Just pre-ordered the DD and will monitor any possible DRM issues with Silent Hunter which has about 19minutes to go for download.

Regarding the IL-2 Sturmovik name it's not an issue IMHO. The name Sturmovik brings to mind a great flight sim of superior quality that has kept my interest for nine years. Newcomers will learn that as well. In fact even if IL2/CoD WAS simply an addition to the IL-2 series I would buy it in a heart beat because of the reputation associated with the name. :!:

The IL2 name is out there and well regarded.

Anyone wanting to buy it can make a decision about a purchase from information available on the web.

Whether the marketing is what someone thinks is not material. If any advertiser asked for comments... there would be NO acceptable marketing decisions made, no one could satisfy all the craziness that people post.

Respectfully, nope. New brands and advertisement campaigns are very often based on preliminary marketing research, with questionnaires and interviews to real people. A friend of mine did that for a living.
We are simply reporting a fact here: friends and mates were misled by the name into believing that CoD was another expansion of the original Il2. Whether this will depress sales or not, I don't know. Whether UBI did a marketing research to sort out Il2:CoD, I don't know either.

Cheers,
6S.Insuber

I always wonder why developers go to the effort of making a historically accurate product and then let someone in some publishers marketing department who knows nothing about aviation or history create and write the box art and advertising/web page for the product.
I'm not talking specifically about CoD here as we know the dev. team had a say in the box contents, but I've seen this happen with other sims and it's painful, doesn't attract the target audience at all. Is this just the price you pay for getting your work distributed?

Of course. Just about everyone here thought IL2 should be on the box.
They can, but a lot of people that purchase games don't search the web for information about it first. They may make an impulse purchase for example.

No one could satisfy everyone, but it seems this choice hasn't satisfied anyone. No one is saying this is the end of the world, it's just a bit daft and poorly researched. No biggie, we just don't like it and we're saying so.

There are probably a number of easy fixes that would improve the general appearance without too much work.

One way would be to add a bit of ground texture around the house model so it had a different texture for the garden. You can do it to the model itself so every time it is loaded the garden will be there.
Secondly, you could add a bit of fence to a few of the house models. You could even add it slightly away from the house.

There is no need to do it all by hand.

I don't think it is too much work to do it, but it is probably too much workload for our graphics cards though, as Oleg said. But it might be something for the future (gardens/walls/paths/flowers etc.)

i disagree, and like most people here i believe the bad naming of the new product will significantly hurt sales in the future

if the folks at ubi so desperately wanted to keep the name il2 sturmovik in the tittle, they should have called it something like "il2 sturmovik series 2, Cliffs of Dover" ( or il2 version 2 etc..), all of which sounds ugly but at least would let them keep the marketing name AND would have gotten the important point across to sales drones in shops who deal with 100's of tittles that this is a completely new product in the same series (and inform potentially new customers who remember vaguely "there was something good about the sturmovik flightsim" lets try this out and see what its like etc..)

that then completely differentiates all the earlier products from the new series, and avoids all the confusion of what addons work for what version. customers and sales people need a simple naming system that lets them know what works with what

this forum and the other i2 forums still have a regular trail of eager new flight-simmers who want to try the product, most have just bought an older version of il2 without knowing any better, and are seriously confused by what il2 product is a standalone or an addon, and they dont know the sequence of addons and newer versions that integrated all the previous versions in one product (so they get the improved version of the game). it is even made more confusion with the additional 3e party produced mission packs and other 3e party addons etc

this will get significantly worse with the release of the new product, and the flightsim series needs a simple naming system that makes it easy to know what is a completely new version of the game (il2 sturmovik version 2), and the original older series. even at this late stage they could still slap a little sticker (on the already printed boxes) with "il2 sturmovik series 2" on it, this is a very common last minute procedures in many factories,and the next print run of boxes will then have the better naming integrated in the box art

I don't think there is that big of a problem. Most of the combat flight sim community who are interested in buying a new combat flight sim will easily figure it out.

Even if people are unaware, or confused, a quick look at the back of the box, or website, should tell them this is a brand new game and gaming engine.

It doesnt matter what the magazines think.. it is what the box says.. and the fact that UBI didnt even give the developer the respect to pick the name of his product is just pitiful.. They obviously have their heads up their collective behinds... Marketing thjis is another "upgrade" to IL2 is stupid. Period. Marketing this as a new product from the same designers who made IL2 is they way this all should have gone down.. why the pencil pushers at UBI can't see this is beyond me. I guarantee you there will be people who will say... why bother .. I'll just get IL2... more planes... wider theater... Had they marketed this as a new product from the brilliant minds that brought you IL2 sales would be much better.. but they probably didn't want to cut into any sales of IL2 either..

Well wonder how Ubi will, if they even bother, sort out the mess that many think CoD is just another add-on to IL2, and will think "If I don´t have the rest, no point in buying this as it won´t work" Especially for new people this impression seems to be around, that CoD is not a seperate new development but just another add-on.