Well there's no doubt that not everyone agrees on how to score IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad, but I think the real problem is taking the ego out of the equation for a starter. To many cyber pilots.... trying to give this game an unbiased review is just not possible since they cannot separate the personalities which have bubbled to the top throughout the production process. No matter where you stand on just how good the game is I believe many of us "Founders" can attest to a shift in public relations when the early access money soliciting was coming to an end.

If you read the two existing reviews on the game posted in SimHQ and CombatAce the game falls right about where I personally believe the game should be. It's a solid game with a great foundation and one that has worked flawlessly throughout the production stages. Updates are smooth, and communication throughout the process between the developers and the Founders has for the most part been good.


I blame a lot of my misconceptions about the overall plans for the game on myself for not taking the time to peruse the various sections of the forum where they had their "vision" posted. Like many, I put a lot of trust in the 777's affiliation to the project and just "assumed" and we all know that's a no no, that the game would have the same features of it's WWI cohort, Rise of Flight...WRONG ASSUMPTION!

Then there was the forum battle of posts.... It went on for months and still continues, less a few passionate posters....This is when we as "Founders" attempted to make our points in relation to some of the games problematic areas. The one that comes to my mind the best is the FM of my beloved Bf-109. Several posters went down in flames of glory out of frustration and the harassment by the "it's not a finished product" crowd and all those that rallied around the poor defenseless developers...Oh brother...stop it, my heart's breaking...

We were told by the moderators that we were posting the same comments and inflaming the forum with repetitious and monotonous gibberish. The really amazing thing, is that particular issue, which went on for at least 2 months, was diffused as soon as Zak came onto the forum and confirmed our findings. Amazing, isn't it? That communication with the Founders... with an exchange of ideas in a respectful manner could actutally bring about some closure to a concern that we as "investors" might have with the game.

That's another point that I personally feel has been underplayed.....we were investors and as such we had a "vested" interest in this game. Passions run high, about as high as the money we put down, I would say. For me, it was worth it, but I felt like I was a paid member of a forum that I was afraid to even express my true concerns. Am I traumatized by it.....no, heck no...I'm a big boy and this is after all a game. But this is how I personally experienced this ride down production lane.

I can't count the number of posts I wrote and was afraid to post over at the BOS Forum. It shouldn't be that way. They were not attacking posts, but issues that ran counter to the production team,and like it or not, that place was, and is, a controlled "company" forum. I don't want to get personal with the moderators and I'd like to call them my friend as they do share many of my same opinions and interests in the CFS world. We will just have to agree to disagree on the points I'm making here....

There were many other issues that surfaced not the least of which were the "unlocks" and the way the US server was shut down so unceremoniously. Tactfully done, I think not. Slamming the door in the Multiplayer arena like that and alienating CFS squadrons was not a smart move and it was done in such a seemingly curt and flippant manner.

Well, it's no wonder we are having problems evaluating the game with so much "me" in the equation. I mean, I'm pissed, I'm upset, I, I ,I. But behind all that ego there is in fact a game, and it does perform many things very well. Granted, it has some problem areas, but comparing it to other past releases, it's a work of art.

I am just saying to everyone ticked off, I personally understand, and I agree with the sentiment, to a point. But IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad on it's own.....will more than likely be tweaked out to be another great classic combat flight simulation. Bargain bin or not....Veteran's Mission Pak alone has brought many of us back out and firing up the game again.

That's my take....and I know many do not agree, but that's the great thing about an open forum like SimHQ...we can express our opinions without the "company" breathing down our necks.

Photo is by Obelix, CFS Squad based in France battling it out on the Russian server a few days ago.

QMB yesterday.
Only one survived (maybe).

The one thing I don't like about Kickstarts, Early Access, and that sort of stuff is that it has a tendency to produce massive chips right around the shoulder area.

Leaving ego out of it? Not sure what you mean. Are you are talking about leaving the idiotic decisions made and the outburst from 777/1c, and overbearing moderators on the forum left out?

If I never read or heard anything about BoS I would still view the game the same. I DID assume it would be better, even after reading some the "vision" and DD's. I really thought it sounds stupid....but there is no way they are going to make it that way. Then they did. Bad on me.

At the same time some of the things people accuse others of not reading and understanding is so far fetched. You really think a person that is going to pick up BoS is going to go back through all the dev notes and posts? Especially when you slap an IL2 name on it? Get real.

Without the stupendous PR work they have done, the game itself is still a 4/10 in my book. Its a little more than an impersonal QMB, with nothing "new". And by new I mean good new, not unlocks, XP points, and a pilot level. I am talking about something that makes it stand out. They have not done that in SP or MP.

Generic and boring is the best way to describe the product. Throw in the "ego" and its generic and boring with a mix of unprofessionalism and shady business.

JagdNeun

Oh that is a total load of BS!!! You have to pick a side, Fan Boy or Hater, Join their ranks, Stand your Ground, Never Fear the Moderators, Never Back Down and always remember your Opinion is the Gospel Truth and you must assauge others of your Godlike Presence in their midst to ease their feelings of uneasiness and perpetuate their acceptance of your Divinely Given Wisdom!!!



S!Blade<><

I love the Christmas colors Blade...Nice touch.

That is my take as well and pretty much has been since the beginning. By now everyone knows.. or should know that I am just as unhappy about some things some of the same things in fact as everyone else. I just handled it differently .. and I handled it differently not because I had to.. or because I was obligated to.. I just handled it the way I handle this kind of stuff.. The same way I handled CFS 3.. the same way I handled CoD (TF! ) and DCS WWII ... (TY ED!! ). Only with BoS ... because I was able to, (actually run the sim..which I could not do with CFS 3 or CoD initially.. and with CFS 3 I just gave up..) I just had to decide whether I wanted to suck it up and do something I really did not like, and was no happy about, namely doing that campaign..or settle for not having all the features in a sim I dropped close to a yard on.. so I chose to suck it up and get on with it.

As for the forums.. and I won't go on long about that because .. we are not there we are here... I can only speak for myself as just one moderator at the BoS boards ... but my goal was never to stifle complaints at BoS. Most of the locked threads wound up being that way because either in actuality or based on previous history discussions had a way of going south real quick due to the level of emotion and the passion on all sides and any side of the issues at hand. There was never a company line to toe.. we were just trying to make it easier for us to moderate by pointing the hoses at anyone with matches because there were so many fires popping up that we just could not handle it all. I will be the first one to admit that there were some folks with matches who either didn't get doused and should have .. or managed to start or fan a few fires themselves before they got doused.. on both sides.




I think perhaps the term emotion might convey what he means a little more... There is so much emotion.. like... raw anger and vein in the head popping rage just dripping from some posts throughout the various forums since this has all come about which often fuels other emotions.. some like minded some not and I think what he means is, if some people took their emotions out of it and looked at just from as objective a perspective as they could muster.. some would perhaps see clearer on what is actually there. For instance.. we have had .. forum activities, moderators, shady business, unprofessionalism and more all tossed into mix of what BoS is .. but in reality none of that has much to do with the product.

Like one reviewer said... if the main thing that is wrong with BoS is unlocks and locks... what do we really have here? For many it ain't perfect.. but it ain't bad.. Now for some it is a PoS still and will always be a PoS.. and for some it is the greatest WWII sim made in over a decade and will always be that. My view lies within the purple for the most part...




I never did like the "fanboi" and "hater" labels.. they are almost as over modeled as the "cheat" label...

"For instance.. we have had .. forum activities, moderators, shady business, unprofessionalism and more all tossed into mix of what BoS is .. but in reality none of that has much to do with the product."

All of the above has everything to do with the product and how it is perceived.

Another opinion, without a wall of text but just as valid.

God I love Sarcasm ......

Chief

HeHE
What Sarcasm????????

S!Blade<><

Wall of text.... ? Really....... and your point is?

Look .... This thread is full of opinions.. and I don't know why you would think that I would think your opinion was less valid than anyone else's .. or that mine was more valid... My opinion is only valid to me and folks who share it.. the same can be said for yours.. We are just having a discussion here .. or at least I am. I am still not quite sure what you are trying to do.

"Like one reviewer said... if the main thing that is wrong with BoS is unlocks and locks... what do we really have here? For many it ain't perfect.. but it ain't bad.. Now for some it is a PoS still and will always be a PoS.. and for some it is the greatest WWII sim made in over a decade and will always be that. My view lies within the purple for the most part... "

Unfortunately that's not even close to the facts. There are so many things wrong with BoS and the main one is un-fixable: the DN engine. It is unable to cope with player and AI numbers sufficient to provide an authentic online war experience. The best it will ever provide, even if they fix the bent FMs, the broken hit-sounds and the incredibly shallow DM, is an air-quake dogfight server scenario.

In my opinion.

Some people are giving a lecture.

I don't see any reason why the number of player and AI units it can support is unfixable. Of course it's fixable. It certainly could and likely is, however, be an impractically large job considering their time and resources.

I'm not even close to knowing as much about all this as you guys......so bear with me...but wasn't the server that they shut down here in the US a big hit with the guys? I mean it seemed that way....because there were a lot of positive comments concerning the progress AbortedMan and crew had made, only to have the rug jerked out from under them.

48 slots...is that not enough? I get what your saying, the large scale war experience, might have to be cut back to a smaller scale, with not as many targets roaming the skies...and perhaps less ground targets as well? I know the markings and skins are a bummer as well.

As far as air quake dogfight scenario, if you have a set mission, target goals, and coordinated attacking and defending aircraft within a historical setting...even though it's smaller scale, doesn't that take it out of the AirQuake setting? I mean, I'm hoping the goal will be for guys to setup their own servers and missions, as soon as the ME can start pumping out scenarios...Granted..it will not match what COD with TF mods has accomplished.

But I am seeing video from the French and Belgium pilots that looks promising...Albeit on a much smaller scale then you're used to....

It goes to show that immersion is different for different players. For some it is all about graphicss and the feeling of flight, which BoS is very good at. For others like me, its "tell me a good story." Get me feeling like I'm part of something. For others it is the massive numbers like in BoB II.

And of course we all want some of all of the above. In my case, give me a good campaign and I can easily settle for 30 or 40 planes in the air between both sides. In WWII the huge bomber formations over Germany were spread out over miles, so most of the planes were just dots in the sky to attacking German pilots.

I'm less concerned about plane count, and more concerned about a lack of a story in BoS. When I won the "Young Pilots Badge" I felt like I had won a Cub Scout award and that was it for me.

Right now I'm just trying to get BoS to run and hoping for an adult SP Campaign experience.

When you do get it to running Bucksnort...Veterans missions are really good...at least for me they are. SOW and IOW, and DID....all were large scale wars back in the day. They were fun, but even they might be smaller than Werner is referring to....don't know. But you're right its all about individual preference....Hope you get it running Bucksnort...

Well no flight sim is perfect. One really appealing thing about the DN sims is that all the AI use the same flight model as the player. Cliffs of Dover does a great job at filling the sky with planes which for the BoB is important to get that feel you're really there but it does that by using simple fm for the AI. It's just a compromise. No sim really could portay some of the actual numbers.

1CGS gave them money to run the server and then AM started bad mouthing the game on the forum. So justifiably 1CGS cut off their funds. They quite literally bit the hand that fed them. It was a great server, hopefully they start it up again.

Abortedman made a comment criticising the unlocks because of the way it would interfere with mission design. It wasn't an over the top complaint but it was enough for 1C/777 to childishly and petuantly remove access to the server.