Pacific Fighters Bombed - inadequate maps

[tater]

They really should have released the map tools from the start. We'd have had better maps (in choice AND quality) than PF came with a couple months after PF was out (since we now know that 5 months is the boundry value for people with no idea what they were doing when they started* )

Regarding legal issues... if Ubi had a decent lawyer on staff they'd know what ©, ™, and ® are, or perhaps even where they live on the keyboard.

tater

[nearmiss]

Originally Posted by tater

They really should have released the map tools from the start. We'd have had better maps (in choice AND quality) than PF came with a couple months after PF was out (since we now know that 5 months is the boundry value for people with no idea what they were doing when they started* )

Regarding legal issues... if Ubi had a decent lawyer on staff they'd know what ©, ™, and ® are, or perhaps even where they live on the keyboard.

tater

AMEN to that!

I think Oleg probably didn't know how he could manage his sim with 3rd party devs building mods. Afterall, to allow good 3rd party interventions he would probably had to come forth were information he feared might go awry in the wrong hands.


Regardless, I do see some people pumping out stuff a little too fast for sensible mods.

We needed maps from the begining, and that is one area all the IL2 has suffered from the lack of. "The Slot" and some of these coming map mods are going to make the maps that came with IL2 look unprofessional for sure.

Honestly, I have concerns about the aircraft. I don't know at this point if they are doing anything more than using everything from already built airplanes except the graphics.

The sound mod... well it may be more real, but the engine sounds make you think of junker aircraft on their last legs trying to make war. The explosions are pretty good, so I would probably have preferred Oleg's engine sounds and 3rd party sounds for the pops and bangs.

Again, if you look a the interest in the coming "THE SLOT" it should be clear what people want. If you watch the History channel, you get an idea of the war theatres of interest to people.

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...Slot_Mid43.jpg

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The Shockwave and devs group continue to work with their BOB II WOV. I don't see much more that Oleg's BOB can bring to users for exciting game play. THe English and Northern France landscapes are flat and boring, and every battle is just a furrball. The BOB II WOV has the most competent AI performance of any CFS I've ever known. The sim has an AI peformance engine the devs are continuing to tweak. A 2.08 release is soon coming and it has even more improvements in the AI performance. Since BOB II is currently an Offline game, the AI performance is critical to good game play. The devs are addressing the needs of the sim very sensibly and they are all over the forums answering questions and learning what their users want.

The BOB II devs are working on the online game and have been for some time. They may first release as a Coop and later as a full online game. BOB II Online play probably will NOT equal Oleg's Online play to start, experience being a very important part of building it right. I recently bought another BOB II over the internet with a very fast download. There are a lot of users like myself that want to support the efforts being made to improve this great sim.

[tater]

Adding maps without adding new objects would have been easy for them I think. Maps could have been like player plane skins. Once new objects get into the mix, configuration control becomes an issue because the total object list is serial in il-2, and 1 mapmaker cannot add an object without screwing up another who has done the same. At some point all the objects to be used need to be nailed down FIRST so everyone is on the same page.

What 3d party mapmakers (Ian, and the slovakia teams in the vanguard) have shown is how well done the map tools really are, even if the stock maps use only a fraction of the capability. Really, when t comes down to it all that good maps require is CARING. If you don't care about quality, you produce the stock Singapore map. If you do care about quality you make Burma, or Slovakia, or the Solomon Islands quality maps.

tater

[nearmiss]

Originally Posted by tater

Adding maps without adding new objects would have been easy for them I think. Maps could have been like player plane skins. Once new objects get into the mix, configuration control becomes an issue because the total object list is serial in il-2, and 1 mapmaker cannot add an object without screwing up another who has done the same. At some point all the objects to be used need to be nailed down FIRST so everyone is on the same page.

What 3d party mapmakers (Ian, and the slovakia teams in the vanguard) have shown is how well done the map tools really are, even if the stock maps use only a fraction of the capability. Really, when t comes down to it all that good maps require is CARING. If you don't care about quality, you produce the stock Singapore map. If you do care about quality you make Burma, or Slovakia, or the Solomon Islands quality maps.

tater

We all know that PF was a throw together addition to sell some stuff. The carrier landings and the Pacfic aircraft was the plus to the PF.

[tater]

The map quality refers to all the theaters, frankly. If my ww2 aviation area of interest was Stalingrad or the defense of Moskow, you can bet I would lay out the airfields like the real ones, not pasted in from a handful of templates I made. "Hmmm, Moskow needs a 'large field, concrete,' and a 'Medium grass'."

No, I'd find pictures and get it as close as possible to RL.

Slovakia shows what Europe could have looked like.

tater

[csThor]

jasonbirder - Knowing how to take your posts I refrain from giving you a thorough reply. You would twist words to suit your agenda anyway. But yes, I'd say hacking the file protection system of a commercial release is the issue here, not necessarily the stuff people made of it. But as they profit from a technically illegal act I'd say Ubi would try to find a way to shut the site down. They haven't become a large publisher by exerting Salvation-Army-politics.

tater - There's more to it than just a large-enough dose of "caring". The legitimate map tools can create a map package but that still needs to be imported into the engine by Maddox Games as only they have the legitimate development tools. It wouldn't have made a difference if the map tools had been released as all content would still have gone through Maddox Games. So projects as the BoB map or any larger western europe or realisti MTO map would have ended in the dustbin.

[tater]

Originally Posted by csThor

tater - There's more to it than just a large-enough dose of "caring". The legitimate map tools can create a map package but that still needs to be imported into the engine by Maddox Games as only they have the legitimate development tools. It wouldn't have made a difference if the map tools had been released as all content would still have gone through Maddox Games. So projects as the BoB map or any larger western europe or realisti MTO map would have ended in the dustbin.

No, they could have left the map file structure OPEN.

A MAPS folder like there is a PaintSchemes folder. It's not like the files structure isn't arbitrary. They could have chosen to make the maps folder open like paint schemes. There was nothing else required to import it into the engine. Put the files in the right place, and tell the engine to look for folders there (with a single text file that lists them, make a new map, add a line to an ini file. Done.)

Clearly this is true, or we would not have skinning. Skins don't have to be "imported to the game engine." Neither do maps if the map file structure is open (ie: pull the maps out of SFS like Paint Schemes are, that's pretty much the only difference). Maps do not need to be "imported" like the java stuff does. Really.

<S>

tater

[Chivas]

Nearmiss...can you help me out on the AI thing...I've never understood why a few people claim the superiority of the AI in other sims. I fly both sims extensively but usually get very annoyed with the AI and go back to organized on-line flying. The only thing people specifically mention is the AI doesn't see thru clouds, but that has never been true. Maybe because I always fly as leader where you see all the AI's faults in both sims.

I know the most difficult aspect to get right in flight sims, is the AI, but hopefully the next generation of combat flight sims will see a nice improvement.

~Salute~
Chivas

[jasonbirder]

Evidence...or unsupported opinion?
Any examples of publishers taking action against game mod sites? Ever...(Piracy issues not included)
Under what law and what jurridisction would they be prosecuted...we've discussed the legal standing or lack of ad naseum elsewhere...everytime it is raised it is proven that it has no legal basis...yet people keep restating the terms "prosecuted" or "legal action" i assume in the hope that if it repeated enough times someone...anyone...will accept it as fact.

jasonbirder - Knowing how to take your posts I refrain from giving you a thorough reply. You would twist words to suit your agenda anyway. But yes, I'd say hacking the file protection system of a commercial release is the issue here, not necessarily the stuff people made of it. But as they profit from a technically illegal act I'd say Ubi would try to find a way to shut the site down. They haven't become a large publisher by exerting Salvation-Army-politics

I assume you refrain from giving me a thorough reply because a thorough reply would expose the holes in your logic...I can find No examples of commercial software publishers taking legal action to close down sites offering Mods of game software to legitimate software purchasers (Pirated Software is a different issue) ...
There are no examples of individual users being taken to court for breach of EULA's, though there are test cases in law that set the precedent that EULAs are non-enforcable contracts...
Ubisoft as a software publisher have always openly encouraged community modification of their software titles and i suspect are as baffled as the rest of us at the hostility a tiny proportion of the IL2 community exhibits to the many and varied improvements to the game a bunch of hard working and talented amateurs have created.

[nearmiss]

Originally Posted by Chivas

Nearmiss...can you help me out on the AI thing...I've never understood why a few people claim the superiority of the AI in other sims. I fly both sims extensively but usually get very annoyed with the AI and go back to organized on-line flying. The only thing people specifically mention is the AI doesn't see thru clouds, but that has never been true. Maybe because I always fly as leader where you see all the AI's faults in both sims.

I know the most difficult aspect to get right in flight sims, is the AI, but hopefully the next generation of combat flight sims will see a nice improvement.

~Salute~
Chivas

If I were an Online player I would probably have little or no perception about the AI performance. Afterall, the AI performance is based on probablistic responses to what humans would do in similar circumstances.

In IL2 if you get within a certain range of the six of any AI the AI will start jinking and stunting to avoid being hit. You can count on it happening 100% of the time. The AI constantly take to the vertical, which could have been devastating in war time, especially if the pilot didn't have enough E to climb and pull away from pursuing enemies.

I could probably create a huge list of things that are wrong with the IL2 series AI performance. Things, which really don't affect the Online game. THe players are human and do human things. The Online game is enhanced of course with Coops and planned missions/campaigns from dedicated squad groups. Otherwise, its T & B and every man for himself (unless you fly with a couple buddies).

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In BOB II if the player gets on to the six of the AI it may or may not start jinking, the AI may break hard left or right, start a rolling manuever, do a split S etc. That should give you an idea.

During the war if a plane got hits on it sometimes the pilot would bail, sometimes he would become even more aggressive, or sometimes just be dead in the cockpit.

With the AI performance engine in BOB II there is a randomness to what the AI will do, but it is based on sensible human responses. You really don't know what the AI will do, but they will do something and it's not often the same thing twice.

I didn't discuss how the AI pursue the player, but there is a terminator profile for a very competent and agressive AI performance. It will try the best of sim pilots ability to fly and stay alive.

You can kick some butt or get yours kicked. It's great waging war against the 1s and zeros (binary code) LOL




I hope that helps