Oleg and Team.

[Rama]

Originally Posted by tater

That goes for modder built as well as the "official" player map making teams doing stuff like Burma/Slovakia/Bessarabia, etc. They are simply better in every way than the 1C/RRG maps. .../...

And takes a lot of time to built.... except for "simple" terrain like for example PTO or desert.
Maps like Kurland, Norway, Burma, Bessarabia, etc.... took several hundreds of hours to be completed (not even counting testing and corrections). For Slovakia, we know it's a several thousands of hours.

Let's imagine M:1C would have decided to do all the map with the quality work of Slovakia. Because they're used to the tools and pro, it could have took them "only" a thousand of hours per map... with around 12 maps to start, that's around 6 years of man-work (so 3 peoples working full time during 2 years).
.... this in addition to all the rest (graphic engine, planes, FM, AI, etc, etc, etc...)

You must remember that M:1C is a very small team... and choices had to be done about priorities. Maps were probably not ultra-high on the priority scale... especially since they allready took a lot of time to choose the solution (those who have followed IL2 dev before the release remember that different options were envisaged for the map making... including the use of satellite image textures, who was abandonned because too ressource-heavy for the PC of that time), leaving a few time to developp the map tools and then the map themthelves.
After the release they where allways overloaded... that's why Oleg considered to give the map tools to some choosen external teams.

I have no doubt that now the code is cracked, external teams can do some excellent work with map making... especially in low-populated areas (PTO, desert, etc). But I doubt very much they will complete "slovakia-style" maps on european areas in less than 2/3 years (it took 3 years to a very dedicated team to do the Slovakia map).
... In any case, I wont fly with any of the mods... I'm now waiting for SoW and KotS.

Still, I agree that PF was released too early, with a work that was mostly unfinished and that the choice of maps was far to be perfect.

[msalama]

The true Online play community is modding up their FB/PF in private servers as we poast.

Well according to your opinion at least. Us mere mortals may disagree however, because tastes differ.

I did play w/ a closed crowd of participants in private servers for a while myself, and let me tell you, that grows rather boring after a while because you soon know the combatants and their capabilities pretty well. And the rest then tends to be the same old same old repeated ad infitum, whereas w/ the public matches what you used to get when the same rules still applied to all was a good mix of skilled and not-so-skilled combatants. So what you had was an element of surprise combined w/ lots of variety PLUS a known playing field, which is something we plain and simple cannot trust to have anymore w/ the crack out there. No?

Hell, pre-hack you at least _knew_ what to expect for the most part regardless of your personal opinions of some FMs or whatever, but now? Now these anti-social types you keep on mentioning have an excellent means of cheating at least if they're skilled enough, whereas previously you could just ignore them if you wanted. Ergo, the public online part - which used to be something the majority of us onliners preferred, at least to my understanding - is dead and buried now, and not because of the anti-social types out there, BUT BECAUSE of this game having been hacked. Easy and simple, no?

So yeah Lexx, twist this any way you want, but this I think is the jist of it still. And mind you, it doesn't really change anything even if the 'tards _don't_ actually cheat because the trust is just not there anymore...

Not a biggie, though, because this game is getting pretty long in the tooth anyway. But trying to obfuscate what's basically pretty straightforward doesn't really cut it either Lexx

And oh yeah, closed communities and offliners can of course do what they want, provided that they don't come and p*ss on my preferred online cornflakes. It's just that nowadays I've no way of knowing for sure if they actually do, unless it's very blatant - and that, my friend, is the point here.

S!

[msalama]

It's about those who use these mods to fly on "non-elitist" servers and you cannot say who is using what modifications.

Exactly.

[Lo0n]

oh come on, i've only been flying online for a few months now, and only in public non-mod servers, but i have still to see any cheating going on. you do start to recognise the players who aren't just stopping by for a one off visit, and you start geting chatting to them. you do see people getting insta-kicked as soon as they join, evidently because they have the modded files, and then you see them rejoin when (presumably) they have used the version switcher tool to revert to stock. no funny flying, no super p.11's, no 108 armed spitfires. and the trust aspect? well how many times have you had someone warp out of your gunsight, pre- and post-mod days? did that not do anything for your trust of certain players?

the online game is far from dead, there seems to be a bit of ebb and flow of numbers on the servers i play on but it goes up as well as down. but then if you aren't playing cos you don't trust anyone... how would you know about the state of online play?

[msalama]

did that not do anything for your trust of certain players?

Not overmuch... their Internet connections, however, were sometimes a bit untrustworthy

And yes, there were 'tards printscreening and cable-pulling before the crack too, of course. But that still doesn't lessen the fact of the basic situation being different now - and if you can't accept or understand that, fine, your business.

how would you know about the state of online play?

How would I know about some good friends still flying online telling me about the general swing of things in the circles I used to frequent while I was still active myself? By e-mail, among other means... HTH

[msalama]

But hey, this discussion is just so much c**p and little else if IL-2 indeed goes Steam w/ v4.09, now isn't it?

[Feuerfalke]

Originally Posted by Lo0n

oh come on, i've only been flying online for a few months now, and only in public non-mod servers, but i have still to see any cheating going on. you do start to recognise the players who aren't just stopping by for a one off visit, and you start geting chatting to them. you do see people getting insta-kicked as soon as they join, evidently because they have the modded files, and then you see them rejoin when (presumably) they have used the version switcher tool to revert to stock. no funny flying, no super p.11's, no 108 armed spitfires. and the trust aspect? well how many times have you had someone warp out of your gunsight, pre- and post-mod days? did that not do anything for your trust of certain players?

the online game is far from dead, there seems to be a bit of ebb and flow of numbers on the servers i play on but it goes up as well as down. but then if you aren't playing cos you don't trust anyone... how would you know about the state of online play?

No, online playing is not dead - nobody said, but it changed.

Surely we've had warping and stuff before, but that's not the point. I can see somebody that jumps from my gunsight to my six, while his ping rises and I know he's a printscreener and usually he's getting kicked before he can use that advantage. You knew that, everybody knew certain bugs and exploits and you could easily identify people, at least by watching the tracks.
But I cannot detect, if somebody uses a transparent cockpit or wonder-woman view on a Cockpit-locked server or if he detected me over 30km or over 3km. Can you?

[ElAurens]

To understand Lexx's posts you must understand that he does not fly online, and he doesn't fly this sim at all anymore, and the few times he did fly online he was blown out of the sky. He is very active in the Strike Fighters modding community. He is a modder looking for another sandbox to play in.

He has made the same baseless arguement about "onliners not paying" for years.

Ignore him.

The poor soul is lost.

[msalama]

OK, "dead and buried" is admittedly a gross overstatement, granted... but still, do people _really_ think that an existing cheating loophole _wouldn't_ get exploited in an ultra-competetive environment such as IL-2? I find that extremely hard to believe myself, us humans being the a$$hats that we unfortunately are

[Lo0n]

fair point on human nature, and ok you are kept up to speed on the state of online play, but people rarely mention the days when nothing untoward is seen so it can (possibly) paint an uneven or distorted picture of things. i don't think that because the loophole exists it won't be exploited, but i am of the opinion that it is not that widely used, certainly not as widely seen as forum posts would have me believe. maybe that's just the servers i use.

and no you can't detect if someone is using a transparent cockpit or is just an exceptionally lucky/good shot. watch them, if they consistently correct and rounds connect with a target that is manouvering in the blind spot under their nose then yeah, could be onto something. one thing i have seen a couple times is a fairly new player on a server getting owned by one of the better server regulars - out comes the "you cheat" message in the chatbar. it's pretty much certain that the player is simply bloody good, not a cheater. i don't know, i just am not seeing the rash of mod users making impossible moves, shots or climbing like a saturn 5. when i get outflown i immediately put it down to them being a better pilot, not "they must be cheating". and then i take off again and look to get one or two thousand metres higher than i was before, and go looking for them.