Not Cool

[BM357_TinMan]

*sigh.....

I saw in my inbox a message from 1C and started to get a little excited.

Then I opened it ..... just an e-mail about some sale.

Bad news is, I thought it was a v3.00x release and it wasn't

Good news is, if the Kuban pre-order discount is expiring/coming to an end, it could only imagine that v3.00x must be really close...

[GridiroN]

It was a pretty big tease.

[ShamrockOneFive]

The fourth word over in the subject line was Sale and the preceding three words were Lunar New Year. I was not teased at all

 

I was thinking next week in my original series of guesses but after seeing how the P-39 is doing... I think early March now.

[GridiroN]

The fourth word over in the subject line was Sale and the preceding three words were Lunar New Year. I was not teased at all

 

I was thinking next week in my original series of guesses but after seeing how the P-39 is doing... I think early March now.

 

When I heard they had to delay because there was still too much work to do, I was guessing they just had to write some rag-tag missions to fill out the career and it would be like 3 weeks...

 

Now I'm guessing March 26th+ to be honest. I'm kind of shocked they thought December was a doable time-frame for that long if we're half way through Feb. and the planes aren't even done.

Edited February 16, 2018 by GridiroN

[ShamrockOneFive]

When I heard they had to delay because there was still too much work to do, I was guessing they just had to write some rag-tag missions to fill out the career and it would be like 3 weeks...

 

Now I'm guessing March 26th+ to be honest. I'm kind of shocked they thought December was a doable time-frame for that long if we're half way through Feb. and the planes aren't even done.

 

I'm not sure... They seemed fully on track until August. Content was coming out reliably and then things hit a snag and after that we started hearing that they were going to release all at once because it was just too much work. Whatever they have had to do in the background to get us to release it took the whole team and it required a lot of extra time to make it happen.

 

There was also the mention that someone was ill for a while. With a team that small with no redundancies and a highly specialized skillset, you're vulnerable to blockers in the schedule like employees being ill. That can really mess with the timeline. It looks like development continued on in other areas while some release critical things were held up.

[GridiroN]

I'm not sure... They seemed fully on track until August. Content was coming out reliably and then things hit a snag and after that we started hearing that they were going to release all at once because it was just too much work. Whatever they have had to do in the background to get us to release it took the whole team and it required a lot of extra time to make it happen.

 

There was also the mention that someone was ill for a while. With a team that small with no redundancies and a highly specialized skillset, you're vulnerable to blockers in the schedule like employees being ill. That can really mess with the timeline. It looks like development continued on in other areas while some release critical things were held up.

 

That's a good point.

[Bilbo_Baggins]

What I don't understand is why it seems that so much development time and resources are being put into single player campaign and missions.

 

I know there's that old chestnut that all the players/customers are on single player but I honestly don't think anyone believes that for a second- after all this is 2018. People just don't want to play against bots these days.

Edited February 16, 2018 by Mcdaddy

[BlitzPig_EL]

The majority of flight sim players have always been offline single player fans.

 

Us online guys have always been the (very vocal) minority, and frankly, if the AI could be exponentially better, I'd never venture into the cesspool that online has become.

[Gambit21]

What I don't understand is why it seems that so much development time and resources are being put into single player campaign and missions. I know there's that old chestnut that all the players are on single player but I honestly don't think anyone but a vocal minority believes that for a second- after all this is 2018- people just don't want to play against bots these days.

 

Single player offers things multi-player cannot - like an actual simulation of a WWII scenario without toxic chat, name calling, team killers, whiners, complainers, pilots having to quit because their kids woke up,or the wife came home, or because the cat ran across the keyboard.

Multiplayer is fine for what it is, and especially if you're about the ego....but single player is where the historic immersion is. Both offer something the other cannot.

 

I decided to give you benefit of the doubt and edited out my jab.

Edited February 16, 2018 by Gambit21

[AWC]

What I don't understand is why it seems that so much development time and resources are being put into single player campaign and missions. I know there's that old chestnut that all the players/customers are on single player but I honestly don't think anyone but a vocal minority believes that for a second- after all this is 2018. People just don't want to play against bots these days.

You'd be surprised. I play multiplayer but singleplayer is still a large part of what I use. It's more popular than you might think, especially with campaings, etc.

[CVGridley]

My biggest issue with multiplayer is that so few people actually talk online.  If I could find a good group of communicators that actually wanted to play seriously (hopefully everyone on VR) I would probably fly MP all the time.  As it is, I'm content with PWCG.

[LLv24_SukkaVR]

 without toxic chat, name calling, team killers, whiners, complainers

 

I dont play MP very often but i've never met those kind of people you just described. Quite the opposite, i've met very friendly people to chat and fly with. Very often i start to chat with someone randomly and next thing im flying a sortie with him. I've never met any assholes you described in this game but maybe im just lucky.

 

And at the moment i dont see any immersion in SP at all. All missions are very much the same, very predictable and monotonic, self repeating missions. I've been flying SP for hundreds of hours and im sick of it, but im happy that things will change soon with the new career mode 

[ShamrockOneFive]

What I don't understand is why it seems that so much development time and resources are being put into single player campaign and missions.

 

I know there's that old chestnut that all the players/customers are on single player but I honestly don't think anyone believes that for a second- after all this is 2018. People just don't want to play against bots these days.

 

2018 or not, this is a flight sim and having a compelling single player experience is important. The oft quoted stat that I think came from the devs themselves originally is that 90% of the audience is single player either exclusively or at least for the majority of play time.

 

I don't think its a chestnut at all. SP was a pretty weak area for the series and they are resolving that quite effectively. I think it'll be worth it in the end. At the same time, an oft requested multiplayer feature is coming too and I think co-op is going to be more compelling for some folks who may otherwise fly single player most of the time. I know I'm looking forward to some co-op scenarios.

[Tuesday]

As soon as I saw the e-mail I assumed Tuesday the 20th it will drop.

 

There's no time for logic, my hype train has already left my station.

 

^{Now if only Tuesday was the nineteenth of the month...}

[Field-Ops]

What I don't understand is why it seems that so much development time and resources are being put into single player campaign and missions.

 

I know there's that old chestnut that all the players/customers are on single player but I honestly don't think anyone believes that for a second- after all this is 2018. People just don't want to play against bots these days.

Its (((Current Year))) am I right? 

[Eclipse4349]

The wait will be worth it. The campaign rework and coop will be worth the wait all by themselves!

[schurem]

What I don't understand is why it seems that so much development time and resources are being put into single player campaign and missions.

I know there's that old chestnut that all the players/customers are on single player but I honestly don't think anyone believes that for a second- after all this is 2018. People just don't want to play against bots these days.

huh. speak for yourself m8. i only play SP. need a pause button (kids) and you know, "l'enfer c'est les autres".

 

but thats just an opinion and opinions are like certain bodyparts. everybody has one.

 

to each their own. i dont begrudge you you competitive pvp environment. dont begrudge me my single player flight sim.

[Dakpilot]

What I don't understand is why it seems that so much development time and resources are being put into single player campaign and missions.

 

I know there's that old chestnut that all the players/customers are on single player but I honestly don't think anyone believes that for a second- after all this is 2018. People just don't want to play against bots these days.

 

Dev's have Stats/Data of how many people own/use the game, how many are online MP and how many are using SP (not including those who have explicitly chosen to launch with no connection) they also have all data from RoF which used similar 'mostly connected to master server' at all times

 

The lack (or focus) of SP has been a long term request and very hot topic since early full release of BoS

 

I do not claim to know the answer but the Dev's have the info for informed choice/decisions on amount and type of gameplay

 

Cheers, Dakpilot

[Tapi]

 i only play SP. need a pause button (kids)

 

+1

me too. Yep, being a dad is often not very easy task for a pilot 

Edited February 16, 2018 by tapi

[molodoi]

 

Multiplayer is fine for what it is, and especially if you're about the ego....but single player is where the historic immersion is. Both offer something the other cannot.

This is what I have observed in many games/simulations during the last 15 years. Without any value judgement, some persons tend to one side and some to the other.

 

But what irks me, is this obsession from some people to turn one side against the other. Too many examples comes to my mind like Elite Dangerous multiplayers mocking the solo players with the gimmick  "Muhh immersiooonnn" and solo players trying to find psychopatic traits in every multiplayer...

 

Human nature and competitive mind is probably the reason.

[unreasonable]

I dont play MP very often but i've never met those kind of people you just described. Quite the opposite, i've met very friendly people to chat and fly with. Very often i start to chat with someone randomly and next thing im flying a sortie with him. I've never met any assholes you described in this game but maybe im just lucky.

 

And at the moment i dont see any immersion in SP at all. All missions are very much the same, very predictable and monotonic, self repeating missions. I've been flying SP for hundreds of hours and im sick of it, but im happy that things will change soon with the new career mode 

 

You are just lucky. While I have also met very agreeable people online, I have given up playing MP altogether after being team-killed in three missions on the trot. And not unfortunate mis-identification either. Rather fly against a bot than with a prat. 

 

The old career mode was not very good. Scripted campaigns are better but I dislike the having to "succeed" to progress mechanic, so I am also looking forwards to the new career. Well crafted SP can do things that are impossible in MP: you just cannot get enough people together to behave in any way like real combat pilots for any length of time, and never on demand at any time that you want to play.

 

Just as we SP types have to put up with the overly vocal MP types skewing the development priorities in ways we do not like, MPers will have to put up with some of the development going to SP. The market for high fidelity sims is just not big enough to support MP alone: too many MP customers are happy with the sim-lite world of War Thunder and the like. 

Edited February 16, 2018 by unreasonable

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

There will be cake for everyone. Now we just need to wait for the cake to get completed!

[A_radek]

Mp is a mixed bag.

My recommendation for anyone that can't stand the less gifted onliners is to join a servers teamspeak. I have yet to encounter anyone on comms being unfriendly or not enjoying team play and coordination. On the contrary everyone is welcoming and helpful. This is from someone that doesn't play in a squad with limited numbers but meets lot's of random people online. For some reason the online smack talkers and "fu noob" chums prefer hiding behind a keyboard on less demanding servers.

Each to his own. But I recommend SP pilots to at least once join a server like Taw and experience what it's like to be part of a coordinated attack, headed for some distant target, in the company of other thinking and talking pilots. We need you!

Edit: no need to be an ace, I lack the talent and still enjoying it.

Edited February 16, 2018 by a_radek

[Herne]

Single player offers things multi-player cannot - like an actual simulation of a WWII scenario without toxic chat, name calling, team killers, whiners, complainers, pilots having to quit because their kids woke up,or the wife came home, or because the cat ran across the keyboard.

Multiplayer is fine for what it is, and especially if you're about the ego....but single player is where the historic immersion is. Both offer something the other cannot.

 

I decided to give you benefit of the doubt and edited out my jab.

 

I love the start from parked in MP. Active airfields, damaged birds trailing smoke that were lucky enough to make it home, flying with friends, etc. You have perhaps a bit more freedom to choose your objectives, and route for your sortie that you might not necessarily  have in single player.

 

Single player campaign in BoX so far as I am aware, is either air starts or on the runway with the engine running, so I really miss that starting the engine, and taxiing to the runway experience that makes the sortie feel more complete in MP. I really think the new career mode is going to be hugely popular though and expect to spend a significant amount of time enjoying this myself.

 

With the introduction of Co-op perhaps it will be possible to get the best of both worlds ?

[w00dy]

+1

me too. Yep, being a dad is often not very easy task for a pilot 

 

+1

 

When it comes to flightsims I have zero interest in playing multiplayer. In the 6 years I have owned ROF and BOX, I have never played multiplayer and for what I care, they could remove the option from the game and I would never miss it. The strange thing is, I do like multiplayer games as I play Battlefront 2, Vermintide and use to play L4D2.

[OrLoK]

Sp player here mainly.

 

I like Coconut's servers as I can assist my side without having to get involved in PvP

 

Ill definitely play more when coop hits though, but on the whole pure PvP leaves me cold.

 

YMMV!

[Jade_Monkey]

One of the main positives of MP other than teamwork (i swear there must be someone out there who does it) is that when you shoot down a plane, you bested another human being that was not following some scripted behavior.

 

SP is probably much better for other things like campaigns and scripted missions that can time certain events to make it more epic.

 

Co-op will be nice but I'm not sure what percentage of the playerbase's time will be spent with coop in general. Are there vanilla missions that everyone can fire up, or do they all have to be made with the mission editor?

Edited February 16, 2018 by Jade_Monkey

[claw]

Just to add to the picture: SP only.

(After years (and years) of MP. I don't even own a headset with microphone anymore.)

[Cpt_Cool]

I'm not sure... They seemed fully on track until August. Content was coming out reliably and then things hit a snag and after that we started hearing that they were going to release all at once because it was just too much work. Whatever they have had to do in the background to get us to release it took the whole team and it required a lot of extra time to make it happen.

 

There was also the mention that someone was ill for a while. With a team that small with no redundancies and a highly specialized skillset, you're vulnerable to blockers in the schedule like employees being ill. That can really mess with the timeline. It looks like development continued on in other areas while some release critical things were held up.

 

You are correct, and the one with the illness is the cockpit texturing guru - hence the delay on the P-39 cockpit.

Edited February 16, 2018 by Cpt_Cool

[71st_AH_Mastiff]

Some people are just not keen to sales advertisements. This is how the real world works.

Edited February 16, 2018 by 71st_AH_Mastiff

[Mac_Messer]

2018 or not, this is a flight sim and having a compelling single player experience is important. The oft quoted stat that I think came from the devs themselves originally is that 90% of the audience is single player either exclusively or at least for the majority of play time.

 

I don't think its a chestnut at all. SP was a pretty weak area for the series and they are resolving that quite effectively. I think it'll be worth it in the end. At the same time, an oft requested multiplayer feature is coming too and I think co-op is going to be more compelling for some folks who may otherwise fly single player most of the time. I know I'm looking forward to some co-op scenarios.

There are a lot of people who are waiting for a good coop mp experience. I know I flew IL2 online wars, rather fly SP than to engage in poor mp currently this game has. There is no going back to DF servers for me, and so by stats I`m mainly SP player, which is false.

 

SP experience is what the devs can control to shape it more to one`s liking. Over mp they have no control.

 

Needless to say, the most limiting factor of SP is the AI. If you don`t take few weeks breaks from flying in SP, you`ll be sick of it because you know exactly how it acts in any situation.IMO If you know which plane does what at any moment, such flying has nothing to do with skill or immersion.

[Gambit21]

I love the start from parked in MP. Active airfields,

 

I build a lot of that into my missions/campaigns.

[Gambit21]

I dont play MP very often but i've never met those kind of people you just described. Quite the opposite, i've met very friendly people to chat and fly with. Very often i start to chat with someone randomly and next thing im flying a sortie with him. I've never met any assholes you described in this game but maybe im just lucky.

 

And at the moment i dont see any immersion in SP at all. All missions are very much the same, very predictable and monotonic, self repeating missions. I've been flying SP for hundreds of hours and im sick of it, but im happy that things will change soon with the new career mode 

 

I flew online for years in the old 1946 - so I experienced all sorts of behavior over that time.

Don't get me wrong, it was 98% positive, and since I hosted CoOps quite a bit I had control over who was in my missions on those occasions.

 

That said, even friendly things like "Dude, be right back, the gotta bring the dog in LOL" or "did you guys catch the Patriots game today...wicked" in chat is hardly immersive if your goal is an actual WWII simulation.

The ONLY place you get max historical immersion is single player, the end. Multiplayer is good for what it does offer (and I'll be back when Bodenplatte is released and especially PTO) and it's fun to fly with actual people and build

a little group of regulars especially. Both single player and multiplayer bring something to the table that the other can't - it just depends on what you like, or often in my case (when I'm active online) what I'm in the mood for.

Edited February 17, 2018 by Gambit21

[56RAF_Roblex]

The ONLY place you get max historical immersion is single player, the end.

 

Not sure I can agree with your statement as it stands with its absolute declarations.   Anything you can so in SP you can also do in MP.  There is nothing stopping a person from making an MP mission that is identical to a favourite SP mission but with human players. I agree that most 24/7 servers don't do that because it is all but impossible in a 24/7 environment but special events like the Friday Night Bomber Night are every bit as immersive as a SP mission and more fun because they are humans beside you and against you.   When we get Co-Op play then these types of MP missions will become much more common.    Before BoX and before I foolishly swapped to DCS WW2 I used to fly in CLoD and sometimes people ran special two hour events with 80 players based on a historical scenario and they are the ultimate fun in my opinion.     Way way back,  decades back,  I used to play Warbirds where they took it even further and had twice weekly events lasting about three hours just to replicate one set of bomber raids from East Anglia to Berlin or Frankfurt.  Nothing in SP can ever match that.

 

I do sometimes play SP campaign missions because they can be more convenient when you know you may have to press pause or sometimes to let me learn how a particular plane performs but ultimately they are all a bit disappointing because the AI is so crap.  It is hard to argue that SP is more immersive when your wingmen are off doing their own thing, assuming they even bother taking off,  and the enemy fighters are flying in circles asking you to kill them.

Edited February 17, 2018 by 56RAF_Roblex

[Dakpilot]

Currently I believe it is possible to save a mission from PWCG  and with very rudimentary knowledge create/change to a 'co-op/MP' mission 

 

If the new career mode is capable of generating interesting missions, which can then be saved, and then played in new Co-op mode, this could be great fun for small groups with little work needed and potential for huge variety available with only very very basic knowledge of ME 

 

a bit guesswork/speculation and ifs at the moment but this type of quick mission co-op has huge potential in my eyes

 

Cheers, Dakpilot

[Gambit21]

Not sure I can agree with your statement as it stands with its absolute declarations.   Anything you can so in SP you can also do in MP.  There is nothing stopping a person from making an MP mission that is identical to a favourite SP mission but with human players. I agree that most 24/7 servers don't do that because it is all but impossible in a 24/7 environment but special events like the Friday Night Bomber Night are every bit as immersive as a SP mission and more fun because they are humans beside you and against you.   When we get Co-Op play then these types of MP missions will become much more common.    Before BoX and before I foolishly swapped to DCS WW2 I used to fly in CLoD and sometimes people ran special two hour events with 80 players based on a historical scenario and they are the ultimate fun in my opinion.     Way way back,  decades back,  I used to play Warbirds where they took it even further and had twice weekly events lasting about three hours just to replicate one set of bomber raids from East Anglia to Berlin or Frankfurt.  Nothing in SP can ever match that.

 

I do sometimes play SP campaign missions because they can be more convenient when you know you may have to press pause or sometimes to let me learn how a particular plane performs but ultimately they are all a bit disappointing because the AI is so crap.  It is hard to argue that SP is more immersive when your wingmen are off doing their own thing, assuming they even bother taking off,  and the enemy fighters are flying in circles asking you to kill them.

We'll revisit the topic when we get Hyperlobby style co-ops back - even then I stand by what I said.

I can design things into my single player missions that absolutely don't happen in multiplayer missions - and I flew MP, built and hosted co-ops for years in the old sim.

 

Just the nature of the chat itself disqualifies it from anything resembling historical immersion - which is the point I was making above.

They both offer something the other cannot - no need to defend MP from a historical immersion standpoint.

That's never been the strength of multiplayer.

I'm not saying mp offers ZERO in that department, it just doesn't equal the single player experience in that regard.

 

I also don't have problems with the AI off doing their own thing or not taking off in the missions I build.

[unreasonable]

Anyone know why Malwarebytes is flagging up a malicious website when I open this thread, and only this thread?

 

 

 

 

 

[ShamrockOneFive]

Anyone know why Malwarebytes is flagging up a malicious website when I open this thread, and only this thread?

 

 

Malware.jpg

 

It's the campaign badges from MacMesser's signature. That's the source anyways... Could be a false positive.

[unreasonable]

Thanks for info   I had better not look at them then.....

[wtornado]

The majority of flight sim players have always been offline single player fans.

 

Us online guys have always been the (very vocal) minority, and frankly, if the AI could be exponentially better, I'd never venture into the cesspool that online has become.

LoL ! Now that was funny!