Fresh stuff from sukhoi.ru (Discussion)

[klem]

A number of interesting and competing points here and I'd just like to pick up on a couple.

To those that don't think MMO has much to offer I'd say, as an ex Air Warrior and Aces High player, that to take part in a properly organised scenario with say 400 others, assigned to units, planned on a historical scale, briefed, comm'd and organised etc in a historical action like BoB, Pearl Harbour or Big Week creates a level of immersion you just don't get in IL-2 1946 or CoD. Whilst the latter may (will?) have FMs, graphics etc down pat they don't offer that immersion and the feeling of (almost) "being there". Unless you taken part in one of those scenarios and felt the hairs stand up on the back of your neck you may not understand. But that is what many of the more serious WWII simmers want, something to take them deeper into that era and experience. All we get in CoD is a shallow world of a few small time combats and a few small formation intercepts. In IL-2'46 you may also have more objective based maps and some DGEN campaigns but no real scale to them. Just a few squadrons before hitting the 128 limit or more likely about 80. Stop and think. CoD can never really deliver even one typical day in the BoB because it can't support even 400+ aircraft at one time. CoD doesn't deliver the BoB. It needs to be taken to another level or it remains just a few aircraft dogfighting or bombing or the occasional small scale raid scenario. Before someone shouts 'MMO? ping, packets, bandwidth, impossible' that's for the devs to work out and the broadband companies to deliver on as many of them are now. And the next cry, 'we can't get more than 1Mb BB, I can't afford a PC to run it', I'm sorry but you can't expect to run this stuff at that level without the kit and yes that's another squeeze on the market which is why the mass market, arcade, low data bandwidth is important to make what we want on the side viable. What was that? That kind of technology split isn't viable? Look at that i-phone in your hand. Think back ten years.

Regarding 'the kids'. You either want realism and the commitment to learning it demands or you want arcade. Take a look around at the guys you know playing IL-2 '46 and CoD. I bet most of them aren't kids but they were 10 or 15 years ago when they didn't have the patience for sims like IL-2 and played Mario instead. Only a percentage of them even now have the patience for IL-2/CoD which is why 'realism' is a niche market. So what do 1C do to survive? They have to offer to the mass market, the kids, hopefully to be able to support the niche realism market (which is probably where their hearts as aviation sim developers lie). So bring on a MMO with both arcade and full switch settings, different bandwidth demands and servers to support them (Aces High has - had? - different realism levels on their servers).

Pay a monthly subscription? If it captures the arcade market too it should be cheap enough for what you get back. £10/$15 a month? Thats a couple of Big Macs, Fries and a drink and lasts 30 days instead of 15 minutes. Of course the run of the mill play will be set by the server managers but the opportunity for the community to have access to the server and plan and organise large scale special events will give those planners a new world to work with.

Considering MMO business models:
Free DLC? OK if its 'earned' by some kind of server tracked 'career' points.
Paid DLC to 'Buy what you've earned'? Perhaps if its not expensive.
Buy to Win? Absolutely not in the 'realistic' model. Of course in the Arcade model.

But can 1C regularly deliver 'new' content for the arcade players and keep the cash coming in?

[louisv]

With $15 / month, you can finance $1000 easy with a credit card, so what are you giving those people ?

$200 for Prepar3d is cheaper !!!

So to make things simpler, a game for the price of a computer...

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by klem

Regarding 'the kids'. You either want realism and the commitment to learning it demands or you want arcade. Take a look around at the guys you know playing IL-2 '46 and CoD. I bet most of them aren't kids but they were 10 or 15 years ago when they didn't have the patience for sims like IL-2 and played Mario instead. Only a percentage of them even now have the patience for IL-2/CoD which is why 'realism' is a niche market.

Agreed 100%

And just to be clear.. The kind of kids I was refering to are the ones that are trying to play mario while playing IL-2!

[philip.ed]

I got into CFS 1 when I was a kid and took it from there. I played mario as well, patiently, at expert level.

I think there are far too many generalisations about what kids are in these topics; especially when there are members here, with all due respect, who have the grammar of kids or type with the same ignorance as the kids they are slamming against (not meant to sound sexual at all)

And I'm not aiming this at anyone. My point was, and I don't want to further any ambiguity, that the kids are the future. Consequently excluding them completely would end this genre.

Now I can play 1946 with easy settings and have a blast. It has a high learning curve, but I think it's easy to get into. It's what I first noticed about the original Il-2 demo. I crashed the first time I tried to get that 109 off the ground, but I was stunned by everything. CFS has sat on the shelf ever since.

So really, whilst many kids are happily button bashing and playing mario, the ones who find out about this game and get into it genuinely have an interest, and it would be unwise to not recognise this.

Just my 2p. I don't want to get into arguments with AoA because whilst he may have something personal against me, I don't have anything against him, and I find such pettiness childish.

[ACE-OF-ACES]

phill.. act like an adult for a moment and heed Alpha's wishes and let it go as I did after your last week atempt to keep this argument going by del my post to you.. Deal?

[ATAG_Bliss]

Originally Posted by klem

A number of interesting and competing points here and I'd just like to pick up on a couple.

To those that don't think MMO has much to offer I'd say, as an ex Air Warrior and Aces High player, that to take part in a properly organised scenario with say 400 others, assigned to units, planned on a historical scale, briefed, comm'd and organised etc in a historical action like BoB, Pearl Harbour or Big Week creates a level of immersion you just don't get in IL-2 1946 or CoD. Whilst the latter may (will?) have FMs, graphics etc down pat they don't offer that immersion and the feeling of (almost) "being there". Unless you taken part in one of those scenarios and felt the hairs stand up on the back of your neck you may not understand. But that is what many of the more serious WWII simmers want, something to take them deeper into that era and experience. All we get in CoD is a shallow world of a few small time combats and a few small formation intercepts. In IL-2'46 you may also have more objective based maps and some DGEN campaigns but no real scale to them. Just a few squadrons before hitting the 128 limit or more likely about 80. Stop and think. CoD can never really deliver even one typical day in the BoB because it can't support even 400+ aircraft at one time. CoD doesn't deliver the BoB. It needs to be taken to another level or it remains just a few aircraft dogfighting or bombing or the occasional small scale raid scenario. Before someone shouts 'MMO? ping, packets, bandwidth, impossible' that's for the devs to work out and the broadband companies to deliver on as many of them are now. And the next cry, 'we can't get more than 1Mb BB, I can't afford a PC to run it', I'm sorry but you can't expect to run this stuff at that level without the kit and yes that's another squeeze on the market which is why the mass market, arcade, low data bandwidth is important to make what we want on the side viable. What was that? That kind of technology split isn't viable? Look at that i-phone in your hand. Think back ten years.

Regarding 'the kids'. You either want realism and the commitment to learning it demands or you want arcade. Take a look around at the guys you know playing IL-2 '46 and CoD. I bet most of them aren't kids but they were 10 or 15 years ago when they didn't have the patience for sims like IL-2 and played Mario instead. Only a percentage of them even now have the patience for IL-2/CoD which is why 'realism' is a niche market. So what do 1C do to survive? They have to offer to the mass market, the kids, hopefully to be able to support the niche realism market (which is probably where their hearts as aviation sim developers lie). So bring on a MMO with both arcade and full switch settings, different bandwidth demands and servers to support them (Aces High has - had? - different realism levels on their servers).

Pay a monthly subscription? If it captures the arcade market too it should be cheap enough for what you get back. £10/$15 a month? Thats a couple of Big Macs, Fries and a drink and lasts 30 days instead of 15 minutes. Of course the run of the mill play will be set by the server managers but the opportunity for the community to have access to the server and plan and organise large scale special events will give those planners a new world to work with.

Considering MMO business models:
Free DLC? OK if its 'earned' by some kind of server tracked 'career' points.
Paid DLC to 'Buy what you've earned'? Perhaps if its not expensive.
Buy to Win? Absolutely not in the 'realistic' model. Of course in the Arcade model.

But can 1C regularly deliver 'new' content for the arcade players and keep the cash coming in?

That sounds all fine and dandy klem, but if this is supposed to be built off the Clod engine, then they have some serious work cut out for them. We have the best server hardware on the planet dual cpu 6 cores a piece / 10gbps connection and the game can barely handle 50 players at the moment without an absolute slide show. I just can't see some other host spending the money on hardware like that or the software to somehow be able to support anything near that. I'd love to be proved wrong, but the only way I see that sort of stuff happening is if everything is entirely dumbed down.

My main concerns as I stated earlier with MMO stuff is it usually takes away from the users ability to manage things. Currently we don't even have real dedicated server files, and have to deal with things like steam disconnecting and so on. Now just imagine we have to connect to steam and then a browser ran by 1C. I just see an even bigger potential for failure that way. Look at ROF and their master browser. Servers shut down at 50 players, stats disappear, servers crash, all from it being overloaded/terrible coding. Again, I'd love to be proved wrong, but you have a constant online connection that now has to rely on not only steam but also another browser, I just see the recipe for an epic failure.

My only hope is that this is a completely standalone thing from the new SOW/BOB/CLOD series we have now, and that BoM is the next installment. I can deal with steam, and waiting on things to get fixed. But saying this engine is capable of MMO style stuff will be believable when I see it. If they can't fix what we have now, how can they even think about announcing an MMO based off the same engine? It just boggles the mind.

[HamishUK]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Bliss

If they can't fix what we have now, how can they even think about announcing an MMO based off the same engine? It just boggles the mind.

This.

It seems 1C does not have a clear idea of what direction to take. First we have an appalling release of a much hyped and (off the back of IL2) defacto flight sim. Sadly we are now over a year down the line with the game still in an appalling state. I recall thinking that 4-6 months down the line CloD would be up and running and yet here we are.

1C then announces BoM and moving some of the key ingrediants (Dynamic weather etc) from CloD to BoM. CloD is supported in terms of fixing the game (as it should be) but no further development in terms of expanding this particular area of conflict.

Now we see an MMO announcement as WoT an WoP are making steady cashflow on a F2P / P2W model and 1C wants a part of that cash rich area. Meanwhile DCS releases a P51 technology demonstrator that whilst still has a long way to go is relatively flawless as they build on DCS World.

I am not sure what 1C are doing but it's all rather fragmented.

[von Brühl]

I can't wait to get phat lootz grinding Spitfires on ATAG!

[klem]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Bliss

That sounds all fine and dandy klem, but if this is supposed to be built off the Clod engine, then they have some serious work cut out for them. We have the best server hardware on the planet dual cpu 6 cores a piece / 10gbps connection and the game can barely handle 50 players at the moment without an absolute slide show. I just can't see some other host spending the money on hardware like that or the software to somehow be able to support anything near that. I'd love to be proved wrong, but the only way I see that sort of stuff happening is if everything is entirely dumbed down.

My main concerns as I stated earlier with MMO stuff is it usually takes away from the users ability to manage things. Currently we don't even have real dedicated server files, and have to deal with things like steam disconnecting and so on. Now just imagine we have to connect to steam and then a browser ran by 1C. I just see an even bigger potential for failure that way. Look at ROF and their master browser. Servers shut down at 50 players, stats disappear, servers crash, all from it being overloaded/terrible coding. Again, I'd love to be proved wrong, but you have a constant online connection that now has to rely on not only steam but also another browser, I just see the recipe for an epic failure.

My only hope is that this is a completely standalone thing from the new SOW/BOB/CLOD series we have now, and that BoM is the next installment. I can deal with steam, and waiting on things to get fixed. But saying this engine is capable of MMO style stuff will be believable when I see it. If they can't fix what we have now, how can they even think about announcing an MMO based off the same engine? It just boggles the mind.

I understand all you say Bliss and I can't claim to know what 'the engine' can or can't deliver. I am just stepping back and looking at the gameplay advantages of MMO which I always hoped CoD would be capable of. In my simple mind there seemed to be two questions determining the success of MMO (bear in mind Aces High has been doing this for years at 'lower specs').

1. Can my PC deliver on such a volume if activity? Only a percentage of the MMO aircraft are going to be within range and in need of rendering at any one time. This does seem to be a factor related to 'the engine' and if realism means a high spec PC then so be it. As an option in a game capable of offering 'Full Realism' for the hardcore and 'Relaxed Realism' for the mass market the return could make it viable.

2. Can the WWW deliver on the data exchanges necessary? Obviously a factor of the connection available and if realism means a high bandwidth BB then again so be it. A lower level of data transfer could serve the mass arcade market.

These are problems for the devs to solve. I don't much care about the technicalities, that's their problem.

Similarly, I don't care whether a MMO uses Steam or not. Again, its a dev choice of a suitable means for success.

We are the customers. We set the market expectations. Don't get stuck in what today offers. Expect it, demand it. It won't happen otherwise.

btw I never for a moment thought of CoD and BoM being an integral part of the MMO. I believe that is a separate animal even if its based on the same engine.

Interesting question for me is would I play a Maddox Games MMO if it were of lesser quality than CoD/BoM? I left Aces High II because of the dumbed down flight models and the "one ping, no wing" damage models. If 1C delivered MMO with good FMs and DMs but perhaps with 'reductions' in other areas, would the immersion of MMO campaigns be enough to compensate?

[Blackdog_kt]

I'm all for MMO as long as it's optional.

The way i see it, the best business model is the one that doesn't infuriate the users. And since users get infuriated when they have no choice on certain things, but they all like different things, it's best to have options.

If it was my decision and it was doable, i would do it like this:

CoD is the first sim in the series.

BoM is the second sim, playable as standalone or merged with CoD.

The main game engine is the same, so improvements in that aspect carry over across all titles.

So far, it's the same as the previous IL2 series model.

Then, here comes the optional bit: people can have servers like the ones we have now, or pay a monthly fee to play on the company servers which will presumably have better scenarios and/or beefier hardware.

This way, if i want to play on the MMO servers i can pay the fee, but if i want to i can still fly on the community servers.

As long as the MMO model doesn't limit the amount of control we have over how we play, i don't care. So, either give us the above option or make the MMO sim a completely separate release based on the same engine. Forcing the users down a one way street is always the worst possible choice.