Friday (27.05.11) is approaching!

[Redroach]

Originally Posted by ARM505

Neither Americans nor Swedes will produce another quality combat flight sim, for the same reason that 1C is now struggling - money. Americans used to produce the best sims, until the financial realities of having the necessary large, highly competent team caught up. 1C was able to reap the benefits of the skilled Russian workforce for longer due to the financial situation there, but it has caught up with them too now. Fact: A large, intelligent, qualified body of developers will make more money more efficiently (ie enough to actually survive as a company for a start) doing something else, NOT flightsims. I doubt we will see another WW2 flight sim in the forseeable future (with the possible exception of a 777-developed one, itself highly debatable). It's just too niche - the production time and effort required for the level of fidelity needed yields almost no rewards.

Flight sim limitations have long since moved from the technical, to the financial IMHO.

This isn't/wasn't the case for 1C; I'm fairly sure of that. I think they got a semi-healthy (you never know what corpses lie in one's cellar, as we say in Germany) company before the release of CoD. The problem wasn't dedication or knowledge; the problem was/is sloppy design/programming, compounded by an early release (though one would wonder what others could have done in 6 years... maybe someone was fed up and decided to release come heaven or hell) , for whatever reasons, and, as a result of that, a totally botched and unfinished codebase. I mean, people will spend years cleaning up this sim; there are so many problems in detail it's definately not funny. Spend years, assuming there is further commitment to CoD, of course.
Financial problems may very well have been arosen after the release of CoD, however. Though they say they are hiring guys...

[JG5_emil]

Originally Posted by ARM505

Neither Americans nor Swedes will produce another quality combat flight sim, for the same reason that 1C is now struggling - money. Americans used to produce the best sims, until the financial realities of having the necessary large, highly competent team caught up. 1C was able to reap the benefits of the skilled Russian workforce for longer due to the financial situation there, but it has caught up with them too now. Fact: A large, intelligent, qualified body of developers will make more money more efficiently (ie enough to actually survive as a company for a start) doing something else, NOT flightsims. I doubt we will see another WW2 flight sim in the forseeable future (with the possible exception of a 777-developed one, itself highly debatable). It's just too niche - the production time and effort required for the level of fidelity needed yields almost no rewards.

Flight sim limitations have long since moved from the technical, to the financial IMHO.

How true.

[Rocka]

Originally Posted by ARM505

Neither Americans nor Swedes will produce another quality combat flight sim, for the same reason that 1C is now struggling - money. Americans used to produce the best sims, until the financial realities of having the necessary large, highly competent team caught up. 1C was able to reap the benefits of the skilled Russian workforce for longer due to the financial situation there, but it has caught up with them too now. Fact: A large, intelligent, qualified body of developers will make more money more efficiently (ie enough to actually survive as a company for a start) doing something else, NOT flightsims. I doubt we will see another WW2 flight sim in the forseeable future (with the possible exception of a 777-developed one, itself highly debatable). It's just too niche - the production time and effort required for the level of fidelity needed yields almost no rewards.

Flight sim limitations have long since moved from the technical, to the financial IMHO.

Well I agree with most of the things you say sir, but you forget one of the most fundamental things there is to game-developement, the one that even got Oleg himself into this buisniess: Enthusiasm and a pure interest into aviation.

Without any of those two, money can´t save your'e product in the end cause it'll reveal itself. For an Indie game dev. team you can do a lot of good stuff without large amounts of money, but not in the long haul. So a combination of the two; money and aviation nerd would be the best combo, but of course a hard one to gain.

[Rattlehead]

Originally Posted by ARM505

Flight sim limitations have long since moved from the technical, to the financial IMHO.

It's a sad day when games of integrity have been shoved to the sidelines whilst games without integrity blossom.

What I mean when I say 'games of integrity' is games that are labours of love; a game where the developer truly loves and appreciates the subject matter.

Unfortunately, too many games these days are 'products'...merely cash cows that publishers know will sell well, because that's what is in demand.

But...we are all here on this forum, talking about and playing Clod. The market may not be that big, but the enthusiasm is there. As long as that enthusiasm does not die, there is always a chance of survival and more, even if the path is harder travelled.

[Rattlehead]

Originally Posted by Vengeanze

I wish that the americans or swedes would take an interest in combat flightsim as obviosuly the russians suck at programming and customer care.

Rather harsh statement that.
We have grown used to weekly patches and feedback true, but I don't know if we can rely on these things like clockwork.
Besides, the week isn't over yet.

[Ze-Jamz]

Originally Posted by Rattlehead

Rather harsh statement that.
We have grown used to weekly patches and feedback true, but I don't know if we can rely on these things like clockwork.
Besides, the week isn't over yet.

To be honest we get patches with the same readme's, they fix things but they brake things too...

I dont want patches like that every week because 1/ I want things fixed and I dont want to trade a fixed item to a item that did work to now be broken and 2) if your like me you look forward to these patches for what? because deep down we hope that nearly everything is going to be fixed at the same time bar maybe content, so when its not were back to disappointment again..

Id rather put up with what i have and actually receive a patch that makes a difference..

this is my opinion and i do appreciate that alot of people here cant even run the dam game and are awaiting even just that fix..i feel for you

[roadczar]

Originally Posted by Vengeanze

I feel abused. 1C exploit our dedication to this genre.
I'm this close to feck this. I wish that the americans or swedes would take an interest in combat flightsim as obviosuly the russians suck at programming and customer care.

From what I see programming talent is not the issue, but I agree with you that lack of quality control and regression testing combined with good project management is definitely a problem. These are essential on projects of this scale.
Customer care/poor communication is a problem that can be easily avoided. The fact that 1C claims to be too busy to post a simple weekly progress update with the list of items being worked on (or plan to work on) tells that either they don’t care or not having success (whatever that may mean).

[CharveL]

I agree completely with the comment about the financial realities of the genre.

The biggest shame is whatever went on between Oleg/Luthier/1C to cause them to split up. I suspect it had something to do with the decision to early release (btw which wasn't UBI's fault) and/or certain internal politics.

I'm not going to pass judgement one way or the other without any actual knowledge of the situation but I'd bet Oleg was completely against releasing CloD in the state it was in while the other faction was concerned about certain financial realities perhaps.

Either way we lose because Oleg was pretty much the heart and soul of the operation - not to diminish in any way Luthier's integral part - and now I doubt we'll hear much if anything from Oleg anymore.

I trust it's in good enough hands now, all things considered, and we'll just need some patience along with the dedicated work of the community to turn this sim into what it will eventually be.

Maybe we should all stop being so melodramatic about everything and either support the devs throughout the painful process of improving the sim - yes, even with constructive criticism - or for those who can't help but get all worked up, just put it on the shelf for some months until it's at a point where they feel a bit less butthurt.