Friday 2011-02-04 Dev. update and Discussion

[Necrobaron]

Originally Posted by luthier

There's bits and pieces. We made a decision about 18 months ago that we wouldn't be able to make it right, and we'd rather build good static campaigns instead. So it's been on a backburner for some time.

I'm the guy who wrote a bunch of giant 100-page design docs for the dynamic campaign, so it was a very hard decision for me personally.

There's probably at least a year of work left on it to make it great. We could have make something like an Il-2 level dynamic campaign in a few months, but I don't want to do that at all. I want it to be ground-breaking and worthy of the rest of the game.

Sounds good to me! It's encouraging to hear that you not only want to make a dynamic campaign generator but also want to make if far exceed what we've seen before. I put countless hours in various campaigns from the old series but there is always room for improvement. I think a robust, well-made dynamic campaign generator on par with, or exceeding, the quality of work put into IL2CoD will be a joy to experience.

Originally Posted by Feathered_IV

Wiek Luijken is willing and able and happy to offer his services to Oleg.

That looks great! Just add some Spitfires (or make a separate RAF edition so consumers have a choice) and it'd be perfect.

Originally Posted by ElAurens

Thank you Luther, for being real, honest, and open about the progress of the new sim.

It's these little chats you take time for that keep a lot of us on your and Oleg's side. You are not some monolithic software giant company shoving out new, flashy, yet shallow content just to sell box art. The way that you and Oleg share with us makes me, and I'm sure most vets of the sim, feel like we are actually part of this grand adventure, not just customers picking up a fast food lunch at the drive through window.

Carry on just as you are.

The BlitzPigs, and our friends in the sim eagerly await the release.

S!

+1

Succinctly and beautifully said!

[swiss]

Originally Posted by FlatSpinMan

What a human response (from Luthier). I really admire the honesty and the amount of info that is shared.

I more admire his patience.

[BadAim]

Originally Posted by luthier

Yes, I'm of the same exact opinion. We messed this one up. It's completely my fault. Our lead ground 3D modeler hates my guts for it. We are working on it though. At the very least we'll try to dump something into all those vehicles for release.

It looks horrible and we all know it, believe me.



I explained this in detail earlier in the thread. When we try to do something ground breaking, sometimes we end up failing to deliver.

I'll note again that everything we said we were going to do, we did. It's just we were not able to get it into a playable state quickly enough. It will take more time.

WOW, you know, I just don't get all the conspiracy theories and dark mistrust some people have of these guys when this is only the latest example of how candidly they speak with this community.

This stuff is unheard of. Thanks guys.

BTW, I think the Green is perfect in those last screenies.

Originally Posted by luthier

You need a good video card to play over populated areas. We have huge textures so lots of video memory is important too.

Could you please specify this a bit more. What is the maximum video memory which is still useful. I'm thinking of a 3Gb video memory card, but it could be wasted money, if you told us that more than 2 gb for example don't give any performance increase.

And I'm also very interested in the 64-bit-on-release question.


Thx in advance

[Cpt Dremmen]

why remove my post? i do not understand i was not being rude? my comments about the door on the spit was not a dig just an observation as a real flyer!

My comment on the video was justified too

[Triggaaar]

Originally Posted by Hecke

Could you please specify this a bit more. What is the maximum video memory which is still useful. I'm thinking of a 3Gb video memory card, but it could be wasted money, if you told us that more than 2 gb for example don't give any performance increase.

I doubt anyone in the dev team has tried the game with 3Gb of video memory on a single card, so unlikely they can answer that.

[swiss]

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

Come on Luthier, you know what Im asking for here, a short video taken on one of your better PC's in the office

What if Lu's PC is the best one they have in the office?
There must be better ones? Sure, but maybe the have Quadras installed - great Gpu, but worthless for gaming.

And the fact they don't really have a business relation to either of the two Gpu manufactures makes it impossible for him to recommend one card over the other.
So no, you will not get the info you're craving for.

Originally Posted by swiss

What if Lu's PC is the best one they have in the office?
There must be better ones? Sure, but maybe the have Quadras installed - great Gpu, but worthless for gaming.

And the fact they don't really have a business relation to either of the two Gpu manufactures makes it impossible for him to recommend one card over the other.
So no, you will not get the info you're craving for.

Swiss your out of touch here go back and read all the thread before making any comments, in case you have not got time I will quickly refresh for you, all that I/we want to see is a video (shot in game) for 3 mins of a fighter attacking a bomber over land on a high end PC, Luthier as already told us that flying over a town or city/airfield on his mid range PC with detail turned up it is not possible to fly because the PC grinds to a halt. What I/we want to know is does it do the same on a high end PC, not a difficult question and something that can be done in 2 mins. Luthier has already told us that they do have high end PC's in the office but they cannot get access to them because they are being used for work, helpfully I have suggested nipping on one when a guy goes home or uses the toilet or has a dinner break, even if Luthier doesn't video the results I am happy to take his word that the high end PC handles the graphics fine.

[swiss]

Originally Posted by Tree_UK

Swiss your out of touch here go back and read all the thread before making any comments, in case you have not got time I will quickly refresh for you, all that I/we want to see is a video (shot in game) for 3 mins of a fighter attacking a bomber over land on a high end PC, Luthier as already told us that flying over a town or city/airfield on his mid range PC with detail turned up it is not possible to fly because the PC grinds to a halt. What I/we want to know is does it do the same on a high end PC, not a difficult question and something that can be done in 2 mins. Luthier has already told us that they do have high end PC's in the office but they cannot get access to them because they are being used for work, helpfully I have suggested nipping on one when a guy goes home or uses the toilet or as a dinner break, even if Luthier doesn't video the reulsts I am happy to take his word that the high end PC handles the graphics fine.

My turn to refresh:

Where has Luthier ever mentioned there is a better(gamer) PC available?
Quadra GPUs are several thousand dollar a piece(I consider that high-end) - but they are not "for human consumption".

At this point I am pretty sure there are no 480s or 5970s in that office.

Originally Posted by swiss

My turn to refresh:

Where has Luthier ever mentioned there is a better(gamer) PC available?
Quadra GPUs are several thousand dollar a piece(I consider that high-end) - but they are not "for human consumption".

At this point I am pretty sure there are no 480s or 5970s in that office.

he said it here -

Originally Posted by luthier

We have top-notch machines where they are most needed, with the programmers. I have a mid-range or probably even a low-end machine by today's standards myself, which is very helpful in ensuring a lot of you guys get decent performance out of the game! If everyone had a blazing fast PC, who would worry about the framerate?

We've just finished a major round of optimizations last week that drastically improved framerate compared to the Igromir build. We couldn't have done it if everyone at the office ran it at 80 fps to begin with.

And since I take the majority of screenshots for the updates, you guys are stuck with what I have! In order to take screenshots on other machines, I'd have to bump off a programmer, and I'm sure we can all agree it wouldn't be good for the project. Most of them run weird versions of the game unfit for human consumption anyway.