The sanctimonious arrogance of the “I hate IL-2 Mods” mafia makes me want to both laugh and cry at the same time!

If they “don't use Mods in IL-2”, they can only be using 4.09m or earlier versions.
However, it appears they are happy to use later versions that include, and are the result of, the work done by the spawns of the Devil that are the “IL-2 Hackers”.

M'Lud …. I call my first witness … Mr. Zuti :)

Most worrying to me is the refusal of the official modders to discuss their source data or to even justify such obvious errors in consistency as removing the Fw190 bar whilst keeping the P-47 razorback gunsight obstruction, despite the factual evidence presented to them.

Apparently “refraction” only reached the USA after 1945!

This is one of the many reasons that the number of IL-2 players online is reducing.

As for modding not being good for flightsims? Falcon 4 is 13 years old and going strong thanks to modders ;)

Zuti was TD member when some parts of MDS were integrated into the code, he left for his own reasons after a while.

And about the Solomons maps, yes they are great and were easy to implement because they 99% used stock textures and objects. Still, some rework was necessary... so extrapolate to other modded maps.

Guys, please, think twice before you write something...

Official 1C map tools were given away to chosen 3rd party individuals to produce more maps long before the game was hacked - so 3rd party maps have quite a tradition meanwhile.
There is no problem for us to still accept 3rd party maps - but the main problem with many of them is the use of non-stock objects (and the ammount of reworking it to use stock objects would be too much for us).
And additionally... those non-stock objects are in 99% of cases in a bad shape (no LoDs, Collisions, Shadow etc.), that we could not implement them without finalisation, even if we would get the source 3DSmax models from the modders, which seems to be impossible to most of them as well (because they do it in Blender or Maya or Notepad or whatever).
New, unique textures - no problem at all. Quality and look maybe (Google Earth shows not the world of WW2!), but thats probably fixable.

We still have a few 3rd party maps in line. Time will come.

TD has announced its way of working from the very beginning. We did not discourage external contribution to IL-2, but wanted to keep it structured, with clear technical standards, relevant content, free of copyright stuff, etc.

You can read it here. Interview from 2009:
http://www.simhq.com/_air13/air_420c.html

It's up to you to judge, if TD has fulfilled it within last 3 years.

So do I .. quite well.. and while I still think that the potential disaster that so many expected (myself included initially if any of you remember the details), was indeed a very real possibility based on historical experience in this genre across several platforms.. In the end they proved unfounded. Yes the mods did change the sim, and for a while there it was pretty bad, but even then it was not the "badness" that so many of us anticipated. I never saw a substantial rise in cheats... nothing on the order of what was seen in other sims, and while the compatibility, or should I say incompatibility issues did and still do a lot to deter some from fully enjoying the sim IMO it has settled down quite a bit and if you want to have fun in this sim you can... stock or modded. People who left the community and have not come back either got other interests or do not fully understand what we now have.

IMO if this sim had not been hacked it would be farther along the road to retirement than it is now. Let's face it .. for a 10+ year old product .. it is still getting new users almost daily if some of the forum posts on this and other boards are to be believed. This is IMO a direct result of mods and the whole dynamic that that fact brought to the sim. Would there even be a TD if not for mods? Would Oleg stll be here isf the sim had not gotten hacked? We don't know.. From what we were told 5 or so years ago.. the plan was to stop support for IL2 and concentrate on BoB.. so if the sim had not been modded where would it be now? Consider the stock sounds, textures.. maps and most importantly options from the circa 2005-2006 period and what we were told by Oleg about his plans and consider what we'd have now if it had not been for mods.

Yes .. some are crap.. but IMO TD is doing a great job of incorporating much from mods into the sim... and 4.11.1 would not be what it is if not for mods. I also think that for better or worse ... for those of us who are still here, we are still here not so much because mods are good or bad but because the sim is still enjoyable.. That whole I can't find a server because of mods nonsense is nonsense.. and if many of the folks who feel that way came back EVEN IF THEY CHOSE TO FLY STOCK ONLY .. It would be a good thing for the sim. I like having more options.. but as I always say.. I like to have my options tailored to as close to what the stock sim is doing as possible and the quickest way to loose me as far as mods go is to say that you are "branching out on your own" ..

I agree with much of this but some of it just will not happen.. does anyone remembe the great reconciliation? Remember before the compressor or whatever it was .. that let modders compress their sfs files was made abvailable? This was around the time that the whole UP/SAS/AAA/HSFX unification thing was being talked about.. before that it would take as long as 3.5 minutes for the sim to just load because of the mods.. imagine trying to join a coop where everyone took that long five or take a minute in either direction to load.. it was a nightmare.. but that "unification" never happened.. the closest thing to it was when two mod groups sort of merged.. and that entity is now more... compliant .. for lack of a better term to the standards set down by the "official" modders ... but the one world kumbaya modland never emerged.. and it won't ever.. as long as some people think that they know "the correct XXXXX" for any part of the sim. I have my choices.. but for me the latest TD version is and will always be the ultimate determination of what mods use.

Bearcat, +10!!!

Good post!

The only thing that would be nice is to merge the SEOW interface on the TD pack. Not the flying characteristics, but the online war interface.

Thank you Gitano. You confirmed my point perfectly :)

Zuti was "an evil hacker" when he first made MDS.
Then his work became part of TD and he was one of the good guys!

I am guessing your patronising last line was due to English not being your primary language?

For the record please let me say, many of the mods developed by TD are excellent such as the G limits.

All of the modders, TD, UP, HSFX etc. are all doing great work. However only one of them is overly secretive imho.

Despite the personal abuse I get in PMs. As a P-47 fan I will continue to campaign for the Razorback bar to be removed by TD in the same way the Fw190 one was :confused:

It's the modded maps and sounds that keep me flying il2, without them I would have dropped out long ago.
The maps are a mission builders dream.
Cheers,
Ibis.

My point is that there is no prejudice about new content from anyone. What you see as anti-mod mafia is just people complaining about the fragmentation of the online community, which is not questionable.

No

LOL, if I tell you what I'm working on, I'll have to kill you...

We are trying to make more frequent updateds. Apart that, there is not much more to say. I have no idea where you see all this secrecy...

P-47 cockpit rework may come in future, as already stated in another thread, but there is no timeline, and no need for conspiration theories.

cheers

That sums it up nicely. The mods do enhance the game, it is fun up to a point where installing and updating them becomes a part time job. The real allure is long gone, for me at least. Thank Heavens we have modpacks or else I would have given up on this sim years ago. That and if it wasn't for all the great guys I've met flying online (someone mentioned fragmentation?).

What the stock game had was integrity and ease of use, i.e. you could join any server and hop into any plane that was available.

If I could choose between the enhanced sounds, more planes/maps etc. and the stock game with the undivided community as it was back in the day - I would choose the latter in a blink of an eye. In the end, the greatest sims are more into quality than eye candy if we're to be honest.