Author Topic: Time to Revisit The Cliffs of Dover  (Read 4371 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Time to Revisit The Cliffs of Dover
When this game first came out I heard all the horror stories and I was warned away from it. The game was rushed out the door with a thousand problems and disappointed a lot of people who had looked forward to fighting over the English Channel. To this day the 1946 crowd will not give this game a break. Well, during the Steam holiday sale I decided to take a chance and pick it up for $10. I am so glad I did. A dedicated team of modders called Team Fusion have set to work on it and it's probably the best WW2 fighter combat I've ever played. If it's sitting in your library you should give it another try with the TF patch. If you don't have it and you're interested in WW2 air combat I would put it in your wishlist for when it goes on sale again.

Air Tactical Assault Group manages the TF patches, the online server, and Team Speak. They are a really friendly bunch that can help with the steep learning curve.

Here's a couple of vids. The first is a trailer for a movie being put together by ACG. The second is online gameplay.



Did you hear that fellas? She says I have a Meritorious Unit.

 

Offline Davros

  • 29
Re: Time to Revisit The Cliffs of Dover
Looks nice but empty compared to rowans battle of britain

 

Offline General Battuta

  • Poe's Law In Action
  • 214
  • i wonder when my postcount will exceed my iq
Re: Time to Revisit The Cliffs of Dover
OH NEVER MIND
« Last Edit: January 15, 2014, 09:23:37 am by General Battuta »

 

Offline Luis Dias

  • 211
Re: Time to Revisit The Cliffs of Dover
waat the music was cool

 

Offline StarSlayer

  • 211
  • Men Kaeshi Do
    • Steam
Re: Time to Revisit The Cliffs of Dover
Sounds like a looped portion of Woodkid's Run Boy Run
“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world”

  
For those that might be interested in WWII flight sims
IL-2 Cliffs of Dover has been greatly enhanced by the modding community. Here is a couple short videos of even more of their work coming soon

I have to say the graphics are nice

http://vimeo.com/84343913

http://vimeo.com/84512255

 
Re: For those that might be interested in WWII flight sims
Boom: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=86574.0

We are aware of the thing. I'll definitely look into it when I have Cliffs of Dover

 

Offline Scotty

  • 1.21 gigawatts!
  • Moderator
  • 211
  • Guns, guns, guns.
Re: Time to Revisit The Cliffs of Dover
Boom.  Merged.

 

Offline NGTM-1R

  • I reject your reality and substitute my own
  • 213
  • Syndral Active. 0410.
Re: Time to Revisit The Cliffs of Dover
I really hate it when people support franchises that only exist because the fans are better coders than the developers.
"Load sabot. Target Zaku, direct front!"

A Feddie Story

 

Offline Scotty

  • 1.21 gigawatts!
  • Moderator
  • 211
  • Guns, guns, guns.
Re: Time to Revisit The Cliffs of Dover
... he said on a forum dedicated to a stalwart example of exactly that.

 

Offline Herra Tohtori

  • The Academic
  • 211
  • Bad command or file name
Re: Time to Revisit The Cliffs of Dover
Are you suggesting SCP coders are better than Volition coders?  :p

I don't think HLP is an example of people supporting franchises that only exist because the modders are there to fix broken official ****. FS2 never needed fixing the way Cliffs of Dover needed.


Also you should be aware that the Cliffs of Dover disaster was more a result of management malfunction and unrealistic goals than coding ability. The specifications for the game were ahead of its time, which resulted in delays and rewrites and more delays, and eventually culminated in Ubisoft lighting a fire under 1C Software's arse (and, as a final insult, threw in a last-minute requirement for the infamous epilepsy filter) and out came the abortion we all know as Cliffs of Dover. And despite promises to the contrary, the devs eventually just dropped support of it and abandoned work on the patches.

Team Fusion has done a remarkable job of salvaging the abandoned software and made it a playable game, but they don't have the source code and more crucially they seem to insist on keeping the game basically closed to modding because they're paranoid about cheaters. Apparently, they think it's better to keep the game closed to modding because that makes it harder to cheat in multiplayer.  :rolleyes:


By contrast, SCP has been much more of an "extension" in the story of an already exceptional game.


And, in either case it's unfair to say (with available information) that the coders involved in these community projects are "better" than the original coders of the respective games.
There are three things that last forever: Abort, Retry, Fail - and the greatest of these is Fail.

 

Offline NGTM-1R

  • I reject your reality and substitute my own
  • 213
  • Syndral Active. 0410.
Re: Time to Revisit The Cliffs of Dover
Apparently, they think it's better to keep the game closed to modding because that makes it harder to cheat in multiplayer.  :rolleyes:

Mektek essentially used the same justification for keeping all MW4 modding knowledge to themselves.

... he said on a forum dedicated to a stalwart example of exactly that.

Because FS2 was almost unplayable when released and saved by community patches. We're here because this was a good game when it came out, and it's gotten better, not because it was a terrible game, and we fixed it.
"Load sabot. Target Zaku, direct front!"

A Feddie Story

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

  • 211
  • The Cthulhu programmer himself!
    • Skype
    • Steam
    • Twitter
Re: Time to Revisit The Cliffs of Dover
Apparently, they think it's better to keep the game closed to modding because that makes it harder to cheat in multiplayer.  :rolleyes:

Mektek essentially used the same justification for keeping all MW4 modding knowledge to themselves.
And to make that more explicit, it was as stupid then as it is now; now nobody is modding MW4.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Codethulhu GitHub wgah'nagl fhtagn.

schrödinbug (noun) - a bug that manifests itself in running software after a programmer notices that the code should never have worked in the first place.

When you gaze long into BMPMAN, BMPMAN also gazes into you.

"I am one of the best FREDders on Earth" -General Battuta

<Aesaar> literary criticism is vladimir putin

<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. :P
<MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".
(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."
<MageKing17> **** ME
<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID
<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.
<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.
<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"
(...)
<MageKing17> so
<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

<IronWorks> I am useful for FSO stuff again. This is a red-letter day!
* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

<MageKing17> TIL the entire homing code is held up by shoestrings and duct tape, basically.

 
Re: Time to Revisit The Cliffs of Dover
Apparently, they think it's better to keep the game closed to modding because that makes it harder to cheat in multiplayer.

I think this is a little inaccurate. Cliffs of Dover is closed to modding like Diaspora is closed to modding. Anyone with skills is encouraged to join the team and help out. The primary motivation is to avoid the install confusion that users experience like they do with 1946.
Did you hear that fellas? She says I have a Meritorious Unit.

 

Offline General Battuta

  • Poe's Law In Action
  • 214
  • i wonder when my postcount will exceed my iq
Re: Time to Revisit The Cliffs of Dover
Diaspora's completely compatible with the entire ecosystem of FSO mod tools, though. There's nothing closed about it. They're all for fan-made content in every form.

 
Re: Time to Revisit The Cliffs of Dover
Diaspora's completely compatible with the entire ecosystem of FSO mod tools, though. There's nothing closed about it. They're all for fan-made content in every form.

Except I can't use modded tables in multiplayer and I can't access the internal board or SVN. You're right though, if I want to make a Viper with more boost I can do that and use it in a single player environment. In Cliffs of Dover you can't have fan interpretations of a Spitfire's max speed or a 109's turning radius. It's a historical game with a specific flight model.
Did you hear that fellas? She says I have a Meritorious Unit.

 
Re: Time to Revisit The Cliffs of Dover
Diaspora's completely compatible with the entire ecosystem of FSO mod tools, though. There's nothing closed about it. They're all for fan-made content in every form.

Except I can't use modded tables in multiplayer and I can't access the internal board or SVN. You're right though, if I want to make a Viper with more boost I can do that and use it in a single player environment. In Cliffs of Dover you can't have fan interpretations of a Spitfire's max speed or a 109's turning radius. It's a historical game with a specific flight model.

IIRC, you can use modded tables in MP, your stats simply don't get recorded. Which is fair enough IMO.