DCS WWII: Europe 1944

[Minoslas]

RRG Studios announced new project: DCS WWII: Europe 1944

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.ph...52#post1855052

RRG Studios announces an upcoming Kickstarter campaign for DCS WWII: Europe 1944, a start of an exciting new flight simulation series.

MOSCOW, Russia – September 1, 2013 - Legendary flight simulation designers Ilya Shevchenko, Igor Tishin, and Matt Wagner are excited to announce an upcoming Kickstarter campaign for a new WWII flight simulation being developed for the PC. DCS WWII: Europe 1944 is the start of an exciting new flight simulation series. Built by industry veterans at RRG Studios with the same approach that made famous flight sims of the past great, and in partnership with the experts at the Fighter Collection and Eagle Dynamics, the simulation aims to satisfy seasoned aces as well as attract new pilots to the genre.

DCS WWII: Europe 1944 will take the player to the skies over Western Europe at the height of WWII in 1944. Players will attack enemy ground vehicles in the famous P-47 Thunderbolt in the Battle of Falaise, or intercept waves of B-17 Flying Fortresses in their Messerschmitt Bf.109; or attempt to fend off incredible new Me.262 jet fighters in their suddenly slow and obsolete propeller-driven Spitfires.

With successful Kickstarter funding of stretch goals, the project will include more famous historical aircraft, such as the Lockheed P-38, de Havilland Mosquito, Messerschmitt Me.262, and even a flyable version of the Boeing B-17.

The simulation is based on the award-winning DCS engine used in such stellar products as DCS: P-51D Mustang and DCS: A-10C Warthog. DCS WWII: Europe 1944 will boast an all-new EDGE landscape engine, as well as many new and updated features.

As all simulations in the DCS line, DCS WWII titles will boast detailed recreations of famous WWII aircraft and meticulous modeling of individual aircraft systems. Combat missions over a huge game world painstakingly recreated from period maps will offer rich single-player experience recreating famous battles from both sides.

DCS WWII will also ship with advanced AI that recreates historical tactics and models pilots of varying skill levels, from bumbling rookies to merciless aces. Other features such as the dynamic weather and seasons, comprehensive training, robust multiplayer , a powerful mission and campaign editor, as well as a mission replay system, pilot log book, and other features will all add up to incredible player experience.

“With unparalleled attention to detail, our developers have decades of experience with aerial combat simulations,” said Ilya Shevchenko of RRG Studios. “We are famous for our ability to make our games fun while maintaining unwavering dedication to historical realism. We can do it because the relatively simple aircraft of the WWII era do not require extensive training, and nimble controls and simple weapons naturally lead to fast-paced close-quarters battles.“

“We want to open a new page in WWII combat simulations,” said Matt Wagner of Eagle Dynamics. “At the same time we strive to recapture everything that made the flight simulations of the past great, starting with a thick spiral-bound manual and comprehensive training, and ending with great free-for-all multiplayer. We want to keep creating the content that we enjoy creating and that our fans enjoy playing for years to come.”
The team intends for DCS WWII: Europe 1944 to act as the forerunner of a long-running DCS WWII simulation series covering all theaters of WWII, and expanding into other nearby conflicts, such as the Korean War.

In addition to industry-leading attention to detail, incredible graphics, unparalleled flight dynamics, and award-winning multiplayer, DCS WWII: Europe 1944 will also shop with an innovative distribution model. As the last major release in the DCS line, DCS World, DCS WWII will also be distributed via a free-to-play model. The full-featured core game will be available as a free download, allowing anyone to check out the game and its features. Additional modules containing new aircraft or new gameplay areas will be available as a separate purchase.

The free-to-play model allows a wider audience access the core game by, in essence, offering a free demo that allows anyone to try the game before they buy it. At the same time, the model accurately reflects immense development costs attached to historically accurate study sims.

The Kickstarter campaign for the title will launch on September 5th.

About RRG Studios

RRG Studios brings over 10 years of experience with WWII flight simulations to the table. Staffed with flight sim veterans that worked on the greatest WWII flight sim series of the 21st century, we literally wrote the book on the new generation of flight sims.

About Eagle Dynamics

Eagle Dynamics is the studio responsible for the biggest modern aviation sims of the past twenty years. In-house experts have industry-best experience with physics, avionics, ballistics, and all other components that go into making a successful flight simulation. Eagle Dynamics continues to redefine the genre and continuously sets the bar high with each new release.

About the Fighter Collection

The Fighter Collection is the company that manages Eagle Dynamics. It is based in Cambridge, England, and it operates Europe’s largest fleet of airworthy WWII aircraft. The Fighter Collection runs the annual Flying Legends airshow, giving us unprecedented access to the aircraft we simulate.

[Cybermat47]

Good news

[Herr-Berbunch]

Great news.

As long as more DCS maps come out of it. It'll still come before Nevada!

[Oberon]

At first I was intrigued and interested, and then I found out that this is a joint effort between ED and Luthier, he of CloD fame. So, the gap between what they say is going to happen and what will really happen remains to be seen.
Either way I'll just keep an eye on this one.

[Arclight]

I've got 3 year old screenshots of my A-10 over Nevada. That map is still nowhere to be seen... Maps seem to take them a while in general, regardless of who's involved.

[Minoslas]

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=112649

Hello everyone,

We’ll be launching our kickstarter in about 24 hours, or, in the worst case, about 30 hours.

If you’re not sure about what DCS WWII: Europe 1944 is, please read the official announcement or join the discussion here.

There are a few very important points we’d like to make:

1. The project is at a very early stage.
Normally, video game development goes something like this. You go through some initial planning and discussion. You agree on budget and schedule, then begin the development. After some months, or maybe even years, you arrive at a playable mock-up or maybe a pre-alpha version. You announce the project, show what you have to the fans, and move forward.
With DCS WWII, we’re doing something different. We are in the very early initial design stage. If things were done the normal way, we’d be about six months away from an official announcement.
Why then are we doing this? Because we are not working with a publisher. When we looked at our budget and our schedule, we realized we’d be cutting it very close and we’d really need a bit more money and a bit more time to really do things comfortably. So we decided to go the kickstarter route. It should give us the freedom to really perfect our game; and perhaps even allow us to make a larger product if we manage to hit our stretch goals.
And so, we’re back to the main point. The project is very, very early. Normally we would not show it to the public at this stage.
We could wait six months and go kickstarter then – but then we’d lose the stretch goal option. If we don’t start on, say, a flyable B-17 today, if we wait six months to begin, then we delay its release by six months as well.
So, we know how the community lives to scrutinize every pixel and every word. So please keep in mind that things are not just WIP. They’re so far away from final, they’re all the way back at the other end. They’re “initial”.
Kickstarter changes a lot of things on our end, so please accept it as a change on yours. We’re showing you the project six months before we normally would. Please keep that in mind in all future discussion.

2. Kickstarter can fail.
Here’s how it works.
We are asking for a relatively minor initial sum on kickstarter which is needed to put in a few extra features and really polish and perfect the product.
We obviously need a large number of people to back the project to even hit the initial sum.
If you back the project, but over the course of the kickstarter campaign we fail to reach the initial goal, then the campaign fails and all the money is returned to backers. We the developers receive nothing.
However if we do manage to excite enough fans to back the project in the next 30 days, and we hit our initial goal, then this opens the road to the real meat of the campaign: stretch goals. All money raised will go towards development. If we manage to hit additional stretch goals, we will add a lot more exciting stuff to the project, most importantly new aircraft and new gameplay maps.
However that will require a significant community effort. Larger stretch goals will require thousands and thousands of backers; it’d require the equivalent of everyone who ever bought DCS: P-51 to come in with the purchase price they paid in the next 30 days and back our kickstarter to hit some of the larger stretch goals.
Possible? We hope so. But we’ll need help.

3. We need your help!
What we really need for our project to succeed is exposure.
If you back our project, please tell your friends about it.
Even if you cannot back our project, but are excited about it, tell your friends.
DCS WWII: Europe 1944 requires a large concentrated community effort to become successful.
If you are a journalist, please get in touch.
If you are a member of a flight sim community, please mention our kickstarter on your forums. If your friends have questions, send them here, or send us to them.
We only speak English and Russian. If you are a member of an international flight sim community, help us spread the word in your language!
Please help us get there. We cannot do it on our own!

Thank you very much. We, everyone, myself personally, are unbelievably excited about tomorrow. See you then!

[captgeo]

last I heard about this ,is that the project is on, but no further updates other then that.

They did raise the funds needed

[Minoslas]

Update 7 incoming:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...-1944/comments

Ilya Shevchenko about 12 hours ago
Hey folks,
Brace yourselves. The next video I release is going to be a much less hardcore look at the game, targeted towards more casual or new players. Still going to have a bunch of gameplay footage, maybe some EDGE, but generally nothing amazingly new.
Then I'll do a part two of the aircraft video talking about the modeling. There's a lot of intricacies there too. External models, cockpits, animations, damage, etc. Should be interesting, and I don't think a lot of developers usually talk about that.
Now, back to EDGE. Doing some color corrections. Maybe it'll look a lot prettier by tomorrow.

[Minoslas]

Update 7 y DCS: World WW2 Interview

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...ope-1944/posts

Good morning !

Brace yourselves. The video we're releasing now is a much less hardcore look at the game. Yet, it tries to answer some of the most important questions we have as flight simmers.

Why are there so few of us?

Why are millions of people playing other hardcore games, games with perhaps more of a learning curve than DCS P-51? Why are they willing to brave through hours of frustration, deaths, restarts, toxic multiplayer, and all of that for a payoff that, to me, is much less satisfying than watching your enemy go down after a dogfight?

The video has my thoughts.

Next, we'll do a part two of the aircraft video focusing on the modeling. There's a lot of intricacies there too. External models, cockpits, animations, damage, etc. Should be interesting, and I don't think a lot of developers usually talk about that.

And a quick update on EDGE. We've been doing some color corrections this week. Beginning to look a lot more like what we want. We'll have a few screenshots soon; just don't want to muddle up this update.

Here's the video:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013...-paper-shotgun

Eight Days And Counting



Have you backed DCS WWII yet? While most of the stretch goals are looking distinctly pipedreamy at present, the $100,000 base hurdle has been cleared and the scent of hot Jumo turbojets is getting stronger with every passing day. Curious about the new Me 262 objective and a Kickstarter campaign that has jinked like a faulty Fritz X, I sent some searching questions Ilya Shevchenko’s way.



RPS: As the first major flight sim developer to use Kickstarter, do you have any advice for studios that decide to follow in your contrails?

Ilya: Launch a pre-kickstarter discussion with your fans about everything. We’ve done a couple of sharp turns during our kickstarter and changed our rewards and stretch goals, and we wish we could change even more.

You may think you know what your fans want, but they know it even better. We went the “vague hints and allusions followed by a major reveal” route, and that locked us in to some bad decisions. If you open up everything you have to the fans without being locked into anything by kickstarter, and dedicate a couple of weeks to a thorough discussion, you will be able to discover and correct a lot of completely unexpected shortcomings.

We had not done that and learned it the hard way. Our kickstarter campaign has definitely lost some money because we miscalculated on a lot of rewards. Our high-price rewards turned out to be too bland, while lower-tier rewards offered too many choices and ended up confusing people. Our stretch goals had to be revised twice. Even our overall marketing approach completely shifted about a week into the campaign. Had we identified and corrected this before launching, I’m sure we could have done even better.



RPS: Why was the Me 262 chosen as the focus for the new $150,000 stretch goal? Surely they saw relatively little action over Normandy?

Ilya: The project is not Normandy 1944, but rather Europe 1944. Normandy terrain is the first one we’re doing, but it’s not our primary or only focus. We want to have a generic plane set to recreate a variety of aerial battles that took place over Western Europe in that year, and the 262 is certainly a very good airplane for that.

With DCS, creating aircraft is a very expensive and time-consuming business. Even creating sub-variants of existing aircraft is extremely complicated. That is why we cannot make a plane set specifically tailored for any one historical battle. If we did that, moving on to Market Garden or Ardennes would require a huge effort. With a more generic set of planes, we can cover more ground.

However, the main reason for the Me.262 being the next immediate stretch goal is that we’re already doing half the work for it in the base tier. All aircraft in DCS contain three parts: the external model, the cockpit model, and the programming. A plane without a cockpit can still be flown by AI. That’s what the 262 will be in the initial release if we don’t hit any stretch goals: a troublesome enemy that makes defending bombers really challenging. Adding a cockpit to it and making it player controllable is not as big of a task as making an entire new plane from scratch. So, the Me.262 is the cheapest and the quickest new plane we can add to the base project, and therefore the most reachable stretch goal we can do.



RPS: The EDGE engine looks splendid. Do you think it’s going to make piloting easier… more naturalistic?

Ilya: Yes we do. There is something intangible about the feeling of flight you get from terrain. Objects of proper scale, various small details, grass, trees, all that background noise, proper colors, all create that subconscious feeling of being there. It also makes it possible to gauge your airspeed and altitude without glancing at your instrument cluster, another huge advantage.



It takes a tremendous effort to design and perfect, and it’s one of those things you never even notice when it works. It works on a subconscious level by adding various subtle clues that all add up to better immersion.

EDGE, to my knowledge, is the only flight sim terrain engine specifically designed for and tested by real pilots. Proper feeling of flight at all altitudes, realistic-looking airfields, all of that is designed precisely to feel as close to the real thing as possible.



RPS: If none of the stretch goals are reached will all Allied sorties start and finish in the air?

Ilya: No, of course not. Post D-Day the Allies built a huge number of temporary airfields all over the Normandy coast. That’s where the Allied players will be based.



RPS: Will hedge-hopping DCS WWII pilots need to worry about vegetation collisions?

Ilya: My long and painful experience with past projects forces me to add a warning here that all features are subject to change and so on and so forth. And, the answer is yes.



RPS: Do you foresee DCS WWII growing in a similar way to DCS: World? Might we, one day, see third-party aircraft from the likes of Belsimtek, and simple Combined Arms-style tank simming?

Ilya: We hope so. RRG is certainly not taking over the DCS WWII market. We fully understand the value of cooperation, and, as hard as that may be to believe, we care about fan experience more than about anything else. Happy fans equal series longevity. If we sit on DCS WWII by ourselves, we can only make a certain amount of content per year. We do not have the resources to expand the project into all theaters of WWII and cover even all the major aircraft, not to mention all the less important or obscure ones we really enjoyed having in our past projects.

A large 3rd party or even community-run effort to create aircraft, maps, ground objects, etc can and should turn DCS WWII into a comprehensive all-around flight sim that almost has more than any single fan would ever need. That’s our dream.



RPS: Creating single-player campaigns that are both involving and replayable seems to be something the flight sim industry isn’t especially good at these days. How are RRG and ED approaching the task?

Ilya: I’ve been doing flight sims for a very long time, and we’ve tried a whole bunch of things over the years. We’ve played with static campaigns; these allow for more immediate wow-factor, but virtually no replay value. We’ve played with dynamic campaigns. These offer nearly unlimited replay value in theory, but in reality begin to feel generic and empty rather quickly. Dynamic campaigns are also a lot more difficult and expensive to create. Bland cookie-cutter missions are perhaps a feature of a poor dynamic campaign engine, but we’ve never had the luxury to create a great big full-featured one. So we won’t try it in Europe 1944.

For now, our solution may not be perfect, but at least it’s novel.We plan to release regular content updates that include new missions and campaigns, some for free, and some for a small cost.

We also plan to work with our community. DCS ships with a powerful campaign and mission editor which allow anyone to create their own single- or multiplayer content. We’ve noticed with our past titles that the quality of some user-made content easily eclipses that of our own. We hope to engage the best of the community and actively promote their content through our official channels, making it available to a larger slice of our player base.

In short, we will have static campaigns. We’ll deal with replayability by consistently releasing new content.



RPS: Disappointed by the last major WW2 flight sim release, some potential backers seem to be hanging back. Do you have any words of reassurance for this group?

Ilya: If there’s one thing we learned from that is that we should not agree to make games cheaper and quicker than we feel we should.

The only reassurance I can add though is that we are making a free-to-play game. If the quality of the initial release is not stellar, we are all out of a job. No one wants that. The reason we’re doing this again, the reason I have my old colleagues back on board, is that we really do feel like we finally, perhaps for the first time in our flight sim development careers, have enough time and money to properly build and test a game.

Finally, we are working with Eagle Dynamics. We are putting their hallowed DCS name on our title. ED has industry-best reputation for quality. There is no reason for them at all to release an inferior product.



RPS: Viewed from the outside, creating high-fidelity light sims looks to be a pretty stressful and high-risk business. What aspects of the process do you find most enjoyable and satisfying?

Ilya: I like planes.

My enjoyment went through several distinct phases. If we’re going to get a bit sentimental here, well, why not.

The very first time I did something concrete was when we were alpha testing Oleg’s first flight sim way back in the year 2000. I remember sending a bunch of suggestions, then launching the next build and suddenly seeing my corrections right there in the game. Having tangible input on a project of that scale and quality just blew my mind.

I just surfed that rush for the next couple of years. My involvement with the project grew, and I ran a site that managed all 3rd party mods for the title, an effort that took more time than my full-time paying job. It completely devoured me, and I enjoyed every second of it. I just really enjoyed seeing the progression of an aircraft from a blueprint to a vague 3D shape to a beautiful textured model and finally to a roaring in-game war machine.

My role continued to expand and by around 2003 I was basically allowed to steer the ship. That gave me a new thrill. I realized that I was creating entire worlds. I could just point at some idea and say “let’s do this”. Then all these people were suddenly working to implement my vision. A few months later, my vague fantasy suddenly became something tangible, something that existed on its own. It’s such a complex emotion I’m having a hard time putting it into words. I felt like I controlled this huge complex machine whose final end-product was my own videogame! The four-year-old in me enjoyed it on one level, while the more grown-up me, I guess, enjoyed the intricacies and ups and downs of being able to put such a complex plan into motion.



Another huge factor, and perhaps the most important one for me, is simply working with friends. We’re a bunch of people who love the same thing, are obsessed with the same idea. We’ve known each other for over a decade. We work well together. We like each other. We have fun. A group of life-long friends who have been through thick and thin, all working together and doing something they truly love, that’s just extremely powerful. And like I said, I just really happen to love WWII aviation. If I had been doing the exact same thing I’m doing except my games were about elves or post-apocalyptic battle mechs, it wouldn’t have been the same.

RPS: Thank you for your time.

[Minoslas]

Update 6 KickStarter DCS: World WW2 1944

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?...60&postcount=1

You've asked for it. We've discussed it. Now we're very happy to announce that we will be releasing the EDGE landscape engine SDK to Kickstarter backers.

The SDK can be used to create new landscapes for the DCS WWII project. It's an all-in-one tool that combines a 3D object library, texture manager, and a landscape editor. With a full 24-hour day cycle, options for multiple seasons and time periods on the same map, and industry-best level of detail, EDGE is designed for and tested by real pilots to ensure it meets the highest standards of realism.

Please note that the Normandy landscape shown in the video is an early mock-up using temporary stand-in objects,mock-up trees, and low-quality placeholder textures.

We're really hoping that the community can organize a concentrated effort to design and create one or more new landscapes for DCS WWII. With the amount of time we have before the initial release, it should be possible to have them completed for the day-one release of Europe 1944!

A more detailed look at the tools and the technical details of the design process will be released at a later time. The SDK itself should be available later this year. Please note that the SDK will be released to project backers only and / or will require a signed NDA to use.

[Minoslas]

Q&A DCS: WW2 Terrain SDK

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?...3&postcount=43

This is the landscape editor. All its features will indeed be revealed.

However the ability to compile the final map and to let tanks drive or planes fly over the new landscape will not be released out. So, many features that relate to the terrain's implementation within the game will not be a part of the SDK.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?...8&postcount=48

The point of releasing the SDK is so that maps can be made faster by the community than RRG can make themselves, without giving all the tools to make it functional. This will let them put more attention to the aircraft. Enough will be provided to make the land, but the final conversion process of it to let it plug into DCS/DCS WWII will be done by ED or RRG. This would act as quality control, which is in my opinion a good thing.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?...2&postcount=51

A map in EDGE actually has real-world coordinated connected to a virtual globe. It has constraints.

You could create your own landscape project that borders an existing map.

Then you could just join the two projects together, and have them combined.

That's how, for example, you could join forces between multiple creators working on the same map. Just split it, then join it.

Theoretically you could do silly things like take Normandy, make Scotland, and make Ruhr, then join them together. You'd be able to take off from Scotland, climb, fly over barren nothing below, cross over pretty Normandy, fly over some more nothing, bomb a factory, and then go back home.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?...1&postcount=78

Guys, we have an SDK for a game that's not out yet.

Even if we were to release the EDGE source code as freeware, you'd be in the exact same boat. Build, create, compile, and then what?

Until you have at least the DCS WWII alpha, you have no game in which you can fly over your terrain.

We cannot release an even earlier build than our alpha.

The SDK comes with its own landviewer, which is the app in which I did all the footage in the latest vid. That's where you'll test your landscape.

I'm sure we'll have the outstanding questions resolved well before DCS WWII hits alpha. Once we have an official stance on commercial use of EDGE by 3rd parties, everything else will follow naturally.

With non-commercial use, we're obviously interested in having a large amount of user-made content. We're also a very small team and we can't be the quality control or the publisher for everything our users make.

The only reason to release an SDK is to help your product grow. No one on this side has any desire to be the bottleneck in that process.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?...2&postcount=84

There's pretty much one game engine at this point.

What works in DCS WWII works in DCS World, at least on the developers' machines as of this very second.

You can theoretically create anything you want, but I really have nothing to do with DCS World as a product line.

The reason why we are talking about the SDK now, the reason why we're releasing it when we are, is DCS WWII specifically.

I personally am interested in garnering and supporting a large-scale community effort to create new WWII content. Here, my main goal is to make sure we have as many talented, dedicated people working on this as possible, and that they enjoy doing it and want to keep doing it long enough to finish the process.

If we just put hurdles in their path, prevent them from seeing their own work, or provide poor support, then this entire effort is wasted: me making that video, discussing this now, us making the effort to create the SDK for external consumption, future discussions with backers, writing tech specs, etc etc etc. There's no point in us doing any of that if we'll give you the kind of SDK that people play with for a while, shrug their shoulders, and go find something better to do with their time.

This I guess should be a more important point than any technical details. Not what we're doing, but why we're doing it.