A small request and a question

[Ravenous]

I have been lurking around in this forum for a good year and a half now, and I can't recall ever seeing anyone getting a concrete answer to the critical question of wether the brits will fly in the old VIC formation in the early part of the campaign or not at all.

Did I just miss that one or is Oleg and the team the only ones who know?

As the thread title states I have a small request as well, I was wondering if there is a chance of seeing the swastika on the german planes in Storm of War? The only thing that kills the immersion in my IL'46 is the fact that one has to rummage through M4today.com just to find a skin with a swastika for the german planes.

Ravenous

[Erkki]

Originally Posted by Ravenous

As the thread title states I have a small request as well, I was wondering if there is a chance of seeing the swastika on the german planes in Storm of War? The only thing that kills the immersion in my IL'46 is the fact that one has to rummage through M4today.com just to find a skin with a swastika for the german planes.

Most likely not: Oleg will probably want to sell the game in Germany too.

[Ravenous]

Originally Posted by Erkki

Most likely not: Oleg will probably want to sell the game in Germany too.

I can understand that, but I see I forgot to write that I would like it to be an option, so none of those who, for some\any reason would feel offended by historical correctness would'nt have anything to really complain about.

Just like you can chose to censor out the blood'n guts in almost every shooter I've ever seen and that kind of thing, you would go to options in the main menu and activate\deactivate "mature"-or whatever one would call it-content, and woila! suddenly you have Historicly CORRECT german planes, or not

if this idea is to liberal to some, I suggest we start a poll with four options to see what the majority would like

1. Option to wether the swastika should be visible in your game or not
2. Don't care
3. You racist-bastard Ravenous, we hate you!
4. we should censor the blue circle around the american star, the red dot in the middle of brittish markings and the top of the russian star and color the rising sun of the imperial Japanese airforces blue because we feel offended by them!

[Antoninus]

The swastika is (almost) banned completly in Germany. It doesn't matter if you can disable it, as long as the user can activate swastikas SOW would be banned too.

So Oleg would have to make an international version with optional swastikas and a German version without any.

[SaQSoN]

Actually, the Russian version of the IL-2/FB series does have the swastika, so it is already a part of the game.

Much probably, the same will be with SoW series. The swastika will be completely disabled for the versions, which are to be sold in the countries, where this symbol is banned and will be possible to enable in other versions.

As for the formations, the 3-plane formation is available even in the FB, so why it shouldn't be in the in SoW?
It is all a matter of mission building.

[Ravenous]

I know the VIC formation is in IL, I was just wondering if it will be used as the standard british formation in the campaign in Battle of Britain

You say the swastika is in the russian edition of IL?
Kinda wierd that it is nowhere to be seen in the uk edition then...or is it a config activation?

really sad that Germany(and probably many other countries) are still so sore about the symbolism from WW2, after all the swastika is something like 2500-3000 years old IIRC and it is a symbol of the sun..come to think about it we actually have an old gate close to the american embasy right here in Oslo with several swastikas on it, and it was there loooong before Corporal Hitler A. even got wounded by that sniper in WW1...

if the swastika is in the russian and UK/US edition of the game, I must have missed it but I really hope it will carry over to Storm of War for the ones of us who wants it there..thanks for replying though


ok never mind about the config activation question, I googled it and found it on the very top of the first page, can't belive I've never thought of trying that before...
Thanks a bunch

[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by Ravenous

You say the swastika is in the russian edition of IL?
Kinda wierd that it is nowhere to be seen in the uk edition then...or is it a config activation?

It is generally not called a swastika the correct term is Hakencruiz and there are literally dozens of utilities out there that enable it. IL2mat and Il2Stab are just two that come to mind. Just go t to Mission 4 Today and search the utilities section.

[*Buzzsaw*]

Originally Posted by WTE_Galway

It is generally not called a swastika the correct term is Hakencruiz and there are literally dozens of utilities out there that enable it. IL2mat and Il2Stab are just two that come to mind. Just go t to Mission 4 Today and search the utilities section.

Not generally called a 'swastika'?

I would say it was. After Hitler made the Hakencruiz the public symbol of Nazi Germany, it pretty much branded this particular visual display.

For good reason the German government has banned it. It is a loaded symbol, and Neo-Nazi groups all over the world use it.

Not to say it shouldn't be part of a historical game like IL-2, but in any other context it is highly suspect.

[Blackdog_kt]

Actually i think that the symbol used in WWII was an inverted swastika. I think i read about it in an article that had some supernatural/occult connotations, saying that the original was a positive symbol and they used an inverted one, etc etc.

To be honest though, it's a symbol that has been used by a myriad of civilisations in the past...native Americans, Mayan Indians, i think even ancient Greeks had it at some place right there with their meanders even though it wasn't that widespread.

Germany is a country that has managed to come to grips with the darkest pages of their history so efficiently, accepted its mistakes and tried really hard to repair the material and moral damage it caused in the past with above average results and in a small timeframe. I can't seem to find another country that was so up front about screaming "mea culpa" after less than a century of the deed and it's not just about their government, their people today are educated about the whole thing as well.

Contrast this with all the former colonial powers in Europe, the US and the Soviet Union. Did the Union Jack get banned because Hindus were killed in Ghandi's peaceful rallies by British troops? Did the US insignia get banned for dropping napalm (Vietnam), or cluster bombs (Balkans) on civilians? What about the French insignia for the atrocities in Algeria or the Belgian one due to Congo, or the Soviet one due to Afghanistan?

To me it seems a bit silly to get bogged down on a matter as small as the depiction of a symbol when you have managed to achieve so much. Swastikas in a neo-nazi rally in the streets will offend a lot of people, but maybe the law could cut some slack if the symbol was used for purposes of historical accuracy. I mean, these guys actually admitted their mistakes and educated themselves to prevent something similar in the future, which is more than most of the others have ever done. Banning the swastika from use as a historical reference is like denying the existence of a symbol when you have admitted the existence of far more troublesome things that came behind it, like mass murder. It's a bit like showing the victim's body to the cops and admitting guilt and then hiding the murder weapon

As far as the game is concerned, i don't expect a european version to have it, because anything that contains it is illegal in Germany. That means apart from a Russian version, a US one and a european version they would have to release a separate German version as well. They'll probably choose to save themselves the necessary time for that, since it might also need a different publisher to do it.

[Thunderbolt56]

If you want it (and you're not using the Russian version), you can do several things to enable it, IL2Stab and IL2 Mat Manager work but I've found them cumbersome to install and use. An easy quick way to enable it is to DL this little proggy: http://www.mission4today.com/index.p...etails&id=3530

run it and let it run in the background. It's not perfect, but it's light, quick and easy.