How Can We Get More People to Play Clod?

[ATAG_Lewis]

The original thread on this subject got derailed and then closed after I felt there was some real progression towards attracting more players to this sim, hence this re-thread

Please don't use this thread for anything other than topic discussion..

So, Please copy and paste your posts from the original thread here and hopefully we can start again with some healthy objective discussion.

================================================== ===========

Its a Simple question....But I haven't seen anyone ask it yet

If you are reading this then you are probably one of the folks who plays COD on a regular basis and already know just how good it is...Through ATAGS we now have a dedicated crew called Team Fusion who are taking this abandoned sim and doing something constructive with it (working wonders actually) because its a quality WWII sim with a massive potential...but the fact is that still not many people play it....If you go on to Hyperlobby and look at the original IL-2 you will still see 100+ playing the owld sim on any given night and thats dying sim....but thats not the case with COD....If it were a bad game/sim then I could understand it and there be no need for a post...but we all know thats not the case

I thought I might start a discussion at least about this....I mean if we can get more folks flying COD then we WILL create longevity with the sim we love...That was proved with the original and even though it was a niche market the numbers of faithfull flyers didn't dwindle for many years....Only a couple of years ago did the numbers drop quickly and then over a few months....to the faithfull that are still enjoying it..and who still outnumber COD players

I flew the original IL-2 for many years on servers in Hyperlobby at first like 'Flying Circus', 'Big Top' and later 'Skies of Fire' but not many of those thousands of players (and there were thousands) have migrated to this follow on sim...and that stumps me...If we have that amount of players flying COD then this sim will be at the top of the online WWII sims in terms of numbers for many years to come just as the original was...We would have guaranteed longevity

So what can we do to attract more folks?

How can we get those faithfull flyers to fly COD?

Am I right in assuming we want more flyers?....That has to be a given, surely?

I just thought I would throw this out there to you clever WWII aircraft enthusiasts who might enlighten me as to how or why...and if and but

Thank ~S~

Lew

[ATAG_Lewis]

I see a few of the community here have posted reviews on the Amazon website.....I just did too...But I just realised something....I initially posted on the UK Amazon site as thats the one that comes up as default for me....That is ONLY for UK customers so if you are going to take the time to write a review then it makes more sense to go the extra yard and copy and paste it and post it on the international site too which will have a LOT more traffic...It will take you 5 minutes to do this

At present there are 27 reviews on the UK site and 128 on the international site....So I'd make a guess that the international site gets around 5 times the traffic the UK site does......Also if you have put a 4 star then up it to 5 to try to dilute those 1 star negative reviews...

Hmmm.....I wonder if Amazon will smell a rat if they get 100 reviews all with 5 star and the same date?....lol

You know, I even thought of contacting those folks who put a 1 star through their Amazon account and asking them to try the sim again and update their review...but I cant seem to be able to send them a message without it being seen....hehe.....SUBTERFUGE!!!

Amazon International:

http://www.amazon.com/IL-2-Sturmovik...+il2+sturmovik

Amazon UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sturmovik-Cl...pr_product_top

Do we have a list of sites that CLOD is sold on that have a customer review option?

[ATAG_Lewis]

I really don't believe there is any chance of us overselling this product..at the present time there are 15 people playing it online.....in the world!

First the influence we are going to have, if we pull out all the stops, over the present population is not going to be massive...It will be small scale...I don't think we are going to overhaul the majority opinion that CLOD is to be seen in a negative light...But I don't think we can do any harm if we start to tip the balance in our favour...more than it is...

I want to see more people in ATAGS servers.....I want it to be full when I come to play....I want to have to wait and keep hitting that 'Enter server' key repeatedly in frustration because the server is packed and I can't get in....For me thats what it deserves.....We have the quality brains behind the transformation of this sim in the TF who are doing a blinding job....however, for any product it does not matter how good your team is if you can't sell your product then you have lost...

All I'm saying is lets try to tip the scales back to the positive, and encourage new blood by hitting the first point of contact which is when someone says...'Hey I'd like to play a WWII flight sim, now lets see the reviews of whats on the market' ...that includes reviews and video sites

So with the clever fellas we have here and this community surely there is something we can do toward getting those servers full.....constantly

What say you?

[startrekmike]

Thanks for trying to keep this discussion moving, that last thread was a sad show indeed at the end.

Anyway, here is my major contribution from the last forum that I will copy/pasta here.


I just had a thought while on the DCS subreddit, they have something called "Tuesday night noob" where they essentially set up a large scale training area where there are a large groups of targets at varying degree's of difficulty (ranging from simple trucks to concealed SAM systems), this gives new players not only a safe place to practice but also gives them direct access to more skilled players who spend time their to teach.

Rise of flight also has this in the form of the New wings server, again, it is a area where one who just started can go and get the info they need to do the basics in a relatively safe atmosphere.

Perhaps this would be something that ATAG could look into, perhaps this server does not need to always be up like New wings, perhaps it could just be a specific day of the week (frequent enough so that new players don't have to wait long to use it) and experienced players (I would even be willing to help with what I have learned myself) could hop in and help with everything ranging from CEM to basic combat.

Another thing that might help is actually starting a subreddit that is directly CloD related (as opposed to IL-2 in general), it might even be a good idea to use that subreddit as a way to organize players for online play without having them join a squadron (something that might intimidate new players), as a extension of that, it would be a good way to allow squadrons to non-aggressively recruit new members.

Reddit is a pretty popular place and a lot of flight simmers hang out there, I would be willing to start the subreddit but I am going to need help to get it going.


Lastly, I still think that keeping a eye on the War thunder forums is a good way to grab players, we would be doing them a favor anyway (money wise).


Quick update, I created the subreddit http://www.reddit.com/r/IL2CliffsofDover

[Roblex]

I would agree that a nice instructional mission showing how to take off and do a circuit using CEM would be useful. What we would have to avoid though is making them too complicated! I cringe when I see a tutorial showing people how to adjust twenty different switches and levers before you even start the engine. That sort of thing just convinces newbies that the game is overcomplicated and that they will never learn enough to even get off the ground so why bother trying?

Show them how to turn on the fuel, start the engine, wait for optimum temperature, open the rad then take-off and raise the undercarriage. Then show them how to reduce the pitch a bit, maybe prompt them to try different pitch settings so they understand what it is doing, perhaps talk about rad settings, then bring them back to the field and talk them through the landing and flaps, pitch etc. then stop the engine using fuel switch.

This gives them a basic understanding and more importantly shows them that they can take off and do a circuit without blowing up. Once they know they can fly a circuit then they can look elsewhere for the fine details. There is no need to even mention mixture, magnetos, carb heating etc in this first lesson. I would say the majority of the online tutorials we have are overcomplicated and do more harm than good. I looked at this months issue of 'PC Pilot' and the article on how to fly the Blenheim was horrifying in it complexity! Nobody will come to CLOD after reading that!

[startrekmike]

I would agree that a nice instructional mission showing how to take off and do a circuit using CEM would be useful. What we would have to avoid though is making them too complicated! I cringe when I see a tutorial showing people how to adjust twenty different switches and levers before you even start the engine. That sort of thing just convinces newbies that the game is overcomplicated and that they will never learn enough to even get off the ground so why bother trying?

Show them how to turn on the fuel, start the engine, wait for optimum temperature, open the rad then take-off and raise the undercarriage. Then show them how to reduce the pitch a bit, maybe prompt them to try different pitch settings so they understand what it is doing, perhaps talk about rad settings, then bring them back to the field and talk them through the landing and flaps, pitch etc. then stop the engine using fuel switch.

This gives them a basic understanding and more importantly shows them that they can take off and do a circuit without blowing up. Once they know they can fly a circuit then they can look elsewhere for the fine details. There is no need to even mention mixture, magnetos, carb heating etc in this first lesson. I would say the majority of the online tutorials we have are overcomplicated and do more harm than good. I looked at this months issue of 'PC Pilot' and the article on how to fly the Blenheim was horrifying in it complexity! Nobody will come to CLOD after reading that!


While I do agree that some of the theory involved in CEM is difficult, I don't think (to the extent that it is modeled in CloD) that it is terribly complicated to teach the basics, I mean, we are not talking about doing a full start-up in the A-10C or the Ka-50 after all.

That said, I think I am thinking of less of a straight up organized and specific tutorial and more of a general learning environment where newbies can come on to the server and have a low pressure (and low risk) place to learn everything they want to learn, this could be done with a few helpful veteran pilots hanging around who are willing to teach whatever comes up.

I mean, organizing it like you would organize squadron training is a bad idea, it places too much pressure on the new players who are not even sure they want that kind of commitment, setting up a weekly server that is open all day (with different veterans coming in and out as desired) would provide a low pressure atmosphere where new players won't feel like they are going to get tested on what they have learned or anything like that.

We just want to give them that first push and not scare them away with too many formalities or stuff like that.

I agree that it should just be the basics, enough to give them context for their own study.

[ATAG_Bliss]

While I do agree that some of the theory involved in CEM is difficult, I don't think (to the extent that it is modeled in CloD) that it is terribly complicated to teach the basics, I mean, we are not talking about doing a full start-up in the A-10C or the Ka-50 after all.

That said, I think I am thinking of less of a straight up organized and specific tutorial and more of a general learning environment where newbies can come on to the server and have a low pressure (and low risk) place to learn everything they want to learn, this could be done with a few helpful veteran pilots hanging around who are willing to teach whatever comes up.

I mean, organizing it like you would organize squadron training is a bad idea, it places too much pressure on the new players who are not even sure they want that kind of commitment, setting up a weekly server that is open all day (with different veterans coming in and out as desired) would provide a low pressure atmosphere where new players won't feel like they are going to get tested on what they have learned or anything like that.

We just want to give them that first push and not scare them away with too many formalities or stuff like that.

I agree that it should just be the basics, enough to give them context for their own study.

This is very true. I don't think the basics of it all should take much more than a few hours. Obviously it helps if you understand the basic principles of an airplane with its controls, engine(s), and props etc.

I think one of the basic things is you have to have a passion for it in the 1st place. I started out on Aces of the Pacific and Aces over Europe back on the old 3.5" disk. And then went on to things like mechwarrior, wing commander etc, all sort of a simulation (more complex game) then to good ol Janes stuff. I honestly didn't even know about IL2 until I happened to stumble across it in the bargain bin at Best Buy one day. To my amazement there was this huge online community following etc, that I learned about more and more everyday.

So I think the target audience for a realistic sim almost has to be that same type of player to begin with. Someone that wants a little more than your average FPS go die real quick and respawn game. But the biggest problem I see in attracting new players to flight sims (those who aren't already simmers) is the initial investment they to need to make on equipment to get up and flying. Sure, there are cheap joysticks and what not around, but we all know how much of an experience and the type of immersion you get when you have a proper stick, throttle, rudder pedals, and track ir. That in itself has to be a sticker shock to those that research these hardcore type of simulations. Obviously, I think we can all agree on just how important all that equipment is. But until you've witnessed it 1st hand I don't think any newcomer will quite get the same satisfaction or replayability of it until they are fully immersed in the experience.

Getting to that level IMO is the hard part. But to want to buy all the equipment takes a passion for simulators as well. For new folks or those on the fence, this is like a catch 22.

My .02c

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

the biggest problem I see in attracting new players to flight sims (those who aren't already simmers) is the initial investment they to need to make on equipment to get up and flying. Sure, there are cheap joysticks and what not around, but we all know how much of an experience and the type of immersion you get when you have a proper stick, throttle, rudder pedals, and track ir. That in itself has to be a sticker shock to those that research these hardcore type of simulations. c

This is an important consideration, and one reason why I think the existing simming community is really the most important target. they already have the overcome what is possibly the largest barrier to entry - the cost of hardware.

Players who are completely new to simming of this nature don't turn up in large numbers, they trickle in as they stumble across the genre, often because they have a friend who already plays, or because they are pilots, or aviation fans in real life who can't afford to leave their jobs and fund pilot training for themselves ;)

[ATAG_Snapper]

This is an important consideration, and one reason why I think the existing simming community is really the most important target. they already have the overcome what is possibly the largest barrier to entry - the cost of hardware.

Players who are completely new to simming of this nature don't turn up in large numbers, they trickle in as they stumble across the genre, often because they have a friend who already plays, or because they are pilots, or aviation fans in real life who can't afford to leave their jobs and fund pilot training for themselves ;)

One consideration is the very nature of a hard core sim and the type of player it attracts. Be it Clod, the DCS series, even FSX (ie. Wings of Power 3 series of WW2 aircraft), the person attracted to this kind of high end simulation is not of your average horde of yank 'n bank console game players. (Not knocking them -- but the simplified controls and flight/weapon modelling work fine with basic & cheap hand controllers). Be it photography, golf, bicycling, clay bird shooting, etc etc ........any sport or hobby can be started at entry level (ie. cheap joystick with hatswitch and twist-rudder) but, to excel, usually demands higher end equipment to accommodate (HOTAS, rudder, TrackIR, etc).

Elsewhere in this forum I recommended to a newcomer the TM16000 stick (currently $43 on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Hercules-2960706-Thrustmaster-T-16000M-Flight/dp/B001S0RTU0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373547988&sr=8-1&keywords=Tm16000)

I have one. It works very well for Clod. Heck, no less than MK.MR.X eschews TrackIR, as do many other successful pilots. So, 43 bucks and you're in the game. Or, you can lay out for custom-built Ben Hogans and get a Warthog HOTAS, Saitek Combat Rudder Pedals, TrackIR5, a GTX780 card, etc -- and still get shot down! LOL

All to say, I believe Clod has the depth of play to accommodate beginners with minimal peripherals to the all-out enthusiast willing to invest heavily in his passion. Win -- win for everyone.

[kopperdrake]

I have to agree Snapper - I played with a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro only, for the first year, and loved every minute of it. And that was as a totall newcomer to flight sims. The biggest thing that pulled me in, personally, was the community and several in particular at the beginning who talked me through the take-off procedure. For me, pushing videos out there showing great action and team-work is a big thing, and then tutorial videos on how to get going quickly, for beginners, for each plane so they can at least get in the air. You don't need to bombard them with the details that make for the perfect take-off and landing, just get them in the air, get them hooked, then the details come through talking to other players over time - such as prop-pitch, radiator settings etc.

Now I have TrackIR and I wonder how I did without it, but it's not really needed at the start.

[9./JG52 Ziegler]

I think it's more the PC than the controls (as much as cost goes) and as Phil and Snapper stated, the type person does tend to be a simmer versus a "gamer". CLoD was actually my first foray into sim/gaming (at an advanced age and very late to the party) and my interest came from my holding a private pilot cert for many years and secondly blundering into some of the great video's the community has posted on YouTube/Vimeo. That wasn't all that long and and since then I have upgraded my PC to decent specs and have used just about every control system know to man to get shot down :).

So yes,I think that we/need to be targeting specific people and I like the idea of noob training day or something like. I have met some great people and joined a squad/staffel and have/am participating in a campaign with people from all over the world. I enjoy the casual flying and also the squad training with my Mates for the campaigns. I may have never done that had I not been encouraged to get on teamspeak and fly online. :thumbsup:

I'm also a race simmer with all the requisite wheels and pedals and race in a league but that's another story. I only mention it because I think that that community might also contain potential flyers? I'll give that a go.

[ChiefRedCloud]

I've read the posts here and agree with most that has been said. Some of my comments echo those. In the beginning the original IL2 modding was slow to take off. It gained momentum soon after. I'm guess that there is much more that TF could do "IF" more code was released (just guessing here).

And as for advertising CloD, well as pointed out, many video enthusiast have put a LOT of time in their support here. Visual aids do more than many words will. AS for word of mouth, many of us do this as often as an opportunity provides itself. However here the opposition has been from both sides of the aisle.

From the OLD IL2 modding community I suspect that from the many angry words that cane from there that many felt that ALL their present or past work would be thrown away for CloD. Then there were the ones who could not run CloD because their machines were not up to it. I, personally, will not sit and argue with someone that has already made up their minds that CloD is BAD. It's a waist of my time. I don't mind a discussion, but not an argument.

RoF, which I fly and love, has high requirement's in most cases, but their are those from that community that can not run it and thus do not support CloD. Understandable, but I guess I was raised a wee bit different in that I don't what I can't play.

Many will spend a paltry $12 on this game and feel ripped off. I spent $60 and knew what I was stepping into. Well maybe not totally, but enough so. Somehow, spelled hope, I knew that someone would take up the fallen banner and run with it as TF has.

Flight sims as has been explained to me is a Very small group. And as such, there will never be a real large following. Especially when split between other flight sims. Those that play games like BF3 exclusively (not knocking the game) have a tendency to enjoy quick Arcady battles like you'll find in War Thunder. They are not in to a sim of reality where you have to navigate or 'find' your prey. They want quick action and then pull the plug.

Please, do not get me wrong. If this is their choice, so be it. But any sim worth it's salt has to be worked at. CloD is one of those. Hell DCS with all it's button still whips my arse. But I still like it.

But all my rhetoric does not answer your question. As enthusiast we keep on as best as we can. We support CloD and those that want to help it succeed. We Inform where we can without getting into a sunny brooke over it. What else can we do?

AS for present numbers on the servers, well let's not forget it's summer time most places and that means outdoor stuff.

[1lokos]

There is no need to even mention mixture, magnetos, carb heating etc in this first lesson. I would say the majority of the online tutorials we have are overcomplicated and do more harm than good. I looked at this months issue of 'PC Pilot' and the article on how to fly the Blenheim was horrifying in it complexity! Nobody will come to CLOD after reading that!

A proper Blenheim tutorial here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=121341795 :thumbsup: :)

Sokol1

[Roblex]

A proper Blenheim tutorial here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=121341795 :thumbsup: :)

Sokol1

OK. I was not going to blow my own horn but now you come to mention it, that is a great tutorial :coolio: :D


To be serious, what I am objecting to is tutorials that show you switching on both magnetos (even though they are switched on by default) then moving the mixture from Rich to Lean and back to Rich (Not only is it already Rich but you will rarely change it to Lean anyway) then do the same with the pitch that is already in the right place or maybe change it just for the warm up when it is not necessary. They might even insist on checking the oxygen flow and hydraulic pressures. When a newb has tried using CEM and seen his engine blow up 5 times in row before he has even reached the end of the runway then this sort of tutorial will be the final straw that makes him delete the game and put a bad rating on Amazon.

[ATAG_Slipstream]

A proper Blenheim tutorial here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=121341795 :thumbsup: :)

Sokol1

That is a top tutorial and it exactly how I fly her.

Lets get down to brass tacks here, I can fly that bird upside down through the eye of a needle with a full bomb load and still come out unscathed.

I only take 20% fuel though, thats just enough to reach the moon in the Blennie. Plus its usually a one way ticket anyway.

Excellent work Roblex

[rollingstoned]

One consideration is the very nature of a hard core sim and the type of player it attracts. Be it Clod, the DCS series, even FSX (ie. Wings of Power 3 series of WW2 aircraft), the person attracted to this kind of high end simulation is not of your average horde of yank 'n bank console game players. (Not knocking them -- but the simplified controls and flight/weapon modelling work fine with basic & cheap hand controllers). Be it photography, golf, bicycling, clay bird shooting, etc etc ........any sport or hobby can be started at entry level (ie. cheap joystick with hatswitch and twist-rudder) but, to excel, usually demands higher end equipment to accommodate (HOTAS, rudder, TrackIR, etc).

Elsewhere in this forum I recommended to a newcomer the TM16000 stick (currently $43 on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Hercules-2960706-Thrustmaster-T-16000M-Flight/dp/B001S0RTU0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373547988&sr=8-1&keywords=Tm16000)

I have one. It works very well for Clod. Heck, no less than MK.MR.X eschews TrackIR, as do many other successful pilots. So, 43 bucks and you're in the game. Or, you can lay out for custom-built Ben Hogans and get a Warthog HOTAS, Saitek Combat Rudder Pedals, TrackIR5, a GTX780 card, etc -- and still get shot down! LOL

All to say, I believe Clod has the depth of play to accommodate beginners with minimal peripherals to the all-out enthusiast willing to invest heavily in his passion. Win -- win for everyone.


I find that when i can get a beginner to pop onto Teamspeak, i can turn them from 'frustrated about to chuck the game' guy to the 'shooting down some unsuspecting player' guy in under an hour usually.
We need to implement something that forces if not severely guides these newcomers to the ATAG forum and the ATAG teamspeak..with Direct links or even missions that go over all that lovely WIKI planes info so that players arent like "wtf why dont my brakes work on this piece of shit spitfire" just like i did. PLUS choosing planes and loadouts etc is completly counter intuitive there needs to be a video made for all of this shit that yopu have to watch before you can install Team fusion Mods. or atleased put the video in with the mod ..Imagine the newcomers download the mod and he watches the vid, the video tells him how to make planes how to get into multiplayer, what servers are for what, visibility settings, graphical bs, controls basics and understanding, forum plane wikis, the teamspeak they need to be in(even no mic), ETC ETC ETC we could make something like this and im sure it would ease the pain for newcomers and we could get a increase. Also, i was a lame arcader thinking i was cool in my jet in battlefield 3 ... now with the help of these forums and always being on TS i can shoot down the best of them.........................................somet imes.

PS; snapper is correct as far as peripherals, i know plenty of very deadly pilots that dont use track ir nor $500 joysticks.. Kellem and Bear pilot to name a few

[56RAF_klem]

Done the Amazon thing on both sites.

As many have said this is for simmers not gamers. Gamers play a game, strip it of its content and move on to the next one. Flight sims are different, especially if you play on line, because the sorties are always different even for repeat missions and the attraction is pitting yourself against real people.

Best source of new players is old players, those that abandoned CoD when it was first released, those that are in other combat and flight sims. Also new and perhaps younger guys that didn't experience the initial CoD failures.

Best method? Word of mouth, chat, facebook, etc, i.e. social media which is where people go these days to find out what's what. Also go to those gaming and sim sites where CoD reviews were bad, like SimHQ etc, and start posting the good news.

Then start creating some new full switch servers or increase server on line capacity because we will need it. At the moment we have two very capable serious servers (ATAG and ACG) and apart form scenarios they are never both full but will quickly fill if many more people take it up.

So here's a question. Do you really just want more people buying and playing CoD or do you really want bigger player capacity servers and bigger scenarios and therefore perhaps need more players?

[1lokos]

And as for advertising CloD, well as pointed out, many video enthusiast have put a LOT of time in their support here. Visual aids do more than many words will.

Visually in STEAM il-2:CloD comunity page the game is well advertising, nice pictures and videos, even SU-26 airbatics and racing are show by users.
But between this are many new users claiming post about game throubles (dont start, Laucher crash, josytick dont work...).

http://steamcommunity.com/app/63950

Sokol1

[Broodwich]

New content. I understand TF can only do so much at once, and fixing all thats broken first before rolling out new stuff is probably the best path, but I wouldnt expect to see many new guys to the sim until you get a new theater/planes. Until then its still just spits vs 109s over Manston and you can only do that so many times

[56RAF_klem]

New content. I understand TF can only do so much at once, and fixing all thats broken first before rolling out new stuff is probably the best path, but I wouldnt expect to see many new guys to the sim until you get a new theater/planes. Until then its still just spits vs 109s over Manston and you can only do that so many times

I don't want to push this off topic but, as I see it, for new content 3D modelling (aircraft etc) is probably the most work. I think Maps are being looked at. So it would be a good idea if any 3D modellers not already in TF were to PM one of the TF guys like Bliss, Buzzsaw, etc to offer their services. It would be for the longer haul (1941, 1942, 109F, 109G, FW190, SpitV, Spit IX etc.) but the earlier it's started...

So don't bloat this thread on the subject, if you think you have the skills just PM one of the TF guys.

[Catseye]

Hi Guys,
Just a couple of thoughts.

I do not think that we can rely on additional sales of the raw product nor the addition of newcomers to CLOD to be the solution to increased CLOD participation online. I truly believe that CLOD has maxed out in the sales area.

I think that the existing volume is there as evidenced by the sudden surge of players (80+) when the first TF update arrived. It stayed that way for a couple of weeks then dwindled off to where it is now.

Notwithstanding the need for players to come to grips with the new more realistic engine management, flight model/performance changes (we will always lose some players who don't wish to become too involved with aircraft dynamics), and other overall improvements - but I think the need to provide more variables and challenges in mission types would go a long way to maintaining a larger interactive group pending the release of the next TF update.

I do know that Bliss is having a heck of a time getting mission-builders to get involved in the process and also to adhere to his guidelines to maintain server performance within the constraints STEAM/CLOD has in place at this time. I am guilty myself of trying to modify existing missions (which work well at home - and to me have some exciting moments) but I personally have difficulty with the script and also my involvement with TF is taking up a lot of my time.

If there are any mission builders out there that could get into making at least 4 additional mission types that can challenge both DF and Historic pilots, it would go a very long way to drawing back some clientelle and the next TF release should help to kick it over the top. Also, additional scripting Gurus could help by introducing new dynamics to new and existing missions.

Client interest/retention of existing players through mission variety coupled with TF changes I think is the key.

Cheers,
Catseye

[No.401_Speed (YO-R)]

post deleted

[1lokos]

If there are any mission builders out there that could get into making at least 4 additional mission types that can challenge both DF and Historic pilots,


Is not possible add some "target of opportunity" in actual mission - and not informed localization in briefing?

Suggested here:

http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3759&p=37712&viewfull=1#post37712


Sokol1

[9./JG52 Ziegler]

Excellent idea DNR, That of the squads night. It might encourage flyers to join a squad possibly too. Maybe it would have to be done on the overflow server, I don't know but I do know that it could be great training to coordinate staffels/squadrons in challenges or just knowing they are out there.:thumbsup:
In my unit we would spend half the training time practicing something and then the other half jumping in to the server to try it out in "reality" relatively speaking.

[No.401_Speed (YO-R)]

post deleted

[Roblex]

Set up one day per week on the ATAG server to host a squadron flyoff. The server remains open to all, and the non-affiliated folks who jump in to fly just get added to the fog of war, so that over a twenty-four hour period each squadron can jump on, do their thing against bombers, tank battalions, airports or just plain dogfight with your adversary, then tally the score. Winners get bragging rights and off you go the next week. Difference scenario each week to keep it interesting.

But wouldn't that allow a competing squadron to fly at the same time and destroy all the targets first so the 'up' squadron have trouble finding ways to get scores? Or maybe if a particular squad gets a bit too arrogant two or three competing squads fly for the other side and shoot them all down :D


EDIT: I misread it, I thought you were suggesting each squadron has a timed slot to get as much score as possible but I think you are suggesting every squad competes at the same time in a mission that lasts 24 hours. Hmm, as long as there is not a squad full of students or unemployed or retired pilots with nothing better to do than fly for 24 hours flat :-)

[Stigler]

I am still waiting for Player flown Bomber AI gunners to get fixed, but sadly from what I have gathered, it was hardcoded into the .exe to the lowest skill level. (1 - hits nothing)

This is separate from the AI Bombers which can have their AI gunner levels adjusted (normally 3 ish = avg). I do not need IL-2 gunners, but when an unskilled player pilot sits on six, matching speed and plinks both engines in the most horrible of bad aspect attacks on a bomber and the ai gunners never ever even plink the engine and never do, then the player ai gunners are broken. This is not disputed.

The British having the chain home and radio callouts and German useless gunners adding weight create a situation for flying bombers solo to be half the survivability of what it was in IL-2 full switch and mostly full switch.

If I flew primarily fighters the Team Fusion patches have done plenty to make Clod more in line with where it should have been on release, and I highly recommend it, and organized squadrons flying bomber formations with fighter cover is not so bad either.

[Kling]

Well. I just came back from the Duxford airshow and met many whole Il21946 squads who said that the main thing keeping them away from CLOD is the LOD issue and before that was fixed they wouldnt even touch the game..

[9./JG52 Ziegler]

Well. I just came back from the Duxford airshow and met many whole Il21946 squads who said that the main thing keeping them away from CLOD is the LOD issue and before that was fixed they wouldnt even touch the game..

I don't follow, They can't run it at high detail or spotting?

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

I don't follow, They can't run it at high detail or spotting?

Spotting aircraft is the problem.

[Little_D]

hi gents,

i personaly think its more the missiniondesign and the time the map runs.

i mean, when you have only 2 - 3 hours a day to fly its boring when you see there is 1 mission running 6 houres and you have no change to get a new map with other planes. at least for me it is borring to fly for 6 houres the same plane and mission. So way not reduce the time the mission runs to a maximum of 3 hours? so we have the change that when we dont like the map to come back after 2 hours and fly a new map with other planes and not like it is now damn this mission still runs for 4 hours, so no flying today. in 1946 the runtime for a map on WoP was 2 hours, so on a saturday night in a 5 houre flyingparty it was possible to fly 3-5 maps with different planes and missions.

in the moment we have Dunqurke with the E1, an other mission with E3 and 2 other missions i think with E4/E4N. so set the time down , that a player can fly more than 1 map a day. i know that the maps can be closed before the 6 houres, if you kill all targets, but this is not the point. the maps running to long to get a little variety in mission and planeset in a shorter timeframe without to have to kill all targets. even with this 3 maps we could have more variety when the runtime is shorter.

the other thing is the LOD-problem as said before. even when 1946 was not historical correct with the LOD, it was verry good for the gameplay, you where able to see cons clearly from 8000m on the ground flying low on deck. with this you as pilot where able to bring you in position for your atack or dodging to get in a better position to fight or run, etc.

this where my 2 cents + somethings the old guys from WoP/1946 told me, when i aks them way they dont fly CoD.


regards

Little_D

[SoW Reddog]

I wonder what the effect would be for TF to release the LOD fix now, rather than later with everything else since it seems to be cited as the no1 issue why people don't fly CloD?? I know they've stated they won't do it, but I wonder if it would get a groundswell of interest that could be built upon by a Aug/Sept TF main patch?

[9./JG52 Ziegler]

I think they would (release it sooner) if it were possible but I don't think that it is. My limited programing knowledge assumes that it's not "economically feasable" time wise to isolate one feature from the whole patch.

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

hi gents,
i mean, when you have only 2 - 3 hours a day to fly its boring when you see there is 1 mission running 6 hours and you have no change to get a new map with other planes. at least for me it is boring to fly for 6 hours the same plane and mission. ....in the moment we have Dunkirk with the E1, an other mission with E3 and 2 other missions i think with E4/E4N. so set the time down , that a player can fly more than 1 map a day.

I'm inclined to agree. A 5 or 6 hour time limit is a bit much.


i know that the maps can be closed before the 6 hours, if you kill all targets, but this is not the point.
Little_D

Yes, I'd prefer missions with more targets, but shorter run-times.
If you went all-out with a couple of bombing raids, you could turn the map in 45 minutes. But it wouldn't keep on running for hour after hour after hour in the absence of human bombers.

I think 2.5 hours is plenty for a mission timer.

[ATAG_Colander]

The problem with reducing the times is if you take a bomber. It might take you around 1 hour just to get to the target.

[ChiefRedCloud]

Spotting aircraft is the problem.

I'm just curious ... many IL2 pilots developed bad habits by using Padlock in game to find the enemy aircraft. Some who tried to fly RoF did not stay because this was not available (at least on our servers at NW). Now I know it's difficult to locate the enemy and I know TF is working on this but I have to wonder.

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

The problem with reducing the times is if you take a bomber. It might take you around 1 hour just to get to the target.

Fair point, there are a few* pilots who chose to turn a 150km flight into a 1 hour affair (taking very wide detours and climbing to high altitude).

However, if, in fact the long mission-times required to accommodate these few people is causing more people to not play the game, is it not worth compromising?

So I realised I've not quantified this "few". I'm assuming About 10% of players at any one time fly bombers -based simply on familiarity with the player list/ net stats. Almost none of the red bomber pilots fly the Blenheims at much above a couple of thousand feet. Most Blue bombers I've bumped into tend to bee-line direct to their targets also, not normally above 10,000ft or so, the 110's tending to be the exception. The overall fraction who do Keller style dog-legged trips to avoid contact is quite low, relative to the overall player numbers.

On the other hand, if it is decided that missions do need to continue run for longer, perhaps what we are looking at is a re-exploration of the mission scripts to allow a change in plane-sets as certain events are triggered, throughout the missions?

[Little_D]

The problem with reducing the times is if you take a bomber. It might take you around 1 hour just to get to the target.

Hi Colander,

i dont think this is a real problem, it works on other server too and as an example when i fly with my squad a ju-87 mission we need about 1 hour 15 min for 1 mission:

starting, forming up in a baseround and climb to 5000m, than we fly from the base to the target, atack target ( HQ at G10.3) and fly back home at 1000m. (As we all know the ju-87 is the slowest climber in the game, i think even the blentheim climbs faster). We fly not directly to the target, because of missiong escort :-), so there is enough time even for bomer to reach the target at alt and land at base within about 1.5 hours. so if you survive you can start a second run.

and if we are honestly we have a lot more fighter than bomberpilots on the server, so no need to make a 6 hour map-rotaion for some bomberpilots, that sometimes are on the server. make the timeframe shorter, to get more variety, because even when a bomberpilot comes on he has with a 3 hour map enough time to make up to 2 bombing runs and for a bomberpilot it is boring too, to fly 6 hours the same map and bomb the same targets.

regards

Little_D

[No.401_Wolverine]

Maybe offering some limited air-spawn starts for bombers only would be something worth doing?

Also, give the air-spawns for bombers the option of taking multiple AI bombers with you in your flight so that it's not just you alone in the sky (unless you want it to be). So, see the option to allow air-spawn at 15,000 ft in a JU88, He111, or JU87 and allow them to take a flight of up to 6 aircraft? That'd be fun for people and easily give folks the opportunity to set up some quick fun.

Maybe make the airspawn starts relatively close to the locations where the normal AI bombers spawn in?

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

Maybe offering some limited air-spawn starts for bombers only would be something worth doing?


Highly controversial... however... it can only be tested if it's tried. And the only realistic place to test it is the ATAG #1 server.

[ATAG_Bliss]

Well here's a question to everyone:

Would it be better to produce shorter maps with one or 2 centralized targets instead of longer maps with 4 to 6 targets for each side?

Doing something like that brings the fight all to one spot and definitely doesn't need that much time to finish. (or maybe it will be harder for bombers?)

But I can say that if I were to bomb all the targets on the missions on the server by myself, I would never come close to finishing it in 6 hours. So perhaps the best way is to have it centralized with only 1 or 2 objectives. It would be chaos IMO (not necessarily a bad thing) but it will definitely bring the fighters/bombers all to one spot to get into quick scraps. And on top of that it wouldn't last very long.

I just don't know I could shorten the other maps that much as the objectives take a massive amount of time to complete unless you have a force (group of people) working to complete them.

Thoughts?

[ATAG_Colander]

For starters we can mix in a couple of those shorter maps and see how it goes.

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

But I can say that if I were to bomb all the targets on the missions on the server by myself, I would never come close to finishing it in 6 hours. So perhaps the best way is to have it centralized with only 1 or 2 objectives. It would be chaos IMO (not necessarily a bad thing) but it will definitely bring the fighters/bombers all to one spot to get into quick scraps. And on top of that it wouldn't last very long.
?

OK, I like where this idea is going. How about this slight variation,

1. Two targets. However the targets are not particularly close together.

2. Each target has either;
2a) a fairly large number of individual objects that must be destroyed, which are not densely packed together, OR
2b) the target is an area, like an airfield, that is destroyed when a certain tonnage of bombs hits it (say 5,000lb)

3. Targets have quite a decent amount of flak protection, on both sides of the channel.


This would, I think, reduce the jabo-style 15-minute-map-flips, and would encourage groups of medium bombers to hit from higher altitude.

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

.... the objectives take a massive amount of time to complete unless you have a force (group of people) working to complete them.


Isn't it interesting that this "force" is what so many people have been arguing is needed to bring that "BoB experience" to the game. Yet, when maps are built to try and support that kind of play, the game-play has not panned out as expected.

When all is said and done, if is mightily difficult to predict how players will respond to a mission.....

What a shame CloD doesn't have some kind of multiplayer mission/ objective randomizer that works....

[ATAG_Bliss]

OK, I like where this idea is going. How about this slight variation,

1. Two targets. However the targets are not particularly close together.

2. Each target has either;
2a) a fairly large number of individual objects that must be destroyed, which are not densely packed together, OR
2b) the target is an area, like an airfield, that is destroyed when a certain tonnage of bombs hits it (say 5,000lb)

3. Targets have quite a decent amount of flak protection, on both sides of the channel.


This would, I think, reduce the jabo-style 15-minute-map-flips, and would encourage groups of medium bombers to hit from higher altitude.

Good idea. I'll work on something like this. Hopefully have something ready by the weekend to give it a test. It's also much easier making a mission like this compared to one that has a long run time.

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

Good idea. I'll work on something like this. Hopefully have something ready by the weekend to give it a test. It's also much easier making a mission like this compared to one that has a long run time.

Oh how about a map where Red cannot spawn at either Hawkinge or Lympne?
That might mix it up a bit!

[ATAG_Bliss]

Oh how about a map where Red cannot spawn at either Hawkinge or Lympne?
That might mix it up a bit!

Yeah.. I was thinking Blue spawn there :D J/K

I have something in mind.. I'll keep those spawns out of it.

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

Yeah.. I was thinking Blue spawn there :D J/K
.

Ha, ha ha! :D

[Little_D]

Hi gents,

some ideas to get a 2-3 hour map maby working:

1. 2-3 maintargets for both side ( HQ`s, Airfields, Habour`s, Depot`s etc.) with the style Philstyle said in his post.
2. 3-5 targets for fighterbombers / Stukas ( moving car-convoi, moving train`s, some smal convoi with about 6 vessels and 3 escorts, radarstations, etc.)
3. for the fighterbomber targets les low aa but more high aa to stop highalt bombers to kill the target.
4. bombertragets les high aa, but lot more low aa to stop fighterbombers to kill the bombertargets

ok there must be some gentleman agreement between the pilots on the server, that bombertargets are for bomber and fighterbomber targets are for fighterbombers.

and some dreaming now:

when we get more missions together in this style, maby it is possible, that when one side lost the map, the next mission is harder to win for the losser of the map before. so we could see moving frontline from mission to mission and have a reson to fly and fight for winning the map. because its allways nice to give the enemy a harder time :-)

regards

Little_D

[kopperdrake]

Excellent idea DNR, That of the squads night. It might encourage flyers to join a squad possibly too.

Actually, what was working on the ACG server was a group of players, say a blue staffel or two - bombers and their escorts - would throw down the gauntlet to the reds (I think Werra was responsible for it, but I'm not too sure as I never fly blue). They'd made their own missions, I believe altered from existing missions, as a way to learn to fly together. They would do this every week at the same time, and eventually us reds decided it would be fun to curtail their practice sessions, and were actively invited to do so by the blues. It's a great way to build team spirit, flying together for a common objective, and to (try and) stick one to the opposing side :)

Importantly, it was a more relaxed affair than the SoW Sunday campaigns, which appealed to those who just fancied turning up for a one-off bash mid-week.

[ATAG_Bliss]

Little_D and Drake,

Good ideas, but there is a heck of a lot of work to maintain something like that. My time is extremely limited right now (summer, work, and drag racing).

But my perfect "idea" would be to create an ADW type system (long range goals) where the mission goes on for an hour/2hours and frontlines, targets change, etc., all based on how well you performed the previous mission. And to keep your fighters etc., you have to maintain them, go on supply missions, be extremely careful etc. But just like ADW, that is another system that would take a huge amount of work and most definitely couldn't be done by someone like me. Once done though, it's something that could be fully automated.

Judging from most of the comments though, it's plain to see the more variety the better.

[Continu0]

Little_D and Drake,

Good ideas, but there is a heck of a lot of work to maintain something like that. My time is extremely limited right now (summer, work, and drag racing).

But my perfect "idea" would be to create an ADW type system (long range goals) where the mission goes on for an hour/2hours and frontlines, targets change, etc., all based on how well you performed the previous mission. And to keep your fighters etc., you have to maintain them, go on supply missions, be extremely careful etc. But just like ADW, that is another system that would take a huge amount of work and most definitely couldn't be done by someone like me. Once done though, it's something that could be fully automated.

Judging from most of the comments though, it's plain to see the more variety the better.

That is probably like a red flag for a bull, but you should really try the Storm of War campaigns one day. No insult and no intention to light the fire again, but yes, it can be done and there are people doing it!

[ATAG_Bliss]

Well, I don't want that level of organization or commitment in a video game. I just want to get a good experience when I have time to play it. I have waaaay too many hobbies as it is. That's why ADW was so great (in my eyes) you could come and go as you please, but the same strict guidelines of having to keep your planes, not lose or damage them etc., or you would be left with much lesser planes than the enemy (just for your squad). Then at will (anytime you want) you could fly some repair part missions and gets your planes you lost, back. I guess the point I'm trying to make is, all of this is at your own leisure.

And you never have to worry about talking about other servers etc., here. There has never been that problem, nor do we have any rule against it unlike some other server providers. But in the flip side, I'm not going to go to some other server hoster forum and tell them their work is garbage, let alone insinuate they are the cause of lack of players in a video game. That is rude and very disrespectful. That's why I won't do it and why it won't be tolerated here.

[III./ZG76_Saipan]

short range targets, long range targets....it doesn't matter to me. but who will fly for red to bomb things? very few blennys are used now and the targets are not that far. I now Snarglepuss always seems to get a few other pilots with him and the do a good job flying to target direct and indirect ways. any new mission would be welcomed. but either way you need red to engage the ground targets.

I would remove the AI for both colours. nothing is more sad than hitting multiple ground targets and seeing red (or blue) hitting the AI bombers in the server buffer while roaming unmolested over lower east England.

I know this will lead to a debate about "people flying how they wanna fly". But, if we have maps that have some AI and maps with no AI that might help.

Has anyone checked with Droz or any of the Ghost Skies people to see if they can run a campaign with CLOD?

[Faustnik]

Spotting aircraft is the problem.

Some new people I know have started using CloD. They love everything with 3.01, exept spotting.

The next mod with spotting improvements should add more players.

Thanks for all the improvements Team Fusion!!! :)

[sw1ive]

Well. I just came back from the Duxford airshow and met many whole Il21946 squads who said that the main thing keeping them away from CLOD is the LOD issue and before that was fixed they wouldnt even touch the game..

o.k.


CLOD means Cliffs of dover
LOD means ???????????

[RAF74_Buzzsaw]

Some new people I know have started using CloD. They love everything with 3.01, exept spotting.

The next mod with spotting improvements should add more players.

Thanks for all the improvements Team Fusion!!! :)

Hey Faust

Glad to hear you are enjoying the Mod.

An endorsement from a longtime Flight Simmer like you is a big plus. :thumbsup:

And yes, we think the improvement in LOD's will bring a lot more people into the game.

Cheers Buzzsaw

[Roblex]

I would remove the AI for both colours. nothing is more sad than hitting multiple ground targets and seeing red (or blue) hitting the AI bombers in the server buffer while roaming unmolested over lower east England.


I think there is an argument for the opposite approach i.e. targets that need a lot of tonnage to be dropped on them so frequent large formations of AI bombers are the only way a side will win the map. This forces the blues to defend their bombers and the reds to attack the bombers instead of staying low over Folkstone. So the net result is a map where the majority of the fighting is at high altitude with the bombers being the main focus; sounds a lot like the Battle Of Britain to me :d There is still a place for low level bombers as some of the targets will inevitably survive the carpet bombing and need finishing off.

To be true to history we would pretty much exclude red bombing but I understand that there are red bomber pilots who want to bomb things so I would suggest a switch every 30 or 45 minutes. For 30 minutes all the AI is blue, maybe He111s and JU88s, and red concentrates on defence then it switches to Wellingtons and the reds concentrate on helping their bombers get through. Bombers should launch from known areas but take one of several routes at random so we don't just get everyone furballing half way between the spawn point and the target. If you are not defending or attacking the high alt bombers then you will not be seeing much action.

[Broodwich]

Highly controversial... however... it can only be tested if it's tried. And the only realistic place to test it is the ATAG #1 server.

Whats so controversial? Even spawning a bomber in at 10k ft would be a big improvement in time to target, and its not like it takes long for fighters to climb to that alt. Generally speaking if you want more players to do X then you make X easier to do and more people will try it out/do it more regularly. I assume the current number of people flying bombers is much lower than ideal. Looking at the stats page right now there are 29 Red pilots, 24 Blue pilots. One person is in a Blenheim, one is in a Heinkel, and one is in a 110. Little low for anyone?


Well here's a question to everyone:

Would it be better to produce shorter maps with one or 2 centralized targets instead of longer maps with 4 to 6 targets for each side?

Doing something like that brings the fight all to one spot and definitely doesn't need that much time to finish. (or maybe it will be harder for bombers?)

It depends on how you want a mission to play out. If you want big fights in one area then the big centralized targets works best, to make it interesting put it in an area that typically sees less attention than say the Folkestone area. Or the little spread out targets like Little D is saying. I would suggest different types for different missions so we see a more focused game rather than the do whatever you want scheme that just spreads people out.

[ATAG_Bliss]

Along the lines of the bigger, more spread out targets, I would like the AI groups to be more involved in the mission outcome. There are some missions where several of the groups do go after targets, but there was never really much incentive to shoot them down.

Colander recently sent me some code that might allow me to make these bomber groups objectives, but I have yet to try it out to see if it will work or not. But if that's the case, then I can create some really interesting "air objectives" which can win/lose the map depending on if you can attack or defend them. So that's something else that maybe coming down the pipeline which I think would add some new incentives to the fighter guys and localize more of the fight at altitude. If I can get that working, the fighters will just have as much influence on winning the scenario/map as the bomber guys.

[56RAF_klem]

o.k.


CLOD means Cliffs of dover
LOD means ???????????

Level Of Detail. LODs are the different levels of detail put into the model as it approached you. Distant models have almost no detail, just the bare minimum of pixels to make a basic crude aircraft shape. There are usually ten LODs for an object (well thats how it is in FSX) and the closer the aircraft or object gets, the more detail is shown by switching in the next size and level of detail of the object with a bit more detail in the model and its textures (skin).

Problem in CoD is that the first level of detail, after it changes from a simple dot, is harder to see than the dot, is an almost transparent colour, tends to flicker and often just seems to disappear at that critical moment. By the time it becomes visible again it may be somewhere else, like behind you, but it is in any case very annoying!

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

Whats so controversial? .

It's controversial to the voices that ask for historical realism (that is, human players take off and land).

I don't have an opinion either way, but based on historical interactions on this site and many conversations about missions, I am sure this is controversial.

[56RAF_klem]

Been thinking a lot following recent discussions and indeed disagreements.

First point is that missions, whether old, new, stale, organised, etc are not what is causing a lack of new players. They don't even know about missions yet and will be happy to play any missions online to start with. We have to find ways to drag new guys in off the streets and bring back disaffected "first release" guys. It may not be the case that sales have maxed. Sales were stifled by an unplayable game and we need to spread the word that it's a lot better now. Even so I don't think it will boom but a couple of hundred more online would be great. Remember also that Luthier has rejoined the world of WWII combat simming with strong backing so a lot of people are going to keep their powder dry but meantime maybe we can offer them a stop-gap (as they may see it).

Second is the problem really being discussed regarding mission design, how to keep guys playing. I agree that long missions can seem a bit tedious, but when I ask myself why I don't have a clear answer. If missions are objective driven, why aren't the maps rolled sooner by victories? Is it that some objectives are not being made available (scripted in) for 4 hours? If so that needs changing IMHO. Or, do guys get bored with trying to kill the objectives because they are too hard or they just want to dogfight? Won't the next map be just as difficult and have people asking to 'roll the map' again? Is it that not enough people are willing to commit to the objectives and instead get bored with the idea of being on the same map and simply go on to get bored with the next map anyway? In other words, are too many guys only interested in dog-fighting with quicker changes of scenery but can't be bothered to go after the objectives?

One thing that has become clear to me is that the appetite for mission styles varies. Some guys like to operate in organised ways as Squads with tasks delegated to specific Squads and the sides are strictly objective driven. That's the way the ACG server missions tend to be and particularly in their campaigns. Others prefer the looser form of play (and perhaps more welcoming for online newbies) usually found on ATAG where, for example, the Reds jump on the Allied TS channel, work loosely together and come together in numbers when a target, formation, etc. is located (even though some Squads like ours still work as a Squad alongside everyone else). So I think the first question for mission builders is "do you know your audience"? Some are trying to tell you in here but they aren't all looking for the same thing.

It seems to me that the majority of guys on the ATAG server are looking for quicker game-play and changes, don't want to go after lots of objectives so the missions could be shortened. Generally guys want to see objectives achieved within their time on line, typically three hours, so the missions would need to be say two hours long.

However to capture "Squad Play" interest, something else that may be worth considering is the "Squad Night" audience. If, say, Sunday night Europe/Sunday afternoon USA is "Squad night" for most European/USA Squads (check the stats?) and they would like to work more formally together then load up longer or larger missions on Sundays that will encourage Squads to attend in numbers and operate together in a more organised way. As someone else suggested, that might have be on the overflow server if there are still large numbers that want to play in shorter looser missions. If "Squad Play" doesn't appeal to the ATAG operators then leave that kind of play to ACG and just go for the shorter missions. That won't make ATAG a "Dogfight Server" as some people have insinuated, they will simply be shorter, less historical, less formal and perhaps less objective driven with the clock rolling the maps after a couple of hours.

Different strokes for different folks.

In any case, at the moment even thinking of running alternate mission types on the second server may be tail chasing simply because of the OP's original question. I don't see enough guys on line, even on a busy night, to go populating even two let alone three CoD servers with high numbers.

[kopperdrake]

Hey Klem,

To add to your comments, I've been on the ATAG server and on occasion you tend to get some diehard Blenny pilots (snarglepuss, you out there ;)) who go for the bombing objectives, but with a limited number of bomber pilots, and the fact that reds need to take a Blenny full stop to bomb something, means often you're bombing on your own, with not much backup, whilst the majority of reds are flying in their fighters. Perhaps it would be good to have a mission that is point-based rather than objective-based? I mean, still have objectives for both bombers and fighters, but if the players online are weighted to fighter pilots, then the objectives relevant to them can stack up enough points to win the game. Same goes for the (very) odd occasion when the bomber pilots outweigh the fighter pilots. This could make for a faster turnaround of a mission maybe?

[RAF74_Buzzsaw]

Along the lines of the bigger, more spread out targets, I would like the AI groups to be more involved in the mission outcome. There are some missions where several of the groups do go after targets, but there was never really much incentive to shoot them down.

Colander recently sent me some code that might allow me to make these bomber groups objectives, but I have yet to try it out to see if it will work or not. But if that's the case, then I can create some really interesting "air objectives" which can win/lose the map depending on if you can attack or defend them. So that's something else that maybe coming down the pipeline which I think would add some new incentives to the fighter guys and localize more of the fight at altitude. If I can get that working, the fighters will just have as much influence on winning the scenario/map as the bomber guys.

Yes, the AI bombers should not be on the map unless they are bombing the mission objectives.

Make the mission objectives big enough to be hit by the AI bombing from Altitude.

Make the mission objectives larger, but more concentrated, so the defenders can focus on them.

Objectives for the British bombers should be smaller, and easier to take out, there is no way the British can compete to take out equal sized objectives with just the Blenheim. I'd recommend putting barges in the harbours for the Blenheims to bomb, this was an actual BoB objective.

[Uwe]

Yes, the AI bombers should not be on the map unless they are bombing the mission objectives.

Make the mission objectives big enough to be hit by the AI bombing from Altitude.

Make the mission objectives larger, but more concentrated, so the defenders can focus on them.

Objectives for the British bombers should be smaller, and easier to take out, there is no way the British can compete to take out equal sized objectives with just the Blenheim. I'd recommend putting barges in the harbours for the Blenheims to bomb, this was an actual BoB objective.

And airfields, dont forget airfields!

[Roblex]

I would agree that it might be worth having less targets closer together. On a typical map the reds might be trying to defend targets anywhere from Beachy Head to Eastchurch and it would need a CAP of at least three aircraft at each target at differing altitudes to be even 50% likely to stop someone sneaking in. My squad has tried it a few times but too often you end up with three or four pilots patrolling a target that the Blues have no intention of attacking anytime in the next hour or they do attack and the first we know is the target exploding. I hasten to add that the Blues have the same issues.
This is probably why we end up with the Hawkinge low level furball; the Blues will almost certainly attack the ships in the near future so you know you are not wasting your time.

I know that not being sure where the attack will come is realistic but no matter how much a person wants to simulate the BoB, they don't really want to simulate the hours of uneventful patrols that were also a part of the battle plus we don't have the numbers that were flying each day in the real battle. We have to concentrate of defending known objectives (or adopt a strategy seen in some other sims, like WW2-OL, where a player chooses a 'defence' mission that gives him points if he keeps a target intact even if it does not get attacked)

Another point is that for a bomber pilot, there is no credit for targets destroyed unless they are ships. Fighter boys can gloat over their kills or just the satisfaction of being seen shooting down an enemy plane but a bomber pilot that destroys 90% of the required objects at a target gets no feedback to tell him how much he hit and nothing shows up in the stats. He has spent at least 40 minutes on a suicidal task that shows no visible reward.

On Klems subject of 'What do the existing players want' I just want to say that if anything makes me give up playing CLOD it wont be LOD issues or lack of new aircraft (I would love them but know they take too muck work) or niggles over flight envelopes and CEM, it will be boredom with flying variations of the same old maps. That is not a criticism of the mission writers, I have not written anything myself so have no right to complain and can only thank them for what they have provided as without them multiplayer CLOD would not really exist.

[56RAF_klem]

I think having bomber group destruction as an objective is an excellent idea. My scripting is very scratchy but I believe they are defined as an Air-Group of some kind and are countable so it may be possible to count to where say 80% have been destroyed and therefore the objective is met and perhaps the balance turn back or cut engines or something. One thing though, AI bombers will become predictable and therefore boring unless some kind of randomisation of launch air base and route is possible so that for a LW target in England, the launch base and route may be a random choice of say 6 possibilities, triggering one of 6 overlaid mission groups/waypoints, and therefore won't lead to camping on a single known route and boredom. It will at least be "which way are the &*^$*&!^ coming this time?".

I don't think anything should be in the air that doesn't have a mission objective, i.e. no AI groups of bombers just for the sake of something to shoot at. I would like to see guys stop "just shooting at planes" that have no mission return value because then all air battles would be contributing to the mission objectives. As said before it would encourage bomber escorting and still provide for dogfighting with escorts which would allow others to get to the bombers. I think it would encourage more working together, e.g. two regular or ad-hoc RAF groups one for peeling away the escorts and the other attacking the bombers. Co-operation driven by the mission design, there being no mission value in just shooting down escorts. The BoB from the RAF side was more about bomber attrition than fighter attrition and the LW 109s will get their chance when the RAF guys attack the bombers.

Oh and can you please limit the numbers of Bf109E4/Ns and Spitfire IIs? There was only 1 out of 15 LW Gruppes equipped with it in Luftflotte 2 (in JG26 I believe) from July 1940, that's one of fifteen Gruppes, there were none in the ten Gruppen of Luftflotte 3 during the BoB (so that's 1 in 25 Gruppen or just 4%) and the Spitfire IIs didn't enter service until August 1940.

[SoW Reddog]

Funnily enough Klem I've just pm'd Bliss about the practicalities of a mission I'd like to work on which mirror what you've just put up pretty much!

[56RAF_klem]

Funnily enough Klem I've just pm'd Bliss about the practicalities of a mission I'd like to work on which mirror what you've just put up pretty much!

:thumbsup:

[Roblex]

I posted a similar suggestion to Klems recently but I did not suggest totally random spawn points and routes for the bombers because the defending fighters need to know where the bombers are otherwise it becomes a race to see who finds them first. I suggested a few spawn points the several possible routes from there. The reasoning is that while the enemy will know where to look for spawning bombers, the defending can protect them as they spawn.

[kopperdrake]

Cracking idea - this will certainly pull teams to higher altitudes, especially us Hurripram pilots :D

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

I posted a similar suggestion to Klems recently but I did not suggest totally random spawn points and routes for the bombers because the defending fighters need to know where the bombers are otherwise it becomes a race to see who finds them first. I suggested a few spawn points the several possible routes from there. The reasoning is that while the enemy will know where to look for spawning bombers, the defending can protect them as they spawn.

Random spawn points is fine. That's why the British developed RADAR...

If we had some kind of working early warning system - with historical-ish limitations then the randomizing spawn would not be an issue.

[gavagai]

It seems to me that the majority of guys on the ATAG server are looking for quicker game-play and changes, don't want to go after lots of objectives so the missions could be shortened. Generally guys want to see objectives achieved within their time on line, typically three hours, so the missions would need to be say two hours long.


Just because many seem to want quicker game play does not mean they want the duration of time between map rotations to decrease. The surest way to drive people away is to have the map frequently reset as people are climbing to altitude.

[RAF74_Buzzsaw]

Here's some comments on ships as targets:

The Germans didn't have large merchant ship convoys operating in the daylight during the BoB. They moved ships at night if they had to, but most of their supply came from rail sources. As I mentioned before in this thread, what they did move were Barges to the ports on the French coast, although again, mostly at night. In the daylight the barges were anchored at docks.

The British didn't have the huge slow moving convoys we see in the game. Most of their large convoys came out of Liverpool or the other West coast ports. The traffic which had to come out of London was in the form of fast moving small convoys, 3 or 4 fast merchant ships escorted by an equal number of Destroyers/Minesweepers.

So my suggestion is the German convoys be eliminated, the size of the British convoys be reduced, with a higher ratio of escorts to merchant ships, and the speed of the Merchant ships and their escort be increased. Also if the designer can put in a zig zag pattern for the Convoy movement, that would be more realistic, and can make the ships harder to hit.

[DennydD]

I think there are a couple of reasons why new "simmers" are not attracted to CloD.
I am not so sure if changing the mission design on ATAG realy drags a lot of new online players in. Although I am sure it will improve the situation I wouldn'd bet on a real breakthrough in player numbers.

If I look at the reviews on the important webpages you get an idea why people do hesitate to start CloD. Amazon reviews are a good way to leave at least some good impressions but I think that a lot of simmers look for the reviews made by the etablished pages like SimHQ or even PC Game magazines. Metacritics gives you a good feeling how the game is up until today perceived > metascore 60 userscore 6.0. Compared to this, Il2 Sturmovik has a metascore of 91 and an userscore of 8.7!!
I would be benefitcial if the amazing work of TF could be promoted more. I might be neccessary to convince some of the folks over at the etablished pages to re-review the game with TF patch to reflect the state of the game as it is now.

IMHO the game also suffers from its single player part. It might not be obvious but most of the players in multiplayer come from the singleplayer part for various reasons. The only SP content, apart from communty contributions, that is serious are the Desatersoft Addons. But like previously stated the money and investment aspect of CloD is high and one who payed for CloD must now pay again to get a somehow decent SP setting. Of course there is a lot of free download content available but some players dont want to bother with the clunky installations and on the other hand the modders suffer a lot from the GUI the game has. If SP would be more immersive MP would also benefit.

Also the GUI drives away people. The ingame menus are simply subpar. One might ask himself why you can choose the googles on your pilots face without problems although you probably never see them in full realism (and the others don't see them either when you are passing them with 200mph...) but if you wanna change the payload of your aircraft you need to read through a couple of userguides to have a slight chance to succeed. I even knew some folks who were driven off by the "gray box" issue.
Up until this day after playing this game for a long time I don't know for sure for what the color things in the plane customisation window are good for. Or when I go to the briefing window to read the mission describtion but cannot go back without finishing a flight I never started. Or the video setting that offers you stuff that is either broken or is a game breaker like this anti epelepsy filter (good god!). Don't get me wrong, I love the game and would play it even without the great TF patches but sometimes someone needs a rant and if you look at this from the perspective of a new guy/gal comming into the sim you can see what I'm trying to say here.

Some folks here mentioned the bombers. I have to agree that it is sad to see only a few of them online but apart from the gunner issue I honestly belive that there are never many players with bombers. I'd like to add to the points of the others that flying a bomber is WAY more difficult that flying a fighter. No so from the aspect of handling though that is also different but more from the overall workload. The learnig curve in this game is....steep. In a bomber it is simply hefty. you have to literaly learn about 3 axis autopilots and LOTFE bombsights and so on but also you have to plan your flight check your navigation skills go over on TS to find and coordinate your fighter escord. Even if you do plan everything there is a good chance that you find yourself in a wet grave after an 30min flight without even having your bombs dropped. If there is something that can be done it will help but until then I don't think you'll ever have frequent bomber use on a significant level.

Last but not least I want to mention that we kill the new people often ourselfes. I am all for realism but it should be realistic. Sometimes I read about suggestions that are made with good intention but would create a clunky monster in terms of accessibility of CloD. More variety is in my oppinion better than to force one way. ATM there is only one realy popular server and this is ATAG. No matter how I and others like their missions there are always people who look for something different in the same setting. If there were more differnt popular servers that are not just "ATAG with different mission design" but also different difficulty settings etc. it could also help.

Sorry I might have fallen into a rant from time to time but I realy love this game. :salute:

[RAF74_Buzzsaw]

Salute

The reality is, 70% of the chances of improving this game's popularity is going to come down to the skill of the people in Team Fusion in improving the game, creating new content, and then publicizing the changes.

We did this for the 1st release, and as a result we have gotten a lot of interest. More needs to be done to continue the process. We believe the 2nd Release will add even more new flyers, as well as bringing back many of those who have given up after trying the game for a few weeks.

The remaining 30% comes down to the community, if we see the type of support which was present in IL-2 1946, such as mission building, dynamic campaigns, Server setups, skins, etc., etc., that will also provide a significant boost.

If anyone wants to help the game's popularity, the single most useful thing they can do is to build single player campaigns. There can never be enough in the way of new campaigns. :ilike:

[DennydD]

There is no doubt that what TF did and does for this Sim is beyond what I (and I think also the community) could ever have asked form a couple of volunteers. The improvement is simply amazing and reading your anouncement about what the new patch contains simply excites me.

For the SP campaigns I'd like to add that the creaters do have a hard time with this task. The game neither puts you into the position where you can plan the BoB like Dowding or Kesselring (this is an approach that was made by this BoB series of Rowan or by "Their Finest Hour" of Lucas Arts) nor are you realy building up a tie to "your" pilot. The complete lack of profiles, medals, killboards etc. prevents immersion in the campaigns. It feels more like you haste through a series of SP missions with generic pilots. There are some great works out there right now but they rely on the talent of the builder to write a good story to link them together somehow. Sure if you want to fly a series of missions that are based on strict historical accuracy you might find this cool but if you look for your own personal BoB experience the tools that are available for those who wanna create something cool are underwhelming.

No criticism here. I also dont ask for something, TF got it's hands full. This is just what I perceived in SP apart from the payware addons.

Sorry for sidetracking a bit. Understand this as addition to the SP point I made above and how it could help bringing new MP players in.

[TX-Gunslinger]

Haven't been around in a while - work's pretty crazy. Things are always worse in the summer for me. I'll come back to that theme in a minute. I do check the forums just about every day to see what's going on.

Those that mentioned aircraft view range - have completely hit the nail on the head, imho.


Spotting aircraft is the problem.

Yes. This is certainly the largest glitch. People can't spot bombers past 5 Km on a perfect VFR day. I hear it over and over from my "old" Il-2 friends and squadmates. Yes, all of those pilots are excited about the TF work - but after flying for a bit, one becomes aware of the tiny 4km visibilty bubble around their aircraft. At first, you can push it to the back of your mind - but after a few weeks on the server it completely dominates one's conciousness....

For those who are searching for historical re-creation, it's your biggest technical limitation. German bomber streams at contrail height, cannot be seen until you are on top of them - removing one of the most elegant of all attacks - the head-on. Not enough time in most encounters to manuever (particularly with a group of fighters) to match bombers course.

Even if historically pure missions were created, years of managing/camping/drumming up business for servers tells me you'd probably see a downswing in attendance. To me it seems that if you tighten up the missions too much, you risk losing the casual pilots.

Since no one can see very far - the mass actions that we became used to in Il2, are not going to happen regularly and naturally.

No event that you can create will bring the "old guard" back - without the visibility. In lieu of that, the AI bombers and known mission objectives seem to be the main thing that will draw a fight, or multi-plane action.

Team Fusion is focusing on exactly the right stuff in this next patch to address all that. On my squadron's private Facebook page - I post some of the regular Team Fusion update screenies and that generates a lot of excitement. Your next big opportunity to really up the server population, will be coincident with the next patch. My suggestion is that we all focus our attention and marketing efforts on that event - to maximize the numbers of players who will certainly come. There still are many hermits out there who don't even know about it.

Lastly, it's summer. The age distribution of our community tends to peak in the 30 to 45 year old males. Children out of school, vacations, weather, household repairs, etc... This is the time of the year that many have to "rebalance" all the things that they put off - to fly :)

Il2 had such a large population of pilots that, in it's heyday - you didn't notice the Summer-Sim-Doldrums as much. I've noticed since ROF was released (never a large MP community - never had the numbers to begin with) summer hurts (The opposite of the "Winters Coming" in GOT).

Tweaking missions and things is good - just don't have high expectations until that patch comes and the kids are back in school.

Sorry for the long rambling post - I miss you guys.

S!

Gunny

[VO101_Tom]

Yes. This is certainly the largest glitch. People can't spot bombers past 5 Km on a perfect VFR day. I hear it over and over from my "old" Il-2 friends and squadmates. Yes, all of those pilots are excited about the TF work - but after flying for a bit, one becomes aware of the tiny 4km visibilty bubble around their aircraft. At first, you can push it to the back of your mind - but after a few weeks on the server it completely dominates one's conciousness....
...
Since no one can see very far - the mass actions that we became used to in Il2, are not going to happen regularly and naturally.
...
No event that you can create will bring the "old guard" back - without the visibility. In lieu of that, the AI bombers and known mission objectives seem to be the main thing that will draw a fight, or multi-plane action.
...

Hi.
The aircraft visibility topic is a regular theme, it come up time to time, but i have to say, your friends are wrong. The planes are visible (small black dots) from far greater distance, than 4-5 km. The 4 km limit is the limit of the icons only. Of course, this problem occured in our squad too, when we flew in tight formation, I have reported far contacts, and my mates see nothing. We investigate the problem, and we found, that the problem was the monitor settings. Not the video card, literally the monitor (not just the resolution, but have to admit, the HD monitors use very small pixels, hard to find a plane). The new monitors have many program, and mode, like "sport", "movie", "natural", etc. We found, that these settings simply remove the small black points. (I use LED monitor with IPS panel, calibrated to printing work, maybe this is why I saw the contacts all the time).

I have made a screenshot, a simple, uncompressed bmp file, where we see many contacts. The others have not seen the dots. That's the main problem. Until you or your mates don't see them, your monitor need to adjust!

monitortest.bmp (http://www.pumaszallas.hu/Private/Tom/forum_kepek/monitorteszt.bmp)
monitortest_help.bmp (http://www.pumaszallas.hu/Private/Tom/forum_kepek/monitorteszt_help.bmp)
(this pictures was made before the TF patch, but this is not relevant).


Have to mention, there is an another visibility problem: around 2 km the plane's LOD change level, and the visibility reduced. Still visible, but easy to lost the contacts. The TF working on this issue.

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

We investigate the problem, and we found, that the problem was the monitor settings. Not the video card, literally the monitor (not just the resolution, but have to admit, the HD monitors use very small pixels, hard to find a plane). The new monitors have many program, and mode, like "sport", "movie", "natural", etc. We found, that these settings simply remove the small black points..

Tom, this is great advice. I will add this to the "master list" of bug fixes.

[Manoxerox]

What made Il-2 1946 great were the dynamic online wars (Bellum, Europe in flames, CAD, IL-2 war, Airforce War, Air Domination War). They all were playable via HyperLobby(except ADW) . Many players quit when the mod packs game dividing players into small groups between different packs and killing the wars. Now there are only dogfight servers (dogfight is waste of time said Erich Hartmann). So when you design WWII air combat sims take this into consideration: there must be a possibility to build a dynamic war with ground battles and different types of missions (CAP, free hunt, escort, recon, supply, capturing cities, destroying airfields etc.) The sim that can do that will win in the end.:idea:

[gavagai]

Hi.
The aircraft visibility topic is a regular theme, it come up time to time, but i have to say, your friends are wrong. The planes are visible (small black dots) from far greater distance, than 4-5 km. The 4 km limit is the limit of the icons only. Of course, this problem occured in our squad too, when we flew in tight formation, I have reported far contacts, and my mates see nothing. We investigate the problem, and we found, that the problem was the monitor settings. Not the video card, literally the monitor (not just the resolution, but have to admit, the HD monitors use very small pixels, hard to find a plane). The new monitors have many program, and mode, like "sport", "movie", "natural", etc. We found, that these settings simply remove the small black points. (I use LED monitor with IPS panel, calibrated to printing work, maybe this is why I saw the contacts all the time).

I have made a screenshot, a simple, uncompressed bmp file, where we see many contacts. The others have not seen the dots. That's the main problem. Until you or your mates don't see them, your monitor need to adjust!

monitortest.bmp (http://www.pumaszallas.hu/Private/Tom/forum_kepek/monitorteszt.bmp)
monitortest_help.bmp (http://www.pumaszallas.hu/Private/Tom/forum_kepek/monitorteszt_help.bmp)
(this pictures was made before the TF patch, but this is not relevant).


Have to mention, there is an another visibility problem: around 2 km the plane's LOD change level, and the visibility reduced. Still visible, but easy to lost the contacts. The TF working on this issue.

You can do all the adjusting and tweaking you like. The LOD issue was bad enough for TF to work on it for the next patch. That says enough about the issue to me. Put me in the category of people who rarely play CLOD because of disappearing dots.

[DennydD]

Tom I atually like your attemt to help people with this LOD issue and I think it is important to give advice but I have to agree with gav here. The LOD issue has to be cured from the game side not with hardware tweaks. This topic is about aquiring new players/simers to CloD. Telling people who's monitors worked for them in every other situation like a charm that they should now change their monitor settings somehow that they can see dots that are not black but blend in with the environment colors is just too much. What comes next?

My monitor displays the dots of your picture. But I have to zoom in to 400% to have a chance to see this sorry little blurs. This is not the first sim I play. Actually I play now flight sims for over 25 years (starting with "Ace of Aces" if you wanna call this "sim") and never had this issue.

Going back on topic this is something we do for recreation. It was stated so many times that the LOD issue ruins the experience for so many players. I realy do not care about the realism freaks who tell you all day long how hard it is to spot an aircraft. I just want to enjoy this sim and not glare at some dots that are only to be seen with an magnifier.

Forgive me if this was coming over to harsh.

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

Tom I atually like your attemt to help people with this LOD issue and I think it is important to give advice but I have to agree with gav here. The LOD issue has to be cured from the game side not with hardware tweaks..

Tom is talking about the long-range Dots visibility, not the LOD issue.

They are two separate things.

[DennydD]

Tom is talking about the long-range Dots visibility, not the LOD issue.

They are two separate things.

I stand corrected. Nevertheless this is my opinion on the long range dot visibility topic.

[gavagai]

They are two separate things.

A dot-blob is one category of LOD. It's an old "technology" that has no place in a flight sim in 2013. In the sims with the best long range spotting, e.g. Falcon BMS, Rise of Flight, there are no dot-blobs. What you see at long range transitions smoothly to the aircraft you see at point blank range.

[VO101_Tom]

You can do all the adjusting and tweaking you like. The LOD issue was bad enough for TF to work on it for the next patch. That says enough about the issue to me. Put me in the category of people who rarely play CLOD because of disappearing dots.

This isn't lod issue, this is monitor settings issue (like you play on non-native resolution, and the picture is a blurry mess. What can the TF do with this? Nothing.). The TF patch will not help on this. They fixing the LOD-change bug, which is totally different thing.

[VO101_Tom]

Tom is talking about the long-range Dots visibility, not the LOD issue.

They are two separate things.

Exactly.
Thanks :)

[VO101_Tom]

Tom I atually like your attemt to help people with this LOD issue and I think it is important to give advice but I have to agree with gav here. The LOD issue has to be cured from the game side not with hardware tweaks. This topic is about aquiring new players/simers to CloD. Telling people who's monitors worked for them in every other situation like a charm that they should now change their monitor settings somehow that they can see dots that are not black but blend in with the environment colors is just too much. What comes next?

My monitor displays the dots of your picture. But I have to zoom in to 400% to have a chance to see this sorry little blurs. This is not the first sim I play. Actually I play now flight sims for over 25 years (starting with "Ace of Aces" if you wanna call this "sim") and never had this issue.

If you don't set your hardware properly, you will never see the dots then. Your choice.


Going back on topic this is something we do for recreation. It was stated so many times that the LOD issue ruins the experience for so many players. I realy do not care about the realism freaks who tell you all day long how hard it is to spot an aircraft. I just want to enjoy this sim and not glare at some dots that are only to be seen with an magnifier.

This is ontopic i think. Gunslinger said, his mates don't play because the 4-5km visibility bubble. This is not true, and Gunslinger should tell them. The range much higher, just need to adjust the HW. It takes not more than 5 minutes.
And as I said, the LOD issue which the TF fixing now, is a different thing.

[gavagai]

You insist that the dot-blob is not a level of detail?

[DennydD]

If you don't set your hardware properly, you will never see the dots then. Your choice.

It is true, the dots are visible beyond 4k. I don't doubt that.

But allow me to ask you a naive question: How do you think I and a lot of other people might feel if you just tell us that our settings are "not proper"? I realy do not think there is anything wrong about my settings but if you are right it would be nice if you could specify HOW to change the settings to let the dots appear. All you say is it's a monitor setting. Fine. But what setting? Or is it the case that I should now sit down and fiddle around for ever just to ruin my setting that works for me in all other applications? And this is the solution? You go out and tell everybody to change their hardware setting to play this game? Like in the sound issue where you must set the ingame sound to max to hear everything just to turn it down in windows? I realy can live without every sound in CloD but this blury dots are a gamebreaker. Not only for me but for many guys. And to be honest the dots are there on my monitor. But they are a blend in mess.

With all due respect but I have to say that this sounds to me like irony if in a thread about new players something appears that is to me just another excuse for closing the eyes about a problem in game.

[VO101_Tom]

You insist that the dot-blob is not a level of detail?
I say, the "lod bug" is that, when you already see the detailed 3D object, it's approaching, but around 2 km (where the LOD change) the visibility will be much worse than before (when i set the object detail less than max. in clod, in this stage the Spitfire completely disappear. I see the tracers and the cannon smoke come from the nothing!). Around 1 km the LOD change again, and you get the full detailed, good visibility object. This is the famous LOD bug.

I don't read any word about the visibility of the 5-10 km far planes.

[VO101_Tom]

It is true, the dots are visible beyond 4k. I don't doubt that.

But allow me to ask you a naive question: How do you think I and a lot of other people might feel if you just tell us that our settings are "not proper"? I realy do not think there is anything wrong about my settings but if you are right it would be nice if you could specify HOW to change the settings to let the dots appear. All you say is it's a monitor setting. Fine. But what setting? Or is it the case that I should now sit down and fiddle around for ever just to ruin my setting that works for me in all other applications? And this is the solution? You go out and tell everybody to change their hardware setting to play this game? Like in the sound issue where you must set the ingame sound to max to hear everything just to turn it down in windows? I realy can live without every sound in CloD but this blury dots are a gamebreaker. Not only for me but for many guys. And to be honest the dots are there on my monitor. But they are a blend in mess.

With all due respect but I have to say that this sounds to me like irony if in a thread about new players something appears that is to me just another excuse for closing the eyes about a problem in game.

What the exact solution? Honestly, i don't know. I have not touched my monitor, because I saw the dots all time. I'm just sent the .bmp to my mates, and they adjusting their screens until they see the dots (all of them see the far contacts since then). One of my mate switch off the "sport" mode on his monitor, and switch off the auto contrast. The other guy don't even know, that these mods exist on his monitor. He set lower the bringhtness, and set higher the contrast. But this is depends on the monitor. I can't say exact numbers, that the bringhtness should be 50, the contrast 80. This is what you have to testing.

I wasn't ironic. I tell here a solution, but true, you have to sit down in front of the monitor, and do something. It's hard, i understand, but as you learned wipe your ass alone, maybe this will also succeed. (See? This is ironic! lol)

[Little_D]

Hi gents,

the dot problem is maby not so impotant to bring new player to CoD, but for a beginner it is mutch harder to spot a dot than the veterans, that know how they have to look for cons, so maby it is importend?

On the other hand maby it is good for bringing good old 1946 pilots to CoD. I know at least about 60 pilots that dont fly CoD because of this.

Why? easy to tell, from there and my point of view:

in 1946 we where able to see a dot from 8 km, because we had clear black dots, dosent matter if he had same alt, where higher or lower, lower where harder to spot but still posible. it was maby not historical corect, but for the gameplay it was the best we can get, why? your could fly high at say 7.5km over the map, crossing a own target see a contact down low, coming from enemy side with a flightpath to the target. now you could think about you options, stay high becouse could be a own retuner, only 1 enemy, damn you have higher cons, etc. you could see dots in all alts and had not the feeling i am flying alon on the server with 60 peoples. and we had still flighttimes around 1 - 1.5 hous a flight, with maby 2 ore 3 victorys, so no fast gaming, but we could take the fight if we whant or not and it was still possible to bounce or kill someone without he is knowing that you are there. and you still where able to loos a con or with the right move got out of the sighn from your enemy like in CoD.

in CoD it dont come close to 1946. to spot a dot that flys low on deck i have to hold a max. alt from 4.5km, when he goes over a city no way to find him again. normaly i would lock into the position where he has to be, even when he turns a bit, like in 1946, but no he is gone you have no change to find him back. When the dot is at my alt i can spot them far away and i get at least 8km maby more, but only than. and sometimes even with 60 players on ATAG and a flighttime from 1 houre i get sometimes the fealing i am alone, because you cant see dots, even over the gamblepoints or you have to fly low. and in CoD it is like, oh there is a dot, damn he is close, fu... enemy wrong position. i could write more about the dots in CoD but i think this was it.

personaly i think the dots are not black/strong, big enough. i would like to have the spotting posibillity like in 1946, to get the gamplay back.

to the picture i can say, yes i can see the dots, they are hard to spot and only when i am looking hard for them and it is a picture. ingame i think i would not see them, because everything is moving and i dont look so closly around to find an enemy because i would need about 10 min. to scan 1 time all sectors to see this dots/cons. for me the dots are light gray, when i adjust my Monitor or the nvidia colorsettings to see the dots clear black, i fly at 13.00 hours around and it is looking like i am flying at about 19.00 - 20.00 in this game, so i dont think it is a monitor or setting problem. the resulution from the picture are 1680x1050, my is 1920x1080 so it is harder to spot wy? in 1946 i think it was as long you play in your native monitoresolution everybody saw the same or with little difference but in CoD it is a other story.

i dont know the dotrange in this picture is, or how far they are away ( i think about 6km) but if we can get this dots in a dark black i would think it would be ok and in 1946 we dont had this problem, yes you need to adjust your monitor and settings, but not to see the dots clearly you adjust too to let it look better.

sorry for the long post, but english is not my native language and so i need all this text to get it understandebal.

regards
Little_D

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

LONG POST WARNING!

So there are two main visibility issues in CloD. These are commonly referred to as the following;
1. Dots
2. LOD
I shall explain each one in turn. If this needs its own thread, then fine.


1. Dots
Dots are the tiny single-pixel representations of aircraft at long range(normally above around 3 or 4 km) . Yes, dots are level of detail (LOD) related, but the long range issue has its own peculiarities.
Dots render pale grey at their extreme range, and progressively get darker as you get nearer to them. The Range at which DOTS appear in multiplayer is set by the server.

As LittleD and Tom point out seeing Dots is can be a problem. However, the solutions for DOTs tend to be user end. At most, I can see dots which are over Dover, from Lympne, provided they are silhouetted against the sky or a cloud. This is a distance of 20km on the map (~13 miles), which gives me visibility almost two thirds of the way across the channel (30km or 19 miles ).

Dots which drop below the horizon are very hard to spot because they are not so distinct in colour from the ground.
I have squad mates who have recently had terrible trouble spotting the long range dots. However, by adjusting their monitors they have largely solved this problem.

What you need to do is make a image (jpg is fine) that matches your in-game screen resolution for size. Make the image a blue colour, similar to the sky. Add in a few well-spaced-out single black and grey pixels to the image and then save it. Load the image in full screen and adjust your monitor until the pixels are most obvious to your eyes.
You can also makes DOTs more visible by lowering your in-game resolution (so individual pixels are physically larger) or by buying a bigger screen, but keeping your resolution the same. In addition, turning off all anti-aliasing helps, because it stops the game trying to smooth out the individual pixels and blend them into the background.

As far as I know, DOTs are not being modified by Team Fusion at the moment. I am happy to be corrected.


2. "LOD"
The LOD problem is the most famous in CloD. LOD problem refers to the transition from the DOT to the rendering of the aircraft models. This happens somewhere out around 4km.

The main problem here is that because the DOT renders to the model so far away, is it, at first very, very small. Now, if you recall above, the DOTs become darker as they get closer. So just before the DOT changes to the model it is very dark, and easy to see. However, as sometime as the model loads, it adopts the dominant skin colour. Your eyes arent ready for this, and the contact disappears. This is why the pale blue 109s go from a blindly obvious black dot, to an almost invisible smudge when they make this transition, provided they have the sky behind them. It is also why the spitfires and hurricanes go from a blindly obvious black dot, to an almost invisible smudge when they make this transition, provided they have brown-ish fields behind them.

The LOD transition effect can be made lesser by doing the following;
1. Increasing your game resolution so that the model textures contain more pixels. Youll notice, that this has the opposite effect on the DOTS, so improving for one creates problems for the other!
2. Increasing the sharpness and contract of your game settings, or using a colour enhancing 3rd party post-processing app

However the above fixes for the "LOD" are not entirely effective. TF are working on the LOD problem, as far as I understand


Conclusions;
Both of the above contribute to a less-then-optimal game experience. And both contribute to lower player numbers. For me, the most important is the LOD issue, because this is most combat-critical. If close-by enemies disappear, you are more likely to panic, or get killed. The DOTs issue is less of a problem, partly because long range aircraft ARE hard to see sometimes in real life. Spotting a single engine aircraft at 20km is tricky. Also if you miss a long-range Dot, you have time to get away, or abort setting up for combat.

[DennydD]

See? This is ironic! lol

I'll give you that. :D

[ChiefRedCloud]

Lastly, it's summer. The age distribution of our community tends to peak in the 30 to 45 year old males. Children out of school, vacations, weather, household repairs, etc... This is the time of the year that many have to "rebalance" all the things that they put off - to fly :)

Sorry for the long rambling post - I miss you guys.

S!

Gunny

Glad to hear, as a 65 year old sim pilot that I'm the over flow ..........roflmao

[gavagai]

I would like to see the dots go away entirely. No other contemporary flight sim uses them. Let distant aircraft be rendered as aircraft.

[DennydD]

Phil,

I read your post but let me point this out: I took a lot suggestions about Dot's and lowered my resolution, installed sweetFX etc. But at this point I ask myself should I realy fiddle around with my monitor setting without any clue if this could affect something else? As I said my settings work fine and I am just sceptic (and a bit clueless :doh:) about "changing a winning team" so to say.

Also I think it's suspicious if everything else works fine but 1 game. If we go on adjusting/adapting everything else for CloD I personaly think it's the wrong way. TF started to adjust CloD for a good reason.
Another reason why I got a bit heated is that I usually get the suggestion to change my settings from guys who never had a problem. You say yourself you can spot aircraft up to 13km and beyond. Sometimes this feels like some kind of 2 class society. Sure you (and Tom pariculary) just tried to help us and I appreciate it but who tells me if I dont mess up something else if I just adapt my settings over and over? Who is there to guide me through all of these things and who can assure me that what I just did is right? Sure Tom is right, I might figure it out like "wiping my ass" but when I learn to wipe my back I know about the outcome, in this case the outcome seems uncertain.

About the real life spoting: Sure it's hard on 20k. I was brought up in the landing zone of an military airfield and I can tell you that it is not big problem to spot an aircraft out on 10k under the conditions we have persistent in CloD. It is just because these things move. :) And the human eye is trained to spot moving objects faster.

PS: Thanks for the tip Tom and thanks for your interesting post phil. I just hope you might understand my point too.

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

? Who is there to guide me through all of these things and who can assure me that what I just did is right? .

I recommend jumping on team speak if you see me and asking. I'm sure I could help you within around 30 minutes.

[DennydD]

I recommend jumping on team speak if you see me and asking. I'm sure I could help you within around 30 minutes.

Thank you and be warned: I will come and bother you with my stupid questions in the next few days! :-)

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

Thank you and be warned: I will come and bother you with my stupid questions in the next few days! :-)

no worries. you can also find me on my squad's TS -

203.46.105.37:20060
pw: 9292

[Roblex]

About the real life spoting: Sure it's hard on 20k. I was brought up in the landing zone of an military airfield and I can tell you that it is not big problem to spot an aircraft out on 10k under the conditions we have persistent in CloD. It is just because these things move

It is not so black & white. I used to fly a lot and it is very easy to miss an aircraft if you are not expecting it and examining that exact sector. My father likes to tell the story of how he nearly dove through the middle of a diamond-9 of Hawker Hunters on their way to the Queens flypast because had not read the NOTAMs and they were wearing camoflage :-)

I can also say with authority that when I used to fly gliders, a group of people on the ground searching for a small glider known to be in the near vicinity at no more than 2000ft very often struggled to locate it until the sun glinted off it. That is a distance of no more than 3-4km.

With sun glints that range can easily extend to over 6 miles (10k). When West Malling (Maidstone Airfield on our maps) used to host the ATC gliders I used to watch them thermaling over the field as I came over the top of Wrotham Hill and that is about 5 miles and I am sure they would have been visible earlier if the terrain had allowed; perhaps we need to artificially enhance the glints depending on distance?

[DennydD]

It is not so black & white. I used to fly a lot and it is very easy to miss an aircraft if you are not expecting it and examining that exact sector. My father likes to tell the story of how he nearly dove through the middle of a diamond-9 of Hawker Hunters on their way to the Queens flypast because had not read the NOTAMs and they were wearing camoflage :-)

I can also say with authority that when I used to fly gliders, a group of people on the ground searching for a small glider known to be in the near vicinity at no more than 2000ft very often struggled to locate it until the sun glinted off it. That is a distance of no more than 3-4km.

With sun glints that range can easily extend to over 6 miles (10k). When West Malling (Maidstone Airfield on our maps) used to host the ATC gliders I used to watch them thermaling over the field as I came over the top of Wrotham Hill and that is about 5 miles and I am sure they would have been visible earlier if the terrain had allowed; perhaps we need to artificially enhance the glints depending on distance?

Hah! Fair point! Just saying that CloD is a bit black and white here as you have homogenious atmospherical settings that are ideal for spoting (no haze etc.).
I`m even ok with 5 miles if I can definitely spot an aircraft and track/pickup a spotted aircraft persistant assuming that I am concentrating on it. Sure, situational awareness is my (pilots) part.

Just about the gliders: I see your point here. I think one part is that they are silent. To hear an aircraft usually gives you the rough direction where to look at.

[DUI]

I think that it has not yet been mentioned: I think one reason to keep pilots away from Cliffs of Dover is its incompatibility with Windows 8.

I know that there is a way to get it run but probably not everyone digs so deep. Maybe something for TF to fix?

[ATAG_Colander]

I think that it has not yet been mentioned: I think one reason to keep pilots away from Cliffs of Dover is its incompatibility with Windows 8.

I know that there is a way to get it run but probably not everyone digs so deep. Maybe something for TF to fix?

I don't have W8 so I can't confirm but I think that was solved with the first TF mod.

[Dutch]

I think that it has not yet been mentioned: I think one reason to keep pilots away from Cliffs of Dover is its incompatibility with Windows 8.

Not only that.
It came up in conversation over the weekend, that somehow new players have to know to uninstall windows update KB2670838, or whatever it is, in order to fly stutter free online. This sort of rubbish doesn't help a bit. Nor does having to disable the ubi logo if you have a ATI card. Or ignoring in-game AA and managing everything from your card's control panel.

All of these tweaks are something the old hands are familiar with, but if we were new guys, coming into combat flight sims for the first time, how would we react to all that stuff?

I have no idea about programming, or computers generally come to that, but I sincerely hope TF can do something to erase all these daft foibles of the game, otherwise I can't see how new guys are going to be able to get up to speed without losing patience altogether.

[ATAG_Snapper]

Good point, Dutch. Another mentioned disabling Aeros in Win7 for stutter-free performance. I believe the same thing can be done by disabling Desktop Composition under Properties in the launcher.exe folder. Hardly intuitive, to say the least.

I wonder if it would be helpful to have a (printable?) Checklist Screen come up every time TF Cliffs of Dover is fired up (which would include directions to uncheck Anthromorphic Control and Epilepsy Filter, etc etc) to enable the neophyte Clod player run through all this crap prior to actual play......

[Dutch]

Good point, Dutch. Another mentioned disabling Aeros in Win7 for stutter-free performance. I believe the same thing can be done by disabling Desktop Composition under Properties in the launcher.exe folder. Hardly intuitive, to say the least.

I wonder if it would be helpful to have a (printable?) Checklist Screen come up every time TF Cliffs of Dover is fired up (which would include directions to uncheck Anthromorphic Control and Epilepsy Filter, etc etc) to enable the neophyte Clod player run through all this crap prior to actual play......

Exactly mate. But if you'd just bought the game and a joystick because you love Spitfires and the Battle of Britain, and you'd never heard of Bananarama or indeed this forum, you'd be knackered from the word go. But every little helps. We have useful stickies all over the forum, but how about having one stickied but locked post, right at the top of the page called 'Cliffs of Dover Essential Tweaks' or some such. Locked, and modified by admins and moderators only, listing all of the changes needed, and how to go about it, including all of the above plus mod installation?? :thumbsup:

P.S. With links to the relevant threads?

[1lokos]

Usually new (to simulation) players ask for help in CLoD Steam Community.

Typical "1st impression":

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3809706/Re_Steam_Summer_Sale_13#Post3809706
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3810223/Re_Steam_Summer_Sale_13#Post3810223

...

Sokol1

[Wulf]

LONG POST WARNING!

So there are two main visibility issues in CloD. These are commonly referred to as the following;
1. Dots
2. LOD
I shall explain each one in turn. If this needs its own thread, then fine.


1. Dots
Dots are the tiny single-pixel representations of aircraft at long range(normally above around 3 or 4 km) . Yes, dots are level of detail (LOD) related, but the long range issue has its own peculiarities.
Dots render pale grey at their extreme range, and progressively get darker as you get nearer to them. The Range at which DOTS appear in multiplayer is set by the server.

As LittleD and Tom point out seeing Dots is can be a problem. However, the solutions for DOTs tend to be user end. At most, I can see dots which are over Dover, from Lympne, provided they are silhouetted against the sky or a cloud. This is a distance of 20km on the map (~13 miles), which gives me visibility almost two thirds of the way across the channel (30km or 19 miles ).

Dots which drop below the horizon are very hard to spot because they are not so distinct in colour from the ground.
I have squad mates who have recently had terrible trouble spotting the long range dots. However, by adjusting their monitors they have largely solved this problem.

What you need to do is make a image (jpg is fine) that matches your in-game screen resolution for size. Make the image a blue colour, similar to the sky. Add in a few well-spaced-out single black and grey pixels to the image and then save it. Load the image in full screen and adjust your monitor until the pixels are most obvious to your eyes.
You can also makes DOTs more visible by lowering your in-game resolution (so individual pixels are physically larger) or by buying a bigger screen, but keeping your resolution the same. In addition, turning off all anti-aliasing helps, because it stops the game trying to smooth out the individual pixels and blend them into the background.

As far as I know, DOTs are not being modified by Team Fusion at the moment. I am happy to be corrected.


2. "LOD"
The LOD problem is the most famous in CloD. LOD problem refers to the transition from the DOT to the rendering of the aircraft models. This happens somewhere out around 4km.

The main problem here is that because the DOT renders to the model so far away, is it, at first very, very small. Now, if you recall above, the DOTs become darker as they get closer. So just before the DOT changes to the model it is very dark, and easy to see. However, as sometime as the model loads, it adopts the dominant skin colour. Your eyes arent ready for this, and the contact disappears. This is why the pale blue 109s go from a blindly obvious black dot, to an almost invisible smudge when they make this transition, provided they have the sky behind them. It is also why the spitfires and hurricanes go from a blindly obvious black dot, to an almost invisible smudge when they make this transition, provided they have brown-ish fields behind them.

The LOD transition effect can be made lesser by doing the following;
1. Increasing your game resolution so that the model textures contain more pixels. Youll notice, that this has the opposite effect on the DOTS, so improving for one creates problems for the other!
2. Increasing the sharpness and contract of your game settings, or using a colour enhancing 3rd party post-processing app

However the above fixes for the "LOD" are not entirely effective. TF are working on the LOD problem, as far as I understand


Conclusions;
Both of the above contribute to a less-then-optimal game experience. And both contribute to lower player numbers. For me, the most important is the LOD issue, because this is most combat-critical. If close-by enemies disappear, you are more likely to panic, or get killed. The DOTs issue is less of a problem, partly because long range aircraft ARE hard to see sometimes in real life. Spotting a single engine aircraft at 20km is tricky. Also if you miss a long-range Dot, you have time to get away, or abort setting up for combat.


I've quoted you in full Phil because I think your post summarises a lot of what's wrong with with Clod right now. Firstly, we have either dot or LOD problems or both, depending on your viewpoint. I think its revealing that we don't even seem to be able to agree on this point. In my opinion its both. In particular, trying to track aircraft flying below you is, IMO, much too difficult. As D Little mentioned, I think we need something like the arrangement in 1946 to really get the game humming. And then we have a number of possible fixes to those LOD/dot issues that in many instances require players to exercise some level of expertise with a computer - just in order to play the game to what some would say is a 'satisfactory' level. Even if these fixes actually work, (and I think it's fair to say that there is some debate about that) some players are going to be daunted or offended by the prospect or its going to be completely beyond them, which strongly suggests to the casual observer that the game isn't necessarily being played on a level playing field. Despite these problems we now all seem to be dead keen on going out there and telling the world that Clod is back in business and ready to go. Well, in 2 months or so it may well be (and I say 'may' because until we actually see the patch we really don't know), but right now I don't think that's the case. Right now I think Clod still has a number of serious issues and it is simply the wrong time to be trying to get people back in the game.

[Dutch]

Usually new (to simulation) players ask for help in CLoD Steam Community.

Sokol1

Very good point. Steam is smothered in requests for help. Maybe we should concentrate more effort in engaging with the Steam Community, rather than expecting everyone to find this forum.

[ATAG_Deacon]

Along the lines of the bigger, more spread out targets, I would like the AI groups to be more involved in the mission outcome. There are some missions where several of the groups do go after targets, but there was never really much incentive to shoot them down.

Colander recently sent me some code that might allow me to make these bomber groups objectives, but I have yet to try it out to see if it will work or not. But if that's the case, then I can create some really interesting "air objectives" which can win/lose the map depending on if you can attack or defend them. So that's something else that maybe coming down the pipeline which I think would add some new incentives to the fighter guys and localize more of the fight at altitude. If I can get that working, the fighters will just have as much influence on winning the scenario/map as the bomber guys.

+1!

This is awesome news. There are some (like me) who like to attack a fleet of bombers as that is what the BoB was about for the Red side. High or low it doesn't matter to me...stopping the bomber group from dropping their bombs on England is my goal. That and staying alive. It would be great to see that stopping the bombers would contribute to winning the map.

To me, flying low over Hawkenge and Lympne is a sure way to encounter death. I usually only get sucked down there when someone on comms is getting themselves into trouble and I go try to help...only to be killed for my own stupidity.

As for the "dots" and "lod" issues, I find that if I turn down my resolution but keep the same aspect ratio I have no problem with either issue. Of course I don't get the same "eye candy" as I would at my native resolution, 1920x1080 or on a triple monitor set up like I have it's 5760x1080. I'm currently running the game at 1280x768 or 3840x768 across three screens and have no problems seeing "dots" far off. It all depends on your perspective and what you're looking to get out of the game.

~S~

Deacon

[1lokos]

Hi.

monitortest.bmp (http://www.pumaszallas.hu/Private/Tom/forum_kepek/monitorteszt.bmp)
monitortest_help.bmp (http://www.pumaszallas.hu/Private/Tom/forum_kepek/monitorteszt_help.bmp)
(this pictures was made before the TF patch, but this is not relevant).


Tom,

I know you test from "Bananas", and are able to see some dots in my "game" monitor :D - and after do this calibration procedure again - just in cause. :thumbsup:

Today I open the "monitortest" picture in other computer/monitor, and I was not able to see any dot - even knowing beforehand that above ships are some! :stunned:

Sokol1

[gavagai]

Not only that.
It came up in conversation over the weekend, that somehow new players have to know to uninstall windows update KB2670838, or whatever it is, in order to fly stutter free online. Doesn't help a bit. Nor does having to disable the ubi logo if you have a ATI card. Or ignoring in-game AA and managing everything from your card's control panel.

All of these tweaks are something the old hands are familiar with, but if we were new guys, coming into combat flight sims for the first time, how would we react to all that stuff?

I have no idea about programming, or computers generally come to that, but I sincerely hope TF can do something to erase all these daft foibles of the game, otherwise I can't see how new guys are going to be able to get up to speed without losing patience altogether.

I have no idea what you're talking about in the above. I've looked over the stickies before and didn't notice this kind of advice. Where should I read up?

[ATAG_Deacon]

I have no idea what you're talking about in the above. I've looked over the stickies before and didn't notice this kind of advice. Where should I read up?

~S~ gavagai,

The easiest (and best imho) way to learn or get advice is to get on ATAG Teamspeak and ask questions. We're a pretty helpful bunch I think.

Deacon

[Dutch]

I have no idea what you're talking about in the above. I've looked over the stickies before and didn't notice this kind of advice. Where should I read up?

I rest my case. :)

[56RAF_klem]

I have no idea what you're talking about in the above. I've looked over the stickies before and didn't notice this kind of advice. Where should I read up?

http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3572

but I think MS released a fixed version and you are probably up to date (go to Start... All Programs... Windows Update to get it). Alternatively 'ignore it' in Windows updates.

[Oersted]

To the original question:

I hope to have contributed a little bit with my CoD videos. 762,000 views so far... Videos are by far the best recruiting tool for CoD. I started doing mine to get more people into CoD, so I'd have some to fly against!

HOWEVER, if we video makers are to be able to make more vids to show off the sim it is really essential that two bugs are dealt with. 1) The server timeout after ten minutes when you fly while you're saving a track. No track no movies. 2) The "white puffs" bug which shows some weird white puffs in recorded tracks whenever bullets connect to a target. Makes it impossible to make gun- and cannon-fight videos, which is why I haven't made that for half a year.

I am happy to read that TF are working to squash both bugs.

Apart from that, I think TF should include their wiki page material more prominently in the sim. A link inside the sim to all the best teaching aids would be great, as well as having pdf's as part of the download in a seperate "Manuals" folder. Make it easier for people to learn the sim will bring in more people.

Also, the great campaigns made by, among others, Heinkill, should definitely be part of the download, so they'd just be in the sim from the get go. A host of single missions should be there too, for beginners to fiddle around with.

[ATAG_Colander]

[snip]
1) The server timeout after ten minutes when you fly while you're saving a track. No track no movies.
[snip]
The first one only appeared with the latest TF patch.


That bug has been there since the beginning.

[gavagai]

Ok, I researched the ubi logo issue and the other things mentioned. I don't think I am affected by either of these.

Sometimes it seems like the Il-2 community goes through ceremonies and rituals for tweaking performance that do not actually accomplish much. As the anthropologists tell us, the complications of a ceremony correlate with how much people will believe it.:thumbsup:

[DennydD]

As the anthropologists tell us, the complications of a ceremony correlate with how much people will believe it.:thumbsup:

roflmao

You just made my day.

[ATAG_Snapper]

The two issues you mentioned affected a lot of people, though. The Ubi logo slowed the clock speed of many ATI/AMD cards. The Windows update caused launcher crashes (which I experienced) about 15 - 20 minutes into the game if you were using the SweetFX SMAA utility that many of us still use.

[DennydD]

To the original question:

I hope to have contributed a little bit with my CoD videos. 762,000 views so far... Videos are by far the best recruiting tool for CoD. I started doing mine to get more people into CoD, so I'd have some to fly against!

I agree. I'm also a big fan of your work and have shown them to a lot of guys I know. The youngest fan of your work there is the 5 year old son of my collegue. Everytime I'm invited over there he says: "Show me the warplane video!" :D

[Roblex]

I agree. I'm also a big fan of your work and have shown them to a lot of guys I know. The youngest fan of your work there is the 5 year old son of my collegue. Everytime I'm invited over there he says: "Show me the warplane video!" :D

I am also a big fan of Sorens videos, I love the 'average pilot' style that shows the mistakes and the thoughts going through his head as well as some fine flying. I have also recently discovered the vids made by No64Bounder as they do a great job of demonstrating the amazing graphics as well as the teamplay. Just at random, try http://youtu.be/7vo5GRTIq0Q

[Macro]

that video from bounder is a great advert

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

As the anthropologists tell us, the complications of a ceremony correlate with how much people will believe it.:thumbsup:

Depends on the anthropologist.

[Oersted]

That bug has been there since the beginning.

You're right, sorry. Brainfart from my side (I used to just record directly while I played, not using track files). I changed my posting accordingly.

[Oersted]

I have also recently discovered the vids made by No64Bounder as they do a great job of demonstrating the amazing graphics as well as the teamplay. Just at random, try http://youtu.be/7vo5GRTIq0Q

Wauw, this is surely one of the best advertisements for Il-2 Cliffs of Dover I have yet seen! Super-smooth gameplay! Colour me impressed. I'd like to know what I need to get such smooth videos with video recording running as well. Thx so much for doing mentioning this vid. It will definitely be getting more pleople to join us playing the sim. S!

[56RAF_klem]

To the original question:

I hope to have contributed a little bit with my CoD videos. 762,000 views so far... Videos are by far the best recruiting tool for CoD. I started doing mine to get more people into CoD, so I'd have some to fly against!

HOWEVER, if we video makers are to be able to make more vids to show off the sim it is really essential that two bugs are dealt with. 1) The server timeout after ten minutes when you fly while you're saving a track. No track no movies. 2) The "white puffs" bug which shows some weird white puffs in recorded tracks whenever bullets connect to a target. Makes it impossible to make gun- and cannon-fight videos, which is why I haven't made that for half a year.

I am happy to read that TF are working to squash both bugs.

Apart from that, I think TF should include their wiki page material more prominently in the sim. A link inside the sim to all the best teaching aids would be great, as well as having pdf's as part of the download in a seperate "Manuals" folder. Make it easier for people to learn the sim will bring in more people.

Also, the great campaigns made by, among others, Heinkill, should definitely be part of the download, so they'd just be in the sim from the get go. A host of single missions should be there too, for beginners to fiddle around with.

56RAF_Atreides (EagleNed on youtube) told me last weekend that he runs Fraps while he is playing. It save all that Fraps recording from tracks. If you're PC can handle that you might try it.

[Oersted]

I save directly as I fly too, with MSI Afterburner, but that doesn't give me all the other outside views. For those I need the track file.

[vranac]

I save directly as I fly too, with MSI Afterburner, but that doesn't give me all the other outside views. For those I need the track file.

Start recording before entering your plane.Leave the server after mission if you intend to record again.
I got one timeout from lets say 10 recordings.Safe way would be to restart your game after recording I suppose.

Your videos are great and probably the best way to promote this sim. :thumbsup:

[ATAG_Lewis]

Concerning getting more folks into CLOD...I totally agree with the opinion that the videos are a great advert for CLOD...w surely have that one covered now...There are many vids out there that show how good CLOD is now if folks search for them..and with folks like Bounder and other great film makers it will only get better....So thats a tick in that box....

Denny has some really good points too about the reviews that we were discussing in the original thread (of the same name)...We hopefully have folks posting positive customer reviews on sites like Amazon (IMPORTANTLY - onto the international site)...but what about the negative reviews we have on sites who reviewed the game when it came out....Can we change those?...Can we approach those folks and explain that the game is so different to their original review and their review needs updating?...has that ever been done before?.....


Very good point. Steam is smothered in requests for help. Maybe we should concentrate more effort in engaging with the Steam Community, rather than expecting everyone to find this forum.

To me this is a revelation....If we can connect with the folks that are requesting help and link them straight from Steam to here then we are onto a winner....At the moment it sounds like there are a lot of new flyers that don't even know that this site exists....they don't know there is a thriving community with a site to help new players....so..How can we get a link from Steam CLOD to here?....Is it possible?....Can we get a link on the Steam CLOD page?.....It seems to me that we are doing Steam a favour if we are getting new players to buy this sim.....Does anyone know if this has been done with other games on Steam in the past?.....Who else is selling CLOD?....Can we get links or adverts of ATAGS site on their pages?

[LRRP]

Hello all.

I am a new member here though I have been lurking for about a month. This is my first post and my apologies in advance for it's length. I only post because I think that knowing about my ongoing struggles to get into flying CoD on ATAG might help, at least in part, answer the O.P.s question.
For those who don't wish to read the entire thing I can state my opinion in one sentence.

Make the game more easily accessable for a newcomer to flight sims in general and CoD in particular.

I am in that catagory; new to flight sims and CoD.

A little about myself:

I am a recently retired bussiness owner. I am 65 years old. In my younger days I earned my living as a commercial pilot for a five year period that ended in 1981. I hold commercial, multi-engine, and insturment ratings though none of those ratings has been current for 30 years. I have shot a minimum ceiling - (200 ft.) - I.L.S. approach and landing in a snowstorm into O'hare. With that background I thought flight sims would be easy and fun. I was wrong about the easy part; the fun part is yet to be determined.

I've been gaming for several years now. Mostly shooters. I have a very powerful computer I built so running CoD is not a problem. Decided to give flight sims a try. Which one to start with? As is typical of me I did my research. Wanted more realism than arcade. Read review after review and it came down to DCS A-10C or CoD. I thought CoD looked to be more fun but the bad reviews made me go with DCS. Purchased that along with a Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS, Saitek Combat rudder pedals and a TrackIR5. Invested a LOT of time in DCS. Taught myself enough to start the plane from cold, take off and land and arm that devestating gatling gun. Spent some hours flying around random maps alone shooting up civilians and flying under bridges and practicing my landings untill I could really slick em in. Had some small amount of fun with all of that. Then reality struck. Next I needed to master all the complex avionics systems and comm systems and weapons systems before I could hope to go online and fly with other people. I was looking at wading through literally hundreds of pages of manual. Could I do that? Yes. Did I want to do that? No.

What next?

Cliffs of Dover. Bought it about a week ago. Already knew about the Team Fusion patch from my research so installed it immediately. Been at it pretty much non-stop for about a week now.
It's been an incredibly frustrating experience. If that's true for me then it's true for other newcomers. Unlike DCS there is no comprehensive manual. Bit's and pieces of needed information are scattered everywhere. Incomplete manuals - youtube - forums - google. The in game training missions are a useless joke in helping to learn to actually fly any of the planes and offer zero help with setting up controls. I've got around 40 to 50 hours invested in CoD at this point and am nowhere close to being able to do the "Full Realism" thing. At this point I just want to be able to take a break from the struggle and enjoy playing the game a bit. But, the only option I'm aware of for playing online is "Full Realism". Enough is enough.


The original thread on this subject got derailed and then closed after I felt there was some real progression towards attracting more players to this sim, hence this re-thread

Please don't use this thread for anything other than topic discussion..

So, Please copy and paste your posts from the original thread here and hopefully we can start again with some healthy objective discussion.

================================================== ===========

Its a Simple question....But I haven't seen anyone ask it yet

If you are reading this then you are probably one of the folks who plays COD on a regular basis and already know just how good it is...Through ATAGS we now have a dedicated crew called Team Fusion who are taking this abandoned sim and doing something constructive with it (working wonders actually) because its a quality WWII sim with a massive potential...but the fact is that still not many people play it....If you go on to Hyperlobby and look at the original IL-2 you will still see 100+ playing the owld sim on any given night and thats dying sim....but thats not the case with COD....If it were a bad game/sim then I could understand it and there be no need for a post...but we all know thats not the case

I thought I might start a discussion at least about this....I mean if we can get more folks flying COD then we WILL create longevity with the sim we love...That was proved with the original and even though it was a niche market the numbers of faithfull flyers didn't dwindle for many years....Only a couple of years ago did the numbers drop quickly and then over a few months....to the faithfull that are still enjoying it..and who still outnumber COD players

I flew the original IL-2 for many years on servers in Hyperlobby at first like 'Flying Circus', 'Big Top' and later 'Skies of Fire' but not many of those thousands of players (and there were thousands) have migrated to this follow on sim...and that stumps me...If we have that amount of players flying COD then this sim will be at the top of the online WWII sims in terms of numbers for many years to come just as the original was...We would have guaranteed longevity

So what can we do to attract more folks?

How can we get those faithfull flyers to fly COD?

Am I right in assuming we want more flyers?....That has to be a given, surely?

I just thought I would throw this out there to you clever WWII aircraft enthusiasts who might enlighten me as to how or why...and if and but

Thank ~S~

Lew


Thanks for trying to keep this discussion moving, that last thread was a sad show indeed at the end.

Anyway, here is my major contribution from the last forum that I will copy/pasta here.


I just had a thought while on the DCS subreddit, they have something called "Tuesday night noob" where they essentially set up a large scale training area where there are a large groups of targets at varying degree's of difficulty (ranging from simple trucks to concealed SAM systems), this gives new players not only a safe place to practice but also gives them direct access to more skilled players who spend time their to teach.

Rise of flight also has this in the form of the New wings server, again, it is a area where one who just started can go and get the info they need to do the basics in a relatively safe atmosphere.

Perhaps this would be something that ATAG could look into, perhaps this server does not need to always be up like New wings, perhaps it could just be a specific day of the week (frequent enough so that new players don't have to wait long to use it) and experienced players (I would even be willing to help with what I have learned myself) could hop in and help with everything ranging from CEM to basic combat.

This would be a godsend for me right now.


I would agree that a nice instructional mission showing how to take off and do a circuit using CEM would be useful. What we would have to avoid though is making them too complicated! I cringe when I see a tutorial showing people how to adjust twenty different switches and levers before you even start the engine. That sort of thing just convinces newbies that the game is overcomplicated and that they will never learn enough to even get off the ground so why bother trying?

Show them how to turn on the fuel, start the engine, wait for optimum temperature, open the rad then take-off and raise the undercarriage. Then show them how to reduce the pitch a bit, maybe prompt them to try different pitch settings so they understand what it is doing, perhaps talk about rad settings, then bring them back to the field and talk them through the landing and flaps, pitch etc. then stop the engine using fuel switch.

This gives them a basic understanding and more importantly shows them that they can take off and do a circuit without blowing up. Once they know they can fly a circuit then they can look elsewhere for the fine details. There is no need to even mention mixture, magnetos, carb heating etc in this first lesson. I would say the majority of the online tutorials we have are overcomplicated and do more harm than good. I looked at this months issue of 'PC Pilot' and the article on how to fly the Blenheim was horrifying in it complexity! Nobody will come to CLOD after reading that!

This should make the veterans laugh. Snuck onto ATAGs server last night - (the overflow server which was empty) - to get a taste of full realism. Started engine in hanger and began my pre-taxi checklist while waiting for oil temp to come up to 40. Got absorbed in other things and was startled when complete engine faliure occured. I assumed due to overheating. OK I thought, I know the coolant radiator was open so it must have been my faliure to open the Spitfires oil radiator. Spent a lot of time mousing over every clickable control in that cockpit trying to find the oil radiator lever. No luck of course. Exited to main menu - went into controls and found where to set key bindings for control of an oil radiator WHICH SAID NOTHING ABOUT NOT BEING USED ON A SPIT! Back to ATAG server. Same routine. Same outcome. OK - Exit game. Go to youtube, Search for instructional video on this. No luck. OK - go to ATAG WIKI. Read manual. Discover that oil radiator operation is automatic. Repeat attempt to taxi assuming I needed to get the aircraft moving quicker to keep oil temp under control. Success. Total of my time needed to get this sorted about 40 minutes. Very frustrating and needlesly dificult. I have a long list of similar frustrations that have happened with CoD over the last week. Can I do it? yes. Is this worth it.....................


While I do agree that some of the theory involved in CEM is difficult, I don't think (to the extent that it is modeled in CloD) that it is terribly complicated to teach the basics, I mean, we are not talking about doing a full start-up in the A-10C or the Ka-50 after all.

That said, I think I am thinking of less of a straight up organized and specific tutorial and more of a general learning environment where newbies can come on to the server and have a low pressure (and low risk) place to learn everything they want to learn, this could be done with a few helpful veteran pilots hanging around who are willing to teach whatever comes up.

I mean, organizing it like you would organize squadron training is a bad idea, it places too much pressure on the new players who are not even sure they want that kind of commitment, setting up a weekly server that is open all day (with different veterans coming in and out as desired) would provide a low pressure atmosphere where new players won't feel like they are going to get tested on what they have learned or anything like that.

We just want to give them that first push and not scare them away with too many formalities or stuff like that.

I agree that it should just be the basics, enough to give them context for their own study.

This would be a godsend for me at this point.


One consideration is the very nature of a hard core sim and the type of player it attracts. Be it Clod, the DCS series, even FSX (ie. Wings of Power 3 series of WW2 aircraft), the person attracted to this kind of high end simulation is not of your average horde of yank 'n bank console game players. (Not knocking them -- but the simplified controls and flight/weapon modelling work fine with basic & cheap hand controllers). Be it photography, golf, bicycling, clay bird shooting, etc etc ........any sport or hobby can be started at entry level (ie. cheap joystick with hatswitch and twist-rudder) but, to excel, usually demands higher end equipment to accommodate (HOTAS, rudder, TrackIR, etc).

Elsewhere in this forum I recommended to a newcomer the TM16000 stick (currently $43 on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Hercules-2960706-Thrustmaster-T-16000M-Flight/dp/B001S0RTU0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373547988&sr=8-1&keywords=Tm16000)

I have one. It works very well for Clod. Heck, no less than MK.MR.X eschews TrackIR, as do many other successful pilots. So, 43 bucks and you're in the game. Or, you can lay out for custom-built Ben Hogans and get a Warthog HOTAS, Saitek Combat Rudder Pedals, TrackIR5, a GTX780 card, etc -- and still get shot down! LOL

All to say, I believe Clod has the depth of play to accommodate beginners with minimal peripherals to the all-out enthusiast willing to invest heavily in his passion. Win -- win for everyone.

yes


I have to agree Snapper - I played with a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro only, for the first year, and loved every minute of it. And that was as a totall newcomer to flight sims. The biggest thing that pulled me in, personally, was the community and several in particular at the beginning who talked me through the take-off procedure. For me, pushing videos out there showing great action and team-work is a big thing, and then tutorial videos on how to get going quickly, for beginners, for each plane so they can at least get in the air. You don't need to bombard them with the details that make for the perfect take-off and landing, just get them in the air, get them hooked, then the details come through talking to other players over time - such as prop-pitch, radiator settings etc.

Now I have TrackIR and I wonder how I did without it, but it's not really needed at the start.


I find that when i can get a beginner to pop onto Teamspeak, i can turn them from 'frustrated about to chuck the game' guy to the 'shooting down some unsuspecting player' guy in under an hour usually.
We need to implement something that forces if not severely guides these newcomers to the ATAG forum and the ATAG teamspeak..with Direct links or even missions that go over all that lovely WIKI planes info so that players arent like "wtf why dont my brakes work on this piece of shit spitfire" just like i did. PLUS choosing planes and loadouts etc is completly counter intuitive there needs to be a video made for all of this shit that yopu have to watch before you can install Team fusion Mods. or atleased put the video in with the mod ..Imagine the newcomers download the mod and he watches the vid, the video tells him how to make planes how to get into multiplayer, what servers are for what, visibility settings, graphical bs, controls basics and understanding, forum plane wikis, the teamspeak they need to be in(even no mic), ETC ETC ETC we could make something like this and im sure it would ease the pain for newcomers and we could get a increase. Also, i was a lame arcader thinking i was cool in my jet in battlefield 3 ... now with the help of these forums and always being on TS i can shoot down the best of them.........................................somet imes.

PS; snapper is correct as far as peripherals, i know plenty of very deadly pilots that dont use track ir nor $500 joysticks.. Kellem and Bear pilot to name a few

yes



Been thinking a lot following recent discussions and indeed disagreements.

First point is that missions, whether old, new, stale, organised, etc are not what is causing a lack of new players. They don't even know about missions yet and will be happy to play any missions online to start with. We have to find ways to drag new guys in off the streets and bring back disaffected "first release" guys. It may not be the case that sales have maxed. Sales were stifled by an unplayable game and we need to spread the word that it's a lot better now. Even so I don't think it will boom but a couple of hundred more online would be great.

yes



I think there are a couple of reasons why new "simmers" are not attracted to CloD.
I am not so sure if changing the mission design on ATAG realy drags a lot of new online players in. Although I am sure it will improve the situation I wouldn'd bet on a real breakthrough in player numbers.

If I look at the reviews on the important webpages you get an idea why people do hesitate to start CloD. Amazon reviews are a good way to leave at least some good impressions but I think that a lot of simmers look for the reviews made by the etablished pages like SimHQ or even PC Game magazines. Metacritics gives you a good feeling how the game is up until today perceived > metascore 60 userscore 6.0. Compared to this, Il2 Sturmovik has a metascore of 91 and an userscore of 8.7!!
I would be benefitcial if the amazing work of TF could be promoted more. I might be neccessary to convince some of the folks over at the etablished pages to re-review the game with TF patch to reflect the state of the game as it is now.

IMHO the game also suffers from its single player part. It might not be obvious but most of the players in multiplayer come from the singleplayer part for various reasons. The only SP content, apart from communty contributions, that is serious are the Desatersoft Addons. But like previously stated the money and investment aspect of CloD is high and one who payed for CloD must now pay again to get a somehow decent SP setting. Of course there is a lot of free download content available but some players dont want to bother with the clunky installations and on the other hand the modders suffer a lot from the GUI the game has. If SP would be more immersive MP would also benefit.

Also the GUI drives away people. The ingame menus are simply subpar. One might ask himself why you can choose the googles on your pilots face without problems although you probably never see them in full realism (and the others don't see them either when you are passing them with 200mph...) but if you wanna change the payload of your aircraft you need to read through a couple of userguides to have a slight chance to succeed. I even knew some folks who were driven off by the "gray box" issue.
Up until this day after playing this game for a long time I don't know for sure for what the color things in the plane customisation window are good for. Or when I go to the briefing window to read the mission describtion but cannot go back without finishing a flight I never started. Or the video setting that offers you stuff that is either broken or is a game breaker like this anti epelepsy filter (good god!). Don't get me wrong, I love the game and would play it even without the great TF patches but sometimes someone needs a rant and if you look at this from the perspective of a new guy/gal comming into the sim you can see what I'm trying to say here.
:salute:

yes


Exactly mate. But if you'd just bought the game and a joystick because you love Spitfires and the Battle of Britain, and you'd never heard of Bananarama or indeed this forum, you'd be knackered from the word go. But every little helps. We have useful stickies all over the forum, but how about having one stickied but locked post, right at the top of the page called 'Cliffs of Dover Essential Tweaks' or some such. Locked, and modified by admins and moderators only, listing all of the changes needed, and how to go about it, including all of the above plus mod installation?? :thumbsup:

P.S. With links to the relevant threads?

yes! yes! a thousand times yes!


~S~ gavagai,


The easiest (and best imho) way to learn or get advice is to get on ATAG Teamspeak and ask questions. We're a pretty helpful bunch I think.

Deacon

Here I must disagree. I have been on your teamspeak three times in the last four days looking for this type of assistance. Who does one venture to start up a conversation with? no clue. Who is on teamspeak and not engrossed in the game? no one that I could see. I will NOT be so bold as to butt into anyones game to ask a veteran for help / answers to newbie questions. Time spent waiting on Teamspeak last night hoping someone might notice me and say hello - one and a half hours.
I have not yet even begun to learn navigation or how to set up the on screen info windows that I know will be needed. I also know that there are questions I don't yet know that I need to ask.
I am aware that even with this much time invested I still have a long difficult slog ahead if I'm going to make this work. I'm willing to put in any reasonable amount of effort \ study but damn...........

[56RAF_klem]

Very good point. Steam is smothered in requests for help. Maybe we should concentrate more effort in engaging with the Steam Community, rather than expecting everyone to find this forum.

Well, I've made a start :)

[56RAF_klem]

Hello all.

I am a new member here though I have been lurking for about a month. This is my first post and my apologies in advance for it's length. I only post because I think that knowing about my ongoing struggles to get into flying CoD on ATAG might help, at least in part, answer the O.P.s question.
For those who don't wish to read the entire thing I can state my opinion in one sentence.

Make the game more easily accessable for a newcomer to flight sims in general and CoD in particular.

I am in that catagory; new to flight sims and CoD.

A little about myself:

I am a recently retired bussiness owner. I am 65 years old. In my younger days I earned my living as a commercial pilot for a five year period that ended in 1981. I hold commercial, multi-engine, and insturment ratings though none of those ratings has been current for 30 years. I have shot a minimum ceiling - (200 ft.) - I.L.S. approach and landing in a snowstorm into O'hare. With that background I thought flight sims would be easy and fun. I was wrong about the easy part; the fun part is yet to be determined.
..............................................

Here I must disagree. I have been on your teamspeak three times in the last four days looking for this type of assistance. Who does one venture to start up a conversation with? no clue. Who is on teamspeak and not engrossed in the game? no one that I could see. I will NOT be so bold as to butt into anyones game to ask a veteran for help / answers to newbie questions. Time spent waiting on Teamspeak last night hoping someone might notice me and say hello - one and a half hours.
I have not yet even begun to learn navigation or how to set up the on screen info windows that I know will be needed. I also know that there are questions I don't yet know that I need to ask.
I am aware that even with this much time invested I still have a long difficult slog ahead if I'm going to make this work. I'm willing to put in any reasonable amount of effort \ study but damn...........

Hello fellow retiree :)

You are right, documentation is lousy and help is scattered but talking things through is much the best way. So.....

Long story short. Get on ATAG Teamspeak and look for me (56RAF_klem) and let me help. We fly on Sundays and Wednesdays at 8pm UK time although for the next several Sundays we are in a campaign but also you will find one or two of us on line most evenings. Not all our guys will be able to help but just ask. This isn't a recruitment drive, other Squads and individuals are usually just as helpful. :)

If you are in Europe I can often find time in the mornings (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday). If that helps PM me and we'll work something out.

Generally, don't worry about interrupting to ask for help, usually someone will have the time and will likely move to another channel to chat with you. The ATAG server is not a formal set piece campaign server where everyone is totally focussed on the mission objectives, there is usually someone happy to talk. Its a great community. It may be that at any particular moment everyone is tied up in what they are doing but just ask from time to time.

[ATAG_Colander]

Very good point.
I think we should make a note on the ATAG Help chanel as well as on the initial message to something along the lines:
"If you need help, don't hesitate to jump into a channel and ask those who are there."

We take for granted that people will know to interrupt.


Edit: Done.

[RAF74_Buzzsaw]

Hello all.

I am a new member here though I have been lurking for about a month. This is my first post and my apologies in advance for it's length.

No problem, welcome to the world of Flight Simming. :thumbsup:



This should make the veterans laugh.
Not really, we've all been there... Flight Simming probably has the steepest learning curve of ANY sim out there, unlike FPS games, where it is pretty simple to learn how to move and shoot, flying a virtual aircraft requires hours and hours of practice to get right. It takes a long time to develop the instinctual responses that for veteran pilots are 2nd nature.



Snuck onto ATAGs server last night - (the overflow server which was empty) - to get a taste of full realism. Started engine in hanger and began my pre-taxi checklist while waiting for oil temp to come up to 40. Got absorbed in other things and was startled when complete engine faliure occured. I assumed due to overheating. OK I thought, I know the coolant radiator was open so it must have been my faliure to open the Spitfires oil radiator. Spent a lot of time mousing over every clickable control in that cockpit trying to find the oil radiator lever. No luck of course. Exited to main menu - went into controls and found where to set key bindings for control of an oil radiator WHICH SAID NOTHING ABOUT NOT BEING USED ON A SPIT! Back to ATAG server. Same routine. Same outcome. OK - Exit game. Go to youtube, Search for instructional video on this. No luck. OK - go to ATAG WIKI. Read manual. Discover that oil radiator operation is automatic. Repeat attempt to taxi assuming I needed to get the aircraft moving quicker to keep oil temp under control. Success. Total of my time needed to get this sorted about 40 minutes. Very frustrating and needlesly dificult. I have a long list of similar frustrations that have happened with CoD over the last week. Can I do it? yes. Is this worth it....................

I am just going to deal with the specifics detailed above, not your general notes.

First of all, please look at the manuals listed on the Wiki page:

http://www.theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/wiki/doku.php?id=start

Make sure you look at the manual which is specifically designed for the aircraft you are flying.

Regarding the issue you were having.

1) As you determined, the Spitfire has an automatic oil radiator. This information is noted in the manual for the aircraft. The only rad you need to worry about is the one for coolant.

BUT when you spawn in a new aircraft, the coolant Rad starts in the closed position. Now that is fine for warming up your engine, but if you leave it closed, you will get catastrophic failure about 5 minutes later. You should start the engine with the Rad closed, then as per the manual, open it to full open after Oil and Coolant temps are up to their correct levels. That is as far as I can determine, the only error you committed.

There is a specific procedure listed for takeoff in the British aircraft, if you follow that, and then after you are airborne, follow the guidelines for engine settings, (use 30 minute settings unless you are in combat) you should have no problem.

Hope you continue as part of the community. While Flight Simming is difficult, it is also in my opinion, far more rewarding than any other online competitive type simulation. :thumbsup:

[ATAG_JTDawg]

Very good point.
I think we should make a note on the ATAG Help chanel as well as on the initial message to something along the lines:
"If you need help, don't hesitate to jump into a channel and ask those who are there."

We take for granted that people will know to interrupt.


Edit: Done.

Sorry m8 , but just ask any pilot in CLOD for help , tag along with a group , 71st , ATAGERS , 56TH ETC . also if you see me or any 71st just chime in , cya in the skys

[ATAG_Lewis]

Welcome LRRP....

Big thanks for taking the time to post a comprehensive piece onto a thread in a forum when you've only had the sim a week...highly commendable...Your input is very important to us as most here I believe are vets and like me have forgotten the learning curve....

The 'Team Fusion Wiki' that is at the top of the header list doesn't explain what is exactly behind that door...I think LRRP has already shown that new folks don't reaise that that is where the tutorials are...Maybe ' Team Fusion Wiki Tutorials' would be a better name...To be honest I didn't even know what was in there until I clicked on it just now either...and new folks to the forums are not going to go there as a first point of call...and we need them to otherwise we've lost them....Also I think that videos with the tutorials are a good idea...I'm not a big reader, a lot of flight simmers are not necessarily readers either...I learned startup procedures from youtube vids..I feel I learn more quickly from a video tutorial than a page of wording....and we have plenty of video makers here...including me

And what about putting those tutorials into the Steam tutorials..so that folks can access them as soon as they are interested in buying the sim in Steam?..that would add interest and give anyone who is mildly interested the access to tutorials without looking too far...

...lew...

[56RAF_klem]

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

First of all, please look at the manuals listed on the Wiki page:

http://www.theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/wiki/doku.php?id=start
..................

My apologies, I forgot about the Team Fusion Wiki at the top of the forum pages.
Also I remember the first time I heard the word "Wiki" and wondered what the hell it was so maybe Lew is right about the title but perhaps simply Team Fusion CoD Guide.

[ATAG_Deacon]

I will NOT be so bold as to butt into anyones game to ask a veteran for help / answers to newbie questions.

~S~ LRRP,

Welcome to the server!

Please bear in mind that some of us do not use Overlay or Notifier when we're on TS. I hear the little lady's voice that tells me when someone joins/leaves
the channel I am on. I have no idea who that player is.

That said, I think I can speak for the majority of us and state that we're always willing to help. Just ask if someone can answer some questions and go to
the "help" channel on TS. This way neither of you is interfering with the game or others as that seems to be a concern.

:salute:

Deacon

[ATAG_Lewis]

Just a thought here....on game chat

I believe it is highly important that to make this sim more populated if anyone comes into the server and asks questions because they are new that they get a positive response and help...Those early responses and welcoming attitudes in chat make a massive difference to wether a flyer takes the time to learn or not especially seeing as CLOD is so tricky to get to grips with in the early stages...

When running the skies of fire server for the many years we did in Hyperlobby, we were always told when we joined the squad to encourage new players by doing this in chat and it did work very well....It was very high in our admin duty criteria....As you can imagine we had vets on there that when reminded of their start in the sim (IL2 1946) came up with specific people that had helped them in their early days from the community (not necassarily from the FS).....It kind of goes without saying but it is very often overlooked...It makes me cringe when I see new pilots ask questions in chat without a response when the server is full of very capable and knowledgeable pilots....

I think that its a really good idea to make this point to the community as ultimately they are responsible for the longevity of any given server...

Encouraging new pilots in the early stages in game chat will undoubtably make populations grow...

...lew...

[Roblex]

LRRP, regarding overheats in the Spit:-

1) Every pilot, no matter how experienced, occasionally forgets to open his radiator before taking off :-)

2) Even with the radiator fully open it is possible to overheat the spitfire if you sit still for too long. I mostly fly the Mk1a (100 octane) and that seems to reach a stable safe temperature if the throttle is kept at minimum while you are parked but other models may not.

One more thing to consider is that none of the aircraft in this game will run all day at full throttle and full prop pitch. For the spit you need to reduce the pitch until the rpm is 2800 or lower soon after take-off. The Mk1A (100oct) will allow you to fly at full throttle and only 30-50% rads as long as it is flying fast but once you start dogfighting or climbing steeply the airspeed is too low to keep the engine cool and you may need to open the rads a bit more.

[Dutch]

Just a thought here....on game chat

I believe it is highly important that to make this sim more populated if anyone comes into the server and asks questions because they are new that they get a positive response and help...Those early responses and welcoming attitudes in chat make a massive difference to wether a flyer takes the time to learn or not especially seeing as CLOD is so tricky to get to grips with in the early stages...

Plus maybe a regular server message, added to the one showing the TS i.p. 'if you're new to the game and need some advice, hop onto ATAG teamspeak @ blah, blah, blah' ?

[startrekmike]

After reading LRRP's very well thought out post, I can't help but think that this drive to recruit for various squadrons and groups is part of the problem we are having right now.

Easy now! Put away your angry pitchforks and hear me out on this one!

Imagine you are a new player, you probably don't have a lot of simulator experience and even if you do, CloD's flight and CEM models are different enough from the likes of DCS or even the old IL-2 1946 that some major rethinking and learning is essential before you can even BEGIN to make the plunge into any sort of organized group.

Now, this is the part where you say "But, but, we will help them if they join our squadron!" Yup, you are absolutely correct and I won't say it does not happen, however, that is not the issue at all.

The problem is simple, new players look at organized squadrons and they become intimidated, it does not help when some squadrons have heavily organized structures for rank, training and evaluation, that kind of thing is pretty intense for someone who is not even able to get the Spit off the ground without digging a wing into the grass, the new player is simply not prepared for that kind of thing right off.

New players need to be able to put a toe in the water of online play before they jump in, they need a low pressure learning environment that lets them learn without worrying about letting "superiors" down and without having to take tests or pass evaluations, the moment you tell a player "Be on the server at this time exactly" is the exact point where you turn the learning experience for the player into a job, a commitment that might go slightly past what they are willing to do with leisure time.

Now, with that being said, after someone has been in the community for a while, after they have the basics down enough to be confident, yeah, recruit the heck out of them, just don't make new players think that the only way to enjoy CloD online is through a squadron, I mean, I know new numbers are important but still.

I still think having a server for newer players to just screw around without worrying about getting smacked down by experienced players would be ideal, the largest part of learning a new sim is gaining confidence and that is difficult when you are immediately the new guy in a sky full of veterans and can only stay in the air long enough to get shot down.

I suppose this is not just a issue with CloD, every big flight sim has this issue, even casual groups often become so regimented and organized that it does not look terribly fun to those on the outside and when that is the only option presented to you for online play, well, that might not be what you want to deal with when you are just starting out.

[Kling]

How about new guys join on a "training channel" on TS and join the ATAG server. Ill be happy to spawn with them on an airfield very far from the action and just go through startups, take offs and landings and then a few mock dogfights over the field... this can be done in maybe one hour or so... ill be happy and would even enjoy this however only for the 109 and Spit and Hurricane.

Would also give ATAG a good name and I could use my real life instructor tips and tricks for something good as well :)

[56RAF_klem]

After reading LRRP's very well thought out post, I can't help but think that this drive to recruit for various squadrons and groups is part of the problem we are having right now.

Easy now! Put away your angry pitchforks and hear me out on this one!

Imagine you are a new player, you probably don't have a lot of simulator experience and even if you do, CloD's flight and CEM models are different enough from the likes of DCS or even the old IL-2 1946 that some major rethinking and learning is essential before you can even BEGIN to make the plunge into any sort of organized group.

Now, this is the part where you say "But, but, we will help them if they join our squadron!" Yup, you are absolutely correct and I won't say it does not happen, however, that is not the issue at all.

The problem is simple, new players look at organized squadrons and they become intimidated, it does not help when some squadrons have heavily organized structures for rank, training and evaluation, that kind of thing is pretty intense for someone who is not even able to get the Spit off the ground without digging a wing into the grass, the new player is simply not prepared for that kind of thing right off.

New players need to be able to put a toe in the water of online play before they jump in, they need a low pressure learning environment that lets them learn without worrying about letting "superiors" down and without having to take tests or pass evaluations, the moment you tell a player "Be on the server at this time exactly" is the exact point where you turn the learning experience for the player into a job, a commitment that might go slightly past what they are willing to do with leisure time.

Now, with that being said, after someone has been in the community for a while, after they have the basics down enough to be confident, yeah, recruit the heck out of them, just don't make new players think that the only way to enjoy CloD online is through a squadron, I mean, I know new numbers are important but still.

I still think having a server for newer players to just screw around without worrying about getting smacked down by experienced players would be ideal, the largest part of learning a new sim is gaining confidence and that is difficult when you are immediately the new guy in a sky full of veterans and can only stay in the air long enough to get shot down.

I suppose this is not just a issue with CloD, every big flight sim has this issue, even casual groups often become so regimented and organized that it does not look terribly fun to those on the outside and when that is the only option presented to you for online play, well, that might not be what you want to deal with when you are just starting out.

I think you are right and in fact one of our guys is helping someone that joined the online community after I spoke to him in the real world and he is under no pressure to join the Squad although he is thinking about it. My offer to help was a 1 to 1 but I told him to look out for any of the 56 guys because they are all helpful and I might not be online. That was easy to explain because of the face to face nature of the conversation and in fact it isn't me he is being helped by.

During virtual contact it's important to be friendly and make clear there is no pressure to join the squad, what we want is for them to join the community but a friendly voice and the reassurance that there is no obligation is helpful. I do know some Squad leaders that start with 'join us and we'll teach you' as a pre-condition. At the same time we are not all online all of the time which is why I always say to look out for any 56 guys because I know they will help rather than leave the new guy in limbo looking for a single friendly name when he probably does feel intimidated and may decide to turn away because he knows no-one else. So that warm friendly intro is very important. I remember years ago staring at the interface screen for Air Warrior and wondering what I was entering. Was it going to be regimented, arrogant, totally adversarial and unfriendly to newcomers. It wasn't of course and I was invited to join a squad within a couple of weeks but I didn't know that on day 1.

I do think there is an up side to being invited into a Squad in the right way because it gives an immediate sense of belonging and instant friends to fly with and some guys like that from the off.

[56RAF_klem]

How about new guys join on a "training channel" on TS and join the ATAG server. Ill be happy to spawn with them on an airfield very far from the action and just go through startups, take offs and landings and then a few mock dogfights over the field... this can be done in maybe one hour or so... ill be happy and would even enjoy this however only for the 109 and Spit and Hurricane.

Would also give ATAG a good name and I could use my real life instructor tips and tricks for something good as well :)

Maybe expand the opening message (about code of conduct) to welcome new players and invite them to ask for friendly help in any channel?
Of course a similar encouragement on opening Steam offering help in any CoD TS would reach even more people.

[Kling]

Maybe expand the opening message (about code of conduct) to welcome new players and invite them to ask for friendly help in any channel?
Of course a similar encouragement on opening Steam offering help in any CoD TS would reach even more people.

Sure anything that works!!

[Oersted]

Hello all.

My two tutorial vids should help. I also included short notes on the 109 and the Spit. See link in my signature.

[JG5_Emil]

I signed up pretty much so I could reply to this thread.

The one thing that would draw a lot of people in to CLOD would be the ability to chat before joining a server. While HL is often referred to in the same subject it's important to remember that HL was a work around to an existing problem in the original IL2 and so isn't going to be the solution. While the ATAG server is very good for the kind of game play it caters for there are a number of other play styles that suffer due to the lack of in game chat.

Examples would be:

Find people to test a mission.
Finding someone to testing the performance of specific aircraft or a 1 v1 to practice tactics etc
Running some kind of COOP or looking for another squad to be able to do a Squad versus Squad fight
Recruiting or getting to know people. Technical support and/or helping new players in to the game

The list is endless. There are plenty of work arounds (join a squad/post on a forum etc) but I feel that this is what is going to restrict the growth of CLOD and there was nothing like seeing several hundred possible opponents who were online. I am convinced there are people who log on see there is only one server (maybe they aren't keen on the map/mission/settings or what ever) and maybe log off or go and play SP instead. We will never know that that person logged on to CLOD and nor will we know that there might be more people playing CLOD than are on the available servers.

One day I hope to see a built in lobby/chat prior to joining a server. I have no idea if this would even be possible after all Luthier himself said they wouldn't or couldn't do it but I can only dream.

Cheers for reading

Emil

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

The problem is simple, new players look at organized squadrons and they become intimidated, it does not help when some squadrons have heavily organized structures for rank, training and evaluation, that kind of thing is pretty intense for someone who is not even able to get the Spit off the ground without digging a wing into the grass, the new player is simply not prepared for that kind of thing right off.

Hmm. I'm not sure there really are squads like that are there? Most of the squadrons in CloD are just loosely organised groups of mates. I don't get the feeling that the highly strung heirarchical groups that are/were prevalent in IL2 are so common in CloD.

Klem's reply (above) is right on the button. I often recommend new players to other squadrons besides my own, depending on what I can glean from the way they wish to play the game. It's best to direct players to the squads that suit their play.


I still think having a server for newer players to just screw around without worrying about getting smacked down by experienced players would be ideal, the largest part of learning a new sim is gaining confidence and that is difficult when you are immediately the new guy in a sky full of veterans and can only stay in the air long enough to get shot down.

You're welcome to host such a server. - ok, sorry I had to.. :P.
Problem is, you will always get some idiot who has experience jumping in to these new-player servers for easy kills. Unless of course the server had a script to auto-kick anyone with more than, say 100 hours clocked up to date on that server? (anyone know if this is possible?)

The above, it seems to me, is precisely why new players should be teaming up with experienced/ vets.
CloD is NOT the kind of game you should be playing online by yourself. Having an experienced guy cover your but whilst you're learning is really important. I know plenty of new pilots who just jump on teamspeak with the sole purpose of listening in to the coms. They don't say much, but the learn what's going on, who's who, where the fighting is, an dhow the experienced guys are responding.

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

The one thing that would draw a lot of people in to CLOD would be the ability to chat before joining a server. While HL is often referred to in the same subject it's important to remember that HL was a work around to an existing problem in the original IL2 and so isn't going to be the solution. While the ATAG server is very good for the kind of game play it caters for there are a number of other play styles that suffer due to the lack of in game chat.

You're not the first to suggest this.
It think many people would agree that it was an oversight not to include such a feature in the game.
I suspect that providing such a feature would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, now.

[ATAG_Colander]

I think the main issue for a lobby would be having a centralized server to host it.
HL does that and I guess we could host it on our ATAG servers (but that could create some conflict in the future).

[Roblex]

I signed up pretty much so I could reply to this thread.

The one thing that would draw a lot of people in to CLOD would be the ability to chat before joining a server. While HL is often referred to in the same subject it's important to remember that HL was a work around to an existing problem in the original IL2 and so isn't going to be the solution. While the ATAG server is very good for the kind of game play it caters for there are a number of other play styles that suffer due to the lack of in game chat.

Examples would be:

Find people to test a mission.
Finding someone to testing the performance of specific aircraft or a 1 v1 to practice tactics etc
Running some kind of COOP or looking for another squad to be able to do a Squad versus Squad fight
Recruiting or getting to know people. Technical support and/or helping new players in to the game

Emil

We have had this discussion before and I am still unsure how this is supposed to work. People don't stop in the server list lobby, they are only there because they want to fly so they pass straight through and into a server. If someone were to hang around there then they would not find anyone to talk to. In Hyperlobby people were only hanging around because they were waiting for a good Co-Op to start. In CLOD we don't have Co-Ops, if you want to attack a target with fellow pilots in a co-ordinated fashion then you go into the server and talk to the people there; not squadmates, just team mates. If you want to ask how to get these damned blenheim engines to start you ask in the server. If you want to test a mission you have made then ask in a server and I am sure many people will agree to help test it but nobody is going to hang around the lobby missing valuable flying time on the off-chance that someone might come along and ask a question.

What am I missing? Imagine someone has put this chat facility in the server lobby and talk me through who you see there and why they are waiting there instead of flying.

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

We have had this discussion before and I am still unsure how this is supposed to work. People don't stop in the server list lobby, they are only there because they want to fly so they pass straight through and into a server.....What am I missing? Imagine someone has put this chat facility in the server lobby and talk me through who you see there and why they are waiting there instead of flying.

It's a mechanism for social enablement Roblex. A community building vehicle if you will. Loads of people used to just hang around on H/L chatting away about all sorts of things.

Humans are social creature. Crowds build crowds, and the lobby function shows all the people present in the same place at the same time. It appeals to the imitative part of our brains.

[ATAG_Colander]

The next release will require a facebook account to play :)

[JG5_Emil]

We have had this discussion before and I am still unsure how this is supposed to work. People don't stop in the server list lobby, they are only there because they want to fly so they pass straight through and into a server. If someone were to hang around there then they would not find anyone to talk to. In Hyperlobby people were only hanging around because they were waiting for a good Co-Op to start. In CLOD we don't have Co-Ops, if you want to attack a target with fellow pilots in a co-ordinated fashion then you go into the server and talk to the people there; not squadmates, just team mates. If you want to ask how to get these damned blenheim engines to start you ask in the server. If you want to test a mission you have made then ask in a server and I am sure many people will agree to help test it but nobody is going to hang around the lobby missing valuable flying time on the off-chance that someone might come along and ask a question.

What am I missing? Imagine someone has put this chat facility in the server lobby and talk me through who you see there and why they are waiting there instead of flying.

OK firstly I am not really talking about HL because I think most people agree it is old and there are enough issues with steam that are likely to never see it become used, so the only reason I mentioned it was to say "I'm not talking about implementing HL". In the past discussion about chat/lobbies has been diverted to for/against oppinions about HL rather that what might be possible in the future with CLOD i.e. built in system possible or not?

The reason people don't hang around in the server listing is because there is nothing there and also because there is only one server worth playing on so of course you will pop straight through in to ATAG. Imagine one day more people migrate over to CLOD (I can't see why this wouldn't happen now the TF patch has made the game playable), that will be more people with different needs (see my list above). I believe people would hang around in a lobby to chat, wait for friends, look for opponents. I personally believe and would be willing to place a bet on it that many more people would migrate to CLOD as well. The game feels emptier and deader than it really is in my opinion and I feel that the lack of chat contributes. If I wanted to organize a 4v4 team match I will have to actively search out opponents instead of asking "Hey who wants a quick 4v4?" It's not easy to do things like this at all. In the long run attracting more people to CLOD will help the entire community.

I don't agree that people wouldn't hang around in the server listing if it was a proper lobby with a list of players plus chat plus servers. I think it would be great, I log on to the game see there are 400 people online, some are in ATAG some might be in a SOW mission then there are 100 sitting idle waiting for mates to turn up. I could ask around who wants to try out a certain mission, do some testing, do a 1v1 etc etc. Or I could sit idling talking about what the next patch might bring or moan about x FM. I dont know about you but I am often sitting at my PC but I'm not in a server and I am cut off from what is happening. It doesn't mean I don't want to fly but sometimes you need some motivation.

[JG5_Emil]

It's a mechanism for social enablement Roblex. A community building vehicle if you will. Loads of people used to just hang around on H/L chatting away about all sorts of things.

Humans are social creature. Crowds build crowds, and the lobby function shows all the people present in the same place at the same time. It appeals to the imitative part of our brains.

There you go...you said it in two sentences where I had to write a book

[Dutch]

The next release will require a facebook account to play :)

I'm assuming that's a joke. It is a joke, yes? God forbid.......whaa

But I agree with Roblex. Although I did talk to DD_Fruitbat in Cambridge about co-ops, and I can understand why people miss it in Cliffs, but as far as I can tell, a lobby would serve little purpose that this forum can't provide. But again, I could still be missing something.......

[JG5_Emil]

I'm assuming that's a joke. It is a joke, yes? God forbid.......whaa

But I agree with Roblex. Although I did talk to DD_Fruitbat in Cambridge about co-ops, and I can understand why people miss it in Cliffs, but as far as I can tell, a lobby would serve little purpose that this forum can't provide. But again, I could still be missing something.......

I think the thing you are missing is that at the moment there is a perception (right or wrong) that there aren't so many people flying CLOD but I I think there are a lot more that you would think. I was interested to see on Sunday that the ATAG server continued to still have a lot of players in it (50 or 60) while the SOW campaign was running (that had drawn in 80+).

It made me wonder where those people were before that mission and where they go during the week. Do they play something else? Have they gone back to a different Sim? So I thought it seems to me there are people out there that do different things or for what ever reason aren't in the mood for one kind of mission or server but maybe if there was the facility to chat with people rather than bugger off they might stick around form little groups where they can do something specific.

When JG5 was at it's peak of activity (this is going back many years :D )we were mostly interested in fighting other squads who were on comms and worked as a team because we wouldn't get a good fight if we had 8 guys and were fighting people who didn't train together. The best way we found those squads was because there was a list of players and I used to look at the tags to see a squad of similar size that was online, then I would message them. Other times I wanted to fly a specific plane set against a single player to test maneuvers or climb speeds.

Please note I am NOT talking about CO-OPs and HL here, my original post is not about either of those. I am talking about drawing in more people to the game as per the OP and as Phil said the community aspect.

[Little_D]

Hi gents,

i dont know realy how to start, so sorry if it is bad english, or i when i jump between the points like a rabbit, i will try to avoid :-).

I have post my 2 cents here too, and still thinking it is good to bring new people on, but i ask my self a long time what kind of new player i want or better what kind of player the comunety
needs for CoD or the furure with BoS, Olegs new Baby..., etc., because what takes it for me to play CoD with fun and to get a kind of satisfaction and an endles motivation when i look back on IL-2 1946 and how i find my way into the online-comunety.

A) So what takes it to play CoD:

1. computer to play CoD with all settings high min. stady 60 fps.
2. controllsystem ( stick,Ithrottle, rudder, TS, TrackIR5/FreeTrack)
3. a lot of time

i know it goes without TrackIR/FreeTrack but flying without it, is not feels like flying its feels like X-Box.

so with all this thinks i need to play CoD, i would say around 2000 to get the right equipment.

B) How i get fun, satisfaction and longtime motivation out of it:

1. find a good teacher that shows me how everything work
(flying, fighting, winning, surviving, loosing and the most important thing for good
onlineflying in the comunety "rules of engagement and fair play")

2. a good wingleader or wingman

3. a good statslist where i can see my performance and where i can readout where my
weaknesses, or my strengthen are.

4. a squad, or group

So how i come to this? my little story:

i start like most of the flyightsime addicted with Red Baron, RB2, Aces-series, etc. i played IL-2 from the beginning. But everything offline. 2009 i get interestet in flying online by watching movies and read forums. So i went online and what happend? i get kicked in the ass over and over again, why? Hey i am flying since years and can fly all offline-campaign with difficulty settings to highest. nice but thinking being an ace offline doesent mean you can fly online on a full real server. i was lucky and found 1./JG2_Reider. we fly for a year together and most time 4 hours a day and on weekend mostime nonstop. we both had nice jobs that fits into hour hobby :-). He teached me all i need about tactic, flyingstyle of german planes, how to fight against the red side :-). to make it short it takes me about 6 month to come close to his level and become a very good pilot in 1946 with a high kill/death ration, 85% landed kills, hit ratio from 15%, etc. Now in CoD i am far away from being as good as in 1946. Why this? at the beginning it was a total switch from how the plane feels in the air and how it act but i liked it and start to learn again, because i want to come back to my standart and it works. there is only one thing left to hold me up to become so good again and has nothing to do with the DM or FM. it is this not existing possebillity to give the controls a curve like in 1946. in the moment the nose is bouncing like hell, when you try to make fine corrections for leed in the last moment.

What we can learn out of this?

it took me, that had a lot of backround about playing a flightsim, 6 month ( by about 40 hours of flighttime each week ) to learn how to fly a flightsim online and i am still learning in CoD again and have to learn again when BoS or what ever comes out. 1946 had a hard learning curve, CoD is the next level, if we get a next level with BoS or what ever, we will see.

So what we want for the future for the comunety?

A) a fast growing low quality pilot comunety that comes online for an hour to have quickfights with no backround from old veterans and a X-box style flightsim future

or

B) a low growing good quality pilot comunity with a strong backround from good veterans that showes the pupplishers we want realism as close as possible in all aspects air, ground, dm, fm, scoring, stats, etc.

i personaly prefer option B

when we want option A, ok than it is enough to tell the people how to setup the pc, settings, controls etc. teach them how to start, shot and how to have furball fun, landing and return alive kills, or only returning to base are not important.

if we whant option B, then we need to do a lot more than only this:

1. first of all we need to tell them it is not only a game it is a hobby that need and cost time and mony, that the learning curve is hard till they reach the point that they survive there flights and win there fights and land at base!!!!

2. we need to give tham a hand over a long time to teach tham all what is needed to have fun and a longtime motivation.

i know that it takes a long time and patience to teach/train sombody to become a good pilot and have fun and longtime motivation. when i met fluegelbieger he was allready an onlinepilot, so he knows how hard it is to survive online and i need still about a year to bring him close to my level. i know somebody can learn faster sombody is slower but still it needs a lot of time and more for a guy that never ever touched a flightsim.

3. the best way to learn it the right way is a squad or a group where you can fly with.

So how we get there?

1. open a flightscool in atag forum for the new guys that are interested in option B, so they can finde a teacher that is interested in helping new guys from the beginning to the end.
2. let the teacher make a description about what type of plane fly, witch side he fly, witch tactics he use, in witch channel he can be found, on what time and day he is online, with language he is speaking, etc.
So he can ask the teacher he need to get it like he wants o learn flightsims to stay as long as we are into this.
( this flightscool is not for squadrecrutiong,only for teaching new guys the right way to enlightenment, so no links to squads, need to be a mamber of a squad, etc. )

i can write mutch more but i think this is enough and talking to sombody about this is mutch easyer even in english, than writing :-)

As end i would like to give a statment from 1./JG2_Reider:

"an average pilot can kill an enemy out of every situation, sometime it take longer, sometime it goes faster. an ace completed his mission at his homebase."

regards

Little_D

[ChiefRedCloud]

Welcome LRRP to a great Sim Flight group(s) ...... I see where Mike mentioned New Wings above. Well just to let all know we at New Wings didn't do any Voodoo or midnight rituals to get where we are. It was simply a Dream of one of our founders and the talent of several people like Denny and QuQi (our mission builders). But this, a Newbie Server, is something I've felt that the CloD community needed.

It does take a bit of dedication to the NEW pilot when many of us only have so much time between real world obligations. And I've never know any in ATAG not to be helpful (always ask as these guys will be honest with you and help if they can). One on One tutorial is nearly always the best. I've learned a lot from Denny. We at New wings wanted to setup a Newbie server for CloD but our resources are kind of tied up with RoF at this time. So the idea lies on the table (for now). But two things are needed to teach a NEW pilot (not a revelation I'm sure). First a quite place with most if not all training wheels on. Second TeamSpeak 3. Verbal communications is a must. Typing is not an option. Third, and most important, is a patient instructor.

One can not even describe the level of knowledge (or lack of) that you run into (including my own) when trying to help some one JUST get it started and off the ground. In example when you forget to ask IF they have a stick or pedals only to find out they have neither. And someone above made a good point (several actually) in that we need a HELP channel and it needs to be monitored. And we need (if it doesn't exist already) a section just for reasonable starter and advanced equipment that is available.

Again, Welcome LRRP to a great group and if you ever want to fly the canvas crates in RoF, let me know.

P.s. we have a fairly good video library of most (don't know if it's all) CloD aircraft over at New Wings here --->New Wings CloD Video Library (http://newwingstraining.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=26&sid=ae7cebb3db35390d9db024cf936b5c92)

[56RAF_klem]

I'm assuming that's a joke. It is a joke, yes? God forbid.......whaa

But I agree with Roblex. Although I did talk to DD_Fruitbat in Cambridge about co-ops, and I can understand why people miss it in Cliffs, but as far as I can tell, a lobby would serve little purpose that this forum can't provide. But again, I could still be missing something.......

Unfortunately the thing you/we are missing is that CoD has no natural Play home and all servers are independent (ATAG, SOW etc). Forums are one way for getting help and the 1C forum is where new people are most likely to go first if they can find it but just imagine you are brand new to CoD and run the stock version for the first time... there isn't even a reference to the 1C forum, not even the UBI forum.

There's no point in adding a forum address to the TF version main menu page because by that time we can suppose that the newbie has already been told what to do and where to go although it still might be helpful.

There is one way though, assuming the new player can find his way to Multiplayer... Client, a server could have in it's info details "NEW PLAYERS CAN GET HELP ON OUR TEAMSPEAK 123.45.67.89"
(perhaps a slightly more inviting message than the current ATAG "Join us on TS......").

[Dutch]

Plus maybe a regular server message, added to the one showing the TS i.p. 'if you're new to the game and need some advice, hop onto ATAG teamspeak @ blah, blah, blah' ?

:)


Unfortunately the thing you/we are missing is that CoD has no natural Play home and all servers are independent (ATAG, SOW etc). Forums are one way for getting help and the 1C forum is where new people are most likely to go first if they can find it but just imagine you are brand new to CoD and run the stock version for the first time... there isn't even a reference to the 1C forum, not even the UBI forum.

There's no point in adding a forum address to the TF version main menu page because by that time we can suppose that the newbie has already been told what to do and where to go although it still might be helpful.

There is one way though, assuming the new player can find his way to Multiplayer... Client, a server could have in it's info details "NEW PLAYERS CAN GET HELP ON OUR TEAMSPEAK 123.45.67.89"
(perhaps a slightly more inviting message than the current ATAG "Join us on TS......").

:) Again. I know what you mean mate, HL was a universal get together point for everyone. Me, I came late to HL, and spent years on the Ubi servers, for better or worse, so maybe I don't miss it as much as some.

But, I maintain that as an alternative, why don't people just use the chatbox on this forum, or the threads on this forum? What advantage does a 'lobby' have, over what we have here?

[ATAG_Bliss]

Just add the chatbox in game :D

[JG5_Emil]

Just add the chatbox in game :D

Exactly

[Dutch]

Just add the chatbox in game :D

Yah. This whole lobbying for a lobby by the lobbyists does come across as a simple sort of 'I miss Hyperlobby' kind of moan. Its only function, additonal to the client menu in Cliffs, is for people to gather prior to a co-op. Co-ops (whatever that means) don't happen in Cliffs.

Besides, if someone bought IL2 1946, how would they know about Hyperlobby, without doing some research first? This forum is the same in that respect. They'll find it once they research. When I bought 1946, it didn't come with Hyperlobby included. It sometimes seems that there's some sort of presumption that it did. Not so.

I don't miss HL, a list of servers is present in the game. You can see where your mates are flying. No worries. As far as attracting more people is concerned, this whole lobby thing is a non-starter. But maybe I'm missing something.......:D

[56RAF_klem]

:)



:) Again. I know what you mean mate, HL was a universal get together point for everyone. Me, I came late to HL, and spent years on the Ubi servers, for better or worse, so maybe I don't miss it as much as some.

But, I maintain that as an alternative, why don't people just use the chatbox on this forum, or the threads on this forum? What advantage does a 'lobby' have, over what we have here?

A lobby would only have an advantage if it was the default starting point... and it isn't so it doesn't.

Back to square one - how does a newbie even know this forum exists? We're in danger of looking out from the inside instead of looking in from the outside. There he is, knows nothing, loading CoD, Steam validates/updates it and off he goes into Multiplayer... Client. And there he sits, with the earlier poster's point about being nervous about jumping in or asking for help. Put up a friendly invitation on the server details in the Client list to go to TS for help and take it from there... practical help and a steer to the forum etc.. Now he's on the inside.

[Dutch]

how does a newbie even know this forum exists?

See above. 1946 didn't ship with Hyperlobby, but plenty of people found it. If you've bought Cliffs, you're online. You have to be, because of the Steam stuff. If you're online and you've bought a game, you google it to see who else is doing it, and then you find this forum. It's not that difficult, surely?

[JG5_Emil]

Yah. This whole lobbying for a lobby by the lobbyists does come across as a simple sort of 'I miss Hyperlobby' kind of moan. Its only function, additonal to the client menu in Cliffs, is for people to gather prior to a co-op. Co-ops (whatever that means) don't happen in Cliffs.

Besides, if someone bought IL2 1946, how would they know about Hyperlobby, without doing some research first? This forum is the same in that respect. They'll find it once they research. When I bought 1946, it didn't come with Hyperlobby included. It sometimes seems that there's some sort of presumption that it did. Not so.

I don't miss HL, a list of servers is present in the game. You can see where your mates are flying. No worries. As far as attracting more people is concerned, this whole lobby thing is a non-starter. But maybe I'm missing something.......:D

About five times I made it clear I wasn't talking about Hyperlobby. It is well known many ATAG guys dont like it which is why I specifically made a point to say this is not about COOPs and this is not about HL.

You are being as bad as the hyperlobby lobbyist

[Dutch]

About five times I made it clear I wasn't talking about Hyperlobby. It is well known many ATAG guys dont like it which is why I specifically made a point to say this is not about COOPs and this is not about HL.

You are being as bad as the hyperlobby lobbyist

And what made you think I was talking to you, pray tell? This conversation has been going on for days, so please don't think I'm responding to your input alone, because I'm not. Salute! :salute:

[ATAG_Colander]

Hi Emil,

The feelings of ATAG guys or non ATAG guys have nothing to do here. If anything, you should be worried about Team Fusion guys.

Please remember, this forum is just a host for the Team Fusion members (for which some happen to be in ATAG).

[Roblex]

I have already said why I don't think people will sit around in the server lobby but I do agree that some sort of 'Global Chat' would be useful. If the people you want to invite to your squad v Squad competition are flying in SoW & ATAG then you want a way to talk to them without going into the individual servers. A person might also want to ask his question to pilots in all servers. The problem that then has to be overcome is how to ask that question without adding clutter or distracting people too much. I would rather not have another chat window on my screen; to be useful for helping someone with a problem it would have to have several lines. In an ideal world voice chat might be better but I can't see how we would do that.
Another thought is for there to be a 'help' chatbox that is only visible while in the map room (yes I know we can already see a chat buffer there but I mean something bigger) The questions will be on screen longer and people can dip in and answer between sorties. While flying the chat box is invisible unless someone sends a direct message to you (or your squad?)

[56RAF_klem]

See above. 1946 didn't ship with Hyperlobby, but plenty of people found it. If you've bought Cliffs, you're online. You have to be, because of the Steam stuff. If you're online and you've bought a game, you google it to see who else is doing it, and then you find this forum. It's not that difficult, surely?

No its not difficult but here's a case in point. I mentioned I had met a guy face to face who told me he had CoD. This was a guy about forty years old and he's no shrinking violet. When I asked him if he flew online he said no. He had seen the Client list of servers and was a little intimidated by the thought of jumping into the online world where he would meet and fly against real people. He was not confident that he was good enough to not make himself look a fool with his 'combat skills' and didn't know what this online world was like. Now here's a guy who knows his way around the internet including google but he didn't know about the patch or this forum and it hadn't occurred to him that friendly help might be out there. He isn't (wasn't) a WWW gamer and as far as flying online is concerned he didn't get past the Client list. Bear in mind we are talking about the complete 'online newbie' section of those guys that have actually bought the game (which is actually the first hurdle).

The ATAG Client listing tells people where to get the patch, it might be helpful if it were to make a friendly offer of help for the guys that feel too intimidated to jump in.

EDIT: IMHO chat won't help unless it's in the game, perhaps at the Client listing page, but you'd need a central chat server because if TF put, say, a blatantly ATAG server in the page there would be objections from other server operators, it would have to be 'neutral' whoever was hosting it.

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

Besides, if someone bought IL2 1946, how would they know about Hyperlobby, without doing some research first? This forum is the same in that respect. They'll find it once they research. When I bought 1946, it didn't come with Hyperlobby included. It sometimes seems that there's some sort of presumption that it did. Not so. .....:D

OK this is a strong point that I completely overlooked!
I was only able to find my feet online in IL2:1946 when I jumped on some squadron's forums and asked (Wedge Tailed Eagles). They got me set up with teamspeak and Hyperlobby, neither of which I had ever heard of.

Cliffs is no different.
It's not really a game that you can play online alone.
It's not really a game that you can play without asking quite a few questions regarding setup, controls, servers, patches etc...

I think the above is just the reality of the game. And it was like that for IL2 in many respects.

[DUI]

As I once wrote I think Cliffs of Dover deserves an own (multilingual) website where new pilots can find all the great stuff that is currently spread over the whole internet. Meaning a forum, the TF patches, videos, tutorials, screenshots, skins, campaigns & missions, a chat, information about active squadrons and servers, news, etc.

If I am currently searching for "Cliffs of Dover" on google.de I do not get a hit for this Team Fusion forum on the first pages. Of course, this is also a result of the aspect that I am searching on the German Google. But for other non-English speaking countries it is probably the same. For pilots from these countries the game must look dead and not worth investigating any further.

In comparison with a (well done) website this Team Fusion forum (even hosted on another domain) probably does not inspire confidence in the current status of Cliffs of Dover and also in the qualification of Team Fusion.
I am not speaking for myself. Everyone a bit into Cliffs of Dover knows Team Fusion and their achievements. But for a new pilot I think it is a totally different situation.

[ATAG_Lewis]

Good spot DUI.....why didn't any of us think of that....

I just googled 'IL2 Cliffs Of Dover'...and there we are on the first page...but at the bottom....Not good....There are ways that google can be manipulated so as the search will give results with ATAGS closer to the top of that list...I mean god knows this site must be the most active for Clod fanatics on the web at the moment....so why isn't it nearer the top....or even at the top..imagine that!!

I also know that websites fighting for the top slot are constantly having to fight rivals....We don't have that do we....I mean once we manage to move ATAGS further up the roster we won't be fighting anyone trying to push it down..will we?...

Anyone with more knowledge of this manipulation of google?....PLEASE HELP!!!

[Greywing]

I'll jump in and add my brand new players perspective here.

I've sat on the fence for several weeks about getting CloD. My first exposure was a vid on YouTube of a 110 Booming and Zooming a Hurricane. I thought that is pretty (and probably decided then I would buy). But being in the middle of issues caused by JS that a little judiscious reading may have helped me avoid i started reading about CloD. What I saw had me balking esp. with a price tag on the game at the time around $50. There is a lot of stuff out there in the Steam forums and on Ubi that suggest CloD is a hit and miss proposition for most machines. For me I have a laptop and Ubi support recommended I give it a miss when I asked them direct.

CheifRedCloud has been pointing out deals and encouraging me though and I found the game for $20 and decided I'd take the punt. Great news is it works. So where to now for me? I've run it for a little while last night and need to configure my controls to suit me (a starting point would be great and I found a few about the place more help would be appreciated though. I have an X52, FTNoIR and Pedals). Then I'm looking at getting on line.

I play RoF and WarThunder also. New Wings at RoF is great I've had loads of help and encouragement there From the NW guys and from others who frequent the server. I love RoF and moreso getting in with the NW guys and flying in a group. I've even gotten over my fear of embarrassment at had a crack at one of the other servers. Didn't get a kill but I managed to run from a fight with no elevator and land safely at home base. WT on the other hand I have a friend locally who I fly with every now and then. I hate the Arcade mode and the Historic mode isn't imersive enough. (He flies Arcade mostly). The full realism mode(isn't FR a lot is still beta and may never get finished as the money is in Arcade) is either flying around for 15min seeing nobody or getting your butt shot off in no time because you can't see anybody coming. Nobody there seems keen on getting with the Noobs on TS. I've jumped in a couple of times and had one broken converstion. Contrast with NW where I was talking with one of the NW guys within a minute of being on and feeling really welcomed.

For me CloD ticks the boxes visually and it looks like it will in terms of realism. Now I'm hoping to find someone with some experience and patience to help me learn and improve. I got guided here through Chief at NW but otherwise would have struggled to find ATAG I think. Certainly links to here didn't jump out at me as much as the ones that bag the game were.

I guess Newbies most need somewhere to land If there was a place and vids such as the one I saw linked to it more new players would likely come in. Getting some positive publicity out there wouldn't hurt either.

[indyscout]

Sounds to me like our code junkies need to hack google! :D


I am going to start by saying how I got into clod, just a few weeks ago. Story time !
So about 5 months ago I started playing a game called warthunder, I must have put 300 hours into that game, and even managed to make it into the top 100 players. But as I got better, I wanted more challenge, but I couldn't get anymore out of warthunder so I began searching the web for a new game. I did stumble upon clod, but I read the user reviews on various forums and I decided it was way too buggy. But then a few days later I was watching warthunder videos on YouTube and in the related videos section there was one of no64bounder's videos. I then watched his videos, which lead me to Lewis's videos. I then checked out this forum via their videos. I read about what team fusion had done, so I picked up clod and dusted off my stick from my 1946 days and gave it ago. I got onto the atag server, spawned in a 109 and thought, "we'll sh*t, I don't know how to fly this thing. So I hit the forums and found the wiki. I then printed out all the info and taped the 109 e4 intructions to my monitor. I then sat ther for an hour hitting buttons and getting the plane into the air. I was immeadiatly obliterated by a spit. So then I decided I needed help with staying alive and I got on ts. I then got better and here I am now having a blast.

Now to what i think is causing the lack of newcomers:
1. Bad rep. I was revisiting warthunder the other day and was talking to one of my clan mates I used to play il2 1946 with. We got talking about il2, and I started telling him how great clod is now. He said he had just abandoned it after release and never looked back. So I told him to check it out. I bet there are many more like him out there we just need to start advertising it somehow.
2. Mindset. This game requires a certain mindset to enjoy the game, and it is not a common mindset. Many people simply don't want to take the time to find targets and engage them properly.
3. Learning curve. This game is so hard to learn. Being honest, this game is harder than my d*ck was the first time I slept with a girl.. Even taking off is complicated. This can be a huge tun off for many people. No matter how much we try to make it easier to learn the planes and game mechanics, many people will not be willing to dedicate the time and effort to learn how to play. I mean the only reason I stuck with the game is because I am so damn stubborn ( I am that one fool you always see flying a burning wreck, that is still trying to pull an impossible shot with the 1 machine gun still working.) Many people will be turned away by the difficulty, sadly there isn't much that can be done to fix this without making the game ez-mode.
4. Cost. Flight sims are expensive and require an additional investment beyond the purchase of the game. As of now I am using a cheap setup, a $30 Logitech stick, that's it. However, this is the bare minimum required to play. To get a better gameplay experience, one may have to drop hundreds just for 1 game. It can be difficult to justify this, especially if you don't have a lot of funds.
5. Genre. The flight sim community isn't very big on its own and many people may not have heard of it, even if they are interested in the idea.

[ATAG_Lewis]

Thanks Greywing....and welcome to the forums...your input here is really appreciated and helpfull to us....

As for flying..stick with us if you can...it sounds like you love flight sims and you won't find a more realistic WW2 combat sim than Clod...I had not flown full real for longer than a few minutes before I flew on the ATAGS server and love it now...The folks here are helpfull too so you are in the right place....Interesting that you didn't find this forum easily..we are trying to work on that as it will surely draw more folks to the sim...


I guess Newbies most need somewhere to land If there was a place and vids such as the one I saw linked to it more new players would likely come in. Getting some positive publicity out there wouldn't hurt either.

and thanks indy scout for your help...any input here will guide us in the right direction..Big thanks


section there was one of no64bounder's videos. I then watched his videos, which lead me to Lewis's videos. I then checked out this forum via their videos. .

Great point here and worth mentioning to all those movie makers out there.....PUT AN ATAG WEBSITE LINK IN YOUR YOUTUBE VIDEO DESCRIPTION and/or on your video...That should be a big help!!

Thanks Greywing...~S~

[ATAG_Lewis]

I have just had a look at the Amazon website and see a few new reviews over there....well done..we seem to be getting somewhere there....

However as I was looking I realised there is an option to answer a question on any particular review 'Was this review helpfull to you?'....I think this is important as the reviews that are most helpfull get put to the top of the pile and at the moment the top 11 reviews you see are all negative (1 stars)...so...Clicking on the 'No' option here will put it further away from the top and 'yes' will get it escalated to the top, so make sure you click on the 'yes' for positive reviews and on the 'no' for negative reviews.....Cmon fellas Lets try and turn that around....it takes 10 mins to click on 130 reviews that way

Again MAKE SURE you do this on the international site as it will have many times more traffic than your home country Amazon site.

Here is the link to Amazon international:

http://www.amazon.com/IL-2-Sturmovik-Cliffs-Dover-Pc/product-reviews/B004L5SJ4Y/ref=dp_db_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

[Royraiden]

Im giving thumbs up to the the positive reviews and thumbs down to the negative.You can clearly see most of the negative reviews are dated just after its release on 2011.Clearly those reviews arent accurate.I also just wrote my review, I always thought I had to buy the item through Amazon to be able to review it there.

[gavagai]

Here is something missing:

Updated system requirements. Reading through the Amazon reviews it strikes me how many felt ripped off because of the published system requirements. Machines that were above the minimum turned out to be inadequate. So it would be helpful if the community published its own minimum system guidelines.

I would start off with:

3ghz i5 or i7
8gb ram
2gb vram gpu no worse than the x60 (nvida) or x850 (ATI) range.
64 bit OS with DX10

...as an initial suggestion.

[Royraiden]

Here is something missing:

Updated system requirements. Reading through the Amazon reviews it strikes me how many felt ripped off because of the published system requirements. Machines that were above the minimum turned out to be inadequate. So it would be helpful if the community published its own minimum system guidelines.

I would start off with:

3ghz i5 or i7
8gb ram
2gb vram gpu no worse than the x60 (nvida) or x850 (ATI) range.
64 bit OS with DX10

...as an initial suggestion.
I forgot to add a line regarding the system requirements on my review.I agree on those you posted, that seems to be the sort of machine that would run the sim at medium-high settings with solid fps.

[Kling]

Maybe we should start a new thread on various forums on the ATAG website and also on other flightsim forums where we encourage people to write good Amazon reviews and also give them thumbs up.
This way it will be easier to find this request for people who only check forums for new threads instead of this one on page 7??
What do you guys think?

What flightsim forums are there out there where we can request people to write on amazon?

[LRRP]

Greetings Gentlemen:

Well, it's been six days since my one and only post on this forum. That was post #135 in this thread. If you go back and read that you'll learn that I'm a newbie trying to break in. Thought I'd jump back in and share my progress to date and my opinion about what I think is the best solution to FS~Lewis's original question.
First, the progress part. I can now start a Spitfire. I can manage temps, taxi, take off, maintain level flight and land. That's it. Six days of effort using only video's and WIKI's etc. to help me figure thing's out. Not very impressive I know but I try to be thorough and master a thing before I move on.

I've been using the ATAG "Overflow" server every night as I seem to have it all to myself. I've been spawning as far from the action as possible in an effort to avoid being shot at while I work on the "stick and Rudder" stuff. Haven't been in a fight yet but I think I'm now ready to give that a try. BUT, I have no illusion's about how that will likely go. I will be alone and I will be easy meat. Not really looking forward to that. I've got an ego like everyone else.

Now to the "my opinion" part.

DISCLAIMER: I in no way think there is any reason any of you should give a damn about my opinion's. I offer them with humility and in full awareness that I am the newbie here. It's just that I'm a perfect test case for the subject at hand. I'm living it right now. If not for that I'd just keep my mouth shut.

For me as a newcomer the following are completly irrelavent at this point:

* The LOD problem
* Mission design
* Lack of a lobby
* Lack of chat
* etc., etc.

Yes, Ive been following this thread with interest. I think the answer is here in this thread in bit's and snippet's scattered amongst various post's. I'll quote a few below to try to show that I am not the only one thinking along these lines.

O.K., here it is. I think the veteran's of ATAG should establish a Flight School. In my perfect world it would work something like this.

There would be an ATAG server dedicated to the "ATAG Flight Acadamy". It would be staffed by volenteer instructors drawn from the ranks of you proffesionals here who enjoy teaching and who want to see the servers busier than they are now. Access to this server would be totally controlled by the instructors. No idiot aces jumping on for easy kills to pad thier stats.

This server would allow all the "training wheels" so an instructor could help a noob who was struggling progress with less frustration for them both. The instructor could direct the cadet to turn on realism functions one at a time as he sees fit. The cadet would be made fully aware that the "REAL" ATAG server is full realism only and learning to cope with all of that is required to fly there.

Now, how do we get the instructors and the cadets together in the first place. With a stickied thread on the main page of these forums that can't be missed by a first time reader. Title? Oh, I don't know, how about - CLICK HERE TO LEARN TO FLY - or - Sign up here for ATAG's flight school, real live instructors are ready to help. Those suck but you get my drift.
At the top of this imaginary thread of mine would be a list of instructors giving the days and times the instructors are available to teach. This must be done at the instructors convenience. The cadet picks an instructor who is available at a time that can work for him and makes a post in the thread stating that he wants to be taught by that instructor at that time. No P.M.'s. Let the whole world see this working. The word of mouth will spread I think. Just a few glowing posts on Steam from happy graduates of the ATAG Flight Acadamy might start a rush. Who knows? I know this, if this school existed I'd be the first in line to sign up.




I cringe when I see a tutorial showing people how to adjust twenty different switches and levers before you even start the engine. That sort of thing just convinces newbies that the game is overcomplicated and that they will never learn enough to even get off the ground so why bother trying?

Yes. But throw a real live instructor into the mix. Viola, confusion becomes clarity with a few quickly answered questions.





While I do agree that some of the theory involved in CEM is difficult, I don't think (to the extent that it is modeled in CloD) that it is terribly complicated to teach the basics.

I agree completely Mike. All that's lacking is the teacher.


That said, I think I am thinking of less of a straight up organized and specific tutorial and more of a general learning environment where newbies can come on to the server and have a low pressure (and low risk) place to learn everything they want to learn, this could be done with a few helpful veteran pilots hanging around who are willing to teach whatever comes up.

I'd say I rest my case but I'm not quite done yet.



We just want to give them that first push and not scare them away with too many formalities or stuff like that.

yes



OK. I was not going to blow my own horn but now you come to mention it, that is a great tutorial :coolio: :D


When a newb has tried using CEM and seen his engine blow up 5 times in row before he has even reached the end of the runway then this sort of tutorial will be the final straw that makes him delete the game and put a bad rating on Amazon.

Yup, been there, done that. Well, not five times but twice. Don't get me wrong Roblex, it's not that I don't think that many of the wonderful video's you and others have made aren't helpful it's just that you can't ask a video a question.


I find that when i can get a beginner to pop onto Teamspeak, i can turn them from 'frustrated about to chuck the game' guy to the 'shooting down some unsuspecting player' guy in under an hour usually.

Ah, the Teamspeak issue. Well, at least for me it's an issue. Here's why.
After my first post in this thread I was chastised about my being reluctant to interrupt anyones game to ask for help. I suppose my feelings about this have to do with my age and the way my parent's raised me. But, many here responded to my post insisting that this was what I must do so I decided I would just do it, no matter how awkward it made me feel. When in Rome...............
But who to interupt? I made a list and "rollingstoned" earned the top spot on that list because of this post. I planned to ambush him the first time I saw him on Teamspeak. The night before last, Tuesday, I logged onto the server and Teamspeak and to my surprise there was "rollingstoned" already in game. Great I thought, here's my chance.
So I changed my Teamspeak channel to his so I could talk to him and started to listen. He had a wingman who's name escapes my memory but it was obvious this was not the first time they had flown together. They were a team, like a well oiled machine. From this point on I'm paraphrasing. This is approx. what I heard.

First, "rollingstoned" was explaining to his wingman that real life had kept him away from CLoD for a long time and how good it felt to be back. He said "damn, I'd almost forgotten how much fun this is". And then the enemy showed up and all the chit chat stopped. The battle was joined and thier comm chatter became terse and to the point and I was sucked in. I was there. I listened as "rollingstoned" rolled onto a bogeys six while his wingman assured him his six was clear. I heard the triumph in his voice as he announced "good hits" three times. And then he ran out of ammo and the bad guy wasn't dead yet. He and his wingman talked the situation over and decided on a subturfuge. The enemy might not realise he was out of ammo if he just continued the pursuit and that might give his wingman time to get into position to take a shot. About 30 seconds later the enemy pilot bailed out so "rollingstoned" got full credit for the kill after he had run out of ammo. I was just sitting here with my headset on and my eyes closed and it was exciting for me. The satisfaction in "rollingstoned's" voice as he told his wingman he was going to land and re-arm was plain to hear. So was the sheer fun he was having. Interupt him now? Not a chance. Frankly I'd be hard pressed to think of anything that would make me feel more selfish. From my perspective that would have been a completely rude and boorish thing to do. So, I decided to wait and listen untill he was ready to quit for the evening and speak to him then. I shut down the game and just left Teamspeak running. Went and poured myself a wee dram of very good Scotch and sat back down to listen. By the time I finished my Scotch it was getting late and this old mans eyes were getting very heavy. When I shut down my computer and went to bed "rollingstoned" was still smiting them hip and thigh so I missed my chance. I'm very glad I didn't butt in. I'd be ashamed of myself if I had.

Is this all just me or might there be others that would feel the same. Would the stickied forum thread I suggested above be better?

@rollingstoned Want a student? Can you be bribed? If I offered to come to your house and mow your lawn and wash your car and take out your trash and............................................... .


Been thinking a lot following recent discussions and indeed disagreements.

First point is that missions, whether old, new, stale, organised, etc are not what is causing a lack of new players. They don't even know about missions yet and will be happy to play any missions online to start with. We have to find ways to drag new guys in off the streets and bring back disaffected "first release" guys.
In any case, at the moment even thinking of running alternate mission types on the second server may be tail chasing simply because of the OP's original question. I don't see enough guys on line, even on a busy night, to go populating even two let alone three CoD servers with high numbers.

OK, how about using that second server for a flight school?


Hello fellow retiree :)

You are right, documentation is lousy and help is scattered but talking things through is much the best way. So.....

Long story short. Get on ATAG Teamspeak and look for me (56RAF_klem) and let me help. We fly on Sundays and Wednesdays at 8pm UK time although for the next several Sundays we are in a campaign but also you will find one or two of us on line most evenings. Not all our guys will be able to help but just ask. This isn't a recruitment drive, other Squads and individuals are usually just as helpful. :)

If you are in Europe I can often find time in the mornings (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday). If that helps PM me and we'll work something out.

Generally, don't worry about interrupting to ask for help, usually someone will have the time and will likely move to another channel to chat with you. The ATAG server is not a formal set piece campaign server where everyone is totally focussed on the mission objectives, there is usually someone happy to talk. Its a great community. It may be that at any particular moment everyone is tied up in what they are doing but just ask from time to time.

Warning klem, your direct offer of help earned you a spot on the list I mentioned above. Unfortunately I live in the USA- central time zone.




After reading LRRP's very well thought out post, I can't help but think that this drive to recruit for various squadrons and groups is part of the problem we are having right now.

Easy now! Put away your angry pitchforks and hear me out on this one!

Imagine you are a new player, you probably don't have a lot of simulator experience and even if you do, CloD's flight and CEM models are different enough from the likes of DCS or even the old IL-2 1946 that some major rethinking and learning is essential before you can even BEGIN to make the plunge into any sort of organized group.

Now, this is the part where you say "But, but, we will help them if they join our squadron!" Yup, you are absolutely correct and I won't say it does not happen, however, that is not the issue at all.

The problem is simple, new players look at organized squadrons and they become intimidated, it does not help when some squadrons have heavily organized structures for rank, training and evaluation, that kind of thing is pretty intense for someone who is not even able to get the Spit off the ground without digging a wing into the grass, the new player is simply not prepared for that kind of thing right off.

New players need to be able to put a toe in the water of online play before they jump in, they need a low pressure learning environment that lets them learn without worrying about letting "superiors" down and without having to take tests or pass evaluations, the moment you tell a player "Be on the server at this time exactly" is the exact point where you turn the learning experience for the player into a job, a commitment that might go slightly past what they are willing to do with leisure time.

Now, with that being said, after someone has been in the community for a while, after they have the basics down enough to be confident, yeah, recruit the heck out of them, just don't make new players think that the only way to enjoy CloD online is through a squadron, I mean, I know new numbers are important but still.

I still think having a server for newer players to just screw around without worrying about getting smacked down by experienced players would be ideal, the largest part of learning a new sim is gaining confidence and that is difficult when you are immediately the new guy in a sky full of veterans and can only stay in the air long enough to get shot down.

Thanks for the kind words Mike. I think the last sentence of your post nails it.


How about new guys join on a "training channel" on TS and join the ATAG server. Ill be happy to spawn with them on an airfield very far from the action and just go through startups, take offs and landings and then a few mock dogfights over the field... this can be done in maybe one hour or so... ill be happy and would even enjoy this however only for the 109 and Spit and Hurricane.

Would also give ATAG a good name and I could use my real life instructor tips and tricks for something good as well :)

Watch your six Kling! You made my list as well with this post.



Problem is, you will always get some idiot who has experience jumping in to these new-player servers for easy kills. Unless of course the server had a script to auto-kick anyone with more than, say 100 hours clocked up to date on that server? (anyone know if this is possible?)

No access without an invite from an approved by ATAG instructor?? Can that be done?


The above, it seems to me, is precisely why new players should be teaming up with experienced/ vets.
CloD is NOT the kind of game you should be playing online by yourself. Having an experienced guy cover your but whilst you're learning is really important.

yup, that's the place I'm in right now. I can keep a Spit in the air but that's about it. If I venture out over the channel now, alone, I should have a garnish on my head. You know, like an appetizer.




B) How i get fun, satisfaction and longtime motivation out of it:

1. find a good teacher that shows me how everything work
(flying, fighting, winning, surviving, loosing and the most important thing for good
onlineflying in the comunety "rules of engagement and fair play")

we need to give tham a hand over a long time to teach tham all what is needed to have fun and a longtime motivation.


So how we get there?

1. open a flightscool in atag forum for the new guys that are interested in option B, so they can finde a teacher that is interested in helping new guys from the beginning to the end.

regards

Little_D

A Flight School huh? Damn. He beat me to it.


Welcome LRRP to a great Sim Flight group(s) ...... I see where Mike mentioned New Wings above. Well just to let all know we at New Wings didn't do any Voodoo or midnight rituals to get where we are. It was simply a Dream of one of our founders and the talent of several people like Denny and QuQi (our mission builders). But this, a Newbie Server, is something I've felt that the CloD community needed.

It does take a bit of dedication to the NEW pilot when many of us only have so much time between real world obligations. And I've never know any in ATAG not to be helpful (always ask as these guys will be honest with you and help if they can). One on One tutorial is nearly always the best. I've learned a lot from Denny. We at New wings wanted to setup a Newbie server for CloD but our resources are kind of tied up with RoF at this time. So the idea lies on the table (for now). But two things are needed to teach a NEW pilot (not a revelation I'm sure). First a quite place with most if not all training wheels on. Second TeamSpeak 3. Verbal communications is a must. Typing is not an option. Third, and most important, is a patient instructor.

One can not even describe the level of knowledge (or lack of) that you run into (including my own) when trying to help some one JUST get it started and off the ground. In example when you forget to ask IF they have a stick or pedals only to find out they have neither. And someone above made a good point (several actually) in that we need a HELP channel and it needs to be monitored. And we need (if it doesn't exist already) a section just for reasonable starter and advanced equipment that is available.

Again, Welcome LRRP to a great group and if you ever want to fly the canvas crates in RoF, let me know.

P.s. we have a fairly good video library of most (don't know if it's all) CloD aircraft over at New Wings here --->New Wings CloD Video Library (http://newwingstraining.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=26&sid=ae7cebb3db35390d9db024cf936b5c92)


@ChiefRedCloud if your future plans to establish a flight school for CLoD ever gets "off the table" and ATAG has not yet done it PLEASE let me know where to sign up.



It's not really a game that you can play online alone.
It's not really a game that you can play without asking quite a few questions regarding setup, controls, servers, patches etc...

I rest my case.

[Ohms]

LRRP
May I ask what time zone are you in? Eastern, central, mountain, pacific.
IF you can stay up late say 10pm eastern the servers ars not to busy and some very good pilots are still on line such as JTDAWG,Snapper and I know that they would be more than happy to help. If you see me I will also help.My call sign is 71st Ohmie. Do not worry about being pressured in to joining a squad, most squads are just guys who like to fly with each other. The guys in 92,56,71,Atag and nearly all others red or blue are great guys and will help you . I can understand you feeling that butting in is a little rude but if it is a quite night you will find so one who will help.
So if you see myself online say hello and hopefully I can answer your questions.

Salute
Ohmie

[LRRP]

I'll jump in and add my brand new players perspective here.

For me CloD ticks the boxes visually and it looks like it will in terms of realism. Now I'm hoping to find someone with some experience and patience to help me learn and improve.

ditto

[56RAF_klem]

Greetings Gentlemen:........................................ ................


Warning klem, your direct offer of help earned you a spot on the list I mentioned above. Unfortunately I live in the USA- central time zone.
...........................

OK lets get practical and think about what you just posted.

Yes, the time zone has to be suitable and even being retired, 9 am to 10 pm CET means 3 pm to 4 am UK. So you have to find someone on US time or fly with working UK/Euro guys in their weekday evenings (your afternoons) or others, generally in their evenings. Finding them is easy, just get onto a server at times that suit you and see who's there.

Now, you can try to be specific about who you ask but as with your choice of rollingstoned you narrowed your choices by assumption or other reason and your disinclination to ask them while they were fighting created a barrier for you. You could and should have just called them and at worst they would have asked you to wait until they were down or given other advice. But be careful about limiting yourself to possible candidates then hanging back. Just get onto TS and ask. Anyone. A general call on the populated channel. You see I don't think a beginners server is likely to happen because that calls for a lot of commitment and probably from only a few guys who may not be on when you can be. With the greatest respect to that suggestion it's hard to achieve. There was an IL-2 sturmovik 1946 flight school but I don't think one exists in CoD.

I've been online for 17 years now and although we say Squads shouldn't try to poach new players, in my loooooong experience guys get on best when they pick a squadron they like the look of to fly with at a time that suits them, ask them (a refusal is extremely unlikely) and they will give you the help you need because they feel a commitment to you as you have asked them to help and want to join their squadron. In fact you can usually get help without asking to join. For example, just ask someone like rollingstoned and they will work it out (when and how). And these guys know most if not all the tricks to flying, PC setup, peripherals etc.. Don't fret over whether you will like them or not or whether they will like you. The fact is 99.99% of us get along just fine and the focus is on flying together not on your personal view of life, politics, previous experience, sexuality, home planet, alcoholic tendencies etc.. :)

A lot of well meant altruistic ideas have been put forward, like a newbies flight school, but my years on line have taught me that just getting involved with a Squad is the fastest and most effective way of getting started, in spite of my attempts to remain neutral on that subject. You know, our 20+ Squad in '46 was reduced to less than half a dozen when we moved to CoD because of its problems. All the new guys that have joined us in CoD except one (we are about 12+ now) approached us either from falling over us on a server and liked the look of us (there are many other Squads) or came through our recruitment link on our website. How they found the website I don't know although there is a Squad listing on the 1C forum and in ATAG forum but I know some got to know about us from flying on servers we were on. Like any other Squad we welcomed them and taught them from scratch where necessary and several of them needed that. We usually use a buddy system where the new guy flies as wingman to one of us and often they will just fly alone to begin with to sort things out. I think most Squads do this. So.....

Long story short, don't wait for a flight school to be established, it may never happen, find a guy or Squad you like the sound of and just talk to one of them.

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

I've been online for 17 years now and although we say Squads shouldn't try to poach new players, in my loooooong experience guys get on best when they pick a squadron they like the look of to fly with at a time that suits them, ask them (a refusal is extremely unlikely) and they will give you the help you need because they feel a commitment to you as you have asked them to help and want to join their squadron. In fact you can usually get help without asking to join. For example, just ask someone like rollingstoned and they will work it out (when and how). And these guys know most if not all the tricks to flying, PC setup, peripherals etc.. Don't fret over whether you will like them or not or whether they will like you. The fact is 99.99% of us get along just fine and the focus is on flying together not on your personal view of life, politics, previous experience, sexuality, home planet, alcoholic tendencies etc.. :)
.

Completely agree with Klem.

How about a forum room here on ATAG for new pilots to request an instructor?
Experienced pilots and squadron OC's can reply with their availability, and the new pilots can then PM they one(s) they wish to approach.

For example; Reddog joined 92 Sqn. about 6 weeks ago, completely cold to the game. He has now completed his basic training sessions, flies regularly with us on ATAG and the Storm of War campaign missions. He gets kills online against some quite skilled 109 pilots and is completely comfortable with locating, identifying and knocking down enemy bombers. All of this in 6 weeks. Any number of the other squadrons would have provided him with the same level of learning and skill development.

I cannot stress enough how much quicker new pilots will learn the game if they team up with a squadron, even if it's just to "learn the ropes" before making a decision about whether or not you want to stick with them. There are plenty of squadrons who do not require specific attendance commitments.

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

double post. ooops. see above.

[ATAG_Headshot]

LRRP I think the best way to go is just hop into the channel, wait until a moment where people aren't in the middle of a fight then ask if anyone is willing to help. You don't have to head hunt a person, just a general question will usually do. I have even disengaged and gone to land when a general request in TS was issued and then hopped to a new channel for training. Unfortunately I haven't had much flight time lately but that should be changing a bit soon too. Keep an eye out for me. I am in the mountain time zone, and even if I sound busy give me a shout. Worst case scenario is you may have to wait a few minutes for me to land.

[gavagai]

FS Lewis asked that I post some of my comments from this thread: http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5042&p=51732#post51732

To sum it up, in addition to a lot of people who don't know what Clod has to offer, there are many who do know and don't see much reason to play. My comments were specifically about the ATAG server, which is the only reliably populated server available.

1) The bomber targets are too spread out for so few people. Until you can reliably have a lot more people in the server, one target per side would be better. Yes, this would make for "ducks in a row," but when I go through a full tank of gas without combat, I log off. It's a lesser of two evils.

2) The server messages that say where to meet bombers for escort give geographical names instead of map coordinates. For someone who isn't familiar with the map names, this is very confusing, and algebraic map coordinates would be better.

3) I know I'm an apostate for saying it, but some kind of icon at the appropriate range would be helpful until the LoD fix is released. Just something black without any range information would be fine. For now this single issue is a deal breaker for me. Maybe my monitor sucks, or maybe I suck, I don't know, but the disappearing dots are more than I have patience for.

--------------

Other suggestions were dynamic AI spawning. While there are fewer people online, more AI spawn, etc.

[56RAF_klem]

FS Lewis asked that I post some of my comments from this thread: http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5042&p=51732#post51732

To sum it up, in addition to a lot of people who don't know what Clod has to offer, there are many who do know and don't see much reason to play. My comments were specifically about the ATAG server, which is the only reliably populated server available.

1) The bomber targets are too spread out for so few people. Until you can reliably have a lot more people in the server, one target per side would be better. Yes, this would make for "ducks in a row," but when I go through a full tank of gas without combat, I log off. It's a lesser of two evils.

2) The server messages that say where to meet bombers for escort give geographical names instead of map coordinates. For someone who isn't familiar with the map names, this is very confusing, and algebraic map coordinates would be better.

3) I know I'm an apostate for saying it, but some kind of icon at the appropriate range would be helpful until the LoD fix is released. Just something black without any range information would be fine. For now this single issue is a deal breaker for me. Maybe my monitor sucks, or maybe I suck, I don't know, but the disappearing dots are more than I have patience for.

--------------

Other suggestions were dynamic AI spawning. While there are fewer people online, more AI spawn, etc.

Just a thought gavagai, flying with a Squad adds another dimension. We sometimes fly a sweep without finding anything to shoot at (not often though!) and there's even a satisfaction in that due to the need to set up cover flights, keep formation, fly the sweep, keep a lookout and on the odd occasions when nothing comes up, land safe as a Squad. Meantime we are more likely to run into a few 109s, or bomber formations, perhaps live escorts, work out the plan and get the job done. Try to fly with some other guys.

As for LODs, I believe something's being worked on.

[ATAG_Lewis]

Just tried an experiment...I have re-named one of my CLOD videos on Youtube to 'War Thunder - Full Real Alternative - IL-2 Cliffs Of Dover'.....I wondered if we can poach players from War Thunder who have entertained the idea of flying a ultra real WWII combat flight sim...

At the moment it has 413 views.....the first indication will be if that view number goes up dramatically then I know at least I have hit a big market with my ploy....Get their attention first...then reel them in....

Anyways....We will see if I get abuse...or if it works......or maybe both....lol


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CigIO6X7t0Y

By the way...we have done an amazing job on the Amazon internation review campaign.....What can we hit next?...any ideas?

[Kling]

Just tried an experiment...I have re-named one of my CLOD videos on Youtube to 'War Thunder - Full Real Alternative'.....I wondered if we can poach players from War Thunder who have entertained the idea of flying a ultra real WWII combat flight sim...

At the moment it has 413 views.....the first indication will be if that view number goes up dramatically then I know at least I have hit a big market with my ploy....Get their attention first...then reel them in....

Anyways....We will see if I get abuse...or if it works......or maybe both....lol


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CigIO6X7t0Y

By the way...we have done an amazing job on the Amazon internation review campaign.....What can we hit next?...any ideas?

PS....Just went to SimHQ site and I see an advert for BOS at the top of the Clifs of Dover forum....it hasn't come from a player or fan...so I guess it must have come internally.....Interesting that they are trying to poach CLOD players...

I suppose we are all trying to poach each others player base...lol
Yes I saw that at simHQ as well.

Muhahaha intresting experiment. Let us know how it goes!
The risk is that people will not understand that it is not Warthunder and still wont come to Clod...

[Kling]

Just tried an experiment...I have re-named one of my CLOD videos on Youtube to 'War Thunder - Full Real Alternative'.....I wondered if we can poach players from War Thunder who have entertained the idea of flying a ultra real WWII combat flight sim...

At the moment it has 413 views.....the first indication will be if that view number goes up dramatically then I know at least I have hit a big market with my ploy....Get their attention first...then reel them in....

Anyways....We will see if I get abuse...or if it works......or maybe both....lol


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CigIO6X7t0Y

By the way...we have done an amazing job on the Amazon internation review campaign.....What can we hit next?...any ideas?

PS....Just went to SimHQ site and I see an advert for BOS at the top of the Clifs of Dover forum....it hasn't come from a player or fan...so I guess it must have come internally.....Interesting that they are trying to poach CLOD players...

I suppose we are all trying to poach each others player base...lol
Yes I saw that at simHQ as well.

Muhahaha intresting experiment. Let us know how it goes!
The risk is that people will not understand that it is not Warthunder and still wont come to Clod...

[Greywing]

Hi,

Trying to poach players from Warthunder is a good idea. There are a lot of FRB players expressing their dissatisfaction with the direction WT is going. The common comment is "I'm waiting for BoS to release then I'm gone." I expect to be playing far less WT now that I took the plunge and got Cliffs. Just the few offline flights I've made tweaking my TIR and controls have felt much better than my WT experience non combat or combat both. Much of WT feels very unfinished. Cliffs feels much more polished. Hoping to have some time next week to get on line.

Cheers

[ATAG_Lewis]

Rgrt....

Quote from 'GamesSpotUk'

'Gaijin Entertainment's free-to-play MMO game War Thunder has seen more than 3 million players for its open beta, the company announced today. That represents player growth of over 200 percent since March 2013. '

All we ask is 100 players 24 / 7 in one server...thats not really poaching is it?...hehe

[ATAG_Lewis]

Ive noticed we are getting folks in the server that have come in simply through the multiplayer option ingame...These players need to be grabbed by the B*****x if we are going to encourage them to come back...They are folks that have bought the game, installed the TF patch and are simply coming into server for the first time just to try it out...What happens in their first 20 minutes in the servers is highly important...They may have never even entered an online server in the past in any game...We need to welcome them, try to get them on comms, help them in chat with any questions they may have and direct them to the website for tips on flying, info and the community forums.....It is unforgivable if new players come in and enter the chat with questions that are unanswered and leave to fly War Thunder and World or WarPlanes...We could well have lost them for good...If you think of it as a business....would you let your phone keep ringing unanswered if you have something to sell?..Its not rocket science...!

A suggestion :

I personnally don't think that the server spam to the website is up in the chat enough and I would even suggest that folks spam their own ' Welcome to the server..Checkout ATAGS website for tips, Help and Community forums'...or....'Welcome to ATAGS server...Get on TeamSpeak for Help and Tips with Flying'...it does make a difference when its not the server saying it but a player...New players tend to ask questions and become involved if the pretexts are spammed by real people..

If someone comes to the server and asks questions because they are new....help them quickly..and if you don't have the advice they require then direct them to the forums or TS....

Again....The amount of dedicated work that the Team Fusion have put and are still putting into this sim should be rewarded by popularity of servers...we really want to see hard dedicated work rewarded!

and again...This is an observation and a suggestion...

What say you?

[ATAG_Ribbs]

Wow Lewis! You have hit on some great points!.. And as crazy as it sounds. He is absolutely right. We should ALL think of it as OUR buisness. We have all invested into this flight sim.. so we need to sell our great product that our "manufacturer"(Team Fusion) is producing! S!

[Kling]

For me its common sense to answer questions anyway.
Saying that, it would be great if we somehow could see you who is new to the game.. Imagine if players with less than 20h in Clod would have, say yellow colour, in the chatlist instead of normal red and blue. This is not possible i guess, but it would make it easy to recognize these players and grab them and ask them if they want to move to move to another TS channel for some private lessons.

Or somehow encourage new players to join a TS training channel and wait to be seen my some friendly soul who wants to answer their questions and fly with them...
Even better, people who want help, could maybe change their nickname to something ending with "novice" so my name would be "ATAG_Kling_Novice" in order for us to see them. These instructions could be given via server chat or here on the forums...

Just some ideas...

[startrekmike]

While I think some great points have been brought up here (including poaching players from War thunder), I think we have to be VERY CAREFUL not to let our own personal or organizational needs outweigh the desire to just bring new players into CloD, not ATAG, not any specific server, just CloD and then let them make their own choices from there.

Many of us here have been playing sims for a long time, and CLoD for a long time also, we know all the wrinkles and kinks and how to avoid them to get the best possible experience, this is not a big deal to us but new players are going to need to be told not only the positives of the sim but also the things that perhaps require a little extra work to deal with (menu system, ammo belts, quick battle issues, etc) so they know these things going in, CloD can be a lot to handle for a player who only has experience in War thunder or no flight sim related experience at all so making sure they have the honest truth going in will help keep them around in the long run.

Personally, I think that the best way to get players on board is to sell them the CloD experience first and the ATAG experience after, get them started in the sim, let them learn and explore and help them along the way, don't recruit them just so you can bolster your total players on the server before they are really ready, teach them and guide them before they get the ego crushing first hundred flights where they get shot down by pro's.

I have said this before but I think it works well here, having a neutral learning environment would be a big help for new players, having a 'New wings' like server would provide the kind of easy going atmosphere that they are going to need so that they can get to know the community (on their terms) and build confidence.

This is how you keep em once you get them.

[Injerin]

While I think some great points have been brought up here (including poaching players from War thunder), I think we have to be VERY CAREFUL not to let our own personal or organizational needs outweigh the desire to just bring new players into CloD, not ATAG, not any specific server, just CloD and then let them make their own choices from there.

Many of us here have been playing sims for a long time, and CLoD for a long time also, we know all the wrinkles and kinks and how to avoid them to get the best possible experience, this is not a big deal to us but new players are going to need to be told not only the positives of the sim but also the things that perhaps require a little extra work to deal with (menu system, ammo belts, quick battle issues, etc) so they know these things going in, CloD can be a lot to handle for a player who only has experience in War thunder or no flight sim related experience at all so making sure they have the honest truth going in will help keep them around in the long run.

Personally, I think that the best way to get players on board is to sell them the CloD experience first and the ATAG experience after, get them started in the sim, let them learn and explore and help them along the way, don't recruit them just so you can bolster your total players on the server before they are really ready, teach them and guide them before they get the ego crushing first hundred flights where they get shot down by pro's.

I have said this before but I think it works well here, having a neutral learning environment would be a big help for new players, having a 'New wings' like server would provide the kind of easy going atmosphere that they are going to need so that they can get to know the community (on their terms) and build confidence.

This is how you keep em once you get them.

ATAG is a neutral learning enviroment! There are more players here on ATAG's TS that can help said new players for CLOD than anywhere else and most of them are not ATAG members, Thus helping them to get to know the community as you said. I myself and others who were new to CLOD and basically flight simming as a whole have gotten alot of help from this community. For me it was the 71st and ATAG members (and a few others who were not associated with any flight group) who took there time to teach me the ropes and I felt very comfortable. I think this community is mature enough and very capable of teaching new pilots and that goes for all flight groups that fly on ATAG. I don't think making a community for new pilots is the answer.

Example: This was posted by REDDOG:

Guys, its been about 3 or 4 weeks since I started flying on the ATAG server having gotten CloD back up and running. When I started, I could barely switch on a spitfire or handle it if I could get it off the ground. Now I'm flying somewhat competently (- provided no one's trying to shoot me down haha ) and having a blast. My new PC has made a difference sure, but the help I've received over TS from complete strangers has been fantastic and I just wanted to say thanks. In all my time on the server I've not seen one hissy fit or incident of "bad" behaviour which is a real boon for a public server of any game and shows the strength of the community here.

So, thanks. Hopefully in the coming days and weeks I'll finally be repaying the complement that some of you 109 drivers have shown me

[ATAG_Lewis]

While I think some great points have been brought up here (including poaching players from War thunder), I think we have to be VERY CAREFUL not to let our own personal or organizational needs outweigh the desire to just bring new players into CloD, not ATAG, not any specific server, just CloD and then let them make their own choices from there.

Just to set the record straight here...I use the phrase 'poach' with tongue in cheek...What I am doing with the renaming of the video is simply trying to get the attention of WWII flight simmers who for whatever reason think that there are not full real alternatives out there and showing them that there are...There will be, in that 3 million number flying WarThunder, some players who are looking for something more like CLOD and who don't even realise that CLOD exists...I'm not talking about hardened simmers who have frequented the websites for many years here....but we all have to start somewhere...

Also on the ATAG front....When you consider other sims that have massive numbers flying them (3 million in WarThunder)...and even the original IL-2 on Hyperlobby (62 ingame at the moment)....even when you consider the learning curve and the fact that CLOD is an Ultra real sim..CLOD is under-populated EXTREMELY..I can't emphasis that enough here...at this very instant I see only 2 players online and they are in ATAGS server and that is GLOBALLY....IN THE WORLD!!!...For a sim that is as good as this I just think that that is frustratingly meagre...So getting back to the point about the ATAGS server here...There needs to be a base..you can't have 2 players and then split them into other areas because because you think that someone is pushing there own server for personal reasons....You are killing yourself before you have started.....You need simply to have somewhere to grow from if this is going to grow at all....I see now problem here...ATAGS is undoubtably it....That is not personal, that is an objective fact.

Interesting point though startrekmike..and needed to be brought up too...keep em coming and we will all move forwards together in this....~S~

PS..I'm away in Scotland til Sunday..so no flying for me and not sure how much forum action I'll get either..

[Greywing]

I've been flying Warthunder and had a few cracks at the Full Real Battles mode. I read thier forums. I've seen a lot of posts with people saying they are marking time until BoS is released. I bet a lot of them haven't heard of CloD or haven't tried it with the TF Mod. That said the FRB population is only between 100 and 500 out of 3M. But still that's a lot of potential pilots for CloD. But there are more in the Historic Battles mode looking for more realism too i think.

A huge difference between the two that could be played on is the community aspect. The WT forum is full of flaming and trolling and mine is bigger than yours sort of attitude, with very little of substance and even less help. Here by comparison just from my brief exposure it is much better. There I don't think I'd easily find someone to fly with and if I did it probably wouldn't end up working out. Here I feel like I just need to ask and someone will be willing. (I will be asking when i have some more flying time BTW).

Cheers

GW

[ATAG_Lewis]

I am in the process of making a 'New Players Guide To The Basics' tutorial in Steam for CLOD..It will be the same as the one here:

http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5058

If you have time PLEASE look over it for me..The more vets look at it the more polished it will be....I am writing a guide when I only have one players perspective....for example, I have written in this guide a section entitled 'Dedicating Essential Keys' which is designed to ease new players through that horrible task of choosing keys in the controls which can take hours...I worked out that there are over 700 keys and axes for dedication in CLOD but that there are only a handfull (around 30) that are essential for flying and dogfighting....So if I give them these essential keys/axes it will save them a whole bunch of time and get them in the air sooner....Who knows there are probably players out there that have given up because of this laborious process...Anyways I have given them the keys that I use for flying spits....and I know there are a couple of different keys essentially needed for 109s so if someone can give me those keys then that would be a great help to me and the new players...Remember in this guide we are trying to ease them into the sim by giving them easy ways to get up in the most popular aircraft, the fighters...they can learn bombers and the nuances of different aircraft at a later date when they are au fait with the basic controls of these common aircraft...

Help me dudes!!

[Dutch]

Great initiative mate. Just had a quick look and it's very comprehensive. However i found Steam itself to be a bit cumbersome, and not very user friendly, but I'm new to it (I've never looked at the community hub until this whole issue came up in this thread).

The only thing I could add, if you haven't thought of it already, is to cross-link the new players guides everywhere. i.e. if people come here, they'll see the links to the same guide at 1C's forum and get told where it is in Steam. If they go to 1C, they'll see links to here and how to find on Steam. It could even be placed in the 'other 1C sims' thread at the BoS site, linking to here and how to find on Steam. I'm thinking here that if new chaps are looking for advice, they might look on forums first, not realising there's a guide on Steam, but if they're alt/tabbing from the game to a guide, Steam has to be running anyway, so they're best checking your guide there, rather than having a web-page open aswell. I'm saying this because I found it difficult to find your guide on Steam, without knowing where to look first, if you follow me.....:D

[ATAG_Lewis]

Rgrt..to be honest I think it could be put elsewhere on this site too.....at the moment it is in the Utilities and Tools are and I'm not convinced new players go there that much....Probably would be best stickied in the Welcome area maybe?...or somewhere frequented by folks who have only just entered this site..

Anyways what about those 109 keys?

[ATAG_Snapper]

Will have a detailed look at it today and provide feedback, Lew. In the meantime, I've requested the forum admin to consider placing a prominent hyperlinked "NEW TO CLIFFS OF DOVER? Go here (http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5058&p=52711#post52711)!" which will incorporate your starter guides, Philstyle's troubleshooting checklist, the TF patch links, a link to TF Wiki, etc etc etc.

It's clear from the daily chat inquiries from newcomers that they have a tough time locating this vital info, so it behooves us to make it as easy as possible to get them hooked up. IMHO. :D

[Little_D]

How about a forum room here on ATAG for new pilots to request an instructor?

hi Philstyle,

allready exist, but the other way around. maby i put it in the wrong thread, i put it into coming events & training:

http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5088

regards

Little_D

[ATAG_Lewis]

Will have a detailed look at it today and provide feedback, Lew. In the meantime, I've requested the forum admin to consider placing a prominent hyperlinked "NEW TO CLIFFS OF DOVER? Go here (http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5058&p=52711#post52711)!" which will incorporate your starter guides, Philstyle's troubleshooting checklist, the TF patch links, a link to TF Wiki, etc etc etc.

It's clear from the daily chat inquiries from newcomers that they have a tough time locating this vital info, so it behooves us to make it as easy as possible to get them hooked up. IMHO. :D

Thats great news...

Also, have you noticed us getting more than regular new folks in the chat and forums..?...I mean do you think we are actually making a difference at all?...Is our little campaign having an effect?

[Dutch]

I'm also wondering whether it would be possible to somehow get the 'Recent News', on the main page of Steam for Cliffs of Dover, updated to include news of the TF mods. Information re mods is posted in this 'Recent News' part for the other two games I have on Steam, so why not for Cliffs of Dover? Would this require authorisation from the publishers first? How do modders get info posted regarding mods for 'Skyrim' for instance? As soon as you click 'read more', you're taken to a page of an online magazine such as 'PC Gamer'. Is there a way of getting these people to review the TF mods and update the thing? The most recent news for Cliffs is currently dated April 2011..................

[ATAG_Snapper]

Thats great news...

Also, have you noticed us getting more than regular new folks in the chat and forums..?...I mean do you think we are actually making a difference at all?...Is our little campaign having an effect?

No sooner did I ask when Colander delivered! :stunned:

We've kept this section locked in order to keep each post info-containing only for simplicity's sake. Everyone is welcome to suggest, contribute, critique, etc in separate threads or by PM. ATAG admin will then add a post to this section for each helpful bit of info for a newcomer to get started. My next addition will be Philstyle's troubleshooting checklist, plus another post with links to the TF patches, etc.

You really got the ball rolling on this, Lewis!

Look at our forum membership: 3558! IIRC, we were bumping along at around 1200 members before the first TF patch came out in.....March? Your intro campaign can only add significantly to this growth. :thumbsup:

[ATAG_Lewis]

Just got an email back from Natural Point about using their 'TrackIR' video in our beginners guide...They say 'No problem at all'....

[Roblex]

Snapper needs to check those links he posted. The 'http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/' ones don't work.

[ATAG_Snapper]

Snapper needs to check those links he posted. The 'http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/' ones don't work.

Yep. Check the chat. :D


EDIT: All links are fixed. Thanks for the feedback!

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

Just tried an experiment...I have re-named one of my CLOD videos on Youtube to 'War Thunder - Full Real Alternative - IL-2 Cliffs Of Dover'.....I wondered if we can poach players from War Thunder who have entertained the idea of flying a ultra real WWII combat flight sim...?

good idea Lewis.
I just did the same with a new video:

http://youtu.be/eI9OQKRtDYQ

[Dutch]

I'm also wondering whether it would be possible to somehow get the 'Recent News', on the main page of Steam for Cliffs of Dover, updated to include news of the TF mods. Information re mods is posted in this 'Recent News' part for the other two games I have on Steam, so why not for Cliffs of Dover? Would this require authorisation from the publishers first? How do modders get info posted regarding mods for 'Skyrim' for instance? As soon as you click 'read more', you're taken to a page of an online magazine such as 'PC Gamer'. Is there a way of getting these people to review the TF mods and update the thing? The most recent news for Cliffs is currently dated April 2011..................

Could someone comment on this please? I really don't have a clue as to the answer.....:D

[ATAG_Colander]

I'm afraid that is done by the steam forum admins.

[Royraiden]

good idea Lewis.
I just did the same with a new video:

http://youtu.be/eI9OQKRtDYQ

Thats a great idea guys, I had been thinking of something similar since I noticed that some of my utterly crap videos about Wings Of Prey have reached 30k views and a ton load of comments and WOP is nowhere near as popular as Warthunder.You can also add Warthunder to the list of tags when you upload the videos.

[Dutch]

I'm afraid that is done by the steam forum admins.

Ok, so can we bribe them, or sell them our daughters, together with a couple of camels, give 'em a box of chocolates? What? :D

[ATAG_Colander]

Ok, so can we bribe them, or sell them our daughters, together with a couple of camels, give 'em a box of chocolates? What? :D

Sorry, I have no money, daughters, camels (but I do have marlboros) and I don't give chocolates to strangers ;)

[SoW Reddog]

I've only just realised that a couple of references in here have been about me.

As one who feels he's now no longer a sprog pilot but acknowledges there's a hell of a lot left to learn, the key for me has certainly been jumping on TS and asking questions. I would hate to have had to try to get to this level by myself and I suspect I'd have quit long before as it would almost certainly have extended the time from 6 ish weeks to probably 5-6months.

I don't think in all the hours I've been on TS that someone's asked a question which hasn't been answered. On the other hand there's been a number of times that questions typed in the chat box have prompted long discussions but no answers as it's too difficult to reply when flying and/or the question/answer has been difficult to decipher given the length of text allowable. There was one incident not too many days ago when someone was clearly getting pissed off trying to take off and asking questions, but those responding (and there were quite a few) were unable to get through and he seemed completely unwilling to jump on TS so we could help. Frustrating all the way around.

[Bonkin]

I manage the ACG YouTube channel and have just uploaded a new video there - with links also to ATAG and SOWC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYCBxhj26z4

I've also been working on a bigger production with the ACG guys but am having difficulty overcoming skin problems. I would welcome any work around advice if anybody has it:
http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5057

[ATAG_Lewis]

Bonkin..Brilliant Brilliant..What can I say....The comms is great....well edited and the music is not in your face but enhances the action....I love IT!!!!....I've played it 3 times already..lol

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

I manage the ACG YouTube channel and have just uploaded a new video there - with links also to ATAG and SOWC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYCBxhj26z4

I've also been working on a bigger production with the ACG guys but am having difficulty overcoming skin problems. I would welcome any work around advice if anybody has it:
http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5057

possibly the best video about showing online play and team coms.

[Ohms]

That's exactly what we need to highlight just how good this sim has become and with TF upgrades it can only get better. Great movie Bonkin.:salute:

[ATAG_Knuckles]

Excellent: Perfect choice and production of Music and comms: And it actually has an Ending !!! best I've seen in a while

Great Job

[Continu0]

I manage the ACG YouTube channel and have just uploaded a new video there - with links also to ATAG and SOWC.

I've also been working on a bigger production with the ACG guys but am having difficulty overcoming skin problems. I would welcome any work around advice if anybody has it:
http://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5057

Congratulations on your Youtube-Channel! The Video-Intro is great, layout, everything, very good!

I have got one more week to work, maybe i can find the time to upload something in german after that. There are very few german tutorials...

[Bonkin]

Thanks for the comments guys. Agree that we need something similar for the Blue side.

Just a feeling - but I suspect the BoS will have much better video editing capabilities than CoD - so I expect there will be a flood of BoS video's attracting people away. Personally I don't have much enthusiasm for BoS (just looks like IL21946 with shadows and reflections) - so I'm keen for CoD to live much longer. S! to TeamFusion.

[Attack]

ground battle
like this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHc04iRFFwA

[gavagai]

Another thing you might not have strongly considered is improving the AI. Team Daedelos did a great job with this for 1946, and since the AI in Clod behaves exactly like the old 1946 pre 4.11, I wonder if their improvements could be incorporated? In the end, the best way to increase the Clod playerbase is to continue to improve the sim; marketing tactics will only go so far, and the LoD fix that's coming is the first really big improvement to come.

I know the multiplayer community might not consider this an important improvement, but the AI with 1946 4.11 is very good! My belief is that to have a strong multiplayer community you need an even larger pool of pilots who play single player.

[Roblex]

Another thing you might not have strongly considered is improving the AI. Team Daedelos did a great job with this for 1946, and since the AI in Clod behaves exactly like the old 1946 pre 4.11, I wonder if their improvements could be incorporated? In the end, the best way to increase the Clod playerbase is to continue to improve the sim; marketing tactics will only go so far, and the LoD fix that's coming is the first really big improvement to come.

I know the multiplayer community might not consider this an important improvement, but the AI with 1946 4.11 is very good! My belief is that to have a strong multiplayer community you need an even larger pool of pilots who play single player.


On the other hand, if the AI is too clever the players may decide to give up before they even try online. I think it is better to let them enjoy making multiple kills and think they are awesome then by the time they get online and realise they are not so hot they are already hooked and their pride will make them continue just to prove they are as awesome as they thought :D

[Kling]

On the other hand, if the AI is too clever the players may decide to give up before they even try online. I think it is better to let them enjoy making multiple kills and think they are awesome then by the time they get online and realise they are not so hot they are already hooked and their pride will make them continue just to prove they are as awesome as they thought :D

People who give up too fast will give up anyway. And honestly im not so sure I would want people who expect Clod to be another Warthunder. Will always be a constant complaining about this and that because one thing is for certain, when they get shot down its never their fault but always something else, ie bad planes, useless planeset, crappy FM, crappy DM, the other guy is cheating etc etc etc...
Its gets very tiring to listen to this sort of guys...

Im all for making the AI more difficult but not sure its possible with the lack of the source code.
Many months ago I was testing out some DMs that required me to get shot down alot so I set up a mission alone vs 5 enemies. I flew level and straight in order to get shot quickly and in maybe 10% of all the missions did they actually manage to hit me. They all lined up firee abovebmy head, disengaged and climbed up, the next guy took over, dived in, fired aboveb my head and disengaged. I tried most of the time to pull up into the tracers but they corrected so the tracers were always above my head. Never thought it would be that difficult to get shot down. I tried them at anything from average-ace with success.

Best tactic offline to NOT get shot down is to fly straight and level.

[gavagai]

Here we go again.:D

The last time I tried a quick mission in the Spit against a 109, I had to downgrade the 109 to an E-1 because the rest of the models will rocket-climb away in perpetuity with an AI pilot. I'm ok with them not using the same flight model as the player, but they go unrealistically fast, have no overheat limits, no blackout limits, accelerate during their twitching defensive barrel rolls, etc. And they can't hit a deflection shot.

We need half-decent AI for a sparring partner. Even the most die-hard coop pilots still fire up a QMB from time to time to make sure they're in practice or try something out.

It took ages for the player base to convince DT that a better AI was desirable, but the result was excellent. Maybe they can be contacted to ask if their AI work could be used in Clod somehow? It's a mistake to only focus on how to get more people in the ATAG server specifically, and not more people playing Clod in general with the improvements that are being made.

[AKA_Recon]

First off, getting more people to play needs to happen within squadrons themselves. ie. more AKA guys are flying CloD now because we have seen the evolution of this game and the work TF has done to improve the game. This still needs to continue.

I would say the biggest hindrance right now is visibility. The other thing I think is there are many people still playing 1946 because their system still runs it. It takes a 2-3GB vid card to really play CloD. That in and of itself isn't too bad, but you end up needing a new power supply, etc.. and next thing you know you're building a new system :)

Now, as far as 'really' getting people to play... couple of items :

1. This game could almost use a rebranding. It has a bad history. I do like the videos I saw above, this will help.
2. Continued fixes to the game. I know several guys would fly bomber that won't touch this game, and mostly it has to do with the level stabilizer not working. It's nearly suicide to fly a Blenheim on the server. It's not only complex to bomb, but even when I finally made it across the pond, I was slaughtered as the objectives were right over the base, and the low flak ate me alive. I'd like to level bomb to avoid that, but it doesn't work well at all. It was a step in the wrong direction with how they do level bombing in CloD, it feels very much unfinished to me. I flew bombers in 1946, as well as RoF with the Gotha and Handley Page - and that bombing system is simplier and things like level stabilizer etc... work well so it's rewarding to use. In CloD it's overly complex and things don't work how they should it makes it too discouraging. So what happens is you end up just letting the AI do the bombing. This however keeps a whole set of pilots that love bombing out of playing the game. ie. AKA has many guys that enjoy bombing and would fly the Blenheim, but they don't anymore, they tried at first and then gave it up.
3. Future growth is dead ?

Number 3, I leave as a question mark because although I really like this game, and fly in North America time zone in the evenings as often as I can on the ATAG server, we always end up talking on comms how great the game is, but it has no future. There is no new theatre being built. No new planes being added. It's a one shot pony engine. I suspect when BoS comes out, if it has any success, they will keep building theatre's and this game will die out because there aren't that many pilots really flying online and it will just splinter the community. Many will see it as a fresh new start with a new engine and no bad history associated to it.

It's really too bad to see because this game is good now and has a ton of potential.

I see the discussion on 'lobby' and such. If TF can modify the server list to simply show where the servers associated TeamSpeak server is that would be solved. It's easy to hop on TS and find guys and fly together on the server.

As far as the comment by saipan - I think this is missing the point of the theatre. I find aircraft all the time. The AI bombers provide a realistic environment. I don't care if your 109 flies over Hawkin all night looking for low level fights, you'll certainly find it there. The goal of the server is to accomplish the mission objectives and give a realistic sense of BoB. Spits and Hurri's intercepting bomber formations attacking England is one of the coolest parts of this game! I'm not really interested in a flying clowns DF game. The key to finding people is flying together on comms. Going solo fails. More eyes equals more spottings. We help each other find targets and we find them often when we fly together. More encouragement to fly on comms would help online play.

Number would solve this as well, as more guys play, and some nights the server gets 30 or so people, there are fights down low over the ship targets and up high with the bombers. There are two aspects to the game, and that is good. So I wouldn't remove that at all.

I will say as well, as Allied pilot, I'm always glad to see the German guys following the mission objectives. This is what makes the server fun. I applaud all the German pilots who fly every night who do this - that is what makes the game fun. I don't have the answer, but anything that can reward pilots to carrying out their mission objectives should, IMO, be a top priority of the ATAG server guys.

The server rocks, the game with TF has become great to fly - I will continue to spread the word. The efforts here are fantastic, please keep up the good work!!!!

[DUI]

3. Future growth is dead ?

Number 3, I leave as a question mark because although I really like this game, and fly in North America time zone in the evenings as often as I can on the ATAG server, we always end up talking on comms how great the game is, but it has no future. There is no new theatre being built. No new planes being added. It's a one shot pony engine. I suspect when BoS comes out, if it has any success, they will keep building theatre's and this game will die out because there aren't that many pilots really flying online and it will just splinter the community. Many will see it as a fresh new start with a new engine and no bad history associated to it.

It's really too bad to see because this game is good now and has a ton of potential.
As long as Team Fusion is continuing with their great effort and results Cliffs of Dover is very much alive to me. With 10 new plane variants Incorrect information: (as far as I know the Beaufighter even a completely new player-controllable plane) to be expected for the second Team Fusion patch and topics like controllable flak and tanks, new ground and ship models, spring/autumn/winter seasons, etc. there will be plenty of new content. And in another patch to come (the third?) there are even plans for a Malta scenario! :nw:

[AKA_Recon]

I should add - when we see new people join and ask questions about 'what should I set my RPM's at' - these are great opportunities to encourage that pilot to get on TS and then help them.

I do believe it takes some initial mentoring, for even the best of pilots, that are new to CloD to figure out engine management and loadout type things.

[gavagai]

First off, getting more people to play needs to happen within squadrons themselves. ie. more AKA guys are flying CloD now because we have seen the evolution of this game and the work TF has done to improve the game. This still needs to continue.


Most flight simmers are not in a squadron. Some have never been in a squadron; some have and prefer not to be. Most flight simmers do not venture into multiplayer, ever.

Think about the implications of that for getting more people to play Clod.:salute:

[vranac]

It takes a 2-3GB vid card to really play CloD. That in and of itself isn't too bad, but you end up needing a new power supply, etc.. and next thing you know you're building a new system :)

No Recon, 1 GB VRAM is enough with almost all options on max.GTX650 Ti will run this sim without a problem with modern CPU.



2. Continued fixes to the game. I know several guys would fly bomber that won't touch this game, and mostly it has to do with the level stabilizer not working. It's nearly suicide to fly a Blenheim on the server. It's not only complex to bomb, but even when I finally made it across the pond, I was slaughtered as the objectives were right over the base, and the low flak ate me alive. I'd like to level bomb to avoid that, but it doesn't work well at all. It was a step in the wrong direction with how they do level bombing in CloD, it feels very much unfinished to me. I flew bombers in 1946, as well as RoF with the Gotha and Handley Page - and that bombing system is simplier and things like level stabilizer etc... work well so it's rewarding to use. In CloD it's overly complex and things don't work how they should it makes it too discouraging. So what happens is you end up just letting the AI do the bombing. This however keeps a whole set of pilots that love bombing out of playing the game. ie. AKA has many guys that enjoy bombing and would fly the Blenheim, but they don't anymore, they tried at first and then gave it up.
3. Future growth is dead ?

Number 3, I leave as a question mark because although I really like this game, and fly in North America time zone in the evenings as often as I can on the ATAG server, we always end up talking on comms how great the game is, but it has no future. There is no new theatre being built. No new planes being added. It's a one shot pony engine. I suspect when BoS comes out, if it has any success, they will keep building theatre's and this game will die out because there aren't that many pilots really flying online and it will just splinter the community. Many will see it as a fresh new start with a new engine and no bad history associated to it.


Blenheim didn't have the level stabilizer and if you noticed devs tried to make everything as it was in RL( 109 PP, flaps..).Well in BoS you'll have it on every plane , even fighters.
It isn't easy to do level bombing but it's possible and I think that every dedicated bomber pilot likes the challange.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSc9TS6p54Q

[Ohms]

I had an GTX 560ti 1Gig and it ran this sim well with most options Med to High but with no grass and trees on low with good frame rates with max monitor res 1920x1080. Now I did up grade my card to a GTX760 2gig (cheap) and now have slightly better frame rates with grass now on and trees on high. Sorry if off topic but I think we need to let people know they do not need an I7 chip,16gig of ram, titan video cards and ssd's to play this game.

Ohmie

[Bear Pilot]

2. Continued fixes to the game. I know several guys would fly bomber that won't touch this game, and mostly it has to do with the level stabilizer not working. It's nearly suicide to fly a Blenheim on the server. It's not only complex to bomb, but even when I finally made it across the pond, I was slaughtered as the objectives were right over the base, and the low flak ate me alive. I'd like to level bomb to avoid that, but it doesn't work well at all. It was a step in the wrong direction with how they do level bombing in CloD, it feels very much unfinished to me. I flew bombers in 1946, as well as RoF with the Gotha and Handley Page - and that bombing system is simplier and things like level stabilizer etc... work well so it's rewarding to use. In CloD it's overly complex and things don't work how they should it makes it too discouraging. So what happens is you end up just letting the AI do the bombing. This however keeps a whole set of pilots that love bombing out of playing the game. ie. AKA has many guys that enjoy bombing and would fly the Blenheim, but they don't anymore, they tried at first and then gave it up.


Yes there is no aileron trim in the Blenheim. I don't know if that's accurate or not. However, at the right rpms and boost level flight is attainable. I have level bombed successfully in the Blenheim, however, with a very low hit percentage and to be perfectly honest most of the time it's just not worth it. We also expect too much when it comes to bombing. The notion that we even think we can reliably hit targets level bombing by ourselves from altitude is kind of ridiculous when you think about it.

It took the coordination of two people who had hundreds of hours both in the classroom and in the air trying to perfect it. We don't have to contend with one HUGE element and that is WIND. The Blenheim's bomb load is extremely weak at best, that's no secret. The 110 can carry slightly more (2 500 kg vs. 2 500 lbs.) There's a reason bombers came over in droves, even in daylight it could be very inaccurate. During the Battle of Britain some Luftwaffe raids missed entire airfields!!!

However, with 4 or 5 Blenheims hitting targets in low level raids and an equal number of fighters covering, a map can be rolled in very quickly. The strength of the Blenny is its maneuverability. It IS possible to shoot down a 109 with the teamwork of 2 or 3 Blennys and a somewhat novice 109 pilot. If you have fighter cover just fly it like you would a Spitfire or a Hurri and the 109 won't be able to follow. Easy peasy. Also in a flight of 4 or 5 you can devote 1 or 2 to bombing the flak, it makes everything so much easier. If you can take out a target and the flak surrounding it and maybe the flak at the next one before RTB'ing you're doing great and it won't be a long mission :thumbsup:

Flying in a formation of bombers and fighters is an awesome sight and makes the repetitive flight over more of a pleasure than a chore. Unless you can get 10 or 12 bombers together, even mid-level bombing (5,000-8,000 ft.) probably won't be as efficient as the low level raids. I know you AKA guys are damn good fighter pilots and I would expect the same in bombers. If you can get a coordinated system going with the numbers I think your squadron has, then you may very well roll maps left and right. If you let supplement your ranks on any given night just imagine the possibilities.

All that being said, Team Fusion is looking to introduce new planes some time in the future as others have said. The Blenheim looks like it may get the gun pack of the IVF. The Beau is a fighter-bomber through and through and the Wellington is the answer to the Red tonnage problem. Good things are coming!

*Ah, Vranac beat me to it. One very important thing regarding level bombing. With the TF mod, it seems that Indicated airspeed is what should be plugged into the bombsight as opposed True airspeed.

Happy Hunting

Bear Pilot

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

I have a GTX670 with 4GB VRAM.

I still get lowered (below 40 FPS) frame-rates when in dust/smoke on the ground, or when very low over heavily built up towns like Calais. I have grass turned off and one or two settings at medium, 1920x1080.

However, most of the time I get 60 FPS (limited to 60 by VSYNC). I also never really get any of the slideshows. Lowest FPS I get is probably 25 or 30, for a fraction of the time.

I would not run the game on all settings to max. Minimum of 40FPS is important to me.

My CPU is only a 2600k though, overclocked about 10%. I noticed significant increase in FPS in CloD when I overclocked it...

[92 Sqn. Philstyle (QJ-P)]

.. see above for the actual content from BearPilot...

I agree with everything you've stated Bear Pilot. It concurs with my experiences in the Blenheim.

[AKA_Recon]

Most flight simmers are not in a squadron. Some have never been in a squadron; some have and prefer not to be. Most flight simmers do not venture into multiplayer, ever.

Think about the implications of that for getting more people to play Clod.:salute:

Sure, I will preference and say 'multiplayer' then. I don't have any statistics on sales of the game and who still plays it offline (maybe the NSA tracks that nowdays as well but who knows...) :)

[AKA_Recon]

Yes there is no aileron trim in the Blenheim. I don't know if that's accurate or not. However, at the right rpms and boost level flight is attainable. I have level bombed successfully in the Blenheim, however, with a very low hit percentage and to be perfectly honest most of the time it's just not worth it. We also expect too much when it comes to bombing. The notion that we even think we can reliably hit targets level bombing by ourselves from altitude is kind of ridiculous when you think about it.

It took the coordination of two people who had hundreds of hours both in the classroom and in the air trying to perfect it. We don't have to contend with one HUGE element and that is WIND. The Blenheim's bomb load is extremely weak at best, that's no secret. The 110 can carry slightly more (2 500 kg vs. 2 500 lbs.) There's a reason bombers came over in droves, even in daylight it could be very inaccurate. During the Battle of Britain some Luftwaffe raids missed entire airfields!!!

However, with 4 or 5 Blenheims hitting targets in low level raids and an equal number of fighters covering, a map can be rolled in very quickly. The strength of the Blenny is its maneuverability. It IS possible to shoot down a 109 with the teamwork of 2 or 3 Blennys and a somewhat novice 109 pilot. If you have fighter cover just fly it like you would a Spitfire or a Hurri and the 109 won't be able to follow. Easy peasy. Also in a flight of 4 or 5 you can devote 1 or 2 to bombing the flak, it makes everything so much easier. If you can take out a target and the flak surrounding it and maybe the flak at the next one before RTB'ing you're doing great and it won't be a long mission :thumbsup:

Flying in a formation of bombers and fighters is an awesome sight and makes the repetitive flight over more of a pleasure than a chore. Unless you can get 10 or 12 bombers together, even mid-level bombing (5,000-8,000 ft.) probably won't be as efficient as the low level raids. I know you AKA guys are damn good fighter pilots and I would expect the same in bombers. If you can get a coordinated system going with the numbers I think your squadron has, then you may very well roll maps left and right. If you let supplement your ranks on any given night just imagine the possibilities.

All that being said, Team Fusion is looking to introduce new planes some time in the future as others have said. The Blenheim looks like it may get the gun pack of the IVF. The Beau is a fighter-bomber through and through and the Wellington is the answer to the Red tonnage problem. Good things are coming!

*Ah, Vranac beat me to it. One very important thing regarding level bombing. With the TF mod, it seems that Indicated airspeed is what should be plugged into the bombsight as opposed True airspeed.

Happy Hunting

Bear Pilot

Trim... so, let's say we have mostly single crew here of pilot, bombadier, etc.. I flew IL2:1946 bombers for years, so I know what bombers can and can't do and the limitations of the small payload of a Blenheim. Even in 1946, you had those who come down low and do their jabo thing - but no, I'm saying, we bombed reliably in just about every bomber type in the game of IL2:1946. We studied elevations, did many practice runs, and perfected the art. I know and love the joy of flying in a group of bombers, a group of us would fly formation to targets every other night of the week for several years!

Therefore, I do also know different planes had different altitudes in which level bombing was most effective, etc... that was always calculated in as well. What I'm saying here is that this isn't really done well in IL2:CloD - even if it's 'low altitude', it can be better than 'no altitude'. This prevents people from flying bombers online. I fly ATAG as much as I can without the wife complaining... and it's usually quite rare, at least in North America timezones to see a guy from a level bomber. I have seen one pilot in my timezone this week fly a Blenheim. I saw a few guys flying 110s. That is the extent. I'm just saying that if the bombers level stabs for example worked properly, and flying level bomber with bombsights would bring in more people to the game. I know this because several guys I would fly with literally have tried it, guys that flew 1946 for 12 years or so, and they say it's screwy and they won't touch it!

What I'm referring to is 'level stabilizer' - not just trim.

"All that being said, Team Fusion is looking to introduce new planes some time in the future as others have said. The Blenheim looks like it may get the gun pack of the IVF. The Beau is a fighter-bomber through and through and the Wellington is the answer to the Red tonnage problem. Good things are coming!"

That is good. I didn't know this.