Five years ago today and for some months before and after this community was on the verge of a meltdown. Friendships were broken.. Insults and accusations were flying around and "cheaters" were found everywhere.. I look back at the last 5 years and where we are today.. particularly in light of Bob/Clod and all the other WWII sims that have been released over the last 5 years... and it just pleases me to no end to see that .. we are still here. Yes we are fewer in number but I would dare to say that there are still thousands of folks worldwide who still get their kicks off of this sim.. offline and on.. While there has been an undeniable impact of modding at this point it can be debated that that impact has been for the better overall and considering where we are now with TD .. 4.12 on the horizon and Oleg's departure from the scene I can't help but wonder if we would even be here were it not for the new breath that mods breathed into the sim.. It is certainly something that can only be speculated on at best.. but what cannot be speculated on is that this sim is still STIILL pound for pound the best overall WWII Combat Flight Simulator ever made to date. Yes .. the newer stuff promises to surpass it and in many ways has already rendered it obsolete but this sim just keeps on ticking.. I am really pleased and amazed at A) the fact that I can still get so much enjoyment from it.. and B) whether or not we realize it .. so much of what was once thought unlikely, improbable or downright impossible is now a part of the sim or has been proven to be possible (Zuti cut us some slack and make the MDS a part of the stock sim PLEASE!!) . While there are many who have left.. there are many just like me who still get a real rush out of the sim.. and there are many newcomers who are just now discovering this 12 year old gem. Kudos to Oleg.... and to all those modders .. some who are now with TD who have kept this sim growing and to us.. I am glad that for the most part my faitn in this community was not misplaced. Yes we have conflicts.. and yes to some extent the sim is fractured.. but I still think that had there been no mods at all .. we probably would not be here..
~!S!~
The end of the world.....
The nightmare is coming true!!
So is that it!!?
Yes... over the years there has been a lot of coming & going for this or that reason. But there is still a solid community here that have put aside the problems that have arisen and are very much into still flying in the IL-2 skies.
The game has come a very long way since the orginal IL-2 Sturmovik and has now developed into a game that many of us could only have dreamed about back then. This is truly a strong testament to Oleg & team's first idea of making a combat flight sim that had realistic aircraft and real flight features incorporated into it. Without these basics IL-2 would have faded away as so many of other flight sims have over these years. And also there would be no solid base from which the many people have put their time and effort into over the years making the skins, the updates, mods and many other improvments that have now become a reality for IL-2.
Just think about what you have learned and found out about over this time period just from this forum community and also the many great people you have come into contact with and it is all from just one simple idea and concept of flying an aircraft over the WWII battlefields using a computerized flight sim game as your ticket and gateway. Yes, it has been well worth the price of admission.
Thank you Oleg & team, Daidalos Team and the many other people involved that have brought us together with IL-2 Sturmovik and it's many branches over these years.![]()
Yes, 5 years ago I had the nerve to suggest - initially constructively and in the context of "please could this be fixed" - that the elevator trim control function wasn't quite right.
- winding in elevator trim didn't "unload the stick" - but instead seemed to attach an extra complete surface or miltiply the effect of the existing elevator somehow - so pitch control became VERY (overly? ) sensitive.
Keep in mind I am an AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE ENGINEER - with 25 years of experience working on REAL AEROPLANES...
Instead of constructive discussion I got relentlessly attacked by rabid 1C fan-atics. Nuff said?
LOL! Now you see the light, BearCat!
I mentioned 7 years ago how mods can extend the lifetime and increase the fun factor for sims (placing FS and CFS as examples; blasphemy I know) and I think your response was "BS!"
I almost want to say "told ya so!", but I'm glad we are sticking around and getting the most of this sim, since BOB turned out to be an underfunded dud.
Well the game itself is 11 years old which is probably about 220 in human years!Graphics cards scarcely EXISTED in PCs back then !There can be no doubt mods benefitted if not preserved the game .Its timely that the 'last' patch for ClOD just arrived last night(round 9pm-maybe someone in theres finally reviving Oleg's ability to pull out a surprise after weeks and months of monotonous waiting!-Wasnt there even an unexpected patch Christmas Eve one year!?)
I have to say that while acknowledging that ClOD surpasses IL2 1946 in many respects, I still play 90-95% IL2 1946...Too much 'doesnt work yet' in ClOD from gauges on many planes to high alt flight model etc etc .Hopefully like original IL2 and Forgotten Battles the sequel of ClOD will be a far better product(although if theres an equivalent jump in hardware requirements we'd ALL best start saving!
So 5 years since mods first arrived !!!Some of the early ones were AWFUL,although the sounds were awesomely better .I remember due to some sound mod glitch you could hear gunfire from about 20km away -a real immersion spoiler !
Still think the 'stock' MK103 sound is best in the game !!!Although the sound of a modded P40/P38 Pratt and Whitney boom and zoomin' ya is pretty amazing too!
S everybody!!!
Now I see the light..?Originally Posted by AviatorMoser Go to original post![]()
Uhhhh .. I think I have been seeing the light for about 4.5 years now as far as mods in this sim goes. Seven years ago this sim was not modded .. at least not openly.. and from my vantage point at that time that was one of the best things about it.. I still think that the only reason why this sim did not go the same route as other modded sims like the CFS series in particular (yes there were some great 3rd party add ons and mods.. but far too many totally cr@ppy ones that all but ruined online play) , and I can name any number of now dead or barely alive sims that were also modded and it did not help.. was A)The complexity of the code and the fact that it was not made to be modded so anybody with a PC and a little knowledge couldn't just go in and do what they wanted.. and B)The community for this sim was more mature and we had been used to having an unmodded sim and many preferred it that way do to what mods did in other sims. The fact that for the early part of it's life this was the only sim that you could fly with confidence that the guy flying against you had the same plane that you did on your PC was one of it's strong points and I believe that those factors had a lot to do with how mods went in this sim. This post is an acknowledgement of this community and the sim and what modding has meant to it.. not a finger pointing I told you so opportunity. I think we have done pretty well for ourselves ... and my PoV from day one since this happened was always the horse is out of the barn and it is better to move forward from there.. The only reason why it took my squad and I another few months to start using mods was because we wanted to see where it all went. There was a lot that was wrong with this sim 5 years ago.. a lot has been corrected, initially by mods and later by patches in some cases but I enjoy it more today than I did then. The only thing missing from this equation is some of the people that I used to know that dropped off the face of the Earth..
Well said Bearcat, well said. Many people forget that cheating/modding had been the death of many an online community before and it was right to protect the code and the game from wacks and hacks and teenaged kill *****s. It was the right thing to do. As Oleg and the developers gaze shifted to CloD the task of keeping IL2 relevant fell to the modders and eventually Team Daidelos who've saved the game and us from a long lingering death. I thank them from the bottom of my heart. But you're right, it's good we kept it closed as long as we did because the less interested and childlike moved on to FPS and we were left with a more "mature" community who've used modding to "improve" the experience for all.
Worf
Can't comment on mods, never used any, probably at this stage never will get around to it.
However the unmodded sim is still as much fun offline as it ever was and there is an incredible number of offline campaigns and addons out there, probably more than anyone could ever play through in a lifetime.