If that is marketing spin --- then they are dead and just won't admit it, if on the other hand it is truly what they believe and the empirical results show something quite different....then they are the proverbial dead man walking...and can't execute...

either way...you end up in the same place... a product which is demonstrably inferior to what preceded it while it claims to be the "successor" to.

I can't get smooth play in this game no matter how much time I spend tweaking it....and it seems tied directly to object density....and of which CLOD just blows BoS out of the air on.

Same here. I still haven't tried Bearcat's ideas, but that's my last trick as I've tried everything.

Well, one is an actual IL-2 title with vision of Oleg. The other not so much. I've been saying for years what BoS will be, compared to what we're used to for IL-2. Back then, I was labeled someone with an axe to grind or "insert insult here". Now, obviously, everyone can see for themselves that everything I've said is indeed right on the money.




The DN engine has never allowed the air war to support the ground war. It's just not in the cards. After constant hounding about the limitations, I was basically told they'd need to spend millions and create a new game engine in order to do anything more than what you can currently. Obviously, we're not getting a new game engine anytime soon.



This is pretty complicated. 1st off, for anyone that has IL2COD, you'll notice the folder that says SoftClub. SoftClub was an investor for Clod. The problem (depending on how you look at it) was SoftClub started butting heads with Oleg. Whether it be about release status, money already spent, readiness of the game, Oleg, as we all know, strives for perfection. The money men at Softclub didn't much care other than getting some return on their investment.

This back and forth goes on for a while, before Oleg finally decides it's not "worth it" to put up with the crap any longer. If anyone has been following Oleg, you'll notice his latest revolutionary achievement with Vizzera (spelling?) is just one more revolutionary piece of software for his portfolio. He's essentially created a software that allows people to have a tour of a proposed house, structure, or any sort of construction project (big or small) before the 1st piece of machinery is on the job site for putting down the correct grade. And this software will show any design flaws before the project is even started. Just like anything else he does, it has made waves across the industry.

So with Oleg throwing in the towel, also goes with him his main programmer. To say IL2COD code is complex is an understatement. Inside sources, which I will not mention, have said IL2FB (yep 2001), is much more complex than ROF code. Now when you realize Clod is 100x the complexity of IL2FB, you get a real sense of just how much there is going on in Cliffs. So imagine the guy that knows everything about the code is now gone. And the person that created the vision for the game is now gone. In comes Ilya, trying to save it all. The new programmer can't make heads or tails of things (understandable as few on the planet probably could).

Just as a side note for complexity before continuing. Imagine you're playing your favorite flight sim and you look at the altimeter. Seems pretty simple to get a reading from the sea level / ground level put in the game from some sort of coding. And you're right, it would be. But no no no, not Oleg. Instead he has to go take the actual engineering and mathematical calculations directly from the company that made the altimeter for the British planes, and then turns around and does the same thing for the German/Italian counter parts. That means the percentage of error, the needle movements, right down to the exacting fluctuations, are all based on the real life altimeters as well. Would you or anyone else notice something like this? Heck no! If we were ever to think of such a thing (how do they figure out the altimeter in game?) we'd just think (use formula that measures distance from the ground to the plane -/+ the elevation of actual ground and we'd get reading in our planes. So, then couple this knowledge, this painstaking detail into the other instruments in the plane, and next thing you know, you realize just how much is going on, and all for something you'd never even notice in the 1st place.

So while Ilya is trying to salvage the sim, and is forced to release the game, he's also on a time table for IL2-Online (BoM). The reason for the lack of fixes, painstaking slow fixes etc., are simply because the programmer had to try to learn someone else's 1/2 finished code and code that is stupendously complex. There's aren't many people on the planet that could probably work with it or make heads or tails of it. Lets just say, anyone who thinks the FMs in IL2COD are simple, should really see the flight model code sometime. You name the parameter, the calculations, the physics of ANYTHING the plane is doing, the math, physics, engineering, and calculations are all there.

Luckily, one of those (1 in a billion) genius programmers is in TF. All the stuff that the programmers couldn't fix with source code, our guy is doing without. The programmer for Ilya worked for months trying to fix the atmosphere bug (planes would only go so high / vanilla game), while our guy, without the code, somehow figures it out, re-writes quite a bit of stuff, some having to do exhaust back pressure amongst other things, and viola, it works. Same could be said about 1000 different things, the mirrors, the track editor, netcode, w/e.

The point is all of this, to be perfectly blunt, they didn't work with the Cliffs engine because, quite frankly, there's no way in hell they'd be able to figure it out. This is not a knock or anything, but they can't even figure out how to put trim on an axis so all us flight simmers could actually use those expensive throttle quadrants we bought.

So in the end, it is what it is. We'd love to make 1C money and we'd love to expand Cliffs. With or without them, we're not going to stop anytime soon. To throw this piece of simulation software away would be the biggest travesty in all of WWII flight simming IMO.

And the reality of the situation is the only reason this got totally dumped, is because 777 went to 1C with their "ours is the greatest" propaganda machine, right when IL2COD was hurting the most. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the original IL2 (2001 release) didn't completely return on it's investment until several expansions later. And through all those expansions it ends up being the best selling CFS on the planet with millions upon millions of copies sold. Cliffs could have and should have gone the same route. Once the engine was fixed and it was a content and feature pumping out machine, they would have been on easy street for many many many years to come. And with that Clod engine (ability to interact with ground forces, tanks, AI, artillery etc) there's well over a decade before anyone would ever think it's getting "old".

My personal guess is that the RoF code and the CloD code are very different in a very simple way - documentation. A lot of programmers don't put any remarks in their code out of hubris ("this is obvious and anyone halfway smart can see it), lack of time/laziness ("you can get it done right, or you can get it done right now"), or as a way to build in job security.

In my last job in the Army I wrote some Visual Basic scripts. Scripts, mind you, not some nice program where one gets to draw a box and put in drop down menus, but scripts that had in text where to put a box, it's size, etc., as well as the code underneath all of them.

I was self taught and it really, really showed. The stuff worked okay, but there was the inevitable bug or two that needed fixed. Because I didn't know any better, I titled all the subroutines with names that matched what they did and put in comments so that when I opened it back up in the future I'd remember what I did.

When I turned it over to one of our officers with a degree in stuff like that (yeah, let the guy with the High School Diploma and two years of college do programming and regression modeling and stuff that officially requires a Master's degree), he groaned at first and then started laughing as he quickly dug in and fixed stuff. He showed me something done by another officer where subroutines were labeled using colors and written numbers; he wanted to be required in order to work on it, and didn't want anyone else to be able to work on it.

Great post bliss.
Some real eyeopening stuff right there mate.

Sd

Indeed, interesting read

Thanks for the insight Bliss, very interesting stuff. Oleg really is a visionary artist (with his own peculiar moments of short-sightedness...Fw190 bar...cough... ).

Bliss has made the Paul Harvey Post.... "And now you know the rest of the story" for US radio listeners who are over the age of 40...

That single post by Bliss explains a lot and fills in the holes within the narrative....and confirms suspicions I had when comparing the TF CLOD with BoS that they were really not comparable.....like comparing a jet with a biplane....both had wings...but..

So that's it then....BoS even if it fixes its bugs and changes the fundamental flaws (unlocks, graphics presets, etc) will probably always be limited to a small number of dynamic objects and no link between ground and air....this also seems to explain developer actions that are conscious moves to distance themselves from CLOD...they don't want the comparison as they cannot compete there....and have to seek a less demanding audience...because they simply cannot deliver a product like in the past.

None of this would be controversial had they not targeted the same market and brand followers for early access and then continued to ride on the coat tails of Oleg and IL-2 with sales marketing.

Thanks Bliss, for the insight that makes a lot of sense to me. TF CLOD is just a fantastic sim...no doubt about it.

Not the same bro, I've been working for a big IT company on several projects (some small and some really huge - more than 40 programmers around the world), it was a common procedure to have internal documentation and comments in the code. So yeah most of time there are some documentation (might not be the best but there is always something, even from third party codes).
I would say that most of time the biggest difference is between common programmers (typically from university) and those real talented one (most of time without degree), the first one are just so tied to university teachings.

Thanks for the response Bliss. That IS eye opening and explains a lot.

This is a bummer for people expecting BoS to be something "good" in time though.

Bliss.
Sorry but I have to ask.

As you seem to know so much about the trails and tribulations and back end workings of the CloD release. were you a part of the team? or do you know someone who was? I only ask as you seem to know an awful lot about what went on back in 2010
Are you a disgruntled employee? LOL
Sorry I'm a bit pissed (drunk)
but what a great post.

SD

Excellent read Bliss

In case anyone thinks TL;DR it is well worth it. Interesting post Bliss.

Why does this matter? BoS is a flight sim, not a ground war game. So is Cliffs of Dover yet their team wasted time making drivable ground vehicles.

But this is after SEVEN YEARS! of working on the game! That's an unbelievable eternity in game development time! How much longer would have been necessary to finish CoD?! Ten years?! Don't attack 777 because they actually succeeded where everyone else has failed. Creating a good working WWII combat flight sim. When 777 made Rise of Flight they didn't obsess over cockpit instruments for 6 years. They got the job done on time and made it work. Oleg might have been brilliant in other ways but he clearly had no sense of proportion in managing the development.

But "complex" does not meant "better". Not by any stretch of the imagination does Forgotten Battles have a better game engine than RoF
The system spec for one of those old IL-2 games can be met by one of today's smartphones. So how sophisticated can it really be?

So Oleg should really have just taken the existing IL-2 engine and taken away graphic customisation and achieved exactly the same as BOS then.

You just said above that nobody can figure out Olegs programming after he left. So why is 777 wrong for not continuing to bang thei head against the wall trying? Should 1CGS have wasted another decade trying to make a new WWII flight sim? I for one am thankful they did not.

Please don't start the myth of the "DaMaddox Code" where the keys to the perfect flight sim lie hidden in the geious code left behind.

I'm not saying these because I hate Cliffs of Dover, it has many great features. There's room on my machine for all these sims. But it's development shouldn't serve as an example for anyone to emulate.

That's the only difference you notice between the two?