Why the need for German planes?

[H Lecter]

Originally Posted by M3-SRT8

I'm not attemting to hurt anybody. NOTHING in History is Black & White, Good and Bad. Including our belated alliance with the USSR.

True words mate.And I would have loved to fly at least some German missions just because I happen to like their planes as much as the allied ones.

Anton obviously does not rule it out for a second part of the series so I'm happy that we can fly those Bf-109's and FW190's in MP and even with cockpits soon and wait for the next game to fly them in SP.

[towman]

Fighting for Axis, even in game, is not 100% ethical.

Every country has it's black pages. But in Birds of Prey gamers (like real soldiers of world war2) are not fighting for Stalin or against some of his opposers. Those days people were fighting for freedom, for survival - against evil. Not all of Germans were Nazis of course. Not even most of them. But all German soldiers were fighting for Nazi.

WOW!!! This is the biggest cop out I ever read about a game design. How come in the original Il-2 game you could fly axis missions?
There were many aspects flying axis planes in history that were nothing to do with "Nazis" or their agenda. The Hungarian Pumas for example, took off against insurmountable odds, bringing 8-12 planes against hundreds daily in late 44, early 45. They didn't fight for the Nazis, they took off to protect their country.
You could probably find many examples that would make great game play without bringing the "Nazis" into it, and still allows players to fly the axis planes in a meaningful experience.
Anyway don't talk too much ethics into a game, you may lock yourself out from a possibility of a profitable DLC axis campaign.

[BadByte]

Originally Posted by Lightsped

Anyone here ever heard of LucasArts "Their Finest Hour" or "Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe"??? Both of these WW2 flying games were made in the 1990s, and were very successful....

Loved SWOTL it is the game I have spent most hours on and it is one of very rare games one could fight as the axis and "win" in campaign mode. To this date I have not found a flight game with a more fun career mode.

[BadByte]

Originally Posted by Anton Yudintsev

First of all, I am not against fighting for axis airbattles. I was against them in Birds of Prey. It is our first console flight-sim, and we were going to make it as flawless as possible.
Fighting for Axis, even in game, is not 100% ethical.

I guess my memory is corrupted but I could have sworn I remember that IL2 1946 contains several Axis campaigns such as Luftwaffe fighter/bomber/divebomber, Imperial Navy figher/bomber, Imperial Army figher campaigns.

[36th Ulster Division]

Well thats it for me, I'm not flying any German plane with a big black cross on it, as its unethical.

Ps, I couldn't really care what plane, I fly ethical or not, thats the choice I can have, as my wife's grandfather faught above the sky's of France and Britain, as one of the few, to allow me to make this choice (and to type this in English).

Its only a game after all.

[GabeFan]

Originally Posted by Lightsped

Anyone here ever heard of LucasArts "Their Finest Hour" or "Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe"??? Both of these WW2 flying games were made in the 1990s, and were very successful.... H

SWOTL was such a great game! Logged many hours of flying time on that game. Being able to choose between flying for the Axis or Allies was fun. And it wasn't very difficult to actually fly the planes. It wasn't a hardcore SIM that you have to take hours just to learn to keep the plane in the air, which was nice. You could jump right in and start flying...

[Shub]

Originally Posted by BadByte

I guess my memory is corrupted but I could have sworn I remember that IL2 1946 contains several Axis campaigns such as Luftwaffe fighter/bomber/divebomber, Imperial Navy figher/bomber, Imperial Army figher campaigns.

He said that they did not want Axis campaigns in BoP... Not in IL2 PC.

[David603]

Originally Posted by Anton Yudintsev

It doesn't mean that fighting for Axis airforce in any game is 100% unethical.
But on the other hand, fighting for Allies IS 100% ethical.

No. That statement is completely incorrect. If you want to break down the ethical rights and wrongs of fighting for individual countries during WWII in a game into percentages, which is a flawed concept in itself, then you will find that it would be less than 100% ethical to fight for just about any country.

Obviously, some countries have cleaner hands than others, but if I was going to make a list of countries that could be considered as completely ethical to fight for I would have to exclude any country that attacked another without provocation (Germany/USSR/Japan/Italy), as a policy deliberately targeted civilians in a country that they were at war with(Germany/USA/UK/Japan), were responsible for or condoned war crimes (No entirely clean hands here) or carried out crimes against their own people in the interests of maintaining control(Germany/USSR/Vichy France).

So, what are we left with? Off the top of my head I can only think of Finland, which was incidentally an Axis country for most of the war, and Poland. Some of the smaller central European and Asian countries didn't have a say in the matter at all. And that's about it.

[towman]

It is our first console flight-sim, and we were going to make it as flawless as possible.

To many of us the missing axis campaign is an actual flaw of the game, so in some aspect, you failed.

Should have concentrated on control and multiplayer issues instead of bullshit ethical dilemmas.

[fuzzychickens]

Originally Posted by Anton Yudintsev

First of all, I am not against fighting for axis airbattles. I was against them in Birds of Prey. It is our first console flight-sim, and we were going to make it as flawless as possible.
Fighting for Axis, even in game, is not 100% ethical.

Second, please, don't re-type bullshit about USSR. Of course, there were executions, but nothing close to 20 million, even number of all prisoners (with criminals, like thiefs or bandits), not all of them executed, is less than that. Less than 1 million of executions (but close to), is something very huge, but it isn't anyhow close to what Axis did. It's something close to what USA did to thier people during great depression.

Also, the main differences is reasoning. Axis - were executing people because of their _race_. Stalin - was just a dictator, he was trying to keep power (and did it not for his own wealth, but for the country - that's was how he understood 'lesser evil' concept).

Every country has it's black pages. But in Birds of Prey gamers (like real soldiers of world war2) are not fighting for Stalin or against some of his opposers. Those days people were fighting for freedom, for survival - against evil. Not all of Germans were Nazis of course. Not even most of them. But all German soldiers were fighting for Nazi.

It doesn't mean that fighting for Axis airforce in any game is 100% unethical.
But on the other hand, fighting for Allies IS 100% ethical.

There were plenty of Axis pilots defending their families from bombing raids who did not subscribe to Nazi ideology.

I don't think any side in most wars can claim to be 100% ethical. Nothing is black and white.