanks that drives over this bridge to invade England. Now how bout we put a few 1000 objects on the airfields to make them look alive. Then lets add several hundred AI bombers to go bomb the crap out of something. Then, heck, lets go ahead and even let players play on it. Guess what will happen? People will see a huge invasion fleet crossing the English Channel and go "lol @ Bliss"

The point in all of this, is the fact that you couldn't stack 50 bridges next to each other in ROF without the server having a seizure, let alone even think about having any amount of AI over the single digit category in a full ROF MP server, (and when I mean full about 46 players is all it will take before the server will crash). ROF is great for what it is. And it's an FPS plane shooter with some very good attention to detail on the planes. You exit the planes and you're left with a barren wasteland of emptyness. No amounts of coaxing through the Mission Editor will ever change that. No huge full scale representation of WWI will ever happen with ROF. There's people that have actually made complex scripts in ROF that will make a flak gun despawn unless there is an enemy plane around. In other words, this is done just to try to keep the game running.

For many people, that's just fine. For me, it's not. I get as much enjoyment from what's actually under the hood of a flight sim as to what's on the surface. And once you've made a few missions with ROF's ME and then go to IL2's FMB, you'll find ROF's editor isn't even in the same league or same planet for that matter as the FMB. There's more static objects to add life to missions like buckets and gas cans in the FMB than every single individual object in all of ROF's ME combined. Not only can I rotate any object I want, I can place then any height, I can cut away sections of the ground, deconstruct the map. I can do virtually anything I want in the FMB.
If I want to make a trench 5 feet deep and have it go across all of England I can.

Considering WWI was a huge ground war, you'd think you might have some ground objects right? Well, think again.

This is what potential is. This is what a real sim engine can do. Do you think I'm worried about a wrong prop pitch lever, a plane that doesn't perform correctly, brakes that don't work, or bad sound? Hell do you even think I'm worried about textures that don't load right? Heck no, because all of that stuff scratch the surface of what's underneath. And what's underneath is beyond amazing.

There's more going on in a JU88 cockpit than every single plane in ROF combined. And don't even get me started on the DM. Last time I checked I could still lawn dart a spad into the ground at 200mph and the plane looks like it could actually be fixed. You can't even damage a cockpit in ROF. It takes 4 bullets, yes 4 bullets to kill a pilot in ROF. It doesn't matter if you hit him point blank in the head from a stationary gunner - 4 bullets every time. You know what it takes in 10 year old IL2 and new IL2? 1 bullet to the head. ROF just only recently introduced an effect to make it look like your plane was leaking fuel or smoking. Old IL2 has had stuff like this forever. The FM is ROF is very nice. It does feel like you are actually flying, even though there are several planes that have needed a FM revision for over 2 years now.

So next time you even think about whining in here. Take it from someone who has one of the longest lasting dedicated servers on ROF and from someone who went through all the growing pains in that sim. Comparing the 2 is very laughable. One is an all around war sim. The other is, quite simply, an FPS plane sim featuring WWI planes.

And what I've talked about just breaks the surface of what's under the hood of IL2COD. I'm not even getting into the never ending moving front line dynamic online campaigns, or how you can virtually script up ANYTHING you want to have happen in a mission. And all this stuff works now, even in it's buggy unfinished state.

People have a very valid reason to complain for lots of bugs and problems. But I've been waiting for this for a very long time now, all because of what I wrote above. There's vehicle controls in options sections for a reason. This is going to be the ultimate all around on the ground and in the air sim in the future. No other sim will come close. No other sim can even do 1/2 of what this game engine can currently. Worried? Whining? Hell no. Enthusiastically waiting for the future and another patch.

But hey, maybe you can go back over to the ROF forums and tell them they should at least be able to model the different machine guns on their planes. Aren't there only like 3 or 4 guns total in WWI fighters? Yet they all have the same rate of fire and same ammo? Let me guess, maybe after 4 years after release they'll fix that as well? Nah, probably not. They have to work on making compasses or fuel gauges to sell.

Now even after all that you'd think I hate the game. Well I own every single plane and field mod. It is the most expensive sim I've ever played. But don't go and try to compare the 2 here. It's laughable. ROF plays much smoother than IL2COD, but I'd wager a guess that will soon change.

1. Money to continue develpment and expansions comes from where?
2. How many people will buy an expansion or put more $ down on the game when there first experience is a total screw up?
3. How many fans and followers will have moved on in their life by the time we see that type of progress? Probably a good portion will be doing other things, but the game will still be stuck with the horrible reputation it has built.

[ATAG_Bliss]

Originally Posted by Heliocon

1. Money to continue develpment and expansions comes from where?
2. How many people will buy an expansion or put more $ down on the game when there first experience is a total screw up?
3. How many fans and followers will have moved on in their life by the time we see that type of progress? Probably a good portion will be doing other things, but the game will still be stuck with the horrible reputation it has built.

1.) It depends. Initial funding for a project usually has nothing to do with the customer. Getting that money back does though.

2.) Judging by the amount of years the community has with the original IL2 (many 10+ years and growing), I'd say if you are flight simmer especially a WWII simmer, most of the people will know what to expect from a finished Maddox flight sim. I don't think getting support for it will be any problem at all. You're also the one calling it a screw up. I'm calling it what it is. Unfinished. The original IL2 is a WIP that keeps evolving. This new one is the same exact way. In 3 months we've had a few fairly decent patches that now make the game playable for most. They are working on a completely new sound engine and constantly improving performance and bugs. I can't really ask for more than that at this point. But I also bought it knowing full well what it will turn out for in the future, not for what it is out of the box. I'm fine with being a beta tester.

3.)It will take quite a long time to tarnish the IL2 series name. Their reputation as having one of the longest lasting, most popular flight sims of all time, is still there.