It's not trolling, it's not the money...
 

It's the fact that Oleg et al have over-promised and under-delivered since day one on this thing, we waited for the better part of a decade, and the game *still* seems like a beta.

Meanwhile, the IL2:1946 online community seems to have been decimated by fragmented versions, mods, and the emergence of IL2:Clod.

So we're left with much less than we were say, 4 years ago.

I hope it all works out, but if you like WW2 air combat sims, it seems to me that you would have to be delusional to think that this is a good state of affairs.

Yes, I do have a life, in fact, I've been so busy that I haven't had much time to sim over the past couple of years, so all of this nonsense hasn't affected me a ton. It is kind of sad though, to see what's become of the IL2 series.

Mini-rant aside, I've been wondering -- is Oleg still involved, or has he stepped away from this completely? If he has stepped away completely, that probably explains a lot.

Any one up for creating one of these: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...2/posts/193810 to get him back? I'm in for $150, I'd prefer donating $150 up front to get his butt in gear than I would paying steam/1C $50 to be annoyed by this current product. If the programmers are doing the best they can, their best is pretty poor. If they're not doing the best they can, that's also pretty poor. Either way, it seems to me that someone needs to come in and kick these guys in the butt.

Yeah I agree with this statement 110%, but what guys like foobar do, where they just bump old "update" threads to troll people doesn't help the situation. It's just irritating, childish stuff

Oleg stepped away the day after launch.

@ von Bruhl...

iirc, it was after the name change and before the launch

Reality could be very different from your speculations about Oleg saving the situation.

If Oleg was brought back all we would get is bias, I think a lot of people are glad he has no influence over the series anymore.

Since when is the man who launched the entire series regarded as a bad influence? This is a surprise to me, to hear him spoken of in those terms, when did that happen?

I understand (vaguely) that he had a bit of a russian spin on which aircraft were/were not good. I can speculate that his approach and attention to detail may have delayed CLOD and caused it to be in an unfinished state on release.

But Oleg as introducing bias? That is not the impression of him I recall. I recall him as being a person so intent on realism that he was able to deliver products that were exceptionally detailed and thorough portrayals of WWII air combat among an already fairly realistic and saturated WWII sim market. Bias seems to be something that could be attributed as much to the demands placed by the community each patch, which often seemed more motivated by balance than realism, than to oleg. I still recall the arguments some pushed about .50 cals killing tigers by bouncing shots into their bottom.

What about russian pylons with no weight? I guess that was just game balancing eh? While I don't disagree that he created a brilliant series and is owed due credit for his work on bringing us an amazing combat simulator, he was still biased.

My point was not that he is NOT biased. It's that he is not SO biased that his input is no longer welcome!

Because I still credit him as being the force behind such detailed simulations in the first place.

I should clarify though, that I don't know what bias he has shown in the past. I don't know anything about the issues you speak of. I would like to know, so please enlighten me, but keep in mind that my point was that his leaving should still be regarded as a great loss. You said the series is better off without him. I don't agree.

The modders since discovered that Russian pylons had a weight of 0kg compared to 150kg + for other nations and the Pe-2 has a structural G-limit of 18.

I think they will do fine without him, really there is no reason for him to return. If they can't get their act together and produce a great sim based of over 10 years experience in the market, then they deserve to fail. And I don't think he would have left if he knew his team wasn't up to the challenge.

Well now again, I didn't say they WOULDN'T do fine without him. I said that its a pity they no longer have his input and that they weren't better off without him.

As for the Russian pylons, I don't know why that was the case. I can't say it was bias without that.

But again, even if it was - I think we would never have got IL2 or CLoD without Oleg, and I think that kind of person's input is always welcome. Too many other companies and teams, without such a strong lead, would have cut corners a long time ago. It's a bit like Apple and Steve Jobs. Sure, Apple is doing fine without him and in many ways his input was that of an unwelcome autocrat. But ultimately the value of a person like that can only be measured when you consider what might never have been.

Yes, I agree; the analogy of Apple and Steve Jobs is exact. While Oleg would give great input as a software/imaging developer (perhaps even so that they wouldn't be re-writing the graphics engine now), he moved on to better things. For what reasons only he knows. But it simply doesn't matter now. He is gone and we all have to soldier on.
He was certainly a visionary and extremely innovative and I really hope that the current team has learn't something from him.

Well, let's give the new developers a chance to show us what they can do. I'm sure they'll do a fine job without Oleg, not that they haven't already imho (despite the problems).

Personally I just assumed he left anyways. Back in the days he made some weird posts and links were spread around were he was clearly dealing with other projects not related to flight simming even if I remember. But my memory could be wrong.


Anyways, a game that relies on a single developer will fail in todays gaming ecosystem for sure. Games are much more complex than the garage creations like pacman back in the days.
It's a team effort now. Either the team is capable of delivering the goal without relying on individuals or the game is doomed.

That said I believe that what hurt IL-2 CloD most is it's bad art style and the lack of a real emotional campaign. In todays game business that's always a feature to pull people in.
The 100 people or so on the forums here, bickering all day long, are not what makes or breaks the game. Even 10.000 copies is "just" around 100k for the studio itself (tops), and developing a game like CloD with 100k is impossible.

Well I agree with you to an extent, but sometimes organizations fail because (as Verhängnis hinted at) they lack a leader with vision. Bad art style and lack of a real emotional campaign are certainly issues that could have been rectified by a leader with vision, even if the grunt work needs to be dealt with by a team.

I don't see much vision here, just bits and pieces put together and not a great *game*. It will take more than a patch to solve that, but hopefully we'll get there.

I am sure the community will provide many excellent missions and campaigns as they did with IL2 1946. There are some great skins being done out there now, and once the game is stable there will be a flood of extra goodies for all.;)

True, one of the aspects of CLOD that really lets it down is the GUI, its blocky 90's style buttons and menus leave me cold and uninterested.
There is no immersion or feeling of 1940, no feeling of a historic battle about to take place or being a pilot in a life or death struggle.

Take a look at this...
http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/7632/scrn00276fs.png
By furbs9999 at 2012-04-10

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/1399/scrn00237lq.png
By furbs9999 at 2012-04-10

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/6...opeanairwa.jpg
By furbs9999 at 2012-04-10

....from EAW released in 1998!! thats how to do menus and GUI.

Im hoping once either the SDK or BOM might address this.

Is another therapy thread?

Yes we got focked over when buying a game in alpha stage a year ago.

And yes after a fair amount of updates it runs smoother.
And yes other games are rubbish too when released.
And yes it needs more time to iron out more bugs.
And yes the game is cheaper now.
And yes you need to update your hardware.
And yes the sim has made a quantum jump from IL-2 to IL-2:CloD
And yes it´s a wonderful sim now.
And yes I´m addicted to it by now.

If you need theese sort of threads to make a primal scream therapy, go ahead.
But it doesn´t help the cause.

To all complainers out there, please do the community and the developers a favor and contribute something that is useable and of value.

(I´m in a nerd-rage after having drunk 2 buckets of coffee and having read this thread)

I mostly agree with Emil. There were (and are) lot of problems. Releasing game in that stage was shameless scam.Clod is still too raw for me, but i am buying BoM anyway. Even if i wont play it i will support developers because i am sure this will be great sim in few years time.

+1

Well, Maddox Games has always been a stout opponent for such pre-rendered GUI screens. We, part of the german community that is, have had this little discussion with Oleg years ago and he was steadfast against such 3D scenes as they would require too much work to incorporate not only all possible aircraft but also any potential location, various building types on airfields (i.e. Hangar or in front of a tent) etc and would have to be re-done for each and every new release (Oleg's arguments).

What I would have done - given the utter flexibility of the game engine - is to allow the user to design and set up his own GUI ideas: own layout, own graphics, own fonts and design characteristics ... All MG would have had to provide is a template and an API to read the user input. My 0,02 € ...

But then in doing so they just did all the work they never wanted to do.

If you are in pause with CLOD...
Is not a WWII Sim but a WWI Sim I recomended: Rise of Flight.
I have discovered this one two weeks ago, first with the free demo and now in full. Excelent atmosphere and interface, friendly forum with a lot of information, service, shop; at the sim not CTD, FPS friendly and stable(You dont need a top of line PC), excelent aircraft models, FM, damaged models, superb sounds, weather effects, good scenery and airfields, you have quick mission, single mission, career, campaign, very good multiplayer, system of points(score)in line, skins, maps, addons, etc.
Really a very good sim.

Here's something else to remember, whilst i agree that its matured into a very good game, i had it from day one, and i thought it was pants for the first year or so, before they got it working well.

ROF is indeed a great looking game.
Downsides IMO are that you have to buy every aircraft and you then have to buy gunsights and other bits for those aircraft, costs rack up.
if you want a level playing field online you would need to purchase everything.

maybe he left for that reason - who knows-looking at the state of the game that was released!!!

Just buy the mods for the planes you fly a lot, you don't have to buy them all unless you want to.

Oh, you were probably engaging in hyperbole to make a point.... ;)

Me? never, nobody exaggerates any point on this forum ;), having re-read my post it does suggest an obligation to buy I guess....my bad, I should have said any individual aircraft or aircraft packs you want has to be purchased and if you want gunsights they are also a separate purchase and lets face it aircraft like Fokker dr1 and SE5a were not included in the free demo for a reason.

I'm guessing you knew what I meant though.

Well they did bring over this hanger to COD that's for sure. Look at that door. I swear this is how wide the one at Lympne opens.

Thing is, even in it's so called beta stage, its more realistic and looks a lot better than 99% of other flight sims.

So, you don't know the wingspan of your hurri??

Back to flight shool for you :D :D :D

Naw, that's just you wishing. Think DCS series.

So maybe it was I who was engaging in hyperbole... :D

I think with the gauges it was neoqb who dropped the ball and didn't model a lot into their original planes, when 777 took over they went back and modded the old models to add the gauges and 'scopes' (is that the correct term for a gas filled tube?).

I don't really like the pay per plane model and I have a small aneurism in my brain every time Tavingon suggests it for CloD.... ;)

That said I have bought everything for RoF, I want that game to stay around for a while.

Their forums are angry right now because the devs are adding more (non-free) content, I wish that was the main problem on these forums... :S

There is no real point to this post, I think I've had too much coffee today and I am bored.... Maybe I should get back to playing a game (RoF) or modding AI for CloD. :D

Have a good day, Bongo.

I have MASTERED getting the hurri out thank you very much! :) I was only suggesting remodeling that hanger. :)

I spat my tea.....I know exactly what you mean :)

Good day to you too.