Lexx you keep on saying that but I for the life of me do not understand how you keep coming up with these 95%-5% type numbers... it seems to me like you are pulling out of thin air or something.... can you substantiate these numbers... at all? And not from a 5 year old quote... but from 2007.... 2008 would be even better... but I am sure you have no source whatsoever for these theories of yours...

There you go again... I have yet to see that silly simplification anywhere in this 111 page debate... and "let's customize this or mod that for optional use only." !!??? :D That is rich man... yeah..... real rich... If it were really that simple this thread would be on page 2 by now. Yeah.. lets have that option to put a 25lb spit in a Mk5.. or better yet the FM of an La-7 on a Mustang.. so we can fix it... yeeeahhhhhhh that's the ticket.... let's fix 'em all....!!!

and this little gem really takes the cake....

Everyone who bought the sim paid for it's developement.... and each individual... unless he bought multiple copies... paid the same price give or take adjustments for region and time of purchase relative to release of whatever version we are talking about..

Personally I bought 2 copies of IL2, 3 of FB, 3 of the FB GOLD pack... and 3 of 46... all which I gave away as gifts to promote the sim.... because it is IMO THAT GOOD.. While working at Best Buy for 2 years I sold EVERY SINGLE COPY of the GOLD pack that came in the store and several PF standalones as well... (Not to mentuion joysticks, RAM, video cards, sound cards.. all directly related to the sim... ) so by virtue of your logic.. does that mean that I have more of a say so in what goes on in here? I dont think so.... Your logic is NOT.. period.. It is a good thing that you are not an attorney because if you were you would be one poor sob my friend.

Our house was in order until you lot hacked the sim.

And I do in fact know right from wrong, something you obviously do not.

Well said Bearcat.

The relative numbers of Offline/Online play customers have changed over the years, possibly to a greater Online proportion. This is crazyivan's conjecture. Before today, back over the life of the sim, Oleg's quotation of 95% of paying customers being Offline players stands.

Bearcat (emphasis in bold ~LEXX):: Is that what YOU are modding? For Shame Bear! :grin:

We will just remind you again that "modding" also means things other than aircraft modding -- greater Smoke and Fire visibility, creating more historical runways and skinning runways, etc... It took you "2 years" to admit this at the western publisher's forum, but when you did it was like a breath of fresh air.

--

Bearcat:: Correct! Rama also failed to look at the customers in greater detail that a developer/publisher must consider. We shall review...


Say a jar of marbles has 95 red marbles, and 5 blue marbles, for a total of 100 red and blue marbles.

We could claim the jar has red and blue marbles, and we would be correct! We would also be missing more detailed information about the jar's contents -- relative numbers of red and blue marbles.

Offliners and Onliners each paid for each box that each purchased.
Offliners in their vastly greater numbers paid for the sim's development.

This is a simple analogy. A far better point was made by an honest Online player poasting at simhq about 2 years ago...

Yes Lexx you are right about one thing.. this whole line of reasoning you are on is simple....

Look I know some of those mods are good things that folks have wanted for a long time... that is why I don't go around trashing guys who use them... and not only that I still have a great deal of respect for some of the guys I know who use the mods.. because I know that they will not use them where they aren't wanted.. but until online play can be secured from those who do not have the same values, as much as I might want to try out some of them.. and I do.. I will not.... and I do that because it is right for me.... I can't judge YOU... or anyone else who prefers to do otherwise.... or anyone else who takes a more adamant stance than I do.. I think it is silly to not expect people to jump on this bandwagon at all.... but for you to come here with your no speak.. I cant even call it double speak... it is just a non point. If this whole issue was a debate, there might be others in the debate on the pro mod side who would have at least some points.. but your arguments barely qualify as arguments on the matter. I can tell the difference between valid arguments in a given debate and the Bullwinkle logic... You know.... "Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.... nothin up muh sleeve..... PRESTO!!"

NON sense... and as for the if not for the offline base we'd be paying $12 to fly online.... BS... this sim has been a hit online from day one... because it was designed that way..... Hyperlobby was icing on the cake and I am sure that Oleg didn't say "Hey Jiri can you... help a brutha out..... " Jiri did it because he could and he wanted to.... but we still had UBI... and we could still connect IP to IP... Your whole offline vs online due to numbers thing is not even a hose of cards... it is built entirely on vapor.....

The bottom line for me is that I hope that a fix comes soon.. one that will be at least complex enough and scalable enough so that none but the ones who have nothing but cheating in mind will want to try to break it. If the fix is scalable then all those who claim to just want to "customize this or mod that for optional use only" will be able to do so.. and those who want to make sure that the Spitfire that shoots them down is a legit Spit flown well and not some hacked up chump chariot can also do so... because you know.. the onliners may be a minority (though your numbers are laughable..) but they still have just as much if not more of a "right" to fair and level online play as you claim you do to mod it as you see fit.

What is this continuous arguing achieving?

Why not lock the thread and BAN all talk of the mods? I mean obviously NO-ONE here is mature enough to discuss things civily!

I thought I was quite civil... ;)

I can appreciate your interpretation.

"To modify the Multimedia Product or create any derived work" is as I understand it is in reference to the programme itself, not any "work" created outside the programme. ie. Any artwork created by the user in Photoshop is not owned by Adobe, nor is it modifiying the programme.

I would have thought that the scenarios that users have been building is allowed by UBI/1c as they are created solely from their very own supplied FMB. They even supply voids to assist the skinners. The fact that there has not been anything to the contrary for seven years sets precedent. I am sure "levels" and "scenarios" in the EULA is in reference to programme versions and revisions rather than game functions.

The EULA that everyone agrees to before they load the software is to prevent the misuse of the software as it was intended. Skinning and mission building yes, decompiling code no.

Really? If your own house was in order then use of the Sound Mod in non-mod online servers wouldn't be an issue would it? All online players would play with honesty and integrity regardless of the availability of changes to the game that can un-balance online play.
The existance of the sound mod in no way coerces palyers to utilise it in unscrupulous ways.
I can only assume, that as there is such concern about so called "cheating" in Online servers, that there is a lack of trust amongst the online community, that online players doubt the integrity of the people they play online with and that there is at least a small proportion of bad apples amongst that community who will take advantage of whatever means are available to give themselves an advantage.
Far from having your own house in order you have extrapolated you unease at the behaviour of some of your online colleagues and used it to wage a campaign against people happily utilise community generated third party mods to enhance their own gameplay experience.
Any issues with online cheating could quickly and easily be resolved by banning cheaters, stronger server administration and a move away from anonomous online play. That wouldn't require a constant stream of Online players repeating the same old boring arguments against community modification. It wouldn't require any programming effort to develop server side file verification and it wouldn't rely on a !C developed fix to the simulation.

As for right and wrong...really, whats wrong with enjoying a simultor I have legitimately purchased (on a number of occasions) in the way I see fit...

What strikes me as odd is that this is the only simulation of any kind Air, Naval, Racing etc where a proportion of the community has come out against third party and community development of the sim, beyond the point where the developer has stopped further support...

With this sentence, you only show your full ignorance of the problem.
No this can't be solved easily by banning cheaters. Every honest onliner know this...
... please stop talking about what you don't know.

You're double wrong there:
1) third party and community development of the sim has been intensive during the last 6 years... and very wellcome by all the community who praised all the patches and free addons in which this third party and community work was delivered.
2) No developper of any other game had got a continuous and constant support during 6 years. ALL OTHER have stopped long before. Nobody has forced M:1C to stop the support after 6 years, it is a plain normal and understandable decision in order to work on the following game. I can tell you that The distributor, Ubi, was absolutly not pleased to see M:1C continue the support of IL2 during 6 years and thus sacrifying valuable ressources for the developpment of the follow-on game they pay for....

From this, I'm sorry to tell you that what's striking you.... is just your ignorance and your wrong look of the situation.

No one is criticising Oleg for stopping support of the IL2 series at 4.09 and shifting to BOW-SOW.
I applaud Oleg and his business model...I think he has been savvy enough to continue to release patches through the long period between PF and BOB-SOW to maintain interest in his games when it might have died off...
But it is natural now, as there is still continued interest in the game series from its user for the community and for third parties to continue development of the game outside of the aegis of official patches, expansions and mods...
This is what has happened with every single other flight simulation in history...

Why cannot Cheating be prevented by stronger server administration or stronger policing of the Online community? Surely if anyone caught cheating was perma IP banned, cheating would tail off pretty quickly...All it would take is the major servers exchanging usernames/IP addresses of people abusing the system on a weekly basis and bingo! Problem solved...

You don't know that:
- IP adresses are floating (for most of users). Everybody "cheater" can change username and come back with another username and another IP.... so your usernames/IP addresses list would just be useless (or even worse...)
- cheating isn't evident to prove. The only thing you can do (which is allready a constraint) is to record tracks.... but how will you prove on the track that one player is using a plane with a topspeed 50 Km/h higher (or even 100 Km/h higher) than normal one? You can have strong presumption, but hardly any real proof. That's just one exemple, but I could find many other. Then, with only strong presumption, what you gonna do? create an "online" tribunal, having a jury of player all watching the track and giving their "honest judgement"?... anything else and you'll be an "online dictator" and will be flamed on all the forums.
- Even if you are able to built an heavy organisation of peoples whatching all tracks of all online contesters and taking care of all conflicts, this is going to maybe work for single dogfight servers.... but not for online wars with thousands of participants.... no online war dev will ever accept to built such an heavy machine (you would probably need dozens of peoples just to take care of this)
- And even with all these heavy mechanisms.... there will be still cheating (it will just refrain cheaters to use obvious big changes... but they will be able to use multiple small changes to have an advantage, which isn't a big deal in itself... but is enough to kill the fun and discourage the honest online player.

All of thess would be obvious to you if you have the slightest knowing of the online world.

Wow!!! You're right...I obviously have less understanding of the Online world than I thought...There sure are a lot of sharks out there in the pool if its that much of a problem to enforce...
I guess ive been lucky not to have played IL2 online then...I'd hate to hang out with such a bunch of jerks...
You seem like a pretty reasonable and intelligent guy...why do you put up with it?

First: the support has not stopped at this time,altough it will stop in the near future.
Second:Every modded Flight-Sim is quite dead online.
Third: to ban anybody you have to prove that he or she is cheating, quite impossible if the
cheating is not as blatant as a lerche in a 41 planeset.
Fourth: of course it is quite easy to put the workload from this problem on the people who
spend their free time and their money to host a server, but that can´t be called a solution.
maybe the people who are winning by improving their gameplay (aka modder) should do something
for the people who are loosing by that "improvements" (aka full-real-onliner).
i.e. a crt=3 or crt=4 or better a software that guarantees that everybody on a server has to have the same mods.
If i had any idea how to realize something like that i would start programming right now to save "my game".

Because its all rubbish thats why.I have flown online for years,and have not seen any increase in cheating using the hacks.And I am not a hack supporter.Breaking the code was wrong,but there is no going back.Only Oleg Maddox can fix it,if he has time.If not him,then someone else.

Because before Qtim tools where available to everybody, the door was closed to most of the cheats (except some obvious ones generally turning around lag cheat that were easy to prove and to report).
Now I'm staying mostly because of friends... but wont stay long if there's in the future no way to close the door again (online I mean.... people do what they want offline)

Got it now?

namecalling again?

Far from it...it seems that everyone here is saying the same thing...that as soon as tools became available that made it possible to cheat with relative impunity, then cheating became widespread...
I infer from that that the online community isn't exactly the kind of place i'd like to spend my free time (IE with people who will lie and cheat me) and I wonder why so many people are happy to fly in that environment...
Alternatively...cheating isn't really a big issue at all...and people here are making far, far too much of it!

Well... let me tell you...
The real world is the kind of place you spend all your time (not only your free time), and it's full of peoples who will lie and cheat you (no more and no less than in any community).
But it's also a place where you have your friends and where you do everything (alone or in good company...)
Now you're also happy that the police is protecting you from escrocs and criminal, and you're bothered when you discover a relation is cheating you, you would certainly prefer not having this relation.

It's all the same in online sim... but since its a place you're not obliged to go, and where you go only for fun, if the entry is full open for cheaters, then you will at some point prefer to meet your friends in another game place, where the cheater door is closed enough that they need a bazooka to open it... and so you'll know they are there and can change game room when it's the case.

Bear:: Yough Bear. Believe it or not, I hold the same view as ElAurens (or the view he/she currently claims). ElAurens recently poasted that he/she would accept the hack/mods if Oleg approved, which is a 180 degree reversal from the usual "mods kill sim" doctrine. I would like to modup 1946 for early Eastern Front simming where Oleg abandoned it for AEP, but I first have to buy 1946. I will do neither unless Oleg gives some kind of approval. No mods, no sale. But this opinion is for myself alone, and for none other.


Simplicity is the start of understanding. :mrgreen:

Yup. The most effective form of cheating might be undetectable -- never noticed. Oddly, this was never advertised until after the Sound Mod became widely known. For years, all we were told was that anybody asking for modding ability only wanted to cheat with X-Wing F-16 Tie Fighters -- I guess these three spacecraft make good slogans to use -- far better slogan than "You only want to add 5% power to climb and cheat!"


The most wild FM and DM online and Offline mod cheat in FB Hristo-ry was Oleg's original I-16 mod from FB 1.0 that outclimbed -109K and had the Tiger tank damage model.
http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d1.../PinkSunny.gif
Oleg's I-16 mod was BANNED from all servers.
Oleg's I-16 mod was even BANNED from Offline single play by some customers. Despite I-16 being my 2nd fave aircraft after MiG-3, I simply could not use the thing in single play missions, as the FB 1.0 I-16 always survived and completely dominated 1945 missions against 1945 LW aircraft.
:cool: :cool:

Cant speak for ElAurens but as far as im concerned about "accepting mods if Oleg gave his approval" implies that Oleg or some appointed had the final say in any "official" mod.

So in that sence its no where near a "180 degree reversal"


If Oleg however approved of a free for all modfest online (like thats gonna happen)...well, i for one wouldnt keep on playing this game for long, thats for sure.

I think, that's enough, guys. It was a rather hot thread, but I think it survived usefulness already, so i'm closing it.