Dear Jumoschwanz...

This discussion about pros and cons of mods is... how long? 10 or 11 years since QTim has open Pandora box.
Players are mature adults (mostly), so let them decide what to use and where to fly. Please.

Mature people get old.
They got kids, etc.
Also there is a generation that was really interested on WW2 flying machines, younger people see WW2 as something old fashioned.
This game was fab for almost 10 years. It created world wide friendships and else.
MODS never ruined the game, and QTim only make official something that was already there.
Closed squads, picked campaigns with modpacks, so no damage done there.
The worst victim would be airquake, hypperlobby dogfight servers, which at that time I used to hate. Why? Because on the MODS initial times, there were lots of open doors to do cheats to almost anybody who cared to fiddle a bit. The modding community got people that reported this and helped to fix those who were found. But truth is that many of them were already there at no-MODS version.
Best game experience ever, SEOW. Followed by GS.
Mostly mature people and no cheating. Dogfighting aces never showed good there, only trueflight squads do a difference there. It was with MODS.

Hey, mature people get also grandchildren... :-P And some of us have great-grandchildren already. :eek:

Congrats!
It says that you are a lucky guy for sure, a grandpa, and still playing at large!

Hope I can do the same at that time. Still some 10 years ahead from being one.

Right, and to make good decisions, the more information about the history of IL2 the better. I have been flying it online since 2001 so I know first-hand what helped it and what hurt it.
Complaining about information you do not like is what is small-minded and prejudiced, sort of like how USA citizens don't like thinking about how after that first Thanksgiving where they thanked the native Americans for keeping them from starving, they murdered them all and stole their land.....