Journal des développeurs partie 20:
http://forum.il2sturmovik.net/topic/168 ... entry12501
Hello dear friends!
There is not much time until the completion of the first version of the project. So far we've been able to move without excluding ideas and wishes for inclusion into the product, but sooner or later we expect that we will have to start saying "no" to suggestions from not only you, but ourselves. This is definitely a difficult process to decide what to include, because all ideas without exception seem to be important and interesting to someone.
Since time is short, I think I can begin to tell you about the gameplay. First I want to remind you what goal we set for ourselves. First of all, we know that the audience is very heterogeneous and it has different groups of players often have conflicting wishes. Some players think that only multiplayer is worthy of attention, others would like to see the entire ground war modeled instead of focusing on missions, some folks just wants to know what it was like to dogfight during the Second World War and lastly, some will just get a disc as a gift and not know what he or she wants from the game. Realizing that our audience is so different, we came to a strategy of the gameplay that we call "Single Player Online".
As you can see, this term consists of two parts that usually are divided into Single - Single Player and Online - game over a network. It's believed that if you're playing through a network then this must necessarily be a game against other players, but it's not. The network gives us other possibilities for constructing the gaming process. For further explanation I use two more modern terms of the gaming industry: PvP and PvE (PvP - Player versus Player and PvE - Player versus Environment).
Of course PvP mode creates excitement because there is nothing that excites the nerves as the realization that in your gun sight of a human player. The first victory in the network is always memorable and then you can excitedly tell others how you won. But, alas, this excitement often means primitive gameplay.
PvE mode gives the opportunity to tell the story for the player and the AI plays the role of the statistician and the scenery in this process. PvE missions have a story and imply role-based gameplay.
In our new project we're creating PvP and PvE part of the game that will be linked. But PvE mode will be a little more important because this specific type of gameplay will allow us to recreate a complete picture of one of the most tragic and heroic battles that took place on the Volga.
In order to meet the needs of such different audiences, we decided to build the gaming process so that everyone can find exactly the style of gameplay that best matches his or her gaming requirements or time restrictions.
Missions represent 5 main phases of the Battle of Stalingrad (the list and the names of the phases are not final).
1) Phase 1 - On the eve of the counter-offensive
2) Phase 2 - Operation "Uranus"
3) Phase 3 - Fight against air bridge
4) Phase 4 - Operation "Winter storm"
5) Phase 5 - Operation "Ring"
The phases are placed in historical sequence and you'll get a general idea about the course of the battle when you'll go through them all. To move to the next phase, the pilot must successfully complete the necessary tasks of the previous phase.
At each phase, the location of the Soviet and German armies is unique and corresponds to the historical realities. This applies to the location of the armies themselves and airfields. The situation varies from phase to phase and illustrates the course of the battle. How does the logic of missions work? In this article I'll talk about the general logic and the next Friday we'll talk about the details.
Single Player Online allows us to create a unique structure which will form the basis of the game. Mission generator will be on the server as well as a template for the phase of the battle. A customer chooses a phase and some other conditions such as type of aircraft and makes a request. The pilot receives a unique generated mission. Every mission is unique and differs in detail from any other mission that is generated for any other players. Two missions identical in the details will be very rare (less than 5%). And no player knows what task he or she will be assigned until the request is made. This will ensure a fair and unbiased game for everyone involved. Of course, the most important factor is the performance of tasks in the mission because only such an outcome will bring you a real advantage. Destroyed enemy aircraft or equipment that is not the purpose of the mission, of course will be recorded in your stats, but it does not help you in advancing the story.
You'll find continuation of the story about the gameplay in the next diaries.
As a bonus, I want to show you a short video that demonstrates the capabilities of the sound engine. In the video you’ll see a Bf-109 flying at a distance of about 100 meters away from the camera. You can hear that the sound engine is very complex and simulates all the sound effects from the real world.
Vidéo Alpha version d'un BF109 Sound test:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hlXqg52 ... r_embedded