Hi all. Updates including in game action are coming this Friday hopefully. Apparently Oleg has had a period of illness.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=10650

Looking forward to this...

good news!...really hope he comes through on this....and i hope it not just a couple of shots of clounds and grass.

Yes, throw the dogs some bones will ya!

Glorious, come Friday we can start the REAL whining!

In-game windsock for the win!

A slight change in design direction - BoB: SoW will be the first flight sim for the Wii.

The Wii comes with virtual headset, gloves, socks, and Viagra for the perfect Hotas system. Early test show some problems with wear and tear.

However, the peripheral set is expected to sell well, as it has full compatibility with Wii Pr0n, expected to be released in the first quarter of 2010.

Wii or not it sounds like good news to me.


Wheels

I heard SOW will be coming to xbox 360 only.

Microsoft air-dropped a huge load of money to get the exlusive.

Plans are to support Natal so we will all be playing with imaginary sticks and you bail out by jumping off your couch.

You have to buy fuel for your planes with microsoft points - I think it has something to do with virtual carbon offsets microsoft uses to plant virtual trees and flowers for your 360 avatar to dance around in when you are not playing games.

I can't wait!

Wow awesome! I'm really excited for this news.

I guess it must be totally impossible for any other of his employees to slap up some screenshots or video. Apparently, his keyboard is only one permitted to have a key combination for a screenshot. His computer is only one permitted to have FRAPS on it as well.

Illness, shmillness!

Excuses and delays.

I think Mr. Maddox took all the leaks with IL-2: FB to heart and instituted a lockdown on stuff.

I hope this update is better than the September update.

Was there ever a beta patch that wasn't leaked prior to the official 1C release? I'm not familiar with one that wasn't.

How could it not be?

I am excited about this update.
There is always time to be disappointed with it later.


Wheels

Tease

Big tease indeed!

Maybe it was the Swine Flu.

Remember not to share those joysticks Viagra boys!

Two dollar bet:

Mr. Maddox wrote "this Friday" while pointing at a calendar, forgetting that we couldn't actually see which Friday he meant.

lol Dart, be careful you'll be labled a pessimsit like my goodself, when infact we are really realist's. I do hope you lose your bet though, but if recent statements by OM are any kind of gauge then your money is most likely safe.

Ahhh. Great news.

I'm scared though, so in the 5-6 months we've been waiting -was anyone working on SOW?

Oh well, I hope to see the news and am very excited for tomorrow.

Tree and Dart. You are both pessimists. lol j/k

We are not pessimists!! Anyway it doesn't really matter what you think cause, "THE END IS NIGH, THE END IS NIGH"!!

You just stated in the post before you were a pessimist!!!!!!
See.. this news has you all a quiver just like the rest of us dead beats, you can't even remember what you are saying from one minute to the next...
(who am I again?)

What?

I'm not a pessimist.

A pessimist thinks that there won't be an update this Friday.

An optimist knows that there will be, as the odds are greatly in favor of an update coming out on a Friday eventually. And when it does, that will be the "this Friday" we had been told about.

Of course this will validate our optimism.

I'm taking the pish you lunatic..lol!

Trooper you are ruining my theme of impending doom, I dont take good humour lightly.

Oleg typed wrong, he want to say: "two weeks".

Sokol1

Yes, words to keep close in mind.

"Live every day like it's only two weeks until the release date."

It's Russian Zen!

its just been so long, we're babbling on cause we got cabin fever. =P

cabin fever

Virtual cabin fever, yes it's almost as bad as the real thing

At least we're not miles from anywhere with the "Ok amuse me" in-laws and the seven-day fixed grins

See how easy it is to cheer ourselves up and with alleged news of SoW on the horizon, the weekend in prospect, life is good

Ming

I just figured something out! Today IS Friday!

Posted at:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=2040&page=2

Looking at the pics I ask me what exactly are the uniquie features showing by these screens? They are ugly in my eyes... :-(

Spit cockpit looks great. Shadows are very nice. The rest looks......well let's see how it looks once it reaches beta.

Ilya comments:

The cockpit shot looks almost photo-real to my eyes.

The appearance of the ocean, and the overall reflective light/shadowing effects look excellent too.

I'll certainly agree about the terrain colors being WIP, as they seem too vivid, and a bit "neon" right now.

Stunning pic of the cockpit.. inside these aircraft will be a visual treat!
Not sure what to say about the rest of it.. I was expecting something absolutely ground breaking, considering the advancement of graphics and computing power.. but as stated, this isn't the finished article.
So, waiting with bated breath for more regular Friday updates!

Alright so,

Pros: Cockpit is amazing, Vehicles and lighting on terrain are modeled superbly. Water looks excellent. Aircraft look crazy good.

Cons: Obviously terrain, if I was Oleg I would focus only on the terrain and make it look as good as everything else, and I would also put some AA and AF filtering in there when I take screenies.

Thanks again Oleg for the update and I hope to see another one very soon.

Ilya stated that they can't use AA yet since they use HDR and its not possible to use both at the same time.

Wip terrain. No OGL apparently, that means DX. One year out means DX11 and tesselation hopefully.

http://files.games.1c.ru/il2pict/grab0111.jpg
Nice cliffs on this pic, but they don't reflect in the water (the clouds behind them do though). I wonder if they are a separate object from the terrain?

But you can force AA in the nvpanel or the CCC

I agree spit cockpit looks great along with water/clouds and sun. I have to say it doesn't look 80% finished like Oleg said it was in June. Another year or so at least if the game is still in Alpha, they will have to work like hell to get this done before next September, but if everything looks as good as that Spit cockpit then i guess it will be worth the wait.

They look really good to me.

Individual window frames in airfield "flavor" objects cast shadows, but cliffs do not? Don't get me wrong, there is some amazing stuff there (do I see towering columns of smoke?).

They can... But only with DirectX 11-compatible v-card. Otherwise - either AA, or HDR, but never both.

A mixed bag,no more no less............this looks a long way from finished.

I do like the aircraft, objects, and trees. I especially like the smoke in this screenshot.
http://files.games.1c.ru/il2pict/grab0147.jpg
This will be a big improvement over the small smoke columns.

The cliffs are also a good shape but need a chalk look to them. Although these cliffs are in the fantasy island on-line map so the BOB cliffs should be shaded accordingly.

Either Oleg is alot further behind than he suggests or he's withholding alot of the terrain on the BOB map for whatever reasons.

Looks ok. Nothing earth shattering.

The Spit cockpit screen looks amazing, just photoreal, the terrain I hope is very WIP.

What happened to those trees?

http://fooblog.mexxoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/021.jpg

So is this release date for sure then?



http://www.freewebs.com/heinkill/stormofwarnews.htm

Hi All,

It's Monday and as promised Oleg is answering questions:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=10702&page=17

As usual some interesting stuff.

RedToo.

Thanks Red Too.


Wheels

Oleg has said it needs to come out in 2010, so watch this space.

Thanks Tree.


Wheels

Is this a re-run? Seems like I've seen this before.

It sounds like Maddox games had a rough year last year. Oleg suggested he had the monies to extend development during 2009 and 2010. BUT those funds I very much doubt will last into late 2010. So I would suggest we will be seeing SOW sometime late in 2010 or possibly not at all.

I would not have a problem with Maddox Games releasing an unfinished product in 2010. The cash flow would insure the future of Maddox Games and the SOW series. Failure would be catastrophic to the combat fligh sime genre.

Oleg clearly indicated they "must" release in 2010 for money reasons.

His many other answers to questions imply that BoBSOW is "The Sim I have been waiting for".

Yup, if they have to release it part done, that's OK with me. Thing is, the reviewers and most "fans" will be merciless -- and that could kill sales and the company anyway.

Oleg says no full Campaigns though in single player, very dissappointed in this news :-(, it sounds like an online thing similar I guess to ROF.

Time restraints probably was a major factor in rethinking the Campaign development. But Olegs english made it hard to figure our what kind of campaign he would develop if any. It doesn't really matter that much anyway as there will be fantastic tools for the community and third party developers to create their own campaigns. It may or may not mean that off-liners will have to wait a little longer for full campaigns to appear.

If the campaigns Battle Engine is almost complete they could possibly have a third party start development now.

Yes its unfortunate that some in the ROF community couldn't grasp the concept of a WIP, but I doubt there were enough people with so little vision that it would effect overall sales much. Its like they've had their foot operated on, the doctor tells them it won't be fully functional for sometime, so they have it amputated, cus its useless now.

I think Oleg has too much self respect to release something in the condition of ROF.

He would be crucified on the boards and rightly so.

So you would prefer that ROF and SOW be cancelled rather than an early release to fund further work on the projects?

My opinion of ROF is known.

Based on the passes given ROF and neoqb on their forums I would expect a segment of the flightsim world who have lowered expectations of what to expect from the box to forgive Oleg if he issued something in the condition of ROF.

I would also expect the majority of Olegs base will expect much more from the Maddox team.

I also believe that, if forced to do so, Oleg could release something today that would work without internet connection for single play, have working multiplay, feature enough planes on release to play the battles it covers, have mission builder with comprehensible directions, the list goes on.

I also believe that 1C and neoqb have differing business plans and comparing the released ROF with the future release of SOW does not fly.

To return to the topic at hand, glad the updates came and hope they continue.

I agree that it's apples and oranges, Sunchaser.

No way 1C: Maddox would attempt an "evolving sim" modality in the vein of neoqb, as there is absolutley no need to. Mr. Maddox and crew have far more resources (read funding) than neoqb, so there would be no compelling reason to follow their lead.

The bar is decidely higher on BoB: SoW due to track record and their own press - they're not promising a great WWII sim, but a definative raising of the bar to the next generation of flight sims.

This ain't the first flight sim rodeo Mr. Maddox has been to.

I doubt very much the the funding for SOW is so secure at this late date. SOW will come out of the box far more complete than ROF, BUT a few features may not make the initial release, as alluded to by Oleg. One in doubt is the extent of the off-line campaign. Again I would much rather have an incomplete ROF and SOW with funds to complete the development than no sim at all.

Well, enough digression, anyone who has questions about Olegs plans needs to go here:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=10702


This is the first post:
10-23-2009, 12:12 PM
Oleg Maddox
Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 209

Friday 2009-10-23 Screenshots Update discussion thread

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

Please discuss here. On Monday I will read and maybe answer some questions about only posted shots.


End quote.

When you get there be prepared, there are 40+ pages and for the last three days Oleg has been answering every question tossed his way.
Way more than questions about some screen shots.

Whenever it gets here I am convinced that SOW-BOB will rock the WWII world and prehaps a few other sim worlds.

Yeah that was interesting about the Campaigns.

But I fly online so I am glad they are concentrating in this area as I see it is the future of flight simming. The 3rd party people always made the most immersive single player campaigns anyways.

I think in the grand scope of things it will be a huge, 24 hour map that is always evolving.

There will be a ground war going on as you fly above (maybe someday even controlled by humans as well), with the front lines changing depending on the air support each team gives. I think there will be tons of different mission types. You can fly fighter planes and provide cover. Heavy bombers for crippling factories and supply lines. Fighter bombers for tanks and small ground targets. Cargo planes for troop deployment and base captures, resupply enemy lines.

Based on all the hints Oleg has dropped over the years I think they are heading in this direction and oh how sweet it is. We have many years of great flight simming ahead of us:) I can't wait.

Yes a 24/7 on-line war would be great from my point of view. You could drop in any free time you had. Especially if the AI could run the war, organizing bomb runs and intercepts if players weren't available to take over. Or you and a wingman could just do a frejag fighter sweep or jabo run, with AI triggers to intercept you if spotted. Just the anticipation of not knowing if you are being intercepted by human pilots or AI can be intense. Nothing against AI pilots, its just that they are usually relatively easy compared to good human pilots.

I like this idea too, but AI opponents is something that could be used in a different way too. Instead of having them as triggered support cast for intercepts, they could be limited to flying the bombers. A 24/7 online war, even in a 1:2 scaled map would have some serious transition times.
Imagine now that the players can schedule bomb runs for the AI, leting the bombers fly to a certain rendezvous waypoint under AI control. Escorts take off with human pilots and head there, plus human pilots jump into the previously AI bombers as they reach their rendezvous point...voila, you can fly long range bombing missions without having to fly all 3-6 hours of it, as long as you plan it to coincide with a favorable time zone for you

On the matter of how complete the game will be, i think that these guys are so perfectionist in some things that even a half-finished SoW will be better than many fully-finished titles from other houses. I can live with a reduced singeplayer offering as long as i have the map, editor, QMB and necessary aircraft to create missions myself right out of the box, plus a user-friendly protection scheme that will never prevent me from playing a game for reasons outside my direct control, a solid multiplayer offering and good performance. If you have all that, missing campaigns for a few months is not that big of a dent. If you lack more than half of those features is when you're in trouble.

As others have stated before, i can compromise on certain things and wait for some features, as long as there's still something left in it and it's not a hassle to operate software-wise. I think it won't be 100% complete out of the box, but still be more expansive than, for example, RoF, somewhat of a middle ground. That means switching between SoW and IL2, just like i used to switch between IL2 and European Air War when IL2 was first released. Plus, if SoW is as mod friendly as they said it will be, there will be lots to keep me busy until they get a working campaign.

Edit: Straight from the horse's mouth so to speak


The way i read this is that they will build a single campaign engine both for single and multi, that you can then manipulate to produce the needed result. Sounds like a built-in enhanced version of DCG to me. This is not bad in my opinion and it's one of the reasons everything in SoW takes so long...it seems they are not just building a flight sim, but a flight sim "operating system" that you can then work with to produce what you need. Of course it's taking long, one is like editing a photo in photoshop, the other is like programming photoshop yourself from scratch.

Oleg drops a hint here and there that SOW will be a great but not all inclusive part of his plan.

"BATTLE ENGINE"....not Flightsim engine.

"get the modes of gameplay from the only one universal gameplay engine in which are present elements of many known types of online and single gameplay of very different games.

Is it possible that within 2 years we will see WWII online done right for those inclined to subscribe?

Well, no matter the longrange plan, I believe we will have the next generation WWII flightsim soon and it will spawn much more.

Interesting points Blackdog.


Wheels

I kind of agree with you sunchaser. The man is a bit cryptic sometimes and part of it is due to his use of the English language, you have to read a bit between the lines to know what he's hintint at, and then you can't be completely sure that what you'r guessing is what he means.

My personal guess is they are building not so much a flight sim, but an engine that they will be able to license for other game types as well. Why else go to the trouble of making cockpits for vehicles, mannable AA guns and adding support for modding the living hell out of it? I think they saw how much can be done with modding, both good and bad, so they went with a compromise plan. Make the engine open-ended and easily moddable so people won't have to hack things in order to mod it, which also means an easier way to control what mods to run at any time. I mean, if you had a panel similar to the realism settings that can toggle mods on and off, you wouldn't need multiple installations and it could probably be enforced by the server in online play, just like the realism settings are.

Pure speculation on my part and of course the amount of time and money required to build all the things that have been discussed and requested would be enormous. But i have a suspicion that they are going to go that way to ensure a long term revenue stream and set a new industry base. With the MSFS studios closing down, a well done engine could attract the civiliam sim crowd. With well done physics you could branch out to a driving or boat sim. With a 24/7 online war capability you could gradually branch out to a subscription based MMO model, and so on. And the neat thing about it is that if they pull this one off, they won't even have to do everything themselves.

I guess that modding the simple stuff into the engine will be pretty straighforward, but getting the tools to create a different game altogether will require some extra tools and licensing fees. It's a clever approach and while i may not always agree with a work in progress plan (case in point RoF), if the initial offering is enough and the groundwork is robust we'll be seeing moderate amounts of whining about omissions early on, followed by a growing avalanche of new theaters or even titles to keep everyone happy. The thing here is to keep all the options open, as long as you don't outright discard old but proven practices you can move forward and still keep the traditionally-minded part of your fanbase. I think they understand that, as Oleg said he now thinks that the single player campaign is taking a back seat to having interesting online game modes (online dynamic campaign that you could join in progress a la DF servers would be awesome for example), but that they won't abandon it just because it's not the latest trend.

Apart from that, we can't do much but wait and see