Will SoW be boring and superficial?

[Feathered_IV]

Originally Posted by virre89

And with the new engine it will be more realistic than ever.
But i agree on that more factors could play a bigger roll , still it dosn't matter for me.

Originally Posted by Feathered_IV

Sheesh! Alright then. For the benefit of online players who have neither the imagination, nor the ambition to think of anything beyond what we have now, I'll spoon feed you another concept.

Working Radar Control in Online Play:


You log on to an SoW server and join the game. A mission is already in progress. On the briefing map, you can see that there are plots all over the board.

You select RAF and choose a Spitfire flying out of Hornchurch. The server auto-generates you the callsign Baker, Blue Three.

Entering the game, you taxi out of your revetment and scramble immediately. Climbing hard, en-route for Dover you ask control for an intercept vector. You key in the commands for this (promising yourself you will get around to sorting out the voice activation system one day soon. Everybody says it's amazing).

You key in: Tab> 1> 3> 2. "Hello Control> This is Baker Blue three> Requesting vector."
Using voice samples similar to those in the old Il-2, the AI controller replies, "Hello Baker Blue three. Steer 160. Bandits inbound at angels zero. Range 40 miles. Over" The AI controller has appointed you a "channel" based on your location on the map. Not everybody hears the same control messages, thus avoiding clutter. A pair of Hurricanes nearby have heard this however, and change course to intercept.

"Hello Baker Blue Three. This is control. Are you recieving me? Over."

Ah whoops! Unlike the Il-2 series, this controller actually requires a response to communications. If you do not respond to calls he will keep calling you, before finally giving you up as lost.
You key in: Tab> 1> 3> 6. "This is Baker Blue Three. Received and understood."

Minutes later, speeding across the feilds of Kent, you key in a request for an update from control.
"Hello Baker Blue three. Steer 160. Contact faint. Bandits at angels zero. Range 20 miles. Over"
They are holding course then. Twenty miles would put them just north of New Romney...

Suddenly the AI control breaks in:
"Hello Baker Blue three. Bandits now heading two zero. Steer oh seven oh. Buster!"

You acknowledge and open the throttle wide, swinging onto the new heading. Your heart skips a beat as two Hurricanes flash across your nose.

"Hello Baker Blue three. This is control. You are right on top of them."
You dip your wing. Can't see a bloody thing. No, wait...there they are! Three fast moving shapes. Darting across the town of Ashford. Rooftop height. Me110's from Erpro-210, making a run for Biggin Hill. You key in the last call - a tallyho to Control. Saftey catches off. Gunsight on. As you half roll into the dive, the gunner of the rearmost 110 is already firing......

Oleg, seeing as you are around a little bit at the moment, is there anything in this thread that might work it's way into the SoW series?

[hiro]

Wow, interesting thread! Lots of great ideas.

CS thanks for explaining the mentality behind IL-2 and Oleg.

I would want BOB SOW to give us a new level of DM, FM, bullet / round physics (and other weapons like bombs, napalm, rocket, flak, AAA physics too)

And keep its strengths (that IL-2 is known for). Add some great sounds (like DB engine sounds like one, the merlins sound like the ones at the airshows etc) along with the new hotness graphics . . .

I'd rather have a solid WW 2 sim along the lines that IL-2 was known for than have a BOB SOW having a watered down FM (or a rehash of IL-2's) or planeset because time was spent developing RPG elements.

I wouldn't want BOB SOW to lose out many of the core strengths that IL-2 had, in place of "fluff" stuff like RPG officer and a gentleman, or mechanical / inventory management / squadron planeset lobbying / air field design simulation / personnel allocation. Leave that to RPG's, RTS, or games like Civilization or Empire series . . .

If a game tries to have too many elements it becomes a jack of all trades and a master of none, and its mediocre. Like Transformers 2 movie, tried too many plot elements and it just became a big fat mess instead of the blockbuster it was anticipated to be.

For roleplaying game stuff or FPS stuff, there are dedicated games to that will do those elments better than a flight sim could ever dream of.

We're pilots here. Not Generals. If you want to do that, I hear Star Craft 2 is coming along nicely.

I do agree with Feathered in that it would be nice to fly a variety of missions like recon and if you fly recon and something slips in or you didn't get the right area, this will have an effect in future missions or what not if you've got a dynamic campaign. Or maybe a test pilot, testing a "new" prototype.

Provided that this variety it is within the combat flight simulation realm. Sure, trying to fit as many planes inside your escort carrier via tetris style rearragement can be fun, and it is plane related but puzzles aren't really a flight sim element.

Also it would be nice to have the interactive air / ground / sea previously mentioned.

Like say if you and your dive bomber squadron got lazy flew over a Japanese airbase enroute to bomb some troop transports, several minutes into the mission, the Japanese would launch fighters to catch you.

But if you coordinated with your buddies from the army and a that base was bombed and cratered, you might just get flak as a greeting.

Or if a carrier group gets jumped by torpedo bombers, they start to zig zag etc . . .


Yes to the AI being improved and better. But AI will always be AI, and until humanity advances to where we have autonomous robots like Star Trek's Data or Ghost In the Shell SAC, you'll have AI that doesn't use tactics or does repetitive and predictive actions.

I also agree in providing the best method and in game tools for players to design their own campaigns and have control over AI and many other features so they can get the campaign clockwork perfect.

I'd say that option for briefing, but that's is paperwork and boring (like in role playing games to improve axe skill you have to chop 20000 logs). No one wants to play a game to grind endlessly. Or having to click the ground crew and get planes ready and you have to get things in order like playing a session of Myst or some other adventure game.

It is interesting to some, but BOB SOW is about flying.

[Dozer_EAF19]

A great sim, and great "RPG-ish peripheral bits", aren't mutually exclusive. What is needed is the ability for third-party applications to "watch" what the sim's doing and possibly feed back into it. Then imaginative new stuff can be handled by community-built applications. Will there be a SDK for SoW??

[HFC_Dolphin]

To be honest, I wish in the end we see a lot of RPG elements in the game.
They "cost" nothing, but they add a lot to many of us.

[BadAim]

I really enjoyed the scenario in one of the COD's (or was it MOH?) where you were an air crewman that got shot down and had to find your way home (actually in that instance, it was finding help to get home) but that would be something interesting as an option. Actually from what I have seen I don't see why that couldn't happen or even be part of the development. Alternately you could, say land and finish off the guy you just shot down with your pistol (or strangle him if your flying red).