Oleg and Team.

[tater]

Good points, Rama. I didn't mean to imply that doing all the maps at the quality level of Slovakia would be cost-effective for them. Really, that underlines the point that the map tools should have been included with the game from the start. Actually, the primary tool IS INCLUDED with il-2, the only thing needed was a map file structure open like Paint Schemes. The community would have done the rest (it's exactly analogous to the quality of what we see in the default game for skins vs some of the accomplished skinners—some later patches have great skins... done by the community skinners).

Regarding the simplicity of the PTO maps, I don't disagree, I was posting as much at ubi before and after PF release. Posting that the very simplicity of the most important areas of the PTO (not CBI) is largely jungle and water, and as such, larger maps should be possible as the object counts would be low.

That said, there are still hundreds of hours work in even such a "simple" map. Research alone was substantial. In regards to PF as a title, really some focus was what was needed with that project, and a couple areas done well would trump a wide array of the Pacific, done and chosen poorly. Concentrating on the Solomons and SWPA would have clearly made the most sense. Huge bang for the buck time wise because the area is easier to map, with the added benefit that it was the primary air theater of the war, AND it had back and forth combat like the maps in earlier Il-2 theaters, not just air start vs scramble.

Certainly the more populated areas of the Pacific will become far more challenging to decorate, every bit as complicated as Slovakia, really, considering that the maps will have to be so very much bigger by default, so even if they have fewer colonial (which in effect means european style places) towns/cities per square km, they will have a multiple of the number of km^2. The Philippines would also be daunting in that regard... huge map, very inhabited, western looking places. Obviously the same applies to the mainland (it's a mistake to think that the entire war in the PTO took place away from modern inhabited areas).

Slovakia is a tour de force, really, it plays to the strengths of the engine, visually. The not so great land-sea interactions in the engine make it tougher in some ways in the Pacific (and the in many cases extremes of relief).

Regarding the tone... elsewhere... I just don't see it. Sometimes someone shows up with an agenda and trolls, and they get what they troll for, which must reenforce their POV.

<S>

tater

[csThor]

Lexx - I won't bother argueing with you. I could do the same with a wall of my flat and achieve the same results. I've seen your "discussion style" over the past few years and I have neither the time nor the nerves to do your routine of "posting-the-same-stuff-over-and-over-again-until-the-other-is-fed-up-and-quits". I simply don't care.
However you infered that people who do not use mods are not "true" simmers in a very underhanded way. This is what I object to - the steady (more or less hidden) imputations that modders are somehow "better" and that people objecting what goes on at AAA aren't "right in their minds". I don't take this kind of cr@p from anyone. You don't want to cross me? Then think before your post and look at the choice of your words. Nuff said ... and I am still diplomatic.

tater - If I'm not completely mistaken the software Maddox Games used to create maps (commonly known as "Mapping Tool") is a commercial product of some obscure russian company. Maddox Games licensed its use so "opening" it or parts of it may have been out of question right from the start.

[JG52Uther]

These threads never go anywhere,or achieve anything.

[Feuerfalke]

LEXX, I really wonder how you know all these details if you don't play online. Some things from the social street-life just don't transfer into computer business.

For example:
There is no such thing as an enclosed community as you mention it. The modifications are publicly available - you don't even need to go to any pirate or illegal download area, if you invest a little search, you don't even need to register somewhere (as if that was, what makes a community 'closed').
With the same logic you could place a crate of handguns in the park and say "that is only for my dearest friends", who are old and wise enough to not do any harm with it.

I don't even doubt the intentions of the modders themselves. Infact I think most of them are very much dedicated to IL2, but that doesn't change the fact people are tempted to gain an advantage. And honestly, those who get banned are not the ones using the best mods. It's those you wouldn't expect it from.