A final message from Luthier

[Feathered_IV]

Thanks Luthier for all your good humour and hard work over the years. I sincerely wish you all the best for the future. Things don't always go the way one might expect, but I'm sure the Il-2 story isn't over yet. There is always room amid the great unwashed here and in the flightsim community for you to enjoy things from the "other side" now and again. After all, you will always be one of us!

PS: Please let me know where I will be able to preorder your memoirs of your time in the industry.

[MadBlaster]

Sir, I wish you good luck and success in your next venture. There's nothing to be sad about. You are now smarter and wiser and your name will always be attached to the best pc game ever made, IL-2, a game I still very much enjoy. You can always re-do CLoD as Storm of War!

[Plt Off JRB Meaker]

Thanks Luthier,as others I too have enjoyed this wonderful sim and IMO there is nothing to touch this as regards combat sims.

It is a great pity this could'nt have been taken any further,the potential was massive,but I am glad we have what we have,the last patch was fantastic.

I wish you well my friend in all that you do,seasons greetings.

[camber]

Thank you Luthier,

I have spent many hours now loitering up and down the French coast and attempting to sneak up on poor unsuspecting commuting 109s. For me CloD is worth many times in enjoyment what I paid for it, I still feel amazed looking around the cockpits and watching bits fall off 109s when things go well. Was hoping things would progress somehow for the CloD engine but thanks for all the fun and best wishes for the future. We appreciate you guys getting the last patch out.

Cheers, camber

Good luck Luthier, write a book about what happened here.

[TonyD]

Thanks luthier, and good luck for the future.

[lonewulf]

Luthier

Thank you. CLoD is a triumph. Flawed, but a triumph all the same.

Have a good Christmas.

[SlipBall]

Originally Posted by MadBlaster

Sir, I wish you good luck and success in your next venture. There's nothing to be sad about. You are now smarter and wiser and your name will always be attached to the best pc game ever made, IL-2, a game I still very much enjoy. You can always re-do CLoD as Storm of War!

Yea!!!!

[Robo.]

Hi Ilya, thank you for all your work on this simulator. I enjoy it very much and I really appreciate everything you did to get it in the final patch stage.

[carguy_]

Originally Posted by luthier

Good day gentlemen,

(...)

So it is with a very heavy heart that I say goodbye to the IL-2 series today. It’s been a part of my life for so long, the one thing I cannot remember is not being a part of the Il-2 world.

I thank you all for being there with me, the fans, and especially all the Il-2 team members. I’m proud to have met and worked alongside you. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of the Il-2 series for all these incredible years.

I loved every second of it.

Ilya “Luthier” Shevchenko

Luthier,

I always felt like you were "our man" in the MG studios. Sharing IL2 community`s passion for warbirds, seeing them once again alive in the air.
It was as if you guaranteed us hardcore simmers an experience we dream of. Cliffs of Dover came short on many things, but the actual flight experience is top notch. I don`t know if the IL2 community will have a chance to see the next big thing, but I have both IL2 and CloD on my HDD so I can set it up and take a quick skirmish any time I want to recall the best times of the hundreds amazing combat sorties I experienced few years ago.

You have my respect for saving this project back in the days, because everything you did with it was worth the end result, even if it didn`t work the way IL2 community wanted it to.

Cliffs of Dover is a great creation, imo maybe even the most ambitious of them all for a PC. It remains a benchmark for many of the ideas both from graphical and gameplay standpoint. Making games in actual world isn`t easy, and making sims may be even something not worth the effort for a normal developper. Maybe that is why it didn`t make the cut. It was too much for one team. How would it have all turned out it everything went perfect, we shall never know. It seems that my dream of a perfect WWII combatflightsim is yet to be created, but for some time needs to sleep and wait for better times. Life is just that - we can`t shape the story in every way we want it to, sometimes we have to move on.

I personally want to thank you first for all the work you put for the original "IL2 Sturmovik", second for the courage, ambition and all the love you poured into this game and CloD. It means a lot to me and I support you and your inspiration.

For me as a gamer the road doesn`t end here as I still have the juices in me to appreciate the WWII aerial combat. I shall stay updated with the future IL2 creations and support them waiting for a game that Cliffs of Dover could have been.

I wish you good luck with all of your future endeavors, hoping that you sustain the same kind of passion for any future work you do as you did for Cliffs of Dover.


S!