Storm of War's Life Span? Have Your Guess!

[Flying_Nutcase]

Hoi!

I sometimes think about how IL2 has impacted my life over the (for me) about 7 years and to the future, how Storm of War will do the same.

I know I'm not alone, so come to the party and give us your best guess as to how long Storm of War will be the premier flight sim. It'll be more than just a flight sim but let's keep it focused.

I suspect 25+ years due to the massive development effort required to surpass it, Oleg's proven future thinking and it being moddable, even with rampant changes in technology. Hey, little 'ol IL2's about to hit 10 years.

Flying Nutcase

PS No need for sarcastic comments about its release date. ;-)

PPS Maybe we could place bets so someone will get a nice retirement bonus. :-)

[steppie]

I will say 10 years and because in 10 year who know what technology there will be that will take fly sim to another level.

[Skoshi Tiger]

I will say 10 years and because in 10 year who know what technology there will be that will take fly sim to another level.

+1

As we have seen wih il2 - as long as it can take advantage of the latest hardware it will have a long life, and who knows, maybe Oleg will end up using it to test the technology for his next release.

Cheers!

[BaylorMax]

It should live a long time as it has had a very long gestation period!:!:

[KOM.Nausicaa]

I hesitated between 5-10 and 10-15, but voted the latter one, because I want to be optimistic. I think anything beyond that is impossible to foresee, as we don't know anything about hardware then, except that it is likely to make ours look prehistoric, just as the one 10-15 years back does now. Anyway, about 10 years is a very very long lifespan for a game or application. Only a very little percentage gets there.

[Antoninus]

I guess 15 year or more. The PC market is in decline, since the last 10 years sims are only a niche market mostly ignored by the big publishers. So there won't be much competition for Oleg, especially not in the hardcore segment. It's increasingly time consuming and thus expensive to develop a state of the art game engine, as we can witness just now with SOW.
Nobody would have anticipated that Il-2 is still the number 1 WW2 flight sim in 2010. Other than the Il-2 engine the SOW engine is especially designed to for longevity and expandability and to some extend will grow with new hardware.

[Igo kyu]

I'd go for 0-10 if it was an option.

I used to fly MS CFS for a couple of years, then CFS2, then something better came along. :)

With flight sims, you really can't tell.

On my Atari ST I started with Anco's Jump Jet which was so bad I formatted the floppy disk, I went on to Falcon which was well documented but almost uncontrollable on my STe, then on to F16 Combat Pilot, then to Domark's MiG 29. Falcon was graphically a little rough, CP was better and much easier to control, but MiG 29 though graphically less subtle and without the sophisticated weapon options, was nicer to fly, and I suspect the flight model was better.

[swiss]

1st:
IL2 will be dead after the SOW release.

2nd:
I think we can expect an new Flight Sim every 5-10 yrs., can't we?

[Tree_UK]

Hopefully the sim will have lots of longevity, I guess it depends on how advanced/adaptable the game engine is, but from what we have heard it seems that Oleg as got all manner of plans for this sim maybe even tank/infantry sims in future. :grin:

[Chivas]

1st:
IL2 will be dead after the SOW release.

2nd:
I think we can expect an new Flight Sim every 5-10 yrs., can't we?

I don't think we can expect a new flight sim every 5 to 10 years. There hasn't been a new flight sim for the last ten years that could replace the IL-2 series. There are still no new flight sim developers on the horizon that are doing a WW2 sim. Therefore I believe the SOW series will dominate the WW2 combat flight sim market for atleast another 10 to 15 years and probably longer.

The ROF developers could come out with a WW2 combat flight sim in say 5 to 7 years, but currently they are way to busy completeing and improving their WW1 project.

[Flanker35M]

S!

IL-2 won't die when SoW is out, there are patches still to come for it, with new content, bug fixes etc. So before SoW reaches the maturity and amount of content IL-2 has now, will take a couple of years minimum. Remember that the process of creating new planes and such for SoW is a slower process than in IL-2..if your read Oleg's interviews ;) Until then IL-2 will still be a strong sim alongside with SoW.

If SoW will get regular updates and new content, it will for sure live for 10 years as there will be nothing to challenge it anytime soon. So we will basically have a few sims to play: RoF, SoW and IL-2 from WW1/2, DCS-series and Falcon for more modern stuff..and that is a lot during these days when sim industry is not the most popular.

[swiss]

I don't think we can expect a new flight sim every 5 to 10 years. There hasn't been a new flight sim for the last ten years that could replace the IL-2 series. There are still no new flight sim developers on the horizon that are doing a WW2 sim. Therefore I believe the SOW series will dominate the WW2 combat flight sim market for atleast another 10 to 15 years and probably longer.

The ROF developers could come out with a WW2 combat flight sim in say 5 to 7 years, but currently they are way to busy completeing and improving their WW1 project.

WWII Sims are a niche, Imho is there room for only company.
I did, in my previous post, count SOW add ons as "new flight sims".
And we can expect a lot of add ons, every WWII Theater plus Korea, Vietnam, Gulf Wars, etcpp.

That is, of course, only if SOW doens't flop(economically).
If that happens we're screwed for at least 10-15yrs., till another company tries it with new a approach.


IL-2 won't die when SoW is out, there are patches still to come for it, with new content, bug fixes etc. So before SoW reaches the maturity and amount of content IL-2 has now, will take a couple of years minimum. Remember that the process of creating new planes and such for SoW is a slower process than in IL-2..if your read Oleg's interviews Until then IL-2 will still be a strong sim alongside with SoW.


Sorry, I don't think so. Expect patches only till the release of SOW - once it's out I really don't expect any further patches. I'd be idiotic too - why should the modders spend their time with an obsolete game, while they could mod SOW?

The IL2 servers will be deserted.
And if there's no online community, a game is clinically dead.

[Flanker35M]

S!

I see your point Swiss, but there is ONLY one scenario/map in SoW when released. It will grow old if nothing new is added as BoB has been done over and over again over the years. SoW is said to expand to Mediterranean etc. but do not expect that within months as after release there will for sure be patches fixing bugs etc. before anything new is added. And building these new scenarios is not just copy/paste exactly ;)

Sure IL-2 community content creators will switch to SoW to make skins etc. but that alone does not desert IL-2 nor kill it. Not all sim nuts are lemmings and tube visioned ;)

[swiss]

S!
It will grow old if nothing new is added as BoB has been done over and over again over the years.

We've seen that happen with IL2 too... ;)

SoW is said to expand to Mediterranean etc.

If remember correctly, Luthier mentioned something about a Korean map in development.



but do not expect that within months as after release there will for sure be patches fixing bugs etc. before anything new is added. And building these new scenarios is not just copy/paste exactly ;)


How long do you think it will take you to handle the new flight model?


but that alone does not desert IL-2 nor kill it.

Wanna bet?

[Flanker35M]

S!

Sure we have seen it, but IL-2 has now more maps, planes and missions than SoW will have at release. Every single game grows old after a time ;) So agreed fully.

Luthier's Korea map/planes was put aside while they finish SoW, so there is no information when it will come. At least if I read the interviews right.

The problem is not the FM, but the increased amount of work creating a new flyable to SoW. If I recall right Oleg mentioned that up to 6 months creating a new plane to be integrated to the game. All this because of the higher fidelity of SoW engine. And we were those asking for it..and Oleg responded. His words years ago were something like: I can make a high fidelity sim, but do not expect it to be like IL-2..but more complex in every way.

I buy a beer for ya if you show up in Lapland ;) But I bet HyperLobby won't be empty after SoW is out :D

[Friendly_flyer]

I'm with the 10-15 year estimate too. Making the sim more open as Oleg has stated will in my mind help Oleg & Co stay in business longer, and I think this sim will live as long as Oleg feels like keeping it alive.

[Chivas]

I agree IL-2 will live a very long life but with only a small community. Most the combat flight sim community will move on to the much more emersive experience of SOW. There will be enough content in BOB SOW to keep us busy for at-least two years until further content starts appearing.

Much of it depends on how complete SOW BOB is on release. We could see constant feature updates if these features didn't make the initial release.

It will be a considerable amount of work to build future theaters of operations, but no where near the work required in the initial release, as the game engine is built, and working. I'm confident that we will see a minimum of 15 years of new content if piracy doesn't make the product unprofitable.

[Dano]

1st:
IL2 will be dead after the SOW release.

Usage may drop off but it'll be far from dead, I'd suspect many will continue playing due to performance issues and content.

[swiss]

I think most ppl are ready to buy a new system or at least a new gpu for the game.

look at all the threads asking for sys req. - why is that?

But, yes - a small(!) die hard il2 group may keep playing it.

[KnightFandragon]

5-10 Years or until Oleg dies of old age or abandons the game then hands it off to another developer who changes it and screws it all up....

[KnightFandragon]

Usage may drop off but it'll be far from dead, I'd suspect many will continue playing due to performance issues and content.

I know ill keep playing it, IL2 is one of those games that no matter how old it gets its simply to awesome to stop playing =D Just like Mechcommander 1 =D

[WTE_Galway]

It will be bought out by Microsoft who will promise to base the new MSFS XI on the SOW engine. MS will modify windows 8 to only work with MS endorsed flightsims like SOW but will they lose a US anti trust case over it in 2012.

There will be a famous copyright case involving the Eiffel Tower and royalties for use of its image (though apparently its only copyrighted at night). This is resolved by the gaming removing the Eiffel tower at night.

Whilst apparently successful MS drop the entire product line during the staff cuts in great recession of 2015. MS justify this by saying their profits that year had dropped under 10 billion and their shareholders had found that unacceptable :D

[AKA_Tenn]

I think it'll last a max of 10 years just because of the way computer development is headed, the more advanced a program you make, the easier it is to make an even more advanced program, also having entire company devoted to making trees, and another to making just buildings... thats where game development is headed, in the future it won't be one company that makes a game, it'll be a whole bunch of companys making all the different components for a game, then another company just sticks all those components together to make a game.

[zauii]

25 years sound a bit too optimistic, it will be a spaceage in compareacenss to todays hardware and stuff. More likely 5-10 years lifespan, i doubt even World of Warcraft is alive in 25 years.

[swiss]

25 years sound a bit too optimistic, it will be a spaceage in compareacenss to todays hardware and stuff. More likely 5-10 years lifespan, i doubt even World of Warcraft is alive in 25 years.

I think most people just don't remember how bad the sims(and graphics!) were 20 years ago.

Falcon F16 1988
http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRhMhJPeKejLrXfPEGze3lmgHGhaY3tV JcrVIhYfkCZpO7FZYY&t=1&usg=__3ohEJyM8PJ0zqPK_E-f12QaiDTw=

Best Graphics at the time, 1993
(everybody went uuhhh and oohhh - look, snow on the hills!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=oAdikjwJ2vs&feature=related

[Antoninus]

Progress in computer technology was much more dramatic in the 80ties and 90ties than
it is now, at least for gaming. PCs have matured since 1988. Just compare the
improvement in visuals made in 8 years between Aces of the Pacific (1992) and CFS 2
(2000). Eight years ago we had Il-2 just like today. Of course newer sims look much
better, but it's still competitive. There will be new SOW engine titles every few
years or so. Thus SOW engine will receive more updates to newer hardware than Il-2
and age more slowly than any sim before. If they redo all parts of WW2 with SOW
engine and later eras as Korea the platform will be kept up to date for at least 10
years and as we can see with titles FSX, Il-2 or Falcon 4.0 there is still lot of
potential in old sims abandoned by their makers.

1992:
http://www.abandonware-paradise.fr/Gifs/Abandonware/Aces_pacific_02.png

2000:
http://www.microsoft.com/games/combatfs2/img/screens/Diving_Corsair.jpg

[ECV56_Lancelot]

...Just compare the improvement in visuals made in 8 years between Aces of the Pacific (1992).....

1992:
http://www.abandonware-paradise.fr/Gifs/Abandonware/Aces_pacific_02.png

Aaaaahhhh..!!! Nostalgy just hit me hard! :cry:
I was 17 at the time, and loved that sim. Played it a lot together with Falcon 3. Until IL-2 came out, it was my ww2 all time favourite sim. :grin:

[Bearcat]

1st:
IL2 will be dead after the SOW release.

2nd:
I think we can expect an new Flight Sim every 5-10 yrs., can't we?

1st - I totally disagree.. There are people who are just now getting into IL2.. and believe it or not there are still people who fly in CFS1. The fact that this sim is still enjoyable after a decade and that it will still run good on 5 year old gear is a testament to the developers and their foresight. I expect no less from CFS.

2nd - Yeah but can we expect a goodflight sim.. Products of the caliber of IL2 are not common.. name another game that came pout in 2001 that you still regularly enjoy..

[WTE_Galway]

2nd - Yeah but can we expect a goodflight sim.. Products of the caliber of IL2 are not common.. name another game that came pout in 2001 that you still regularly enjoy..

Mario Kart :D

[bf-110]

10 - 12,as IL2.
I believe Oleg will try to beat IL2 with SoW not only in graphics and gameplay,but with content too.And while the updates keep coming,nobody will stop playing it.After the project is over,some more 5 years,till something new comes out.

And IL2 will not die after SoW is released.I believe TD will still being working on the final patches,and after the work is gone,IL2 will be played till SoW haves the half of its content or even more.

[AKA_Tenn]

IL-2 won't die till there's enough content out there for SoW, as for IL-2 making it to 4.12 and beyond, it depends on how motivated the voulinteers are once SoW comes out, i suspect they'll stop making the patches and start making stuff for SoW, and we might see 4.11b1m or something :P

and i doubt we'll ever see another flight sim engine thats specifically designed just for air combat(at the quality of SoW/IL2), we'll probably only see total war sims from now on, ground, air, sea, and in futuristic games, space, all in one simulation, just because their so darn expensive to produce at this quality, the only way to make it affordable is to make it open enough that it suits as many genres as possible, and 10 years down the road computers will be so fast that games like SoW will look to us then, like those screenshots in the earlier posts do to us now, and we'll be wondering why we ever played something that was so limited. don't forget moors law, and advances in not just cpu speed but peripherals, new screens, higher resolutions, even stuff like true 3D (not with stupid glasses) are all highly possible within the next 10 years :D anyway, the main thing to remember is that 10 years is a long time, and if you look at our advances in the past 10 years, you can clearly see that games of all genres have gone from near stick figures and plastered on textures, to highly dynamic multi-textured, high polygon tesselated, near real looking characters, hell even 5 years ago game engines couldn't render round wheels well, they were just like decagons.

[Flying Pencil]

It will last over 10 years because to develope something better will be a massive undertaking that only the biggest company will be willing to do.

HOWEVER, the changing face of games in general is also changing. Consoles are more popular then Computer games, and the new generation of players getting hooked on low quality sims.

There is a chance that there will never be another combat sim for computers, just consoles.

[bf-110]

It´s just me or console games are getting worse every year?
I remember the golden age...I played the same game for 5 years.Newest games are made to last 1 month.

[AKA_Tenn]

It´s just me or console games are getting worse every year?
I remember the golden age...I played the same game for 5 years.Newest games are made to last 1 month.

20 years ago, hardly anyone had a computer, it cost a few thousand dollars for a crappy one... there were also fewer games to choose from...today you can get a machine for 500$ that'll play most games out there, and in a family of 4, there could be at least 4 computers around the house... also a highschool student could make a game like doom or wolfenstein in his spare time today... even though in the "golden age" of games they were marvels of technology... and consoles today are just motorolla and intel processors, standard mac/pc's with custom bios's and operating systems, but still standardized hardware that we use in our home pc's/mac's

[WTE_Galway]

20 years ago, hardly anyone had a computer, it cost a few thousand dollars for a crappy one... there were also fewer games to choose from..

20 years ago I was still playing Activision's River Raid :D

http://img.brothersoft.com/screenshots/softimage/r/river_raid-247755-1245071917.jpeg

[zauii]

It´s just me or console games are getting worse every year?
I remember the golden age...I played the same game for 5 years.Newest games are made to last 1 month.

Dude, it's not like Pacman had more content...

[Icewolf]

at least two weeks

[lobosrul]

20 years ago I was still playing Activision's River Raid :D

20 years ago I was playing Battlehawks 1942. The game that started my love for combat flight sims.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/battlehawks-1942

[KG26_Alpha]

The main reason IL2 has survived is purely due to the fact that Oleg and 1C Team actually looked after their customers with free aircraft, maps and updates over the past 10 years,
and kept supporting their product unlike a lot of software houses that abandon their customers and leggit with the cash.

Not counting the IL2 series "essential" upgrades for example FB AEP PF Pe2 etc, etc
Now condensed into IL2 1946

Everything else has been free and constantly "improved/corrected"

And with TD taking over from 1C Team for free who know how long it will keep going :)

[swiss]

The main reason IL2 has survived is purely due to the fact that Oleg and 1C Team actually looked after their customers with free aircraft, maps and updates over the past 10 years,
and kept supporting their product unlike a lot of software houses that abandon their customers and leggit with the cash.

Not counting the IL2 series "essential" upgrades for example FB AEP PF Pe2 etc, etc
Now condensed into IL2 1946

Everything else has been free and constantly "improved/corrected"

And with TD taking over from 1C Team for free who know how long it will keep going :)

It's not the "free" thing, but the fact those upgrades exist at all.

Look, most of us spend several hundred $ for IL2 related hardware.

>ATI sux with il2? - ok, let's buy a nvidia card

>You suck at flying? Well, the you need at least a X52, plus eventually pedals.

> SOW needs needs new GPU? No problem, but let me now how many gigs of RAM it needs, so I can upgrade to DDR3 as well if i have to.

> Lack of SA? You go and order a TIR.(Or build a FT, if you can)

So, yes, I think most of us are[would be] willing to actually spend a few bucks on add-ons. ;)

just my $.02

[KG26_Alpha]

The main reason IL2 has survived is purely due to the fact that Oleg and 1C Team actually looked after their customers with free aircraft, maps and updates over the past 10 years,
and kept supporting their product unlike a lot of software houses that abandon their customers and leggit with the cash.

Not counting the IL2 series "essential" upgrades for example FB AEP PF Pe2 etc, etc
Now condensed into IL2 1946

Everything else has been free and constantly "improved/corrected"

And with TD taking over from 1C Team for free who know how long it will keep going :)

It's not the "free" thing, but the fact those upgrades exist at all.

Look, most of us spend several hundred $ for IL2 related hardware.

>ATI sux with il2? - ok, let's buy a nvidia card

>You suck at flying? Well, the you need at least a X52, plus eventually pedals.

> SOW needs needs new GPU? No problem, but let me now how many gigs of RAM it needs, so I can upgrade to DDR3 as well if i have to.

> Lack of SA? You go and order a TIR.(Or build a FT, if you can)

So, yes, I think most of us are[would be] willing to actually spend a few bucks on add-ons. ;)

just my $.02




You missed the point by a whole solar system.

[swiss]

:confused:

But?

[Jaws2002]

I think SOW will have up to two years life span.......2012 is just around the corner, you know.:mrgreen:

[Hunden]

I think SOW will have up to two years life span.......2012 is just around the corner, you know.:mrgreen:

LMAO! But thats not funny, If I die Before this sim is finished Im going to be pissed.:evil: