Where are the game elements in this sim?

[addman]

My prayers goes to Lowengrin that he will make a DCG for CloD soon because the game is just collecting virtual dust on my harddrive.

[Boogz]

It sure would be great beeing able to take off for a dynamic evening patrol south of the cliffs not knowing beforehand if/what/when anything will hit you.

[Skiiwa]

Unfortunatly the OP has a good point. The QMB that I ALWAYS played in 1946 just isnt there, and what is here is not working to make a complete flight playable.

In a Year this game will rock! Right now, I think I will go back to 1946 for my combat flight fix. If I remember, the same thing happened with 1946.

[iceblink_luck]

Originally Posted by Skiiwa

Unfortunatly the OP has a good point. The QMB that I ALWAYS played in 1946 just isnt there, and what is here is not working to make a complete flight playable.

In a Year this game will rock! Right now, I think I will go back to 1946 for my combat flight fix. If I remember, the same thing happened with 1946.

I too have gone back to 1946, couldn't install it from original DVD, so bought it again from GOG. It doesn't look that different, graphics-wise, to CoD - in fact, the latest review from Custom PC magazine states the same (35 out of 100, BTW, final sentance saying it is borderline unplayable). I stopped playing it a week after launch, and may get back to it in a few month's time - in the meantime, there are better games for me to waste my time on....

[Blackdog_kt]

I personally can't go back to IL2:1946, it's been way too easy to operate the aircraft for a long time and after trying out the new CEM i can't go back.

Originally Posted by Feathered_IV

I must agree. Remember the "Holy Sh*t" thread that Luthier himself started asking for gameplay elements? Tons of suggestions in there and not one was acted upon. Instead they went for the Spitgirl...

The only people who seemed to benefit from that thread was the Rise of Flight team. I notice that a very great many of the features suggested in that topic are already announced for the new single player dynamic campaign announced for release this month.

In all fairness, it took RoF two long years to get there. I think the big surge in regards to CoD content will come with the release of the SDK or at the very least, some scripting documentation.

If we can customize the interface (which they said is possible) to run a campaign generator in-game and track relevant data in the form of mission event logs, parsing them to the generator (which is possible through scripting), then the campaign generator can act on that information and create the next mission in a dynamic campaign.

As for many of your suggestions in that thread (which i really liked a lot), i expect they too will be possible through scripts, after all it's a C type language they are using: it needs some coding experience but it's much more powerful.

I think that whatever the devs do, once the community come to grips with scripting they will always be one step ahead, simply because we are so numerous and ideas keep bouncing around all the time.

Off the top of my head, things i would do if i knew how to work with scripts:

1) Navigator interface: From a simple "i click on the map and you tell me how to get there" to a full fledged SH3 type of deal with markers, rulers and protractors so i can draw up my own flight plans mid-flight, the have the script play "AI navigator" for me and guide me there. It would only work in aircraft that had a navigator crewman, for single seaters it would just give you the mapping tools to work with yourself.

2) Celestial navigation with a sextant for night missions (since the nice sky has accurate positions of constellations).

3) Script calling out contacts when they are in the field of view of AI crewmen.

4) Bombadier guidance script: Jump to the bomb-aimer's station, engage the script and guide the pilot through the bomb run (like level stabilizer but so much better and more realistic).

If i can come up with 3-4 useful ideas in the time span required to post a forum message imagine what the rest of the community can come up with, especially people who can actually code it, dedicated modders, etc. There's no way a developer team of 25 people will be able to compete with a few hundred or even thousand modding community members, so they focus on getting the basics done and providing a framework to do more. Of course, the basics are not there yet and i'm not denying that. I just don't expect the dev team to be able to "race" the community in terms of new features once we are up to speed with scripting, it's not realistic to think so.

I expected CoD to be a sort of "operating system/framework for simulation gaming" type of thing and that's exactly what it is, which is a big reason i maintain mostly positive attitudes about it (that is, it turned out to be what i expected it to be).

[addman]

Well, it's playable even on my modest rig, that's not the problem. Problem is there's nothing to play, have to create everything myself and that grows boring and predictable rather fast.

[ATAG_Doc]

They will never finish this it was designed that way. You will be fed a steady diet of new and interesting things as you progress. Sit back and have a soda. Everything is going to be just fine.

[Strike]

Originally Posted by GnigruH

If there's a competition, RoF is winning it atm.

RoF also has a 2 year head start mind you, and it was just as demotivating to play at release. I'd say even more useless than CloD at release because of the initial performance issues, useless multiplayer, poor-designed gui and quick mission system and few planes to fly. Now it's good, but to me it's more like flying in a painting with all the effects and artistic colours etc.

On the OP topic, I find the simulator more of a sandbox atm. You can set up stuff, test it out, fly, swap planes during missions, practice shooting down super AI rolling buggers. The lack of a dynamic campaign spoils it for my part. Broken multiplayer is testing my nerves though as I'm mostly an onliner. Can't wait to get into a server again and fly versus some human pilots with human behaviour That's where the sim really shines IMO!

[Redroach]

I mean, even Il-2 wasn't really a burner in terms of immersion between missions... no fancy rendered/acted sequences (at least SOMETHING when you were awarded medals/promotions; Battlehawks 1942 already had that with people gathering on your CV and your CO handing you the medals. The "Missing Man" formation in Falcon AT when you die is something else than just texting "Red has been shot down/killed", too.), very conservatively designed menus and simple .tga loading screens with nothing blinking, texting or anything like that. I figure that would take relatively little effort (excluding big-budget rendering/acting, of course), yet add greatly to non-flying immersion. Thus, Il-2 was very simplistic even in 2000 terms, yet CoD v.Alpha2 easily gets below that.
Meh, at least the drawn loading screens look reasonably well.

The more I think about it, the more it annoys me even with respect to Il-2 1946 >.<. Is RoF worth its money in that regard, as well as with respect to realism?

[Tiger27]

Originally Posted by GnigruH

If there's a competition, RoF is winning it atm.

I love ROF, but lets not forget , that they have had a two year head start, there was less meat in that sim on release than in CoD, IMO.