Answers to Community Questions

[csThor]

Originally Posted by luthier

Finally a comment that got to me. Today's a bad day after all.

It goes without saying for me, and that's why it might be hard to gather that from my reply, but it's obviously OUR fault for single-player being what it is and 3rd party support not showing up.

Your general criticism is spot on. We shipped a product that had too many technical issues for us to really focus on finer elements of gameplay. There had never been a point, we're not even there today, where we could sit back, look at the code, and say, hell, what a great foundation, let's build a great game on top of it.

The GUI especially is our Achilles heel. Like I wrote earlier in the thread, somebody somewhere before I ever showed up chose to make it in a horrible clumsy environment called WPF. By the time I showed up it was too late to go back, and going forward proved extremely painful. Each new screen took forever, everything was clunky, tiny changes or bug fixes required insane amounts of effort, and in the end it took a tremendous painful effort to reach the decidedly insufficient GUI that we have today.

It's extremely painful and frustrating for everyone involved. Believe me.

Luthier. First thanks for taking the time to answer my reply. However, I can't help but feel some kind of shizophrenic split between the first comment I quoted (where you disagreed with CloD not having any offline content) and what you wrote above. First you implied that offline is of no consequence and then you apologized for not adding stuff there due to resource issues. So what's it going to be?

Secondly I am aware that the services for Clod have been read already. I was talking in general and about future projects and your first reply implied (strongly) that offline gameplay is of no particular, if any, importance in your opinion. This strikes me as extremely strange, especially given the still strong factor of offline players. Yes, a lot of creativity lies within the community, but not paying attention to offliners and their needs and not utilizing a good offline campaign and decent single missions as showcase for what the engine can achieve is strange (to put it mildly). Just my 0,02 €...

[adonys]

Originally Posted by luthier

Finally a comment that got to me. Today's a bad day after all.

It goes without saying for me, and that's why it might be hard to gather that from my reply, but it's obviously OUR fault for single-player being what it is and 3rd party support not showing up.

Your general criticism is spot on. We shipped a product that had too many technical issues for us to really focus on finer elements of gameplay. There had never been a point, we're not even there today, where we could sit back, look at the code, and say, hell, what a great foundation, let's build a great game on top of it.

The GUI especially is our Achilles heel. Like I wrote earlier in the thread, somebody somewhere before I ever showed up chose to make it in a horrible clumsy environment called WPF. By the time I showed up it was too late to go back, and going forward proved extremely painful. Each new screen took forever, everything was clunky, tiny changes or bug fixes required insane amounts of effort, and in the end it took a tremendous painful effort to reach the decidedly insufficient GUI that we have today.

It's extremely painful and frustrating for everyone involved. Believe me.

Luthier, for God's sake. please open your eyes and understand: THERE IS NO OFFLINE PLAY ATM. and that not due to lack of 3rd party content, length of official campaign or horrible GUI.

no matter how good is, or it is not, a campaign/mission made (and Desastersoft's seems quite to actually be good), it has ZERO playability value because of:
- broken AI, which won't play along with you. it's like you are not existent for them, invisible. they won't follow, they won't consider you a part of their flight
- porked combat AI (they will pass each other 300m away without noticing each other, strange combat maneuvers, lack of maneuvers when fired at, etc, etc, etc)
- broken Radio Comms - you can not get them do anything.

do you understand that those are system sooo broken they are almost inexistent? and that, without them, there's no damn single player game at all?!!

that's why the number of community made content fall out to zero. because there's no point to make anything based on systems which are not working. We had two very good dynamic persistent battlefield engines on work, and both stopped dead because of exactly this reason.

come on!!!

[Icebear]

Originally Posted by csThor

You're joking, right? You aren't really saying that CloD contains any offline and/or gameplay content worth the bits on my HDD?

As for the rest. Building a sandbox for the customers to play in is all fine and dandy if the karking thing had a solid fundament! In the current situation you're essentially saying "You want offline gameplay? Code it yourself." Yep! *shattering round of sarcastic applause* Brilliant. Marvelous. Sorry for the sarcasm overflow. I couldn't help myself at this apparent disregard of an entire slice of your community.

On a more serious note. Yes, the overwhelming majority of good offline content in 1946 came from external sources. But ... you know there was going to be a but ... they had a solid fundament to build their campaigns on. There was a campaign module with rank system and medals (regardless how primitive), but CloD doesn't have any of that. Hence my "Code it yourself" statement. Well ... I can't code, programming languages don't make sense to me. Desastersoft did that, but they have their own style of campaigns and won't (for obvious reasons) release their campaign module for public consumption. Not that this would make much sense given the issues with the AI and the problems with player - AI interaction. Or has there been any addition to the radio menu with ground-attack options? Not? Oops!

So ... bottom line for me is that luthier apparently thinks that gameplay is a luxury and not needed at all. Interesting perspective, especially when you remember that Maddox Games wants to sell computer games. Unless, of course, MMO's are all you're interested in (what a coincidence, isn't it? ). I'll keep an eye on further developments, but I won't expect anything anymore. Have fun with your sandbox in which nothing but the usual clusterf*ck between fighters is possible. Too bad about the possibilities. *shakes head*

Well said and the sad truth. In the end IL2 will be one of this usual, boring arcade online clusterf*ck MMO's. The coop mode with all it's capabilities to stay ahead of the mainstream competition died tonight.

Maybe we are just too old and romantic csThor.

[senseispcc]

.
I am happy with COD!
It could be better, yes but it is such a leap forward. Like the original IL2 was in the world of war flight simulations.
What is the difference between IL2 the original and IL2 COD... the subject IL2 original had a original subject that no had tried or touch before and it was therefore a instant hit. But and it is a big "but" COD is a air battle well covered by many games, books and movies so everyone think he is an expert or has is opinion.
Also when the game is more precise the gamer is more demanding. This is a game not reality! And never shall it be all games with ever his format pc or other has is restrictions, do not forget that the real Battle over Britain was a struggle to the 'death' this is not let us hope not!
For me the graphics are great!
The modeling of the planes far from perfect is near enough to make it a battle to prevail faced with mighty opponents!
I am waiting for the last and official fully tested patch and for the next (not sequel) game of the series, thanks.

.
One last remark; for my PC this simulation did work (with very few exceptions) well or very well.

[jimbop]

Just have to say thanks for the solid answers in Part II. Much appreciated and feeling more positive about the sequel now.

[Storm of When]

Cheers for the replies I won`t be as negative from here on in, I think we need to lay off them a bit and wait for Bo? to see what happens from that point on. It`s obvious that the sequel will the defining moment, sh*t or bust so to speak, and it`ll also be the point where this team as it stands has had full control of the games destiny rather than picking up a pile and having to mould it into something workable in a short space of time. Give em a chance and forget past errors, after all it`s the only large scale WW2 flight sim on the horizin (as opposed to Gaijins mickey mouse efforts and DCS`s £30 a throw planes).

[jimbop]

Originally Posted by luthier

I meant that it wouldn’t do anything for the bottom line, for sales. Whatever I do here today won’t sell any new copies, and it will have no effect on the sequel.

I think you are wrong there if you place any value on pre-orders. Good will takes time to build, especially when you are well behind to start with. Definitely starting to look forward to the sequel now.

[Feathered_IV]

Sobering stuff though. BoM is still a couple of years away I imagine, based on past experience. Here's hoping they can rediscover the art.

[jimbop]

Originally Posted by Feathered_IV

Sobering stuff though. BoM is still a couple of years away I imagine, based on past experience. Here's hoping they can rediscover the art.

Yes, sobering but I think there is a subtle point that people are missing. Luthier has been the project manager of the sequel from the start whereas he took over partway through the development of CoD.

It is very difficult to successfully take over a project partway through. People are already entrenched in their own way of doing things (which have usually led to the disaster requiring a change in project leadership). The team is often resentful and this makes it difficult to change the way the project moves.

Luthier might do better with the sequel than with CoD.

[lonewulf]

To my way of thinking the replies appeared genuine and sincere and I appreciate the effort. These guys aren't required to talk to us so anything we get is a real bonus.

I suspect Luthier and co view any ongoing dialogue as something of a two edged sword, but to my way of thinking discussion, and the appearance that you are being listened to, is always worthwhile.

Thanks again for the replies.