I think there are a lot of aspects to think about.
SH3 is a very good example for an excellent mod. The same is true for OpenFalcon, which exceeded the original engine by far. But both games are primarily played offline and there is no real competition in either games.
But then again you'll have to look at Falcon4:AF. There are a lot of people playing this game especially online, but the options to change things was drastically reduced to give a solid basis.
Same is for CFS3 and many other games. Infact Lock On is one of the few successfully played online games, that can be modded to a larger extend, but the players are very dedicated and even then, there are a lot of black sheep on the servers.
And to the modding qualities? Well, it's pretty obvious that modders are far superior to developers - at least by pure number! And as 6S.Maraz said, they don't have a schedule to finish their mods. Even better, they can look at the work done by the programmers, use the data and structure to add their own sniplets.
So, while I still really much enjoy some of the screenshots or options presented, I don't loose the touch to reality. Most if not all successful online-games are locked against ANY mods. Most of them even use Punkbuster or similar tools to detect and ban programs like Teamspeak-Overlay, Log-Analyzing, Keyboard-reprogramming and macro-generating, ping variation, package loss, etc.
We will have the ability to add content to SoW and that is IMHO a great offer of 1C towards the mod(el)ers and skinners out there. But I'm still convinced that IL2 was not were it is now, if it was as open as the CFS-series.
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