Just curious, how do you know this? Market research data is scarce in a niche like this, and the voice of customer feedback so far seems telling to me.

And frankly, if you're going to compare sales numbers to a title like War Thunder, I'd have liked to known that before I plunked down $100 for BoS. I presumed that a hard core price would preempt a hard core game. Now, to be clear, I knew that I was putting down my money as a 'risk': that the title was in alpha, final design decisions not made (or at least shared with the community...), etc. I accept that risk, and acknowledge that 777 has not 'lied' or mislead about the title in any way, but that I am the victim now of my own assumptions that I was supporting a product aimed at the hard core simmer. Indeed, this has been a...learning experience....

Oh, and why the heck is the "older game-play" mutually exclusive to things like custom difficulty levels in the 'campaign'?





Emphasis mine.

So shall I take that line as an indication that 777 will reverse it's stance on community content? Indeed excellent news, as so far there's a bit of a monopoly on how new aircraft and maps get into it's various titles...

Again, for clarity sake, I've always supported the RoF business model, and felt aircraft and maps represented a great value for the product delivered. But above it sounds like you're alluding to third party content filling in some of the gaps in BoS, as has happend in titles like IL-2 and the Thirdwire titles. Of course, titles like Arma also show both models can dove tail nicely, but I haven't seen that with a 777 title to date.





Maybe.

But so far there are two milestone announcements that give me pause in agreeing: The removal of custom display settings, and now custom difficulty in campaigns.

If that's the direction things will be "sorted" in...

I guess there's always DCS WWII

I like the way they are implementing the single player campaign. I play single player most of the times, so my main concern is for the sim to have a strong single player section, and from what I can see so far we have quite a bit of content, with the possibility of more coming in the future, which is interesting.
That being said, if it was up to me, I'd implement to different progression "trees", one for fighter pilots and one for bomber pilots.
More importantly, I think players should be given the chance to decide their custom realism settings. More flexibility is always welcome. I'd be open to getting less points the more "help" I decide to activate...

Good explanation here:

http://forum.il2sturmovik.ru/topic/1921-...e-4#entry201666

Sokol1

My russian is not good enough to understand all that. I hope we can use that XP functionality in a proper career where instead of skins and guns you get promoted and may end commanding a staffel or similar.

Imagine getting to plan the bombing missions and assigning targets to each kette, that's the good stuff.

Getting a bit of supply stuff in there as well where you can decide to ferry in some more bombs or get more fuel or a few more tents. The better you perform the more supply you get, just like in real life.

Now I just have to learn why my left engine always blows up even though I nurse my HE-111 like a baby.

-C-

I just watched the video. Every time Loft explains his narrow definition of a "game" I feel my excitement and anticipation about this game slipping away. This just leaves me shaking my head. I really hope it is fun, and I will reserve judgment until I can play the single player, but I must say that at this point I am hearing alarm bells. If you want to make a "game" then why base it on history at all? I just don't get the logic. And I get that mods are commonplace these days, but it seems odd to me that a developer would rely on them to shoulder the burden of providing the richest and most comprehensive historical content for their game. It sounds like Jason is in agreement with the rest of us, too. I appreciate his honest contribution to this thread. I really hope the decision to go this route wasn't 777/1C "jumping the shark."

Simmers don't want a deep rpg experience in their sims!!???

Pardon...

WOFF kicks ROF all over the place as a single player sim due to it's amazing single player experience.

Rather shocking to hear this sort of statement from a sim developer. When games like Ed Baron are still raved about. The BIGGEST problem with most recent sims is the fact they have a rubbish campaign system and barely cater for the single player.

yeesh

Git yer bags fellers

Not when you add PWCG to RoF, but I agree with you about everything else.

Agree with Wodin.

Just throwing this out there, but why doesn't 777 just approach Pat Wilson about hiring him on to build a campaign engine for BoS? Just cut through the BS, make this guy an employee, and let him have at it.

I sympathize with 777 in trying to guess what the market actually wants, but in terms of single player I think the overwhelmingly successful titles speak load and clear.

Jason said he has already approached Pat Wilson about it and Pat told him WWII aviation doesn't interest him. Pat is a professional programmer already and I doubt he would leave his regualr job for a short term project even if Jason paid him.

But, Jason's posting on Page 2 is promising and as Hooves has said the Devs may have underestimated the WWII community and it may be they underestimated how much the IL-2 FMB is used by everyday players also. I don't know anybody who plays IL-2 1946 and CloD who doesn't use it. They aren't uber campaign builders but they play around with it all the time to set things up to suit. It's half the fun of these sims and gives them longevity.

This guy got it spot on IMHO on the BOS forum:

1./JG42Nephris said:

Looks a bit like controll bondage on their side.
Controlling grafic presets
Controlling skin management
Controllng user name
Controlling diffculty settings
Controlling fmb accessors
At each single it is not much, but all in all it bothers a lot.
It is no bad game, and for a quick jump after work it fine for 30mins
But I dont see the way the game will tie users like Il2 1946 did over 12 yrs.
Yes I know 30% to go ....however dont expect any changes in that points.
And now, stone me, for not sharing the "kumbaya feeling".


Control bondage....men, throw me away here, if it just wasnt such a damn...pity.

Pat Wilson building a campaign engine would be a dream come true!

Pat will make his code available to anyone who has the skills to use it. It's written in Java.

Jason

Hope we get to choose the options regarding campaign and SP difficulty - I like to play with the highest realism setting, save external views (I love looking at my plane).

Like many others in this thread, I feel really disappointed by choice of using the grind and unlock system rather than an historical and immersive campaign. Sure, we can cross fingers and hope that the community will come up with a Pat Wilson's type of campaign generator in a few years, if we're lucky... I guess I'll go back to ROF and give up on any hope to see a good WW2 sim for a couple of years at least again.

I partially agree. On the other hand Im thankful to have ANYTHING to nit-pik over.

I just want to fly, and I suspect that's what drives most of us. I will fly everything out there, even CLOD at release. From 95 on its been wonderful with IL2 a high point ... it sustained me/us for over 11 years or so. Since then I can CLOD-TF, ROF, WOFF, DCS all I want, fun all yet all leave me at some point wanting? Along comes BOS and it works, it makes me smile, it continues 'weekly' to sustain that smile. Like long ago. Great, and if something better does show up, and its viable ... hell, Ill fly and gladly support that too.

One would hope, one would hope.

Reality ... We all know how many developers are out there or on the horizon today .... how many will there be in 5 years, in 10 years?

I think some people are reading this the most negative way possible.

Does it not occur to you that "grind and unlock" are exactly how historical campaigns work? You start with the earliest models, as time passes (as missions are flown) later equipment becomes available and you can then use it.
Instead of sticking with historical dates for this but making your progression thru time random (because some campaigns you fly more than once a day, some daily, some perhaps weekly or whatever), instead it's based on effort.

If it takes say 100xp to "unlock" underwing cannons for the 109, you can get them faster by flying high difficulty missions with no aids (maybe earn 25xp per mission) or take your time by flying lower difficulty ones (earning maybe 10xp per mission). If you want to say yourself "low xp missions occur more frequently than high XP so it takes the same amount of historical time", fine.

As he said, making full historical OOBs for each airfield and when this squadron moved where and had what equipment is increasing their development task immensely. It can be done later if necessary. But you can "do it yourself". If you know what plane flew from where and when, the just pick that plane at that time from that spot as a fighter pilot, voila! If like me you don't really care as much about that, you just want the right planes in the theater at that time, then you can just fly a fighter, then a bomber, then switch airfields, then back, whatever.

Full historical "unlocks" via time. This is will "unlock" via a gauge you have the ability to control yourself, but still you won't be flying the best and baddest from the first day.



The Jedi Master

I think some people don't understand that many of us who play MP have no interest whatsoever in playing the SP campaign.

I don't really care about the grind and unlock. I think it's silly and a poor design choice but it isn't a huge deal. What is a huge deal is forcing me to either choose "normal" mode wherein I have to play with all the on screen prompts, HUD assists, icons, and simplified flight mechanics or "expert" with cockpit-only view, full CEM, and no assists. Interesting that the devs love to fall back on the "it's a game! It should be fun!" Line whenever someone criticizes one of their design decisions yet they then go and remove the ability of the player to chose how they wish to play and enjoy the game all because doing so would ruin their stupid two tier XP award system.

The lack of markings, squadron and player stars and any sense of continuity in the "campaign" just adds to the disappointment.

This is good, but without a deeper purpose for flying, it kind of makes sims dull. Especially if you don't play PVP multiplayer.