Over Flanders Fields

[GlobalExplorer]

Originally Posted by Subtype Zero

Regarding your posts on SimHQ about constant error messages in OFF2. I am told that to get rid of those you have to go into workshop and click on the button for "disable warnings" or something like that.

Thanks, but "disable warnings" is a different thing than "disable errors". You hear that from someone who develops software himself LOL. That offmananger software is a piece of ****, I wouldnt touch it with a ten foot pole if the mod itself wasnt just so good. There's no way around it!

[GlobalExplorer]

Had to make another screen showing that this is the first game that shows towns in full glory: Verdun

Ground terrain up to a couple hundred meters is the best I've ever seen maybe together with Lomac.

Though it's gotta be said, even E8400 was stuttering a little bit over that town.

[Subtype Zero]

What kind of errors are you getting? The "disable warnings" button gets rid of the missing skin or aces file messages that pop up for every mission. The reason those are in there is because the devs hoped to get them into OFF2 but weren't able to. They say the missing files have been corrected in phase 3. I agree it reflects a certain laziness or lack of "polish" on the part of the devs, though.

[GlobalExplorer]

Ah can't remember "pilot not found in cfs uisel", "CFS was not terminated normally", "MDI device not found", "cannot load mission" lots of such useless stuff.

[Stealth Hunter]

Originally Posted by GlobalExplorer

Ah can't remember "pilot not found in cfs uisel", "CFS was not terminated normally", "MDI device not found", "cannot load mission" lots of such useless stuff.

Yeah, I got problems like that all the time.

CFS3 had crap coding to begin with. The OFF devs didn't do anything to try to improve stability either. I had issues come up with the game when I hadn't modified or changed a damn thing. Eventually, it would stop working altogether. I uninstalled it and have stuck to FULL CANVAS JACKET since then.

[GlobalExplorer]

CFS3 is not to blame for those problems. It's the damn OFFManager, which is coded in Visual Basic and by someone who did not have enough experience to handle the most basic of errors. If something is not as it should be it just starts producing errors and after a while it ends up in a mostly undefined state.

I currently have a new problem: the OFFManager doesnt carry over mission results at all, it just ****ing sits there as if I hadn't started the mission yet.

Anyway, if you want the best WWI experience today you are in between the mod and the OFFManager. If you want the mod you will have to accept the OFFMan the way it is, that's the situation gentlemen.

The only way to backup a working OFF will be to have everything, OS, pilots, CFS3 and the OFF mod in one image. So ultimately I concluded that I will have to create an image file just dedicated to OFF, it will be huge, but probably the only way to enjoy OFF in the future.

[Stealth Hunter]

Some of those problems were already there, but we do agree on the point that they never did improve anything with the mod. They made it worse...

CFS3 on its own is kind of buggy, but it at least RUNS PROPERLY.

P3 had better have MASSIVE stability improvements for $50 bucks.

[GlobalExplorer]

I see it more or less like that: I'm not sure if they have yet realized that with the 50$ fee they have to deliver a commercial product: stable, relatively easy to install, properly supported if something goes wrong. And concerning CFS bugs what can they do? That talk about "new" AI is obviously hogwash, they have only improved the icing over the same cake. The best thing they could achieve is not introduce more bugs into the overall package than are already there.

But CFS is not really the problem. In the light of what can be achieved with the extra polish CFS3 could have been a fantastic sim, I was really looking forward to it from the early screenshots and could never really out my finger into why it sucked so much at release. Guess MS had lost interest in the CFS franchise and forced a release a year or two before it was ready. With OFF it is now looking like it should have from the start.

Before I sound too negative OFF is the 1st choice for WW1 flying, but I'm really worried how many people actually play it.

[XabbaRus]

Just been reading your exchange over at SimHQ. Interesting to say the least..

[Stealth Hunter]

Love GimpyGuy's response:

However, you can do yourself a BIG favor. NEVER Exceed 4 on the Scenery or Terrian detail sliders, no matter How Good it Looks on 5.
And it Will appear sensational . . for a while.
After a few days, you'll start experiencing video abnormalities for which there can be No Explination.

Solution is simple, back off to 4

Bull****. They haven't tweaked the graphics to a huge level. They've made a few textures hi-res compatible and made models a little more complex. That's it. Probably just trying to cover up bugs by attempting to woo the players into thinking "DAMN! THIS GAME MUST BE EPIC!".

I still love my FCJ.

[GlobalExplorer]

Gotta say Winding Man on SimHQ wrote that the vids are definitely not taken with human players, they found some way to improve AI coding.

[Stealth Hunter]

I suppose he's got evidence to back that claim up... right?:hmm:

[XabbaRus]

I just thought the replies you got were slightly defensive in nature.

[GlobalExplorer]

Originally Posted by Stealth Hunter

I suppose he's got evidence to back that claim up... right?:hmm:

It should be obvious so short before release, all we have to do is wait and see.

But I will tell you what I think: WM certainly wouldn't commit himself that way if they had not actually achieved something. Today even the uninitiated know that in order to improve hard coded parts one needs access to the source code and recompile the game. But that's only half the truth. What emerges is that they have hacked a dll, with or without the help of Microsoft, who never showed an interest in harming small teams making that kind of improvements to their sims.

This has been done several times in the past, (examples come to mind: the GPL engine and physics changes, the opressed IL2 "sound" mod) and often it has opened up a whole new world for that sim.

Even in the case of Silent Hunter III I was once studying the possibility to hook up to a .dll, in order to get access to savegame and internal data, but I came to the conclusion that Starforce is too much in the way of that. And of course I was not interested in testing UBIs goodwill on copyright issues, because this kind of "hacking for the better" is a very tricky topic.

[GlobalExplorer]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

I just thought the replies you got were slightly defensive in nature.

Defensive, I don't know, I must give it to them that they are handling the questions very professional and didn't bite into the acrimony. Which is their job, btw, as they are not modders anymore but professional software developers .. and imo it is the task of ppl like me to ask unpleasant questions and call BS if there's too much hogwash manufactured by the fanbois !! :rotfl: