Is COD still a flight simulator ?

[ATAG_MajorBorris]

Beowolf makes a good point that the added content will realy only be as good as we make it.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by Verhängnis

It is going to be the one thing that wargaming.net isn't creating! A World of War simulator!

Honestly though I don't see what it matters when the priorities of coders, modellers and the entire development team is focused on the Flight Simulation aspect. The way I see it is that right now they are focusing on alot of coding problems and it appears that drivable vehicles had always been coded in since the beginning but just not implemented, the ground vehicles controls' listed being a fine example. The vehicles were already finished aswell, and possibly so were the interiors, it would not make sense to go and find resources on a vehicle and not get the interior while you were there.

Chancing a guess; even if the coders were needed, then possibly code was just adapted from the aircraft code, to work with the ground objects, obviously some new things were done, but they musn't have taken overly long. The ability to drive vehicles is a nice extra and the movie makers and mission designers are going to love it, obviously it won't draw the FPS crowd in to buy the sim, and that is not the point of it. As it is always said in the modding crowd for 1946; it adds a new dimension to the sim. Besides, if not now, it would have come at a later date anyway either from 1C or third party modders, as it has for 1946.

Although I don't know why, I am still waiting for my Su-26... But still looking forward to it's anticipated arrival! So to answer your question:

Yes. But now, it's even more immersive and simulating of a simulated war, and nothing great like this has really been done before.

Pretty much my take on things overall. It's not like work has been dropped on the flight aspect, it's more like a case of "hey, this was in from the beginning but we couldn't turn it on because of low graphics performance, now that graphics are optimized we can finally enable it".

Seems to me more like a tech demo of what is possible with the engine, rather than a new direction that will materialize at the expense of everything else.

I mean, i've probably seen every single development update through all the years the sim was in the making and i clearly remember a lot of these things being in the sim since ages ago (and for anyone that doesn't, going to foobar's blog will refresh memories easily enough).

Months before the sim was released we were shown vehicle dashboards, moving suspensions and oscillating radio masts, it's been there all along.

[addman]

Even if they "dumbed" down cockpits in clod and in future expansions it still would be metric miles above any competition out there.

[skarden]

Originally Posted by Feathered_IV

I won't be surprised if things like clickable cockpits and whatnot get dropped for future aircraft. The dumbed down vehicles will create a whole new subset of compaints and expectations for improvement. This will certainly have a follow on effect for the aircraft side of the sim.

Sorry I gotta disagree with you on that one Feathered, for myself I'm 100% sure the flight aspect will always be the focus of the sim and everything else will always be a second consideration, I still don't know how people can complain about things like adding tanks and other useable craft, it can only expand the sim making it more appealing to a wider fan base, hopefully increasing revenue and as a flow on increasing the overall quality of the sim.

As has been stated a thousand times to apparent deaf ears, its not like EVERYONE at 1C has stopped working to play with implementing this stuff, the people working on the coding, AI, ect. ARE still doing that, but if the 3d modelers are sitting around not doinf a hell of a lot, why not have them looking at this kind of stuff.

It can all only make the sim better imho

[carguy_]

Originally Posted by JG52Krupi

LOL what mindless drivel...

Mindless drivel? I`d say more of panic button troll.

[mazex]

Originally Posted by addman

Even if they "dumbed" down cockpits in clod and in future expansions it still would be metric miles above any competition out there.

+1

IMO, the main problem with CloD is really that they gold plated the flight sim part... Sure, a bunch of whiners and "fundamentalists" naturally chokes on a statement like that, but seriously - look at the cockpits of the planes we have in CloD now (and the externals). Look at the damage modelling etc. Sure, it's a dream come through if it would have worked like they wanted it to do, but it simply costs too much doing the sim they tried to do with the current business model. Selling a game for $39 where it takes six months to model a plane and people that are spoiled by the old IL2 series just whines that we only have three flyable brit planes... If they would have done decent CEM, some more "flight sim" details than IL2 and then focused on getting solid AI and FM:s based on the already existing IL2 code it would have been enough... Really. Cause who is the competition? Add a pimped up 3D engine with some Dx 10/11 effects as that is needed to get the attention of the magazines and spoiled kids brought up with Frostbite X and we would have been set... Then leave other suff until addons or expansions. Now we are in the current situation where they tried to do it all at once with 4x the stuff in Il2 and they ended up with a messy code base that has holes like a Swiss cheese, and nothing is really finished as they restarted two times and aimed too high time after time... Oleg pursued his vision and the funders got tired of it after six years and pushed him aside and put poor Ilya in the unthankful position of wrapping something together so all the investments where not lost. They did all they could but still the ghost of Olegs dream haunted them. People demand the product that Oleg had envisioned but it's just not possible with a game that no longer sells copies to try to fix it, whatever people demand.

I really hope they get the good flight simulator we know is buried between the bugs running in BoM and that they don't aim too high again. The ground war part (being part of the ghost legacy of Oleg) sure has the potential of bringing the desperately needed customers to finance the tidying up the whole code base, and who knows, maybe we get to see the old mans vision in full splendor some day? As it is today it's easily the best WWII flight sumulator out there, so why would that change if they just stay alive and manage to fix it piece after piece? The current problem is just all the holes that they are naturally very aware of. But... Adding a flyable Wellington or Fairey Battle will not bring a single new customer as they already own CloD. BoM at the other hand will bring new customers as games based on the great patriotic war sells like butter in Russia - and drivable tanks that actually works with some smart moving front that keeps it focused even though the the map is huge may save the life of the flight sim that naturally is the core of this game... In my opinion at least... Just look at World of tanks. It's huge in Russia as it depicts the eastern front and people there actually care if tanks have the correct guns for different models. Many young gamers have gotten their appetite for tank warfare now and want a simulator with larger and more realistic battlefields etc. They may not go to Steel Beasts Pro, but why not BoM? In the same way the upcoming World of Warplanes may get people to realize that they want a more realistic flight simulation and look at BoM/CloD if they manage to fix it. As the core simulation part of the code is already there I don't see why it would get less realistic, but maybe a bit less details, a bit more spread out like in IL2 can save the game for us?

/mazex

[BG-09]

Well..if the train in CoD is simulated corectly, does it means that we have a "train simulator"? Everything must be simulated correctly: tanks, aircrafts, wind, rain and train...more simulations of the objects and we have the perfect simulatior!

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by Sutts

+1
That's all we ever get from him.

+1

[rollnloop]

Is COD still a flight simulator ?

Has it ever been one ?

Do you really think this is a new orientation ?

[JG14_Jagr]

The problem I see is that every piece of ground hardware that is human control is going to reduce the number of aircraft that can be on a server due to bandwidth consideration.

WWIIOnline already exists.. it stinks, but it exists. And because they went for "Everything", then ended up doing nothing exceptionally well..

I'd prefer a much more focused package with highly detailed aircraft and a foucs on the flight sim portion.