You know what? Thank God, I say! ;)

I think is the best way to work, not to relase a game under pression of publisher and full of bugs.

I think it's very interesting to note how long this game has been in development, considering it's neither CoD nor Duke Nukem -which WILL be released next year by Gearbox who now owns the IP-. They -Maddox Games- must have relatively low burn rate since the IL-2 series is by no means is a triple-A series of games.

Whoever their publisher is, they must have A LOT of confidence in O-Team. Everybody's saying Ubisoft is the publisher but I find that hard to believe since Ubisoft since a while back has stated that their main focus for games are in the console market -piracy- and rather then bringing out many different IP's they'll be focusing on a smaller range of triple-A titles instead i.e Assassins Creed.

Oleg and his team is a dying breed IMO, game studios have more money then ever but the sales of the games not only has to match the expenditures but also produce waaaay more profit if there will be any sequels/second chances. This is where DLC makes it's entrance me thinks, forget about expecting free patches with additional content, those days are over. A lot has happened since the first releases of the IL-2 series. Bug fixing patches will be free of course but expect to pay for all the other stuff, planes, map packs etc. Finally Oleg can actually make some money from us cry babies ;)

I'm more then happy to pay for stuff coming out of Olegs team because I know it's always top quality. These are just some educated or less educated guesses IMHO :)

Oleg himself has mentioned several areas that still need to be worked on, and that isn't limited to small and unimportant features. Overall SoW hasn't been in development considerably longer than Il2, but with a lot more content and detail to cover.

And the business model that requires a mandatory release date independent of the actual state of the software is, fortunately, not the only possible approach.

In my opinion spring 2011 Feb March April. I think that's a fair guess.

"thousands will be playing SoW BoB by October" - Maybe October 2011? ;)

A squadmate just pointed this out from these discussions on 24th September:

Quote:
Originally Posted by steam View Post
Oleg, does this mean that the game will be two versions of 64 and 32 bit?
Currently the answer is no, it doesn't. In future - maybe.

:(

A developer can have the all the work schedules you want but they are almost impossible to keep.

SOW announced by Oleg in 2003 to be released in 2005.
.....this did not happen as the developer decided to help Luthier build Pacific Fighters into a full addon.

SOW announced by Ubi in 2006 to be released in 2007
.....this did not happen as there seems to be more money to be gained with further addons to the Il-2 series, ie IL-2 1946 etc.

SOW development again started after the release of Il-2 1946 in 2008.
....there were a few setbacks in this period including employee problems on a small team
....it looked as if it could be released by Oct 2010, but anyone who has developed anything understands there are still allot of minefields to clear.
....now it all depends on how long it will take to clear the beta bugs.

Its certainly been along time, but it appears the wait will be worth it. Hopefully there will be enough sales to make building further additions to the SOW series worth the time and effort.

Directx11 explained well here.
======================


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wp4Y-u8-Qw

Now that I've checked out Chias's post I'm glad it's been delayed and it's a Dx11 game

Well, from that video (the bit about the cobblestones) Parallax Occlusion Mapping seems something to look out for! Looks 3D - but is easy on computer resources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_occlusion_mapping

"Parallax occlusion mapping (POM) is an enhancement of the parallax mapping technique. Parallax occlusion mapping is used to procedurally create 3D definition in textured surfaces, using a displacement map (similar to a topography map) instead of through the generation of new geometry. This allows developers of 3D rendering applications to add 3D complexity in textures, which correctly change relative to perspective and with self occlusion in real time (Self-shadowing is additionally possible), without sacrificing the processor cycles required to create the same effect with geometry calculations."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcAsJ...eature=related

More on the side-bar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKe1p...eature=related