DCS WWII 1944 Kickstarter: A Tragedy in 3 Acts

[[HOUNDS] CptTrips]

 

When I first came to DCS around 2021 and looked around, I was confused about what I saw on the WWII side of DCS.

The choice of planes seemed odd and ED didn’t really seem overly enthused about continuing fleshing out more in that time-frame. It seemed as if they had started down one direction and then abandoned it. It just didn’t make sense.

So being curious I dug deep trying to understand what ED’s game plan was for WWII long term and what was the plan with the current state? As I did I learned more about this store and realized some of the things I had herd hinted at just weren’t supported by the facts.

I thought it was important enough for DCS history and lore to get a clear telling of the events. I tired to be accurate and fair. Hope I succeeded.

Knowing what happened before makes the current state of affairs make more sense. How we got this weird stable of planes and why ED doesn't seem to be all that enthused about continuing on that line at the moment instead of getting to their own WWII plan, which at the moment I believe will be PTO to block Combat Pilot. Now it explains why they seemed to have start in one direction and now are going another.

The current situation was never the plan. It's the wreckage.

Cheers.

 

 

[Silver_Dragon]

26 minutes ago, [HOUNDS] CptTrips said:

The choice of planes seemed odd and ED didn’t really seem overly enthused about continuing fleshing out more in that time-frame. It seemed as if they had started down one direction and then abandoned it. It just didn’t make sense.

So being curious I dug deep trying to understand what ED’s game plan was for WWII long term and what was the plan with the current state? As I did I learned more about this store and realized some of the things I had herd hinted at just weren’t supported by the facts.

I thought it was important enough for DCS history and lore to get a clear telling of the events. I tired to be accurate and fair. Hope I succeeded.

Knowing what happened before makes the current state of affairs make more sense. How we got this weird stable of planes and why ED doesn't seem to be all that enthused about continuing on that line at the moment instead of getting to their own WWII plan, which at the moment I believe will be PTO to block Combat Pilot. Now it explains why they seemed to have start in one direction and now are going another.

The current situation was never the plan. It's the wreckage.

Cheers.

Let's remember that ED had simply been making WW2 aircraft in DCS World to test engine capabilities since 2012... P-51s and the Fw-190D-9s.

RRG Studios claims the other aircraft with unrealistic plans on the KS. RRG itself even "promised" a pilotable B-17... and that it would deliver modules every six months, like Igor's "promises." We knew they were simply unrealistic.

ED had no control over the decisions made on KS WW2 until they went bankrupt and ED saved the entire project, putting up money so those modules could be released. Let's keep in mind that ED could have let the whole project die. Now, claiming that things will be "clarified" when there are veritable rivers of ink about RRG's bankruptcy, claiming that ED was to blame, is simply kicking a dead horse.

Let's remember that Nick Grey has been talking about the Pacific for years (let's say 7-8 years ago) and there are interviews to confirm it. Now, to come forward and claim that ED took PTO to attack another company is completely absurd.

[[HOUNDS] CptTrips]

Dang you are touchy.  

I've heard he also like BoB and chronologically that would make more sense to do first.  In my opinion the decision to move toward PTO first could conceivably have been influence by the arrival of that other sim.

And I take it you haven't bothered to watch the videos if you are claiming I said this was ED's fault.

  

[_Hoss]

I'm still waiting on my Me-262..... got hornswaggled out of that.... 

Live and learn 

[[HOUNDS] CptTrips]

 

4 minutes ago, _Hoss said:

I'm still waiting on my Me-262..... got hornswaggled out of that.... 

Live and learn 

 

That would be fun.

An ME-163 would be fun too.
 

[NineLine]

Well, that was... something...

Honestly, aside from what I assume was AI-written and voiced text, it gets many things wrong or makes reaching assumptions, perhaps based on research from ChatGPT?

I am not going for a point-for-point rebuttal as this is old, old news, and I have enough going on without reliving past speedbumps in the winding highway that is DCS.

SD is correct, we have been thinking about PTO for a loooooong time, Marianas as a free map with a WWII version was planned ages ago, so no, do not drag us into anyone elses story, the world is not that big and conflicts happened in many locations that games will overlap, we do not try and stop anyone from making their own vision of any particular theater. 

The P-51D was what was supposed to become a Flying Legends collection in DCS, modelling some of the most epic warbirds of that and other eras. RRG came along and wanted to create an all-encompassing ETO theatre, when they saw that much of their Kickstarter went towards the first aircraft, which started the death spiral. That first WWII fighter will make or break a 3rd Party, I think, in many cases, they are more difficult to model correctly (at least when it comes to flight modelling). 

We never had the manpower to do a full-blown WWII sim. We picked up the pieces the best we could, and we have what we have now. With the F4U coming and the Hellcat being a favourite of the boss, a dip into the PTO theatre just made sense. If we do a Zero... oh my, while other games could do many different Zeros, our version, if we can, would be... epic. 

Anyways...

Let sleeping dogs lie, I will leave this video here and open, but not sure I care to see anymore here I know how it ends.

 

[BIGNEWY]

Ive hidden some posts here. 

please remember to treat everyone with respect if you are going to post here, posts that are insulting will be hidden and a warning will be given. 

The rules can be found at the top of the forum and apply to everyone. 

Thank you 

 

[Dragon1-1]

4 hours ago, NineLine said:

If we do a Zero... oh my, while other games could do many different Zeros, our version, if we can, would be... epic. 

I don't think I've ever seen a high fidelity sim do a proper Zero. There was exactly one that did anything near PTO, and that was way back. Japanese aircraft are noted to be hard to get documentation for (Imperial Japan having destroyed much of it at the end of WWII), so that will probably be the first time anyone has seriously attempted such a thing. Epic indeed.

Worth noting that as far as '44 ETO goes, some aircraft would be shared between that and PTO, especially if we got multiple versions. The P-38 is a good example.

[Silver_Dragon]

16 hours ago, [HOUNDS] CptTrips said:

Dang you are touchy.  

I've heard he also like BoB and chronologically that would make more sense to do first.  In my opinion the decision to move toward PTO first could conceivably have been influence by the arrival of that other sim.

And I take it you haven't bothered to watch the videos if you are claiming I said this was ED's fault.

  

Subsistible? Not realistic, and there's a timeline and post on this forum to confirm it... if you joined in 2021, you haven't experienced any of WW2, and you didn't live through the whole soap opera Oleg threw at us with his lame promises of "His" product, which was going to be a standalone product, which had absolutely nothing to do with DCS World.

We've seen teams come here selling the sun and the moon (about 6-7 "3rd Parties"), and I was in one that wanted to make a Rhino, and we ended up in a dog fight.

You seem to be forgetting that Nick Grey flies an F6F in The Fighter Collection, and since 2020, with the release of the channel's map, there was talk of PTO and BoB. But when Marianas came out in 2021, it was also confirmed that there would be a WW2 map.

Even with the disastrous non-release of the P-40F from VEAO, there were members clamoring for a map of Guadalcanal / North Guinea... as I said, there has been a lot of talk about PTO since 2015, but those who didn't see it coming were blind. And no, let's not be a broken record of "ED is moving against other companies" because it doesn't work, especially without any proof.

Let's also remember that M3 claimed since 2015 that he was interested in making a map of Iwo Jima, but he never confirmed that he had a map team, because the project ended up in oblivion, but neither the PTO Assistance Pack nor the F4U (talked from 2016) were forgotten.

Edited Tuesday at 03:59 PM by Silver_Dragon

[Silver_Dragon]

3 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

I don't think I've ever seen a high fidelity sim do a proper Zero. There was exactly one that did anything near PTO, and that was way back. Japanese aircraft are noted to be hard to get documentation for (Imperial Japan having destroyed much of it at the end of WWII), so that will probably be the first time anyone has seriously attempted such a thing. Epic indeed.

Worth noting that as far as '44 ETO goes, some aircraft would be shared between that and PTO, especially if we got multiple versions. The P-38 is a good example.

Has a member of M3 3rd Party with claim a Zero module will be feasible. 

[SharpeXB]

The tone is so dramatic…

[MAXsenna]

3 hours ago, Silver_Dragon said:

Has a member of M3 3rd Party with claim a Zero module will be feasible. 

Please read again what @Dragon1-1 wrote. He did not mentioned M3 at all. He mentioned other sims that predates DCS. And he also writes that if ED makes a Zero, it will be epic.

2 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

The tone is so dramatic…

Ain't it always.

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

3 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

The tone is so dramatic…

It wouldn't be a flight sim discussion if someone wasn't diving for the fainting couch.

[SharpeXB]

A cautionary tale to be sure. Honestly the Kickstarter video explains the history and reality of making these games today very well. More people should watch that before judging sims today as not having enough content or taking too long to finish. Comparing them to games of the past that were exponentially less expensive to create. 

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

2 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

A cautionary tale to be sure. Honestly the Kickstarter video explains the history and reality of making these games today very well. More people should watch that before judging sims today as not having enough content or taking too long to finish. Comparing them to games of the past that were exponentially less expensive to create. 

I think I had the benefit of watching that happen, in real time. I remember loving Half Life 1 mods. It seemed like every 2-3 months, there was a new total conversion mod that would drop and it was awesome. When Half-Life 2 dropped, not as many were available. I kept playing lots of HL1 mods, but very little came to HL2 in that time period. 

I imagine the complexities in art have only grown exponentially and it's why we see games like DUSK and Amid Evil do so damn well.

And, now increase the coding complexities tenfold and you have a flight sim!

[Dragon1-1]

That's hitting just about every genre. Kerbal Space Program community was kickstarted by incredibly simple art style of the early versions, allowing new parts to be made quick and easy, on top of a relatively simple game setup. Every time the quality standards went up, the number of new part mods shrank. Nowadays only a few are making top quality PBR assets.

Art for modern games aiming for realistic visuals is extremely time consuming to create. Some UE5 games still manage to have a thriving modding community making assets for them, but even then, it's nothing like the massive modding communities of old. Now, we've seen a proliferation of games which deliberately forgo fancy visuals and use something more stylized, often making it easier to make assets, but it's not really an option for flight sims, which attempt to get as close to reality as they can, and graphics are part of it, too (see the endless discussions about spotting). And then, you get highly elaborate coding on top of that.

[Aapje]

12 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Art for modern games aiming for realistic visuals is extremely time consuming to create.

AI might change this.

On Youtube I already see some top tier content where people use AI, like this:

AI doesn't replace the need for a human contribution to create quality, but it can make the required effort a lot more manageable.

[Dragon1-1]

52 minutes ago, Aapje said:

AI might change this.

Show me an AI that can generate a textured 3D model that's usable in a game. This task is orders of magnitude harder than making a 2D drawing, and training data is much more sparse, not to mention not easily extracted from free content. In fact, this is the very reason why 3D models are more often sold than offered for free. There's also no easy way to steal 3D work, since 3D previews are a rarity, and most models are showcased via 2D images. That's before you factor in very specific requirements for models to be used in a game engine. As such, I don't see LLMs ever being able to do much useful work with 3D. Sure, an artist could figured out some way to use them, but a lot of legwork will remain to be done by hand.

There seem to be some AI model generators, but I'm not sure how they work in real world use cases. Even if they create passable models for static renders, they're unlikely to be easy to convert to something that can be used in a game.

52 minutes ago, Aapje said:

On Youtube I already see some top tier content where people use AI, like this:

I don't call that top tier content. That humans have made similar slop doesn't mean it's worth anything. It may make it possible to churn those out quicker, but it's a long way from the top.

As of recently, it's being used for SFX in a proper movie, and it supposedly shortened some work that's tricky to do the traditional way, but that doesn't mean an indie director is going to be churning out the likes of Avatar. It can be a good tool, but only in hands of an already good artist, used for speeding up some tedious technical bits.

Edited yesterday at 10:01 AM by Dragon1-1

[SharpeXB]

2 hours ago, Aapje said:

On Youtube I already see some top tier content where people use AI, like this:

If AI is capable of so much why are we still waiting for content here? Hey ChatGPT make us a Dynamic Campaign. 

Edited yesterday at 11:15 AM by SharpeXB

[AndyJWest]

25 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

If AI is capable of so much why are we still waiting for content here? Hey ChatGPT make us a Dynamic Campaign. 

Or make us an entirely-new high-fidelity air combat simulation? For free. With an 'add new aircraft' button so nobody has to wait for pesky developers to make stuff. You want a XB-70 Valkyrie, but can't find it in the mission editor? No problem. ChatGPT will have it ready for you in a few minutes. Yeah, that'll happen...

Meanwhile, in the real world, ChatGPT is still struggling with basic concepts like the difference between looking something up in a cited source and inventing fictitious but plausible-sounding citations. 

 

Edited yesterday at 11:35 AM by AndyJWest

[Silver_Dragon]

2 hours ago, Aapje said:

AI might change this.

On Youtube I already see some top tier content where people use AI, like this:

AI doesn't replace the need for a human contribution to create quality, but it can make the required effort a lot more manageable.

AI is just a placebo, it doesn't reach that level, and no, AI has horrendous problems generating code or doing anything creative, because it doesn't "reason," but copies and pastes its predefined patterns, and when you review them you find that it's absolute crap... The fact that people have dedicated themselves to switching from the creator's chip to "let an AI do it for me" shows the level we're going to (and yes, I've seen it in schools and in my sector, with programmers writing code via AI, and then when an application breaks down, the one who made it doesn't even know where to start)....

And I understand that AI has evolved, but the same thing happens, they create a 3D model, and when you put that in 3DS Max and try to add arguments, textures, and animations, you'll have to sacrifice 20 souls to some dark god for it to be coherent...

3 minutes ago, AndyJWest said:

Or make us an entirely-new high-fidelity air combat simulation? For free. With an 'add new aircraft' button so nobody has to wait for pesky developers to make stuff. You want a XB-70 Valkyrie, but can't find it in the mission editor? No problem. ChatGPT will have it ready for you in a few minutes. Yeah, that'll happen...

Meanwhile, in the real world, ChatGPT is still struggling with basic concepts like the difference between looking something up in a cited source and inventing fictitious but plausible-sounding citations. 

 

You've hit the nail on the head. For a while I tried to create an alternate history with GPT Chat / Gemini. The level of frustration it generated due to its repetitiveness, disjointedness, forgetting previous lines, and doing whatever it wanted without breaking a sweat was such that I gave up on it, no matter how hard I tried to "shepherd" it...

[Dragon1-1]

1 hour ago, Silver_Dragon said:

You've hit the nail on the head. For a while I tried to create an alternate history with GPT Chat / Gemini. The level of frustration it generated due to its repetitiveness, disjointedness, forgetting previous lines, and doing whatever it wanted without breaking a sweat was such that I gave up on it, no matter how hard I tried to "shepherd" it...

In my experience, people who think AI is hot stuff had either never tried to use it for anything serious, or their mental capacity is not enough to produce anything better.  For instance, it can write sitcom episodes that aren't that different from the human-written fare. Which says more about sitcoms and their writers than about the AI...

It can be a tool used to alter existing imagery and text. Used with care, some people had good results with it. It's not a revolution some people expect it to be, but it's not completely useless. It just shouldn't be used to generate "original" text.

Edited yesterday at 12:54 PM by Dragon1-1