Friday Update, January 27, 2012

[Cobra8472]

For those of you doubting the 1 year / aircraft timeframe;

I've been working with FS aircraft for the past 4 years-- and worked with dozens of payware companies.

Generally, an aircraft is pushed out in ~3 months, and can easily take up to 4-6. Tubeliners for FS take even longer (systems coding is not easy).

Note, that this is with a full dedicated team, working one ONE aircraft-- for an already established sim with well-documented features.

However, we have the added advantage of not worrying about; damage models, LoD's, damage states, components, 100% accurate collision boxes, etc, all of which are incredibly important in CloD

It is completely reasonable to use at least 6-8 months per aircraft in development then + testing it and making sure it flies according to specs.

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by Cobra8472

For those of you doubting the 1 year / aircraft timeframe;

I've been working with FS aircraft for the past 4 years-- and worked with dozens of payware companies.

Generally, an aircraft is pushed out in ~3 months, and can easily take up to 4-6. Tubeliners for FS take even longer (systems coding is not easy).

Note, that this is with a full dedicated team, working one ONE aircraft-- for an already established sim with well-documented features.

However, we have the added advantage of not worrying about; damage models, LoD's, damage states, components, 100% accurate collision boxes, etc, all of which are incredibly important in CloD

It is completely reasonable to use at least 6-8 months per aircraft in development then + testing it and making sure it flies according to specs.

Cobra

Brace yourself to be called a liar or worse..

Why?

Because self proclaimed experts who have never done any of this type of work have already spoken and determined that it does not take that long to do. And the only way it could take that long is if 'you' are

1) a liar
2) not managing your team very well
3) stupid
4) all of the above

Just a little heads up!

But I not being one of those do want to thank you for providing some insite as to how much effort does go into doing what you do! S!

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by ACE-OF-ACES

Cobra

Brace yourself to be called a liar or worse..

Why?

Because self proclaimed experts who have never done any of this type of work have already spoken and determined that it does not take that long to do. And the only way it could take that long is if 'you' are

1) a liar
2) not managing your team very well
3) stupid
4) all of the above

Just a little heads up!

But I not being one of those do want to thank you for providing some insite as to how much effort does go into doing what you do! S!

You just don't want to understand. It's obvious that a one year development for a single aircraft is not a viable way to develop a simulator. Most add-on devs for FS do it on their spare time and do not have a professional project management background,so each team or software house has its times.

Maddox Games is a small company, that's why they need a more pro-active and efficient planning. 7+ years of development and an incomplete product are an unequivocal sign of poor line managing.

It's not whining, it's about the freedom of being able to submit constructive criticism to help,cos there are a lot of professionals here that can help,without getting all the hysterical reactions we see here.

Proper whiners are everywhere, and you won't change their attitude by being aggressive towards them,just ignore them and let everyone have their say.

[Theshark888]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

Maddox Games is a small company, that's why they need a more pro-active and efficient planning. 7+ years of development and an incomplete product are an unequivocal sign of poor line managing.

JACKPOT

MG needs to define a reasonable amount of development time and work backwards to define the correct amount of complexity in order to come up with a decent schedule. This "seat of the pants" type of development is totally unprofessional and not worthy of a company doing full time work.

Creating a full interior/exterior 3D CAD model showing all internal structure should only take 2 people 3 weeks. Where this other months of work is being done the reader can only guess.

Trying to say that the developers need factory blueprints of every inch of a ww2 aircraft in order to create an internal/external 3D model shows how over engineered and impossible they have made the task. Factory blueprints are actually notoriously unrelaible and inaccurate..they themselves would have so many updates/revisions that you would have a diffucult time matching the prints to an actual aircraft. The aircraft were produced in batches and there could be a wide variance between batches of the aircraft dimensionally, structurally, etc. This does not even take into account the different factories producing the planes-----US and German planes were bad enough and I can't even imagine the differences in Soviet aircraft.

The only way to get "accurate" dimensions of an aircraft would be to physically measure it. The problem with 70 year old aircraft is that they have probably been scrapped together at some point and are actually inaccurate of a typical example. This has come up with examples of aircraft from MG and others making WW2 aircraft models-such as plastic model companies.

Sorry just had to vent about these opinions of accuracy of models and time to create them and a lack of time management.

Wow Soviet aircraft! That will really make Cliffs of Dover a finished game. I guess all the game was missing was the IL-2. . . after all it's in the name. Once we have all these Soviet aircraft then the online campaign in Cliffs of Dover won't suck and we'll be able to play an online mode that isn't 30 people trying to fly as low as they can so they can use that famous "historically correct" tactic of "negative altitude advantage".

Why are people cheering on Battle of Moscow? It gets released, we have another map and some more flyable planes. . . that doesn't make the game we already spend money on fun does it? I bought this game hoping my friends and I could recreate the Battle of Britain online with other like-minded people. All we've got right now is a pathetic dogfight server that feels like the Brits and Germans decided to only fight 30-50 aircraft at a time, within as small a space as possible.

Am I taking crazy pills here and don't know it, or should people be asking for the devs to finish what they started instead of making another 1/2 finished game? Will we ever get an online gameplay mode that isn't just about whoever got the best kill to death ratio? Or are the devs at MG happy with their product's single player and multiplayer aspects being "satisfactory" . . . according to 1994 standards?

[Tiger27]

Originally Posted by speculum jockey

Wow Soviet aircraft! That will really make Cliffs of Dover a finished game. I guess all the game was missing was the IL-2. . . after all it's in the name. Once we have all these Soviet aircraft then the online campaign in Cliffs of Dover won't suck and we'll be able to play an online mode that isn't 30 people trying to fly as low as they can so they can use that famous "historically correct" tactic of "negative altitude advantage".

Why are people cheering on Battle of Moscow? It gets released, we have another map and some more flyable planes. . . that doesn't make the game we already spend money on fun does it? I bought this game hoping my friends and I could recreate the Battle of Britain online with other like-minded people. All we've got right now is a pathetic dogfight server that feels like the Brits and Germans decided to only fight 30-50 aircraft at a time, within as small a space as possible.

Am I taking crazy pills here and don't know it, or should people be asking for the devs to finish what they started instead of making another 1/2 finished game? Will we ever get an online gameplay mode that isn't just about whoever got the best kill to death ratio? Or are the devs at MG happy with their product's single player and multiplayer aspects being "satisfactory" . . . according to 1994 standards?

Wow did you even read the post, the graphics modellers don't fix the AI, nor do they do the recoding to fix bugs, some of you just seem to ignore what you are being told, if the Devs were happy do you think they would be spending all this time recoding graphics sounds etc to improve multiplayer and single player

I cant play the game at the moment always crashes, but at least the devs are still working on it, I still hold out hope that they will nail the problems down and get the game up to a level of quality that we saw with Il2, its obvious that this is going to take a while, so I just fly ROF while waiting

[Hunden]

All you die hard fans who say you wouldn't have minded waiting another year have got to be out of your freaking mind. What is stopping you from waiting now and coming back in a year or so. UNBELIEVABLE

Originally Posted by Tiger27

Wow did you even read the post, the graphics modellers don't fix the AI, nor do they do the recoding to fix bugs, some of you just seem to ignore what you are being told, if the Devs were happy do you think they would be spending all this time recoding graphics sounds etc to improve multiplayer and single player

I cant play the game at the moment always crashes, but at least the devs are still working on it, I still hold out hope that they will nail the problems down and get the game up to a level of quality that we saw with Il2, its obvious that this is going to take a while, so I just fly ROF while waiting

Yes I understand that modelers don't fix AI, but I also understand if the modelers and mission builders have all moved on to Battle Of Moscow, then the actual content support for CLOD has come to a stop. Is that what you would call a finished game? I know that patches to the engine will continue to be developed, since their sequel hinges on them as well, but are they going to do the same with BOM? Release a 1/2 finished game (Content Wise) and then move on to the next sequel?

To repeat, I have no issues with them fixing bugs, but what's the point if they never finish the heart of the game, the campaign, the single player, new multiplayer modes? I started a thread a year ago about the devs actually using their heads to attract customers. Instead of counting rivets on the bracket that holds the undercarriage to the wing spar, maybe they could have included new multiplayer game features, new features for the single player, and other things that would make the game fun. What's going to attract more players and make the game more fun? Having the correct font on the oil-pressure gauge, or having additional content and multiplayer modes that draws you into the game?

People (who are not belly-scraping rivet counters) are begging for something besides "dogfight server". Everyone I know who still playes the original IL-2 uses the "Moving Dogfighter Server Mod" or playes with "SEOW". People are begging for an SEOW style play mode, where everything you do matters to the end result of the game. The real players don't care about some stupid Kill/Death Stat, that's for the Sperglords who've never left their mom's basement. Give us a play mode where shooting down a plane, bombing a fuel dump, losing a pilot, strafing an airfield, or sinking a ship makes an impact to the actual game, not just "Red team has been shot down". Hell, give us a capture the flag mode, anything besides "fly at 30m dogfight".

If Cliffs of Dover were released nearly a year ago with a perfect engine, ran flawlessly, had no bugs, excellent performance. . . it still would have scored medium-low, because after you've tried 2-3 uninspired missions, got pissed at the campaign, and skimmed the ground in a dogfight server for an hour you're pretty much done with the game.

EDIT: If the Devs have no intention on finishing their work, they should at least make sure that the community has the tools and ability to finish it for them.

[Sternjaeger II]

AoA,we're all entitled to our opinions,you always bring things a notch down for some reason.

Luthier hasn't managed things properly and still isn't,that's my personal opinion,which happens to be backed by FACTS,not TALK.

I'm not saying he's not gonna fix things,but at this pace this new series will never be complete,like they didn't manage to complete IL-2 in 10 years,because all they cared for was adding more planes and leaving vast parts of the sim incomplete or not to a unified standard. It's sad to see this is happening again with the "new managing",and god knows if I hope they're gonna prove me wrong,cos I really think they're incredibly talented,but lacking a serious strategy or vision.

If you can't cope with opinions that differ from yours,maybe it's time yo go out for a breath of fresh air.

[Bewolf]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

AoA,we're all entitled to our opinions,you always bring things a notch down for some reason.

Luthier hasn't managed things properly and still isn't,that's my personal opinion,which happens to be backed by FACTS,not TALK.

I'm not saying he's not gonna fix things,but at this pace this new series will never be complete,like they didn't manage to complete IL-2 in 10 years,because all they cared for was adding more planes and leaving vast parts of the sim incomplete or not to a unified standard. It's sad to see this is happening again with the "new managing",and god knows if I hope they're gonna prove me wrong,cos I really think they're incredibly talented,but lacking a serious strategy or vision.

If you can't cope with opinions that differ from yours,maybe it's time yo go out for a breath of fresh air.

And yet IL2 was the best WW2 Sim ever to hit the markets. Maybe you should check your standarts here, Stern, and get a little reality check.

Or even better, as once again you appear to be much better in the know then everybody else, start your own Sim company to make us all happy in regards to WW2 Simming.