Cliffs of Dover, a Year Later

[Strike]

Hey Luthier!

Thanks for stopping by personally, blacksix has done an excellent job in the mean-time trying to put out all the fires, but it means a lot hearing from you again!

I am very happy to hear that you are excited about the future and if I am understanding you correctly here we are to expect an overall increase in FPS and stutters from previous versions. This will surely make a lot of people happy, including myself. Also it's good to hear that you are expanding your staff to bring new fresh additions to the game, helping you build your competence! Hopefully you can aquire more cockpit/aircraft modelers to increase the output and production capabilities of additional aircraft content. IL-2 is primarily a flight sim, and should stay true to it's blood heritage, even though the ground stuff is a strategically smart decision. You attract more audiences at the cost of frightening us flight-simmers. The majority of us would prefer the animated bailout sequence or better tailgunner controls over 100 controllable ground units, but hopefully those modeling and programming teams are split

I also like your enthusiasm and humbleness, stating that you have done some (really) bad stuff in the past, but are seeing good progress and continue to work into the future. We didn't get to 1946 in 1 year either.

I am eager to see what you are working on and I can't wait to try the next patch

[Insuber]

Originally Posted by luthier

Dear fans,

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a year. For myself and for the team the past two years are a blur. Things have been hectic long since CoD pre-release days and there’s no sign of letting down. We work in a constant state of emergency.

We know that even a year after the initial release many of you are still unhappy with many aspects of the game. We are painfully aware of your unhappiness. For me personally, it’s a constant feeling in the back of my head. It drives me and motivates me, and I in turn use it to drive and motivate the team. It is at the same time very humbling. I personally want to apologize to the community once again for the state of the game at release, and I want to thank you for sticking around this long and continuing to give us a chance to redeem ourselves.

I realize that the pace at which we release patches and updates has slowed considerably. The latest patch that has been “almost ready” for months, and it’s even more almost ready today. The graphics rework is basically done. The average framerate has shot up almost twice. Only one relatively minor issue remains that prevents the gunsight, tracers, and bullet decals from being drawn. Of course, this minor technical issue has a huge impact on gameplay, and that is why we cannot release it to the public in its current state.
Secondly, reworking and becoming confident in the graphics engine itself allowed us to spread the net and start identifying additional issues that were causing hick-ups and slowdowns in the game. That is the hardest thing to locate since they are unpredictable and very difficult to replicate. Rewriting the graphics engine fixed many of those issues, and made the others very easy to identify by narrowing down the usual suspects. We have identified some very obscure issues with visual effects, the landscape engine, the texture manager, and with the weather system that were causing the occasional stuttering that by itself arguably had a bigger impact on gameplay than low average FPS.

On our end, we are much more confident in our product today than we were a year ago, and we are also much more excited about the future. The team continues to grow. We are just now beginning to look for a huge number of new applicants that will grow the team by almost 25%. We have a lot of very exciting new things on our plate that we cannot wait to reveal. The general mood of the team is one of excitement. We cannot wait to prove our detractors wrong, crush the competition, and give our fans what they are looking for with our next major release!

Thank you again for your support!


Ilya Shevchenko
Lead Development Producer

Peace is done! Thank you Ilya, and good luck.

[Sutts]

Wow, real patch info. Now that's more like it.

Thanks Luthier, feel better now.

[satchenko]

Ok, nothing new than we know yesterday.

Thanks for the effort.

[ParaB]

This is the kind of information I've been hoping for a long time.

Thanks, much appreciated.

[lensman1945]

good to hear from you!

I've enjoyed the year flying Clod...and am now enjoying the anticipation of things to come

[6S.Tamat]

Finally an update that deserve that name!
We all still hope (beeing here is the evidence of that) and we are waiting for the patch!

Have a good work!

[drewpee]

Best bit of communication so far. Congratulations and salute to you and your team.

[TUSA/TX-Gunslinger]

Thanks Ilya!

The vast majority of us old Il2 squad vets still come here weekly to look for signs of progress. We talk in private as there's is nothing that we could do or say in public to help in any way.

While we don't post, we do track and read - we are behind you and the Team 110%.

We know that you and the Team will come through to release the patch that will draw us all back together again and place the new Il-2 engine, up in it's rightful place.

I just want you and the Team to know that we have not gone away. We are waiting....

All the best,

Gunny

[Icebear]

Thank you for the information Luthier. Nice read, but unfortunately nothing new, nothing concrete, no timetable, no preview of what ever.

It's hard to stay tuned, Luthier.