Was Oleg Maddox too far ahead of his time?

[Outlaw]

Originally Posted by 6S.Manu

I disagree El.
I think that Oleg didn't surrounded himself with the right pros.

But you also have to keep in mind that programming a real time flight sim is not anywhere close to any other kind of software. I consider myself an exceptional application architect and developer and have created everything from quick and dirty 5 minute scripts to 500 million record enterprise level databases and I will be the first to admit that I couldn't even touch a flight sim. And I'm a mechanical engineer!

Without post graduate work very few engineers will truly understand the differential equations used to APPROXIMATE flight dynamics, let alone be able to actually program them. Putting together a top notch flight sim is a black art in and of itself. Merging it all into an actual game is staggering.

So, it is very difficult to find the, "right pros", when coding for a hard core PC based flight sim.

Just my thoughts.

--Outlaw.

[6S.Manu]

Originally Posted by Outlaw

But you also have to keep in mind that programming a real time flight sim is not anywhere close to any other kind of software. I consider myself an exceptional application architect and developer and have created everything from quick and dirty 5 minute scripts to 500 million record enterprise level databases and I will be the first to admit that I couldn't even touch a flight sim. And I'm a mechanical engineer!

Without post graduate work very few engineers will truly understand the differential equations used to APPROXIMATE flight dynamics, let alone be able to actually program them. Putting together a top notch flight sim is a black art in and of itself. Merging it all into an actual game is staggering.

So, it is very difficult to find the, "right pros", when coding for a hard core PC based flight sim.

Just my thoughts.

--Outlaw.

I've not said it easy, otherwise every game out there would be a master piece.

Anyway I'm talking about those engines who are directly linked to technologies.

Of course the development of a physic engine from scrap required very smart people: probably guys who know to works with PhysiX can reach the target easier, but knowing how to develop a multithreading application is a little different from designing a complex physic engine, IMO.
The same about a Dx10 graphic engine: an experienced Dx10 guy can work easily and with better results than a guy who only worked with Dx9 library or, at worst, OpenGL.

This was my point, otherwise they would have used the newest technologies in CloD, but they didn't.

[Friendly_flyer]

Originally Posted by Outlaw

Without post graduate work very few engineers will truly understand the differential equations used to APPROXIMATE flight dynamics, let alone be able to actually program them. Putting together a top notch flight sim is a black art in and of itself. Merging it all into an actual game is staggering.

So, it is very difficult to find the, "right pros", when coding for a hard core PC based flight sim.

Having been sitting rather quietly on the sideline, my impression is that Oleg was too ambitious when he did the basic design for CoD. He clearly wanted it to be perfect in so many ways, and in the end he had neither the resources nor the time needed to fulfil his ambitions. One could always criticize him for not prioritizing harder and drop features to get a workable game, but he clearly stated he never wanted to make a beefed up IL2, but something new and spectacular. As one who do creative work professionally, I can certainly emphasize.

At some point 1C needed a return on their investment, apparently replaced Oleg and some other people and hoped Luthier would be able sift through Olegs work and put together something workable. As I'm sure Outlaw can confirm, switching rider mid-ride will newer be easy. Luthier probably did as well as anyone could, but in the end he too came up short on money and resources.

In the end, I don't think Oleg was too far ahead as much as too ambitious considering the amount of manpower and time he had at his disposal.

[David Hayward]

The problem isn't that he was too far ahead of his time, the problem is that they wasted a lot of time on stupid things like Spitfire Girl.

[*Buzzsaw*]

Salute

To address the question put forward by the original poster:

Oleg had a definite vision of what the STORM OF WAR was going to be. That would have put it far ahead of anything else produced in the Flight Sim genre.

However, for reasons we are not privy to, he left for an opportunity in industrial graphics, taking with him his chief code programmer.

Whether his leaving was primarily to do with an opportunity to explore a new field, or whether it was a function of issues between himself and 1C is a question which has not been answered.

Those who remained in the development team were not able to accomplish the goals which Oleg had originally set.

Luthier was an individual who had entered the Flight Sim business from a starting position as an amateur enthusiast, who started by doing volunteer graphics modelling. (remember the Bi1 in IL-2?) For whatever reason he and the team of programmers and coders were not able to implement the business plan set by 1C and the Maddox development team after Oleg left. Perhaps that plan was too ambitious? Perhaps the decisions made were not achievable with the skills remaining in the development team. I think personally quite a number of aircraft and objects included in the game were superfluous to the basic requirements of a BoB scenario. Perhaps the effort put into those objects was a factor in the lack of attention put to more basic and important concerns.

In any case we were left with a published game which was seriously lacking, full of bugs and not ready for use.

It took another year and a half to get it into reasonable shape. Now it is actually a well performing online game, more than able to accomodate 80 players, with most of the graphics bugs gone.

However, many issues remain, the primary being the failure to model altitude performance correctly.

Could these have been fixed with another 3 months of focused work? Perhaps. Perhaps the decision to focus the efforts of the development team on a BATTLE OF MOSCOW sequel should have been put aside until the basic game was performing as it should have.

1C made a financial and managerial decision, which we do not have the details of, to drop the game. How much of the decision was a function of their evaluation of the code's failings, and how much a function of their evaluation of the development team failings is unclear.

So we are left with an unfinished dream, which any detailed examination will tell has enormous potential, but which is now a seeming dead end.

A waste? Perhaps. Oleg's vision has not been fulfilled by the publishers. Maybe the goals were too lofty.

Now it is up to the community to take it further. If people believe in CoD sufficiently, they will step up and move it forward. Otherwise it will be just another dream unfulfilled.

We are where we are.

[Roblex]

Originally Posted by David Hayward

The problem isn't that he was too far ahead of his time, the problem is that they wasted a lot of time on stupid things like Spitfire Girl.

Define 'A lot of time'; it was a simple mission using a stock spitfire with a stock person jammed in the cockpit to restrict the view.

Do you realise that this happened in reality? A pilot whose name I forget actually did land at Biggin Hill, stop in front of a senior officer and let a girl out of his cockpit. They tried to court-martial him for endangering one of His Majesties aircraft to which his defence was that there was no added risk and he would be happy to demonstrate it again with a girl or a dummy One of his fellow pilots (more senior?) backed him up by saying he has also done it on several occasions and pointed out that there was nothing in the regulations to restrict carrying passengers in a spitfire. He got away with it!

[Skoshi Tiger]

There are also a couple instances where Alied pilots flying in Northern Africa rescued their comrades by landing and doubling up on the way back to base. If memory serves me right one instance actually occured on the edge of an Italian held airfield.

Imagine a mission where you got to reproduce those events!

From the implementation of Spit Girl I doubt it took up much of their time.

Cheers!

[jctrnacty]

He made one big mistake, he made clod under ubisoft. He should make this game the way ed and rof did. On his own. Then he would realize he cannot deliver without puting this sim on market in time because he would ran out of money.

Second mistake he made, he wanted to get all features in final build. Impossible!!! He should take the road of adding features in paid updates.
Its Too bad because i think that clod is real gem.

[ElAurens]

Originally Posted by jctrnacty

He made one big mistake, he made clod under ubisoft.

I wish people would give up on the Ubisoft bashing. Ubisoft had almost no influence on the development of Oleg's sims. They were the publisher/distributor for western markets, that is all. Every major decision about financing, release timing, etc. was done by 1C, not Ubisoft.

After 10 years I'm still amazed the people still do not understand this.

[RickRuski]

I believe that Oleg's vision for this sim as others have said was to produce the best he could technically. Oleg left or was pushed before the release of C.o.D. so he never was able to see his dream fullfilled. Don't blame Oleg for a sim that was released half done it wasn't his decision.
If he ever comes back into this genre he will have my support, when the original Il2 was released we had a playable demo. From that he gathered a huge support group even though our pc's weren't capable in a lot of cases to give the best results.
A lot of people rubbish UBI but at least they supported him through the series, and from that series has come the true flight simmers that love this genre.
I have both C.o.D. and R.o.F. (and all the original il2 releases), of the C.o.D. and R.o.F. Cliffs is by far the best.
I have always had an issue with Sli not being finished (and I have voiced my opinion about this often), but with the last release to Steam and Luthier's Sli code (plus another alteration I have made) I now have Sli working to where I can run my Hurricane/Spitfire at roof top level over London with smooth game play. Ok I have taken a lot of time to get to this point but I kept trying different things until I got it to work.
Luthier and the team were so close to success with this sim, too bad they weren't given the time.
I wish Luthier and those of the old team success in their new fields, may they find somewhere to expand their dreams with success.