Friday Update, January 27, 2012

[Codex]

Originally Posted by Strike

I dare you to disappear until 27.01.2012

Otherwise, this bashing between RoF and CloD isn't getting us anywhere. If cluttering up the internet with hate-spam is your main goal in life, the joke is on you. I play both sims, I have my own reasons for preferring bits and pieces of both of them. If I could have it my way, I would combine the best of RoF and CloD's game engines, but that would probably be a game set for release around the time where Skynet's robots are erasing humans from the planet.

If you ask me personally, my opinion is that Luthier is right about one very essential thing. When they set off with this goal "make 2nd Gen IL-2 series BETTER than first" they chewed over A LOT more than they could swallow.

What it is is really like comparing a 18th century cannon towards a M109 Howitzer. Imagine the issues you could have with a cannon= Fuse wet, wrong amount of gunpowder, wheel falls off cannon rig etc... Then imagine a M109... think of the million pieces of hardware and software tied together in a very finely tuned engineering masterpiece. What we have is CloD.. aka the M109 that - unfortunately - was not finely tuned at release. So now what? Well the gun fires, it can drive around but every now and then the turret hangs up and the thing breaks down. Annoying as "F" and you probably wished you had a damn 18th century cannon instead But the point is here, the devs have to take into account a system so vast, any small tweak may have a large impact in the end of the coding string. A simple parameter in the JU87 AI divebomb routine config, may render all other aircraft with bombs to commit CFIT suicide. And now you have to write new code, that may effect other elements of the game in a negative behaviour, so you need to open a whole set of branches in a huge coding-tree only to implement a simple alteration of an AI tactic.

Again, to step away from this wall of text, I feel that Luthier set the bar too high. Hence temporary(?) removal of advanced weather features, animations, atmosphere etc etc. As the project moved along, things must only have become more and more difficult. Making all parts of this game engine communicate and cooperate properly is a huge undertaking. It's miles ahead of anything else on the market when it comes to damage modeling. The potential that lies in the game engine to introduce player controlled ground/air/sea vehicles is also a strong competative factor one should consider. It could potentially lure tank-warfare/naval-warfare enthusiasts into the genre some day.

But what about us? All the waiting? What about our satisfaction? The bang for our bucks?

Well mate, it's all up to YOU! Nobody can tell you how you are supposed to react when playing this sim. It's all up to your expectations and needs. It's wether IL-2 CloD hits you on all the right spots, or completely strokes you against your hairs that will help you judge the game.

I can only speak for myself when I say that when I fly my trusty spit over the french coast I get excited only by the fact that some german AA gun may target me, and the damage I potentially can receive could do anything really, but based on the accurate calculations of bullet velocity, ammunition type, impact angle, shrapnel, material strength, penetration, structural consequences, component damage etc etc. It's thrilling to know all of this stuff is being calculated as the sim plays out, and no outcome is identical.

What I miss is working launcher.exe during MP, more varied and indepth sound, better AI, campaign etc.. But as long as they claim they are working on this, I can wait a few months. What I have now gives me the kicks I need - a.k.a the good outweigh/balance the bad.

As for RoF, it's the wrong forum to be discussing, but I didn't play it until a year after I bought it I was so disappointed. 5 flyables or something like that, loads of bugs and unoptimized content, menus etc.. As for now, I enjoy it, but more in the essence of how I think of BF3 and ARMAII. I play BF3 for hours and hours for a great action game, with even balancing and 15 second respawn. But I play ARMA II for the more "hardcore" game, which happens to have bogged physics etc, but gives me a LOT greater feeling of "acheiving" something. RoF is like an online deathmatch frenzy, all planes are so balanced, but you always get shot down by a turning camel or Dr.1 . 'Special damage' seems utterly random (fuel leak, oil leak, ammo explosion, fire) and wing damage is just climbing %. The higher the % damage is the easier it breaks off. For me, I feel nothing special when gunning at planes in RoF. It's like ok theres a 50% chance the wings come off, there's a 25% chance the engine catches fire and a 25% chance the pilot dies. All the trailer videos showcasing advanced engine models etc feels like a marketing stunt to me. In CloD at least my individual cylinders can misfire! But Rise of Flight has been more immersive due to some cool effects such as the dynamic wind, rain/blood spatter, sound etc. But then again it all feels so built up around core elements such as "pretty art-like graphics" and balanced flight models.

So you can basically ignore my opinion on CloD and RoF and have your own, but bashing them back and forth in a thread for discussing the upcoming expansion and promised friday updates is just rude. I totally welcome and promote constructive feedback, but this is NOT the place for waging forum warfare and CERTAINLY NOT the place for addressing problems with RoF :p It could be an own thread in the pilots lounge: "IL-2 CloD - RoF: Comparisons".

I would like it to be made common knowledge just exactly how complicated this simulator actually is, what's being taken into account, what's being rendered and then perhaps everyone would understand the amount of time and work is required to actually "fix" something. Too many people claim that "Oh well fixing this should be easy". Well there it is^^ In the update stated by the boss himself. It is almost NEVER easy - be sure.

As for the update? I base my expectations on the previous update records, and sooner or later, we're all bound to be positively surprised aren't we?

I've bought the game, there's nothing I can do about it now whether I like it or not, besides whining about it, or doing something more productive*. Do like Chuck Norris, choose the latter.


*(there's a huge list of productive stuff to do, pm me if you need advice)


Thanks for the update Luthier, I'll bee seeing your update next week Be sure

Excellent post!!!

It never ceases to amaze me how little people understand what it takes to create a game.

I challenge anyone to write a program that can draw and animate a simple cube in a window using DirectX / OpenGL or even XNA. And I don't mean by using copy and paste from tutorials either, actually read and understand what's happening in the code. Maybe some would then get an appreciation of what Illya is up against.

Originally Posted by bongodriver

Before I get condemned as a 'fanboi', I would just like to say that IMHO it is incoceivable that anyone would release a game in the state COD was in 'knowing' it was going to be such a problem, yes they could have expected a certain level of issues (nobody can deny it was pushed out the door early) but saying they could have fixed the problem before they knew it existed doesn't make sense.

as 'Whiners' and 'anti-whiners' we are still a minority vocal group here (even put together) the silent majority aren't necessarily giving away the true state of things.

Just my oppinion, no attacks, no anti-whining.

Bongo, you know how the things are going in a world of modern games. There is core team testers, beta team testers, "open beta" testers....nobody realized the game has serious performance issues? I doubt...They knew it (some of them) from the start, and thats why Im so "angry". Just because of that. "Tell the truth from the start, no matter what is it". Its the best way.

But thats history now...lets move on....

[theOden]

Here we are, you fanbois and we haters - slapping and screaming at eachothers out of pure frustration over the game.

At least we get some entertainment from that (to the mods double frustration, both game and us).

Imagine what Luthier and team is going through, to sort this all out :/

oh well, back to harrasing someone

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by Tvrdi

Bongo, you know how the things are going in a world of modern games. There are core team testers, beta team testers, "open beta" testers....nobody realized the game has serious performance issues? I doubt...They knew it (some of them) from the start, and thats why Im so "angry". Just because of that. "Tell the truth from the start, no matter what is it". Its the best way.

But thats history now...lets move on....

I understand that part, but.....the beta testing was probably achieved with relation to the russian version, they didn't anticipate us weird westerners odd concerns for stuff like epilepsy, they got forced to sling in some safeguard stuff by ubi and subsequently forced to sling the game out as soon as it was done without the chance to test......perhaps?

[Trumper]

Originally Posted by Codex

Excellent post!!!

It never ceases to amaze me how little people understand what it takes to create a game.

I challenge anyone to write a program that can draw and animate a simple cube in a window using DirectX / OpenGL or even XNA. And I don't mean by using copy and paste from tutorials either, actually read and understand what's happening in the code. Maybe some would then get an appreciation of what Illya is up against.

Agreed,but there's a difference between creating and then selling it as finished,i think that is what people are angry about.
Can someone just clarify for me,
Will i have to buy the Moscow sequel to get the patches/mods/repairs to make BOb/Clod up to date?

[EAF331 Starfire]

Originally Posted by bongodriver

..........the silent majority aren't necessarily giving away the true state of things.

Why write anything that had allready been written here?!
It won't change neither facts nor what the COD team are working on.

Writing anymore than I have allready done will be a waste of time; Lifetime I don't get back.

I will probably unshelf it when the next patch is released and do a reevaluation. If no patch is released, but a cequel is released I will wait for somebody else to do the evaluation and vote with my feet.

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by Trumper

Agreed,but there's a difference between creating and then selling it as finished,i think that is what people are angry about.
Can someone just clarify for me,
Will i have to buy the Moscow sequel to get the patches/mods/repairs to make BOb/Clod up to date?

PS And I’d like to point this out one more time. There is no conflict between the old and the new. We have one team that works on a single overall task, that is, improving the Il-2 series. Whether it is a new sound engine or a new graphics engine, we don’t make them for CoD or for the sequel. We make them for IL-2 Sturmovik.

this is quoted from The OP update, it basically is saying that as part of the 'IL2 series' COD will benefit from all future improvements, so no it doesn't mean you have to buy the sequel.

Originally Posted by bongodriver

I understand that part, but.....the beta testing was probably achieved with relation to the russian version, they didn't anticipate us weird westerners odd concerns for stuff like epilepsy, they got forced to sling in some safeguard stuff by ubi and subsequently forced to sling the game out as soon as it was done without the chance to test......perhaps?

Hello Bongo,

Do you remember when Oleg was posting screens in the last few months before release, there were no "AA" ? The terrain was awful and trees, clouds, even railroads were very awkward ? It felt like it was many steps backwards compared to some earlier shots. Something happend in the last few months at 1C. Oleg didn't leave for no reason. To be clear, I am not accusing anyone of any badfaith, but surely things did not go as planned. Why ? We don't know really.
Also the fact that Oleg resigned immediately after Russian's release, is also an indication of big issues with the project.
And of course they knew...You cannot build a sim with so much technology and high end programming and not knowing it is not flawed.
We know COD was not mearly completed at release, but the real question is "why was it released and sold as a fininished product'' ? since we were (fans of IL2 around the world) the ones who'd buy it, and were also the ones who followed every step of developpement and were told to expect a lot (much better than IL2) for 6 years...
That is , in any case, my only unsolved mystery....

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by kalimba

Hello Bongo,

Do you remember when Oleg was posting screens in the last few months before release, there were no "AA" ? The terrain was awful and trees, clouds, even railroads were very awkward ? It felt like it was many steps backwards compared to some earlier shots. Something happend in the last few months at 1C. Oleg didn't leave for no reason. To be clear, I am not accusing anyone of any badfaith, but surely things did not go as planned. Why ? We don't know really.
Also the fact that Oleg resigned immediately after Russian's release, is also an indication of big issues with the project.
And of course they knew...You cannot build a sim with so much technology and high end programming and not knowing it is not flawed.
We know COD was not mearly completed at release, but the real question is "why was it released and sold as a fininished product'' ? since we were (fans of IL2 around the world) the ones who'd buy it, and were also the ones who followed every step of developpement and were told to expect a lot (much better than IL2) for 6 years...
That is , in any case, my only unsolved mystery....

I am a long time lurker so yes I remember alot of what was going on, I only really joined here on released of COD (just felt I should after so long)

Without doubt there is 'something' being hidden, wether it makes any real difference to our lives to know what it is? personally I don't think so, it's an internal political issue with 1C and none of my business, and I imagine whatever it is could be more damaging to 1C to let on......if you get my meaning.

My view is....what happened.....happened, nothing can be done, but I don't feel we are being conned or cheated.....not by 1C anyway, boycotting 1c in any way is likely to punish the ones that deserve it the least .i.e the devs and the general flight simming community.

Originally Posted by bongodriver

I am a long time lurker so yes I remember alot of what was going on, I only really joined here on released of COD (just felt I should after so long)

Without doubt there is 'something' being hidden, wether it makes any real difference to our lives to know what it is? personally I don't think so, it's an internal political issue with 1C and none of my business, and I imagine whatever it is could be more damaging to 1C to let on......if you get my meaning.

My view is....what happened.....happened, nothing can be done, but I don't feel we are being conned or cheated.....not by 1C anyway, boycotting 1c in any way is likely to punish the ones that deserve it the least .i.e the devs and the general flight simming community.

I did not mentionned boycotting, neither if it would change our lives , in fact no game should ever (!) , I only commented your post questionning the fact that 1C may have been in the dark regarding the quality of their own product at release.
And that they may have been " surprised' by our reaction to COD at release in North America.
Now how people reacts or feels about this situation, is very personnal.
But how people express those reactions on this forum concerns everyone here...And how people express their opinions about other people's opinions
is usually what goes wrong here ....

SAlute !