Pacific Fighters Bombed - inadequate maps

[csThor]

PF was essentially an orphan - it wasn't Maddox Games's "brain child" but RRG's. However things didn't work out as planned (hence the "orphan" title) and so the product always felt more like an alpha than a full release title.

But idiosyncratic map placement isn't confined to PF - it's been a problem ever since Il-2 came out. Looking at nearly all Eastern Front maps (minus those made by Ian Boys, the slovak team and the new Bessarabia map) from the perspective of historically relevant operations it's amazing to note that the maps exclude important areas of operations and limit the usefulness for historical campaigns (e.g. Leningrad map should have been released in two parts - one for the Finns going up further north to include Immola airbase and one for the germans to include the area down to Lake Ilmen). And of course the lack of several maps such as Brest-Litovsk, Beresina crossings, Kharkov, Mius front & Taganrog, Rostov ... Of course I know that the initial maps were very much limited by the computing power available at that time but the trend to leave out relevant areas is almost characteristic for MG maps. Weird ...

[tater]

Scary thought re:keeping the big maps internal in SoW.

It's like you arbitrarily decide the map size, then stick in on a globe. nevermind that just a few km off the map is someplace really important, lol.

Sort of like the horrid default Guadalcanal map not going NW. It needn't have gone all the way to Buka, but just NW far enough that you could bomb Tokyo express ships a little up the Slot.

[Golf Pro]

Any bets on the BoB maps not including Biggin Hill?

[csThor]

tater - Which is precisely why I think Maddox Games really needs to cooperate with people knowing their stuff about operational military history. They can't know it all and certainly do not have the time to spend days/weeks/months searching archives ...

[tater]

That is why it is odd for them to limit player built maps to some little size.

BTW, what is erle.cgi, and why does this site suddenly download it every page?

[csThor]

The map limit has "commercial interests" written all across it. To be honest I'm fine with it ... You never know, it might even inspire people "who know their trade" to cooperate directly with MG for their commercial releases instead of the watering can AAA promotes. But then I'm a s*cker for centralized development and combined efforts

erle.cgi ... no idea, but it's apparently part of some web-based code. Maybe something to do with the ad on top or even part of the board itself.

[tater]

I understand the stated reason: "we reserve them for our own add-ons," but the reality is that they have a history of... less than ideal maps. Both in quality, and choice.

Really, the limiting factor for a (paid) add-on is the new STUFF. Planes, engine improvements, etc. Players could build a huge Med map the day after BoB comes out, and it would be worthless without the planes. A year later 1C could release med planes with no map and eveyone would still buy it, lol.

[nearmiss]

Originally Posted by csThor

tater - Which is precisely why I think Maddox Games really needs to cooperate with people knowing their stuff about operational military history. They can't know it all and certainly do not have the time to spend days/weeks/months searching archives ...

You're right on with that.

All they would need is a forum to facilitate communication and thoughts on specific areas of history. There would be plenty of cooperation. All most of us want is a better CFS.

[csThor]

I don't think this is the way to operate for a business enterprise as Maddox Games. All they'd get is a zillion posts of people wanting different stuff - the really important stuff would get buried under loads of "Oleg, I want ..." and "Oleg, gimme now ..." posts (even with the strictest moderation rules you could think of). They should certainly use this board here, posting a simple "We need help with this and this field. Who's up for cooperation?" and getting these people to act as kind-of external contributors.

The basic reason why I am so against this "involve everyone and his dog and do it publicly" is the experience Il-2 gave me. All of Oleg's posts simply upped the (already ridiculous) expectancy level by another notch. He's playing it much closer to his chest with SoW so I figure the procedure I outlined would work much better. And it doesn't require to check the boards every day.

[tater]

That's why I prefer simply not arbitrarily hobbling the map tools to Xhundred by Yhundred km in size.

Then people who know and care can simply create the maps. Oleg, et al can concentrate on what they do best, planes, FMs, etc.