Quote:
Originally Posted by TinyTim
I still clearly remember numerous "It was fun while it lasted" comments back when it broke out that IL-2 had been "hacked" years ago.
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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" ..
Quote:
Originally Posted by sniperton
Agreed. But some selected objects/planes/maps, better sounds and visual effects wouldn't hurt either, provided they are of high quality. Now the problem is that TD goes one way (e.g. AI -- that's good), while the modding community goes another (more effects, more this and that -- and that's not bad either). Both approaches have produced some really excellent stuff, but they hardly overlap: it's better to fly the stock game, while it's better to look at, and to listen to, the mod games.
There should be a compromise IMHO, on TD's side as well. The mod community should accept that TD is serving as a 'quality filter', while TD should implement much, much more from the high quality part of mods. Sounds and some visual effects are likely candidates IMHO, as well as retextured stock objects and some new ones. And I simply can't understand why we couldn't have at least a fraction of the new maps made by modders. I don't beleive they are all just crap...
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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.