The Crystal Ball

[Ataros]

Originally Posted by furbs

If before release Luthier had said "look CLOD isnt ready and its going to take at least a year to get it to a standard we all want...at the moment it has many problems please help us beta test it and improve it...
here is rough year road map of what we are going to do..."

Then had they stuck to it and made progress you would have 99% less moaning as you see it.

I agree. I think he could not do it because of NDA with UBI and/or 1C. Oleg even had to participate in the launch event in Moscow because of his contract obligations. I do not think they were allowed to talk about what happened. Luthier mentioned on sukhoi in March something like please do not ask me questions (about release issues) answering which would get me fired next morning. Luthier is an aviation enthusiast but he has to make money for the publishers. It is even more complicated because MG is now part of Softclub which is a part of 1C which has contract obligations to UBI. Too many bosses above luthier. May be not 100% correct, just my impression. Softclub merger happened in 2009 IIRC due to economic crisis. Then anti-crisis management took command and many employees of the team left. After the launch Oleg wrote on his Youtube channel that he is not sure if the team would be allowed to finish the product. Remember how happy luthier was bringing here the news that the project will be continued?

Regarding roadmap I think luthier mentioned some in spring and summer but then they did not got through it. Maybe because new people have to decipher someone else's code which can be a nightmare. Maybe there are other reasons. They can not tell us because of NDA with UBI and 1C/Softclub bosses, especially on the official forums.

Why all the above happened? Oleg as a man took responsibility for 2 major reasons: 1) did not insist on making CloD using old IL-2 engine and believed some team members that the new engine can be done in shorter time, 2) attempted to meet all user requests, wishes and dreams as it was in Il-2 which was not possible in the new engine because of its complexity (much more people had to be hired which did not happen due to many reasons - crisis and other) http://www.sukhoi.ru/forum/showthrea...=1#post1683314

Originally Posted by furbs

Where is the progress Ataros? i dont care it it takes a long time but i want to see clear progress and the core features fixed.

Does anyone really believe a flight sim development team with 12 years experience in ww2 air combat needs the community to help fix the AI?
Its just padding, smoke and mirrors

Come on, if the guy whos paid to make the AI doesnt know...then they have the wrong guy.

The AI guy was changed within the recent year IIRC.
I can see that the team is in trouble and they can not deliver results as quickly as I want (and as luthier wants). I understand also that they can not be as sincere and open as Jason is before all of 3 their Big Bosses approve in writing what they can sincerely say.

The question is if we want to give them our hand of help or we seek revenge and want them to burn together with this project? I posted one very negative reply regarding COOPs in the last "Q&A" thread because I knew luthier would probably see it and provided links to facts and bugreports. But if I start repeating it every day this will not be constructive any more because 1) they will stop listening to this negative noise, 2) this would discourage the devs, 3) this will give wrong impression to newcomers that there is nothing good in the game (because of the same negative noise).

I am sure that what Jason said about 777 can be applied to MG issues. Development may stop any minute if we do not support the devs or Luthier may get too disappointed with forum reaction and move to the USA to his family where he can make more money probably too. Then someone of 1C Big Bosses would have to finish the series making it an arcade free-to-play fest.

Let's get as constructive as we can. This is the only way out.
At least we have a new engine, not a 10-year old Il-2 one (as we could) and the team was allowed to continue development yet. Gods were on our side so far.

Originally Posted by furbs

Progress and fixes is what will fix the sim and this community...nothing else.

I think luthier would agree with you because his bosses remind him about this every day.