Normandy 2.0 FAQ

[NineLine]

As for all the questions about Heathrow, unless @MAESTR0 answers here, I will ask about the reasoning behind its inclusion, I understand it was simple a grass airfield up till they started bulldozing farms in '44 to create the new airport in '46. So if we are doing a timeline of just days/weeks after D-Day, it doesnt make a ton of sense. I mean I am a fan of the sandbox so I am not against it, but maybe we need more info from UGRA. 

[GUFA]

7 hours ago, NineLine said:

I mean if this new tech grows from here, the possibilities are endless, something like this would probably be important for an entire globe as well, being able to have chunks of high detailed that you wanted, etc. So while it would be nice to add the Channel chunk in there, I am not sure its possible or planned right now, we just need to see how this first step works and is handled by everyone and everything. 

So do you have any information on how the Vulcan API implementation is going? One thing that has kept me planted solidly on the fence is ED seems to go off in random directions sometimes. This seems to have negative consequences that potentially hinder 3rd parties, but mostly ED itself. I really see the "Global map Project" as a priority that can only deliver massive benefit to ED, 3rd party as well as the player community. 

Edited October 11, 2022 by GUFA
improving comprehension for reader

[Reflected]

4 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

Hi @MAESTR0,

Thanks for the FAQ, I have a small question .. will the internal dcs map coordinates be the same as on the prior Normandy 1944, I mean the same coordinate origin and coordinate scales?

I ask, because if the internal map coordinates are the same, it would then be relatively easy to adapt my prior missions to the new map, I would only need to edit the 

   ["theatre"] = "Normandy",
 

mission sentence, and all mission objects would already be on the correct place.

Best regards, and I will still purchase the map even if its coordinates are not the same (because of the very very reasonable upgrade price  )

 

THIS is a very important question. The original announcement said that old missions will be compatible, now this one says the opposite. If Rudel's idea works, bringing them over to 2.0 may be feasible, otherwise one can just set them up from scratch again. By feasible I mean we'd still need to double check the location of each object, etc, but at least everything would be set up already.

[Reflected]

Another important question:

If somebody comes to DCS after the release of Normandy 2, do they have to buy 1 and 2 separately? Or if they buy 2, will they have 1 automatically?

I'm asking because 1 is the current requirement for my campaigns. So a new player would want to buy Normandy 2 - why would they buy 1 at the same price? - but then they can't play my campaigns, only if they pay extra for a map that's already made redundant by what they just bought.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Reflected

[Magic Zach]

Its somewhat disheartening to see that the NE corner is going to be in low detail.  As the closest bridge between the two lands, it would get a lot of attention for perhaps some more less historical, but more fun dogfighting fictional missions.

 

Additionally there were a LOT of airfields, strips and satellites up in that NE area in general.

[Tinman]

9 minutes ago, NineLine said:

it doesnt make a ton of sense

Unfortunately, that is a thought that popped up in my mind quite often since the announcement.

While feeling mostly positive and excited about the new map, there seems to always be at least one odd curveball when new details arise. After the initial announcement I thought it would maybe not eliminate, but at least reduce the fragmentation of the DCS WWII experience a bit. Instead, this seems to make it even worse by adding yet another layer of duplication and artificial separation. At least before you could make the excuse for the channel map's existence that it was merely somewhat close to another map. Excluding just this area now with almost surgical precision feels increasingly ridiculous to me and, again, doesn't make a ton of sense.

[Red_Camarada]

I did not get one thing, the channel area in Normady V2 will be less detailed than what we got today?

[UrgentSiesta]

5 hours ago, barry_c said:

And also Heathrow? The famed military base what?

 

• What later grew into Heathrow was an airfield from 1930 on.
• 1940: No. 229 Squadron Hurricanes from RAF Northolt were sent to the Great West Aerodrome (future Heathrow) while there was a threat of enemy attack on Northolt.
• There is interesting intrigue in the history, too - it was fronted as a B-29 base (yes, B-29), but was absolutely a scheme to build a commercial international airport...

Anyhow, the more airfields, the better.

Edited October 11, 2022 by UrgentSiesta

[greco.bernardi]

42 minutes ago, Tinman said:

Unfortunately, that is a thought that popped up in my mind quite often since the announcement.

While feeling mostly positive and excited about the new map, there seems to always be at least one odd curveball when new details arise. After the initial announcement I thought it would maybe not eliminate, but at least reduce the fragmentation of the DCS WWII experience a bit. Instead, this seems to make it even worse by adding yet another layer of duplication and artificial separation. At least before you could make the excuse for the channel map's existence that it was merely somewhat close to another map. Excluding just this area now with almost surgical precision feels increasingly ridiculous to me and, again, doesn't make a ton of sense.

I agree with you.

When i readed in newsletter about a Normandy 2 as a big map that will include Paris and London my first reaction is that will be a great map. Something like a merge of two maps with a adition os the capital citys....will be a must have map to a WW2 comunity. All that channel map without London or a Normandy like we have now will never can be.

But now that i saw the picture i´m very disapointed by this L area that will do another incomplete map. I can´t undestand why someone can think this is a great move. 

Sounds like a bad joke.

Sorry... It is very disappointing... Course that I will buy a expansion for U$9,99, but i´m not happy with any of my WW2 maps and its a shame.

Sorry again.

 

Edited October 11, 2022 by greco.bernardi

[UrgentSiesta]

4 hours ago, barry_c said:

historically inaccurate airfields, Heathrow, Farnborough, looking at you, just makes me think this is a waste of time, imagine the awkward flightpaths you'll have to take if you want to avoid the low res area, the low res area will end up completely disused and frankly ruins the potential for this map.

You can hardly throw a rock in the UK and not hit some airfield that took part in either or both world wars...

Farnborough was bombed by the Germans in 1940. 

Heathrow was there since 1930 under different names, and seems to have been a test/eval field for Fairey, and had a squadron of Hurricanes based there.

What's so historically inaccurate about them?

[Beirut]

My prediction: Normandy 2 will grow to replace both Normandy 1 and the Channel Map and it will be announced prior to release and maybe even be released in that state.

 

You heard it here first. Film at 11.  

[FiveWire]

5 hours ago, burritto said:

Farnborough is a curious choice too. Was it in use by frontline sqns then? Or was it still not RAE Farnborough? At least West Malling and Kenley were in use by frontline units.

why does it have to be used for frontline squadrons? Imagine making a 'Pearl Harbor' map and not including Haleiwa Field, which was just a mowed grass "emergency/test strip" with no squadrons based there. In an aviation simulator, if an aviation facility existed, it should be modeled.

[twistking]

i also see a problem in with the L shape of the detailed area. i don't like the idea tof planning your missions around not hitting the map borders.
i really hope that the north-eastern part could be filled at least a little bit, to lessen the chance of crossing the low-detail border when doing longer range flights...

[Reflected]

A lot of discussion about Heathrow, but nobody mentioned Biggin, Manston, or Abbeville so far? The lack of those is what I'm most surprised about.

Heathrow opens up possibilities for post war or more fictional scenarios, so I'm not against that.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Reflected

[Barrett_g]

The more I think about this the more irritated I get.

The release of Normandy 1.0 went over fairly well.  Then the Channel map was announced and people complained because the maps more or less overlapped.

Later it was noticed that there was a big trench along the border of the maps.  It was pretty obvious that there had been a failed attempt to merge the maps.

It’s evident Eagle Dynamics STILL doesn’t have the means to merge the 2 maps…. Yet they are allowing the release of a third map that requires it.

At this point, Eagle Dynamics needs to come to an agreement with Ugra and just let Ugra media finish Normandy 2.0 as a full high detailed map.

 

You basically have two entities at conflict with each other and that’s not good for the brand.

 

*edit*
 

imagine a 3PD announces a very popular “Desert Storm” map and another developer rushes and releases a “Baghdad” map.  I’d imagine Eagle Dynamics wouldn’t allow two developers to do this to one another… yet here we are with Normandy 2.0 and The Channel Map.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Barrett_g

[Beirut]

21 minutes ago, Beirut said:

My prediction: Normandy 2 will grow to replace both Normandy 1 and the Channel Map and it will be announced prior to release and maybe even be released in that state.

 

You heard it here first. Film at 11.  

 

And the name of the map will change.  I'd put money on it.

[Tree_Beard]

So if I am following correctly, this map is not a simple improvement to the old Normandy map, but instead was completely built from scratch with brand new map making tech.
 

While new tech is certainly exciting, what I’m really struggling to wrap my head around, then, is why the decision was made to develop literally a third map of the English Channel, when that setting still has very limited relevance to the assets we have in the game.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Tree_Beard

[XCNuse]

7 hours ago, MAESTR0 said:

If I only own the Normandy 1944 Map, will I be able to join servers running the Normandy 2.0 map?

Yes, but detail areas included in the Normandy 2.0 map and not in the Normandy 1944 map would be at low detail and missing world objects. This item is still being worked on and may change.

Is it yes or is it no?

How is missing objects even a possibility? Does that mean I can watch other people fly through buildings because they don't own the map?

 

Offense to be taken; I'm not interested in this map until concrete evidence is given that this product even works.... Which so far; all we've seen is this map view, an eiffel tower, and big ben at the beginning of the year. I'm not sold on any of this, and I hate to say it; even at the deep discount, I'm struggling to see the reason to buy the same map a third time over.

7 hours ago, MAESTR0 said:

Am I paying for the same map twice?

Except that I am; no matter how you cut it... I am... or would be; paying for a third time on an area that has been covered twice over already.

 

I see a future to the possibilities for this to work with other maps assuming what is sold works as advertised; absolutely. But ... between UGRA and ED ... I hope you have this figured and sorted out, because this is incredibly dangerous waters that you're letting customers fall into.

Purchasing capability of 3 maps that cover a portion of the same land. Telling customers you can buy any one of the 3 but can use your campaigns, missions, and multiplayer and it all "just works" ? These are... insanely bold claims.

[ignition22]

Always so much emotive complaining it gets tiring visiting these forums. How about just some fair and constructive criticism then move on. If you don't want a product someone made, then just don't buy it.

Great work all, looking forward to this, will gladly shell out $10 for an expanded and improved Normandy map. 

When I first saw the announcement, I was hoping that dcs channel would also be wrapped into this map and it's a shame that it isn't, although you can understand several reasons why it would be a difficult thing to do considering performance and the likely different ways the two maps were built. Hopefully some day they can be combined in some form allowing us to fly seamlessly from one to the other.  

Edited October 11, 2022 by ignition22

[71st_AH Rob]

3 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

You can hardly throw a rock in the UK and not hit some airfield that took part in either or both world wars...

Farnborough was bombed by the Germans in 1940. 

Heathrow was there since 1930 under different names, and seems to have been a test/eval field for Fairey, and had a squadron of Hurricanes based there.

What's so historically inaccurate about them?

The problem with Heathrow is with the map firmly planted in the summer of 1944 as Ugra have stated, Heathrow Wasa grass field in 1943 and was a construction site from the time the snow melted in 1944 until 1946 when it starts to look like an airfield.  

So, are we going to have an unusable construction site in place of one of our limited number of airfields? 

I don't mind if they include a large construction site where you can't spawn an aircraft and take off, but if redirecting the resources would get us Croydon say, or one of the many airfields that actually were operational, it would be an easy sacrifice to make.

[RafaPolit]

I was really excited about this launch, and I praised the pricing model both on ED's Discord and on Facebook.

This FAQ leaves me feeling that the launch post was, at least, wrongly written if not intentionally misleading.  Phrases like 

Quote

If you wish to pass on the upgrade, you may still join multiplayer servers and compatibility with campaigns will remain

This, to anyone that can read English, means that the previous campaigns are compatible with the new map.

In that sense, it made a lot of sense to have a NEW V2.0 map that replaces the old one and is offered to previous users at a discounted price.  But the wordings on this FAQ suggest that V1.0 and V2.0 will not only coexist, but that they will be SEPARATE purchases from now on?  So, as @Reflected has pointed out, new users would be faced with a scenario of purchasing two different versions of, more or less, the same map if they want to play the previous campaigns?

And us existing users would have two maps that represent, roughly, the same area just to keep our previous campaigns as an option?

This not only sounds like a terrible user experience, it is a very poor business decision: from the pure "money making" point of view, but also from the point of view of third party developers that spend their time with the products that ED decide to greenlight.

So, that brings me to the "core" of my complaint: ED needs to enforce a certain "standard", even if products are developed by third parties, because they reflect on EDs game and the user-base purchase decisions.

For example, I highly question the decision to make a map around a particular operation on a particular month of a particular year.  Sure, you need to pick a point in time to structure a map, but limiting the option to use it on other seasons really makes for a very niche product (on an already niched market on a platform where you would have not one but two maps of the exact same region!!!).  So, if seasons make a big impact on a map (like the Caucasus, or Normandy!), EDs requirements for third party developers should enforce some sort of versatility in that sense.

In a world where you are facing competition from the likes of MSFS where you can fly anywhere in the world, to have a map model that forces 3 maps encompassing roughly the same area to be bought separately seems like walking backwards instead of moving forward.

Please, as the pricing model was a sensible one, make this "a good" decision for users!  This, in my mind means:
- V2 REPLACES V1, they don't coexist, but...
- V2 is compatible with campaigns made for V1 (obviously minor tweaks would be needed, but minor nonetheless)
- V2 is a more versatile map that also allows for winter (and ideally autumn) looks
- existing V1 players that don't want to upgrade can do so, but not because they want to keep playing their already paid-for missions, but because they prefer not to spend more now... they simply won't enjoy the higher detail and extended areas
- ideally, at some point the channel gets merged and users looking for the WWII Europe scenario need to make ONE good purchase, which makes the decision somewhat simpler!

So, my enthusiasm shared by me on the original launch post has been completely muddied here with decisions that seems less technical and more commercial.

I hope at least some of the points above turn out to be true and we end up with a less absurd scenario than 3 maps of the the same region with no particular benefit of having all three.

 

Rafa.

Edited October 11, 2022 by RafaPolit

[Magic Zach]

3 hours ago, XCNuse said:

Except that I am; no matter how you cut it... I am... or would be; paying for a third time on an area that has been covered twice over already.

 

I see a future to the possibilities for this to work with other maps assuming what is sold works as advertised; absolutely. But ... between UGRA and ED ... I hope you have this figured and sorted out, because this is incredibly dangerous waters that you're letting customers fall into.

Purchasing capability of 3 maps that cover a portion of the same land. Telling customers you can buy any one of the 3 but can use your campaigns, missions, and multiplayer and it all "just works" ? These are... insanely bold claims.

But you are paying for new area.  You're getting hyperfocused on the name.  Nobody has yet done these new parts of England and London, or Paris.  And for this (ignoring that the part of Normandy 1 within V2 is supposed to be getting a revamp) you are paying a discounted price for a discounted addition of land area.  So for what you get, no you aren't paying for a land area you already have...you never had that area.

 

Edit: so at an estimate, when you bought Normandy 1 you got 402sqmi per 1USD.  Now, cut away the area of Normandy 1 and the Channel map/low res area against the area of the overall Normandy 2 (this is the new land that hasn't been done by any maps as of yet).  If you already had the Channel map and Normandy, you are getting an additional new 1500sqmi for each 1USD.  If you had just Normandy 1, you're getting 1000sqmi of at least new high resolution detailed area per 1USD.

This is the digital version of the Louisiana Purchase here.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Magic Zach

[RafaPolit]

@Magic Zachbut the maps are more than just square miles!  They allow you to "tell the story" of your flights.  You use them in campaigns, in missions in multi-player games.  So, put yourself into the mind of a new player coming to DCS the very next day of Normandy 2.0 release day and looking at the scenario:

"Hmmm... Ok, so I cannot fly anywhere, I need to buy not only the planes, but the maps.  Not what the competition is doing, let's see.  I think I want to fly WWII, what do I need? Mhm, a plane... great, some obvious choices, but wait, isn't the FW190 one plane? Apparently not, I have to pay twice for the different versions. Ok, I'm a bit confused, and a little pissed.  Now, as for the map, obviously the British channel makes sense.  So, the Channel? Wait, for there is also Normandy, a few miles west of the other map?  Hm.  I didn't want to buy two.  I want to pick one.  Let's read a bit deeper, but I am more confused.  So far, not enjoying a lot the experience"

"Ok, what? Two Normandy Maps.  Makes no sense... oh, I see, there is a new one, covering a larger area. Nice! Obviously V2, right? The newer, more complete and larger-are map.  Wait, it also includes the Channel! Great, a no brainer.  Should I know more? No, I'm all set"

"Wait, wait... the Dunkirk area, a favorite historic place would be in Low Res mode?  Why? Oh, because they also want to sell me the "other map".... Now I am less confused maybe, but more pissed of.  Still, between the 2 Normandy's, the choice is clear right... I'm set.  One nice plane, one map.  Now, onto the 'story' for my flights... a really nice campaign in this region... WHAT? Campaigns only work for the V1 version I DIDN'T PURCHASE? and there is no new content for V2?  Wait, so the creators of content are pissed because they have to do their work all over again and they won't migrate their missions to the new map? So now I need to purchase ALSO V1 if I want to do anything other than just sight seeing in a COMBAT SIMULATOR? Now I'm really pissed, and I haven't yet flown a single minute of airtime"

There are alternatives, obviously.  You can spend months learning how to create your own campaigns, put lots of AI or create a multiplayer server.  Another alternative? Don't do campaigns, jump right into a multiplayer server without having done a single simple Air-to-Air kill and have your a*s served in a platter.  Surely that describes a "great" experience for a new comer to the sim.

Do you think such a person will linger a lot faced with that scenario?  Do you think it's a "reasonable" experience to expect from users trying to decide in which of the several SIMs to spend their money in?  I honestly think this is not in the best interest of ED. I seriously think this will piss off / confuse a lot of current users and even more so the new users.

Edited October 11, 2022 by RafaPolit

[Ydjslm]

It's unfair for players who have bought both Normandy map and Channel map.

For players who had bought Normandy and Channel map they pay $44.99+$49.99+$9.9=$104.97 for Normandy 2 map and Channel map.
For players who only bought Channel map they pay $49.99+$14.99=$64.98 for Normandy 2 map and Channel map.

On sale,Normandy map -50% and Channel map -30%.
For players who had bought Normandy and Channel map they pay $22.495+$34.993+$9.9=$67.388 for Normandy 2 map and Channel map.
For players who only bought Channel map they pay $34.993+$14.99=$49.983 for Normandy 2 map and Channel map.

Change 'DCS: Normandy 2 will be available as a complete map for $59.99 USD. If you have either DCS: Normandy 1944 or DCS: The Channel maps, you can purchase Normandy 2 for $14.99 USD. If you own both, you can purchase DCS: Normandy 2 for only $9.99 USD.' into 'DCS: Normandy 2 will be available as a complete map for $59.99 USD. If you have DCS: Normandy 1944, you can purchase Normandy 2 for $14.99 USD.',then I will say nothing.

[GUFA]

1 hour ago, RafaPolit said:

In a world where you are facing competition from the likes of MSFS where you can fly anywhere in the world, to have a map model that forces 3 maps encompassing roughly the same area to be bought separately seems like walking backwards instead of moving forward.

Yes I made that same judgement (initially) as well,I even called out another map maker over this as  well. Which is way I asked about the "whole Globe project" I really think this would get us a way from excactly that issue.