A final message from Luthier
 

Good day gentlemen,

I have been a part of the Il-2 community since its earliest days. I remember getting excited by this project way back in 1999, just as the very first info and screenshots began coming out.

I remember the day I received the IL-2 Sturmovik Beta in the mail. I dropped whatever I was doing, closed my work, installed it on my work machine. I remember the very first mission I flew in Il-2 as if it was a second ago. Dusk, coastline below, dark black pixels of the four enemy planes outlined against the clouds on the horizon.

I remember the first time I got to fly the very first airplane I built for the game. I had fallen in love with the BI-1, and finally seeing the fruits of my labor in game, seeing all those polygons and pixels I poured so much love into materialize and become a living, breathing flying machine in my most favorite game in the world. The feeling was absolutely indescribable.

I remember the first time I finally met Oleg and set foot in the Maddox Games office. I still remember the office layout, where everyone sat, what I talked about with every single person in the room.

I remember the sleepless nights and the incredible hectic sense of the world crumbling around me in the months leading up to the release of my first very own major release, Pacific Fighters. The eerie quiet when it went to print and suddenly it was all over, replaced by the wait for reviews and community feedback.

So it is with a very heavy heart that I say goodbye to the IL-2 series today. It’s been a part of my life for so long, the one thing I cannot remember is not being a part of the Il-2 world.

I thank you all for being there with me, the fans, and especially all the Il-2 team members. I’m proud to have met and worked alongside you. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of the Il-2 series for all these incredible years.

I loved every second of it.

Ilya “Luthier” Shevchenko

Good luck with what ever you try next Luthier.

Bye Ilya, A shame it all fell apart, but thanks for trying. I wish you success in the future.

Good luck. Hope to see you in the new flight sim skies ;)

See ya mate. An incredibly sad day. I too have been there from the start. It's going to be extremely sad not having those feelings of what is coming in the next release.

All the best mate.

+1, all the best to you, and thank you!

Will we see you again, maybe over korean skies?

Just wanted to say thanks Luthier for giving us CLoD, it's a real shame it isn't going any further, I absolutely love this game and the potential it had is huge. Despite not being finished it's still the best flight sim for online play, what we have on the ATAG server and with the SoW campaigns far outstrips anything I have experienced. You ruined other flight sims for me because they feel like arcade games by comparison :) !!! There is still a part of me that is hoping this is some temporary hickup and CLoD will live on, I was really looking forward to future expansions using the CLoD engine, to watch it evolve and grow into what we had with the old series, but with this more advanced engine. Even if this is it, which it looks like, I have still had more than my moneys worth playing CLoD and will continue to do so, thanks and goodluck.

Bounder

Thanks for the excellent 'toy' Cliffs of Dover. Many of us will be admiring it, off and on, for years to come. In the distant future it will be regarded as a software equivalent of the famous Venus statue with no arms. :)

Good luck Ilya. ;)

Thanks for all your work Luthier!

I have only one bone to pick with you (my main problem with the CloD series going under) is that it showed us the real potential of what flight sims could possibly be if they had the resources. It's amazing that you tried, but now us simmers are left with an amazing view of what could be (with CloD), contrasted with the bitter (in comparison) reality to what's financially and practically possible. Thank you for trying, my only quibble being, as Bounder said, you have potentially ruined all other flight sims set in this period for a long time to come just by showing what we're missing :D

In the meantime I'll continue to enjoy CloD, the only sim that I play regularly at the moment, with only the slight disapointment that I'll never get my Typhoon or Tempest to go and terrorise the pesky Luftwaffe and beat them at their own game.

I hope it won't be long before we hear from you again anyway!

Thanks Ilya and good luck.

Thanks Ilya, I am sorry that you didn't get the success that you most definitely deserved.

All the best in your future endeavours!

Sad :(

Hope we will hear something from Project Galba in future :rolleyes:

Thank you luthier good luck and Merry Christmas.

Thx for all your hard work.

Even if it didn't work out as planned, it gave hours of fun playing it.

Thanks for all your damn hard work over the years mate, the great majority have really appreciated it.
And good luck in your future endeavors ~S~

S!

Thanks for the ride with IL-2. The end could have been better, but nevertheless nothing out there rivalling the longevity of what IL-2 had and still has. Good luck with any future project you are attending to, both Luthier and the team.

Best of luck to you...

Thank you Luthier!
Wish you all the best and let us know if you develop something new - ill be on for sure :)

S! Sir!

I already said my thanks in another thread but it does deserve to be repeated. Thank you Ilya for all the years of dedication that you gave the IL-2 community. I will remember CloD as a kind of "Spruce Goose" of the simming world. It was a marvellous feat but never really took off, the execution can be faulted but the ambition was unparalleled IMO. Thank you and good luck with whatever you take upon yourself in the future!:)

Thanks Luthier for all your good humour and hard work over the years. I sincerely wish you all the best for the future. Things don't always go the way one might expect, but I'm sure the Il-2 story isn't over yet. There is always room amid the great unwashed here and in the flightsim community for you to enjoy things from the "other side" now and again. After all, you will always be one of us!

PS: Please let me know where I will be able to preorder your memoirs of your time in the industry. ;)

Sir, I wish you good luck and success in your next venture. There's nothing to be sad about. You are now smarter and wiser and your name will always be attached to the best pc game ever made, IL-2, a game I still very much enjoy. You can always re-do CLoD as Storm of War!

Thanks Luthier,as others I too have enjoyed this wonderful sim and IMO there is nothing to touch this as regards combat sims.

It is a great pity this could'nt have been taken any further,the potential was massive,but I am glad we have what we have,the last patch was fantastic.

I wish you well my friend in all that you do,seasons greetings.:)

Thank you Luthier,

I have spent many hours now loitering up and down the French coast and attempting to sneak up on poor unsuspecting commuting 109s. For me CloD is worth many times in enjoyment what I paid for it, I still feel amazed looking around the cockpits and watching bits fall off 109s when things go well. Was hoping things would progress somehow for the CloD engine but thanks for all the fun and best wishes for the future. We appreciate you guys getting the last patch out.

Cheers, camber

Good luck Luthier, write a book about what happened here.

Thanks luthier, and good luck for the future.

Luthier

Thank you. CLoD is a triumph. Flawed, but a triumph all the same.

Have a good Christmas.

Yea!!!!:grin:

Hi Ilya, thank you for all your work on this simulator. I enjoy it very much and I really appreciate everything you did to get it in the final patch stage.

S!
 

Luthier,

I always felt like you were "our man" in the MG studios. Sharing IL2 community`s passion for warbirds, seeing them once again alive in the air.
It was as if you guaranteed us hardcore simmers an experience we dream of. Cliffs of Dover came short on many things, but the actual flight experience is top notch. I don`t know if the IL2 community will have a chance to see the next big thing, but I have both IL2 and CloD on my HDD so I can set it up and take a quick skirmish any time I want to recall the best times of the hundreds amazing combat sorties I experienced few years ago.

You have my respect for saving this project back in the days, because everything you did with it was worth the end result, even if it didn`t work the way IL2 community wanted it to.

Cliffs of Dover is a great creation, imo maybe even the most ambitious of them all for a PC. It remains a benchmark for many of the ideas both from graphical and gameplay standpoint. Making games in actual world isn`t easy, and making sims may be even something not worth the effort for a normal developper. Maybe that is why it didn`t make the cut. It was too much for one team. How would it have all turned out it everything went perfect, we shall never know. It seems that my dream of a perfect WWII combatflightsim is yet to be created, but for some time needs to sleep and wait for better times. Life is just that - we can`t shape the story in every way we want it to, sometimes we have to move on.

I personally want to thank you first for all the work you put for the original "IL2 Sturmovik", second for the courage, ambition and all the love you poured into this game and CloD. It means a lot to me and I support you and your inspiration.

For me as a gamer the road doesn`t end here as I still have the juices in me to appreciate the WWII aerial combat. I shall stay updated with the future IL2 creations and support them waiting for a game that Cliffs of Dover could have been.

I wish you good luck with all of your future endeavors, hoping that you sustain the same kind of passion for any future work you do as you did for Cliffs of Dover.


S!

It really is a sad day, Thanks Luthier for everything you've done for IL2 and the community over the years.
And Clod is simply an amazing feat, a true gem, maybe a little unpolished, but its a gem none the less.

Good Luck for the future, and if you happen to make anymore flight sims, give me a shout, I'll buy it.

Best of luck mate, and if you have the source code please try to leak it out into the community somewhere because I can't see 777's engine even approaching what you and your team have done here. It's been a turbulent time but we can see now that a lot of the troublemakers just appear to be ROF lovers wanting to stick the knife into something better. Troubles aside, we're having an epic time in COD so thank you at least for that.

May the suits at 1C who pulled the plug meet the famous Russian justice system in the near future.

Thankyou Ilya. Your work has been much appreciated. Good luck to you for the future.

Best of luck for the future Luthier.

I've had more than my moneys worth from Cliffs of Dover. It's a dreadful shame that it has come to this, as with a couple of more patches I feel it would be the best out there.

By the way, I would pay a lot of money for a good (finished :)) Korean war flight sim.

All the best,

Choccy.

I think the best thing I can say is that this simulator series IL-2 Sturmovik has made this past eleven years a great experience. Even when I went to the Electronics Boutique to buy the original game in November 201 I almost killed myself in that stupid old K car. Someday in the old folks home when we are all in our 80's and 90's in diapers and listening to the Stones, Cream and Led Zeppelin we can remember the days when we flew with AD, Elanski, Pope, Willie, Herr-Spray, Graf, Venny, Aristo, Josh, Freitag..to name only a few.


Thank you Ilya for all of the good times and good luck to you.

Luthier - thank you for all you have contributed to the il2 series. It has given me great enjoyment over a very long period.

All the very best for the future.

Thank you for everything, Luthier, I wish you all the best for the future.

Always sad to see somebody leaving like this.

~S~

hi luthier,

best wishes for the future and it is an incredible disappointment that 1c did not put in the last 6 months of effort to get BoM out the door, and recover its reputation and improve sales figures

BoB/SoW is an absolutely visionary project with attention to detail that sadly will never be seen again again in a ww2 flightsim. many many sincere thank for trying to persevere for so long to still try and get it finished and fixed under very difficult circumstances in the last 18 months

the 1c management must be totally bonkers to kill the project off now the main problems have just been solved in the last few months. if they were insistent in making more money from it in the short term they could have made the SDK and drivable vehicle components a payware addon element, and it would have created more breathing space.

i wish you all the best, and many thanks again for your massive effort to still try and get it finished while incompetent senior management kept limiting your options on how to proceed

Thanks for all your efforts, Luthier.

Ilya, thank you for all your efforts on the IL-2 series. Good luck with new ventures.

Good luck and thanks for everything you've done, all your hard work and dedication, sometimes seemingly overwhelming , has not gone unnoticed.
All the best, live long and prosper :)

thanks Ilya to all job... More thanks for all...

Il2 is great sim...

Thanks for so many moments of satisfaction.
If new projects are as they have been so far in the series will Il2 sure many of us hardcore fans.

Thank you very much.

(thx too for Google traslator :-) )

I hope everything works out for you and your colleagues who are effected by this.In the end it is a sim,losing your work is real.
Good luck

Thank You Luthier! We really appreciate what you have done in all those years around IL-2. Tremendous amount of fun was brought to us by you and the team!

Good luck with your future projects. I hope you wont turn away from the flight sim world!

S!

Salute Luthier

Good luck on your future endeavors.

I hope you get to make that Korean War Sim you've always wanted to!!

Thank you Luthier for your engagement in il2 series developping, you and your team have given to the community a precious piece of work which has provided years of enjoyment to all of us.
What would be your involvement in future combat sims, the certainty of having made ​​an indelible mark in the history of game industry will accompany you.
Thanks again.
Beside this, I can not suppress the sadness for the inglorious end of CloD; I put a lot of hope in it and now my hope is to see it live again in a new decent look.
Salute!

Thank you for everything Luthier, good luck in the future whatever you may decide to do!

Pity CoD did not get the success it deserved, despite that, it was an amazing experience.

~S~

thank you Luthier for all your work specially your dedication!!!!!!

So sad it ended like this, Luthier!

Cliffs of Dover has been a journey! Sometimes a really irritating journey but a journey nonetheless. Some days I'd moaned and complained as my PC stuttered from one frame to the next... moaned about you as well! Quite a lot, actually. :D

One thing that has to be said, though, is that it was getting better! After a recent gpu upgrade, my enjoyment levels have risen by leaps and bounds! Cliffs of Dover wasn't a failure... far from it! So some things didn't work properly..... just look at the things that did! Oh how they worked!

306 hours on Steam! 306! Nothing else on my library list even approaches that level of dedication! Sure... plenty of other people have flown it for much longer but, what can I say? I'm a very busy chap. 306 hours is a lot of gameplay. :D

It won't stop there either.

You guys created a wonderful product and, even though you are walking out that door for the final time, Luthier... walk out that door with your head held high.

Good luck to you and the team!

PS: Luthier.... you go find the guy whose decision it was to print such crappy specs on the box and you kick his arse! ;)

Thanks for all, Luthier!

...been flying IL-2 since day 1 too...

Thanks Luthier. I loved Sturmovik from its very first day, love CoD (with all its pros and cons) and feel really sorry it won't go on.

Many thanks Luthier, I have had many hours of enjoyment with the IL2 Series, and wish you the very bust of luck for the future!

Thank you Luthier, and for all your work. At 514hrs and counting, Cliffs of Dover is the game that I have most played, in my life. Nothing comes close.

I wish you success in wherever you go!

Thanks for all, Luthier.
And good luck for your next projects.

Concerning Clodo, I must say I'm really not happy that the game engine is thrown to the dustbin, as NOW, with a good current PC, the game is beautiful to see and very fast, with good fps.

So long, and thanks for all the Fish.

Sokol1

Thank you a lot Luthier, for everything.
I which you all the best.
Good luck with your future jobs and projects =)

Yeah, thanks for the enjoyment over the years and I'm really sorry it’s over.

As has been said many times here already the ClOD engine had massive potential and I would have loved to have seen it come to maturity with a few more years development work. I feel pretty sure it will be a very different kettle of fish with the new owners at the helm and it doesn't excite me at all if I am honest.

I would really love to know what happened to the project from what was included on the bonus disc of 1946 until what was released as ClOD, but I guess we will never know.

Hope your next venture brings you success and happiness - S!

Thank You Luthier for all that you have done for this community.....Personally, Cliffs of Dover is at present still the best combat flight sim on the market and I can't see any competition for it in the near future....I love it!
I hope we see you again associated with this community and good luck in your new ventures...~S~

I loved IL-2 series since my first flight in 2002... and I will always.

Thanks for all emotions that you and your team have given me.

Good Luck, Luthier

Thanks Luthier. I'm sorry the dream didn't work out in the end. It's been quite a trip over the last few years.

I wish you the very best for the future.

I wish You the Best.
And once again - Thank You.

:rolleyes:

Thanx man... wow.. feels kind of surreal... the "two big names" of IL2, the pair that fronted the series; Oleg and Luthier... gone.

Thank you mate for all the love you have put into your work... your's and the team's result, especially Il21946 series, have given me and my squad mates countless hours of joy..

Take care and good fortune!

//SvAF

Good luck, Ilya!

Thank you Ilya for everything. I enjoyed IL-2 series, especially online wars like CAD and Air Force War. Now that those wars are over and nothing like them is in sight maybe I should quit the stage too. All the best with whatever you will do in your life. SALUTE!

Wow I thought this might have just been averted.

Very sad indeed :(

Luthier, thanks for your classy goodbye. It is a sad day for everyone. I have played the IL2 series from day one and really enjoyed Pacific Fighters so thanks for that.

When I first heard about Storm of War and started seeing the amazing updates I thought it sounded too good to be true. Turns out I was right and I’m not happy about it. In our culture of 24/7 news I think many of us would love to know the whole story…when it all went wrong and what finally killed it. Not for blame but for closure. Many of us feel we have been part of the IL2 family and would like to understand how this happened. I would image it was all about money…it usually is. And that you were handed the wheel to the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. Anyway, sorry to see the end of CLoD and your association with IL2.

Good luck Luthier!

Is very sad day for me
Ilya Thanks for everything and for your hard work!
the latest patch is a great achievement, I decided to buy, then I play online smooth.
The project was huge.

"The Channel"
Water in the middle ................and goodbye to ground combat.. "Marketing" ??
The main mistake was the choice of esenario. ( Channel and London)

Make a Shooter game, only British against Germans.
Is doomed to failure for lack of buyers
How Many Russians, would buy that Shooter game??? - Marketing ??
Ok the shooters are popular, any child under 12 years tightened the trigger....

But
Cliff lack
Rusian Planes
NO P40
NO P39
NO P38
NO P51
How many guys like me, was going to buy the game ??

VVS vs Luftwaffe
USAF vs Lutwaffe
With these aircraft had been marketing a success.

Had a huge problem with common sense.
We must choose a popular Combat esenario.

Best Regards and Good Luck Ilya.

Thank you for all your contributions to IL-2 and also best wishes for your future endeavors.

Sad day Sad day for sure.

It was a breath of fresh air back in the beginning when IL2 came out beta.

You could see right away the future of flight simming from what we were using at the time.

CFS/JanesWW2 Fighters and such.

Thank you for all your efforts, you and the gang gave us a childhood dream come true with IL2 and its versions.

Sure something may come along better in time, and others pressure to replace it right now.

But she will always be my first real Love of flight Simming, such high hopes for CLOD but alas :-(

Take care, and good fortune in your future endeavors.

+1...

And to 1C:

- Go to hell, stupid company!

A very very sad day.

Il-2 is over.

Whatever they are making is sure to be the 'Lite' version of what you and Oleg had envisioned.

Thanks for the games and all the work.

~S~ Luthier!

+1

Thank you Ilya for everything you done for this sim and old il2.

It is obvious that a lot of love,passion and hard work was invested in development
and clear vision was backing it up.

It is sad that most of us won't get what we hoped for, new serial which would last for years.

Good luck for you in the future and I hope that we will hear about some new project soon.

it is really sad, after the last patch , really thought you guys were on the right track. sorry the way things turned out , been a buyer since the beggining, an in cod have log more than 1000 hours , good luck an thanks atleast we still have a diamond in the ruff , take care an merry x-mas hope thing go better in the next years for you , your talent will be missed.

Cheers Luthier.

I really thought CloD was getting somewhere and I share the disapointment of a great many of your customers that CloD was finally axed, it's really so immersive now and graphically a treat even with quite alot of features turned off.

I don't know if the DN engine will be able to deliver an acceptable alternative and good luck to 777 and the 1C team with that. Whilst Jason doesn't want to make comparisons with CloD it is inevitable that Cliffs of Dover will be the yardstick that BoS will be measured by. That's testament to what you and your team have achieved since the launch of Cliffs of Dover.

I wish you success in the future and I hope our paths will cross again.

All the best,

Kev

Thank you for all your efforts and for leading your team so well trough the thunderstorm. I am sure those days would stay as epic as the days when Falcon4 came out just to be disregarded by short sighted visionary experts.

CoD will stay for ever as the apogee of a genre at a singular time. You stepped with the giants.

BTW, let's hope you now have time to make your Korean War simulator and maybe you now have time to fix the CloD engine to utilise in that game instead?

MP

I wish you all the best for the future, its sad that things have ended as it has.

I was talking to T_O_A_D on comms earlier about this, and it occurred to me that its thanks to yourself and Oleg and the rest of the team involved with il2, that there we were, talking to each other, me in the UK, him in the US.

Without il2, it is very unlikely that we would ever know each other and be friends, and all the other friends i have made though flying il2.

For that alone, you have my thanks, the hours and hours spent flying il2 is a a massive bonus.

cheers fruitbat.

There was nothing ever wrong with the engine, the patch's hurt the engine, complainer's demanded more patches...in short, we killed the game. I am flying the release now, it just needs some horse power to run, and some AI commands to enjoy.

Thanks Luthier for all your efforts.

The new game engine, was trying to do almost everything I wanted in WW2 aircombat sim. It just took too long to run OK on average unoptimized computers. You got so close to making it work, a new GUI with better COOP support, and improved AI would have made the sim playable enough to keep the wolves at bay. Unfortunately there are always scapegoats warranted or not. I think I'm done aswell, I'm getting to old to follow another long development, but that new Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, may drag me back in. ;)

I'd like to see you and Oleg start another development company. The genre would certainly be better for it.

~Salute~
JG27_Chivas

Very sad to see you and presumably a lot of the rest of the team go. Such a shame that despite all the passion and desire, it came to this. I believe your intentions were always the best. Uncertain times for us all but hopefully, as a certain Vera Lynn once sang, we'll meet again one sunny day. All the best to you for whatever the future may hold.

Personally I think your wrong there mate, rushed and shoddy product killed this game, we only wanted what we paid for and were told we were getting.

Just my opinion

Just wanted to tip my hat to you and thank you for the flight sim we do have. It was seeing screen shots and youtube videos of Cliffs of Dover that pulled me in to the flight sim fold - I was blown away.

Thanks to your game, and the community surrounding it, I am hooked, and look forward to anything coming close to the experience you have helped give me with CloD.

Cheers and good luck,

Bunny

Thank you Luthier,

You and your team have made a great sim and I feel it will be seen as a benchmark that other WW2 flight sims will have to be measured by for a long time, it truly is a beautiful combat flight simulator.

Good luck with your future endeavors

JD
AKA_MattE

Good luck Ilya ... and thanks for best sim

Thank you Ilya for your hard work and dedication.

Thanks especially for the glimpse of brilliance that is Cliffs of Dover. It is sad that it will not now take it's place with the best of the best, but it has certainly set the bar so very high!

Good luck and best wishes for whatever the future hands you.

~S~

Have to agree with Kris. The game had some nice aspects but was mismanaged from start to finish and deeply flawed. If if could have been saved with all the years and dollars that were invested in this mess, 1C would not have killed it. But they did so it is what it is. And it's nobody's fault but the developer's.

Thank you Luthier for this Great series,I still remember the Day I brought Pacific Fighters home and fell in love with the theater. It gave me incredible enjoyment,Fair Wind and Blue Sky's to you Sir!

Ilya now that you have escaped that awful place will you ever publish a biography of your time behind the iron curtain?

that post is just a little bit heartbreaking. good luck in the future luthier.

Thank you Ilya for your hard work and dedication, good luck in all your future endeavors.
Salute Sir.

I respect that, and I guess it was a little of both that did it in. I don't believe the computer needed has been invented yet either. Volksieg is on the right track I think
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...505#post487505

I have absolutely no interest in reading Luthier's biography, but I would pay good money to read Oleg's.

As for Luthier: Goodbye.

RedToo.

Good bye Ilya and good luck in your new ventures. Thanks for all the good times. Especially Pacific Fighters - many happy hours.

Thanks Ilya for all your hard work. I can imagine how difficult it is to put out such a complex simulation and then have to deal with all the constant negative feedback.

I've enjoyed the heck out of your work. i can't thank you enough: I've flown over a 1000 hours in the skies of the Pacific that you help create. IL2 series is the one of best computer sims/games of all time. A great inspiration for anyone interested in history. I look forward to flying in CloD for some time to come.

One of the greatest things about IL2 was letting the community run with the great work you started by releasing the code. Please continue this tradition and release the code to Clod so the modders can continue the great work that you've started.


Cheers