COD-Diamond in the Rough

[SKUD]

I just finished a mission on the ATAG server. It starts off just before dawn when the stars are out and the faint glow on the horizon. As I looked at the stars I thought, that looks real. Then I noticed Cassiopeia and Orion and Ursa Major. As I lifted off and patrolled as the sun rose the red hue reflected off the morning clouds. From the rows of shadows from the plowed fields to the calm reflections off the water. It reminded me of the days I took the dawn ferry across the sound in the summer to fish on the island. It looked just like that.
When these things are so accurately reproduced you start believing it. That's what immersion is.
I thought this is so real, the work these guys have put into making this environment so convincing.
I bought DCS A10 a few months ago. I had read on forums that it had superior graphics-NOT. It is a flat, lifeless environment. The art, the sound, the entire visual and auditory experience of COD is so much superior in my opinion.
Game play and performance issues aside, COD has an environment that is second to none. Of course these devs have always had a knack for creating great environments, that was one of '46's main attraction.
My hat is off to the art folks at 1C. They have created a masterpiece.
The game in its current form is not perfect by a long shot, but I for one enjoy it thoroughly, especially those morning flights. COD has what it needs to become great, we just need to be patient and hope the devs don't give up. This talent is hard to find. Some day you'll be glad they didn't build the graphics engine to meet a GTX 260 spec.

[AKA_Tenn]

hmm DCS blackshark... airplanes land, helicoptors take off all around you on their own missions... and the battles can be fun, when you're looking into a city for 1 single guy standing between two buildings with an RPG... or watching a huge tank battle on a field, knowing your gonna get shot at... and that you still gotta kill those enemy tanks..., its like muahaha die evil ant things, at the same time your rushing like crazy trying to kill everything quick enough they don't kill u first....

but thats not air combat, thats not WW2, thats basically ground and pound, a bit of air mixed in, and its not like your gonna be doing many immelmans in a ka-50
anyway, thats besides the point, Clod has better graphics than dcs blackshark, and that's a huge part of the immersion... and i agree with you that Clod has potential, but like everyone's been saying... wait and see...

[irR4tiOn4L]

Originally Posted by SKUD

Some day you'll be glad they didn't build the graphics engine to meet a GTX 260 spec.

I'm glad today. Everytime I see the rows upon rows of buildings in London or other cities, the objects, roads, rivers, fields and so forth on the ground, the reflections and shadows on the aircraft and the various holes and damage when you hit them, I am oh so glad that the game was designed with maximum visual fidelity in mind.

Yes, I do wish some simple things were changed for improved performance. The density of cloud, dust and splash effects is unnecessary and optional reduced density versions could be introduced with a great fps gain, like the mods that already do this. Tree impacts would add immensely to the immersion and danger of crash landings and low level flying, given that crash landing in a forest is no thang at the moment.

There are even things I wish were more detailed. The rendering of various types of clouds, the colour of the ground and shades of green used, anti aliasing and most of all, the ability to see many more bullet impact decals/holes.

But all in all, very flew flight simulators look this good and I greatly appreciate the fact that I don't need to choose between FM and visual fidelity like I would if I had chosen to play Battle of Britain 2, IL2 1946, Falcon 4 or other outstanding sims.

[SlipBall]

Originally Posted by SKUD

I just finished a mission on the ATAG server. It starts off just before dawn when the stars are out and the faint glow on the horizon. As I looked at the stars I thought, that looks real. Then I noticed Cassiopeia and Orion and Ursa Major. As I lifted off and patrolled as the sun rose the red hue reflected off the morning clouds. From the rows of shadows from the plowed fields to the calm reflections off the water. It reminded me of the days I took the dawn ferry across the sound in the summer to fish on the island. It looked just like that.
When these things are so accurately reproduced you start believing it. That's what immersion is.
I thought this is so real, the work these guys have put into making this environment so convincing.
I bought DCS A10 a few months ago. I had read on forums that it had superior graphics-NOT. It is a flat, lifeless environment. The art, the sound, the entire visual and auditory experience of COD is so much superior in my opinion.
Game play and performance issues aside, COD has an environment that is second to none. Of course these devs have always had a knack for creating great environments, that was one of '46's main attraction.
My hat is off to the art folks at 1C. They have created a masterpiece.
The game in its current form is not perfect by a long shot, but I for one enjoy it thoroughly, especially those morning flights. COD has what it needs to become great, we just need to be patient and hope the devs don't give up. This talent is hard to find. Some day you'll be glad they didn't build the graphics engine to meet a GTX 260 spec.

Yea I've been really enjoying the nite time sky too...doing a lot of flight's to practice navigation

[ATAG_Snapper]

Originally Posted by SlipBall

Yea I've been really enjoying the nite time sky too...doing a lot of flight's to practice navigation

Good to hear, guys. We had some vigorous opposition initially to the early a.m. mission starts -- understandable in that it's hard to see when taxiing, much less spotting enemy (or friendly) aircraft once aloft. Nav and landing lights would be a nice feature to have on and around an airfield! However, we did get a lot of voices in support of the early-dawn starts: bomber pilots taking off and traversing the Channel in cloak of darkness, and fighter pilots like yourselves who just enjoyed the beauty of watching the sun appear in the eastern horizon. I've read so many accounts of RAF pilots being awakened on midsummer mornings at 3:30 a.m. by their batmen bringing hot tea to ready them for a 4:00 briefing and a 4:30 a.m. take off. I suspect the Luftwaffe did not wait around for the morning mist to burn off by 9 a.m. before THEIR ops began, either!

[irR4tiOn4L]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Snapper

Good to hear, guys. We had some vigorous opposition initially to the early a.m. mission starts -- understandable in that it's hard to see when taxiing, much less spotting enemy (or friendly) aircraft once aloft. Nav and landing lights would be a nice feature to have on and around an airfield! However, we did get a lot of voices in support of the early-dawn starts: bomber pilots taking off and traversing the Channel in cloak of darkness, and fighter pilots like yourselves who just enjoyed the beauty of watching the sun appear in the eastern horizon. I've read so many accounts of RAF pilots being awakened on midsummer mornings at 3:30 a.m. by their batmen bringing hot tea to ready them for a 4:00 briefing and a 4:30 a.m. take off. I suspect the Luftwaffe did not wait around for the morning mist to burn off by 9 a.m. before THEIR ops began, either!

That's true and its very beautiful too.

The only thing i'd add though is that it can be hard for new players trying to learn spotting though, because they don't yet have an 'eye' or 'feel' for what to look for, when and how far away dots appear and how to spot them among moving perspectives and against terrain.

These players would benefit from learning to spot properly in the daytime initially, before progressing onto the more advanced dusk situations. I know this because I happen to be such a player

Actually, it would be great if a simple training program consisting of short videos timing how long before a pilot was able to spot things at various distances and letting them know what they missed was available.

But I appreciate the dusk/dawn timeslots.

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by SKUD

When these things are so accurately reproduced you start believing it. That's what immersion is.

Join the club!

And know that you are NOT alone! Many people here enjoy CoD in it's current state everyday of the week! But you wouldn't know it from most of the post in this forum.. Sadly there is just a handful of very vocal nay-sayers who are dedicated to looking for any opportunity to say something negative about this sim..

Even if it has been said 100,000 times before
Even if the developers acknowledged it and are working on it
Even if it is NOT true!

These few find their way into every post in this forum such that a newcomers may get the wrong impression that the majority feel the way they do, When in fact that is not the case at all. One only has to look at the weekly updates (latest being a good example) to note just how out numbered they are by the people who love this sim, even as is, and support the path the devs are one.

Long story short

We are in the majority..

It is just hard to tell based on the threads in this forum

[furbs]

If the majority of people who brought this sim were happy with it, you would find more than 50 people online.
Things might be different after the patch, at the moment most people have put on the shelf and are waiting.

I will be back online after the patch, and im not embarrassed to use my name.

[Volksieg]

Originally Posted by irR4tiOn4L

......the colour of the ground and shades of green used....

I will say I agree with everything you wrote in that post apart from the above. Reason I say that is because, for a long time, I kept thinking that the shades of green used in the UK were all wrong.......... then I found myself on top of a fairly tall hill awhile back, looked out across the land and thought to myself "Whaddya know? Looks like nature has been using the wrong shades of green too."

They've actually got the colouring pretty spot on. As much as I love my country, I know this "Green & Pleasant land" is never going to look as pretty as Cyrodiil did in Oblivion. (At least not without a little "help"..... but I'm a 37 year old dad and my festival days are long over. lol)

As far as DCS A-10C Warthog vs Cliffs of Dover is concerned...... sure... it is nice to have a fully working sim. Problem is that, the few times I did fly DCS, I couldn't shake the idea I was flying a sim. Cliffs of Dover? After awhile of flying around on the ACG server in my 109..... I AM a luftwaffe pilot! (Well... at least until my son starts squawking or the missus offers me a cup of tea. lol)

[addman]

Originally Posted by SlipBall

Yea I've been really enjoying the nite time sky too...doing a lot of flight's to practice navigation

Originally Posted by ACE-OF-ACES

Join the club!

And know that you are NOT alone! Many people here enjoy CoD in it's current state everyday of the week! But you wouldn't know it from most of the post in this forum.. Sadly there is just a handful of very vocal nay-sayers who are dedicated to looking for any opportunity to say something negative about this sim..

Even if it has been said 100,000 times before
Even if the developers acknowledged it and are working on it
Even if it is NOT true!

These few find their way into every post in this forum such that a newcomers may get the wrong impression that the majority feel the way they do, When in fact that is not the case at all. One only has to look at the weekly updates (latest being a good example) to note just how out numbered they are by the people who love this sim, even as is, and support the path the devs are one.

Long story short

We are in the majority..

It is just hard to tell based on the threads in this forum

Quoted for truth Ace, quoted for truth. There are just a handful of neg-heads in this forum but they make a lot of noise. For most of us, the majority at least I'd say, the game is great in it's current state and will get even better as soon as the few patch niggles have been sorted. I can't even believe some people complain about this game at all, being state of the art and all even with some minor issues, we should be lucky nej! grateful actually, that it was released at all instead of canceled after over half a decade in development. Like "Duke Nukem Forever", it sure took it's time to be released but it was sure worth the wait, also a diamond in the rough IMO.

CloD has torn me away from World of Tanks, FSX and DCS: A-10C, those games just don't offer me the depth and longevity of CloD. I don't have any CTD issues but I guess because I'm playing mainly offline and boy! the offline experience in CloD is a real treat, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Online is just the icing on the cake, I'm saving that for after I've grown bored of the offline flying, pffft! like that'll ever happen, lol! Any who, don't listen to the neggies, they are all WRONG.