Friday Update, February 24, 2012

[5./JG27.Farber]

Originally Posted by VO101_Tom

You don't care if someone likes it, why do you expect to anyone to care that you don't? The aircraft-simulator part is not worse because of it, so the problem does not exist, only you generate for yourself.

+1

I think this thread has run its course.

[Osprey]

Originally Posted by speculum jockey

People who want a WWII Tank Simulator will pick up "T-34 vs. Tiger"

People who want a WWII FPS: "Will pick up COD: World at War" or "Red Orchestra 2"

People who want a WWII Combined Arms game will pick up: Forgotten Hope 2.

People who want a WWII Combat Flight Sim: Picked up CLOD and are wondering what the hell is happening!

1. T-34 vs Tiger stopped development. They went bust.
2. FPS is not on the table, check the opening post.
3. Forgotten Hope is based on the BF2 engine - it's old.
4. Plenty of us have open eyes.

[Pudfark]

Mark me down for agreeing with Furbs and the Cat Doctor....

It never occurred to me that I would ever use my rudder pedals for gas, brakes, clutch and steering. Or my joystick to shift gears....

My simple thought, was that they be used for what they were designed for...flying an airplane...

This patch will make it or brake it...with me.

[Fredfetish]

For one lets hope the current bug issues will be resolved in the next patch. If not, then I'm spending my time rather on more fulfilling gaming experiences.

Also, I wish the additional content had more to do with enriching the current game play of CloD. Offline is useless and I have given up on it due to AI plane behaviour.
The strat side of things mentioned by others e.g. why it should be bad for me to just respawn my plane if I see the first sign of damage or why it matters to go after objectives and not just follow my own nose upon take off in multi-player should be of more concern. Addressing these things will add to the current game's immersion and is sorely required. Some mentioned that WoT will be short lived while Clod will have a much more lasting appeal. In my opinion, you are dead wrong. The only tie in at the moment with Clod is the flight experience (shooting someone down is always a perk though), but that is the limit of current game play.

With WoT, the actual tank game play is only half of the experience. Fiddling around with your tank/new tanks, making decision on ammo, calibre of cannon, spending time on the game has a permanent outcome, etc is the tie in...

I see no additional game play elements being added to the flight sim through the ground vehicles playability. Example: I for one will not spend 3 hours driving cross country and get attacked by a flying player that can instantly respawn at his base and attack me in 3mins again. To add to this, the only current reason tankers would do so is to disrupt an airbase. So the ultimate goal would be... drive for 3 hours and then prevent flight simmers from taking off as they spawn? There is no game elements being added, only more unrelated content.

Also, some suggest that this will save the flight sim market. You are once again dead wrong. There is what, 3 small competitors in the flight sim industry? By broadening your market you broaden your competitors as well. There is no way in f*** that anyone playing WoT would be content with a game optimised as a flight sim, buggy as hell, ugly as hell from the ground perspective and with from what I see in the vids not adding any realism above WoT, whilst WoT has almost zero game play affecting bugs, runs perfectly on those +200k players' computers every night and is FREE to play (unless you want some unfair advantage). Seriously? If you want to take on the big boys in their market than surely the "O but flight simming is such a small community" excuse for quality must be addressed first! Staying niche market is the only chance of survival for MG. Unless their only aim is to be bought out by someone that already can compete in the mass market.

Thirdly... I think it is laughable of all the experts on this forum to claim that ground vehicle resources have nothing to do with the other priorities. The common argument is that only ground modellers are involved. One question, what makes these models interact with the game engine? What dictates these models behaviours? Everything is interrelated in software development folks, get over it.

Lastly, I do support Clod and hope the patch solves most of the current issues. Just a little annoyed about the flights of fantasy that some people have on this forum and their response to anyone who's views are based in reality.

[swiss]

Originally Posted by Fredfetish

Example: I for one will not spend 3 hours driving cross country and get attacked by a flying player that can instantly respawn at his base and attack me in 3mins again.

But spending 45min in the air just to lose a DF vs a spit is ok?
Why cant my tank just spawn at the frontline, 3 min away from the battle?

To add to this, the only current reason tankers would do so is to disrupt an airbase.

Tankers have the same motivation like fps players or flyboys.
Action and humiliating other players.

Also, some suggest that this will save the flight sim market. You are once again dead wrong. There is what, 3 small competitors in the flight sim industry? Staying niche market is the only chance of survival for MG.

So only a few competitors turns it into a huge business opportunity?
What if there are only 3 competitors because it's an unprofitable market?
If I remember correctly luthier said something about $8M they already invested, if that's correct it's more like 9 by now.
How many copies have they sold?

Another option could be to take $200 for a copy, won't sell for this price though.

And the market for a decent WW2 CA simulation is huge.

[Insuber]

Originally Posted by furbs

Someone should of told him before...

Spitgirl
The single player campaigns
Dressing your pilot
The Italian planes

No way bashing Italian planes. If properly modeled they do for a lot of exciting missions and scenarios. More planes = more fun.

[Fredfetish]

Hi Swiss, not trying to aggravate you, just my POV. Hope my reply doesn't offend you.

Originally Posted by swiss

But spending 45min in the air just to lose a DF vs a spit is ok?
Why cant my tank just spawn at the frontline, 3 min away from the battle?


.

True... I guess, but why can't I have my plane spawn near the action then? Not very simmy if you ask me, but I guess not the end of the world.

On the other hand, someone mentioned having arcade game play for tanks whilst planes have full flight realism... Not my cup of tea. Sorry, it is either arcade on both levels or full sim, not a mix. Why would I bother with full sim if the opposing player will have an unfair advantage?

Originally Posted by swiss

So only a few competitors turns it into a huge business opportunity?
What if there are only 3 competitors because it's an unprofitable market?
If I remember correctly luthier said something about $8M they already invested, if that's correct it's more like 9 by now.
How many copies have they sold?

Another option could be to take $200 for a copy, won't sell for this price though.

And the market for a decent WW2 CA simulation is huge
.

Point of this is the only reason MG is able to make a business is because they're not competing with the big players. Once you remove that limitation, customers will be able to make 1 on 1 comparisons. Just because the flight sim market is unattractive doesn't mean they'll be able to make better revenue in a broader market. E.g the larger market is more saturated whilst the flight sim market, although very small, offers little competition to MG. Hence, they can make a living at least. If you take a $50 price per unit times the amount of views on this post alone you already $1mil in compared to the $8mil that went into the production. Which is ok... but to compete with larger software houses, are they prepared to dump 30mil into production like BF3? No? Then you'll see it in the quality and the amount of people purchasing who are expecting BF3 type of quality.

All said and done, why include the flight sim portion then at all into the game if we're talking market percentages? Seems to me the flight sim aspect places the greatest constraints on requirements on the engine in the form of map size, field of view, flight models etc which is not so relevant for producing a tank/vehicle simulator/fps.
Can MG compete with WoTs vehicles gameplay ? The scenario in my origal post says no.
Would it make any difference to a player in a tank if he is being bombed by a AI or human player? Minimal. Would his game play experience be affected by the flight sim requirements? Hugely? I'd say yes. Does this sound like a reason to attract mass market clients in their thousands? I'm thinking no...

[Shadylurker]

WWIIOL might want to call maddox games and see how much...

[Shadylurker]

Why complain so much? The game as it is now is way better then anything out there. Any other dev that got their product shoved out the door would just leave the mess and walk away. Just be happy it was made at all. And be even more happy that they are providing patches. Then cry with tears of joy when you realize they are providing you weekly updates with what is going on.

[swiss]

Originally Posted by Fredfetish

On the other hand, someone mentioned having arcade game play for tanks whilst planes have full flight realism... Not my cup of tea. Sorry, it is either arcade on both levels or full sim, not a mix. Why would I bother with full sim if the opposing player will have an unfair advantage?

True. The way I wanted to understand it was: "In the 1st phase it will be arcade - or we still are unsure."

I'm praying too, lol.

Would it make any difference to a player in a tank if he is being bombed by a AI or human player?

The difference is huge. I, for instance, only play online vs real players. Be it something like AA3 or cash games.