1C: Please release the tools to allow the Community to improve CLIFFS OF DOVER
 

Salute

In the interest of improved sales of the game, as well as the enjoyment of those who play it, I would ask 1C Games to release the tools which would allow the community to build maps, additional planes and cockpits, and other objects and systems.

Thanks for your patience

As much as I agree with you, why would they do that?

It was only the modding community that 'improved' the original IL2 and with no news positive or negative on future additions from 1C, it'll be hard to see why they would let the community help them improve CloD.

MP

Luthier has said the map tool will come along at some point...as for planes and cockpits, I hope not

Salute

Both Oleg Maddox and Ilya Shevchenko indicated these tools would become available for the community to work with.

We know the framework for these are in place in the game. We would ask the publishers at 1C to allow us to use them.

OK, but let the blue's create the red planes:-P

I have been working on the spit V and a new skin for the blues, heres a captured spit V...

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets...-guy-plane.jpg

Its all fine and dandy to ask them to release the SDK's, but I doubt any of them are ready for public use. They've had much higher priorities.

If the rumors are true then there top priority currently is looking for a new job :cry:

Yes there are some positive and negative rumors out there. I prefer to think positively as it make me less cranky. ;)

I prefer to be cranky...

Now where did I put my handbag!

Looks like Jeff Bridges(sam Flynn AKA Tron) has realy let himself go.

I ate it. With some fava-beans and a nice cianti.

"Wvaiyt fhur offeeshul annowzmint ov seeqwil"

Who actually votes no in a poll like this? :rolleyes:

Considering what people manage to do with no tools at all I think the release of an SDK in any state would have us surprised at what gets done.

Go 2 bed Osprey, you are drunk ;) .

I agree, if the development is dead, release what has been completed in the SDK's. If the map SDK is finished before the Sequel, release it so the community can start refining the Channel map. That said, I would imagine a finished Sequel would have a far higher priority than a finished SDK, their survival depends on a successful Sequel.

I was. As you can see in this thread:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...t=34705&page=3

The first things some people want to"fix" are the flight models. Since some of the first people interested in FM fixing, are some that always complained about one side's FM's, I don't want this guys to start cooking planes.
It's that simple.


Anyway it doesn't matter. It won't happen any time soon.

I did.

If releasing the tools means that the FM's are at the whims of every other fool out there, you'll soon see 109's able to reach orbit faster than the shuttle did, and spitfires able to turn faster than a sparrowhawk.

Community "improvements" can often go horrendously wrong, like they have in the past with IL2:1946. Sorry, but I don't want to go online and have to fight people that has "improved" their game to cover for their own inability to fly and/or willingness to do anything to win.

Yes heaven forbid someone has a chance to fix the huge, gaping errors in the game.

Again, I don't want to end up in a situation where I have to face a Mach 2+ capable Hurricane just because some schmuck has "fixed" the huge, gaping errors in the game :rolleyes:

Yes, so much better that everything should be uniformly screwed.
Your so right, what was I thinking.
If everything is f'd were all equal!

EDIT: You want to make sure this sim dies? Cut off the modders.
People still buy IL2 46 so they can use mod content. Every week there are a few people at SAS asking about mods who buy the game because they see what is being accomplished with it.
Doubt that would have happened without modders.

This sim is already dead, unless you've noticed. It was stillborn and barely started to breathe when 1C pulled the plug.

VAC should prevent this...

Don't really see this as a problem. Servers would need to run these "FM fixes" anyway and i don't see that many CloD servers that would run horrible wrong mod packs like these.

Then i don't get why you're worrying about those game "improvements" anyway.

Especially in MP, it doesn't look that "dead" to me.

My only problem with mods is that they split the community and no one ever agrees with FM's so mods only breathe extra life into a product nothing else..

Ideally the mod tools should be available to everyone, and the servers should have the ability to exclude players that don't have a "Repka mod pack" or, possibly, a slightly different "ATAG mod pack" (to address and respect any small differences that the respective Server Admins have decided what FM mods best fits the needs of their respective community).

So offline, a player CAN have a "Mach 2 Hurricane" -- with 8 cannons if he so wishes -- yet to fly on an online server only a server-approved/designated mod pack can be used. I don't know if the files.sfs folder can be pre-screened by a server at this point.

I agree with snaper

In my view the CLOD is the simulator more realistic in terms of FM along with XP, do not have another SIM that I can compete with these two simulators.
In addition We can not let the CLOD die, if the speculations are certain negative.

Please release in a timely SDK!

thank you

If parts of the rumors are true about a "modified" business model you'll never see an SDK.

Talking about FMs is weird anyway regarding this topic, because modding the FMs is possible for months already.

This is not going to happen boys and girls. No sense to even go there.

If the source is released it will not be until the devs are sure there are no possibilities to sell the source to someone else or the code is hacked.

That will take time, or some risk taking persons to take chances. The code is proprietary and that has protections.

Fjordmonkey said:

Pretty much accurate.

However, if nothing else this forum has taught me that no matter how dead or redundant or historically buried something is, there will be a devout core of believers...not only believers, but a whole meshed network of discussion centred around various absurd fantasies.

So...you have a dead game, driven by a bandaged engine, officially pronounced dead even by the devs themselves...and people arguing the theoretical toss about likely fall-out from code modifications on an engine where the code is not only reasonably inept, but unavailable to boot.

Marvellous :)

Add to this some hope, die-hard fans, and hard-of-hearing Mod activity, and you have...another haccident-waiting-to-happen ;)

Marvelous, bleeding marvelous :)

Only here.

The mods to IL2 1946 hastened the end of il2 in my opinion. And don't come with "that there are still a lot of ppl playing il2". They are just a fraction of the ppl playing IL2 before. Initially the mods excited the community: ah, wow, great new toys. Now I can show off my super correct best fm plane as I am so much smarter than anybody else. The problem was (and is) that everyone thinks that he or she is smarter than anybody else. So we ended up with a trillion mods - each of which are true to history according to its author. As a consequence we also ended up with servers each with its own mod pack and its own realism setting. It became a pain in the **** to find a suitable combination of mod+realism setting let alone nice missions. It was basically impossible to find a vanilla-full realism server (so a nomod-full realism combination). For me the mods killed IL2 1947 mp. I did never touch it again.

Absolutely, and the same thing could happen with Clod. I was a hold out and never tried the mods, all the mod talk was enough for me to leave Ubi zoo...as far as I know, just me and ElAurens stayed away from ever using them:cool:

Spit Vs 109 and Zeke VS Wildcat full real servers, with ou without mods.

What the hell are you talking about? We have great servers, modded or not!

Another nonsense spread over here... mods are GREAT! If you don't like one, don't install it!

:rolleyes:

Who cares for those who do not play. It is not religion. It s a game. Angry have I been yes. I have got money worth.

Lol, easy to label anything that is not according to one's religion as "nonsense". Fact is that player numbers decreased rather quickly after mods have been introduced - years before Clod came out. Vanilla+full real servers are useless if there's no or only a handful of players. It is a fact that due to decreased number of players and splitting of community due to the trillion mod packs led to less filled servers. This is even mathematical. I observed it over several months this decline.

EThe whole situation is a little more complicated. The biggest problems with unauthorised mods popping up is that the IL2 code is not secure against them. It is not made in a way that would let the vanilla version public play without
modded versions of the game flying in the same server. Because of this there is no longer a way to keep a level playing field. And that means nobody can tell if the game is fair or not. That was the actual reason why many ppl quit 1946 multiplayer.

Actually not correct. The Check system that Oleg introduced in the IL-2 FORGOTTEN BATTLES and its sequels, if enabled, allowed the server to check the player's install vs the server install, and worked well.

And regarding the tools:

I am not asking for tools to allow modding of existing aircraft flight models, I am asking for tools to allow the creation of new cockpits to go with the existing aircraft and their existing flight models, as well as the creation of new maps, objects etc.

This is what Oleg and Luthier, (Ilya Shevchenko) promised.

As it seems questionable at this point whether we will actually get a sequel, why not release the keys to what tools have been made and let us as a community work on improving the game.

The company can only stand to gain in sales and income. Right now the game is flatlined as far as sales are concerned, they can only improve.

What system is that?

Crt=2

Oh that one. Tested it. Did kick some of the modded players but rarely all of them. CRT is just a story for firm believers. Others got their facts straight and quit.

There would be much in fighting between moder's, who only view their own work as being superior.

Hmm, that certainly would be nice if you look at what the community guys are capable of.
If that happens, depends imo on what the future of the Il-2/CoD franchise is supposed to be.
I could imagine a business model like Microprose/Lead Pursuit currently has, with Falcon 4.0/AF. And if I look at the degree of realism and at the variety of functions Falcon got, I'd wish for that path to become reality.

Problem from my POV: I just don't see an unbiased group working within this community. All I see is a lot of people making a lot of noise about "performance this, performance that" and all kinds of things that reveals just how one-sided their own thinking is. There are people who think the RAF flew only by flapping their arms as if they were wings as well as there are people who think the Luftwaffe aircraft flew with potatoe schnaps.

And if someone were to make an accurate modification said people would grind the effort to data dust between their constant sniping, at each other and the makers of this mod, because these constant skirmishes in the forum is actually all they care about, it has become the reason they hang out here.

Until the day I see 50% of te posters asking for less performance in their preferred plane I will continue reading those posts with a big fat smile and move on ignoring them.

LOl , nice one P.ed.O ;)

Cor. Thats about as funny as a dead baby and a good indication of the level some posters have brought this forum to.

Wow! It's nice to see that universal truths are still being posted in these forums. I couldn't agree more, even if both "sides" got a sim, modelled perfectly down to a microscopic level, both sides would still find something to complain about. I'd say this is one of the main reasons for CloD's failure, developers spending too much time correcting chart fetishists imaginary problems when there are much broader and important things that should've been prioritized. First you make the basics THEN you tweak, not the other way around. There are so many variables required for a perfect FM that this sim doesn't even model in the first place!

I think the game should be handed over to modders BUT under some kind of quality control framework, otherwise it will remain one of the most potential and unfulfilled sim of all times. CloD screams potential, since day one but it needs the right people tapping away on that code and making those 3D models.

ill reprhase your petition:

1c plz give one free dollar to each of your customers or what its the same give away your work

I agree with your first paragraph addman, so much dev time was wasted on things that could have been placed on the back burner.

I guess you have not played DCS.....

If the SDK doesnt get hacked or released, CLoD will die, no doubt about it. On the flipside, if it does come out, will there be enough talented people still around to do anything with it?

Ah, some guys at ATAG show pretty good work within the bounds of what's possible now already.
And, about biasedness: Oh, these guys would be awesome to deal with! (from my pov, of course, I'm a little cynic there ;) ) This would be sooo much fun! I've got great Ideas already - like giving the 109ers super performance for one day, but replacing the engine sounds with a donke howl and the cannon sounds with cat's meows! Awesome! :D
I just really don't know if I want to dive into the abyss of MG's code :rolleyes:

Until then, i'm having a great time in ATAG servers, with amazing missions, stats, lots of great stuff.

Everybody dies someday... ;)

A small team granted the ok from Illya to fix the rail,transport & ai behavior,rectify the map errors & 3d AAA gunner sitting problem , build a functional Coop gui & set up a low settings tree model with collision where the collision model runs the same in all settings but better visuals in higher settings.Then approved by him and incorperated as an official update then Yes.Otherwise

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

Modded COD? Without firmly supervision and quality assurance from devs?
No thanks:

http://download.ailantd.com/il2Cod/moddedCOD.jpg

what devs would these be?

Snigger....................:cool:

Oh yeah, that's what we miss out on then, right... well, the quality assurances were there, at least!

Ahaha nice one mate :-P
(people here can't recognise banter)

I was wondering the same thing!

I lol;ed at this.:grin:

http://gifsoup.com/view5/2411393/sarcasm-detector-o.gif

View from the bridge of one of those Clod flying ships :confused::lol:

Thought you might like it , ive just started to download this game after a bit of time away to see if she's any better , though by the sounds of it there hasnt been much improvement in the game or the clientele ;)

The game is smooth on my laptop at full settings (i7 processor, ATI 6990). But the lack of content bores me.

I don't understand why people in this topic are comparing mods to community tools. The Il-2 mods weren't gifted to the community by the developers. If the developers released tools they would be controlled. That's the difference.

what devs?

OMG Yes- Il-2 really took off after modders got hold of it...not all the mods were/are perfect, but most are/were a vast improvement in almost every way!!!!!!!!

:-p:-p:-p

I think that what mod teams did with old IL2 was great (i.e. Command & Control), giving the game more years of life. Anyway I have some doubs about the interest of modders or community in order to improve this game: i.e. only 15 campaigns were upload in Airwarfare in 2.5 years :(

The amount of people with the knowledge to do it is very small in this community, but trust me in saying we have been improving upon what shipped with IL2COD for a while now with subtle changes. An ATAG mod pack for improvements may very well happen in the future.

I may be sticking my neck out a little, but part of the reason there haven't been too many campaigns put out there could be that 3rd party developers were waiting for the final version (i.e. finished ) before going through the trouble of doing a long or short campaign.Never having built a campaign myself, but it may be more difficult dealing with the CloD interface as well?
Having said that Desastersoft has some excellent py to load campaigns out there now.Campaigns I hasten to add that !C should have included in the first place ,or at least something like them.

There's been a hold up with the beta/final patches that's for sure, it certainly has put a big hold up in a 2 part campaign I've been working on. Every mission had to have several tweaks if not complete rewrites if not scrapped

Huninthesun has released 2 campaigns since final patch, I've released 1.

There are several campaigns done by the Russian community

and I'd hazard an 'educated' guess there are 2 campaigns on the verge of release;)

Would be good to see a few more people getting involved in mission/campaign building tho

Bolox, I want to thank you for your work. In your opinion are COD's scripting and triggers helping to make better campaigns and missions? Not to mentiion documentation, but how much work/repair/improvement is required by the devs in the FMB to make it even better?

i'd like to release a few campaigns I've been working on, nothing very deep, but the AI needs fixing first. Barrel rolling AI aircraft into the deck not acceptable especially for defiants, which should use bomber tactics.

.

Open CloD
 

I hope it really goes open, if not officially, at least from the programmers, if they have been efectivelly ousted.

On line maps, are extremelly lacking.
This game without good maps, and without a fully functional mission builder, won't go far. But right now it is still a long way from being fully functional

Please, open it at least for map adding, and new ground objects introduction.

It's a shame to put all this work to trash.

The sims not dead yet. The Battle of Britain map is excellent, and will be fine tuned by the community with or without the developers help. The current FMB is still quite useful, proven by Heinkill, Bolox, Desastersoft, and other third party and community modders. Check out airwarfare.com for a number of missions and campaigns for COD. The map SDK was going to be released in the Sequel, but there have been a couple of rumors that the development is in jeopardy, but that hasn't been confirmed, in-fact a couple of people in the Russian forums, much closer to the developer, who have had recent dealing with the developer, suggest that the development is still very much alive, just wait for the official announcement.

I just got sad after having the fFMB crashing twice today while testing.
Some gross bugs there.

Tanks getting into the ramps of bridges, problems on some maps close views, and others.

Their it is only one good map, and it is far from perfect.

Still, I have waited 6 years, I could wait a bit more...

First off I'd like to make it clear i'm a newcomer to mission building, I hardly touched fmb in IL2:eek:- mainly cos there were so many really good mission builders out there.

Scripting was even worse- that was a real " they expect me to do what?!! " moment. However you can still make missions without any scripting or triggers so with the aid of a few IL2 fmb guides I started playing around, finding out what actually worked in CoD (and as importantly what didn't!)

So, does scripting/triggers make for better missions?
I'd say that they don't in themselves; that comes from creative mission building.
. Triggers are a nice addition (been long asked for in IL2). Using them well requires thinking in advance how (and why) you are using a trigger within the mission structure.
Scripting does give alot of possibilities, there's masses of data that can be collected, however there are limits to what you can do ingame-Sure skilled coding can make up for alot - see Desastersoft.
Campaigns sort of need a script for success criteria, but it's quite possible to use only a very simple script, Spitfire on my tail uses a very basic script, with a few triggers/special scripted events used only occaisionally.

Documentation- well anything would be nice;) There is no substitute for getting stuck in and trying stuff imho. There are bits of information out there for fmb eg
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.ph...ml#Post3423371
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=30017
Scripting- I don;t see how they could have documented this. At least they provided examples with the original Cliffs of Dover RAF campaign
There's more than a few C# tutorials on the net eg
http://www.csharp-station.com/Tutorial/CSharp/Lesson01
For the CoD specific bits there is an fmb forum where you can find examples and maybe help.

What needs fixing? - how long have you got?:-P
Actually I find the fmb far from the worst offender.- it's how the AI attempt to carry out you're orders. :-P
One thing I would like to see is a 'formate' waypoint type- bombers would form up on leader Sqn, fighters would act as close escort, always trying to get back to the bombers instead of wading in on any scrap going. Add some sort of control over the group formation so you can have 3 sqns each in vic formation, flying line astern of each other (with height stagger)
I'd also like the more realistic icing levels of previous patches restored in a fully working weather system.

I count 11 campaigns released this week (surely some sort of record?)

lol

No, why.
If they come up with a new game, even if it uses a new(!) engine, there is no reason to make the source code of Clod public.
1. Clod doesn't sell anymore
2. potential mod activity would(could) lead to Clod suddenly be in competition with whatever they want to sell at the current time.

Only idiots would do that.

Thanks Bolox for your in depth anwser, I found it very interesting.

I agree, its highly unlikely that IC would give away a source code that cost them millions to produce.

Its far too early to do complex modding, as the current game engine is still in flux, any game engine rewrites could make modders hard work useless. Its also highly unlikely the development will build a new game engine from scratch, but very likely portions of the game engine will be rewritten other portions optimized before the Sequels release. The time to start complex modding will be after the Sequels is released, or cancelled. If and by the time a Sequel is release the game engine and features should be in a more finished and stable state, for the development to have any hope of selling product. Either way the modding should begin in earnest at that time.

Bolox- thanks for your work & answers.As we have discussed before the thing that drives me a little round the bend is this:autopilot-on some missions if not turned on at a certain point( beginning of mission or after the first way point or not hittong it just right, or the second or after going around the aerodrome- it simply sends your aircraft in an endless circuit or after a few times around lands you home while your chums go on without you.Your only solution is to jump into one of the leader aircraft well along in the mission which works ok but its sorta not "your" aircraft.More frustrating: it doesn't always happen or perhaps it doesn't happen if the mission planner can fix it in the planning stages.Anyway its led to many repeat missions ...

Salute

Now that it has been confirmed development work on CLIFFS OF DOVER has stopped, I would repeat the request 1C releases whatever tools there are available to allow players to mod and improve the game.

It's clear the community would like to see this happen, 85% of this poll agreed, it was promised by the original developers, those who have worked with the game already have been able to enable aspects, like dogfight refueling, which were not available in the releases.

An improvement in this game will only result in additional sales for 1C, and some revenue for the company in the period while we await the publication of BATTLE OF STALINGRAD.

Thanks to 1C for their original game, nows the time to allow the community to take it a bit further.

What tools would be needed, who is left to finish them? as long as they are in the flight sim market place, the source code will not likely be made available either.

+1