I hadn't followed this thread but now that I've re-read the initial post I started thinking. And actually I think there are a few issues that may cause some disappointment.
I've played Il-2 since the initial demo came out and I've had contact with Oleg for even longer. All this time has formed a picture of the team "Maddox Games" in my head - and that picture is not all nice and cosy when it comes to inspiring gameplay. To me Maddox Games seems to consist mostly of "engineer developers" and not "gamer developers" as they seem to approach the problems of a combat flight simulation from the purely technical POV. They're going to great lenghts to simulate aircraft, weapons and flight but they never seemed to put any ressources into advancing the gameplay, to allow for a broader and more versatile mission base. Even DGen was an external development and so it had to deal with not being an integral part of the game's engine. Oleg himself said more than once that he has no use for dynamic campaigns and greatly prefers hand-made static campaigns because of their greater accuracy and to some degree he was right.
The problem of this POV is that seems to be diametrically opposed to what his target audience in "the West" thinks. I am not sure if I'm merely rehashing old stereotypes, but there seems to be the tendency within russian (or eastern european) development teams to go for the minimalist approach regarding gameplay. The hardware they want to simulate was often displayed in great accuracy and detail, but the gameplay part - the single missions, the campaigns, the online modes etc - always seemed to lack the same amount of enthusiasm and thoroughness. Is that the result of a drastically different POV in the russian simulation community? Or do the russian developers really think that simmers are satisfied just with well-simulated aircraft?
I mean what made the "great sims of the past" so great? Aces over Europe, Aces of the Pacific, EAW, Red Baron ... They're not even remotely comparable to what modern sims could achieve (tech-wise), but they have earned their special place in our hearts because they had immersive and capturing gameplay!
Maybe I'm doing Oleg and his team a disservice, but I think they should really take a look at the "blockbuster sims" of the past and why they had the following they had. If the russian market is content with just a fundament for dogfights and making missions so be it. I, however, know that there's more to a good combat flight sim than just a perfect FM/DM and astonishing visual effects. It has to have an offline campaign that does not rely on aftermarket products to be immersive and it needs to "weave a net" that captures the player's imagination. My 0,02 € ...
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