[Herra Tohtori]

Hmmm... Here's some little known history:

After the war, the French Air Force (as well as the army, etc.) was quite strapped for resources upon being reformed. The Fw-190 was available, and if memory serves correctly, the fighter had been manufactured in captured factories previously. As such, the French continued to produce and operate the Fw-190 after the war. Given the tremendous quality of the fighter, that's quite neat to note. Unfortunately, it appears that engine problems meant that the type was not in service for long. You don't hear about post-war German aircraft in operation all that much...

The French also employed the venerable Panther medium tank after the cessation of hostilities.

The Finnish Air Force operated their remaining Messerschmitt Bf-109 G2/6/8's as their primary fighter aircraft until mid-1950's when they transitioned to jets, starting from 1953, and the last Messerschmitt flight in FAF occurred in 1954. However, due to the limitations specified for FAF in the treaties, they were limited to no more than 60 aircraft and, interestingly according to wikipedia, "No weaponry of German construction or with German parts". How they managed to keep using the Bf-109's in respect to this limitation is beyond me.

At any rate, due to the pressure of the Soviets, almost all of these war planes were scrapped after they were retired, and the same fate befell to most aircraft used in the war - as an example there is only one Brewster B-239 airframe in existence, two intact airframes of Finnish Air Force Messerschmitt and one additional, partial airframe recovered from a crashed plane.

It was a blatant disregard for preserving important parts of history, but I guess since the planes were built and designed by Germans, it made them nazis to the Soviets just like Lotta Svärd organization which was disbanded as a fascist organization (their symbol included a blue swastika much like the Finnish Air Force wartime insignia did).

[Herra Tohtori]

Well, Cliffs of Dover is to be frank in a really sorry state.

At its core are brilliant assets and concept, but riddled by engine performance issues and tons of bugs, and as a result I don't understand any other reason for its release than Ubisoft pulling the funding for continued developement, and the team was forced to rush it into a state where it barely passed Ubisoft's QA and was approved for publishing.

The game shouldn't have been released yet, and to be honest I have to wonder why exactly is the engine so atrociously poor. I mean, at low settings it doesn't look better than IL-2 Sturmovik, but manages to maybe achieve 5% of the playability of IL-2 1946.

If you don't mind buying a game essentially in beta (or even alpha) testing phase, then get it, if not for anything else you'll have an unforgettable experience trying to play the game. If you have a really modern rig you MAY have adequate performance... sometimes... but seriously, I have to still wonder where all the seven years were used on.


It's possible that they are trying to simulate way too many things for one frame and end up reducing performance as the game feverishly tries to calculate all the stuff it's supposed to, and refuses to advance to next frame before all is accounted for... and really, this isn't a good approach for a flight simulator. A flight simulator needs, first and foremost, good frame rates for playability (I would say minimum of 30 FPS, preferably at least 60 FPS) and other things scalable so that this frame rate can be achieved on minimum specification of hardware.

Well, I hope they fix the game even if it takes an engine rewrite, because the graphical assets are really something. Meanwhile, IL-2 1946 will remain the premier product on WW2 combat, if not for any other reason that Cliffs of Dover remains unplayable for most of its target demographics.

[Grizzly]

Well, I hope they fix the game even if it takes an engine rewrite, because the graphical assets are really something. Meanwhile, IL-2 1946 will remain the premier product on WW2 combat

How 'bout Wings of Prey?

[Herra Tohtori]

Arcade game with limited simulation elements added, built on top of refurbished IL-2 engine, doesn't really cut it compared to IL-2 1946 with mods...

The Cliffs of Dover engine is a new engine with a lot more features - if it ever gets into a state where it can actually be used.

[IceFire]

Well, I hope they fix the game even if it takes an engine rewrite, because the graphical assets are really something. Meanwhile, IL-2 1946 will remain the premier product on WW2 combat

How 'bout Wings of Prey?

Not really in the same league. But it does have shiny graphics

[Grizzly]

And quite good gameplay, and it actually runs fairly awesome. Although it is not as 'Hardcore' as the regular Sturmnovik, this is a great spin off (Wings of Prey is the PC port of IL2: Birds of Prey for the consoles). It should get more mention IMO.

[Dilmah G]

I was looking forward to Cliffs of Dover.

[lostllama]

Oh well. Perhaps they'll produce an expansion in the future that might also patch it up, hopefully.

I've been thinking of returning to European Air War, just to see what the mods are like. Although it is rather old. I always preferred it to Combat Flight Simulator 1, as I thought it created a somewhat more immersive WW2 atmosphere and the graphical effects were better. CFS2 was a big improvement on the original in those regards. Didn't bother with CFS3 because by the time that was released I had IL-2.

Apparently EAW still has a community behind it. Here's a screenshot thread at SimHQ: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3255403/Post_your_EAW_Screen_Shots.html#Post3255403

[Unknown Target]

Well, I hope they fix the game even if it takes an engine rewrite, because the graphical assets are really something. Meanwhile, IL-2 1946 will remain the premier product on WW2 combat

How 'bout Wings of Prey?

Great sim. People say it's not but it's basically IL-2 (original) with better graphics and interface. IMO it's definitely worth the purchase, and I think they just removed the DRM as well.

[PsychoLandlord]

I had BoP on 360. I never knew they did a PC re-release. Suppose that might be good entry point into the PC side of the franchise.

[IceFire]

For those that don't know... IL-2s developers are a bit like Volition in days of old. They do stand by their product and will patch it until problems are resolved. It does sound like they were pushed to release before the game was fully ready... but fixes are incoming.

Lots of engine changes and optimizations are coming down the pipe in the next series of patches. There are also new multiplayer maps and two more versions of Bf109 (the E-1 and E-4 will be added). It's a bit of a rough beginning but I think it'll morph into something superb in the future.

[NGTM-1R]

You know what I miss?

I miss being able to jump to gunner positions like back in SWotL. Give me back my B-17 dammit.

[lostllama]

That can be enabled by applying the mods mentioned earlier (UltraPack etc). All the B-17 gunner positions (save the radio operator's, and, I think, the navigator's - it probably depends on the variant you choose) can be manned that way.

[Herra Tohtori]

For those that don't know... IL-2s developers are a bit like Volition in days of old. They do stand by their product and will patch it until problems are resolved. It does sound like they were pushed to release before the game was fully ready... but fixes are incoming.

Lots of engine changes and optimizations are coming down the pipe in the next series of patches. There are also new multiplayer maps and two more versions of Bf109 (the E-1 and E-4 will be added). It's a bit of a rough beginning but I think it'll morph into something superb in the future.

Oh, definitely - the graphical assets are superb, they just need to get the game into a state where it can actually use them (with appropriately powerful computer, of course).

And what comes to release of the game - the only plausible explanation is, despite what Maddox Games representatives say, that Ubisoft told them to push the game out or they were closing the money tap. It is not logically consistent for the team to work on a game for seven years and release a mess of a product that only properly runs on the most modern hardware (which is probably about twenty times more powerful than the most elite computer seven years ago).

So yea, I bought the game, hopefully the developers will have the opportunity to work it into a state where it works properly. I consider it an investment for the future - when the game matures, I'll still have it, and if it never does... well, I can shoulder loss of 35 euros (that's, like, five pizzas).

[Grizzly]

For those that don't know... IL-2s developers are a bit like Volition in days of old. They do stand by their product and will patch it until problems are resolved. It does sound like they were pushed to release before the game was fully ready... but fixes are incoming.

Lots of engine changes and optimizations are coming down the pipe in the next series of patches. There are also new multiplayer maps and two more versions of Bf109 (the E-1 and E-4 will be added). It's a bit of a rough beginning but I think it'll morph into something superb in the future.

Oh, definitely - the graphical assets are superb, they just need to get the game into a state where it can actually use them (with appropriately powerful computer, of course).

And what comes to release of the game - the only plausible explanation is, despite what Maddox Games representatives say, that Ubisoft told them to push the game out or they were closing the money tap. It is not logically consistent for the team to work on a game for seven years and release a mess of a product that only properly runs on the most modern hardware (which is probably about twenty times more powerful than the most elite computer seven years ago).

So yea, I bought the game, hopefully the developers will have the opportunity to work it into a state where it works properly. I consider it an investment for the future - when the game matures, I'll still have it, and if it never does... well, I can shoulder loss of 35 euros (that's, like, five pizzas).

But when the game matures, it will probably be cheaper .

[Herra Tohtori]

Which will also be less profitable for the developer as well as publishers. I couldn't give a rat's arse about Yubisofta (as the Russians charmingly call it), but I really rather wanted to risk getting incomplete, unfinished game if it was the only way to give maximal support for the developers.

Now, of course there was the option to purchase the Russian version of the game at about ten euros price (due to Russian circumstances the price of the game is much lower there - wage equivalent price is about the same) but I really didn't have the patience to jump through all the hoops that would have required - even if it would have yielded maximally profitable for Maddox Games that way rather than giving any money to Yubisofta...

Then again, they might simply need Yubisofta's money to keep developing the game, so that might be a valid reason to buy the game anyway.

It's all about risk assessment - or potential gains and losses of buying it now vs. buying it later.

                             

Code: [Select]

                            Potential Losses                               Potential Gains

Buy it now                   ~20 € more expensive                          More profitable for publishers and developers
                            initially unplayable on my PC                  Improved chances of the game getting better long term support

Buy it later                Ubisoft/1C pull the carpet under               Less frustration trying to play the game initially
                            Maddox Games as the game flops                 Less expensive (by a factor of about three pizzas)
                            economically
The potential benefits of buying the game now in long term outweigh the risks of waiting until the price goes down; basically, waiting would have been more sensible for my wallet, but on the other hand I also want long term support and development for this product - and if the publishers decide the game isn't profitable to maintain and patch they'll pull the plug from it and leave Maddox Games all alone with hordes of angry flight simmers.

If the game still flops and all further developement falls through and doesn't ever materialize... then I at least know I tried to help, while if I had elected to wait, I couldn't help but wonder if my inability to part from 34.90 € was partially responsible for the demise of a game of great potential.

In proper context, if the whole game costs 35 euros like it did for me, that's about the same as ordering five pizzas from a local joint (~7 euros per pizza). From that perspective, it doesn't look such a bad investment even if I have to shoulder the potential losses - I can survive with three or even five less pizzas if necessary.

[Grizzly]

Ah yes. I am simply running on a budget of less then 30 euro's a month to spend on whatever I like, and I like to save whatever I got.

[Thaeris]

You know what I miss?

I miss being able to jump to gunner positions like back in SWotL. Give me back my B-17 dammit.

...Off-topic, but if you've got X-Plane, you might want to check X-Plane.org around this time - epic freeware B-17G is epic.

[Herra Tohtori]

IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 + HSFX5: Alert Fighter Scramble!

[lostllama]

Nice shooting, you seemed to hit those MiG's right in their tailpipes.

Reminds me of fighting against the MiG-15's in Rowan's MiG Alley. I remember that tailing rookie-level AI MiGs at close range tended to result in their pilots ejecting rather than trying to dogfight, which was kind of hilarious but also rather disappointing. I doubt that happens in IL-2.