Free Map

The phrase "WWII use" seems to restrict this quite a bit. Remember we only have WW2 assets with America/British & German units (vehicles etc). Any other location than Western Europe or North Africa/Mediterranean would be useless in this respect.

While still too early to announce, key elements of the map must include:

 

1- Can be converted to both modern day and WWII use.

2- Low overhead, high performance.

3- Geographically laid out to best suit multiplayer matches.

4- Suited for both land-based and carrier ops.

5- Expand into a new part of the world.

North Cape/northern Scandinavia map would be my bet.

- Beautiful scenery, mountains, Fjords and the northern sea. Good for terrain masking

- Great strategic importance, the Russian naval bases and airfields around Murmansk and the gateway to the Atlantic

- Only sparsely inhabited, so easy to convert for WW2 and modern day use, while much less unique 3D objects are needed at all.

- Lot's of action in WW2: Soviet vs. German fought for years on the Murmansk front, German attacks against Arctic convoys. British attacks against German coastal shipping and other infrastructure. AI Ju-88 and Mosquito are coming.

- Almost any plane in the sim or upcoming would be at home. From I-16, British F4Us, Mosquito and Fw 190A to F-16, F-14, F-18, Viggen, anything Russian made, modern and Cold War Harriers. Would be a good map to gradually introduce more Russian WW2 planes which should sell well.

- Also a natural fit for the upcoming Kusnezow module

North Africa. Libya + Egypt.

- Sparsely populated and indistinct terrain features (if it doesn't extend all the way into, say, Cairo and Benghazi, depends on size).

- WWII North African campaign, modern-day Libyan campaign.

- Desert landscape + Ocean = High performance. Assets and textures can already be pulled from existing maps.

- "Equal" MP layout of consistent terrain features for each side, without an ocean separating the two.

- North Africa is more distinctly a "new part of the world" in terms of expanding to a new continent.

- Close enough to tie in with the "connected maps" eventually.

1. I doubt Wags preferences for a theatre or aircraft will drive decisions.

2. I want korea but they haven't shown any interest in doing more korea assets or modules.

3. We have a free modern map and WW2 aircraft have the highest profit margins. So my guess is it's a WW2 map to help drive and popularize WW2 module sales.

(Sorry Wags for picking your statements apart- it is just good hearted rumour speculation)

It is not about Wags preference- he said that something like, not word for word, but like "The new free map.... (Would be) something he always wanted/dreamed about" That does not imply that he chose it, but that he is happy that one of his scenarios of his choice is now coming to DCS.

2. Korea could be modern and not 1950's based. (Suited for both)

3. They have announced that they have 2 (yes two) WW2 map in development in ADDITION to the free map. It would make no sense that the free map would then be ww2 only.

Now that Wags have chimed in we know a little better (Korea is out- not suited for WW2), but I am not very far off in my reasoning so far (Suits modern, close to watermass, flashpoint...) With this new info I would guess

1: Italy/Balkans (Fits all criteria)

2: Baltic/Northern Germany (same)

3: Could be North Africa somewhere as well (Lybia f.ex works for both modern and ww2)

4: Could off course be anywhere in the pacific (Works for modern, lots of water, works for ww2, except that the plane-set is way off).

Just pure speculation obviously.:thumbup:

I don't get the point of the secrecy.

Why not just tell us what it is...

But then I guess all the fun of all this speculation, entertainment value and surprise when it is revealed would be lost.

Let’s face it, even if they tell us, won’t stop the questions.

A couple of examples of what I’d expect “the map will be the Fulda gap”.

Typical responses I’d expect are:

“What, Moscow is not included”

“Do we get it i this weeks OB update”

ED could provide an accuracy map of the world and I’m sure that someone would ask when they’ll add the moon as that might have been visible on the reflection in a mirror during an interview whilst 1.5 was being introduced.

North Cape/northern Scandinavia map would be my bet.

 

- Beautiful scenery, mountains, Fjords and the northern sea. Good for terrain masking

 

- Great strategic importance, the Russian naval bases and airfields around Murmansk and the gateway to the Atlantic

 

- Only sparsely inhabited, so easy to convert for WW2 and modern day use, while much less unique 3D objects are needed at all.

 

- Lot's of action in WW2: Soviet vs. German fought for years on the Murmansk front, German attacks against Arctic convoys. British attacks against German coastal shipping and other infrastructure. AI Ju-88 and Mosquito are coming.

 

- Almost any plane in the sim or upcoming would be at home. From I-16, British F4Us, Mosquito and Fw 190A to F-16, F-14, F-18, Viggen, anything Russian made, modern and Cold War Harriers. Would be a good map to gradually introduce more Russian WW2 planes which should sell well.

 

- Also a natural fit for the upcoming Kusnezow module

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It's always a team decision with our company owner and our CEO having final say. While still too early to announce, key elements of the map must include:

 

1- Can be converted to both modern day and WWII use.

2- Low overhead, high performance.

3- Geographically laid out to best suit multiplayer matches.

4- Suited for both land-based and carrier ops.

5- Expand into a new part of the world.

 

Thanks

With these standards I can say it should be one of the following maps

Korea(1950+)

Balkan(1940-1999)

Sinai/israel(1945-1975+)

Centre med/Libya(1940-2015)

Aegean/EastMed(1940+)

Taiwan (1940+)

From these maps most airfields were build from 1940s and after.

:O Italia or Libia

The phrase "WWII use" seems to restrict this quite a bit. Remember we only have WW2 assets with America/British & German units (vehicles etc). Any other location than Western Europe or North Africa/Mediterranean would be useless in this respect.

S!

Let’s face it, even if they tell us, won’t stop the questions.

A couple of examples of what I’d expect “the map will be the Fulda gap”.

Typical responses I’d expect are:

“What, Moscow is not included”

“Do we get it i this weeks OB update”

 

ED could provide an accuracy map of the world and I’m sure that someone would ask when they’ll add the moon as that might have been visible on the reflection in a mirror during an interview whilst 1.5 was being introduced.

Nailed :D :thumbup: .

S!

With these standards I can say it should be one of the following maps

Korea(1950+)

Balkan(1940-1999)

Sinai/israel(1945-1975+)

Centre med/Libya(1940-2015)

Aegean/EastMed(1940+)

Taiwan (1940+)

 

From these maps most airfields were build from 1940s and after.

I like this list.

The phrase "WWII use" seems to restrict this quite a bit. Remember we only have WW2 assets with America/British & German units (vehicles etc). Any other location than Western Europe or North Africa/Mediterranean would be useless in this respect.

I think that the map is supposed to be usable with World war II aircrafts without looking too weird rather than being an actual World war II map.

I'll throw my guess in the ring. Has anyone called North Atlantic yet?

Thinking, mostly ocean, was the site of the battle of the Atlantic in WWII, and would have been involved, though likely not central, in any Cold War gone hot scenario.

Thoughts?

1. Sicily + North Africa (Tunisia)

2. Crete + North Africa (East Lybia / West Egypt)

Has to be one of those.

1- Can be converted to both modern day and WWII use.

Yes. Modern and WW2 bases in all these locations.

2- Low overhead, high performance.

Yes. Lots of desert and water

3- Geographically laid out to best suit multiplayer matches.

Yes. Base separation via terrain and/or water.

4- Suited for both land-based and carrier ops.

Yes. Balanced mix of water and land.

5- Expand into a new part of the world.

Yes. North Africa.

If it was in North Asia, he might have said it'd fit in Korean war, but he didn't. South Asia has too many trees which wont fit into low performance. Same goes for baltic sea.

If it's a map that's also chosen with WWII in mind then it's probably going to be placed in Europe or Africa since we don't have any Japanese aircraft or Allied aircraft that took part in the Pacific Theatre as of now.

I also thought about Russia but I don't see how carrier ops would be possible and we only have one Russian WWII aircraft although other aircraft like the spitfire could be used.

Moreover with so many incidents involving Libya and the US Navy it seems like a waste to have it somewhere else.

Actually, that would be perfect for MP. For a change, we would stop seeing 3rd and 4th gen jets mucking about at 50ft, and rather be at 20 000+ where they belong.

+1

Himalayas are probably not possible.

1- Can be converted to both modern day and WWII use.

The area haven't changed much but most of the airports were build after World war II.

2- Low overhead, high performance.

There is a desert on the North side and fields on the South side that are comparable to the Caucasus map. There are dense forest in the middle that would crush performance.

3- Geographically laid out to best suit multiplayer matches.

Best layout would be if the Himalayas were in the middle of the map.

Map's altitude completely eliminates any kind of helicopter flying and even low flying planes like the Su-25t would need some carefull route planning to get to their destination.

4- Suited for both land-based and carrier ops.

It would have to be about 1100 km high to have a bit of ocean.

5- Expand into a new part of the world.

It absolutely does that. We don't have any Asian map at the moment.

It absolutely does that. We don't have any Asian map at the moment.

Well, Persian Gulf states are on the Asian continent, and Caucasus as well....

Well, Persian Gulf states are on the Asian continent, and Caucasus as well....

Well it happens...

I meant eastern Asia.

We can rule out:

... Strait of Taiwan, the Strait of Malacc, Vietnam and Kola Peninsula.

Reason being that these were suggested in another thread quite some time ago, to which Sir Wags replied:

I will say this, I have not seen a single person correctly guess it.

Also, we can rule out any location where the SdKfz 184 "Elefant" was used.

Reason being that NineLine said:

I don't think the Asset Pack, nor DCS World WWII was ever meant to be limited to one area. They are working on 2 WWII maps, and Wags did say the new Free one will be one that can swap between modern and WWII at some point, although the Elefant wouldn't fit there either

I bet ED are having a blast watching our desperate attempts to guess. :D

Angola

I think whatever chosen is going to be fairly empty of towns. Because this is a freebie and its going to take ages to put all those in. Its unreasonable to expect them to do a lot of cities for what is essentially a freebie. Also, towns today are going to be rather bigger than during WW2, which makes the interchange between era's somewhat problematic.

Its got water. So we are looking at map with a sizeable body of water to hide a carrier in. Maybe a third to half of the map.

Its somewhere that saw considerable combat in WW2 and conceivably would have done in WW3. Its difficult to see that this could include the Philippines or Okinawa.

I think its North Cape/Finland. With an outside chance on Libya/North Africa. On a REALLY REALLY outside chance, the Aleutians.

Also think its norway, finland or sweden and streches of the north sea.

I think its North Cape/Finland.

Pohjoiskalotti!! I do so hope you're correct, but Sir Wags ruled out Kola (REF), which is immediately to the east.

With an outside chance on Libya/North Africa.

A few people are now suggesting Libya and they have a really good argument. Pretty much in line with all the others you summarised.

Also think its norway, finland or sweden and streches of the north sea.

Finland to the North Sea would make for a huge map, but it would be great if you are right!