Venting and Ranting

[+Julhelm 266]

I want to know how he can afford to start a completely new productline with new tech etc when he's always been so dirt poor that he couldn't afford to implement features we've asked for for years like air to air refuelling.

[FastCargo 412]

Unfortunately, I'm not interested enough in that era of flight to mod it or play it past FEG, especially since things like OFF exist.

 

I kind of like the idea of a final patch and the end of the SF series. Or at least any further releases/DLC not altering the engine. That way I could sandbox forever. I used to create aircraft way back in the FS4 days, but stopped because MSFS was advancing faster than I could keep up. Even with SF2 at its current state, there is far more I want to do then I will ever get to do in my lifetime. The hardest part would be keeping it running on newer OSes.

 

FC

[Spinners 15,968]

SF2 cannot end! I mean to say, what would people whinge about?

 

Despite being borderline fanboi I can see that TK's 'game' is running out of steam but how long will it take DCS (or whatever) to match the stock Third Wire planeset? 5 years? And how long will it take DCS (or whatever) to match the planeset we see in the Downloads section here at Combat Ace? 10 years?

Dunno. But what I do know is that mobiles/tablets leave me cold so TK's plans in that area are of no interest to me although I wish him well and suspect he'll make a success of it.

 

BTW nice posts FC!

[+Stary 2,426]

as I see it regarding patching, and this will sound bit strange to some -in my opinion TK felt into the trend of releasing patches too often.

 

One big patch every title/Expansion pack that is really a patch and fixes things and adds new title features to older ones would be much better for the community than half-arsed ones every few months or even weeks at some points back. TK would have time to steadily squish all the bugs and add what he fancy, modders would be sure their efforts wouldn't be wasted week after they finish important set of mods (fellow Korea team, you know that well!) just like it used to be when I entered the series in 2005, when WoV had not patches but whole Service Packs

 

Now I perfectly admire Thirdwire's attention to make patches at all given most of the other sims devs either kicked 6 feet under or don't give a s**t, but I think it's a bit TK's customer service he's famous of (deserves that to be clear!) that now somehow forces him to release patch once in a while even if said patch doesn't quite fix things

 

like in:

 

"How's going bro?"

"TK released another patch this week"

"Oh, he's such an awesome developer, caring for us and all"

"Ain't that wonderful? Yeah it renders my plane I was working on three years completely useless now, but it's so awesome the new patch fixed one typo in Crusader service date!"

Edited May 14, 2012 by Stary

[+SkateZilla 49]

The balance is gone. No longer is Thirdwire focused on fixing the content that was offered in SF:P1. For those of you who remember what was broken in the first release and fixed in the long awaited patch, who even recalls what was not fixed? Ever wonder why those FAC sound files were hardly even touched? Where is Snoopy anyway? There was a lot promised on that game box. Instead we got a molasses slow series of features that never worked out of the box after that. From that first patch to the pay-to-beta-test situation that exists now, all I've heard are the same lame excuses - we're a small shop, not my idea of fun, too difficult to implement etc. There use to exist a friendly co-existence between modding and TK. In the beginning the modding was unofficially smiled upon and even supported. I assumed it was a "reward" for sticking by the game. Slowly the help from TK became few and far between. Lately it has grown into a down right lock out. I still remember the box for WoV actually claiming the huge modding community as a reason to make the purchase. How far we've come. Anyone with a question or problem asks on the Thirdwire forums and is quickly sent to this community. If CA shut its doors today, TK would be making Angry Fighters tomorrow morning. I wonder sometimes if TK wasn't just stringing this community along over the years. Each one of us holding out for our personal wish list while he held on to those now famous excuses.

 

It wasn't until I really stepped back did I see how much of a fool I was for slipping dollar bills into his g-string that I was never going to get my personal wish list. The sad part is neither will any of you. Instead I keep reading excuses for TK for not fixing things, for not updating the terrain or for not doing what his customers are asking for. For those that have been around since day one - raise your hands if you think the terrain in NA was the major breakthrough you envisioned or a one off that can be easily outdone by our usual terrain artists? What a waste of effort on his part. Its not even finished - no shorelines, some islands are still blocks and not by any stretch of the imagination new technology - maybe new to us but not worth the effort.

 

I see the end of this symbiotic relationship with this last release. Last nail in the coffin if you ask me. When modders are angry with you for killing their babies, you have killed their idea of fun. For those who feel that everything is fine in SF land, keep worshiping at the TK altar and keep your wallets open but don't say you haven't been warned.

 

<raises hand for being here since the beginning>.

 

The routine of: its broken, lets lock it out, disable it, delete it and leave markers/residual files or remove it all together instead of fixing it, seems to have taken over, while things the modders ask for to make a better game get ignored, and little things that arent needed or prolly even used get time and resources in the dev cycle.

 

example, the new terrain engine, seriously, aside from the reflective water and the smoothed mountains, the terrain is just boring, it uses more resources for what? smoother hills?, there's no textures, its all shader based, so custom textures are removed, everything is 3d based so there is no transition as transition between polygons doesn't exist. water is water, land is land, no transition, no beach, and no way to even add those details via texturing.

 

The original Terrain engine, with an increased height map resolution, ability to slap the new shader effects on textures and a tool to place objects would have been a better use of resources.

 

Still ships have no lighting outside of 3rd party intervention, planes dont have strobes, shadows arent dithered/blurred/soft. but the tree's draw distance was crippled because of a render priority issue, then further crippled when laptops and low end Video cards couldn't handle the horizon distance. people running low end rigs outside of the requirements envelope got priority over the modding community trying to make the title better and TW started disabling and locking stuff to allow low end machines to continue to run the titles.

 

Locking the LOD-CATs was for the best intentions, but it isnt doing nothing but making the pirates laugh and the modders bang the heads against their screen/wall/keyboards.

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile DCS World is coming, which is already gathering some of the upper echelon FSX Studios that would like to take their work to the next level by adding weapons and damage models. SkateZillaHD Studios has also been approached by other studios moving to DCS World's platform, about also making stuff for DCS World.

 

Flaming Cliffs 3 is also on the way.

Edited May 14, 2012 by SkateZilla

[+Old Diego 66]

B) Old Diego, you are an (the?) old hand here, and I respect and appreciate everything you've done to add to this sim but, when you say people who post at ThirdWire are directed here, why do you think that is? It's because the guys with the answers are here. I don't recall anyone ever saying "uh, TK, uh you know, we'd appreciate if you didn't do that, cause, you know, we're tired of answering questions"? Far from not appreciating the people here, I think he relies on them. Ditto for him not doing things that some of the guys here do in a "couple of hours." Three guys vs. how many?

 

C) Wish lists? C'mon, who the f### ever gets what they want? ......

 

D) Which brings me to another point, "locking up the lods"......

 

.E) Bugs. Not pointing any fingers, but, check out some of the posts in this thread alone, imagine if you were trying to write thousands or millions of lines of code? Bring on the proofreaders!

 

Since I was the focus, I'll try to explain -

 

B) I'm far from being THE old head around here but I've been around this block since day one at Wal-Mart. It seems my point about people being sent to CA to get there issues answered was lost on you. I meant, if you are running a forum and a customer has a problem with your product, don't expect your customers elsewhere to take care of it. My reasoning is that if you take the helping community for granted, the day the are not there to do your help desk work, will be too late.

 

C) If you've been around as long as many of us have, you tend to start creating a mental tally of what has not been fixed yet, what has been eliminated, what has been broke and will never be fixed and what you would like to see added. In my case, I still want what was on the back of the SF:P1 box to be fixed. Why? Because I paid for it.

 

D) Locking of the LODs or CAT files is not going to keep people from accessing the content within. I mentioned that to emphasize how the relationship has eroded to the point that soon we will have zero access or zero modders who care enough to continue to bring you things like TMF F-14. Do you think we just randomly started hen pecking INIs until we got one that worked or did we open a CAT file and seek out the info?

 

E) You placed a comma after the word "alone" where a period should have been used. To your point, we aren't playing a spelling bee simulation/game and TK is not writing the same code over and over...or, he shouldn't be. Bugs due to a random comma or misspelled words are common in all software but incomplete terrain and non-tested game play should not be. Beta testers should never ever be the paying customer.

 

This thread was for ranting and venting. I did that. You've done that. Lets keep the focus on Thirdwire and not on each other because I would like to continue reading how others feel about Thirdwire or the future of how this community can continue.

[MigBuster 2,861]

 

In some ways, if the SF series comes to an end, I'll be happier about it.

 

It means that any future mods I make will always be compatible with the latest patch.

 

+1 for that!

 

SF2, FE2, Falcon Flacon 4.0, DCS A-10 all have aspects about them that they do better than the others do - there is no one super sim.

 

 

 

Replacement for SF2 cold war scenario and modding - nothing out there - DCS has a MiG-21bis and nothing else, closest might be Falcon BMS which already has cold war campaigns - the models probably need a bit of paint - but the AI is not as challenging as SF2 in a gun fight.

[MigBuster 2,861]

 

Meanwhile DCS World is coming, which is already gathering some of the upper echelon FSX Studios that would like to take their work to the next level by adding weapons and damage models. SkateZillaHD Studios has also been approached by other studios moving to DCS World's platform, about also making stuff for DCS World.

 

Flaming Cliffs 3 is also on the way.

 

Well PM me in 2025 to tell me its here

[+SkateZilla 49]

Well PM me in 2025 to tell me its here

 

in 2025, you'll still be waiting for TW's Ipad game.

[Gr.Viper 131]

In the year 2525...

[MigBuster 2,861]

in 2025, you'll still be waiting for TW's Ipad game.

 

Should be worth the wait - will have a flyable Lebanese Hawker Hunter among the 2 new flyables - and the mission (every mission) will be to destroy as many Comms buildings as possible. Of course at the end of each level you will need to destroy the boss Comms building.

 

Sounds great......

[+Stary 2,426]

good one MigBuster!

 

and the Boss comm building will be evil of course!

[+Stary 2,426]

BTW the most annoying thing for me these days is that Thirdwire doesn't the sim to evolve graphically, the gameplay is ok (if you like EAW formula as I wrote previously...) the planes are there, but the terrains the effects the weather and ground objects are waaaay below planes modelling (thanks DanW!)

 

ok, I must add cockpits are among the best but we all know that

 

 

also using the same tower and hangars over and over on every terrain is cheap... gosh I love some random evening rants

[murad 1]

granted i'm an outsider to the sf community when compared to the lot who posted before me, however where ever TK takes sf, i know i'll keep on enjoying the user made mods as long as they are available.... thanks!

[+SkateZilla 49]

BTW the most annoying thing for me these days is that Thirdwire doesn't the sim to evolve graphically, the gameplay is ok (if you like EAW formula as I wrote previously...) the planes are there, but the terrains the effects the weather and ground objects are waaaay below planes modelling (thanks DanW!)

 

ok, I must add cockpits are among the best but we all know that

 

 

also using the same tower and hangars over and over on every terrain is cheap... gosh I love some random evening rants

 

Battlefield 3 re uses the same 5 buildings on all their maps :p

[+Dave 2,318]

granted i'm an outsider to the sf community when compared to the lot who posted before me, however where ever TK takes sf, i know i'll keep on enjoying the user made mods as long as they are available.... thanks!

 

Merhaba murad, where you been hiding?

 

For the record people it is the GODDAMNEVILCOMMBUILDING...

[+SkateZilla 49]

Merhaba murad, where you been hiding?

 

For the record people it is the GODDAMNEVILCOMMBUILDING...

 

 

i call it Comm Building-X X Stands for XEROX COPY.

[+Stary 2,426]

all please

 

"WE KNOW THAT DAVE"

 

thank you

[+Dave 2,318]

[+gerwin 450]

I keep three installs: SF1 2010 merged and modded, SF2 nov 2011 with mostly same content as that SF1 2010. Both installs are just 1,5GB each IIRC.

Then there is the stock SF2NA level merged install, which I do consider unfinished as it is. Even though the campaign experience was excellent.

It depends on the announced patch(es) whether SF2NA will be able to replace Nov 2011 or not... I hope so!

 

I am not unhappy with the releases of thirdwire. It was fun when I first got into the series in 2007, and now don't want to go without the features released up until nov 2011.

I find most of TK's design and business choices understandable. That does not mean TK did exactly what I want, but neither did other sim developers, and neither did modders. That's fine.

[murad 1]

Merhaba murad, where you been hiding?

 

For the record people it is the GODDAMNEVILCOMMBUILDING...

 

been hiding behind the 5 post moderation rule for all these years... hold tight tho i'm still gonna send the pictures of kultur park and alsancak, hopefully before TK releases sf3! ;)

[+JonathanRL 973]

hopefully before TK releases sf3! ;)

 

Unless SF3 will be a package delivery (in the way of the current model, or maybe SF3 and just expansion packs if he is greedy enough) Korea game, I honestly cannot see it happening.

Edited May 14, 2012 by JonathanRL

[Icarus999 70]

Seriously guys I think the remedy for a lot of our current anger is a working cat file extractor... and I remember a certain member posting a while back that he had designed an extractor that gets everything but wouldn't make it available because it would just cause TK to take more drastic steps to lock everything down. I seriously hope that member reads this thread and perhaps reconsiders that decision.

[+Dave 2,318]

been hiding behind the 5 post moderation rule for all these years... hold tight tho i'm still gonna send the pictures of kultur park and alsancak, hopefully before TK releases sf3! ;)

 

LOL Sounds good to me!

[+SkateZilla 49]

Seriously guys I think the remedy for a lot of our current anger is a working cat file extractor... and I remember a certain member posting a while back that he had designed an extractor that gets everything but wouldn't make it available because it would just cause TK to take more drastic steps to lock everything down. I seriously hope that member reads this thread and perhaps reconsiders that decision.

 

 

or make it available only to people that are known Modders,