12th anniversary of IL2

[IceFire]

Has it really been that long? I remember hearing about the original IL-2 release and being not that interested in the Eastern Front air war at the time. Why I don't really know anymore because it's now possibly the one I find the most interesting.

I eventually got interested anyways and played the IL-2 demo on my Pentium II with a GeForce 2 GTS card. Those were the days

Grabbed Forgotten Battles fairly soon after that came out and went through every patch and iteration since then.

As for online... I can't remember the server names but I remember my first online experience was with the then uber Hurricane Mark IIC where I shot down a couple of guys (and was shot down frequently myself). I then started flying the La-7, the Bf109K-4, and later the P-47 and FW190 when I got bored of the usual stuff at the time.

Somewhere along the lines I heard about a third party effort to bring the Tempest to the game and I was very excited (for years!) waiting for that to happen. So glad that it did. Disappointed we never saw a Typhoon but alas one dream accomplished is enough.

It's been a remarkable lifespan for one product. It's not dead yet and it's legacy lives on in Rise of Flight and IL-2: Battle for Stalingrad.

[Bolelas]

Well, i am not from the early days, but here goes the way i met IL2: i only boght computer in january 2006, and i was already 30 y.o. I allways liked aircraft. At the time i had Microsoft FS9. The only time I had played a combat flight sim was a in a friends house(CFS2) and only for 5 or 10 min.. For one ocasion i was in a store that had the il2 forgoten battles, low price, and i didnt bought it, i was hesitating between the CFS2 and il2 and didnt aquire any one. Anyway, the cover of il2 forgoten battles made me think the game was a real crap! So, by october 2006 i had a surprise: My sister bought me the game, just like that, (it wasnt even my birthday). And since than, i am a big fan of il2. When i went for the fist time online i new already quite well the game(most stuff learned by myself, trial and error) but had no experience in combat with humans, so had to learn a new bunch of stuff (still am learning a lot). The first guy that "gave me the hand" was X32wright. Was fun!

So a big thank you for my sister, and also for the il2 comunity.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by Jumoschwanz

It is this year right? 12 years since we started flying IL2 online?

And patch 4.12 is coming out this year.
I see that the original IL2 is still listed on IL2, and that there is one server up for it. Everyone should get in there this year and give it a go to see how things started and how much better they are now.
I remember one guy quit flying the sim when the original IL2 was replaced by FB, he said that it was going backwards and was ruined. I believe his handle was VSO. Too bad he is not still around to see how the latest patch flies.
Another guy who was flying around back then flew under the name "Moggy", that was it. He really took getting shot down hard, we all did, but he could not hack it and quit, too bad he was a nice guy and I felt sorry for him.
I remember my first day flying IL2 online back in the winter of 2001-2002. One of the first guys I flew against was 609IAP Relentov. Not much of a contest, I mainly just ran like hell from him and his buddies in the very fast La-5fn.
Everyone flew the same version, the official version and "full-real" servers were cool and common. When I first flew I used the number-pad to scan around horizontally only, I did not know how to do anything else and did not even know how to use "padlock".
Because everyone flew the same version and the sim was new, there were a lot of full servers to choose from with any settings you wanted to fly with.
New patches came out with new aircraft and flight model alterations that tipped the advantage back and forth between red and blue and various aircraft. Strangely enough at one time the Hurricane was the most-flown plane online. The first version of the P-40 would explode in a dive at not too-high a speed. I remember tricking a P-40 pilot into diving after my 109, all I had to do was wait for the bang, greed was always one of the biggest killers.
In 2001 the hottest setup most could afford was an AMD Athlon 900 Thunderbird. If you were lucky you had half a gig of ram and a GeForce 200 ultra. A friend of mine still has that old tower of mine, I think I will try to get it back for shits and giggles.
Flying Microsoft CFS and CFS2 was very popular on "TheZone" before IL2 came out. I was there of course, and I remember buying IL2 in a electronics boutique and taking it home. I remember the excitement at watching the opening video, the IL2 lifting off the ground and it's wheels going up. It was a very short time later that everyone dumped the Microsoft sim and switched to IL2, it was so much better Microsoft never had a chance again and they still know better than to try! I still have that big cereal-box sized package that the original IL2 came in sitting on a shelf.
So I am a retro-grouch now. The only servers I might make an appearance on are the very few hard-settings servers that are running the official patch. I practice with one squad of nice guys a few times a month while BSing on teamspeak, a nice non-competitive time. Vinni-Puh server is the only thing left up and running that feels like the original IL2 servers, based out of Russia and flying a lot of old maps for many years. It is probably my favorite server to visit on the rare occasion I feel like flying anymore.
I was on Grij Dedicado today for a bit, it can be fun, and JG27 was there, so it was a bit of a retro-time.
Okay enough of my reminiscing, how about yours?
Happy Anniversary....
S!

Great Post Jumo! I would be willing to bet that guy VSO changed his name and is still here.. It is great that this sim is still going isn't it..? For me IL2 is still the benchmark by which all sims are measured..

I came to IL2 in October of 2002. I had been flying in CFS1 on The Zone for the previous year, starting just after 9/11. My local Best Buy had CFS 1 set up on a PC in the store with a MSFFB joystick.. I thought that was so cool but we had just moved down from N.Y.C. and things were tight so I walked by there and messed with it every time I was in the store. After 9/11 I had heard on the news that the terrorists used MSFS to practice flying their approach and I always wanted to get that anyway.. I upgraded my rig from a 486 DX just before I left N.Y. in September of 2000. So shortly after 9/11 I went to Best Buy and I bought MSFS and I said.. what the heck I might as well get this too because they were selling CFS 1 for $30 if you got FS so I got them both and a Logitech Wingman joystick.. I saw the X-45 and the MSFFB but I was not about to pay $80 .. or $100 !!?? Just so I could play a game??!! No Way!! .. ROFL!! by year end though I had a MSFFB. CFS 1 was the first flight sim that I got involved with online and I thought it was great. I think I flew FS once.. I was not flying with the 99th on the Zone then.. I knew I wanted to be in a Redtail squadron and I was actually planning to start one .. but I had no idea about how to do that.. Fortunately I met AHRT_Patches my very first night on the Zone and I have known him ever since.. we were using Roger Wilco for comms back then and we usually had skirmishes with other squads on the desert map in CFS1. There was a guy who came on our comms one night named Leost who was going on about this Russian sim IL2 .. That was the first time I had ever heard of it. He said it was head and shoulders above CFS 1.. I was like.... "Yeah RIGHT!! How can it be better than CFS? It doesn't even have any American planes!!?!!" That cracks me up today.. but back then I really thought I knew what I was talking about.. . Still I went to the stores to check it out.. and it did have a P-39.. but by then I had learned that system requirements were there for a reason and I paid more attention to them and based on the box IL2 would have been too much more my rig anyway so I stuck with CFS for the rest of the year... At the time I had a 233 Mhz PII with a Virge S3 video card and 128M of RAM. .. during my time in CFS I wound up upgrading the video card .. first to a 16M card then to a 32M card .. and I upgraded my RAM to 256.. but it still wasn't cutting it for me..

With CFS 3 on the horizon after contemplating a more reasonable upgrade path I decided to build my own rig from scratch for the first time.. and I have been doing that ever since.. I put together a AMD XP1600 with a R9000 128M GPU, a SB 16M APU, a 400W PSU with 512M of RAM.. and then I started stalking the electronics stores to see if the much ballyhooed and greatly anticipated CFS3 had arrived.. During one such foray to the games section of my local Best Buy I ran into a guy who told me about IL2 ... I looked at it.. and I decided not to get it.. and I went to the parking lot talking to this guy .. whose name was Phil I think.. on the way out.. He told me about Hyperlobby and the UBI forums.. etc.. I got to my car .. and after we parted company (I never saw him again..) I said.. Oh WTH!! Why not.. CFS 3 isn't here yet.. and I know it is $50 but .. I just got paid and if CFS 3 was here I'd have bought it so.. I went back in and got IL12...

When I got it home.. I installed it.. and the first thing that I noticed was that music ... LOL... I figured out how to launch a QM.. and naturally mi first mission was in an IL2.. I was not impressed.. I tried a few more planes .. and went to bed.. The next day I came home.. fired up the PC .. went on the Zone and flew with the fellas.. and when I got done there.. I fired up IL 2 .. Hmmm something must be wrong here.. these planes stall to easy.. but y'know.. it looks interesting.. The next day was a Saturday I think.. and i got up .. puttered around a bit did some chores.. came home.. and fired up IL2.. Hmm .. tracks.. What's that?

WTH!!! YOU MEAN I CAN WATCH MOVIES OF THE GAME!!!

So I spent the rest of the day exploring the sim.. I discovered the views.. the flyby .. I remember one track with a P-39 where the wheel gets blown out of the wheel well by flak.. That night I went to UBI .. and then I got on HL.. My first time online I couldn't even take off.. All the QMs were airstarts.. my first take off was online.. I met Redwulf 1 that night.. and I'll never forget him saying to me in the chat .. "This isn't a Mustang Bear.." and I said to myself.. "Does this guy know me or something?" .. The rest is history. The more I flew IL 2 the more I liked it. I went back to the squad in CFS .. but it was just hot the same.. Within the first week I knew my time in CFS was pretty much done.. After my upgrade for CFS 3 CFS 1 was like butter and a lot of the issues I had in it were resolved.. That was where I made the connection between hardware and performance as it applies to a given piece of SW. After that all my upgrades were more measured and thought out. I went to the leaders of the CFS Redtails and asked for permission to open up a chapter of the 332nd in IL2 and was met with a chilly response ... Very chilly in fact.. Iso I thought about it carefully .. and I left CFS for good and started the Redtils in IL2 on my own.. The rest is history..

This sim has been such an amazing thing to me.. I never thought that a piece of software would have such an impact on me .. but I know more today about history, aircraft,graphic arts, web building, PC building.. and more .. and I have met people from all over the world.. and thoroughly enjoyed myself doing it..

It has been a great run and the future looks bright..