Online Squadrons playing CLOD

[aus3620]

Interesting comment Chivas re separate SSD for CLOD. Might give that a go in the future.

The online squad I am associated with (the RAAF Squad) has about 25% CLoD enthusiasts and 75% we'll stick with 1946 (for all the usual reasons argued on the forum). We still have "all in" 1946 evenings so we can fly together, although it (1946) does have a "cartoon" feel after CLoD (yeah, yeah I know - stability, CTD, comms, etc). (btw my gunnery in 1946 has improved after flying CLoD, much more challenging in CLoD I would suggest).

The introduction of a new title can be a watershed moment for some players - take the opportunity to try something else, wait till they upgrade hardware, patch up the relationship with the bride, etc. But to say that CLoD was the singular cause for an outfit to fall apart is a bit short sighted I would suggest.

While I enjoy CLoD and prefer to play it I do understand the 1946ers argument for "squad" activity. Hopefully, the next patch will go some way to addressing some of the concerns. One may need the patience of Job but I am optimistic about the future of the series. I note that even Team D is having patch problems, such is life in software development. (Looks like some nice development work on the AI - nice work Team D).

[Bewolf]

I dare say that the descision to coninue to play a long standing, exisiting Sim opposed to switching to a new one has more factors involved but the state of the new release. I remember back in the days when CoD was still due to be released many players stating they will wait until the new series sports a similiar amount of aircraft and theatres as IL2 1946 did (notwithstanding it took IL2 1946 more then 10 years to get where it is now).

As others already said, the more choice you have, the more likely it is that people will take different preferences, pretty natural.

Personally, I am a WW2 geek, played 1946 like crazy back in it's day but for the love of it can't go back there now. CoD simply put the bar too high for 46 to compete in regards to FM, DM and graphics. But I am sure others will have different priorities. As aus3620 already said, pointing fingers here in the line of "CoD destroyed my squad" is a bit simple.

[FS~Phat]

I think the loss of squad pilots has a lot more to do with the fact that a lot of people were hanging out playing 46 in anticipation of CLOD, and when it finally came out, a lot of squads already had lower participation from various factors.

Let me list a few;

• Life sometimes just gets too busy
• Splitting community from the different mod versions of 46
• Complexity of getting 46 mods working (not everyone flying is an IT geek)
• LOTS of other worthwhile games coming out
• Going a bit stale from 10 years of almost the same thing over and over
• CLOD not working as well on some systems as people were hoping
• Some people like me just decided to have a break until some of the teething problems were sorted with CLOD

I wouldn't worry too much, a lot of those people will be back, especially if it's in your blood...

So i dont think you cant point the blame squarely at CLOD for people leaving squads, its a broader set of issues.

[klem]

Our Squad was already split by IL-2 vanilla/mods as far as preference was concerned but we bit the bullet and continued in vanilla '46 so that we could continue to fly together. Just making the point that we are committed to the Squad and eachother to a large extent.

When CoD came out it fragmented us badly, largely due to the basic playability/bugs of the game which put a lot of our guys off and also due to the PC spec requirements which even now, generally speaking, need to be at the high end. As a result we had only about 25% of our regulars flying in CoD. A few stayed in '46, one or two simply stopped flying and curiously the majority of the rest went to RoF, temporarily as it turned out. I guess we were all just ready for a new sim after so many years in IL-2.

However following release of the last CoD patch and some more of our guys upgrading their PCs we now have 14 guys able to fly in CoD. Of these 11 fly regularly but include 4 new guys (only 7 'old hands' regulars). Another 2 old hands have only just become CoD capable so should be regulars soon. 2 more old hands can fly CoD but aren't regulars due to life's commitments.

So we have about 70% of the old hands converted to CoD plus 4 new guys.

Having said that we still aren't happy with some fundamental flaws like the memory leak, disappearing dots and, to a lesser extent, the FMs which desperately need sorting out.

But its positive and improving.

Im certainly not pointing all the blame at CLOD, but had it worked correctly out of the box I am certain there would be at least 10 times the amount of people playing online right now than there currently is, Its seems so sad that what was advertised as the next generation of flight sims actually killed so many peoples interest in flying, and 10 months on nothing as really changed or been fixed since release.

[carguy_]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

I vividly remember the same thing happening with '46 between mods and no-mods fliers, then the same thing being announced by some people on the Spits vs 109s forums when RoF was released, to the tune of "i'll be flying mostly the new sim from now on", etc.

Yes, well as far as I remember, half of my squad (me included) stopped playing IL2 altoghether when mods came out.

It's not that unusual and until each new sim reaches a level of completeness that satisfies everyone (and to be fair, most sims don't get released in a state that qualifies as "complete" and it takes a year or so of patching to flesh things out), people will naturally gravitate to whatever suits them best. It does mix things up for all involved, but there's nothing strange about it really.

The problem is, there is hardly anything in CloD to gather new pilots around. Generic coops rooms were really popular, as there were lots of people hosting those, open for everyone. Online wars were a long evolution of this idea and a place for people who wanted something more (eg. a pilot career). As it is now, people, maybe even majority of IL2 players, just don`t have a reason to use CloD online.

Judging from what Luthier says, we don`t even know if we can hope for something even remotely similar to IL2 happen with CloD.

[SEE]

CloD is my first experience working with groups/squads. One of the problems I noticed (when working with a number of players) is the performance drops drastically on my system. You invariably end up with quite a lot of ac in a confined combat area comprising enemy, friendly, AI bomber groups, Flak, Tracers, etc and it ends up in a slide show or the infamous Launcher crash.

Its even worse if the action is at low to medium altitudes where many of the MP confrontations seem to take place.

The next update is expected to improve performance - I hope so anyway.

[tintifaxl]

We switched from IL2-1946 to Arma2, so we can keep playing together. Most of the guys have bought CloD but shelved it at some point or the other, as I have done for now.