Announcement of the game "IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad"

[David Hayward]

Originally Posted by Robert

I'm not impressed with the few cities on the map so far. They are too generic and repetitive for my tastes. It's like they were positioned on graph paper and the builings and fences were built at rigid intervals.

Someone on the dev team posted a photograph of a village near Stalingrad. What you see in the game is what they look like. Lots of rigid right angles and intervals. Communist planning and design at it's best.

[Feathered_IV]

I'm not normally a huge luftie fan, but I must admit there is a certain something there...

[MB_Avro_UK]

Good shots Feathered

Some will complain that the snow is not as white as it was in il2 46

What I'm seeing here is a real progression from il2 46 to something better. I still enjoy il2 46 but shots such as these show that there has been real progression.

I will buy.

Best Regards,
MB_Avro.

[kendo65]

Originally Posted by Robert

I wanted to test out the alpha version before I commented, kendo. Over all I like it and do hope the additions you feature come to fruition, and I won't comment on AI until I try it for myself. It's only fair.

The pilot animation, while very nice looking is the same three movements over and over again. Heck, the LaGG is going down the runway at full speed and the pilot wipes his nose ( brow). IDK if I'd be doing that in real life. The fact he does it every ten seconds is ridiculous, IMO.

The light cones are a nice touch, but to me are nothing but an extension of RoF's lighting effects as a burning plane reflects the light on water or land. It's very good. I'm glad they implemented the effect, but I was expecting good lighting anyway so as I said in my last post it's not ground breaking.

The ground physics add a lot of realism and I find the handling to be above any flight sim I've flown. Well done.

I haven't see Stalingrad, but honestly I'm not impressed with the few cities on the map so far. They are too generic and repetitive for my tastes. It's like they were positioned on graph paper and the builings and fences were built at rigid intervals. Now, they may be place holders and we may see something as beautiful as RoF's cities...... but in all candor those don't come anywhere near the scale and depth of CoD's London or Cannes.

The rest will be shown on release and I hope you're right - that we'll get detailed, immersive off line campaigns with superlative AI. To me, that's the holy grail of combat flight sims.

I think this is the evolution of IL2. It won't have the detail of CoD - or maybe even some of the physical/graphic realism, but I think it'll be a very nice sim, and I look forward to more development. Hopefully it will meet our expectations.

As I said earlier I have CoD. Now I have BoS. If DCS' 1944 sim has positive news, I'll have that too.

Take your point on the pilot animation I was so impressed that they move at all that I didn't pay much more attention. There is also the bail-out animation and pilot gestures similar to ROF.

Regarding the towns and villages, as David Hayward said the layouts are apparently accurate for time and place - Soviet era town planning - functional if not pretty. I recall the screen shots of the COD follow up Russian village looking somewhat similar in layout.

You're right - very basic and dull compared to ROF's (and COD's) towns, but accurate representations also.

Stalingrad should be very different - they showed some pics a while back of very finely modelled buildings - the Grain elevator I think and a famous statue.

Here's the Dev update about the AI:
http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/...diary/?p=36659

Sounds wonderful, but will take with a pinch or two of salt until we get to check the reality - which apparently will be next week. Expect a possible bug-fest initially, but given time hopefully a step forward.

[SlipBall]

" haven't see Stalingrad, but honestly I'm not impressed with the few cities on the map so far. They are too generic and repetitive for my tastes. It's like they were positioned on graph paper and the builings and fences were built at rigid intervals"

there is an large amount of photographs of the landscape available much of it aerial. I don't think the BOS team ever intended to go the true representation route. That would have taken a lot of time, and resources...but as you fly above, you have to wonder were does the civilization hang their hats

[Feathered_IV]

I like the added touch of the cart's wheels embedded in the snow.



From what I recently read in Anthony Beevor's Stalingrad, most of the population of the forward areas were thrown out into the snow by the occupying Germans. Who took over their homes, ate their food, and even wore their clothes. Not many traces of civilization left I suspect.

[robtek]

My first impression of the actual pre alpha version:
Bf109: the guns fire longer than the button is pressed and way too less ammo
LaGG3: Without any chances, unless altitude advantage and surprised enemy.
Contact visibility is inacceptable even with icons, much worse than in CloD!!
But its a alpha and there is room, and need, for improvements.

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by MB_Avro_UK

:
What I'm seeing here is a real progression from il2 46 to something better. I still enjoy il2 46 ........

better then 1l2-1946 ? that is pretty low standards for a measure of "improvements" (il2-1946 is over 7 years old now) , and compared to what DCS-ww2 and il2-CoD are already providing. ever since RoF-Bs announced its project and they themselves stated it wont even be equaling il2-CoD on most aspects, you'd have to wonder what part of the gaming market they are aiming for.

looking at the feedback from the RoF-BS project flight-models, you can already conclude that simulation or realism of flightmodels wont be its strong point. as one early observer put it well recently "..... I've screwed up a couple of approaches (in RoF-BS) and still got her safely to the ground each time, the DCS-P-51 in comparison is a lot more finicky in such situations....."

and it wont equal or surpass CoD in aircraft and other object detail (aircraft interior and exteriors, damage models), scenery detail and density, neither will it in matching anywhere near the game features of CoD, eg in providing numbers of online players (100 in CoD) or extensive AI activity (1000+ in CoD), nor will it have anything like dynamic weather, online CooP, advanced scripting features etc..

there will be eye candy in the RoF-BS game, but most of it is meaningless and people will become quickly bored with it: for ex, the pilot head movements are a scripted meaningless routine on a cgi loop and the head movement doesnt represent what the player is doing, there are pretty little flames from the aircraft exhausts but it doesnt indicate anything meaningfull about the state of the aircraft engine (which it does in CoD), flightmodels might feel nice and fun for the players but dont simulate a real aircraft, no clickable cockpits or real startup and engine management procedures (which are part of the pilots "workload" during aerial engagements and therefore should be modeled to simulate a real ww2 pilots experience etc....

in short, RoF-BS will be a game for people who want a plane shooter game that looks "nice" (but is cartoonish with an empty lifeless game world) with some titillating visual effects (ooooo look there is flames from the exhaust !! etc), and a "nice" flying experience ( but not simulating a real aircraft behavior). it will be a game for people who mistakenly believe that that is what ww2 flying would be like (without having a clue what the real experience should be like) because recreating that real experience that is not really what they are after and having it accurately recreated as a pc experience isnt "fun" to them. instead they'll then go around saluting eachother on forums and talk about things like honor and being "just like a ww2 pilot" without having a clue of its meaning

and with the perpetual macro payments sales model that is expected to fleece you of around 500$ in added gaming elements like scarfs, aircraft instruments, new maps, better planes etc in just 2 years, i say no thanks !!!

still, there are people who will pay for that kinda thing, and them having the choice to do so is up to them (or up to their parents), but lets not pretend it is better (eg more accurate) then some of the other ww2 era flight SIMULATION projects that are also available, and which are much more accurate and have a greater depth

[arthursmedley]

Originally Posted by zapatista

i say no thanks !!!

Phew, looks like we dodged that bullet then!

[Feathered_IV]

Getting to grips with the LaGG vs Friedrich. Trying to anyway.

The most effective tactic against the 109F seems to be just running for your life. So much for Russian bias. All my engagements so far seem to suddenly begin with the scenes below. There's no sound of other aircraft approaching and no sounds of nearby gunfire from the cockpit either. Bounces are fast and brutal. One moment you're sitting in a noisy, vibrating and otherwise healthy cockpit. The next minute there's blood, smoke and flame and you're trying to get the canopy open...













Aw great... A wet bum.






Finally managed to turn the tables.
Don't worry Fritzy, I'm not out for revenge.



Well, maybe I am after all.