DCS World 1.5 out in September

From Matt Wagner:



http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2438151&postcount=40

No waiting for NTTR then. A good choice I think.

Nate

Releasing EDGE without the Nevada map is Ok for me. I'm really looking forward to seeing the rendering improvements for WW2 dogfights. Nevada still seems to need quite a bit of work though. Christmas release anyone?

http://www.lockonfiles.com/topic/40771-dcs-world-v15-new-rendering-engine-due-september/

Good, I'm not getting Nevada free anyway, so no point making us wait for it to be done before they release the rest.

However, 1.5 is weird. I thought DCS2 was basically everything EXCEPT Nevada? So now we're getting a Q3 release of 1.5 not 2.0.



The Jedi Master

I guess they decided that to go to 2.0 it should include everything?

Come on people...be happy that we are getting SOMETHING earlier than expected. I sure am.

September 2015 is not earlier than expected, it's extremely late.

A game I own is getting a free upgrade patch, this is where I'm supposed to rage on the internet right?

Shack on target. Multiple secondaries.

The road this thread is heading towards looks familiar...should I just lock it now? lol


Deep breaths...in-out

This is a "cooler heads prevailed" moment. The bugs that are left are probably doosies, as ED is incorporating a lot of changes at once (unified EXE, new graphics engine, new netcode, NTTR, ATC). Hopefully many of the bug fixes for 1.x.x addressed in the 2.0 development track will make it in as well.

For now, I can live without the unified EXE, new multiplayer code and improved ATC (though I'd love the multiplayer code). The incremental release is important to give the long suffering AMD graphics card users some relief and give us a benchmark for what our hardware should look like. And an incremental release will delay the torches and pitchforks that would have come out if DCS 2 wasn't bug free.

Who said ATC is improved?

Given ED's history on deadlines, I'll just go ahead and do the only sensible thing: Not expect anything to be delivered, but be quite pleasantly surprised if they do come through on their claim.

It is being worked on - no ETA though. The Revised ATC work was the stated cause of many crashes in the first live stream.

Nate

I thought the plan was always to release it as 2.0 and the release of Nevada would likely come later. Wonder if they will make the September release though. I really want the new terrian, mainly the middle east one, but not at the prices they are asking.

Are there any videos or screenshots of 1.5 available anywhere? I'd like to see it.

Hmmm ED say Sept 2015. I doubt it.

Finally, an actual improvement. I'll take anything right now. In spite of my tone let me say it's a good decision by ED to do this, instead of making for an even longer wait. Sure, I'll take the new graphics engine now - wasn't going to do anything except fly the hog until the hornet arrives anyway.

It was just building ATC to work with Nevada, no improvement at all I have heard of.

Actually Wags has mentioned that they are working on improvements to the ATC.

Correct. I can't dig through to find where but Wags mentioned an overhaul of the ATC system. Supposedly it'll allow more procedures, like the overhead, as well as eventually support for Case I/II/III launches and recoveries at the boat.

Oh neat, a much needed improvement that affects every flight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXlm-ywkgRk

Great News!

If they also change the clouds on Release for 1.5, I will be very happy!!

My only concern is that by releasing "1.5" now this will delay 2.0 even more, as they then rush to put out all the fires 1.5 brings. If we get to 1.5.12 before 2.0 I will scrape my nails on a chalkboard and upload the sound to ED.




The Jedi Master

My thoughts exactly....I wish ED would just continue with the development of 2.0 and deliver it when it's ready, together with some truthful announcements and better planning.

The cynic in me suggests that Wag's online streams are really there to keep people quiet amongst the rest of the clutter. I'll be interested to see the content of future newslettters as I have a feeling there will be less and less news on the basis that the streams are supposedly showing progress. As far as I'm concerned the streams aren't really showing 'progress' at all....they're showing us footage we haven't seen before with no real idea of what's getting fixed/worked on at any given time.

My trust and belief in ED was lost a long time ago. Releasing 1.5 can only add further delays of v2.0 in my opinion. Just getting 1.5 ready to release will undoubtedly require a decent bit of effort on its own as I don't think it was ever detailed as any sort of alpha/beta candidate.

Just because ED says it will be released in September doesn't mean it will.

I see your point....but if getting 1.5 early means 2.0 comes even later - I'd rather not take the hit.

It depends on what's holding up 2.0. As I mentioned previously, they're putting a lot of new code into 2.0, and with as long as 2.0 has been delayed, ED has very little wiggle room with which to release in a reliable state. Just imagine the torches and pitchforks that would come out if 2.0 was delayed for over 2 years, and then came out slightly more playable than Falcon 4.0 in its initial release state.

If they're spending time on an interim release build with the graphics engine, then some of these 2.0 bugs must be heavy. This is to be expected; integration of this many features is bound to cause issues. But if they're willing to spend development time on this, it also means that they think that a near term release is more important than an all-or-nothing approach. If a developer does something that requires more work in the long term, there's probably a good reason for it.

And yet it also exposes the announcements in May (I think) which stated they were pushing everything to the testers with just a few bugs in place. They were either lying, miles off the mark or have moved the baseline they had set themselves.

This is where some people's opinions differ; you are saying that something requires this much extra work must have a good reason behind it....I say that ED are just incompetent during the planning and resourcing phases because their history suggests they simply just can't get it right and subsequently never hit their own estimates and release dates.

Personlly, I'd just prefer some honest communication from them. Everything they say just seems to contradict itself.

They did, and apparently the testers found bugs, which is to be expected. It's also like Wags said in his livestream: it's the last 5 yards that's the toughest because the hardest bugs are left for last. You could make an argument for prioritization on general principles, but it is human nature to fix the low hanging fruit first. And we don't know how much the bugs fixes are dependent on other fixes.



No question they have some issues to work out in the planning and resource allocation phases of project management, but right now they're knee deep in the proverbial swamp fighting off alligators. Somebody made the reasonable decision to beat some of the alligators and drain part of the swamp right now, saving the rest for later. Hopefully they will take a look at lessons learned from this project and apply them toward future efforts.

As far as honest communication, I think that they are putting out the best information they have based on what they know. It's the "what they know" part that leaves something to be desired, and that was addressed in the previous paragraph. I'll be the first to say that I would prefer more proactive communication when delays are imminent (see November/December 2014 as an example of failure), but at some point we just need to let them do their jobs. There's a balance somewhere in there.

Paradaz - "The cynic in me suggests that Wag's online streams are really there to keep people quiet amongst the rest of the clutter."

My thoughts exactly. Nothing new has been shown, just a lot of chaff and a little wheat. I actually find them aggravating as the EDGE engine clearly runs more smoothly/efficiently than what we've got now. That being said, I'll take what I can get from ED. They obviously have bigger fish fry than us consumers (I'm thinking they must do pretty good business in the private/military contract sector), and are spinning too many plates at once. You'd think they'd learn.

Like I said, even if 1.5 comes out in November of this year I'll be glad - ANYTHING to get out of DirectX 9c! God, I checked and that's been around for 10+ years (August '04)! Seems like it will happen too as it would fit ED's idiom of releasing something at least one generation old (DirectX 12 is at hand, and by all accounts a significantly improved API) and wondering why there are so many complaints.

As I said in the other thread, the part that annoys me is that if they could do this now, they could've done it earlier. Yet they were adamant it all had to stay as a single package...until they decided it didn't.

So many fixes and improvements had been put into 2.0 while we sat waiting for it, and now they're going ahead and will give us some of them without 2.0. ARGH!



The Jedi Master

Everything is subject to change! It's so confusing that I let what happens happens.

My question is will the 1.5 release be an alpha, beta or a "final" release? I'd hope they just polish up whatever they can and those few "alpha' features are saved for 2.0.

WOO HOO!

September ! Excellent news

Now in which century and year will this magical mythical september be I wonder?

Hey, forward progress.

About the September release
The september release probably means the very last of September, so do not come here Sept 2nd claiming "I told you they won't release". Next, this will be for Open beta, meaning we might get the actual release month or two later.

About 1.5 delaying 2.0
What is DCS 2.0? Mainly the new rendering engine (IG - image generator) plus some other features like multiseat, improved ATC, unified binary...
By having 1.5 we are actually getting the most important thing from 2.0 (better visibilify, better FPS), which we can test and the reported bugs will help 2.0 too. The rest of 2.0 features would of course be great to have ASAP, but it seems they might still take some time to finalize, so why not take these gradual steps?

I'm not convinced that the most important thing for everyone is is better visibility/fps, the sim has been out long enough now for most people to have the hardware that outputs this at a playable frame rate.

I'd say it's the new features that most of us want, including the new maps as this will quickly breathe new life into the game and provide many new hours of play - I believe there are many dependencies on 2.0 which 3rd parties and also waiting on in order to release their content so releasing 1.5 is only going to give a small lick of paint to what we already have.

If this is going to push 2.0 even further back like I've previously mentioned then personally I would wish ED didn't put the time and resources into something which ultimately just gives us the new rendering engine with the same map we have bad for almost 10 years now especially as this won't unhinge all the dependencies or creates more work for 3rd parties to work around if this means they can release something that's compatible in the interim.

The key part here is that ED haven't or won't give us a release date for 2.0 so we don't actually know if it will get pushed even further back or not - they probably have no idea themselves and don't want to show how clueless they are! If on the other hand, the 2.0 release date is unaffected by releasing 1.5 then there isn't a debate to have and it's a no brainer to keep customers happier than not releasing anything at all. It seems we've already reached the point where some people are happy just to receive 'anything' because that's a sign of progress even if the bigger picture is actually taking bigger hits.

Is there anyone out there who really still think that ED know what they're doing? No-one is claiming the work is easy but we're not talking about delays of months here , we're talking multiple years with the end of the tunnel even as an alpha still not being in sight.



Perhaps we can expect some news soon on exactly what 1.5 will provide, but after previous announcements on the existing map I guess we won't be seeing anything similar to the NTTR live streams, isn't it supposed to be lighting and other subtle changes? So what are we really going to gain from 1.5 apart from DX11 which probably has limited value for most people with already playable framerates and a map we've explored every nook and cranny of years ago.

I've no doubt some people still think ED can't 'win'....regardless of their announcements and situation they continue to receive criticism but the whole 1.5 release is still strange and imo only serves to get people off their backs however I don't really think they've thought it through beyond the short term. ED can 'WIN' very easily in my opinion.....All they need to do is tell us the release date of 2.0 and actually hit the target regardless of whether it is 6 months or 2 years away.

In other words you don't know yet. Nobody does. Perhaps this weeks live stream will give info on the features being held back for 2.0 and those that will arrive with 1.5.

Nate

That's it......................


..............................................

...... I'm calling matt wagner

No hardware on the planet solves the visibility issue, as it is now. Same applies to draw call limitations of DX9. Throwing monster rigs at 1.2.xx gives high and stable framerate but... only until lots of units show up and gatling guns / cluster munitions are being deployed against ground targets. So I would indeed consider visibility and performance to be the key problems which need to be dealt with first before anything other follows.

Look, it's like this.

ED is dammed if they do. They are also dammed if they don't.

Wondering If 1.5 will bring the hability to see the 3d world in the mission editor. That would be a great addition!!

I think that is one of the features of EDGE.

But they're mostly don't

So, 2.0 then?

EDGE (the graphics engine) is what we are getting with 1.5. What that may include should have been expanded upon during today's stream.

I'd like to know as well. Obviously the new engine (the main part of 2.0) is coming, but not the new terrian. From what I recall the terrian was always supposed to come later. I think this means not all the new features will make it. Maybe it is the 3D mode in the editor, maybe it is some of the new effects. Or maybe it will be everything.

I do hope the MIG-29 gets its new cockpit/model though.

Just Satellite View ala LOMAC.

Nate

Previously, the availability of a new module has resulted in a minor increment of the release ie 1.2.12 to 1.2.13. This makes sense.

An entire new rendering engine, unified GUI, expanded theater options, etc, taking it up to 2.0? That also made sense.
Remove ONLY the new theater from it and just call it 1.5?? Nope, I don't get it.

Typical ED, though. They know how to preach to the choir, but outside of our group they don't really know how to market.

If I was an outsider, I would automatically think that 2.0 was going to be a bigger leap up from 1.2 than 1.5. Not that the sole difference is being able to buy NTTR (since it's not included, so people who don't buy it will see NO change from 1.5).



The Jedi Master

I'd counter that to an outsider the stuff in 1.5, apart from the New render engine, is inconsequential.

Features like Dual MP control, and especially the improvement that Nevada gives, are a big enough to warrant the 2.0 moniker. The fact the Nevada is not free, doesn't come into it for me.

That said, the feature list for 2.0 has not been published.

Nate

Which 2.0?
The 2.0 we thought we were getting up until a week ago, or the 2.0 we will be getting now?



The Jedi Master

The 2.0 that is planned after the 1.5 release.

Nate

I thought that everything other than the maps and map integration would be released with 1.5. At least that's what Wagner said on the last Q&A video.

This is true, but there are other things that were to come after that point too. Multi-Crew is a case in point.

Nate

Gimme my Apache please

/KC

Nate are you guys beginning to put this feature through it's paces as well or are you bound by the NDA on this?

Aha, I forgot that some features were coming after 2.0.

That is too bad. I suppose we have to wait for 2.0 then. Is there any list of what features to expect in 1.5 and what is being saved for 2.0?

NDA'd sorry.



I don't think that was announced as a feature at all to be honest - apart from, say, weapon loadouts.

Nate

What is the satellite view ala Lomac? It will show the 3d world so object placement will be easier, no?

Ahh sorry - maybe I misunderstood what you meant. Yes it is a top down (only) view of the 3D world. You can't move the viewpoint around (although that would be cool).

Nate

Here's the part about the sattelite view from a previous livestream:
https://youtu.be/yhwCmbUJ0zo?t=11m42s

Thanks a lot. The Top Down view will simplify mission creation and edition a lot.

1.5 leaves plenty of room till 2.0.
Maybe 1.6 for Christmas Present?

i dont think so tbh...whats the point in having a satellite view instead of the current map view?except that it will be a little prettier, nothing will change in regards of placing objects and building missions.its a gimmick not worth anything, especially as long as the units we place still remain blue or red rectangles....

whats needed is a system like in il2, where you have satellite view+3d view and the actual units inside the mission editor.that would help mission creating and placing objects precisely...

I agree - a full on 3D view would be immensely helpful. I hope it being considered. By the by, while it may not happen initially, viewing the actual units upon the satellite view is the goal. IIRC this should occur at the higher levels of Zoom

Nate

Speaking as a mission builder, it will make a massive difference and make unit placement exponentially easier and faster. Yes, it's true that a full 3d mission design tool would be even better, the satellite view is still a significant improvement.

speaking as a mission builder as well, the satellite view alone will bring next to no improvement in my view, as long as we still place rectangular objects without a clue how big they actually are...i really dont see how this will make it any easier and faster tbh, as with the current system we already can see where buildings,bridges forests etc. are.
you will still place a red or blue rectangle on a satellite map....creating more complex templates consisting of various objects which are location dependent to each other will still be a huge pain in the ass.nothing changes...its a gimmick without the additional aformentioned features.

ED agrees with you in this regard.

Nate

Wags mentioned that they'd like to get actual unit silhouettes if you zoom in fully, covering just that issue. At least for me personally it's still a step in the right direction; satellite view will help unit placement regardless.

There is a tool called Witchcraft by [FSF]Ian that is easy to use to locate and rotate units and static objects.
http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=126516&highlight=witchcraft

Here are a couple of complexes that I built with it. These can be built in about 1/10 of the time it would have taken by going back and forth from the ME into a session to see the placements.




WC

I'll second that, Witchcraft is an awesome tool!

If you're talking about building up FOBs, FARPs and the like then yes. But when it comes to placing vehicles in tree lines, on roads, at the edges of fields, in dark coloured fields, in car parks, on dirt tracks, next to "insert terrain feature of your choice", it makes it much easier. As you'll no longer need to jump in and out of the sim 50 times just to get the placement of one unit right.