Poll!! Regarding old style Coop GUI

[TheGrunch]

I think really, we can look at it like this.

A co-op in the Il-2 sense is basically a "mission". Once the mission is over, you don't want to keep playing. The whole design philosophy is different. Once you choose an aircraft you have an individual squadron or flight goal, and once you complete it, you are done and you can return to base unless you have other plans or interruptions. You fly one aircraft, and if you die, you are dead and it's tough, everyone else must fight on without you. It's interesting *because* of these limitations.

A dogfight in the Il-2 sense is a populated environment with no particularly strict or rigid mission structure or narrative or goal. It's just a "map". If you die you can hop into another aircraft whenever you want, or even into an aircraft in flight (depending upon settings). This is all we have at present in the GUI sense as there is no sense of "preparing for a mission" or "finishing a mission" - there is no decent briefing to speak of and no real debriefing or stats. There might be an overriding goal but because of the lack of detailed individual squadron briefing and aircraft choice and so on, most players will ignore it, and the map inevitably descends into furball chaos.

For that reason, the idea that co-op mode is now unnecessary is untrue. It's a completely different style of play with a completely different philosophy. To say that it's unrealistic because "in real life there was no co-op mode" is utter nonsense. In real life there was ALWAYS co-op mode. Military aircraft take off with a goal and a task to complete. This is clearly set out and timed and co-ordinated with other squadrons and groups. It isn't just "BLOW UP THE SHIPS SO RED WINS MAP LOL" either. The individual squadrons and groups' goals are distinct, and are planned to individually contribute toward achieving an overriding objective. These objectives are followed because they are the pilots' orders! You can't have that kind of organisation spontaneously, and that is where the current GUI falls down.

Dogfight mode is not a replacement for this because there is no organisation and no one to give orders, because if you don't agree with them or you have your own ideas, why would you follow them? You are not compelled in any way by the game structure or the scoring system or even other players to do so. Points and kudos are for blowing stuff up in dogfight mode, that's just how people think.

Did anyone who played IL-2 online for a long time ever consider MDS to be a complete replacement for co-op? I certainly didn't, and this is the same situation.

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by TheGrunch

For that reason, the idea that co-op mode is now unnecessary is untrue.

Just to be clear, I never said the COOP is unnecessary

I don't know of anwyone else that said that either

Only thing Ataros said was 1C merged DF and COOP into one, aka MISSIONS

He also noted that if someone wanted to, they could generate a IL-2 like COOP GUI/MENU/LIST with post mission debreifing

That is the beauty of the CoD C#! Only limit is your imagination!

Problem is it does require one to learn C#.. Which at this early point in CoD seems to be too big of a learning curve for some.. But I think a year or two from now we will be amazied at all the things those C# guys are doing that the IL-2 COOP GUI/MENU/LIST is a distant memory

[furbs]

Cool, but what we need NOW ACE is IL2 COOP mode, can you really not understand that?...wait...doesn't matter...the rest of us know it.

[TheGrunch]

That might be true, but as I've said elsewhere, we didn't buy this game to learn C# in order to do something that we've been able to do officially and far more completely since 2001. I can see the utility of C# for really advanced triggers and awesome stuff like that, but that is cool stuff that we have no right to expect as basic functionality. A simple co-op GUI is just basic stuff that we all expected since before the game was released. I understand your point ACE, but this is a game, not an SDK or an open-source project. I spend enough time dealing with horrendous and buggy scripting at work, I don't want it to eat into my gaming experience as well.

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by TheGrunch

That might be true, but as I've said elsewhere, we didn't buy this game to learn C# in order to do something that we've been able to do officially and far more completely since 2001. I can see the utility of C# for really advanced triggers and awesome stuff like that, but that is cool stuff that we have no right to expect as basic functionality. A simple co-op GUI is just basic stuff that we all expected since before the game was released.

I am all for a IL-2 like COOP GUI!

My point is if it was easy to do, as 1C was re-doing the FMB to include C# 1C would have done it

So, clearly it was not easy to do and 1C felt it was better to give us more options/controls

But it is nice to know that if someone wanted to do it, it can be done via a C# script

[TheGrunch]

Aren't those two assertions completely contradictory? "If it was easy to do they would have done it but it's okay because it can be done in the internal scripting language by a random unpaid non-professional volunteer."

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by TheGrunch

Aren't those two assertions completely contradictory? "If it was easy to do they would have done it but it's okay because it can be done in the internal scripting language by a random unpaid non-professional volunteer."

Not at all

By easy to do I mean include all of the old IL-2 FMB way of doing things into the new CoD FMB way of doing things

Where as Atrols noted the old IL-2 way consisted to TWO seperate types of missions DF or COOP

Where as Atrols noted the new CoD way consists of ONE type MISSIONS

While 1C was creating this new CoD way they found it either too hard to include a the old IL-2 COOP GUI/MENU/LIST

Or

1C realised it was not necessary to include a old IL-2 COOP GUI/MENU/LIST because they knew it could be done via the C# script methods

Where 1C made the mistake was giving the user too much credit for being intesested enough in COOPs to write the C# code to create the GUI\MENU\LIST

Well some users that is

[robtek]

Just to stay on the ground here, MG never intended to release the game in the state it is.

They had to release, and what is missing are the user friendly interfaces, as there wasn't time to develope them then, and now there are other pressing problems.

So the game can give us all the stuff requested here in the multiplayer mode as there won't be a coop-mode anymore.

As MG doesn't have the resources right now to produce this gui, we can either wait for MG to have the time or we can wait for a ingenious c# programmer to reverse engineer and write it.

Thats it.

[EAF331 Starfire]

Originally Posted by ACE-OF-ACES

Just to be clear, I never said the COOP is unnecessary

I don't know of anwyone else that said that either

Only thing Ataros said was 1C merged DF and COOP into one, aka MISSIONS

He also noted that if someone wanted to, they could generate a IL-2 like COOP GUI/MENU/LIST with post mission debreifing

But this still DONT give my pilots the ability to pick their aircrafts before "Server start" with an airstart ability at the exact same space, speed and heading in relation to all other aircrafts.

Which is a really nice IL-2 feature when you wan't to train the same ACM situation again and again. It also makes evaluation of an ACM training a lot easier. You can also use it for a lot of other action packed missions.

[EAF331 Starfire]

The ability to use a programming language to make missions is a nice extra option but it should be no more than that.
Most of us that have made mission for IL-2 (1946) don't have any knowledge of programming and I doubt that we will use (or have) the time getting to learn that. The end result will be fever missions and less community support.
I think it is imperativ that the focus lies on building a strong community base.