Hello Flight Sim Aces...

I have purposely posted this here as I wanted the views and advice of Flight Sim Enthusiasts that don't necessarily play IL-2 Cliffs Of Dover.

Since its awfull debut a couple of years ago Cliffs Of Dover has gone through some pretty drastic changes. When it was released it was hardly playable and buggy. However all that has changed due to patches released by the devs and now a group of CLOD enthusiast programmers are hard at work creating new patches which have also greatly increased the games playability.

The game at present is some consider to be the best WW 2 flight sim on the market at the moment...including me who have clocked up over 700 hours on it online...Its great fun online and very addictive..

So my question is...Why are there still very few people playing it?....We all know that it had a bad start but surely that can't be the reason that people are reluctant to get involved with it now..Its been 2 years!...I mean if a sim/game is good...then its good and to not play it because of what it use to be or its history isn't beneficial to the individuals who love WW2 combat Flight sims who aren't playing it...

therefore , does anyone have any ideas as to how to get more people to take the plunge...?

Once bitten, twice shy perhaps? I have no idea to be honest. I know i've heard so much about it that i don't want anything to do with it.

....besides my original IL-2 ACEs/PF/WTF/BBQ etc skills were less then desirable anyway and ended up plunging to my death before i even sighted enemy planes in MP.

Any chance of getting a demo? Take a book out of the RoF guys. Provide one aircraft from each side, a limited map, and a decent range of toys to play with. Give your "on the fence" customers a fair chance to try out the "improved sim," have them yearning for more. If it's good, people will buy it and spread the word. Unfortunately, short of "converting" a good number of simmers to do your PR for you, I don't see how you can convince others after the massive negative experience when this was launched.

After this CloD fiasco, I'll never buy anything else with Ubisoft on it. I WOULD have bought CloD when it was released had it not required Steam. And no, I won't get into that debate again. Steam is simply a no-go for me...period.

I've wanted to get from release. The performance issues I've heard about from the get go has kept me away. I have heard its gotten better. I would have got it last Steam sale but they never dropped the price much.

I'd buy it in a heart-beat if I could be assured it would run half way decent. Is this mod for it a fairly user friendly experience?

Big thanks for the input so far fellas...Its very informative for me to know what folks think who aren't fans of CLOD...thanks

COOT...Ive just asked at the ATAGS site and Ive been told by a couple of them over there that you would be able to play CLOD no problem with your specs.......Check the ATAGS website for info...they are very helpfull there and thats where the patch makers are too...and Hey, if I can install the patch on my own without help then anyone can do it!!...Here's a link to the ATAGs site...

http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/index.php

Also the game isn't expensive on steam....£10...$15

...lew...

My personal take on Cliffs of Dover:

- Original DRM is a no go for me
- Buggy release
- It pissed off Oleg since his original idea for the sim was crapped on

That was then but now here are my points:

- DRM is a no go for me
- Upcoming competition that has the enthusiasm + spirit of the original IL2 series and then some is getting attention of my $$$ and time

Now here is a question for you:

What can Cliffs of Dover do to convince me to try it out, make it a worthwhile purchase to enjoy? Is there a demo? Was the draconian DRM removed? Is it single player friendly?

Your turn.

Thanks THX...thats interesting

I think here that you can see by the recent videos of it in youtube if it is your type of sim or not..its kinda there in black and white really...But for the folks who are strongly committed in the belief that what happened 2 years ago on release is important enough to them that they would boycot a sim that they may well get a lot of enjoyment from...well you'd certainly be a tough cookie to crack THX..and I certainly wouldn't attempt it...The thing is you are not alone...there are a lot out there that feel that way and maybe rightfully so...I was dissapointed too on release...but I gave it a second chance and haven't looked back...I just think that its a shame others haven't done the same...I feel they are missing out...because it is very good now..

Onlne is where its at..not single player...just like the original IL-2

Thasks for yor input

I have no issues with steam but the price of US$50 puts me off. Especially for a game that is 2 years old. I mostly enjoy single player games as well so MP holds no major attraction for me. Coming from NZ the internet latency can be quite horrendous. I'd maybe look into it if I knew what kind of following it had in this region. Until those issues are addressed BoB:WoV keeps me very happy

Sorry but I enjoy single player more than online. That still hasn't been fixed. There are other problems that were there at launch that still haven't been fixed. All the crap that happened at launch and that it has been abandoned by official support doesn't make me want to spend money on it. That third party volunteers could fix a number of the problems show how shoddy the coding was.

I'm only interested in the single player as well. I usually am when it comes to sims. I don't need a hardcore campaign but there's needs to be something there to make it interesting.

The price is $15 on steam....

Checkout the forums here for missions and single player questions....

http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/index.php

Bearing in mind that the majority of active members on SimHQ are US based perhaps (and this is not a criticism) this theatre of war with it's limited plane set has small appeal.
I've tried it, but I don't think it stands up to IL2 UP3 Channel Map with some excellent online missions and offline campaigns that the talented chaps in my squadron, Chuffy's Flying Circus
Chuffys
and others mainly featured at M4T have come up with. Not to mention all the other intriguing theatrea and planes available to one.
That's just my opinion, of course influenced by my rather limited kit and caboodle and poor B/band speed.

Actually after living in the UK for 12 years i find this theatre more interesting then the Pacific.
Others may say different. I also play BoB WoV for my BoB fix.

Ok, I'm a CoD offline flier, so I'll try to answer some of the offliner questions


No- and as TF don't have the rights to the game there almost certainly never will be- same answer to Steam being removed (I don't think Steam is great either- particularly for SP who are the majority of players for flight sims)

It isn't SP unfriendly- tho the missions/campaigns released with it are pretty crap (just like IL2 the best stuff is user created- I would highly recommend HeinKill's REDUX campaigns at Airwarfare
http://airwarfare.com/sow/index.php/down...ux-raf-campaign
- but then I might be slightly biased )
There are still some issues, most can be worked around by taking it for it's own sake and not demanding everything is JUST like IL2, eg:-
Comms- they do work - sort of
AI- most of the problems here were mission builders not realising how to set skill levels. Every sim I've known has some people complain about the AI. It's not BoBII, but it can do some thing well on occassion (and also some dumb things)

Mission builder- is very similar to IL2- ie nearly anyone can use it. It does have some more features and can be made complex if you get into the scripting side (NOT essential). There's a selection of user made missions/campaigns at Airwarfare- more than some other sims with STEEP mission builder learning curves. Again, I might be slightly biased, but I like the extra features over IL2, they enable me to build the kind of missions I like to play.

Missions tend to be a bit more involved than say IL2, due to higher level of CEM modelling, bit simpler than DCS P51D, but more variety of flyables/opponents. Feeling of flight is similar, maybe a bit below DCS but alot more involved than BoBII/IL2. Personally after CoD I find these 2 hard to go back to (and I like both of them ALOT, particularly DBW version of IL2)

It does need a fairly good rig to enjoy it, but improvements by the orig dev team, and now TF, are making it run on more mainstream computers( and a higher level of average user's computer helps).

All in all, for the £10-15 it goes for (if it's still $50 in NZ then that sucks big time) it's a good alternative if you want something slightly more involved than IL2 and maybe a notch down from DCS.
I find flight sims to be a very individual thing, some 'click' and some don't. For me , I've put in over a 1000 hrs in it and am still enjoying it . YMMV

Prices vary for different regions. It's still $50 for me to buy on steam.

Yoikes..Thats disappointing...I wonder if getting a UK buddy to give it you as a gift in steam works....might be worth looking into...

EDIT:..I just looked into it and here is the result

Is it allowed if I ask someone else to buy a game that is not locked to a region, and gift it to me?

Yes, this is allowed. BY THE WAY, this also works fine on region locked games. It helps to have a friend in a non-locked country like USA, because they can buy the game and gift it to you, and it's perfectly legal.

Hi lewis,

Mighty good video there - 2nd time I have seen it and enjoy it. You and your friend put alot of soul into the fighting, which is nice to se.

I got CLoD 6 month after it was released and can now look back at some great time I have spend on ATAG server, flying mostly Spits at the beginning and at the end mostly 109.

I didn`t leave CLoD and ATAG server because of the missions or because of the BoB theme - BoB is a favorite of mine I left Clod because maybe I flew in a JG which wasn`t for me and that way lost interest (too many individuals in the JG thinking Im gods gift to CLoD and Aircombat),

I remember when I started out on the ATAG server it was a blast joining ATAG TS and starting up the Spit engine - always someone in the Allied room on TS to join up with.

So! What happend was that I simply lost interes after joining the JG. CLoD is still installed and I have installed both the TF patches so who knows

Your video did put a smile on my face, which is positive. Good luck with it mate and maybe we will se eachother in the sky on ATAG.

Kind regards
saf1

Good to have your input here saf1....and interesting to have the opinion of someone who gave CLOD a good go and then lost interest...Have fun in your future games..Thanks

...lew...

Thanks for that. I'll certainly look into it once I'm a bit more flush