posted 09-03- 05:02 PM               

Maddox I really think its somewhat of an insult to say that the Planes are to complictated for your buyers to make. Have you seen whats it takes to make an SDOE plane?
And we want way more complication to make the planes even better.

I know one aspect thought by some people is that the users can't do the job right but the SDOE crowd has proven that wrong. Would you maybe consider it if the Company Tweaked and approved a plane before releaseing it to the users? This would keep quality control up and make it possible for more people to help with the addition of more planes.

Don't overlook your users to come up with stuff the company never even dreamed of. And do the job themselves.

Remember they aren't moteviated by money. Only by passion.

Oleg Maddox
Member posted 04-12-2000 02:02
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Dear Spanky!

quote:
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Originally posted by Spanky:

Maddox I really think its somewhat of an insult to say that the Planes are to complictated for your buyers to make. Have you seen whats it takes to make an SDOE plane?
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I will move my answer to the new topic, because I have to agree with you, that it is very important and I don't like to insult some very good guys

The new topic "Very important IL-2 info #1" is here
http://www.dogfighter.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000005.html
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Read that thread to see exactly what he said and peoples responces.

I personally wish in IL-2 we could do the FM and DM but that you couldn't use it in large online games but only with a couple freinds, that way it wouldn't turn into SDOE.

Then you could submit that plane to Oleg and team, and they could certify or tweak it and certify or just outright refuse to add the plane if it was horrible or not ready.

That way you could still use it with a couple friends and you could still use it offline.

But it sounds ALOT harder to program in IL-2 then in SDOE, like you have to be a programmer. I'm NOT saying some of you US couldn't do it. Just that its NOT openplane, the game wasn't originally designed for users to add planes, so it makes it that much harder to all of a sudden add that feature.

I don't think you just run your model and textures through a program and plug in all the numbers and off you go.

Remember SDOE was built from the ground up to support user addons, most games arn't and IL-2 wasn't. If you know or belive that just bug fixing a game is hard (like the whole fix one thing break 3 more syndrome) Imagine trying to overhaul a game to let users add things to it after you were almost done the game? That would be a little hard woudln't it?

And then you still have to have some way of controlling whats released to it doens't turn into our mess we have here.

Think about it, we needed a group of people to put their foot down and make sure the plane pack was solid and only included good planes (IE not rockets and not betas). Think of olegs team like you do the crew except now imagine the crew even does all the FM and DM for ya, and you can't make your own planes for offline use, which does suck ass, but like I said it was never made for users to add to.

Hell it might not even be under Maddoxs control anymore, maybe if he wanted to right when he first designed and pitched it to publishers.

But you has a publisher woudln't like to here your developer say that he needs another year to add and open system so people can add stuff to the game. And belive me it could take that long, look how long the game is taking to make.

posted 09-05- 07:16 AM               

But there is another added bonus to an open based game, it actually makes it easier for other companies to use your engine as a baseline for a new game... it streamlines the production process since the art/modeling guys can do more on their own, empowering them and freeing up the programmers to work on game features.

Long live OpenPlane!

And at least Oleg is true to his vision... not trying to be all things to all people, that focus really helps produce a great game...

posted 09-05- 10:04 AM               

I'm guessing that if all goes well the IL-2 engine will stay in house.

I'm glad we can agree SV

posted 09-08- 09:44 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Sv:
Yes, after getting very intimate with the OpenPlane engine code, Bryan says that most of the work (and most of the wiz-bang power) of OpenPlane comes from the open-ness. It takes allot of planning and clever design to create an open game.

But there is another added bonus to an open based game, it actually makes it easier for other companies to use your engine as a baseline for a new game... it streamlines the production process since the art/modeling guys can do more on their own, empowering them and freeing up the programmers to work on game features.

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Sean and Bryan have the vision to see what other people can't.

To me the biggest problem with Open Plane was it was too far ahead of it's time when compared to the hardware capabilities of machines 3 years ago.

OP has several things NEVER seen before in ANY game.

1) It makes any game designed on open Plane user scaleable as their hardware capapbilities increase

2) Since the OP code has already been built to be scalable, it makes it easier for a company to put out an updated version of a game with more features and a better rendering engine

3) With proper 3rd party support, an Open Plane game can develop a user base that will stay loyal to the sims from version to version. If SDOE had done well, and Activision had taken the long view, you'd see this happening about every 2 years.

To me Open Plane is one of those few ideas you run across that shows true genius. I realized the implicatoins when I really dove into this several months ago. My hat's of to MH, Mighty, Eric, and the rest of the gang. This is one of the most brilliant concepts to ever come out of a game company. I'm very glad the guys a WWW had the insight, vision, and means to take it and run with it.

WWW has my support 110%. Open Plane is one of the most fun and challenging HOBBIES I've ever had.

One other note, although the FM's in Il2 seem good, they aren't up to the standards of the best FM's in SDOE. The stall characteristics of the 109 are off, and I put the P-39 in a near stall condition, yanked on the stick and the darn thing flew BACKWARDS for almost 2 seconds. Maybe their physics engine is up to par with Open Plane, but the individual aircraft show they aren't as good at setting up FM's as some of the people we have here (Tailslide and Zur come to mind). To bad they don't realize this.

It's easy to stop online cheating if you have the file checking, so users adding planes as cheats is not an issue. It's also easy for a company to control which planes are used on line. The player submits the plane, the company reviews it and either sends it back with a list of fixes required before it will be adopted, or puts it on their site as an official plane available for download.

The company can control this by doing quarterly aircraft updates for the game and having 2 "arenas". The basic arena for those with the planes that came with the game, and an advanced arena for those with the latest download.

The add on downloads can include a file that the server checks when you try to enter the advanced arena, If you don't have it, it sends a "Sorry but you need the latest advanced arena update to enter this area". So you go get it, install it, and come back and play.

Ther you go Sean, you were wondering how to make user created planes available in WWW for on-line play. This is one way it can be done.

posted 09-08- 10:28 AM               

I was mostly showing why IL-2 isn't open, not why it shouldn't be open.