On-Line War Interest & Discussion

[JG7_X-Man]

I am not sure about numbers but looking the number of people that play this game in either WINGS OF LIBERTY, Finnish VirtualPilots - Dynamic War or Coconut's dynamic campaign EXPERT and NORMAL servers, I was wondering if there was an appetite/interest in an IL-2 style On-line Wars. D13-th_Mytzu made a list and his impression (...with edits from myself) that I will post to give everyone an idea of what I am talking about:

 

Note: The one thing we need is something like Hyper Lobby and most importantly an On-line Mission Generator.

 

Any discuss on whether this is a possibility at all is also welcome

1. SEOW: it is by far the most immersive virtual war engine; the best one could get in terms of being really there. Its major drawback is its inability to run more then one mission at a time, thus the total number of sorties that can be played during a real day are greatly reduced (even if 1000 players can take part in a project, only very few missions can be played in a certain amount of time).

2. VEF1: it was my first online war project (and I think the first really successful IL2 Online War project). It was played with mini-map-path ON, padlock ON, speed-bar ON (the rest of the settings were on realistic), the front was not really a dynamic one (at that time there wasn't even a front-line implemented into the IL-2 engine), but it did learn pilots the value of staying alive and showed there is much more to IL2 online then just DF rooms. 

3. VEF2: during VEF1, Starshoy was in direct contact with Oleg and some improvements were made to IL2 engine due to experience gained from VEF1 and transmitted by Starshoy to Oleg (one of those was the front-line). VEF2 was better thought then VEF1, the difficulty settings were increased to FULL REAL + speed-bar ON, many said at the time that it will be impossible to fly without mini-map path and impossible to fight without padlock ( \:D ), the ground war became more dynamic then VEF1, ground related missions gained more importance, some nice features were added (such as if an airfield was heavily damaged, when a mission started there was a chance to have enemy bombers above it, dropping bombs), and last but not least the crowd was great. However the Speed-hack cheat surfaced and also some forum fights begun so VEF2 had to suffer due some cheating and forum hysteria. In the end Starshoy chose not to continue with VEF project and some other guys took over and started work on VEF3 which never came to light.

4. VOW: I only had limited experience with VOW because the idea behind the project did not attract me at all, so it would be unfair to comment on it.

5. Bellum War: few acknowledge what Dut gave to this community and even fewer even know who Dut is. Dut is one of us (the online Il2 crowd) who enjoyed playing IL2 online and also had knowledge about programming, so during VEF2 days when people were jumping at each other's throat in the forums, Dut begun to work on a new Virtual War engine (BW engine), most of the support for his project came from Spanish speaking squadrons and for many month BW kept going only by the will of Dut and the help of a few other players who understood the importance of helping him. At some point VEF2 ended and since VEF3 wasn't there, people begun turning into BW (by now a large part of the Finnish community also started flying Dut's project). By the time VEF2 ended, people in BW were already flying Fw's against La's \:\) Bellum War had much more to offer then VEF, it was better thought, ground actions had a much more impact (in fact they were vital), other features such as supply, recon, rescue, greatly enhanced the immersion of virtual wars compared to the VEF system. In short terms: the project was an immense success and was going to stay that way for years to come ! unfortunately certain squadrons (one of whom was 100+ pilots large and hosted many games) begun blackmailing Dut that if he doesn't modify the project the way they wanted, they will boycott the project, then the usual crap begun floating into the forums and combined with other problems such as ground units limitations within the Il-2 engine forced Dut to step back from the project (sick and tired of it all). Fortunately he made it open source so others were able to continue his work, and many did try - some even succeed.

6. Virtual Western Front: 

7. CzechWWar: heh.. this was a BW clone which started promising; it added some nice features over the existing BW code, the admins were a nice an united group who wanted to do a good thing and in the beginning they did a great job. At some point I offered my help which was accepted and I started working on history data to determine which units using what planes and exactly between what dates, operated in Stalingrad area; unfortunately having to fly IAR-80's 20% if the time, wasn't so much fun and people stared throwing dirt at me saying that because I was a Romanian I inflated the IAR numbers/sorties for Stalingrad campaign (all this within some really NOT nice discussions where despite the fact that I worked for countless hours I was being treated as dirt). Unfortunately one of the admins turned yellow and started using lies to save his face and at this point we decided to leave the project. In short: it started promising, everyone was working hard on it, then when a problem occurred instead of trying to find solutions, a forum war started, a bad admin decision was made and from my pow the project has ended - once again forum hysteria knocked down something that was going into the right direction (and I do not mean plane-set). I think CW admins became so sick and tired of what was going in the forums that they decided not to continue the project.

8. AFW1 / AFW2: the most disputed virtual wars, both of theme-based on BW engine and hosted by =BY=. Since its beginning, AW forums were in turmoil over the "admin bias"; things degenerated a lot in AW2 where almost every thread is an idiotic fight against.. well against whoever happens to write there. Chute killing war, name-calling war, whining war, "cheating' war, became more important then the actual project.. many people ere sick of it but unfortunately no other project was around so people had to fly AW or not fly at all. I think AW was the worse project when it comes to forum wars and unfair behavior during missions, however if you chose well those who fill your HL slots, you would have some really nice missions. Too bad forum wars destroyed almost every good virtual war project \:\(

9. ADOC: the latest virtual war engine developed since last year by LLv26_Anth, takes place in the Pacific and uses many good features from previous virtual wars + new ones added by Anth. The project became public only recently and right now it is in beta testing. The forums are quiet at the moment, filled only with good quality people (I wonder how long will it last). The games are being launched from HL online Pacific Front (OPF) slots. Unfortunately I cannot provide you with a link to ADOC website, because the project allows people with mods to fly and it also links to mods, so according to SimHQ policy it is not allowed to link to it.

Other notables are: DiD and CAD.

[[CPT]CptJackSparrow]

In a perfect world the dream team would be;

 

CuriousGambler doing the ui

 

PatrickWilson & coconut doing the backend.

 

With upcoming coop mode, could possibly be a reality, maybe.

[JG7_X-Man]

Dilly-Dilly CptJackSparrow.

 

I have to say - PatrickAWilson can code as anyone can see in PWCG, without a doubt! Coconut's logic in his servers are a revolutionary approach, I like the idea of "shuttling aircraft" to the front on his servers. As far as Curious Gambler's Il-2 Mission Planner goes, it's a must have and a brilliant piece of work.

[Blakhart]

http://taw.stg2.de/index.php

 

There is an online war.

 

Old coop style is really limited.

[LLv34_Untamo]

S!

 

I have a dream of recreating the SEOW system in BoX. When we get the co-op mode and see how it is implemented, and when I have sufficient time, I will investigate how feasible it would be to recreate it...

[LLv34_Temuri]

Currently TAW, Random Expert, Coconut's server, and our VP server have nice online wars going on. However, all of those are 24/7, which while being good in offering a place to go fly whenever, also brings issues like team balance. That's the reason there is (at least in my mind) a need for a coop style campaign, with set date for missions and players registering for either side. InWar has been doing it "coop style", and so far I've liked it.

 

Ultimately, I'd like something like SEOW implemented for BoX, but I think we are far away from that as regards dserver capabilities.

 

I'd also be interested in an online war system that divides the map into sectors, then each side could pick a sector of interest for having a mission there. Teams would set a date, the system would churn out a mission and it would be hosted on the set date. I think something like this was implemented for old Il-2, but I wasn't around then yet.