Friday 2010-10-01 Dev. update and Discussion

[caprera]

I'm so happy to see some Italian planes finally and not the usual single presence of a single one just for background reasons.
I hope some of them will be flyable

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by Baron

On the transparent cockpit issue.

Its not everyones job here to make sure new players play the game the "right" way, it is however Olegs job to make sure as many "newbies" as possible buys SoW and more importantly, sticks with it.

Exactly. I like fliying full switch, but in order for "new blood" to come in and stick with flight simming, we need to entice them with relaxed difficulty settings and a way to gradually transition to the higher ones, trying to smooth out the learning curve so to speak.

I always used to fly full switch, except from single player where i like playing with externals on for enjoying the visuals and snapping screenshots. I have been flying full switch since i was 12, now i'm 30. During these 18 years however, there's a whole lot of difficulty and complexity added to what "full switch" means. Flying full switch in Red Baron or Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe which i used to fly on my first 286 PC is probably like flying -20% difficulty in IL2.

I had the fortune to come into the flight sim hobby relatively early, almost from the ground floor. As PCs got stronger the simulators were able to model more complexities and evolve, the main thing being that i could gradually adjust to the changes and learn over the course of months or years...from S.W.O.T.L and Red Baron, to Aces of the Pacific and Aces over Europe, to 1942: the pacific air war, to Red Baron II/3D, European Air War and B17:the mighty 8th to IL2.

It didn't happen overnight and the reason i stuck with it is that initially, as a 12 year old kid, i could fly my Albatross or P47 over finely rendered pixelated and blocky fields and actually win in many occasions, but even if i didn't win it managed to be balanced, encouraging and alluding to what i had read in the history books. This is what draws people in initially.

Today, as a jaded veteran of the sim hobby all i think about is technical accuracy and fidelity. It's ok, we evolve in the course of pursuing a hobby. However, you can't make a convert out of a 12 year old by teaching him about the proper operation of the internal combustion engine. The way you can entice him is by suspending disbelief and making it easy for him to step into the shoes of someone else from the safety of his small, dark room that glows with the flicker of the screen and resonates with the humming of case fans at 3am, sneaking in one more sortie with the headphones on because it's Sunday night, tomorrow is a school day and mom will throw a fit if she finds out you're "playing those pretend-pilot games again".

For me, i want a SoW that is as realistic as possible. I don't want it to default to the lowest common denominator, difficulty-wise. I want to be surprised, frustrated, overwhelmed and scared the first time i fire it up, set everything to 100% and go on my first QMB sortie to sample the goods.

For the survival of flight sims however, i want an options panel that can dumb it down as far as it goes to attract that new generation of the 12 year olds of today's world...the "new blood" will take it upon themselves to start enabling the options as time goes by, learn the proper way to do things and come shoot us down in a few years

[Nattulv]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

Exactly. I like fliying full switch, but in order for "new blood" to come in and stick with flight simming, we need to entice them with relaxed difficulty settings and a way to gradually transition to the higher ones, trying to smooth out the learning curve so to speak.

I always used to fly full switch, except from single player where i like playing with externals on for enjoying the visuals and snapping screenshots. I have been flying full switch since i was 12, now i'm 30. During these 18 years however, there's a whole lot of difficulty and complexity added to what "full switch" means. Flying full switch in Red Baron or Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe which i used to fly on my first 286 PC is probably like flying -20% difficulty in IL2.

I had the fortune to come into the flight sim hobby relatively early, almost from the ground floor. As PCs got stronger the simulators were able to model more complexities and evolve, the main thing being that i could gradually adjust to the changes and learn over the course of months or years...from S.W.O.T.L and Red Baron, to Aces of the Pacific and Aces over Europe, to 1942: the pacific air war, to Red Baron II/3D, European Air War and B17:the mighty 8th to IL2.

It didn't happen overnight and the reason i stuck with it is that initially, as a 12 year old kid, i could fly my Albatross or P47 over finely rendered pixelated and blocky fields and actually win in many occasions, but even if i didn't win it managed to be balanced, encouraging and alluding to what i had read in the history books. This is what draws people in initially.

Today, as a jaded veteran of the sim hobby all i think about is technical accuracy and fidelity. It's ok, we evolve in the course of pursuing a hobby. However, you can't make a convert out of a 12 year old by teaching him about the proper operation of the internal combustion engine. The way you can entice him is by suspending disbelief and making it easy for him to step into the shoes of someone else from the safety of his small, dark room that glows with the flicker of the screen and resonates with the humming of case fans at 3am, sneaking in one more sortie with the headphones on because it's Sunday night, tomorrow is a school day and mom will throw a fit if she finds out you're "playing those pretend-pilot games again".

For me, i want a SoW that is as realistic as possible. I don't want it to default to the lowest common denominator, difficulty-wise. I want to be surprised, frustrated, overwhelmed and scared the first time i fire it up, set everything to 100% and go on my first QMB sortie to sample the goods.

For the survival of flight sims however, i want an options panel that can dumb it down as far as it goes to attract that new generation of the 12 year olds of today's world...the "new blood" will take it upon themselves to start enabling the options as time goes by, learn the proper way to do things and come shoot us down in a few years

Absolutly brilliant post
This mirrors my own experiance even if i have a handful of years more under my belt since birth. The line of sims he followed is the very same one I progress through too, with a few additions.

[Fafnir_6]

Originally Posted by caprera

I'm so happy to see some Italian planes finally and not the usual single presence of a single one just for background reasons.
I hope some of them will be flyable

Indeed! BR.20M & G.50 will be flyable with the initial release IIRC. CR.42 will likely become flyable later in SoW's development simply because so many airforces used it (perhaps with the rumoured Med add-on). If you browse through the SoW update listing thread (http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=16073) you should be able to find some G.50/BR.20 cockpit shots.

Cheers,

Fafnir_6

[Tbag]

or here:

http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...ger/?start=704

[major_setback]

Originally Posted by Tbag

or here:

http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...ger/?start=704

...and there's a video too!

[Richie]

Originally Posted by Tbag

or here:

http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...ger/?start=704

Tbag you are ..."The Dude"

[Friendly_flyer]

Originally Posted by Fafnir_6

Indeed! BR.20M & G.50 will be flyable with the initial release IIRC.

The Br.20 is a very handsome plane! I look forward to give her a go when BoB comes out!

[Freycinet]

I think a couple of you neglect the fact that this sim actually has to be programmed and has to work with an acceptable number of frames per second on a typical high-end computer.

It isn't possible to just overlay a rendering of the cockpit with a rendering of the full view. Both of those need processor cycles to render and you can't just double processor cycles out of the blue.

Same with adding textures to the clouds. You can't just do that endlessly until you have a photographic rendering. Especially if you want the exact same clouds to be visible from all angles by 25 guys flying online. This is very different from an MSFS add-on hanging big flat photos of clouds up around you as you putter along on your own in a Cessna.

I'd say that before you think of suggesting something that will add complexity to SoW:BoB then try to consider which feature you would want left out. So, you'd have to post "I'd like some more textures in the cloud tops and - to compensate - I think we should give up rendering 50 bombers simultaneously and settle for 40 instead". This is very much the zero-sum game the programmers have to deal with every day.

The major reason why Oleg blew us out of the water with Il-2 was that he employed ingenious programming solutions like the layered textures for great expanses of forests and the twirling one-dimensional smoke for planes going down on fire. You can rest assured that there are a many more ingenious programming solutions in SoW:BoB, but it just isn't possible to keep adding complexity since there is a finite number of processing cycles to work with...

Apart from the finite resources inside the computer there is also the whole issue of a limited programmer team and a clock ticking down to the deadline. By keeping adding to the requests at this moment in time, I think a lot of people are just setting themselves up for a big let-down when they get the sim in their hands. It will be light-years ahead of any other combat sim, but still not live up to impossibly inflated expectations.

Ask yourself if you really want to be jaded and slightly disappointed when you fire up SoW:BoB for the first time, or if you want to fill with boyish joy at the wonderful world opening up to you? - I think it is pretty much up to yourself and to the - possible or impossible - expectations you carry with you.

[SlipBall]

Freycinet good post...memorable game play should be the main goal. Picture perfect may come down the road as hardware strengthens.