Now see what moding does for a game and company!

[sniperton]

Originally Posted by RPS69

Those are the things that really makes a difference in this game, not one more variant of a 109 or a spit. ... This sims, needs better playability, not more objects to play with.

Agreed. But some selected objects/planes/maps, better sounds and visual effects wouldn't hurt either, provided they are of high quality. Now the problem is that TD goes one way (e.g. AI -- that's good), while the modding community goes another (more effects, more this and that -- and that's not bad either). Both approaches have produced some really excellent stuff, but they hardly overlap: it's better to fly the stock game, while it's better to look at, and to listen to, the mod games.

There should be a compromise IMHO, on TD's side as well. The mod community should accept that TD is serving as a 'quality filter', while TD should implement much, much more from the high quality part of mods. Sounds and some visual effects are likely candidates IMHO, as well as retextured stock objects and some new ones. And I simply can't understand why we couldn't have at least a fraction of the new maps made by modders. I don't beleive they are all just crap...

[KG26_Alpha]

One of the main reasons for people wanting mods was for the sound.

Now I have a good knowledge of the history of IL2's sound engine the reasons for it and the way its was compromised some time ago.

Now not to dwell on the fact that for me the sound engines been ok due to the fact I never used onboard sound devices but high end sound cards/speakers/headphones.

Security has been the ideology whilst flying online back in Olegs day, and IL2 did a good job of it, all the Aces from other sims suddenly disappeared when IL2 came out as all files were secure and the sound engine was locked down.

Some thing that might be able to be done is to have a switch in the GUI for the Host/Server to allow modded sounds out side of the games sound generator.

So if I want to host a CooP that allows mods sounds I can select a switch to allow users to fly with stock version with modded sounds.

And if I want a totally locked down CooP mission select the switch to default sound.

This would probably be a great improvement for a lot of users and not require them to have to use mod packs just for the game sounds.

.

[Jones]

Originally Posted by sniperton

And I simply can't understand why we couldn't have at least a fraction of the new maps made by modders. I don't beleive they are all just crap...

Read up on intelectual property law to know why everything produced by the Mod community is unusable by TD. What the moders rarely seem to understand is that they are actually operating outside of the law! These issues will not go away as there are too many parties and vested interests involved to ever make it legal. What we have is the best of what we'll ever get.

[Cloyd]

Originally Posted by Jones

Read up on intelectual property law to know why everything produced by the Mod community is unusable by TD. What the moders rarely seem to understand is that they are actually operating outside of the law! These issues will not go away as there are too many parties and vested interests involved to ever make it legal. What we have is the best of what we'll ever get.

You do realize that the Solomons map, which is now oficially incorporated, was made by a MOD team?

Cloyd

[trashcanman]

The sanctimonious arrogance of the “I hate IL-2 Mods” mafia makes me want to both laugh and cry at the same time!

If they “don't use Mods in IL-2”, they can only be using 4.09m or earlier versions.
However, it appears they are happy to use later versions that include, and are the result of, the work done by the spawns of the Devil that are the “IL-2 Hackers”.

M'Lud …. I call my first witness … Mr. Zuti

Most worrying to me is the refusal of the official modders to discuss their source data or to even justify such obvious errors in consistency as removing the Fw190 bar whilst keeping the P-47 razorback gunsight obstruction, despite the factual evidence presented to them.

Apparently “refraction” only reached the USA after 1945!

This is one of the many reasons that the number of IL-2 players online is reducing.

As for modding not being good for flightsims? Falcon 4 is 13 years old and going strong thanks to modders

[_1SMV_Gitano]

Originally Posted by trashcanman

The sanctimonious arrogance of the “I hate IL-2 Mods” mafia makes me want to both laugh and cry at the same time!

If they “don't use Mods in IL-2”, they can only be using 4.09m or earlier versions.
However, it appears they are happy to use later versions that include, and are the result of, the work done by the spawns of the Devil that are the “IL-2 Hackers”.

M'Lud …. I call my first witness … Mr. Zuti

Most worrying to me is the refusal of the official modders to discuss their source data or to even justify such obvious errors in consistency as removing the Fw190 bar whilst keeping the P-47 razorback gunsight obstruction, despite the factual evidence presented to them.

Apparently “refraction” only reached the USA after 1945!

This is one of the many reasons that the number of IL-2 players online is reducing.

As for modding not being good for flightsims? Falcon 4 is 13 years old and going strong thanks to modders

Zuti was TD member when some parts of MDS were integrated into the code, he left for his own reasons after a while.

And about the Solomons maps, yes they are great and were easy to implement because they 99% used stock textures and objects. Still, some rework was necessary... so extrapolate to other modded maps.

Guys, please, think twice before you write something...

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

Official 1C map tools were given away to chosen 3rd party individuals to produce more maps long before the game was hacked - so 3rd party maps have quite a tradition meanwhile.
There is no problem for us to still accept 3rd party maps - but the main problem with many of them is the use of non-stock objects (and the ammount of reworking it to use stock objects would be too much for us).
And additionally... those non-stock objects are in 99% of cases in a bad shape (no LoDs, Collisions, Shadow etc.), that we could not implement them without finalisation, even if we would get the source 3DSmax models from the modders, which seems to be impossible to most of them as well (because they do it in Blender or Maya or Notepad or whatever).
New, unique textures - no problem at all. Quality and look maybe (Google Earth shows not the world of WW2!), but thats probably fixable.

We still have a few 3rd party maps in line. Time will come.

[mkubani]

TD has announced its way of working from the very beginning. We did not discourage external contribution to IL-2, but wanted to keep it structured, with clear technical standards, relevant content, free of copyright stuff, etc.

You can read it here. Interview from 2009:
http://www.simhq.com/_air13/air_420c.html

It's up to you to judge, if TD has fulfilled it within last 3 years.

[trashcanman]

Originally Posted by _1SMV_Gitano

Zuti was TD member when some parts of MDS were integrated into the code, he left for his own reasons after a while.

And about the Solomons maps, yes they are great and were easy to implement because they 99% used stock textures and objects. Still, some rework was necessary... so extrapolate to other modded maps.

Guys, please, think twice before you write something...

Thank you Gitano. You confirmed my point perfectly

Zuti was "an evil hacker" when he first made MDS.
Then his work became part of TD and he was one of the good guys!

I am guessing your patronising last line was due to English not being your primary language?

For the record please let me say, many of the mods developed by TD are excellent such as the G limits.

All of the modders, TD, UP, HSFX etc. are all doing great work. However only one of them is overly secretive imho.

Despite the personal abuse I get in PMs. As a P-47 fan I will continue to campaign for the Razorback bar to be removed by TD in the same way the Fw190 one was

[Ibis]

It's the modded maps and sounds that keep me flying il2, without them I would have dropped out long ago.
The maps are a mission builders dream.
Cheers,
Ibis.