Offline mode

[Vaxxtx]

The campaign system can be updated on the fly server side. That is the biggest, and best, reason. You want JG67(a) that served at this field during this time but then changed to this field for two days and then went back to the older field? No patch, no update, just adjusted on the server. Oh, you don't care about getting an unpdate - you love installing patches every three hours? Sweet, but there is a ton of workload involved in creating patches themselves that expands that constant updating process to more of a laborious thankless task that costs development hours. No He-111 cargo crates, or Ju52 (I know, the 3D modeller and FM designer, and DM designer are all different but making the planes, and the cargo loadouts, and the implentation also involves everyone else to get it in the title) because some don't mind patches. So when the campaign system is being updated frequently, patches are difficult and time consuming and are a negative to productivity.

 

And what is the real complaint, aside from internet outages, for the online requirement?

 

As far as I can see, that is the only complaint - but you can continue playing the mission and it will be uploaded later. It really only impacts the online campaign system, and hopefully someone will come along and create a very good offline DCG like Pat Wilson. So many want mods, why is a 3rd party DCG the only mod many complain about not actually wanting? Il-2 had no DCG - Starshoy created it as a mod.

Pat Wilsons mod was "ok" at best. It was clunky, not user friendly, not easy to tweak, and having to alt tab, save, and regen again was silly. No offense to him or his talent, as he was only limited to the restrictions of RoF. Even then it was more of an enhanced random mission generator with some parameters. I am not going to deal with the same system in BoS. If the devs would have worked on this apsect with him and implemented it into RoF AND BoS it would have made a lot of people happy.

 

Lowengins DCG for IL2 worked seemlessly into the game. Setting up was a simple, and being able to tweak every aspect down to individual skins, pilots names, skills, theatre, planes, historical data, historical production dates, etc. etc. etc. was easy. Once a campaign was going, you were done. You could even have a JABO campaign in the East, and a fighter campaign in the Pacific saved at the same time. Endless possiblities.

 

Why this has not become a dev concern and more of a pass to some mod to make it, I dont know. Also, didnt Pacific Fighters have its own dynmaic campaign? I could have sworn it did.

[FuriousMeow]

You had to alt-tab for Starshoys. You had to alt-tab for Lowengrin's. You had to alt-tab for the better DCG for RBII than what it shipped with. You had to alt-tab for the first DCG that the CFSIII mod that is now WOFF. You always have to alt-tab for 3rd party generators.

 

No, PF did not have a DCG. Lowengrin made one but nothing shipped with PF.

 

There are thousands of hours of research that need to go into DCGs with historical precedence. Falcon's DCG was hit or miss for years, it took tons of mods/hacks/cracks to get it working finally - almost 6 years after it was released it started to work finally but the studio's ability to support it dissolved months after Falcon's release, and that was using a faux campaign. There was no historical precedence. There was no one complaing that a single Staffel in JG/whatever didn't have a mix of 109F4s and G2s, but instead was all G-2s on a specific date. There were no complaints about historically present items in Falcon because it was a fictional campaign and that is why it just barely worked (until it was modded/hacked/cracked and then it finally worked but was still fictional) because they could do whatever wherever and it still didn't work properly out of the gates. It took years of hacking to get it to where it was four years ago.

 

DCGs aren't easy, they are virtually impossible for developers because it takes thousands upon thousands of research hours before even the first line of code is laid. You know who has the budget for that? Software powerhouses like Bethesda or EA, and look where they are putting their money - on the items that return on those thousands upon thousands of development hours with zero research involved. This niche just barely makes a return, if any, so if we want a DCG that is historically accurate and fully researched - we do it. If we want robots transforming into airplanes and shooting mystical wands powered by battle axes out of a cannon and a single arrow turns an adventurer into a side character, then we still couldn't get it because that just sounds stupid but more importantly highlights how demanding this genre is in every sense with so very little return. This genre is the Hollywood equivelant of movies that cost more to develop than they ever would on ticket sales.

Edited September 3, 2014 by FuriousMeow

[Vaxxtx]

You had to alt-tab for Starshoys. You had to alt-tab for Lowengrin's. You had to alt-tab for the better DCG for RBII than what it shipped with. You had to alt-tab for the first DCG that the CFSIII mod that is now WOFF. You always have to alt-tab for 3rd party generators.

 

No, PF did not have a DCG. Lowengrin made one but nothing shipped with PF.

 

There are thousands of hours of research that need to go into DCGs with historical precedence. Falcon's DCG was hit or miss for years, it took tons of mods/hacks/cracks to get it working finally - almost 6 years after it was released it started to work finally but the studio's ability to support it dissolved months after Falcon's release, and that was using a faux campaign. There was no historical precedence. There was no one complaing that a single Staffel in JG/whatever didn't have a mix of 109F4s and G2s, but instead was all G-2s on a specific date. There were no complaints about historically present items in Falcon because it was a fictional campaign and that is why it just barely worked (until it was modded/hacked/cracked and then it finally worked but was still fictional) because they could do whatever wherever and it still didn't work properly out of the gates. It took years of hacking to get it to where it was four years ago.

 

DCGs aren't easy, they are virtually impossible for developers because it takes thousands upon thousands of research hours before even the first line of code is laid. You know who has the budget for that? Software powerhouses like Bethesda or EA, and look where they are putting their money - on the items that return on those thousands upon thousands of development hours with zero research involved. This niche just barely makes a return, if any, so if we want a DCG that is historically accurate and fully researched - we do it. If we want robots transforming into airplanes and shooting mystical wands powered by battle axes out of a cannon and a single arrow turns an adventurer into a side character, then we still couldn't get it because that just sounds stupid but more importantly highlights how demanding this genre is in every sense with so very little return. This genre is the Hollywood equivelant of movies that cost more to develop than they ever would on ticket sales.

You had to alt tab once to set it up, after that, it took care of itself, and just load your saved game to continue. No need to keep regen missions.The ONLY time you had to bring DCG back up was to make a new campaign OR tweak one already running.

[FuriousMeow]

Gah! You still had to alt-tab, and it wasn't flawless, it broke too! And, and who made it? Third party!

 

I want what we are getting out of BoS as far as DM, FM and environment. Could the DM be more in-depth? Sure, most could be - even ArmAIII with its rounds that impact different materials and the flight characteristics change variably based on the material and angle still has a very simplistic damage model for tanks and airplanes - and that is a military simulator, and they received a lot of money due to the DayZ mod so they could, theoretically, build very in-depth DMs and FMs for their ground and flight elements - but they haven't. They could have a very in-depth DCG for just the infantry portion, but they don't. And Bohemia made way more, just because of DayZ, than BoS could hope to.

 

But again - DCG was built and developed over several years, and was carefully researched with that being the only mission goal - a DCG, and it took a lot of time invested. Time invested in software development is money. Investment money wise returned on DCGs, not enough to cover a historically accurate one.

 

They could easily do one that was one squadron randomly placed in either the VVS or LuftWaffe, fought valiently, had some random mission to pick up some chick (see where I'm going?), and blah blah it sucks because it isn't historically accurate which would require thousands of hours of research before even starting to code not to mention you can't build a DCG on historical precedence.

 

So it is either fantasy, or scripted mission. But no one wants fantasy, and no one wants scripted. Everyone wants to feel like they are in a war that has already been fought, and already played out, but it can't be played out the way it happened then - it has to play out how it happens in this alternate universe but if it plays out this way in the alternate universe then it didn't happen according to history and so round and round it goes because it has to be historically accurate but it can't be.

 

And so the point of online connectivity is that they can at least fix/change historical inaccuracies without a patch and no one will know. For the rest, third party DCGs and you'll have to alt-tab but still, you aren't playing a historical scenario anyway because things are playing out differently so why not just play a bunch of different scripted campaigns that were at least historical?

Edited September 3, 2014 by FuriousMeow

[unreasonable]

Actually (gah!) DCG could work without exiting IL-2 at all if you selected the right mode. I flew dozens of missions this way although in the end I preferred exiting so that I could control pilot and skin assignments.. See here http://www.lowengrin.com/content.php?article.11 for the instructions of how to do it if you wish. Fantastic utility, but you are right that it did require a lot of effort to get the best out of it.

 

Your point about alternate histories is well made: in WW1 sims this manifests itself in players wanting to see historic aces and still be have them as mortal, which can lead to disappointment when the Red Baron dies on his first flight because he tries to land into the wind.

 

Until very recently I lived in an area with highly unreliable internet, and even though it has got better, I have still experienced occasions (perhaps one in 20 missions) when RoF disconnects in mid campaign mission and then fails to update at end mission even after the connection is re-established, so that I have to refly. With a bit of luck my newly installed fibre-optic service should make this history. So I now find that I hardly care anymore if I have to connect to play SP or not.

 

I have even just given MP a go! Luckily they pulled the plug for server maintenance before complete heart failure! I will always remember you "darvin" as my first victim! As for the *&%^ who shot me down on my first sortie ... well done. Never even saw you.

 

My concern with BoS campaign design (given what we have been told about it) is not the always-on requirement or the unlocking of the cannon +3, but the (seeming) alienation of the player from his human context, which I think is a shame, and will mean that however good BoS is as a simulation of the machines and weapons involved in the battle, it will leave out many other distinctive psychological elements of the military experience. Except, perhaps, the feeling of being an insignificant insect caught up in an inhuman industrial slaughter!

 

We shall see - but I would certainly encourage anyone who likes sims to forget about the always-on issue unless they have a poor internet service. I hope the devs can find ways to allow these people to enjoy the campaign. The current RoF method does not quite do it, unfortunately.

[Vaxxtx]

Gah! You still had to alt-tab, and it wasn't flawless, it broke too! And, and who made it? Third party!

 

I want what we are getting out of BoS as far as DM, FM and environment. Could the DM be more in-depth? Sure, most could be - even ArmAIII with its rounds that impact different materials and the flight characteristics change variably based on the material and angle still has a very simplistic damage model for tanks and airplanes - and that is a military simulator, and they received a lot of money due to the DayZ mod so they could, theoretically, build very in-depth DMs and FMs for their ground and flight elements - but they haven't. They could have a very in-depth DCG for just the infantry portion, but they don't. And Bohemia made way more, just because of DayZ, than BoS could hope to.

 

But again - DCG was built and developed over several years, and was carefully researched with that being the only mission goal - a DCG, and it took a lot of time invested. Time invested in software development is money. Investment money wise returned on DCGs, not enough to cover a historically accurate one.

 

They could easily do one that was one squadron randomly placed in either the VVS or LuftWaffe, fought valiently, had some random mission to pick up some chick (see where I'm going?), and blah blah it sucks because it isn't historically accurate which would require thousands of hours of research before even starting to code not to mention you can't build a DCG on historical precedence.

 

So it is either fantasy, or scripted mission. But no one wants fantasy, and no one wants scripted. Everyone wants to feel like they are in a war that has already been fought, and already played out, but it can't be played out the way it happened then - it has to play out how it happens in this alternate universe but if it plays out this way in the alternate universe then it didn't happen according to history and so round and round it goes because it has to be historically accurate but it can't be.

 

And so the point of online connectivity is that they can at least fix/change historical inaccuracies without a patch and no one will know. For the rest, third party DCGs and you'll have to alt-tab but still, you aren't playing a historical scenario anyway because things are playing out differently so why not just play a bunch of different scripted campaigns that were at least historical?

 

I have flown plenty of historical accurate missions in many sims. The Flying Tigers campaign in IL2 '46 was stunning. Its was scripted, static, and historic. But then it was over. Sure I could replay it, but we all know what is going to happen. After a while its not fun, or a challenge.

 

Dynamic IS interesting because we all know history, we know the end result, but we dont know the what if's and that makes it fun. What if the Ta52 was mass produced in '43 or the Me262? What if Germany successful invaded the Brits in the BoB. What if, what if, what if. Thats a fun thing to play around with. Losing wingmen with names you give them. Watching your wingmen gain ranks and medals. Seeing your squad go from 12 planes down to 5 due to casualties and low supplys to the airbase. I can go on, but you should get the idea. Its a sandbox. Can be played accurately or not, its up to the player.

 

The advantage over nothing but historical static missions? Replayabilty and a challenge. I dont see a downside.

 

Actually (gah!) DCG could work without exiting IL-2 at all if you selected the right mode. I flew dozens of missions this way although in the end I preferred exiting so that I could control pilot and skin assignments.. See here http://www.lowengrin.com/content.php?article.11 for the instructions of how to do it if you wish. Fantastic utility, but you are right that it did require a lot of effort to get the best out of it.

 

Your point about alternate histories is well made: in WW1 sims this manifests itself in players wanting to see historic aces and still be have them as mortal, which can lead to disappointment when the Red Baron dies on his first flight because he tries to land into the wind.

 

Until very recently I lived in an area with highly unreliable internet, and even though it has got better, I have still experienced occasions (perhaps one in 20 missions) when RoF disconnects in mid campaign mission and then fails to update at end mission even after the connection is re-established, so that I have to refly. With a bit of luck my newly installed fibre-optic service should make this history. So I now find that I hardly care anymore if I have to connect to play SP or not.

 

I have even just given MP a go! Luckily they pulled the plug for server maintenance before complete heart failure! I will always remember you "darvin" as my first victim! As for the *&%^ who shot me down on my first sortie ... well done. Never even saw you.

 

My concern with BoS campaign design (given what we have been told about it) is not the always-on requirement or the unlocking of the cannon +3, but the (seeming) alienation of the player from his human context, which I think is a shame, and will mean that however good BoS is as a simulation of the machines and weapons involved in the battle, it will leave out many other distinctive psychological elements of the military experience. Except, perhaps, the feeling of being an insignificant insect caught up in an inhuman industrial slaughter!

 

We shall see - but I would certainly encourage anyone who likes sims to forget about the always-on issue unless they have a poor internet service. I hope the devs can find ways to allow these people to enjoy the campaign. The current RoF method does not quite do it, unfortunately.

 

This, exactaly.