Friday 2009-10-30 Screenshots Update discussion thread

[Blackdog_kt]

Is it just me, or do some some of us expect "weird" things from this sim? I mean, it's a matter of taste obviously and every opinion is welcome, but think about it.
Given the limited development time remaining and the need to get everything right and released within 2010, wouldn't it be more important for a flight sim to have something else modelled in place of an FPS mini-game when you get shot down? There's countless of things that could be done to enhance immersion when you're still in the cockpit, why think about what happens when we leave the cockpit when we're still this early in the sim's life?

For example, if Oleg's team told us they had time for one more cosmetic feature and put up a poll on this forum, i wouldn't vote for "let me kill some women's auxiliary baloon corp members with my luger, before i dive from the cliffs of Dover and swim across the channel back to Abbeville"
I would vote for things like historical engine start sequences, with an option to have it both ways like FSX and Black Shark. That is, you can click all the switches yourself, or press the ignition button and the AI does it for you, but there's still a check-list to go through and you can't just get it running in seconds. It would make for some interesting scramble missions, don't you think?

Or the ability to be a ground controller in multiplayer, which would only take a screen of a radar scope to implement. Maybe the ability to have animated crewmembers inside a mutli-crewed bomber and give specific orders to them like lowering gear manually, putting out a fire or giving first aid to the tail gunner, like it was in B17 II: the mighty 8th.

If we really want to run wild with ideas, there's a lot of things we haven't yet covered about the experience of flying these aircraft. In a flight sim, i think these are more important than trying to turn the game around from a flight sim to a semi-tactical shooter.

Don't get me wrong, i'd love to see servers someday where we have air, land and sea units all battling it out and it could also be done in 1:1 scale maps. If a unit was too slow (eg, infantry or tanks) or too far away from the target (like a B17 flying a 6 hour raid), we could have certain nodes and tell the AI to drive there, then the players take control. So, a fighter pilot on a CAS sortie would start inside the hangar but the infatryman would respawn at a node much closer to the action, while the heavies would be halfway across the North Sea and nearing Holland before the player jumped in and took over control from the AI. There's a load of things that could be done and a lot of terrific ideas are being proposed, i just think it's a bit early to be focusing on anything else than aircraft and air combat right now.

In any case, i'm mighty impressed during the past couple of weeks. Keep up the good work Oleg and team and as for the rest of us, let's keep the ideas going.

[HFC_Dolphin]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

Is it just me, or do some some of us expect "weird" things from this sim?

I hope they don't ask for a device link to a vibrator, that will make them...feel the turbulence

You are right, though there are things that can be added, with not much cost, in the game and add to it a lot.
It doesn't have to be the...walking from enemy lines to friendly territory (as Feuerfalke said, you can always play some FPS game), but adding some more RPG features (ONLY in stats/missions/other data and NOT in graphics which need a lot of development), this would make the game appealing to a much bigger audience.

Anyway, I'm sure that with every update, we'll see a lot of weird requests, but who knows, there might be some interesing ones as well, and Oleg & Co get inspired to make the game as good as they can.

[PeterPanPan]

Well, I don't think is too weird a request, and hope that Oleg & Co see it as a useful one. How's about the ability for the FMB (or whatever it is going to be called) to have the ability to generate realistic looking recon photos that you can easily annotate via a GUI. Then, in the briefing stage of missions, players can actually see this image. Something like ...



I think this would greatly add to the enjoyment, realism and immersion of the sim.

EDIT ... apologies if this wasn't really the right place the post this.

Cheers

PPanPan

[SlipBall]

Originally Posted by PeterPanPan

Well, I don't think is too weird a request, and hope that Oleg & Co see it as a useful one. How's about the ability for the FMB (or whatever it is going to be called) to have the ability to generate realistic looking recon photos that you can easily annotate via a GUI. Then, in the briefing stage of missions, players can actually see this image. Something like ...



I think this would greatly add to the enjoyment, realism and immersion of the sim.

EDIT ... apologies if this wasn't really the right place the post this.

Cheers

PPanPan

In full mission builder now you are able to take a "grab" view of the map...could that shot not be edited to produce the image you seek? This is more of a asking question to you, since I have not put much effort into this.

[HFC_Dolphin]

Actually I think PeterPanPan doesn't mean that he needs these pictures to be made through FMB. This is already possible, as you mention SlipBall.

What we expect to see, and Oleg is aware of it, is the possibility of online taking pictures (by some recon planes) and then the possibility of adding these pictures in the mission briefing, along with leader's comments/orders.
That, I guess we should be seeing it.

[PeterPanPan]

Hi Slipball

Yes, you can take a 'grab' of the scene in FMB already. That is how I made this image, just by pressing the 'Print Screen' key. I then used Photoshop and manually added the 'folded paper' effect and all the words and arrows and changed it to black & white. It's all a bit time consuming and fiddly and not easy for those with no or little skills in this area. I was just thinking it would be a whole lot easier if there was an in-game menu driven method of achieving this type of result.

Hi HFC Dolphin

Yes, the ability to shoot in-game recon photos would be great too, and I'm pleased to hear Oleg is aware of this. I have read another post too about the ability to have gun-cams producing those iconic, shaky, black & white, low frame rate clips.

Cheers

PPanPan

[AdMan]

It would be nice to have some of those film effects in-game. Not just for recon and gun cams but for tracks as well. one could just import the vids into a program like adobe after effects and create the camera effects themselves but it would be cool to have them in-game for those who aren't well versed in motion graphics. Especially if the they were emulated after actual cameras that existed and were used at that time.

So often we see history in our minds the way it appears on film, it would give the player a real sense of living history. This is also similar to the intro of the original IL-2, which took game tracks and added film grain and a black and white effect.

[luthier]

Originally Posted by PeterPanPan

Well, I don't think is too weird a request, and hope that Oleg & Co see it as a useful one. How's about the ability for the FMB (or whatever it is going to be called) to have the ability to generate realistic looking recon photos that you can easily annotate via a GUI. Then, in the briefing stage of missions, players can actually see this image. Something like ...

I spent a lot of time building single and co-op missions for Il-2, so I had a laundry list of things to be done to briefings.

You're going to loooove the new mission briefings.

[Tbag]

Originally Posted by luthier

I spent a lot of time building single and co-op missions for Il-2, so I had a laundry list of things to be done to briefings.

You're going to loooove the new mission briefings.

That's AWESOME news! Thanks for the info Ilya! It brings me to another idea: Multiplayer mission briefings. Would it be possible to include an interactive mission screen where you can draw on the map and other users can see it? This would be soooo cool for coop missions! But I can see that this is probably asked too much.

[philip.ed]

Originally Posted by luthier

I spent a lot of time building single and co-op missions for Il-2, so I had a laundry list of things to be done to briefings.

You're going to loooove the new mission briefings.

Oooh nice Did you get the PM luthier?