Il2 Battle of Stalingrad on Steam

[Nefaro]

Well, the devs didn't care for this at all so what did they do?  Not listen to the complaints from the community and separate the grinding system from MP or make XP earned in MP count towards unlocks.  Nope.  Instead they released a new patch today which removed the autopilot feature from both normal and expert modes and limited time compression to 2x max.  Naturally, this is going down swimmingly with the community. 

This is just f*($#ng ridiculous!  Their fixes to perceived exploits make the game far worse!   ::)

I have to wonder just what the thought process is with the dev team right now.  Are they now in such an adversarial, siege mentality that they now see their customer base as the enemy and feel the need to punish them?  Is it a cultural thing?  I wonder what they'll do to shoot themselves in their feet next.

After hearing this news, I'm glad that I didn't purchase.  With the way things are going, I may never do so.  It has officially hit Train Wreck status.

One last thing..  If they were trying to compete with War Thunder and WoT/WP with their unlocks then they're going to fail miserably.  Those games are Free To Play.  Therefore I can only assume that they're aiming for their own Call Of Duty in the air.  Do they actually think this is going to work with the other free alternatives already out there which have far more content for such Arcade style gameplay?  Insanity!

Fortunately it's a WW2 sim, so I'm not terribly upset if I end up passing on it.

[sandman2575]

I have to wonder just what the thought process is with the dev team right now.  Are they now in such an adversarial, siege mentality that they now see their customer base as the enemy and feel the need to punish them?  Is it a cultural thing?  I wonder what they'll do to shoot themselves in their feet next.

Sure sounds it.  The motivation for all this sure looks a lot like spite, doesn't it?

Curious about the cultural component, SDR -- the other developer that springs to mind as having a fairly adversarial, close-minded, thin-skinned relationship with their otherwise extremely devoted fan base is Graviteam.   An East vs. West thing, maybe?

[RyanE]

While I like BOS as a flight simulator, I really regret giving that much money to a pretty tone-deaf developer.  This particular change seems almost punitive.

[Skoop]

^ I like it as sim too, just frustrating at the course this has taken.  At this point I would rather they ditch the campaign all together and put the effort towards a functioning editor similar to Dcs.  If they are shipping it with Crap missions, then give us the tools to do our own.

[jomni]

Whenever I see BOS. I  always think it means Bag Of $h!t.
Anyway, maybe they could have been better off keeping the ROF formula.

The positioning is a bit confused.  Hardcore simmers vs. casual simmers? Multuplayers vs. Solo players? Instead of pleasing all the target audiences, it looks like they are annoying everyone in the end.

[smithcorp]

It's quite strange. I paid for EA and while I haven't yet been able to play the new Campaign system (multi is difficult for me - living in Oz means high pings to most servers; and work and family limit my sim time) I am confused by some of the decisions. The airplanes and maps are sim-like - detailed, accurate etc, but the SP campaign and the concept of unlocking planes, airfields and modifications through experience points gained in single player, seems very arcade.

Having watched some YT videos of people playing the SP 'campaign', I amazed to see these beautiful aircraft flying over a beautiful map, only to have giant yellow letters telling you to "proceed to action point" and the like. It seems like such a poor fit, with limited time compression, no autopilot and aiming helpers, along with in-air starts, diamond shaped routes, QMB style campaign missions with limited immersion etc.

Early access feels a bit like studying for matriculation only to be given a kindergarten exam.

I'm not surprised there's been flak about it from the sim crowd, but the controversy can't be good for the product. I was quite open minded about the SP campaign and figured that community members would make more historic missions and campaigns; and I was quite happy to try it out. I still will, but I am now nervous about what will happen to BoS as it proceeds to launch (not least the thought that after playing the SP campaign to gain points (gawd, it feels silly to type this about a sim), I will need to go through it all again when it actually launches and all progress is wiped)!

smith

[Toonces]

They are going completely apoplectic about this game over on the SimHQ forums. 

There is a guy over there, Picaziato (or something like that) that is a developer for Electronic Arts who posted a very eloquent monologue about the questionable design decisions being made by 777.  He said something to the effect the same as smithcorp about how the game fails to appeal to either crowd...the analogy I saw was creating Forza cars and then Go-cart tracks to race them on.

This game is going to be an unmitigated disaster on release.  I don't know that I've ever seen a design team publicly slit its own throat in such a blatant and transparent manner as BOS and 777.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

SimHQ forums are quite tame compared to the official forums.  Head over and read through the 30+ pages of the dev diary #81 thread.  It's almost worth the $100 pre-order price.

Pizzicato posted the same critique on the official forums but it was locked within a few hours.

[jomni]

These guys are killing the reputation they earned from ROF.

Or maybe not. ROF is not know for single player.  It's a high-fidelity multiplayer dogfight sim.

[MengJiao]

Whenever I see BOS. I  always think it means Bag Of $h!t.
Anyway, maybe they could have been better off keeping the ROF formula.

The positioning is a bit confused.  Hardcore simmers vs. casual simmers? Multuplayers vs. Solo players? Instead of pleasing all the target audiences, it looks like they are annoying everyone in the end.

Well, they said they didn't make any profit on ROF.  I it looks like intensive air sims on antique fighter planes are not going to make it with
any current business model.  What might eventually happen is kind of what is happening on DCS world (and sort of on Third Wire and sort of on Target Tobruk etc.): a company builds a world and then
other groups put in content and try to sell it (or not).  The world-builders would get a fee or royalty or some other cut and try to enforce standards and others would assemble whatever they could in that context.

[Jarhead0331]

I've been playing the tutorials and although they are simple, I'm not totally dissatisfied. Its sort of like a beautiful woman.  You just sit there staring sort of dumbfounded not really hearing anything she says. What I'm trying to say is that this sim looks so damn good, I'm kind of blind to its faults.

[MengJiao]

I've been playing the tutorials and although they are simple, I'm not totally dissatisfied. Its sort of like a beautiful woman.  You just sit there staring sort of dumbfounded not really hearing anything she says. What I'm trying to say is that this sim looks so damn good, I'm kind of blind to its faults.

  Well, same here.  But I'm afraid she's a bit suicidal.  If BoS were a woman this is what you'd say to your Czech friend when he said, "She says she's been reincarnated."  You say: "Just stay away from her.  Quit reading her books and quit that night ski-ing thing."
Czech:  "You know, when I came to America I wanted to be a Boy Scout.  Now I'm not so sure."
You:  "Let me spell it out for you: THAT ONE IS TROUBLE."

[Nefaro]

Whenever I see BOS. I  always think it means Bag Of $h!t.
Anyway, maybe they could have been better off keeping the ROF formula.

The positioning is a bit confused.  Hardcore simmers vs. casual simmers? Multuplayers vs. Solo players? Instead of pleasing all the target audiences, it looks like they are annoying everyone in the end.

Well, they said they didn't make any profit on ROF.  I it looks like intensive air sims on antique fighter planes are not going to make it with
any current business model.  What might eventually happen is kind of what is happening on DCS world (and sort of on Third Wire and sort of on Target Tobruk etc.): a company builds a world and then
other groups put in content and try to sell it (or not).  The world-builders would get a fee or royalty or some other cut and try to enforce standards and others would assemble whatever they could in that context.

ROF may not have been a success for them but I don't think it was due to the sim itself.  Rather the marketing and login requirements. 

Those may not bother some people but they were two marks against it before I had even played.  Needing to log in to play some single-player content for something I've purchased just rubs me wrong.  What's more, I had numerous login issues when I was trying out the freebie version.  That lost any possible purchase from me at the time.  Toss in the expensive DLC-fest and I gave it a pass early in it's life. 

I didn't finally purchase ROF until they started selling more affordable packages of planes (on sale) at Steam and an offline campaign mod available (to a lesser extent).  I still blew over $100 on ROF but it was years after it's release.  If they had marketed it better in the first place, they simply would've had more success.  It's the same story here, with IL2:BOS.  Poor decision-making marring what could be a great sim.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Another update released today.  It's mainly concerned with bug fixes and tweaking a few things. 

- Landings are now rewarded correctly
- Aim helper for fixed armament was removed on Normal difficulty
- Escort added to the Bombing the bridge mission
- The player and the wingmen should now be loading simultaneously
- The bug with the survived vehicle in the Attacking the convoy mission was fixed
- The bomb raid mission is now only possible at no or low clouds and little wind
- In the Interceptor mission player now has to take down or damage two bombers as required
- In the Convoy (short) mission a player is now correctly spawned behind the bombers and sees them properly
- In Campaign the short version of mission is now offered as default
- AA search lights are no longer active in day time

[MengJiao]

Whenever I see BOS. I  always think it means Bag Of $h!t.
Anyway, maybe they could have been better off keeping the ROF formula.

The positioning is a bit confused.  Hardcore simmers vs. casual simmers? Multuplayers vs. Solo players? Instead of pleasing all the target audiences, it looks like they are annoying everyone in the end.

Well, they said they didn't make any profit on ROF.  I it looks like intensive air sims on antique fighter planes are not going to make it with
any current business model.  What might eventually happen is kind of what is happening on DCS world (and sort of on Third Wire and sort of on Target Tobruk etc.): a company builds a world and then
other groups put in content and try to sell it (or not).  The world-builders would get a fee or royalty or some other cut and try to enforce standards and others would assemble whatever they could in that context.

ROF may not have been a success for them but I don't think it was due to the sim itself.  Rather the marketing and login requirements. 

Those may not bother some people but they were two marks against it before I had even played.  Needing to log in to play some single-player content for something I've purchased just rubs me wrong.  What's more, I had numerous login issues when I was trying out the freebie version.  That lost any possible purchase from me at the time.  Toss in the expensive DLC-fest and I gave it a pass early in it's life. 

I didn't finally purchase ROF until they started selling more affordable packages of planes (on sale) at Steam and an offline campaign mod available (to a lesser extent).  I still blew over $100 on ROF but it was years after it's release.  If they had marketed it better in the first place, they simply would've had more success.  It's the same story here, with IL2:BOS.  Poor decision-making marring what could be a great sim.

  For me (as I may have mentioned from time to time) RoF was just a big and very pleasant surprise.  I hadn't played any air sims in a while and I suspected my system might not really be up to it.  But -- everything worked!  I'm not sure what the marketing was.  I probably saw it on SimHQ while looking for submarines or something.

  Still, overall, I'm not surprised that it is hard to hit the sweet spot with games like RoF or BoS or DCS.  The programming is demanding, your audience is cranky and the topic is not well-defined:  are you simulating just fighters in a narrow time frame?  Or any random plane?  The full electronic environment or just sticking to low-tech day fighters?  Are you giving the audience a good editor and just letting them play? (which is why I currently prefer DCS)  I'm just happy anyone is doing anything at all intensive with any antique planes when there is an obvious big audience for nearly everything else except intensive simulations of antique planes.  Even trains, trucks and farm equipment seem to have a more coherent audience.