Daidalos Team's Room -QUESTIONS AND REQUESTS ONLY on IL2 Authorized Addons

[Blackdog_kt]

Tree, it's not really rocket science if you look a bit deeper. The reason IL2 and SoW are not really competing products for someone who has the hardware to run both is simply, but a lot of people miss it: SoW will by all indications be much better in visuals, FM and DM, but its initial scope as far as aircraft, time periods and theaters of operation go will be vastly inferior to what IL2 has. Just like IL2 started almost 10 years ago with a handful of aircraft and only the Russian front, i used to alternate between flying IL2 and European Air War to get my ETO fix. SoW and IL2 will end up being competing products no doubt at some point, but for that to happen SoW has to be released and updated to include 3-4 major theaters with the corresponding planesets. At that point we'll probably be far enough into the SoW life-cycle that not a lot of people will care either way, as SoW will be making sales for full price while IL2 will sell for less than $10 if at all. So i don't see Oleg's team losing any money as a result.

My personal assumptions as to why IL2 continues to receive new toys is as follows:

1) SoW will be a very flexible engine, but too complicated for people to get to grips right away, even if it features support for modding and tools for administering the use of said mods.

2) SoW has higher standards for aircraft modelling, both in FM/DM and grapchics.

3) As a result, it will take quite some time before we get a representative planeset for each of the major theaters, even more so for covering the entire length of the war in each one.

So, what will the guys who like flying PTO or late war rides do in the mean time?

The answer is simple, they will fly SoW but they'll still keep flying IL2 as well to get their fix of a particular time in a particular theater. I can't wait for SoW but i can't wait for night bombing missions with radar in an IL2 DF server either.

So, what does Oleg gain by supporting TD? He keeps his customer base happy, or at the very least busy, by providing them an incentive to fly IL2 a little longer, at least until their favorite era and theaters make it to SoW. He also gets to "train" a team of external associates and build a foundation for cooperation that could be extended to SoW later on. He also manages to do all this completely free.

It's smart marketing, it shows appreciation to the community for sticking with this sim for so long and keeping this game alive and if someone could be perceived as receiving the short end of the stick, that would be TD.
Oleg gets all the above for free, we get a bunch of add ons for free, but TD is the one who does all the hard work and has to put up with our speculation, requests and whining on top of that

On a more positive note, we saw what Oleg gains from the deal, let's see what TD gains. Their work will not go to waste once SoW is released. Even if SoW was complete and on our hard-drives tomorrow, a lot of people would keep flying IL2 as well, for the reasons i described above. And by working with closely with Oleg, they might gain enough experience to keep on contributing during SoW's life cycle.
If they are good enough and SoW is as flexible and customizable as we've been led to believe, they might even be able to get an endorsement by Oleg for developing other theaters or even other wars, selling them as their own product and making some money from it. Who knows, maybe they'll be able to do a WWI sim based on the SoW engine, or a Spanish civil war sim. Definitely not a waste.

I really wish them luck and want to thank them for doing what they do. I'm sure a large part of the community is waiting with anticipation to see first-hand the results of their work.