posted 06-08- 05:41 AM               

Mad Dog here...

I say again so there is no confusion and so nobody flames Spanky for this...Mad Dog speaking...

First off I'd like to say that while I LOVE the idea of an ongoing war with campaigns and stuff, the War Department has not thought this through enough at all.

I'd also like to say that this is in no way a personal attack on ya PR, or anyone involved with the War Department. I commend you guys on trying to make some sort of organized event. We really need something like this, but I was just going through the Rules, and there are some really retarded things in there. Remember, I'm not saying that you are retarded, just that things have not been thought out. K, enough with the ass kissin', lets get down to the issues that made my head spin the most:

1. Why would a commander ever want to buy anything other than planes or AAA of some sort? We can't move the trucks/ships/tanks etc...so why even have them available for purchase? Please don't tell me that if a mission calls for a ship to be protected then that commander must use his war dollars to buy the ship first...that's retarded. What if he has none? I can see the loss of dollars being an incentive to protect the ship, but that is getting a little nuts. I see absolutely no use in buying these units. They should deffinately be used somehow by the mission builder from the WD, but no money should come from commanders.

2. I understand the desire to have a fairly historical set of missions and stuff, but I think that in all fairness to both sides, and to make it al little more intresting ALL planes should be open for purchase by EITHER side. If the Allies want to buy 109's then giver is what I say. This is actually not a big problem in my books, more of a suggestion on my part.

3. Why the hell would each side take turns being offence and defence? Would 75% of the strategy not be trying to anticipate the other commanders choices of aircraft? I would think that if one side decides to take all fighters in preparation for a bombing sortie by the other side, that would be up to the commander. So what if both sides took all fighters, the smart commander would order his men back to base in order to not take aly casualties trying to kill fighters. And since there seems to be no regulations on the types of load-outs, this would tell the smart commander that he should use some decent fighter-bombers all the time and just jettison the bombs/rockets if they are not needed once inside. While we are on the topic of bombing...

4. Why in the hell would we start with 4 bases? How is a commander supposed to make a reasonable decision about what base/bases to defend? He might as well just flip a damn coin...IF he is going to defend at all that is. Why would a commander even bother defending a base with AAA until he was down to at least 2 bases? What is the point? And as for turning bases invisible to help the frame fate goes, we play probly 99.9% of our online games with all the towns on and I've tried to see a difference offline with towns on or off, and I don't see one. Maybe there is a difference, but not frikin' much! The way I see it, you should start with one base. A map would need to be made with each base having 2-3 lines drawn going out to nearby bases. These would be your choices for the path of your expansion, sort of like the map screen in Bionic Commando. (For those of you who remember that classic piece of gaming excelence) Your expansion would a very important part of the initial strategy that way. New bases would be expanded to by a combination of buying a hangar to construct in the base prior to taking off, and an actual landing of a plane at the new hangar. A couple of bombers dropping one bomb at a time could easily destroy four bases. Let alone if one commander decides to go hog wild and put up all bombers and hope to get through with 2-3 of em'. If you had one base to start, your initial thoughts would be of expansion to spread out your resources. Plus, if you had all the other bases invisible, the only places you could possibly expand to would be opposing bases. That's pretty retarded.

5. Usage fees are WAY to complicated. Not to mention completely useless. Even if this is where you had planned on implementing the strategy for the amount of the loadout used with these fees. Figuring out how many bombs/rockets/fuel/ammo were used in a mission would be a nightmare.

6. Is the HUD going to be on or off? If it is off, the observer won't be able to see what percentage of a target was destroyed. And why would the aircraft's level of destruction always be set to 100%? First of all, it goes by squadron, not individual aircraft, and why would a squadron ever be a mission objective? Come to think of it, why would ANYTHING ever be an objective? Who cares if it comes up with the "won mission" message?! We can't trust that worth a shit and isn't the mission observer supposed to be the decision maker on what was really killed anyways? Does a base have to be an objective to show up in the observer's list as damaged? If not then that whole part is completely useless. Am I missing something here or is this actually retarded?

7. Now for the most retarded of them all. Buying intel is so incredibly useless it blows my mind!! Who gives a shit about what airfield the other side is coming from? Who cares what base they want to attack? Who even cares what planes will be attacking? You will find out most of this the instant you look at your map. You could also jump into the enemy planes to see what they have on the runway. I deffinately wouldn't pay that much for virtually useless information. You could buy 10 Lancs for that price! If my commander bought intelligence, I would deffinately be looking at either a mutiny, or going AWOL...which I am doing right now.

I'm sorry, but I have absolutely NO intrest in flying this war with these rules. None as a matter of fact. (not that I would have had time to play in it right now anyways) Like I said, I'm not attacking PR or any of the WD personally, but things havn't been thought through enough yet. One thing I will say is that even with the current rules and retardedness, everyone seems to be taking a big intrest in this whole thing which I think is fantastic! Breath some fresh air into a tired pilot's lungs it will. Hopefully the bugs will be ironed out and a later version of the SDOE WAR will be alot less retarded.

Once again, Spanky doesn't need the flames so remember that it is Mad Dog writing this. You would be amazed at the confusion some people still have about it.

E-mail= jefshoults@hotmail.com

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-=Sp@nky=-

www.thot.net/~verge/

posted 06-08- 06:20 AM               

I am not sure if I will be able, or even want to answer your flame point by point, but I'll try to give you some idea as to why we choose to do the things we did.

1) I don't really disagree with your first point. Those units are displayed because they are included with the game, and because we have ideas that may make them significant in future versions of the War. I don't see how they hurt to be on the list.

2) Here I disagree. I always hated the Warbirds bizarro world of Spits going against Spits, FW190's going against 109's, etc. Sorry you don't agree. This stands.

3) Actually, the defensive commander can go offensive. The designation of offensive and defensive is primarilly for mission creation reasons.

4) The limited bases is done that way to allow more than one mission in that theatre for that campaign. See, if we included all the bases, then the Allied side destroyed, or Captured a base that is featured as being held by the Axis side in the next mission, you would think us more retarted than you do now.

5) Usage fees are not that complicated. Even for a retard like me. We will not try to figure out how many roclets, how much fuel, how bad a damaged, but not destroyed plane is damaged. We will simply charge a simple usuage fee for all units choosen by a Commander to take part in a mission. Thats it.

6) The HUD will be on so that the Observer can use it as an aide to decide if the target destruction levels have been met.

7) No Commander is forced to buy intelligence. However if you have ever built a mission based on two Commanders input of unit placement with NO intelligence you would soon see how comical that becomes.
Yes, once in the game you know where they are at if you want to go away from the spirit of the event and F5 around (hopefully we have at least more honorable flyers than that), but even if you do, that can't get you to the other Base on the other side of the map any faster.

In closing let me say that we in the War Department, are just a bunch of guys, fellow flyers of SDOE, who wanted to try and bring a new and exciting event to the game I assumed we all loved. We have no illussions that the War will not have problems that were unforseen, or things that will not have to change. We are learning all this as we go along. Thats not to say we didn't spend along time working on it, with hundreds of messages hammering out the details. We did, but I'm sure even with all that work, we missed some key issues. Trust that as this War progresses, we will try and take those things learned and apply them to the next War. See, we hope this turns into an ongoing affair.

Maddog, it may not have been your intention to make this a personnal attack, but I can assure you as one of the people behind the event I did take the liberal use of the term Retarted as such.

If you have questions, you can email me. If you want to flame me, we have aplace for that.

PR=FC=

posted 06-08- 06:54 AM               

MadDog, some of the features you pointed out as retarded were incorporated after having long discussions, with some people having ideas very close to your own. Of course, noone was called a retard for having a different opinion . You must understand that most of the features were incorporated based on the principle of simplicity so that too complex features do not cause additional problems apart form the ones posed by the limitations of the SDOE engine.

This is a set of rules we believe could work. Of course we may expand them in the future and we (meaning all the people who will fly the SDOE War) will do so, but only after this most basic set will be seen to work, which the War Department believes it will.

Regarding the intelligence issue: I've planned a few missions myself and, belive me, you want to reach the enemy bombers before they are able to execute an attack. I've been able to execute a bombing pass in a Ju 88 simply because the Axis fighters took off from a too distant airbase. On the other hand, noone is forcing the general to use intelligence. Some of the Generals were on the other hand also unpopular with the flyers , so that goes with the territory as well.

posted 06-08- 08:41 AM               

Clearly there are huge limitations existing that make this virtual war thing a very large challenge. This will require a bit of positive attitude and imagination to work, the two things not in short supply by the guys who are organizing this.

I can't imagine that there is a "right" and "wrong" way to do this... it is so open in nature. So you have your own ideas, fine - but calling their plan "not well thought out" is ignorant.

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-Sv =FC=

WWI in SDOE!

posted 06-08- 10:20 AM               

They can call that version "Deuces High"

posted 06-08- 10:30 AM               

RE: Units and unit prices. There is only ONE person on each side that needs to concern himself with that. The Commander. The rest of us flunkies just get to fly!

RE: Making planes available to both sides. PR, I have got to agree here. If the Axis or Allies had wanted to spend the resources doing it, they could have come up with enemy planes. So, make them available but VERY pricey... (By about a couple orders of magnitude).

RE: Retarded. PR, just remmber this is the Mad Dog personality speaking. Hey Spanky if you can hear me through Mad Dog, try to increase his vocabulary....
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Snickers
=FC=

posted 06-08- 12:04 PM               

The initial phase is perhaps a bit more complicated than some would like, but is actually a very simplified version of much that was discussed. The amount of work done by one person in the WD was amazing, and the scope of this idea is much larger than it would appear. But first, can it work? That is what yet needs be seen, and it is our hope that it will...as stated earlier...grow into a ongoing event, with new commanders coming along, more people registering and flying, and inevitably there will be rule changes. This initial phase gives all a opportunity to provide input and ideas, much of which will, I am certain, be incorporated in the future, meaning this, as with all else that has been done with SDOE, will be a community event.

As to the planes' purchase, I can see where you are coming from, but I also disagree there. We were trying to recreate, as much as possible within the limitations of the sim, the strategic air war of WWII. As a base for that, planes and objects should be available to the side that actually used them. That is, admittedly, my opinion only...if a community consensus was reached that preferred another way, I would still be a part of it.

As for being retarded...hehehe...well, I can't argue that very well; Nurse Ratchett keeps telling me I am not retarded, only stupid....but I KNOW how she lies!!!

We hope you won't remain AWOL!

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nealg=FC=

posted 06-08- 02:25 PM               

Just to let all you guys know, Mad dog just stopped in town for one night and is off again for another week or so he won't be able to respond right away. He has access to a computer down there though so ya never know.

That is also part of the reason he won't be joining the war.

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

K onto my own opinions, I'm sure you all want to hear them

k my major thoughts on the whole thing is.

I think its complexity will make it hard to keep running. The more people behind the scene, the easier it is for the whole process to falter or fail. Time will tell though.

The other one is I think the axis and allied headquarters should both be behind passwords instead of just the forum. Right now anyone from either side can not only view what the other side has bought (can you say free intellegince?) but also ANYONE can buy stuff for either side. Ya know where it says:

Click here to purchase Assets (only Commanders have access to this page). Available Assets

???

Well I had no problem going in there and buying an He100 for the axis side, that shouldn't be possible. Right now I can step into the allied side and buy a ton of crap and spend all their war dollers.

Obviosly that would be caught and corrected but would anyone notice one or 2 bad choices a week? In the middle of a war?

My final one LOL

I just have a problem with the planes avalible. I'm not going to name any planes cause the last time I did I got flamed. BUT I do see a couple planes that most people agree are not finished. (not that any are but you know what i mean)

I know that will start a big debate over which planes should be in and which should not but come on although this is war we still need to establish that we want it somewhat fair for better gameplay.

Man I knew this was going to turn into a monster.

Just a little point about the prices, I would rather see the dollers increased.

Like a plane being 30 instead of 3. That way we can have planes that are 35 or what ever.

Are you trying to tell me that a yak is only a 2? F4u a 3? That seems a little too cut and dry to me

A bf109e is 2 and so is a g? ???

anyway, I hope it does well and i'm definatly going to fly, I just wish there were more axis pilots, Whats up with all you guys too patriotic to fly for the other side?

posted 06-08- 02:47 PM               

Check the War pages again, the passwords were set in place for the sensitive pages probably just a few hours before you wrote the above.

Regarding the prices; much like the whole of the war concept they are tentative. As already mentioned, this is just the first evolution step in the SDOE War. The actual tactical price of the planes will be seen only once it goes live; also, in the real life the prices of the planes are not necessarily connected with how good a plane is but the price of the technology used in the production. I don't find it wrong that the more modern models of the same planes are priced the same as their previous versions; if anything, in the real life they were cheaper to produce once the production was well in place.

But that's not even the point. We will start with the War documents and pricelists as they are now, and after the War will be well in place we can then discuss on what needs to be tweaked or altered. We can even introduce new price lists in the middle of the War due to unavailabilty of some parts, for example. Doesn't an iterative approach sound the most reasonable way to do it?

posted 06-08- 02:54 PM               

tell Mad Dog we'd really hate to see him go AWOL, especially since he was so helpful in testing.

Tell him to check a photo of him flying off the cliffs of Dover in the interview on www.combatsim.com !

posted 06-08- 05:46 PM               

Great read but now I have a new question.

Was it a typo where PR said we are using the Beta 76 patch? I didn't think any of the patches where good enough for online yet?

Is the fog back on Glide systems? all the planes have sound and don't fall through the ground anymore?

Just wondering.

posted 06-08- 06:57 PM               

I have to confess since I started working on the SDOE WAR I feel like I have been a little out of touch with the work being done on the beta build.
If the new version makes the play of the game impossible, or eliminates key features, then of course we will not use it. Allow us the opportunity to explore this further. Of course the whole idea for using it was to eliminate the "Bomb Bug", but we can work around that if necessary.

Our hope is that this SDOE WAR will provide a unquie experience for all who participate. I can promise that the Commanders and his flyers who participate, will become more vested in their weekly battles than they ever have as a collective before.

When you know your mission has consequences beyond just winning or losing that mission, but instead has the possibility of changing the outcome of the War.....then that flyer's attention will be rivited to the task at hand. No man on this board that I know, would want to let down his fellow squad mate, or in this case Countryman. When the consequences of faliure are high, that being the possible loss of the War....then failure is not an option.

I expect adrenaline will flow, and emotions may run hot as the War goes on. Tempers may even flare, just because that is how competitive and yes even patriotic alot of these guys are. Heck, thats how I am.

In the end as one side becomes victorious, some may become upset. That once again is the nature of level of competition that I think will be generated here. The victor will be jubilent, and the loser quite. The good news...we will have another War, with new Commmanders to fight after this one is over! A chance for redemtion for the losers, and chance to repeat for the victors!

All of that will happen in the open. The note taking, and the refinements to the War structure for the next incarnation will go on behind the scenes. Trust we will make changes where needed, or possible.

It's an evoluntionary process. This is our first step. Quite frankly, I'm not going to worry about how fast we will end up running, and run we will. I think I would rather enjoy the walk first. I hope all of you do to.

posted 06-08- 09:41 PM               

Isn't the Hellcat actually a wildcat?

posted 06-08- 11:45 PM               

In designing the concept, we got hung up on the ideology of implementation. We thought about limiting resources by dates, or trying to get as close as possible to historical accuracy on numbers and such. But in the end we had to come to a consensus on idea and playability.

We can't model the real war here. We don't have a fraction of the real considerations of war. We don't have populations and economies, no politics or public opinions, no ground troops or navies, no communications or supply lines. Hell, we have tiny maps!!!

We made ships, tanks and all of the other resources available because they were there. If we started limiting what they could have, then commanders would get upset that we stifled their creativity. Who's to say a commander might not want to float an aircraft carrier just to have another airfield to launch a surprise attack from. Or decide to drop a tasty and expensive V2 rocket out as a diversion from an effort to destroy the other sides unprotected AAA. Its all up to the commanders. We tried not to limit them, but to make a rough outline from which they could design what they desired. Some of the missions designed in the testing phase were among the best I ever played online.

I used to run role-playing games all the time. I like to think of myself as one of the best game masters my friends ever knew. The think I though I did best was to create an environment for the players to live in. Where they were the masters of their own destiny. Where thee choices about what to do and how to do it changed things. Not where I restricted what they could do, when they could do it, or how they could do it. In response I played with some guys who came p with some fantastic solutions to difficult problems, or who utterly destroyed themselves in stupid mistakes. In the end the games (no where near reality) seemed more real than any other games we played. Because they were played out naturally, not canned or controlled.

The war isn't about personal glory, its not about great planning or decision making. Its about creating missions with the goal of out lasting the other side. It's simply a war of attrition based on the options and resources available in this game. It will never be Warbirds, or any other game. Its simply a different way to play a game we all love. Its just like when you and your friends to decide to play Australian Rules football for a few game just to make your weekly game of football more fun for a while.

The war is simply an effort to make online play more immersive. To make each mission more than an opportunity to rack up kills, to make continuity of play from mission to mission. No its not real, its not meant to be. It's meant to be fun. If you don't like the concept, don't play. If you find it brings something new to the game, enjoy it while you can. Don't attack it for being less than you thought it could be, don't make it out for more than it was intended. Just play if you want to, or not. If you see a way to make it better, be constructive. We know its not perfect, we just thought it was ready for its first big run.

For me, the War is an opportunity to get really excited about a mission. I'm not out to get a kill. I'm out to survive first, to see my buddies survive second, and finally, to complete the goal so we don't have to come back again. I loved the missions I played in the test, and I can't wait to get to the point where resources are tight. I even hope my side is the underdog, so each mission will be all the more important to me.

Imagine the fear and the fun if you suddenly realize you are flying the last bomber your country has, that you have no cover, and there are three enemy planes in the sky. If you die, your country's hopes die with you. You fly white knuckled, hugging the ground, full throttle, heading for home and the safety of your AAA, while in your head you hear the ghosts of your fallen companions urging you to safety. With the base in site you drop the gear to find you are missing a wheel. Now not only are you in danger of being shot down, but you could loose your life in a simple mistake. Will you make it and be a hero in your own eyes for one short moment, or will you die in flames?

That's what the "war" is about, and that is what it does very well.

Hmmm....I guess that struck a nerve with me and I went on a rant.... oh well.

goth out

posted 06-09- 01:34 AM               

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nealg=FC=

posted 06-09- 02:11 AM               

#1: What percentage of missions during the war were flown by captured planes? Sorry, but swapping a/c would turn this war into an arcade game, imo.

#2: Beta build whatever. I realize that the will of the WD may be to go with it, but the last time I installed a beta it screwed up my file folder structure so badly I had to reinstall, which was a nightmare I will not repeat. I know it's illogical and voodoo logic but sorry, I just won't do it. When the beta is finalized (relatively speaking) I will then consider d/l ing it. If the WD does decree the beta to be standard issue, then I'm afraid I'll have to withdraw. Now before you all roast me for making threats and whatnot, I'd just like to say that I think it more useful for sdoewar users like myself to voice our concerns before the 'laws' are written, and I don't see this as a threat. I mean who cares if one lousy flyer like myself pulls out? This isn't a threat, it's the truth. If you take it as otherwise, don't think you're going to make me feel bad or anything.

#3 and the big one. I am very disappointed at the nearsightedness that led to Archy's Tiger II not being included in the list of units for purchase. I understand that for simplicity's sake the WD decided on using what was in the plane packs and nothing more, but considering the size of this ONE download, and the fact that it would open the door to COMBINED OPS, I just can't believe it wasn't included. I mean think about it, one of the characterstics that distinguished Blitzkreig as a form of warfare was the coordination between ground troops and the aerial forces. Ok, so we don't have an allied equivalent and the tiger was a late war tank. So you make the tank available to the allies and since the hud is on there won't be any friendly fire. Yeah, it's a compromise, but weigh the options - combined ops including ground strikes against moving targets OR just aerial combat and anything ground oriented with a bunch of useless, stationary objects. Well I hope that the tiger is included in future versions of the war, whether in plane pack or not. I guess the part that gets me is that we're trying to simulate a war and we're writing off ground ops. Hmm... That plus you both read the enthusiasm army puke and I had for using tanks. Now to me the customers are always right, so if there is significant enthusiasm for something, even if by a minority of people, it is worth investigating.

For the record, I am firmly behind the WD and the fine work they are doing, and I realize this is a work in progress, so those of you who would flame me for what I've said here, consider this: Do I not have the right to make a fact based commentary expressing my opinion? Notice the absence of the r-word throughout this thread... (Oh yeah, thesaurus anyone? )

Werner

posted 06-09- 04:02 AM               

I can see what you mean about the tanks, but I know one of our main concerns was 'requiring' or 'not requiring' special or extra downloads beyond 5.3b and the contest pack 1.1. I cannot say how all this will play out as it progresses - I know this Tiger will likely be included in a future standard pack - but I do think stating that it has been 'written off' may be a tad too harsh. Understand, I do not speak for the WD, but I do think changes and adjustments will be made. Personally, I am not a tank guy, and my ground attack skills are so bad that I prefer the target stay put, dang it!! , but I will go with it if it is put in.

Come to think of it, my flying skills are so bad I'd prefer the opposing PLANES stay put!! But...this is why we need your input, so keep those cards and letters coming, boys and girls!! As PR said, ideas and suggestions are welcome...and a little laugh now and then don't hurt either!

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nealg=FC=

posted 06-09- 02:51 PM               

We talked about having the War go through stages which would represent certain years throughout the war. This was not implemented in this version of the War, primarily to keep things simple. Since we decided agianst that for this version, we also decided that all aircraft that flew in the War, and that were availible in Plane packs would be availible to those sides, i.e. Axis and Allied.

Now, we have high hopes that in future versions of the War lot's of different things can be implemented. Different terrains, ground units, etc. For this version, our very first, we wanted to keep it as simple as we could, and still retain the fun, and excitment.

This is the first War, not the last. Give it time to evolve.

Thanks