Why Isn't Desert Wings - Tobruk [More] Popular?

[Feldgrun]

1 hour ago, 343KKT_Kintaro said:

And my post continued stating "Nevertheless... we wait for this... and this..." (  )

 

I don't know if I'll purchase these Microprose games, I'm already busy with the three IL-2s, with RoF, with DCS... that's a lot...

 

Right, but if only 4-engine heavy bombers could be incorporated into IL-2, as they were 20 years ago, before the "alien technology" was removed. I'm not that thrilled about flyable heavy bombers, but I'd sure like to attack AI bombers with FW 190s, or defend against those attacks with P-51s. The GB 2-engine bombers easily burst into flames compared to what damage I would hope the "flying fortress" could take. I've been relatively impressed with the DM of the CLoD medium bombers (and seaplanes), but I'd like FW-190s. I guess we may never quite get in one game the wide range of aircraft and missions/maps available in 1946, about 20 years ago....

Edited November 9, 2022 by Feldgrun

[jollyjack]

Reverend Jason would have closed this by now ...

[ST_Catchov]

Friends, please compose thy selves. The good Reverend has left the Parish but the omnipresent Mister Smith watches and observes ....  

[Mysticpuma]

Right, so if it's at all possible, rather than make this about a repetitive thread derailer, let's have a discussion about the reason it isn't popular. 

We live in hope that someone from TFS may take note and think about taking onboard some of the suggestions made in a hope to engage with a larger player base, but let's do our best to reply to the OP and not wander off course as usual. 

[OBT-Eazy]

Maybe by adding some palm trees we could attract players who expect a Pacific theater.

[9./JG52_J-HAT]

We already have vulcanic islands with palm trees, a Wildcat, a P-40B and skins to make stand ins for the Japanese with other aircraft. And still no one plays Pacific in CloD, I wonder why…

 

If BoB and NA are played as mock ups in BoS, how realistic would it be to expect people to play a mock up pacific in CloD…

[Mysticpuma]

1 hour ago, OBT-Eazy said:

Maybe by adding some palm trees we could attract players who expect a Pacific theater.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 9, 2022 by Mysticpuma

[Dagwoodyt]

Palm trees would improve game stats? ?

[Trooper117]

1 hour ago, Mysticpuma said:

 

 

 

 

 

Great pics!... love it 

[Koziolek]

I personally contibuted to the peak in August 2020 ( Tobruk release) and I am now contributing to the decline by not playing, but don't get me wrong it is not because I belong the (imagined?) group of people who ( according to some ) want this game to fail. Exactly the opposite. I really hope I will come back one day, maybe after 6.0 maybe later but not before it is fixed

For the moment I have more fun with fake BoB in GB, and Africa mod. Which is really sad ?

 

BTW How do you measure game popularity if by not looking at how many people play it. Unless it is the number of posts applauding it ?

Edited November 9, 2022 by Koziolek

[OBT-Eazy]

1 hour ago, Dagwoodyt said:

Palm trees would improve game stats? ?

He always serves the same meal!

1 hour ago, Mysticpuma said:

 

 

 

 

Time for you to make a good MP campaign ?

[MisterSmith]

5 hours ago, BOO said:

I doubt Smith has the time or enough coffee for this. 

Time and coffee, yes. Patience and stamina, perhaps. I will be reviewing this later today. Please review and police yourselves before then. Hint: you can hide your own OT posts before I have to……

 

Smith

[BOO]

4 hours ago, Mysticpuma said:

Right, so if it's at all possible, rather than make this about a repetitive thread derailer, let's have a discussion about the reason it isn't popular. 

 

But but but........he started it! ?  Sorry MP. Ill drink coffee earlier in future. 

 

1 hour ago, OBT-Eazy said:

He always serves the same meal!

 

And you refuse to acknowledge the exiistence of the blinding sun. 

 

 

 

If we are really answering the OP then "The Stream Stats dont see Tobruk as it needs Blitz" is the answer. Tobruk is just a popular as Blitz...or not. We can close the thread.

 

However as it seems to have drifted into why CloD based products are not popular.......does it even need another thread? I dont see anything here that hasnt been said before and ad infinitum. 

 

Leifr is probably right - its had it day in the sun. Like smoking. People just dont do it much anymore even though it makes you really sexy and cool. They vape and wear natual fibres and beard oil.  If it were a flower it needs the sunlight of players who are now all either in homes dibbling into soup, dead or playing something else. Without the sunlight no amount of rich compost is going to work. Its been 25 years since flight simming was socially acceptable and didnt get you put on a register. There is no untapped base and the tapped base is stubborn has made its mind up. In comparson with the AAA games all flight sims are turds. But people still like their turds polished. Yet here we stand like King Cnut.  

 

Should we give up? Probably. The decline of the game started in 2011 and was arrested by the good work of TF partially and online at least but thats all. We were asked to wait and wait whilst in the red corner  BoX pulled itself up by its bootstraps and perfomance inproved. So we waited and the wait wasnt worth it so we left. They we waited for Tobruk. And waited. And it came. And we saw. And we left again. There are only so many times this can happen before people draw up the bridge.

 

CloD lacks the basics of a QMB, it lacks content for the SP, nothing is quick unless you edit the ini files.  Its funky and takes a tonne of finding answers to what should be givens over at least 3 different forums and few have the time or inclination to get past that to find out what its actually good at. Without a remedy for these things -no players, no sunlight - just a wilted flower in a pile of fine smelling dung. 

 

Even if this were resolved after all this time something fundementally catastrophic will also have to happen to BoX to make people look around in the numbers needed. For all its limitations, the Devs of BoX have provided content within those restrictions to keep the majority (ie not us forum monkeys) happy every couple of years. There is a buy-in to the devs - a trust (for now) - a loyalty even. Why would I turn away from a title ive spent 400 beer tolkens on to play another title that, at a glance, doesnt really have a USP that interest me and offers the same AI experience but with more hurdles to jump through and fewer campaigns in SP? Why would the average joe I want to fly a hurricane over 26 miles of water or bland sand when they can grab a p51 and fly in 6 theatres? 

 

And its sad. Truly - In hindsight 1C appear to have picked the right Devs but the wrong engine back in 2014.   Thats not to hit on TFS as being the wrong devs. Only that they cannot be expected to compete without owner support and the owner support went elsewhere whilst the final source code for the better engine went in the shredder.. Perhaps Tupac or Tencent of whatever its called will change that. Perhaps pigs will fly. 

Edited November 9, 2022 by BOO

[343KKT_Kintaro]

 

On 11/7/2022 at 6:21 AM, Feldgrun said:

With excellent flight & damage modeling, and with an excellent selection of mid-war aircraft, why isn't this game more popular?

 

 

 

Does it need to be popular? I mean... does it need to be more popular than DCS, Rise of Flight or Great Battles? Because that's what it's all about: we don't have War Thunder fans coming here and asking why Cliffs of Dover is not popular, we have most of the time consumers of other serious-type simulation games asking why it is not popular mainly because of their biased focus on the proportion between "their" games and "this" game. So please Feldgrun, since you started the thread, consider such things too. Trust me, few people here want to have a look at a bigger scale of things. The real thing is that when it comes to talk about seriously simulated combat aviation  games (not arcades)... it appears that there's not a single serious simulator in the top 100 chart on Steam. Great Battles fans proudly look at their 200 players a day and think to themselves "hey, look at this, we are the kings of oil"... how funny that they don't look at the 50,000, 60,000 or more players a second when one checks War Thunder statistics on Steam. Not a single serious-simulation aviation-related game in the top 100 Steam chart. War Thunder, Ace Combat and World of Warplanes have taken the market by storm. Not Cliffs of Dover but seriously-simulated aviation as a whole has been banned from the realm of popular video gaming. We are no longer in the 1990s. You are no longer in Kansas you little Great Battles fans. There's the wicked witch who's the arcade category of games and it will blow us out of the market.  So maybe the future of our dearest beloved discipline, seriously simulated-aviation, is a bunch of companies working like TFS works. Ironic. Again, we have a problem with our discipline as a whole, not with one game only. Eagle Dynamics (DCS) and 1CGS (Great Battles) struggle to survive and they know their existence is at stake when they discuss about the next product they'll develop. So, in the end, in our favourite category of games which is serious simulation which specialises on WWII aviation, there is absolutely no signficant difference between the number of players in Cliffs of Dover and the number of players in Great Battles, DCS or Wings over the Reich simply because TFS doesn't work like the other developers. If 1CGS had to have accepted in 2012 TFS's conditions of remuneration... the Great Battles series simply never would have been created while Desert Wings - Tobruk has been created in 2020, and the next add-on will be created equally, I'm almost sure about that. Same conditions of remuneration, same developer, same passionate volunteers, same pace of work... we should have the new add-on very soon, with no doubt. So I don't care about the popularity of Cliffs of Dover: most of the time in these forums the question is biased. My point, before asking the question, is questioning the question itself. I know it doesn't make me popular in the forums, some don't like my views, but it's normal: the syndrome is rampant out there, and there's nothing we can do. In the meantime, the average War Thunder player keeps having a blast with his favourite arcade shooter and doesn't even know that the poor syndrome-affected are here in these forums calling me names that they kindly coined for me and my passion for Cliffs of Dover. They are funny. I love them. Really.

 

 

On 11/7/2022 at 6:21 AM, Feldgrun said:

What's wrong?

 

 

Nothing. I judge the game, the game itself, not its popularity. So, the question makes few sense to me. Feldgrun, you asked with a good intention though, and I'm sure that you are not affected by the syndrome. Still, stay alert, these things can catch you off guard.

 

 

[Trooper117]

If you don't like the game, or have gone off the game, don't play it... if you enjoy the game, carry on and have a good time.

But going on and on about the same old roundabout... 

[No.54_Reddog]

Kintaro asks "does it need to be popular"?

 

A fair question and some points for the OP to consider;(in no particular order)

 

* if you build it they might come if they see others playing there, isn't quite as good a line for the film version, but holds true. For MP focused gamers, yes it needs to be popular or it's not worth bothering.

 

*"we were disappointed with the sales"  or words to that effect from Buzzsaw recently. I seem to recall suggestions that TF6 was contingent on the success of TF5 but might have it wrong. At least one person is putting money into the project up front to buy licenses and software and possibly hardware etc. Without sufficient income it's entirely possible that doing so becomes untenable. Thus, it's popularity matters for the future.

 

* Ongoing support and development rests I'd suggest on 2 things, the longevity and enthusiasm of the members of TFS and the financial analysis by those paying for TFS.(see above) The former can be affected by many things I'm sure but would surely include an  assessment of whether their time and effort is worth it foe them personally which may well include its sales, feedback and playerbase, all part of the "popularity calculation." 

 

* Continued support by the owners of the source code may be contingent on its income outweighing the risk of having the source code accessible to a small team from where it could leak. We all know this engine is capable, losing control of it would be a problem for them. Why take the risk if it's not profitable? Hence the popularity being important.

 

If all you want to do is play the exact game you own right now, on your own, then Kintaros absolutely correct, popularity is of no concern whatsoever. If you want CLOD to develop, expand and succeed beyond that narrow self centred view then yes, popularity very much matters.

 

[Dagwoodyt]

If there were more players at Tobruk launch where did they go? If they were disappointed, how will TF 6.0 bring them back? Blitz can sell as-is for the foreseeable future, but if buyers decide they bought something not worth what they paid they will probably not forget. A current sale may make a future sale to the same party increasingly difficult.  ?

[OBT-Lionel]

Reddog, Dagwoodty,

 

If I understand your words correctly, you think that Cliff of Dover has no future. It's your right and maybe the future will prove you right. But what is the interest for you to repeat it constantly ?

[Dagwoodyt]

21 minutes ago, OBT-Lionel said:

Reddog, Dagwoodty,

 

If I understand your words correctly, you think that Cliff of Dover has no future. It's your right and maybe the future will prove you right. But what is the interest for you to repeat it constantly ?

If you are unable to respond head on to substance of a post that is not my problem  ?

[Wolfstriked]

In this world first impressions are everything!!

 

The first impression when you open a game is the main screen and menus.This game sucks in this regard and if I had not slogged thru it I would of never gave it a chance and it really is worth it.Happened to me with other sims and games too.BOS never grasped me cause the initial impression....I just hated that rotating plane in a hangar with sounds of electricity in background.For me this is a huge draw into a games world.IL2 original had that music that was so annoying that I started dreading entering that game until I turned off the music.

 

Kings of immersion....OBD games.Tell me this introduction doesn't tingle your inner war child. Look at 5:00 for game start up...

 

And then this was the into to the Baldur's gate RPG game.When as a young kid and I first started this up my mind went into this Conan the barbarian world mindset and stayed with me the whole games playthru.Even today,decades later it still works me up and brings me an inner peace and a want to enter this world once again.

 

Edited November 9, 2022 by Wolfstriked

[JV69badatflyski]

In this world first impressions are everything!!

 

The first impression when you open a game is the main screen and menus.This game sucks in this regard and if I had not slogged thru it I would of never gave it a chance and it really is worth it.Happened to me with other sims and games too.BOS never grasped me cause the initial impression....I just hated that rotating plane in a hangar with sounds of electricity in background.For me this is a huge draw into a games world.IL2 original had that music that was so annoying that I started dreading entering that game until I turned off the music.

32 minutes ago, Wolfstriked said:

In this world first impressions are everything!!

 

The first impression when you open a game is the main screen and menus.This game sucks in this regard and if I had not slogged thru it I would of never gave it a chance and it really is worth it.Happened to me with other sims and games too.BOS never grasped me cause the initial impression....I just hated that rotating plane in a hangar with sounds of electricity in background.For me this is a huge draw into a games world.IL2 original had that music that was so annoying that I started dreading entering that game until I turned off the music.

 

Kings of immersion....OBD games.Tell me this introduction doesn't tingle your inner war child. Look at 5:00 for game start up...

 

If it goes about music, i think Blitz/tobruk are in the top , Joost did a great Job

[343KKT_Kintaro]

Ok guys, thank you for your respective responses, I took them into account, really. Other than that, I'd prefer to fix my computer and fly a few missions with some of you, or with all of you, thus having some fun in the CoD servers and having this way some nice conversations via TeamSpeak. Better than posting on a forum... don't you think so?

 

 

[Wolfstriked]

1 hour ago, JV69badatflyski said:

In this world first impressions are everything!!

 

The first impression when you open a game is the main screen and menus.This game sucks in this regard and if I had not slogged thru it I would of never gave it a chance and it really is worth it.Happened to me with other sims and games too.BOS never grasped me cause the initial impression....I just hated that rotating plane in a hangar with sounds of electricity in background.For me this is a huge draw into a games world.IL2 original had that music that was so annoying that I started dreading entering that game until I turned off the music.

If it goes about music, i think Blitz/tobruk are in the top , Joost did a great Job

Agreed.Just once you get into the single mission setup section is where it falls apart.This is where you can pull more people IMO.

[5th_Barone]

On 11/7/2022 at 7:29 PM, Mysticpuma said:

My answer to your question is as follows. My opinion only.

 

Lack of progress and missing targets. This was the reply I got to the timeline I guessed at for Tobruk being released.

It actually missed my speculation by a further 12 months.

 

People want new toys and seeing TFS playing with them and not sharing them leads to apathy.

 

What is frustrating is that with the visual update, much further render distance, Truesky and VR, CloD will be back in the realms of the other flightsims mentioned (BoX/DCS) but who will know or care about it?

There is so little information coming out of TFS that the only thing that happens on the forums is a tiny snippet of news is released (very, very sporadically) and then we are once again left in the wilderness. There is no way of building traction and expectation as there is no reliable interaction with the forum readers and so we end up in a continual circle of some saying the update is rubbish and some saying the update is amazing! In fighting then begins, personal insults fly and then Buzzsaw shows up and locks the thread....and we are i limbo again.

 

So, why isn't it more popular?

 

Lack of publicity and lack of community interaction. With nothing to discuss, forums quickly become stagnant and readers find other locations to populate. Forum readers have nothing to share or talk about to show their friends who may be interested. A brief video here or there and a quick bit of text saying  "here's some news, but I can't tell you anything else" really doesn't help. Regular updates allow people to share on other forums, progress of the Visual update and thereby garner interest. One update occasionally, quickly glows brightly like an ember in a smouldering fire and then is quickly extinguished when other sims release much more regular news, and they become the talked about topic. I know, I bang on about publicity, but why do TV programme's have adverts? Imagine a new product being released and not one mention of it is made publicly. How soon will it fail? This is why TFS should be shouting their product from the rooftops as regularly as they can.  Gain that traction, expectation, excitement, community buzz. There is no point releasing the visual update and just saying "there you go".

 

Regarding the community interaction, I think long-term players who have seen the issues that CloD has, have reported them, yet the bugs still remain, unfixed, lingering like a bad smell and then an update occurs to the game which is usually just a few extra missions. This disenfranchises people who are readily helping and yet feel ignored. They walk away. I don't agree they should, but it's the reality of the situation. I'll say it again....how long have mission builders 'suffered' with not being able to get vehicles to cross bridges? This is an essential for mission builders to create moving fronts, yet 'it's CloD!'.

 

Personally, I prefer CloD to BoX. I find the Full Mission Builder very easy to make a functional mission, but I don't have the knowledge to get into scripting, yet this is where CloD excels and really makes it a fantastic tool for creativity, this should be a huge selling point and yet barely any Mission Builders get involved with it (other then TheOden?). Why? I don't know, I really don't.

 

Accessibility is one issue that often frustrates and drives new players away.

 

Why, after all this time is there no Single Player Quick Mission Builder like IL2: 1946? The Quick Missions in CloD are fine but to be able to set up 16 aircraft vs 16 aircraft, scramble, chase, head to head, individually skin each aircraft, set loadout (simply and easily without having to load a multiplayer game), set the map location, weather, time of day, grounds targets, Flak, etc, etc this is a feature that would be much appreciated and add so much more to the offline experience.

 

The visual and pratical damage model in CloD is above and beyond anything out there at the moment. Even now watching a wheel drop from an attacked aircraft due to hydraulic failure blows me away! 

 

 

Clodism's though, these are a frustration.

 

Over and over again, Joystick controls vanish, cameras don't work as they should, views don't work as they should.

 

Other sims have so many more camera options to showcase the beauty of their product, CloD has the bare basics and this is another issue where players cannot be overly creative, thereby making screenshots and videos, sharing them and having more free publicity to attract players. There should be a free camera that can be placed anywhere like BoX, wing tip cameras, cowling cameras, just more variety to make more content shareable and raise the profile!

 

CloD has scale, huge formations, DCS is a stutter fest with large formations, BoX falls apart with large formations, CloD handles them with ease.

 

 

Overall CloD is an amazing product, hamstrung with long-standing bugs that new players just don't have the time to invest in and old players know all about but have long since given up caring about as they never expect to see them fixed and once again we are back to apathy.

 

 

--------------

 

I realise my take will have the usual unpopular opinions but it is MY opinion as to why it isn't more popular.

 

I honestly love CloD, I do genuinely believe it still has the greatest potential but the lack of progress (yes, real lives, not full time) is the ultimate killer of the product. I know they can't help it as they are only part time, yet we also know if this was a product in a professional studio hands the progress, bug fixes and new modules would be likely as far ahead as BoX is now. I think most of us old timers remember how Oleg was working on the Battle of Moscow before the studio was canned, to think what could have been!

 

I still long for CloD to be the product it really could be, but ultimately with a small part time team working on it, the likely hood of us ever seeing 1944 and the CloD engine rendering bomber streams and B-24's and B-17's feels like an impossible dream at this point in time with the near glacial progress since Tobruk was released.

 

Take from my reply what you will. I am still a fanboy, just a frustrated one because it should be obvious to anyone who knows CloD, this really is an Ugly Duckling waiting to become a beautiful Swan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Totally agree on this.

 

Clod is missing the PR side.

The visual update should be a huge step forward for the game and yet if you ask in the flight sim community almost nobody knows about it.

 

Info are spreaded here and there in the internet, often on the ATAG forum where new potential customer are not even present.

 

Socials, youtube, reddit and content creators are almost not used.

 

In order for a product to be successful, firstly the potential customer needs to know about it!

 

Mine don't want to be a critic against anyone (I think it's too late even for that), it's just a consideraiton.

 

[OBT-Eazy]

2 hours ago, Wolfstriked said:

In this world first impressions are everything!!

Sorry I don't agree.
I have a large number of examples. A lot of my ex girlfriends didn't wear pretty sexy bras, but once they were taken off, God forbid, there was something to damn a saint!

[DD_Arthur]

[Mysticpuma]

15 hours ago, 5th_Barone said:

 

Totally agree on this.

 

Clod is missing the PR side.

The visual update should be a huge step forward for the game and yet if you ask in the flight sim community almost nobody knows about it.

 

Info are spreaded here and there in the internet, often on the ATAG forum where new potential customer are not even present.

 

Socials, youtube, reddit and content creators are almost not used.

 

In order for a product to be successful, firstly the potential customer needs to know about it!

 

Mine don't want to be a critic against anyone (I think it's too late even for that), it's just a consideraiton.

 

 

The Team Fusion Facebook page has 4700 members. The last post made on there by Team Fusion was September 7th.

Looking at the replies to the "Who is still here" thread, so far I read 83 unique replies, yet TFS post a snippet on ATAG, a snippet on Steam Forums, a few snippets here......yet they have 4700 subscribers on Facebook completely ignored.

 

 

I have just gone through this forum section and compiled the following. Now imagine how many discussions, updates, snippets are out there on Steam, ATAG and other sites waiting to be discovered and talked about?

 

Here's the list:

 

Team Fusion Notes

How CloD code engine works -  October 27th

-----------------------------------------

Announcements and Updates

Tobruk Update 5.034 - September 7th

Truesky Layered Clouds - October 4th

Truesky Movement - October 7th

Tobruk Update 5.035 - October 11th

Blitz/Tobruk 50% off - October 24th

Blitz/Tobruk no longer on sale at Great Battles store

Breathtaking shots - October 29th

WIP Weather GUI - October 29th

Beta Video - November 5th

WIP Beta 100+ Aircraft Featuring Truesky - November 7th

------------------------------

Tobruk Skins and Templates

New 109F4 4K liveries - September 9th

WIP thread - multiple new skins - September 19th

Dewoitine 520 skins - Multiple skins available - September 25th

-------------------------------

Screenshots and Videos 

New skins a multiple screenshots - October 1st onwards

Karaya's Blitz and Tobruk Videos - September 7th

Having fun in Tobruk - September 17th

----------------------------------

General Discussion

Discussion about taking control of Ai aircraft - September 7th

Gun Convergence discussions - September 12th

Discussion on where V6 will take us (perfect for FB discussion) - September 14th

Discussion about object visibility in the Graphics Update - September 18th

Discussion about the User Interface getting an overhaul - September 22nd

Discussion about the Ai roll rate - September 26th

Discussion about the Pacific - October 6th

Discussion about manuals missing - October 7th

Discussion about Oden's Dynamic Campaign Generator - October 10th

Discussion about the BF109 prop pitch - October 11th

Information about the VF101 group - October 15th 

Request for players to answer a thread to see who is still here - October 18th

Discussion about ongoing requests for game improvements - October 21st 

Discussion about dashboard pics - October 24th

Discussion about the release roadmap for the graphics update and VR - October 25th

Discussion about Team Fusion and the quality/praise for CloD - October 27th

Discussion about VoiP - October 30th

Discussion about the popularity of Tobruk - November 7th

Discussion about in game options - November 10th

--------------------------------------------

Single Player

Discussion about Oden's Dynamic Campaign Generator - September 18th

Discussion about "Their Finest Hour" - October 10th

Discussion about a Bomber Campaign - November 6th

--------------------------------------------

Multiplayer

Discussion about online dogfighting servers - November 10th

Discussion about "Operation London Bridge" - September 16th

------------------------

Technical Assistance

Discussions about Launcher issues, Joystick errors, Freetrack, Ai, Force Feedback,
Modifiers, Key Bindings - September 11th onwards

--------------------------

All of the above could have been tweaked, changed around a bit, and all made into discussion updates on the main TFS FB page. Every discussion raised above is a point of community engagement, a way to stir discussion, a way to stay relevant and in the public eye.....yet the TFS FB page sits dormant, in limbo, a wasted opportunity to inform 4700 interested people....that the game is still progressing and interested in hearing from you!

 

Edited November 10, 2022 by Mysticpuma
typo

[jollyjack]

Can't say about Team Fusion that they're not working hard or even lazy but every time i try it i get frustrated with especially the itches with controllers,

and again that steam irritating "you played xxxx hours"; bloody lies to boot as my stints were mainly fixing the issues and giving it up again.

[9./JG52_J-HAT]

TFS is working their a** off in the development department tbh, it’s just that their voluntary nature doesn’t allow for the faster pace some, me included, would expect or wish for.

Edit: and doesn‘t allow for a focus on outstanding bugs, qol improvements etc. Settings priorities is important and many things get left behind. Then we have the question: wait say two years for qol improvements and barely sell because of old content? Or work on content and try to generate sales without addressing longstanding issues or outdated tech. Tough choice.

 

And of course as noted already, PR is lacking so on that front there isn‘t too much being done.

But behind scenes? No doubt about it.

[Mysticpuma]

1 hour ago, 9./JG52_J-HAT said:

Edit: and doesn‘t allow for a focus on outstanding bugs, or work on content and try to generate sales without addressing longstanding issues or outdated tech. Tough choice.

I understand the point you are making, but if they don't fix the long-standing bugs, they are building their 'new house' on unsafe ground. The foundations need to be solid before new floors are built on top?

[9./JG52_J-HAT]

7 minutes ago, Mysticpuma said:

I understand the point you are making, but if they don't fix the long-standing bugs, they are building their 'new house' on unsafe ground. The foundations need to be solid before new floors are built on top?

Yeah, I wasn’t even trying to say what should be done (or should have been done), just added that so it doesn‘t get forgotten. This decision can only be made by those with the fullest set of information, which isn‘t any of us. That‘s why I didn‘t go any further with that thought.

But, ignoring certain aspects that may be an obstacle (speculating, but for example like having to fulfill publisher demands for a new module within X amount of time or get canned; ie CloD in 2011), what you say is what I believe in, yes.

Using the house analogy, delay the day you can move in to make sure the house is solid from the basement, even if it means having to lose time redoing something before moving on.

 

 

 

[Bloyamind]

Someone check the update announcement thread in the Stalker Gamma discord. Updates, tweaks, additions etc. are posted almost daily. That modpack consists of 300+ mods, a big part of which are focused on optimization, on all these mods working together like an oiled machine and UI. The depth is enormous, but you can figure it out yourself with some (fun) work. This work (the modpack) is mostly done by one guy, with support from some other modders and off course, the creators of some of the individual mods in the pack. All of these guys have jobs and do this for fun. It's a good example of how the community works together to create something way bigger. What i'm saying is that some things that seem impossible are actually possible sometimes. ( Stalker is an old game by modern standards and i'm pretty darn sure it's not an easy platform to work with. ) I'm hoping the same goes for CloDB, but then again I'm not at all worried about this. I'm still enjoying the game. I'm 70 hours in and that's already worth the price in 'normalgameland'. 
 

Also: PR. Stalker Gamma exploded. Why? I think it's because of the feeling of moving forward, with all these super-regular updates. Apples and chickens, but PR is important, is what counts. And the fact that these people apparently have time for a small post when they have an update, even though they have plenty of other stuff to worry about. 

Also also: games are like music, art. etc. You start caring about it's prolonged existence and attention, when it's something you've put your time in. It get's its own life, beyond 'product, user, period'. Which is nice. We care, because there's something there.

[Dagwoodyt]

I just looked at the Steam forum for Blitz. On Nov. 07 notice of the latest VR video clip was posted. At time of this post there has been a single response. Any PR "offensive" would have to be "fed". The only way to feed it is via progress on the update. As a "public" beta could be counterproductive a PR "blitz" cannot be mounted at this time.

[MisterSmith]

Cleaned it up a bit. Leave the personal insults at the door. The only reason there aren't some days on the beach for a couple of you, is I took so long to come back to this thread.

 

Smith

[5th_Barone]

On 11/10/2022 at 2:42 PM, Dagwoodyt said:

I just looked at the Steam forum for Blitz. On Nov. 07 notice of the latest VR video clip was posted. At time of this post there has been a single response. Any PR "offensive" would have to be "fed". The only way to feed it is via progress on the update. As a "public" beta could be counterproductive a PR "blitz" cannot be mounted at this time.

Sure it needs to be fed but there are tons of tools to do it. And some of them do not even require PR work from the dev team.

An example? Give the update to content creators on youtube and let them show the thing. With just one simple video you can reach thousand of ppl.

 

Even a little update every week (look at DCS or GB, they have an update, even small, every week or so on a scheduled day) can keep ppl interested and curious about the product. The more ppl are interested the more they create post, messages, threads and they keep the wheel spinning.

 

Also something I really can't cope... Updates are spreaded on the net on different place. Sometimes an update is on FB, sometimes on ATAG, sometimes here...

You need to be organized. You want to share an update on different platforms? really good! But you need to post it on all of it, not just on some of it with random choice.

 

Edited November 12, 2022 by 5th_Barone

[Dagwoodyt]

WRT PR videos it may be prudent to look at what is already available on YouTube. A problem I am seeing is that there are videos that show the same things over and over again: someone flying a Spitfire, never bothering to set target distance or wingspan of opponents and then simply banging away at everything in sight. That gets old very quickly and I simply fast forward to the end. Mostly the mission reports just say how many enemy or friendly losses occured. If that is all that is important in the mission it is very disappointing to soldier through an entire video just to learn that. Reviews of current status of the Visual Update Package by "popular" VR YouTubers could help if progress is sufficient to enable them to give (arguably) favorable report. Getting them to do such videos may depend to some extent on overall "popularity" of Blitz.

[BladeMeister]

It's not popular because All of you are not playing it because you are to busy spending all of your time in this thread posting about why it is not popular.

 

S!Blade<><

[Dagwoodyt]

Activity of collective fora reflects user interest. If user interest in the game is high "popularity" threads such as this have no traction. Never run from game stats. Discuss why they are as they are and suggest any necessary improvements. O/W you lose credibility.

Edited November 11, 2022 by Dagwoodyt

[354thFG_Leifr]

29 minutes ago, BladeMeister said:

It's not popular because All of you are not playing it because you are to busy spending all of your time in this thread posting about why it is not popular.

 

S!Blade<><

 

Wow, big if true.

[OBT-Lionel]

You know they are working hard for the next update. It will be so much to communicate when this will be released.