28.10.2010, 12:23
Modding will obviously continue but if it's not controlled/monitored it will devolve into little splinter communities. I believe IL-2 has some legs yet (I haven't even touched any of the mods yet). There will always be a core of fans/players to which IL2 fills a niche, look at EAW, I can't believe there are still guys out there playing and modding this game. It's a matter of taste (and machine capability LOL). Battle of Britain Wings of Victory is another game that is still going fairly strongly although I think SOW will bring a lot of people from that game.
I think it speaks to the quality of a game and the support it gets aftermarket which gives it longevity. Oleg and crew provided a high quality product when it was first released (initial bugs notwithstanding) and then followed up with good support/patches and then subsequent upgrades a lot of which didn't cost us a penny. If SOW comes with that type of commitment and dedication it will also be a winner. Having said that I think having realistic expectations would be adviseable....bitching about the wrong leaves on the trees or the number of rivets in a given segment of a fuselage (those are the types of comments at the SOW updates) is setting oneself up for disappointment.
Anyway this thread is about IL2. The fact that IL2 is still going strong after this many years in a market which sees games come and go in a heartbeat is testament to the quality (and playability) of the product. If a newer flight sim, including SOW fails miserably for whatever reason then it's safe to say that IL2 will be the trusty fallback. I'll stick my neck out and say that's basically what seems to have happened with SH5 versus SH4. SH5 was touted as the next latest and greates subsim but for various reasons was, from a marketing POV, stillborn and many, many subsim guys went back to their trusty old SH4 and/or SH3 (which to be fair are now heavily modded too).
I think it speaks to the quality of a game and the support it gets aftermarket which gives it longevity. Oleg and crew provided a high quality product when it was first released (initial bugs notwithstanding) and then followed up with good support/patches and then subsequent upgrades a lot of which didn't cost us a penny. If SOW comes with that type of commitment and dedication it will also be a winner. Having said that I think having realistic expectations would be adviseable....bitching about the wrong leaves on the trees or the number of rivets in a given segment of a fuselage (those are the types of comments at the SOW updates) is setting oneself up for disappointment.
Anyway this thread is about IL2. The fact that IL2 is still going strong after this many years in a market which sees games come and go in a heartbeat is testament to the quality (and playability) of the product. If a newer flight sim, including SOW fails miserably for whatever reason then it's safe to say that IL2 will be the trusty fallback. I'll stick my neck out and say that's basically what seems to have happened with SH5 versus SH4. SH5 was touted as the next latest and greates subsim but for various reasons was, from a marketing POV, stillborn and many, many subsim guys went back to their trusty old SH4 and/or SH3 (which to be fair are now heavily modded too).