Friday 2010-10-01 Dev. update and Discussion

[kendo65]

Haven't posted on the update before now as I was just too pissed off with the attitudes of some people here to be bothered.

As others have already said, to get such a level of ungrateful whinging after being told we may not even get an update at all made pretty bad reading. No wonder Oleg got annoyed.

I suspect part of the problem we're hitting now is a growing mismatch between what people have been able to imagine the game would be and the approaching reality of what it actually is. You can detect an air of disbelief in some posts - "that isn't the 'real' terrain/smoke/texture/clouds - Oleg's holding it back to nearer release date..."

We've all had plenty of time, unencumbered by too many inconvenient 'facts' to create a fantasy of complete perfection - a cinematically-perfect recreation of 1940 aerial combat in which every facet that is most important to us is perfectly recreated - be it 100% accurate fm/dm, cinematic terrain, perfectly reproduced clouds, totally accurate aircrew uniforms, etc.

And we've been able to get away with this for so long because we didn't have evidence to the contrary.

Now the release date is getting closer and we find that all we are going to get is a very good flight sim! The best on the market no doubt and with room for growth and improvement, but falling short of perfection in areas where we'd begun to feel a sense of entitled certainty.

And so the disillusionment kicks in.

Anyway, I'm sure things will continue to improve up to release (and beyond). As others have said, until we really see this nearer to final production release on high settings without jaggies, etc it is next to impossible to judge its overall quality anyway - personally I am already pleased with what I've seen - it won't take too much more tweaking to get it very, very good.

But maybe we'd better get used to the idea that 'perfection' might have to wait a little longer?
-------
MD_Titus said it pretty well...

Originally Posted by MD_Titus

click link to view - too long to reproduce in full

...while also claiming the record for the longest forum post I've ever seen (narrowly beating Blackdog_kt's recent efforts. Blackdog always puts in well-reasoned and interesting posts, but God, they're long. One of these days I hope to read one all the way through )

[Trumper]

Originally Posted by kendo65

I suspect part of the problem we're hitting now is a growing mismatch between what people have been able to imagine the game would be and the approaching reality of what it actually is. You can detect an air of disbelief in some posts - "that isn't the 'real' terrain/smoke/texture/clouds - Oleg's holding it back to nearer release date..."

Well said Kendo, i think you may have hit the nail on the head here.It is a bit like Christmas, world cup final, [whatever you find that fits the idea] ,all the build up,all the hype all the tension and then a big let down at times.
I do also have to say that MAYBE Oleg has had a bit to do with it as well by drip feeding and hinting it is all WIP and not near finished so people assume there is still 50% more improvement to come,possibly on some things but i doubt it on all.
He does need now to make a decision on starting to show what is actually going to be a finished result OR maybe leave a few weeks until he can.
I daresay we will all buy the product anyway.
An easier idea is for Oleg to post any developments as he does now BUT then it is locked and all discussions about it are deleted,if there are any obvious problems that Oleg and his team need to know [ie accuracy ] they can be sent via PM or via moderators.

Originally Posted by Trumper

Well said Kendo, i think you may have hit the nail on the head here.It is a bit like Christmas, world cup final, [whatever you find that fits the idea] ,all the build up,all the hype all the tension and then a big let down at times.
I do also have to say that MAYBE Oleg has had a bit to do with it as well by drip feeding and hinting it is all WIP and not near finished so people assume there is still 50% more improvement to come,possibly on some things but i doubt it on all.
He does need now to make a decision on starting to show what is actually going to be a finished result OR maybe leave a few weeks until he can.
I daresay we will all buy the product anyway.
An easier idea is for Oleg to post any developments as he does now BUT then it is locked and all discussions about it are deleted,if there are any obvious problems that Oleg and his team need to know [ie accuracy ] they can be sent via PM or via moderators.

I think its more to do with some of the things Oleg has said, for example Oleg was very dismissive of the 'Wings Of Prey' terrain, claiming that SOW would be far better, to date its simply not unless of course Oleg is holding something back which seems bizarre if we are as close to release as they would have us believe. Cinematic, and real time weather have been promised along with manning AA guns and DX11 etc , but so far we have not seen anything of these at this late date, so i think a lot of expectations have been brought about by the devs, who it seems maybe struggling to live up to them. If Oleg says listen guys the terrain has had to be scaled down in order to make the whole thing playable then thats fine with me, but im still taking his last word on the subject in that it will be a lot better than WOP/BOP and until i hear or see otherwise I can only measure what i currently see with his last statement.

[winny]

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

I think its more to do with some of the things Oleg has said, for example Oleg was very dismissive of the 'Wings Of Prey' terrain, claiming that SOW would be far better, to date its simply not unless of course Oleg is holding something back which seems bizarre if we are as close to release as they would have us believe. Cinematic, and real time weather have been promised along with manning AA guns and DX11 etc , but so far we have not seen anything of these at this late date, so i think a lot of expectations have been brought about by the devs, who it seems maybe struggling to live up to them. If Oleg says listen guys the terrain has had to be scaled down in order to make the whole thing playable then thats fine with me, but im still taking his last word on the subject in that it will be a lot better than WOP/BOP and until i hear or see otherwise I can only measure what i currently see with his last statement.

This is at least the 8th time you've mentioned the terrain in this thread. What is your point? Why can't understand that what you are seeing is unfinished. Oleg has already said he doesn't want the competition to see it too early.

Now it's the devs fault?

Are you saying that Oleg is a liar? Are you implying that they are not going to have better terrain than BoP/WoP? Have you seen this game running at max settings? Or maybe you think you could do a better job?

I'm not saying you can't point out what you like/don't like. But you have to take the updates in context. You simply cannot compare these rough screenshots to the final product. You should take this into account before you decide to keep on and on about something that is basically irrelevant.

Originally Posted by winny

This is at least the 8th time you've mentioned the terrain in this thread. What is your point? Why can't understand that what you are seeing is unfinished. Oleg has already said he doesn't want the competition to see it too early.

Now it's the devs fault?

Are you saying that Oleg is a liar? Are you implying that they are not going to have better terrain than BoP/WoP? Have you seen this game running at max settings? Or maybe you think you could do a better job?

I'm not saying you can't point out what you like/don't like. But you have to take the updates in context. You simply cannot compare these rough screenshots to the final product. You should take this into account before you decide to keep on and on about something that is basically irrelevant.

Oleg has never said he doesn't want the competetion to see it, anyway , what competetion? If what we have been told is true the game is all but finished other than bugs, so the imaginary competeion will see it soon anyway? Doh!!

[winny]

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

Oleg has never said he doesn't want the competetion to see it, anyway , what competetion? If what we have been told is true the game is all but finished other than bugs, so the imaginary competeion will see it soon anyway? Doh!!

Yes he did.(look back through his posts, he said that when they showed IL-2 originally some of the competitors 'borrowed' the ideas and he wanted to avoid this happening again). And that wasn't really my point. Why would Oleg lie to us as you seem to be accusing him of? No competition? So there are no other flight simulators available? You'll say anything in order to add to your 'point' won't you?

I'll ask you again, we all know you think the terrain is poor, what's your point?

[philip.ed]

Tree's point is, simply, that he feels it isn't up to 2010 standards. Ideally, Oleg would reply to this and say whether they are still working on it or not. Read between the lines, it isn't hard.

[Dano]

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

Oleg has never said he doesn't want the competetion to see it, anyway , what competetion? If what we have been told is true the game is all but finished other than bugs, so the imaginary competeion will see it soon anyway? Doh!!

Wrong again, maybe you should take the time to review Oleg's postings before spouting rubbish. Oh wait, you couldn't even be bothered to read what he said about the bonus video this week let alone anything he's said in the past so I guess that's not going to happen.

[kendo65]

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

I think its more to do with some of the things Oleg has said, for example Oleg was very dismissive of the 'Wings Of Prey' terrain, claiming that SOW would be far better, to date its simply not unless of course Oleg is holding something back which seems bizarre if we are as close to release as they would have us believe. Cinematic, and real time weather have been promised along with manning AA guns and DX11 etc , but so far we have not seen anything of these at this late date, so i think a lot of expectations have been brought about by the devs, who it seems maybe struggling to live up to them.
...

I think that's a fair point, but the main thing is that we've all filled in the blanks where there was a lack of information. We've assumed standards that maybe were just too high.

The reality was always going to have a hard time matching the dream we've all built up about this. It's inevitable given just how sky-high the expectations were. In our dreams it really was perfect.

A few months back people were resisting the idea that when they bailed out over England they wouldn't be able to interact in a completely life-like way with a fully realised miniature 1940s world - with cars, buses, cows in the fields, people walking around, etc as they made it back to their airfield on foot or swam the Channel.

Now Oleg did mention buses and traffic on the roads, also animals - but not in the way that some people latched onto it.

In truth, the landscape isn't scaling the heights that I'd hoped for (dreamt of...?) yet either, but unlike some others I don't think it's that far off. A little tweaking of colours / lighting to get away from the pastel effect - some of the 'polishing' that Oleg referred to, and some higher quality settings, AA, etc.

[KG26_Alpha]

This thread needs cleaning up.

Oleg

99% are grateful for your time and hard work giving us an update on Friday's.
1% are never going to be grateful or appreciative of your unique approach as a developer.

Keep smiling