What disappoints me is the lack of communication on the 'Official' forum :(

[Bobb4]

Originally Posted by Feuerfalke

And BTW, I didn't say that UBISOFT doesn't allow updates, I posted that UBISOFT has all the rights and they say when things will be announced or released. Slight difference, but to the same effect, honestly.

E3 has come and gone, Ubisoft made no announcement about SOW BoB.
From the tiny amounts of useful information in this carbled thread I can deduce one thing.
There will be no SOW in 2008.
And frankly thats good enough for me.
Who ends up publishing it in Europe or the USA does not concern me. I live in Africa and we are used to waiting.

Point to think about:

If I had just brough out a piece of a doggy doo-doo console game called "Birds of Prey" I sure would not be announcing anything about a state-of-the-art PC flight sim that will have the console fanboys complaining they had been short-changed. (not meant as an insult to developers, but lets face it, flying a plane on a console, lets get real? They will never experience anything...)

I would just lay low for a while and once copies of my console game were flying off the selve and I had made my dough then and only then would I remind the world that the alpha and omega of flight sims was just around the corner.
Maybe even a console version as well

[Feuerfalke]

Reasonable, Bobb4.

I was not surprised that there was no official announcement on this years E3, as it was a shadow of the E3 that it used to be. IIRC there were just minor announcements for the whole business on this years E3, especially compared to the news on the gaming market that were published in the weeks before.
As many critics say, E3 2008 was insufficient in many regards, especially considering it was AFTER titles for this winter were announced. There may be informations on this years GamesConvention in Germany, considering UBISOFT is a European company, the former plans for a takeover of UBISOFT by an US-publisher and the later date offering some further options - but I won't place my bets on it.

Considering all the bits of information we have, I also agree that there will be no release in 2008. I don't know how much BoP has to do with it, as it's another publisher for the western world and another developer, but considering the history of IL2 and the circumstances, I bet UBI will announce and advertise the game a pretty short time before the release, only after it's perfectly clear what will be in and what not and at a stage where it's clear that competitors will not be able to benefit from that information prior to BoBs release.

[Bobb4]

And in the marketing game there is no such thing as bad publicity. And in any forum you will find arogant, self-rightious and idiotic people. (please note I do not exclude myself from this category)
Anyone who believes half of what they read in any forum need their heads read.
I am doggedly loyal to IL2 because I fly it daily online. On warbirds of prey or ADW or our own South African sgs servers I fly. On Ts channels I talk to flyers from all over the world and only one thing matters... "The moment that enemy plane drifts into your sights and you squeeze the trigger or the moment a wingman clears your six" ...Flying to live or living to fly you take your pick.
So if SOW never gets off the ground I will still be flying and if it does I will just be a happier flyer.

[Feuerfalke]

That's not that simple. As long as people keep bashing a person, they and the guy they flame are just forum-morons to any outsider, just as you said. Bashing the developer falls back on the community, the brand and the team and a lot of sources are very sensitive to that.

I dont see any bashing or flaming of Oleg/1C/Ubi taking place in this thread, no-one is asking "when is this sim going to be out". We all know its a long way off. This thread was started by Mysticpuma who raised a valid concern about the lack of communication from Oleg/1C/Ubi. Is that being flamed or bashed, i think not, its just a simple fact. It doesn't matter how you want to flower it up, or what the reasons are, at the end of the day there is very little communication. Some people dont mind being kept in the dark, others find it frustrating - its life.
This is a forum, a place where you can express your concerns, yet sadly it seems that those that do end up getting bashed or flamed themselves.

[Mysticpuma]

"This thread was started by Mysticpuma who raised a valid concern about the lack of communication from Oleg/1C/Ubi. Is that being flamed or bashed, i think not, its just a simple fact."

Thanks Tree, that was exactly my point.

Cheers, MP.

[2Jasta11_Niederhoff]

Sorry for my bad English!

I didnt understand why Birds of Prey will be released first than SOW. The PC players and fans made IL2 sturmovick famous.

Why us, PC players were simply abbandoned? And about our fidelity to the sim! Why they decided to release the console sim first?

[2Jasta11_Niederhoff]

I expect that when BoB will released it be really good! Fantastic? Despite this it will be very frustrating wait for all this and dint have a lot of improvements.

I want to believe that BOB are late because they are developing amazing things!

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by Mysticpuma

"This thread was started by Mysticpuma who raised a valid concern about the lack of communication from Oleg/1C/Ubi. Is that being flamed or bashed, i think not, its just a simple fact."

Thanks Tree, that was exactly my point.

Cheers, MP.

i think the simple fact is that Oleg doesnt need his previous fan base anymore to help him with future commercial success of the various projects he is currently involved with, and he has no direct time pressures for BoB's release either.

to me it seems obvious that since the start of the BoB project there have been some major changes in olegs plans, from trying to create one single flightsim product that was the successor to il2 (and therefore needing its old fanbase more to help create publicity), he has now branched out into multiple products (civilian aerobatic sim, korean sim, movie and documentary makers using it as an animation bas similar to CGI even ?) and is tapping the console money cow for revenue (yes even if he doesnt directly create BoP, it will be a revenue stream for him)

to the western mind completely neglecting his old fan base might seem like being bad commerce and rude (he did state he was giving again regular monthly or bi-monthly updates in nov 07 because his project was getting "closer to release", and for 6 months now he hasnt done this or answered his regular question sessions), but i think other projects are taking to much of his time now and we simply are not a priority.

the east european attitude seems very different. for ex look at the korean sim issue, for years people have been hoping for a new sim in that area. for more then 2 years the website of oleg's buddy has posted the odd screenshot hinting at that, and now 2 months ago that is the screenshots we get here are confirming its production is in full swing, yet no other announcements to the korean sim website enthusiasts or fan base, or even an update on the developers website to confirm the cat is out of the bag and the product is confirmed.

i suspect oleg's team is also quiet small compared to large software manufactures that create games for consoles and have big money behind them, so any other project that takes their attention slows down BoB (emm they cant even spare one or 2 hrs to produce the final 4.09 patch).

the bottom line, we just have to be thankfull oleg still aims to produce a high quality sequel to il2, but him keeping us informed (by one of his staff members) is just not a priority.

[wjc103]

Seems to me that expectations are so high, that no matter what, unless SOW is second only to the holodeck in star trek, a lot of people will be disapointed with whatever the final product is. Anyone disagree?