One dream. One adjective:

Will it be realised in this forthcoming simulation?

Probably not. But this dream has been eating away at me ever since I transitioned from European Air War to the Il-2 Demo, and all throughout the entire Il-2 series.

European Air War had it, and it was an absolute PLEASURE to fly 20+ missions in a campaign, and continue flying it thereafter.

It wasn't the flight models, the 3D graphics, sound effects nor the Force Feedback rumbling through the joystick, it was the Graphical User Interface (GUI for short). Simply put - no flightsim has come close to EAW's GUI before & after a flight.

The total immersion began as soon as you left the main menu, and loaded your old save game from a campaign you were flying.

For one, you were actually TALKED to in the briefing, and the atmosphere in the briefing room was ALIVE with tension as you received your target for the day. So much atmosphere for a simulation released in 1998!

With the rapid advancement in technology (both software and hardware), the immersion factor exponentially grows and grows as the years go by.

Take, for example - Silent Hunter 3. Although it is not a flightsim, the immersion factor for a naval simulation is as yet unparalleled! (for me, anways)

It was simply amazing to actually walk & look around your submarine as it made it's way through the water, with a constant rocking motion - even the meat hanging in the bridge sways in the gentle motion!

Silent Hunter III is almost 2 years old, and is currently number one in my "most immersive sims" list.

If we can gauge the level of immersion between EAW's GUI and Silent Hunter III's gameplay, and forecast that scale to Q4 2007, then SoW:BoB *should* blow me completely away, and my employers will be wondering why I'm taking so many sick days off!

BUT, the one thing that blows these mechanics out of the water, is the fact that: This is not a good starting point for my "gloriously immersive" Q4 2007 simulation.

Therefore, some sacrifices must be made to my dream of total immersion in this upcoming simulation.

And this is where I stand. trying to measure from previous games how "immersive" SoW:BoB will be, and I've got a hunch it's going to be bad news.

My question to you is this: Can total immersion survive as a feasible objective in today's simulation market?

I think the immersion factor will increase only held back by the power of the computer and the imagination of the develper.

It looks like Oleg will be adding ground crew sometime during the Storm of War series. If that could expand to an animation of the pilot walking/running to his aircraft, debriefing /pilot ready rooms, the immersion factor should increase considerably.

Yep inmersion is grate but is teh onlly thing We can work on, an replace with grat esquads Team Speak briefings and even briefing documents delivered before each mission.

And EAW lacked a lot of flexibility without a mission editor....

For Off line, yes, Inmersion is a must. But online, there are workarounds that are better than anything a developer can "can" in a sim.

I have had squad breifings with video, then a TS briefing, with maps given out on MSN..
Theres no way to beat that inmersion.. yes it´s more work, but sure is worth it.

I agree Baco....On-line can have all immersion in the world espcially going to the lengths of what you discribe.

I don't fly off-line much because on-line has so much more to offer in that regard, but fully understand the need for much greater off-line immersion. I think BOB will provide a much improved off-line experience, within the restraints of time,computer abilities, develper vision and most important money.

Yes, that is true that online immersion is different to offline immersion, but online immersion comes off the backs of the poor souls who are willing to make maps, video/teamspeak briefings, and go to lengths that are above & beyond anything else.

Wouldn't it be great if all these immersion tools (or their equivalents) were available in-game to the ONLINE player?

Okay, SoW:BoB might not ship with a webcam for video link in every box - but what if a 3D Briefing room was created, and pilots could walk through it like a first person shooter!

Or, from the RAF's point of view; be playing a game of chess/cards with other pilots at the ready hut when the bell rings, and you must bolt out of your chair, and rush to your aircraft for a scramble!

After you come back, and after the debriefing and interrogation, you can continue playing with the other pilots, before heading off into the mess hall for some supper.

That would be flightsim nirvana for me.

Ok I have to agree a tool that would alowd to insert TRK. files in teh briefing and/or WAV files would be awsom!.

Now the Dream of all dreams would be to be able to move a poniter in a big map that every client could see .

Now THAT would be our own private briefing room .

Yep, you guys are absolutlly right, there is so much room for improvement regarding Inmersion, jejeje.


Of course this features should be available for off line, wit h the leader IA moving the pointer in teh map, and camapign creators doing the trk files. Yes I know its a loooot of eork but I´m sure there are no lack of volunteers in this comunity that would do it for the love of the sim. We have so many grate camapigsn and every XO or Co of every virtual squad has a lot of experience in motivatin its trooops right?

Gentlemen, I hate to disagree, but, well, I don't hate to disagree, so I will.

The last thing I want is to have to dink around with some poxy "interface" that forces me to sit through a lengthy briefing. "Get to the damned point" is a favorite response of mine to briefings computer games have.

Call of Duty 2 has it dead to rights - a quick blurb while I wait for the mission to load and on to the fun!

Just give me the text, the waypoints, a simple "Excel" like menu for outfitting, and start me in the plane.

I don't find it "immersive" to have to pixel hunt a picture of a radio set for the audio options. I find it annoying. I don't want to have to bother with a 3D view of an airplane to set convergence by pulling on a triangle. I can type "250" much faster and be on my way.

Cut scenes of guys jumping out of chairs to run to planes are cool. The first time you see them. After that, let me have an option to turn it off.

With an .ntrk capability I can replay the mission at my leisure. In game, post mission, just the high points of a quick AAR and move along.

What some find sterile in the IL-2 series I find refreshingly straight forward and useful without undue clutter.

It's a flight sim, not a ready room sim.

What some find sterile in the IL-2 series I find refreshingly straight forward and useful without undue clutter.

It's a flight sim, not a ready room sim

Maybe you're not thinking of the number of offline-only players Dart? Who enjoy the immersive elements you find get in the way of the fun?

I might fly Il-2 offline if it had a smidgeon of EAW's offline campaign immersion. Might be the ETO though mind

I used to love EAW's immersive bits. Turn off the radio in the billet? Are you stone bonkers it's what we're fighting for

Ming

Hi Dart

Nobodys lobbying to remove the refly button. Some of us would like the OPTION to have a more immersive feel to the game. I'm sure the interface could have a route for anyone to quickly move from the option screen to the cockpit.

Hmmm...why bother with take off...an option could have you appear on a 109's six in perfect gun solution.

Anyway the more options the better to attract people to the game.

~Salute~
Chivas

Don't confuse my desire for a clean, simple, effective interface with either "arcade" settings or a purely online perspective.

I like offline campaigns.

Actually, I like flying offline campaigns.

The immersion is in the mission for me, not the brief or the after action review.

One of the best campaigns, IMHO, is the Case Blue one for the Soviets. The briefings aren't much to speak to - then again, I gloss over the historical stuff and go to the objectives, as I'm not flying a war, I'm flying a sortie.

The missions are so well done that the emotional situation is captured perfectly within the historical context - one is flying outmanned, outgunned, and asked to do the impossible most of the time.

I know the post briefing - either I lived through it (and don't have to refly the mission), or I have to go again (or restart the whole campaign, if I'm playing one-pilot-one-life). It's not about high kills, its about survival while doing one's best.

Having to weave through twenty minutes of Weatherman followed by Operations Officer followed by Fitter, with each trying to force a dialog tree on me is a waste of time and effort.

I don't want to play cards with my virtual squaddies. I don't want to know their names. Chances are they'll all be dead in an hour regardless, so why bother?

[Walter Mitty is the silent, brooding one that never speaks to anyone and stays to himself until it's time to fly. Then he simply nods to the orders and walks to the plane]

Now, then, we'll be very much in agreement if there is an option to turn off a more interactive interface - I'm never going to be against additional options.

Just allow for an ability to shut all the "immersion" off pre- and post-operation.

Maybe a "Simple Briefing" toggle?

Oleg has stated already that he is aware that the menu system in Il2 is lacking (to say the least) and will be much improved for SoW:BoB. I hope hearing this news will brighten your day.

I think the IDEAL is to seperate the User-Interface and the Game-Engine (to use weird capitalisation) into seperate programs, and make the interface between them public. This would make it possible to use 3rd-party UI programs to load the Game-Engine, and to receive feedback from the Game-Engine to feed into the debrief (and into the next mission).

So I could write a program which gives you a briefing the way I think a briefing should be given, then loads SoW straight into the mission, keeps track of what's going on during the mission (or gets a mission summary log at the mission's end), and uses that info to make a debrief, and to make the next mission.

Or you could use the 'functional' standard interface, whatever you prefer.

If 3rd-party programs could command the game engine this way, it would be very powerful. A briefing program for a bombing mission, for example, could use the game-engine to render photos or film footage of the target area before and after your raid. Online servers could release their own client programs, giving briefings where the user-developer has a lot of control over what is shown.

Yeah, now THAT would be cool - a "best of both worlds."

I don't know how complex it would be - it would depend on the SoW coding architecture. I'm hoping that, after 10 years with the not-built-for-expansion Il-2 engine, the SoW engine will be built to be very modular, very expansion-friendly, very easy to replace specific modules of code, and this sort of change would be straightforward for 1C...

The immersion is in the mission for me, not the brief or the after action review

We are aware of you

Oleg has stated already that...the menu system...will be much improved for SoW:BoB

Thanks choctaw!

Ming

Its probably a lot to ask and its probably been stated more times than many, but give me something like a Falcon4 Dynamic Campaign environment that has both on-line and off-line capabilities built-in and I'd be a happy camper. Won't happen, but hey, I can dream too.

I want to be able to load the game, hit the fly button and be sitting in the cockpit. I want to hear the Scramble Horn, fire up the engine, move to take-off position, get airborne, then be vectored to my target by Sector Control over the radio (briefing, ha! - they didn't get one!). I want to engage the enemy with sweaty palms, survive and hopefully return home, or die if I screw-up. I want to experience the fear they felt - I want to know I only have one chance to live! I want to be able hit the restart if I die and start - right then - not with the same exact mission, but with whatever happens to be happening at that time. If I live to return home, I want to be refueled and rearmed while waiting for the next Scramble Horn to sound. I wan to be able to repeat this over and over again so that I can "feel" the stress of 4-6 missions in a day - just like they did.

Remove the "On-line/Off-line" distinction - Remove the "Dogfight/Cooperative" distinction. They are outmoded concepts. GUI? Two buttons! On-line or Off-line - choose one. From that point on, make it operate, look and feel exactly the same. If its off-line, generate the action for me. If its on-line, there will be more than enough action - why? - because Hyperlobby built into the sim!!! NOt 35 separate rooms - just 1 room!

That's my dream - as dreams go.............

Nice dream...600...in one hyperlobby room. Now that would be immersive. But very scary.

It would be pretty cool!

Good luck on finding everyone agreeing on settings, though....

Couldn't agree more with Squog. What IL2 does is place you as a gamer in 2006 into a game about the 1940s, as opposed to placing you in the 1940s. As the interface mentioned is very 21st century (albiet a bit naff) you have an ironic detatchment from the game. This is furthered by the sloppy briefings and phrases such as 'yank and bank', 'turn and burn', 'boom and zoom' etc...which we all use, but certainly weren't during WWII. I want to enter a different world when I'm playing. COD did a fantastic job of this as did Silent Hunter III - there are no reminders of the 21st century there. This will be the most important advance to me. If they get it right it'll be a classic. If not I'll lose interest fairly quickly.

S! Comp

Well put. Although I can't honestly say i would lose interest. The lack of immersion (via the interface) is a factor that has been spoken about since IL2 came out but it doesn't detract from the in-mission immersion that IL2 can clearly provide.

It would be the icing on the cake to have an EAW'esque lead-in to the actual sim. Since we're only really talking about a GUI here, I would struggle to see how it would rob resources from finishing the sim itself. With the added bonus of making people like myself stop whinging on about it all the time!.

Here's hoping