Friday 2010-12-03 Dev. update and Discussion

[Osprey]

Originally Posted by klem

I don't want to offend Oleg but it is so fundamental to the main defensive Battle, in the South East, that it should be in there. It is not a 'future enhancement' for 'other campaigns', it was an important factor in the Battle and should be in from the start. Not having the one day major NE Coast Luftwaffe raid (2 targets) playable is only a small matter.

No Duxford in the BoB is like playing cards with all the Jacks removed.

BoB in it's historical sense can't be properly fulfilled or re-enacted/scenario'd without it. OTOH, if people are only interested in big dogfights and shooting down a few bombers over Kent and pretending they are recreating the BoB they won't care, and it won't matter, what fields are or aren't included.

We could of course select a West Country airfield to represent Duxford and have them fly northeast to the edge of the map then turn around and fly south but that's hardly in keeping with Oleg's policy of quality and accuracy.

Please remember that this thread is specifically intended for us to air our views on this week's offering fom Oleg. He's quite capable of answering for himself on such a fundamental point. It's the first time I have seen the map and you can judge from other posts that the Duxford issue is a real concern.

Klem, I am assuming that you aren't an englishman because your geography is all over the shop.

1. Duxford is in the East, not the South-East You may consider it the South East but people in England consider it Eastern, especially those who proudly live there. To put things into perspective it is as far north as Coventry and they speak funny up there
2. The South West is not on this map. The South West (where I live) extends to Wiltshire and that's it. Everything else to the East is considered Southern and South Eastern.
3. Historically 12 Group squadrons didn't get all that involved in the fighting over the South Downs. Winny covered this point very well.

In order to include Duxford the map would have to extend another 50 miles northward. To put things into perspective RAF Croydon is 50 miles from the South Coast at Brighton.

[Abbeville-Boy]

there has to be a line not crossed to get this thing done ASAP

[Ploughman]

I was looking forward to bombing Weymouth, but Southampton'll do nicely. And Sidcup of course, coming to get you Sidcup.

Thanks for the update, looks like more lost weeks in the mission builder ahead.

[d165w3ll]

Originally Posted by Ploughman

I was looking forward to bombing Weymouth, but Southampton'll do nicely. And Sidcup of course, coming to get you Sidcup.

Thanks for the update, looks like more lost weeks in the mission builder ahead.

What about Slough? ()

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by kendo65

But you're back into 'what if' scenarios again.

That was my main point before (someone else also made the same point talking about the campaign - as an individual pilot or even a squadron commander you have no real influence in those kinds of questions. You just follow the orders handed down from Group or higher level)

When flying a mission in il2 or SOW you will be given a briefing - your instructions - there is no lee-way. You don't get to choose what targets to attack and you don't get to say that your superior's strategy is rubbish.

The jump to allowing the player to decide targetting and strategy is really a jump to a different game (or a different level). It is something that was never in il2 for instance.

It seems that BOB will restrict a player to fulfilling the role of an individual pilot / squadron commander. You will take part in missions and endeavour through use of tactics and skill to succeed. You won't get to decide the strategy, targetting, etc. If you want a realistic campaign that reflects the experience of the real-life pilots then this is accurate.

If we want a sim that allows us to be Keith Park or Leigh Mallory I think we need a different game, or a massively expanded game that would include resource management elements (pilots, aircraft) and require the player to manage locations for squadrons along with targetting and how the squadrons are used.

Personally speaking, I would love to have a game that covered all of those levels. I just realise how big a leap beyond il2 that would be, and I don't think we're going to get it.

this has got off-topic somewhat, but it all comes out of the debate about the map - the type of game we are going to get determines the type of map we need

I agree with you. The thing is, i agree because i'm mostly an off-liner. For an online server running realistic missions, the limited initial scope of the new series will mean that lots of mission builders will want to delve into slightly what-if territory.

In that case, the player does in fact shape and decide strategy by the way he's building the mission. Not to mention that if the new multiplayer mode that's been talked about is in fact what most people think and hope it will be (an online dynamic campaign, like DF and coop mode mixed together with supply considerations and monitoring thrown in), the impact of players on deciding the overall strategy becomes even more.
If we think of having this sort of DF server that runs weekly scenarios instead of missions spanning a few hours, it's obvious that there will be no predeterimned briefing like there is in co-ops and single player campaigns, no definite orders, but the players will form up on ad-hoc missions of their own in an effort to achieve the objectives as efficiently as they can.

Give players, any players of any game, the competitive incentive and they will soon come up with a lot of variations that the people in charge back in the day missed or simply didn't want to risk trying.
In that sense, i have a feeling we'll see a hugely succesful use of the 110 for example, with most people using them as fast fighter bombers and for fighter sweeps ahead of the main bomber stream, tactics that were never used in the real battle.

I do agree that the line needs to be drawn somewhere and the game released. However, it would be good to know that if a community made and limited in size map of sufficient quality could be made for the "missing" territory, that it could be incorporated into a patch that joins it with the rest of the official map, just like community submitted aircraft made it into IL-2 in the past. I guess this solution would please everyone in the long run

Edit: I see you guys beat me to it

[klem]

Originally Posted by Osprey

Klem, I am assuming that you aren't an englishman because your geography is all over the shop.

1. Duxford is in the East, not the South-East You may consider it the South East but people in England consider it Eastern, especially those who proudly live there. To put things into perspective it is as far north as Coventry and they speak funny up there
2. The South West is not on this map. The South West (where I live) extends to Wiltshire and that's it. Everything else to the East is considered Southern and South Eastern.
3. Historically 12 Group squadrons didn't get all that involved in the fighting over the South Downs. Winny covered this point very well.

In order to include Duxford the map would have to extend another 50 miles northward. To put things into perspective RAF Croydon is 50 miles from the South Coast at Brighton.

Oh gawd I promised myself I wouldn't say any more on this but your points are a bit different.

I am English, I now live on the South Coast near to Brighton. I was born in SE London under what had been the V1/V2 alley and 300 yds from a major triple railway junction that got plastered several times. I played on bombsites and have got p*ssed in Croydon. I work as a volunteer at an aviation museum that was an 11 Group Sector Station and has a hall dedicated to the BoB. I know exactly where Duxford is, I have visited it several times and my daughter went to Uni at nearby Cambridge. I drove past Duxford many times.

My english said 'the main defensive Battle, in the South East,' meaning I accept that we don't have the North Eastern LF5 raids or the offensive bombing raids into Germany (don't ever suggest to Bomber Crew of the time that Bombing played no part in the Battle, I have met a couple and they don't like it).

I know the South West is not on the Map and I haven't worried about 10 Group although the map touches on that.

The 12 Group squadrons did not, indeed, get much involved over the South Downs, their task was to defend the 11 Group Airfields, particularly those to the South of London down to Surrey and mid Kent.

Look guys, we can kick this football around for another week. We all have our opinions about whether 12 Group was important or not. Some of your your views are interesting and to me somewhat surprising at how little importance you attach to 12 Group's involvement in the Battle, as it was fought, or to how it might otherwise have been fought.

However, mine was a simple question to Oleg. The only thing I am really interested in now, expecting that we won't get an important part of 12 Group, is how Oleg, knowing the Battle, intended us to represent Squadrons outside 11 Group that took part, e.g. how did he envisage us representing the Duxford Wing.

That's it, I'm done.

[nearmiss]

Klem

You have made some very good points.

Oleg may be able to address your concerns. Possibly a while after the initial release with an enlarged map, which could release as a patch.

Then again, for security reasons the actual map for BOB SOW may not be what we are seeing in the screenshots. Afterall, the SOW is about the Battle of Britain. It just doesn't make sense for a BOB to not have all the groups covered.

Afterall, many users already have large amounts of ram, high performance video cards, and multi-processors. It has been my understanding the map sizes have been restricted principally to allow persons with lower spec systems to use the sim.

[Bearcat]

If this sim is like IL2 was I will not be surprised it it will run fine off a dual core something or other with DDR 400 RAM and -4 generation video card.. at toned down settings of course..

[kendo65]

Originally Posted by nearmiss

Klem

You have made some very good points.

Oleg may be able to address your concerns. Possibly a while after the initial release with an enlarged map, which could release as a patch.

Then again, for security reasons the actual map for BOB SOW may not be what we are seeing in the screenshots. Afterall, the SOW is about the Battle of Britain. It just doesn't make sense for a BOB to not have all the groups covered.

Afterall, many users already have large amounts of ram, high performance video cards, and multi-processors. It has been my understanding the map sizes have been restricted principally to allow persons with lower spec systems to use the sim.

Oh NO!! Just when it had all been sorted! (nearly)

I can't see that being the case Nearmiss. Are you suggesting that you were hoping for the map to go all the way to Scotland (and presumably then include Norway too - sorry that old Norwegian horse has been flogged pretty hard by me these last few days ), to cover anywhere that saw ANY action at all in the BOB?

(I believe the first German aircraft to be shot down in Britain was up north [either Scotland or north of England?])

Or, do you mean that it should just include the SW and up to the midlands?

There are a lot of cities to include in a bigger map - if they're all going to be done to the same standard as London it's going to take a LONG time, and for what real benefit? How many times will people re-enact a raid on Hull?

Also, the secrecy argument has been used a few times before by people who have a hard time believing that their personal idea of what the game would be isn't going to happen. I don't buy it.

By the way, where is Oleg when we need him?

[FlatSpinMan]

Hopefully not bothering reading the last 5 or so pages.