Friday 2010-07-30 Dev. update and Discussions

[luthier]

Sorry I'm a bit late with the replies.

Originally Posted by csThor

Ilya - Just to be sure I understand that correctly: You can select the german staff markings in any colour you wish, right? Because they were always only in black & white and sometimes even just in one of the two colours (or even just an outline in some rare cases). Or did I miss something here?

Yes it's not restrictive. Like in Il-2, you can set any plane group to be a certain geschwader - gruppe - staffel. Then, new in BoB, you can set any plane to be any number or a pre-set such as a geschwaderkommodore or a technical officer or a staffel pastry chef. Which means you can potentially have a geschwaderkommodore flying for a 6. Staffel, which would color his markings yellow.

We could restrict it to only historical possibilities, but why should we? If a mission creator wants to have green or red staff markings, and the game already supports it by definition, why go through the extra trouble of coding restrictions?

Originally Posted by Fansadox

Where are the swastikas?

Russia recently passed a new law similar to the German one making any kind of Nazi symbols illegal. The law does not have provisions for historical context. 1C being based in Russia, if we were to manufacture a product with swastikas in it, we could be taken to court for Nazi propaganda.

Originally Posted by Zorin

luthier, am I correct in assuming that there will be two versions of the He111 in game? From the screenshots it looks like there is a P-2 and H-3 version.

H-2 and P-2 actually.

Originally Posted by Zorin

It did look alright in previous screenshots, ut todays shot make them look like sitting too low in the cockpit. The way they look it appears to be impossible to look through the gun sight.

It's all part of the animation thing. Our stock pilots are 175 cm I think. With tight cockpits like the 109, we have to find a fragile balance between height and shoulder room so they don't clip through the sides of the cockpit during maneuvers.

This of course has absolutely no bearing on player camera position.

Originally Posted by Friendly_flyer

Iiiii don't know what I'm doing, that's all.

Originally Posted by Friendly_flyer

An order for tail-markings for RAF planes was issued in May. It specified tricolour markings in RAF paint colours, red forward, and stated that they should "cover as much of the fin area as possible". Thus, a number of versions appeared. These are all taken from photos of Hurricanes in 1940:

We have all those variants. There's a huge jump ahead compared to Il-2 markings. I want to keep it the details a secret for now, until we're ready to show that in a screenshot as well.


Re: Hurricane prop. We stand by it. We've got references up the wazoo, it's historically accurate.


Re: whining. We do appreciate and welcome constructive criticism. We never claim to be flawless, and we really do want to see your feedback, both positive and negative.

On the other hand, the posters that are a bad version of top 20 radio station, with the same song playing over and over and over and over again week after week after week, that's just completely unnecessary. We get it. Fine. We're working on improving the sim on all fronts, so it'll either get corrected eventually, or if it isn't, you're more than welcome to resume whining when it ships that way in the release. Honestly. Once or twice is enough.

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by luthier

Russia recently passed a new law similar to the German one making any kind of Nazi symbols illegal. The law does not have provisions for historical context. 1C being based in Russia, if we were to manufacture a product with swastikas in it, we could be taken to court for Nazi propaganda.

So, can it presumed, then, that there will be one version of SoW for all regions that omits the depiction of the swastika? Or might there be a "hidden" swastika file like in IL2?

[luthier]

Originally Posted by LukeFF

So, can it presumed, then, that there will be one version of SoW for all regions that omits the depiction of the swastika? Or might there be a "hidden" swastika file like in IL2?

No there won't be a hidden swastika, and Russian legal climate being what it is, we can even potentially get in trouble if one is made as a pure user mod with no help from us.

I mean, lots of other Russian teams, video games, movies, books, etc, continue to splash swastikas all over their work and they don't get in trouble, but who knows what the climate will be in a year or two or five. We'd rather stay 100% legal, and that means no swastikas, no SS runes, no portraits of Hitler, and so on. We have a wide variety of historical posters for example appear randomly on our buildings (British in England, French and German in France) and we scrubbed out anything remotely Nazi from the German ones. So trust me, there won't be a hidden swastika feature.

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by luthier

No there won't be a hidden swastika, and Russian legal climate being what it is, we can even potentially get in trouble if one is made as a pure user mod with no help from us.

I mean, lots of other Russian teams, video games, movies, books, etc, continue to splash swastikas all over their work and they don't get in trouble, but who knows what the climate will be in a year or two or five. We'd rather stay 100% legal, and that means no swastikas, no SS runes, no portraits of Hitler, and so on. We have a wide variety of historical posters for example appear randomly on our buildings (British in England, French and German in France) and we scrubbed out anything remotely Nazi from the German ones. So trust me, there won't be a hidden swastika feature.

Thanks for that detailed reply. In the long run, it's not a big deal, as I'm sure modders will be releasing skins with swastikas on them within days (if not hours) after the game's release.

Speaking of skins, will the skins that ship with the game be moddable, or will they be hard-coded, like the defaults in IL2?

[SlipBall]

Originally Posted by luthier

No there won't be a hidden swastika, and Russian legal climate being what it is, we can even potentially get in trouble if one is made as a pure user mod with no help from us.

I mean, lots of other Russian teams, video games, movies, books, etc, continue to splash swastikas all over their work and they don't get in trouble, but who knows what the climate will be in a year or two or five. We'd rather stay 100% legal, and that means no swastikas, no SS runes, no portraits of Hitler, and so on. We have a wide variety of historical posters for example appear randomly on our buildings (British in England, French and German in France) and we scrubbed out anything remotely Nazi from the German ones. So trust me, there won't be a hidden swastika feature.

I find this new's, VERY disappointing, but I realize the position the law places you in. It certainly will affect the immersion level for some players, this one included.

[BG-09]

Luthier, it seems to me that the human model is smaller than it should be... The pilot looks like child. I think that we need bigger pilot figure. Luthier, please do some measurements and tell us is this a kid, hijacking militarily aircraft, or a fully grown man. The pilot just seems SMALL compared to the aircraft. I am very painfully sensitive about the pilot figure!!! BECAUSE THE PILOT IN TO THE COCKPIT IT IS ME!!!

NOW SERIOUSLY:
Luthier, and team, please look at all pictures of Hurricanes below, and see that even the pilots has bent their heads forwards, the top of the head of the pilot is still at level equal to the cockpit's roof! Now look at the picture from the current 30/07/2010 weekly update and see, that there is a plenty of room above the head of the pilot of the Hurricane. It is obvious then, that the pilot's figure is smaller than it should be! It hurts me a lot, straight in to the heart!

Please do something...


~S!

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by BG-09

Luthier, and team, look at this picture oh Hurricane below, and see that even the pilot has bent his head forwards, the top of the head of the pilot is at the level equal to the cockpit's roof! Now look at the picture from the current 30/07/2010 weekly update and see, that there is a plenty of room above the head of the pilot of the Hurricane. It is obvious then the pilot's figure is smaller than it should be! It hurts me a lot, straight in to the heart!

Please do something...

If you had bothered to read Luthier's replies, you would've seen his response in post #103 in this thread.

[BG-09]

Originally Posted by LukeFF

If you had bothered to read Luthier's replies, you would've seen his response in post #103 in this thread.

It seems you have clear view just as me. Let the force be with You!

~S!

[Friendly_flyer]

Originally Posted by SlipBall

I find this new's, VERY disappointing, but I realize the position the law places you in. It certainly will affect the immersion level for some players, this one included.

In IL2, there is a way to manually edit the campaign file so that you can make the whole squadron use a particular skin. If this feature is made s a tad more accessible in SoW, a user-made skin and such a feature would probably solve that problem very easily.

[SlipBall]

Originally Posted by Friendly_flyer

In IL2, there is a way to manually edit the campaign file so that you can make the whole squadron use a particular skin. If this feature is made s a tad more accessible in SoW, a user-made skin and such a feature would probably solve that problem very easily.

Maybe...but this one sentience might mean maybe not...also it may even be a deal breaker for some of us

Originally Posted by luthier
No there won't be a hidden swastika, and Russian legal climate being what it is, we can even potentially get in trouble if one is made as a pure user mod with no help from us.

To scrub the worlds unpleasant history, is the best way to repeat it's mistakes.