BoBII discussion thread

[Trumper]

Just a factual point as i personally have both sims on my h/d and each has it's good and bad points.
There is a patch being worked on in BoB 11 and a re write of the campaigns in progress.
BoB11 is an old engine and worked on by volunteers for nothing so really can't be compared to a modern brand new program with a professional team of full time developers.
I don't see why BoB 11 is being dragged into this,having both is a win/win situation.

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by Trumper

BoB11 is an old engine and worked on by volunteers for nothing so really can't be compared to a modern brand new program with a professional team of full time developers.

That depends..

IMHO it would not be fair to compare BoB II's graphics to CoD graphics..

But I think it is 'ok' to compare BoB II's AI and campaign to CoDs! Note I said 'ok' not 'fair'.

Why?

Because something happened years ago.. online game play.. Since than there has been more and more 'resources' (time & money) devoted to online play than offline play. Some big game makers have enough 'resources' to do both.. But as we all know flight sims have limited 'resources' realitive to other games.. Thus they have to focus on the market demands.. And the sad truth of that is more people care about online gameplay against other human pilots than offline AI and campaigns

I miss the games like SWOTL and RB where the offline campaign pulled you in and made you feel apart of what was going on.. But to be honest, if I had to choose between the two I would pick online play over offline play wrt flight sims. Note I said if I had to choose, that is based on me knowing flight sims makers have limited 'resources'. It would be great to have both, but clearly that is not the case

Thus long story short.. It is not fair to compare BoB II's AI and Offline to CoD for the reasons I noted above.. Which is not to say that I think BoB II's AI is better, just pointing out that it is not fair IMHO to compare a flight sim who focus is on OFFLINE play such that they didn't even include ONLINE play to CoD who's focus, like so many modern sims, is on ONLINE play

Just my 2 cents

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by furbs

i think it was Oleg himself who said his flight sims focus on offline players.

Well as the glass half empty crowd likes to point out.. Oleg said alot of things that have not come to be.. yet

But it really does not mater if he did say that, because the truth (nay FACT) of the mater is prior to ONLINE play.. Game makers had no choice but to put ALL of thier focus into OFFLINE play..

Where as today game makers have to SPLIT thier focus between OFFLINE and ONLINE play..

Which for flight sims means they have to SPLIT thier 'resorces' (time & money) to do BOTH..

And since the market demands ONLINE plany over OFFLINE play you can 'be sure' the spilt is not 50 50

[kendo65]

Originally Posted by ACE-OF-ACES

That depends..

IMHO it would not be fair to compare BoB II's graphics to CoD graphics..

But I think it is 'ok' to compare BoB II's AI and campaign to CoDs! Note I said 'ok' not 'fair'.

Why?

Because something happened years ago.. online game play.. Since than there has been more and more 'resources' (time & money) devoted to online play than offline play. Some big game makers have enough 'resources' to do both.. But as we all know flight sims have limited 'resources' realitive to other games.. Thus they have to focus on the market demands.. And the sad truth of that is more people care about online gameplay against other human pilots than offline AI and campaigns

I miss the games like SWOTL and RB where the offline campaign pulled you in and made you feel apart of what was going on.. But to be honest, if I had to choose between the two I would pick online play over offline play wrt flight sims. Note I said if I had to choose, that is based on me knowing flight sims makers have limited 'resources'. It would be great to have both, but clearly that is not the case

Thus long story short.. It is not fair to compare BoB II's AI and Offline to CoD for the reasons I noted above.. Which is not to say that I think BoB II's AI is better, just pointing out that it is not fair IMHO to compare a flight sim who focus is on OFFLINE play such that they didn't even include ONLINE play to CoD who's focus, like so many modern sims, is on ONLINE play

Just my 2 cents

Firstly, has any definitive research been done on the proportions of online to offline players for an established, successful flight-sim like il-2? I suspect the numbers would be close, with possibly even a majority for offline. I would also say that the online crowd are more easily visible and high-profile, but whether that means they are more numerous I don't know. As Furbs says, for the sake of CoD I would hope that there are at least as many playing offline (or temporarily inactive but interested in future developments) as are currently online. Also, beware the self-fulfilling prophecy of settling for a poor offline experience with no campaign, losing all those interested in offline play, then concluding that the numbers are all online and that is all that matters.

Originally Posted by ACE-OF-ACES

It is not fair to compare BoB II's AI and Offline to CoD for the reasons I noted above.. Which is not to say that I think BoB II's AI is better, just pointing out that it is not fair IMHO to compare a flight sim who focus is on OFFLINE play such that they didn't even include ONLINE play to CoD who's focus, like so many modern sims, is on ONLINE play

It's not about 'fairness' or even comparing the two games for that matter. You get so defensive about CoD. This isn't about saying game X is better than game Y. Here is the situation: CoD (fantastically wonderful as we all agree it is ) requires further development in several key areas. The question is what form should that development take? What sort of standard should we aim at? Someone suggests that a previous game did a good job in certain limited aspects of its development and suggests that if CoD was developed along similar lines in those specific areas it might be really good.

It's just logic. Answer these questions:

1. Is COD currently perfect?
2. If not, which aspects would you like to see improved?

It seems in your world that anyone answering 'no' to the first question gets labelled as one of the 'glass half empty' crowd.

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by kendo65

It's not about 'fairness' or even comparing the two games for that matter. You get so defensive about CoD.

With regards to fairness, disagree 100%, but you are welcome to your opinion. As for me being defensive, Hardly, it is a simple case of you confusing 'defense' with me providing another point of view.. a different perspective.. or in this case the flip side of the coin that is BoB II to show it was not all that some would have us belive. I also went as far as to include links that show it took the makers of BoB II (Shockwave) OVER A YEAR to fix all the bugs such that it was a playable game.. To give the current crop of CoD gloom'n'doomers some 'prospective' on how all new games have issues at the start.. Even the BoB II that some hold up as the BENCH MARK of flight sims

[kendo65]

Originally Posted by ACE-OF-ACES

With regards to fairness, disagree 100%, but you are welcome to your opinion. As for me being defensive, Hardly, it is a simple case of you confusing 'defense' with me providing another point of view.. a different perspective.. or in this case the flip side of the coin that is BoB II to show it was not all that some would have us belive. I also went as far as to include links that show it took the makers of BoB II (Shockwave) OVER A YEAR to fix all the bugs such that it was a playable game.. To give the current crop of CoD gloom'n'doomers some 'prospective' on how all new games have issues at the start.. Even the BoB II that some hold up as the BENCH MARK of flight sims

You still seem to be under the misapprehension that BOB II was brought up to either denigrate COD, or for the sole reason of comparing COD unfavourably with another game. It wasn't. It was brought up only as an example of what the OP thought was a good standard of AI and campaign.

The sole criteria in that discussion was whether the AI in BOB II is any good.
Either it is or it isn't.

Details about how long it took BOB II to get to that point, whether the production process that created it was in-house or mod, or the exact proportion of developer effort directed at online compared to offline is irrelevant to the above point.

Those questions along with the 'fairness' question would be relevant if the discussion was about WHY COD's AI might be viewed as less devleoped than BOB's, or as a defense of the situation, but once again you are seeing attacks on COD where they don't exist and defending in your usual kneejerk manner. Your approach is the same here as it has been on other threads:

1. If you can't deny the opinion (BOB AI good) then broaden the debate so that you can criticise something ('yes, but they didn't have to worry about online')

2. Turn it into a 'rally to the flag' defense against the evil 'glass half empty' brigade.

3. Resort to some ridiculous caricature of other's points of view by resorting to stupidity such as: "Even the BoB II that some hold up as the BENCH MARK of flight sims"

Originally Posted by kendo65

You still seem to be under the misapprehension that BOB II was brought up to either denigrate COD, or for the sole reason of comparing COD unfavourably with another game. It wasn't. It was brought up only as an example of what the OP thought was a good standard of AI and campaign.

No, it wasn't. I said that we're not really in a position to complain about CoD when there really aren't any competitors. He brought up BoB2 as a competitor. I said, fine, go play BoB2. Do you see how that works? Complaining is a waste of time. Just go play the game you enjoy playing.

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by IamNotDavid

No, it wasn't. I said that we're not really in a position to complain about CoD when there really aren't any competitors. He brought up BoB2 as a competitor. I said, fine, go play BoB2. Do you see how that works? Complaining is a waste of time. Just go play the game you enjoy playing.

Agree 100%

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by kendo65

You still seem to be under the misapprehension that BOB II was brought up to either denigrate COD, or for the sole reason of comparing COD unfavourably with another game. It wasn't.

Disagree 100%

[philip.ed]

Originally Posted by ACE-OF-ACES

Disagree 100%

Well you are 100% wrong.

I brought BoB2 up to show that there were areas in CloD which meet stiff competition (if one wishes to use that word). Competition alludes to an idea that the two are competing with eachother: they are not. The point of the matter is to show that CLoD is no offline holy grail. I will play Bob2 whilst I wait for CloD to provide a better offline experience, but I will happily push the offline issues to the developers in order to hope for an improved experience.
If CloD ends up having the best AI, comms, campaign system, skin system etc in any aerial simulation it will be a win-win situation for an offline user like me. I can still fire up sims like Bob2 and enjoy them, and at the same time have the option to play a sim like CloD which is graphically brilliant (in most areas) and has an incredible DM system.

Kendo is 100% right. I don't understand the psychology you are using, Aces, to make me believe that I created this topic to bash CloD and simulataneously suggest that BoB2 is the benchmark of all flight-sims. That is so wrong.

For the record as well, Luthier himself disagrees that complaining is a waste of time. He said that, without complaints, Il-2 would never have gotten to where it was, and neither would CloD. I myself sent Oleg and Luthier pages of documents on RAF flight clothing (which don't seem to have been used to their full potential) to assist in the creation of the sim. Having Oleg contact me for this info stemmed from a complaint I made about the in-game pilots.

So that disproves both of you completely.