Salute All

We are all used to the concept that campaigns happen in single player, ie. if you want to start with a pilot, and follow his progress, you do that in single player mode.

Systems like SCORCHED EARTH and some of the dogfight mods allow you to do that to a certain extent, but not perfectly.

Oleg has recently put up a post discussing the campaign system he is creating for BoB, a system which allows you to start a campaign online in the same way you could in single player. Some of the comments are in typical 'Olegish', but you can get the idea. He talks about the ideas he has mentioned before, that the differences between dogfight and COOP will break down, you will be able to join a COOP halfway through, or respawn, that you can switch to a ground unit after being shot down, etc. Meanwhile all of your stats are being saved, that is your 'campaign'.

Oleg: "Really my thoughts about campaign now changed. I don't think anymore that single play campaign is so importnat thing in a modern fligth sim (or speaking common - in any game). It doesn't means we stop it. It measn that we will try to put more gameplay features into online modes... and all of them will be based on the special BATTLE ENGINE that we are almost finished in development (with the possibility to increase features in future) its a complex system that allow to get the modes of gameplay from the only one universal gameplay engine in which are present elements of many known types of online and single gameplay of very different games. Just for example we may use it for deathmatch like in shooter, of for constant cooperative play... Constant cooperative gameplay means that in single play we may use it just for one gamer... How this mode (single play) will looks in final - I don't know 100%. We know what should be. But I wont say everything now. Already told too much about online

However simple Il-2 style dogfight we will keep for novices and their trainings
But I thin bomber there also will be playable as multicrew. Don't know if we will keep the name for this as dogfight....

Everything I told here in code is ready as alpha, except sigle play campaign based on this code. We will begin tunings of this code when we will have way more objects implemented in the sim."

Originally Posted by Abbeville-Boy
i wish for 24/7 online war that i can join and play when time permits. that to me would be great, and i could have impact on the advance of my army.

Oleg:
"Probably its one of possible modes."

quote:

BATTLE ENGINE

Does that ever sound promising. I don't know if I am starting to feel it yet but I am definitely getting a tingle now.

Hmm...offline campaigns are still the thing I like the most in Il-2, hopefully they don't water it down. I prefer to battle with the AI because I always know what to expect and you don't get humans who play cheaply or get easy kills because of lag. Playing co-op with humans against the AI is even better.

I'd rather they make the AI more realistic, make them overheat, and give you more options for mission building, but it's up to them, I just don't want the game to be focused on online component or have a really watered down offline component like ROF.

quote:

Originally posted by Ba5tard5word:
Hmm...offline campaigns are still the thing I like the most in Il-2, hopefully they don't water it down. I prefer to battle with the AI because I always know what to expect and you don't get humans who play cheaply or get easy kills because of lag. Playing co-op with humans against the AI is even better.

I'd rather they make the AI more realistic, make them overheat, and give you more options for mission building, but it's up to them, I just don't want the game to be focused on online component or have a really watered down offline component like ROF.

You are misunderstanding. There will be AI in these campaigns as well. AI and humans all mixed up. At slow times, you'll see more AI.

I prefer offline too. I was in an online coop just the other day and several times I made a pass at a Spitfire dude in my 109. And every time I got lag as I was about to shoot. It was obvious he was doing something like hitting the print screen button to keep me from blasting him. Then he ends up purposely mid-airing me so at least he could claim an equal standoff! Because he wasn't good enough to shoot me fair and square. He didn't fool me at all.

It's always some problem online so I always go back to offline, where all I have to put up with is predictable AI routines and kill stealing AI flight buddies. At least they can't pull lag junk on me like human pilots can.

I am reserving my judgement. All those "Battle Engines" I have seen so far include one or another thing that makes my toenails curl. Gameplay crutches such as factories in a totally tactical environment take away all the suspension of disbelief unless they're exactly in their historical spot producing their historical goods.

quote:

There will be AI in these campaigns as well. AI and humans all mixed up. At slow times, you'll see more AI.

Honestly this sounds like WoW or something. Maybe it will work out well but who knows.

quote:

Originally posted by Ba5tard5word:
Hmm...offline campaigns are still the thing I like the most in Il-2, hopefully they don't water it down. I prefer to battle with the AI because I always know what to expect and you don't get humans who play cheaply or get easy kills because of lag. Playing co-op with humans against the AI is even better.

I'd rather they make the AI more realistic, make them overheat, and give you more options for mission building, but it's up to them, I just don't want the game to be focused on online component or have a really watered down offline component like ROF.

Ditto. Give me some wily AI and the ability to create hyper-accurate historical campaigns and I'd be happy.

Another thing I'd like to see is the ability to turn the AI 'off'. So it just follows your directions exactly in the mission builder (for those hyper-accurate historical campaigns...)

quote:

Originally posted by Buzzsaw-:
I don't think anymore that single play campaign is so importnat thing in a modern fligth sim (or speaking common - in any game). It doesn't means we stop it. It measn that we will try to put more gameplay features into online modes...

Oh well, there goes my support.

I only play offline. I don't like the online experience anymore. If the offline gameplay is put aside or is poor -in fact, a tendency that Il-2 has been suffering since the Aces pack- then I don't want SoW. As simple as that.

I'll wait and see.

My interpretation of these comments lead me to believe that offline campaign creators will get even more amazing tools in their arsenal.

I'm looking forward to seeing what we have in store.

quote:

Originally posted by Extreme_One:
My interpretation of these comments lead me to believe that offline campaign creators will get even more amazing tools in their arsenal.

I'm looking forward to seeing what we have in store.

I tend to read it this way as well, I think he is trying to say that a campaign maker will not make an offline campaign or an online, he will just make a campaign and it can be used in any way by the player(s).

quote:

Originally posted by mortoma:
I prefer offline too. I was in an online coop just the other day and several times I made a pass at a Spitfire dude in my 109. And every time I got lag as I was about to shoot. It was obvious he was doing something like hitting the print screen button to keep me from blasting him. Then he ends up purposely mid-airing me so at least he could claim an equal standoff! Because he wasn't good enough to shoot me fair and square. He didn't fool me at all.

It's always some problem online so I always go back to offline, where all I have to put up with is predictable AI routines and kill stealing AI flight buddies. At least they can't pull lag junk on me like human pilots can.

IT depends on the people who fly with you... if you enter in a virtual squad then you'll fly in online campaigns and tournaments with other squads only by invitation... the cheaters and the lamers are not going to ruin you online experience.

No Mod pack differences, no 20xSpitIs/0xHurricanes in a BoB mission, no vulching... private campaigns are great.

quote:

Originally posted by Ba5tard5word:
I prefer to battle with the AI because I always know what to expect...

Insight.

I prefer to do battle with humans BECAUSE I don't always know what to expect.

Well that blows. The singleplayer campaign with a decent AI has always been no 1 on the list. You can`t always rely on Online for many reasons that most of us know. I like the peace of Offline as people Online can dissapoint, as Humans invariably do. This does not sound good for single player Offline at all.

I`m just waiting to hear he`s changed his mind and decided to have constant online activation too.

Oh well, I cooled my ardour about SOW a year ago when I realised that I would be mortified if Oleg `changed his mind`. Now I`m not mortified, just dissapointed and hold back even further on whether to buy or not.

Could be the beginning of the end for me,but it matters not.

At least there`s IL2.

Salute

Before everyone starts to panic and to blame Oleg for a non-existent problem, they should realize that this campaign system is not going to exclude single player campaigns. It is an ADDITIONAL campaign enviroment which players can fly.

quote:

I don't think anymore that single play campaign is so importnat thing in a modern fligth sim (or speaking common - in any game). It doesn't means we stop it.

Ie. for those who prefer to play offline, there will be an offline campaign, for those who want to participate in this large, continuously ongoing online campaign, they will have that opportunity as well.

Well I will wait and see, I still have so much fun with Il-2 that I'm not jonesing for anything new. It's just that I was so disappointed with ROF that I am going to be pretty skeptical of any new games, especially if they claim to do a lot of new and exciting stuff. All I want is Il-2 with better graphics and effects and more realistic AI, hopefully we get that.

quote:

Originally posted by Urufu_Shinjiro:

quote:

Originally posted by Extreme_One:
My interpretation of these comments lead me to believe that offline campaign creators will get even more amazing tools in their arsenal.

I'm looking forward to seeing what we have in store.

I tend to read it this way as well, I think he is trying to say that a campaign maker will not make an offline campaign or an online, he will just make a campaign and it can be used in any way by the player(s).

Yep this is how I read it too,I'm 50/50 online offline(more offline of late though) so this is very important to me,sounds like we got some good times coming with more veriations on how campaigns can play out,and with the new AI I'm sure it'll be a lot more interesting then IL-2(which is already pretty damm good IMHO)

Geez soome of your guys cups are defintitely half empty

I only offline for quick time wasting dogfights these days and the other days (when I actually get some me time) I fly with the Dogz in online coops so the for me at least it sounds promising and pretty exciting.

If you go there in 1C and spend time reading the massive threads (Oleg posts alot), they are also working on improving campaign tools to allow more campaign making. Also they are incorporating stuff like more ground interaction, more fine tuning / control of vehicles. Even event triggers etc . . .

Also they will have offline content they are working on.


That quote is just one of many that Oleg put out and it was in response to many asking about online.


Remember that also its progression of gaming to move things online. IL-2 is popular because its online component. RPGs have done so, forming MMO genras . . .

I think Oleg and Co saw the viability of games like Fighter Ace or Warbirds online.

And you can't compare BOB SOW to Rise of Flight, that's a different company, with a different mentality, and according to many sources ROF was released too early (betamaxed).

On the banana forum Luthier said this:

quote:

I spent a lot of time building single and co-op missions for Il-2, so I had a laundry list of things to be done to briefings.

You're going to loooove the new mission briefings.