I haven't posted on this forum for a long time, to be honest I have been patiently waiting for CloD to live up to the level we all expected given the information provided by the developers during development. To be honest my expectations (but not desires) are to see it fail. The question posted by the OP is kind of missing the point, he almost hit it with his last option.

"-- Is it that people's hope for the sim were built up to an impossible level (eg. by imagination or by features that were announced in 2007 and officially 'withdrawn' before release) - and they are turning their disappointment outwards into rage?"

This is close but the fact is many of the features were not "officially withdrawn" as you seem to think. They were not found to be missing until after release. While imagination can and does run riot in some people, it is usually the result of hype. It is the result of promises or claims made by those "marketing" their wares. If large parts of these claims are deliberately vague, or the person making the claims knows they are false, then who's fault is it that customers imaginations run riot? It was only a few weeks or months before release that we found out many "planned" features were to be dropped.

While I do not claim to speak for everyone, it seems to me that people have become less and less patient over the past few months because no tangible progress is being made (new sounds aside). CloD was released 16 months ago and since then nothing much has been changed. The last official patch was over one year ago on May 2011 and many serious issues are still present. The latest beta patches have actually degraded the graphics, so much for the graphics re-write. On top of this we find out the developers are working on not one, but two sequels (BoM and that MMO). People are simply starting to lose patience and faith in the developers ability to fix their sim.

I'm sorry but given the nature and wording of OP's "list of reasons" it seems he has already decided that the poor developer is the real victim, not the customers. He entirely overlooks the fact that sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one. No conspiracy theories about old IL-2 haters coming out of the woodwork after all these years required.

EDIT: I have edited the following paragraph to better qualify my intended meaning.

IMHO the true reason for many peoples scorn, distrust and anger is really very simple. It seems they are of the opinion that Cliffs of Dover is crap. This is the real reason why Oleg/MG/Luthier/IC are no longer idolised by many people.

It takes years to build up a good reputation, it only takes seconds to destroy it.

Wasn't it that his son developed a serious illness that prompted Oleg to give up designing flight sims and concentrate on his family instead.

I do seem to remember that was the reason given at the time. If that was the case who would not do the same?

Please don't make the mistake of thinking that Oleg is the target for all the scorn/hatred/anger the OP is referring to. It is the developers in general and their lack of tangible progress that is the real target. I am not claiming the OP deliberately named Oleg as the target, it might have been an honest mistake, but it is very clever that the thread is entitled "The Rise and Fall of Oleg Maddox". It sets up a nice straw man argument by making it look like Oleg is the target and not the developers in general.

I mean attacking poor Oleg, those evil haters.

Not thinking at all at the moment, just got in from work and on auto pilot browsing my usual haunts.

I was just saying is all......

If you want to fight with someone 2005AD, fight with me. Let's see how that goes.

Describe how you find CloD 'crap'. Or are you just trolling?

I'm not picking a fight, I noted that the title of the thread (and by extension the OP) implies only Oleg Maddox has been the target of all the negative posts on this forum. Given this direct implication, either intentionally or unintentionally it sets up Oleg the individual as the strawman argument. Make it out that the haters are attacking Oleg and not the developers in general and it makes it far easier to defend against their argument. Like I said, it might not be intentional, but it does without question have that effect, as has been demonstrated by Brigstocks post already.

NOTE: I am not attacking Brigstock.



Not trolling, I had though about elaborating on this point but didn't feel it necessary. My apologies, I should have qualified that statement with an IMHO. Of course it is all subjective, but my only interest is offline single player and in this area due to the atrocious AI I find CloD to be utter crap.

Fair enough - I'm in a foul mood today, so coming out webbed feet swinging is counter-productive, sorry

I agree CloD single player AI is pretty crappy still, and I am also frustrated that they haven't sorted something out by now.

Honestly, I don't think Oleg has #%&*$# to do with it. It's frustration with the current crop of developers that are sullying what was once the flagship franchise.

Oleg had about 7 years and 7 mill, he has plenty to do with it, Luthier picked up the pieces of a fecked up development and added to it.

I agree with all of your post, but especially this. I am astonished at how little real progress has been made since the sim was released. 16 months now! Like most I was disappointed by its state at release, but never in my wildest imaginings did I expect that there would be so little improvement almost a year and a half later. The endless waiting for extremely meagre rewards, especially the whole continuing saga waiting for the next Steam patch (previous one October 2011 !!) has exhausted most of my patience and faith.

I still hope that we get to see COD reach something close to its potential, but...and this is something I've been thinking for a while now...given the absolute fiasco of the release and their continued inability to make progress after all this time do they really deserve to succeed? One or two serious errors are forgivable in a project of this complexity, but it seems there has been chronic and continuous mismanagement on an epic scale for COD. There seems to have been continuous over-reaching and poor choices right from the start (e.g. numerous highly detailed vehicles and tanks in a Battle of Britain sim but NO Royal Navy ships!), and this trend seems to be continuing with the news about the MMO. COD has been a really bad case of running before you can even crawl.

So, do they deserve to succeed and pull it off after all this? I'm really not sure. If COD was a horse it would have been put out of its misery a long time ago.




A few parts of it are good. A lot of it is really bad. As we all know there is masses of 'potential', but that becomes frustrating as well when they are unable to realise it, except as some shimmering mirage that continually sits on the horizon and never seems to get any closer.

Overall it is crap.