IL-2 Sturmovik 1946...will anyone keep playing

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

As to new aircraft for Cliffs of Dover, I will gladly pay for expansions that have several new aircraft and proper maps for them to fly on.

What I won't do is buy aircraft one at a time, like Rise of Flight's dubious, and costly, business model.

A Med expansion, for example, with all the proper planes, map or maps, and ground vehicles/ships/etc, that are appropriate for that area, at a reasonable price is just fine.

$7.95 US each for the dozen or so new aircraft needed will be the end of my involvement with IL2, and everyone else that I know that plays the sim, and that is a lot of folks.

I thought RoF was $3 a plane.... and besides.. I thikj there were a lot more AC in WWII .... I wouldn't mind paying $3 a plane... or $30 and add on... map & planes... I guess we will see how this process is going to work soon enough..

[Blackdog_kt]

Even if it's the same amount of money, i still prefer a full expansion for $50 over 10 individual planes for $5 each.

The reason is that while i end up paying for aircraft that i might rarely use, i won't be left twiddling my thumbs because a mission that features a flyable i didn't want to buy comes up on a server. In the case of a complete add-on, i'll just hop in and fly it and maybe gain a bit of appreciation for an aircraft i didn't know much about. In fact, this thing happened to me countless times with IL2 and i'm not that much of an online flyer, it was great fun and a way to discover stuff that i didn't pay attention to over the years.

If we had an individual pay-per-plane business model for IL2, i would probably know nothing about the more obscure aircraft in the sim. I wouldn't know enough to buy them in the first place and i wouldn't be able to fly them when an appropriate mission would come up on the servers i flew on.

Also, pay-per-plane tends to focus the developer's attention on modeling only flyable aircraft and potentially the most well known of them, because their revenue stream depends on selling these individual flyables. This would result in the game lacking in sufficient non-flyable aircraft for the AI (and even non-aircraft units), with which to "flesh out" the rest of the environment.
Some aircraft might be difficult to model as flyables or references might be scarce, but it would be a shame not to have, for example, an AI Catalina in the sim just because it's hard to fly with only one virtual pilot and slower than a modern car. Developers would think "almost nobody would fly this, it won't sell" and not spend time on it.

However, if the developers sell complete expansions instead of individual add-on aircraft they can be sure that a guy who wants the 109F and the Spitfire Mk.V will buy the entire add-on, so their revenue stream is not dependent on individually modeling the popular planes only. The popular planes sell the expansion along with everything it contains, instead of having to market each content item separately. In a sense, it's like buying the 109F and the Spit Mk.V for $25, but getting a lot of other stuff that might or might not interest you as a bonus. There's loads of planes in IL2 i've still never flown or flown years ago. Yet, i'm still glad they were included in the package and i paid for them, because a lot of times i was left thinking "wow, that is so much different and cool in its own way than what i usually fly!".

This gives the developers the freedom to work on that Catalina i used as an example, because even if nobody will fly one lots will use it as an AI unit to add some atmosphere to their missions. For example, you could be flying a mission in a user made campaign and as you are crossing the channel you could see one attacking a U-boat with depth charges.

And to tell you the truth, if the rumors about a new online mode that lets you run mini campaigns are true, i would fly that Catalina too if it was flyable. Sure, it might be boring with a single guy in the plane (depending also on how "smart" an AI the virtual crewmen will have), but with multicrew and other human players? Totally different story.

Imagine doing a mere 190km/h in cruise through the fog and hail of the north sea in an aircraft with pitiful de-icing systems courtesy of Oleg's new dynamic weather, when you get an automated message from an AI controller vectoring you to a convoy under attack (U-boats loved to attack in bad weather, maybe an AI behavior trigger for the AI subs that the mission/campaign builder set up in the new FMB). You still can't see the ships, but as you approach you can see the oil fires from the ones that got torpedoed lighting up the dusk sky like beacons.
Your buddies flying with you as your crewmen, the gunners frantically searching the sky for prowling Ju88 fighter-bombers (U-boats frequently transmitted the position of convoys so they would be attacked by air assets), the radio-man monitoring the radar scope looking for a periscope return, the bombardier turning the searchlight left and right trying to catch a wake or a trail of bubbles from a torpedo, the copilot managing the aircraft subsystems for you while you focus on flying the plane and spotting the target and on top of that, you would know that you are well within the range of human opponent players that could be notified by any U-boats you attack to come and swat you out of the sky in their Ju88Cs, a long trip back to home base making you even more afraid of battle damage.
Nothing's even happened yet and you're biting your nails off...hell yes! I'd fly such a setting for hours, maybe a single 3 hour sortie every other day or two (instead of the usual 10 smaller sorties flown in today's DF servers during a 3 hour mission duration), but i definitely would. Action would be sparse but brutal and the constant tension would be tremendous thanks to its clandestine nature (in fact it reminds me a lot of playing Silent Hunter 3 in this regard).

In fact, this would be a perfect way to bring more people to multiplayer by combining a less frantic style of warfare than the classic furball, but in a way that still has an effect on the outcome of the online campaign. I would love to fly such missions, as well as photo reconnaissance and pathfinding in mosquitos, night intruder missions in Do217s and Ju188s, ant-shipping patrols, etc...the less known, obscure but fascinating in a clandestine way operations that took place.


It's the small details like these that when added together provide that much more immersion and longevity for games of all kinds, yet they are sadly missed by a lot of developers today.
However, team Maddox has a strong focus on the small details, so i'm positive they will try to adopt a business model that allows them to spend time on modeling things like that as time goes by, instead of focusing on selling us individual production blocks of P-51s and Fw-190s (and i say that while being primarily a 190 driver myself )

[ElAurens]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

I thought RoF was $3 a plane....

Single seaters in ROF are $7.62 each, while the soon to be available Handley Page 0/400 will be $14.99 and the Gotha G.V will sell for $11.99.

FYI.

Imagine paying those prices for every plane needed for a new Russian Front expansion. Does not sound like such a good idea now does it?

[Wutz]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

+1000000000000000000 for more early war content.

And more flying boats!!!!!!!!!

Yes but looks like we are a small minority.

[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

+1000000000000000000 for more early war content.

And more flying boats!!!!!!!!!

+1


None of these late 30's uber planes like Spitfires and 109's for me

[hiro]

you guys beat me to it . . .


I liked the sea plane Zero, that was fun using the water ways . . .

A catalina and more sea planes would nice to cruise around in.

A Sino And Spanish Civil war would be interesting as add ons. I do also love Korea (MiG Alley infected me with a love for flight sims, it was something memorable, I was one of the few kids in highschool that played it). Flying Tigers would be a cool part too (toss it in the Sino for extras)