What Would You Like In A Sequel?

[Doktorwzzerd]

I'm starting this thread because I have some ideas, I'm sure many of you do too, and the dev suggestion thread is supposed to be only for title update suggestions.

Single Player Ideas
I would suggest going for more immersion, with takeoffs, landings assembly points etc. The select button could be used to toggle time compression when flying long distances with an automatic reset to 1x when you reach the combat zone.

Also the attempt at providing pilot background with the Joss Auckland voice overs seems half-hearted and doesn't really work IMO. Does anybody else here remember the X-Wing series for PC? Thats how you put some role-playing elements into a flight sim, it would be great for increasing the mass appeal of the title as well.

On small detail I find to be excruciatingly missing from the SP experience that I would love to see in a sequel is a pilot record of the SP campaign with kills by type, points gotten, objectives reached, kills by wingmen etc. Again, see the pilot record in X-Wing and Tie-Fighter for an excellent system.

Mission Recorder, we need it, can we have it? The ability too record, view and edit films cannot be underrated. Just do it.

The thorniest problem for me is what to do about arcade. I really think it should be re-tooled to be more like realistic, or possibly eliminated with the flight models in realistic made a little more forgiving. The goal here should be graduating noobs into Sim, thats where IL-2 stands out form the pack and arcade currently does it no justice, though I see the need for an approachable entry point to the game.

Multi-Player Ideas
The biggest thing needed and needed urgently is more community support, the MP lobbies and matchmaking are so bare bones that I'm not going to go into great detail, just rip off Halo or CoD. Long story short when you have a good match with people it should be easy to keep playing with them. As of now you have to send invites every time, in a weird way it has helped to build community but its also a pain.

More game modes are needed, better pilot records (see Halos campaign reports), customizable skins (or at least a set of pre-fab options to mix and match), films and file sharing of said films. My advice is don't be PC snobs, look at what Halo3 and CoD have done right and adapt it to IL-2; its all about fostering community and competition. Don't take this the wrong way but maybe 1C should consider hiring some native english-speakers to help facilitate this? Considering the majority of your user-base is going to be Anglo-American eliminating the language barrier can only help.

Basically I think the MP of IL-2 could be as big as Halo3 or CoD. It takes real skill, theres a steep learning curve that creates a lot of different skill levels, its exciting as hell, theres a lot of detail and choice to get into with the different plane types etc. The dev team has gotten its feet wet in the console market with BoP, now if you can take that and majorly improve its presentation, you could have a world beater on your hands. Think big.