A mod approval thought for 4.09 for the 1C team

[LEXX]

ChuckOlder::

Aircraft mods, I am not crazy about. Every armchair engineer says "Oleg you is wrong", and that's their opinion, but this is also true:

Seeing a wrong answer doesn't mean you know the right one, and I fear very much that all too many people think that just becasue they see an error, makes them an expert on accuracy

Oleg's team is pretty good, perhaps no better or no worse than any potential modders. However, the end goal of modding aircraft is to create and add new aircraft which Oleg has stopped doing for this sim (I'd rather Oleg do all the aircraft). I'd like to see Spanish Civil War and early 1941~esque Eastern Front more developed through modding, since Oleg abandoned these starting with the Microsoft~esque 1944 AEP.

[tater]

One thing about modding or adding aircraft. People always focus on flyables, but I'm personally interested in AI as well. The AI is already far enough off of players in terms of performance and the way it flies that any failures in a decently researched FM for a plane (as AI) will be smaller than the failures do to the dumb AI, IMO.

[MOH_Hirth]

I am a Il-2 user, AAA start to finnish auor desire for fixes, planes, sounds and all good ideia, you test wath mod is really good, compare sounds files, change only for the best, this done a lot of old dreams come true, and open the freedom of creation, 6000 brains now, they prove your quality with really fantastic work!
A lot of mod have the higth quality level and this excuse of "No time" is not true in 1 hour you can check and test the 20 best.

IL-2 user

PS: I and all i know will buy SOW, dont fear IL-2 MODs.

[LEXX]

Tater::

The AI is already far enough off of players in terms of performance and the way it flies that any failures in a decently researched FM for a plane (as AI) will be smaller than the failures do to the dumb AI, IMO.

Taterman, you are exposing the Pink Elephant of combat flight sim flight modelling. No matter how "realistic(tm)" the so-called flight model, the whole thing is a fake since the AI either always have a simplified FM or just cannot use to advantage the more advanced FM the player uses. In either case, the entire air warfare simulation falls apart no matter how "realistic(tm)" the flight model.

That's why I say design a sim around air warfare simulation and not Player flight model simulation.

Granted, this is not an issue for simple Online Dogfight Competition Shooter simulation where there are no AI aircraft since all aircraft are flown by human beings or combat flight simmers, but its an issue for Online Wars where AI fill out the ranks of absent players. And of course its an issue for Offline play which always assumes an AI presence.

[LEXX]

Its the pilot, not the flight model.


...actually, its both -- even the best pilots always hoped to get better aircraft. I think Chuck Yeager said the original quote just to "balance" everybody focusing only on the "popular" subject of aircraft performance.

[Zinger]

Originally Posted by Rama

Another one who think CRT=2 do protect against FM/DM/Armament changes...
You're wrong... it's just a little bit more complicated...

The problem isn't the mods, or the "AAA philosophy" or anything like this... it's the availability of the hack tools. Either you're pro- or anti- modder you have to get the fact that IL2 has now no protection against cheat.... and that it's not going to change.

So I repeat, there's only 2 options: either continue flying online and accept to play sometimes with some cheaters.... or wait for SoW:BoB.

And if you are caught .. at least on the servers I fly .. they will ban you.
Care to let us know what name you fly under ? I'll ask those servers to ban you ..... just in case, because you know how to get around the CRT check.

nothing is perfect .. but there were people cheating long before the mods were started.

The losers will always cheat .. mods or not.
If you fear them so much that you don't fly on the servers .. you let them win.
I'll bet that within 1 week of SoW coming out, there will be some form of cheat uncovered .. either something like the "print key', or some other form ... does that mean you will abandon flying SoW ? After only 1 week ?

[csThor]

To return to the thread's initial question ...

It is irrelevant whether you are enthusiastic about the stuff they do at AAA or not (I'm not) it should be blatantly obvious that any kind of "official sanctioning" is completely out of question.

Place yourself in Oleg's shoes - You and your company created a commercially successful piece of software (any kind of software and not just games) and then some goons hack the file protection. Someone else is using the tools these goons made for unsanctioned modifications. Wouldn't you get a fit of laughter when they ask for official sanctioning "'cause we can do what you couldn't"? Folks get real - please!
It's one thing that neither Maddox Games nor 1C or Ubi have taken steps to "deal with the issue" but assuming some kind of silent support is stretching the boundaries of the term "wishful thinking". Speaking purely hypothetically - Who would Maddox Games cooperate with? There is no "central authority" who controls what is going on mod-wise and according to what I read at AAA (yes I do lurk there) they do not have the slightest inclination to get some order into the stuff made (for the IMO unconvincing reason of "diversity") and produce "sensible packages". The only time when a developer/publisher ever really cooperated with a group of modders was when the BDG fiddled with Rowan's BoB. And that was because development was limited to a small group consisting of humble folks who knew their stuff.

[Baron]

Originally Posted by csThor

To return to the thread's initial question ...

It is irrelevant whether you are enthusiastic about the stuff they do at AAA or not (I'm not) it should be blatantly obvious that any kind of "official sanctioning" is completely out of question.

What i was trying to say, but i would replace "Completly out of the question" with "just wouldnt work" since the code is out there for everyone to see.


Just to be clear, i wasnt trying/are intrested in starting the same flame war whe allredy had, no need to go down that promodder/antimodder debate again. Wasnt trying to take a stab at the Spit Mk1 mod one way or the other, was just using it as an example to show, regarding the orginal poster, that mods will pop up weather they would be approved or not since the code is now every mans "propperty"


After lurkin over at AAA from time to time looking at the development im actually starting to think that the IL2 community proppably could (wild guess) police itselfe if some kind of system would be implemented, and make a fairly good job of it. Better than any other gaming community out there i dare say, but in the end that doesnt matter since A: Oleg havent/wont (?) approve of it and B: there are those nagging 2% (maby even 10%) who just dont give a rats ass about any rules or regulations when they dont have to.

[csThor]

No, I mean "completely out of question". It is a question of legal issues, which are not pursued for reasons we can only speculate over, and not of practicality and ressource issues Maddox Games may have. The fundamental fact that the file protection was hacked still remains and that makes all "mods" follow-up products of an illegal act. To approve of these mods would mean to condone hacking and I'm sure everyone understands that no company would sanction that.

And regarding "self-policing" at AAA ... The fact that there seems to be a list of "do not link to" websites is speaking volumes about how much the admins there really have to say about what happens regarding modding Il-2 - nothing at all.

[Baron]

Originally Posted by csThor

No, I mean "completely out of question". It is a question of legal issues, which are not pursued for reasons we can only speculate over, and not of practicality and ressource issues Maddox Games may have. The fundamental fact that the file protection was hacked still remains and that makes all "mods" follow-up products of an illegal act. To approve of these mods would mean to condone hacking and I'm sure everyone understands that no company would sanction that.

And regarding "self-policing" at AAA ... The fact that there seems to be a list of "do not link to" websites is speaking volumes about how much the admins there really have to say about what happens regarding modding Il-2 - nothing at all.

Totaly agree on the legal issue and how beeing able to mod came about (by theft more or less) (And to anyonelse btw: NO, we do not need to go down that road of "but what is theft REALLY, when u think about it, bla, bla, bla and bla again..and so on, and so forth.)

As for "wont work" and "self policing", that was more a "what if" kind of thing (a big what if)..like for ex, IF there where some kind of system implemented, wich there, like u said, isnt at the moment..and proppably wont be in the future either.


Anyways, officially approved mods wont happen/work even if Oleg says ok...since the code is out there to be abused by anyone...and sooner or later will be, if u dont count what happened up until now that is, wich in in self is kind of a clue as to how the idea of a officially approved modding system would work if implemented.

The official modders where never a problem in the past, the rouge hacker was however and will allways be no matter how many times one say "official"