Congratulations with the last month of summer and the final stage of BOS development. The end of July was far not simple: a series of press events, releasing the German fighter Fw 190A-3, adding ILYA Muromets to the store and starting early access for it - we'll tell about it all in this dev diary...
Today we give you FW 190 A-3 for the early access. Beside that the plane is going to be available in the store at il2sturmovik.com for all Standard edition owners. And of course the Focke-wulf is to be added to all multiplayer servers as well. So, this is the last fighter plane in IL2BOS, so there’s only He 111 left and you’ll see it during summer 2014.
Also we present you a new Battle of Stalingrad trailer. Some of you could have seen it already on US gaming media sites but now it’s available officially on our YouTube channel.
The traditional Friday update is waiting to be deployed for you later today. And while Loft and Jason are on their challenging business trip visiting the America’s most popular gaming media, we here at the studio are preparing all kinds of improvements for BOS.
Ammocounters that many of you have been waiting for are going to become available on both Bf 109s and on Ju-87. A nice improvement has been made to the DM - it is now possible to cause damage to enemy’s machine guns and cannons and practically disable them. There are also going to be visual changes - you’ll notice that we’ve implemented vapour trails and wingtip trails that often appear when a plane reaches critical angles.
FW 190 A-3 that some of you are eager to see in the game is planned to be released next week. And as we’re doing our best to make it happen, check out this short flight video featuring the fighter.
Today’s update should be released as planned - it’s full of great new features and we want to deliver them to you as soon as we can. As you know from the previous dev diary we’re adding Campaign mode technology into the game. It does not mean that you or us are able to play this mode now, at this stage of early access. But it means that a huge volume of content and lots of gameplay algorithms are being merged with the project. It was only a couple of days ago when VikS’ screen looked like that.
Almost one hundred airfields on the map. Each of them has its combat history, each of them is known for squadrons based on them - and all of them will play active roles in the campaign. When it’s ready the briefing screen will change a lot. And this is how one of the campaign starting screens will look like - you’ll see your progress in the current stage of the battle.
It’s hot times in the development studio and there’s a lot of great, new things to be added relatively soon (take Fw-190 for instance). But these days we’re working on something particularly big. It is the campaign mode that is being added into the project. It doesn't mean that it will soon be available in the early access but now this day is closer for sure. Also separate controls for rockets and bombs will be implemented. That’s why we’re going to have to leave the actual version as it is now and keep working on the update. This means that there won’t be a game update today, because next week will bring us a new build which needs to be completed first and cannot be deployed to the server unfinished.
Meanwhile a new version of the official website is practically ready, and it will be launched on Monday, July 7th. The very first thing that Standard Edition owners will notice is the La-5 that is coming to the store. Remember that the Fw-190 is to be added for purchase later this month as soon as it’s available in early access.
The index page is now divided into 4 blocks:
1) Main trailer: the pre-order video holds its place these days, but it’ll be replaced with a brand new BOS trailer which, we hope, you’ll find even more impressive.
2) The Store allowing you to purchase game codes for either edition as well as premium planes.
3) Product description that is now split into 3 key features: Play, Fly, Learn.
4) Community-made game videos: the best fan-made trailers will be handpicked and proudly placed there – which we appreciate so much. Nobody does a better job advertising our products than our community!
