A POLE: How long have you been flying IL-2

[Dano]

Since the demo, I remember buying the game in my local John Menzies on the day of release, those were the days when even small town branches of newsagent/office supply/media stores still carried pc games. Remember struggling to get the IL2 off the ground and keep it airbourne as it had a very limited ground speed I seem to recall.

[III/JG53_Don]

I'm into the series since the Il2 Demo 2001 as many others obviously.
I was around 13 and installed it from a pc games magazine CD together with a school mate from mine.
Funny enough I had a pretty crappy joystick without rudder control and we were at first wondering why the Il2 keeps steering right during the takeoff.
We thought it was a wrong calibration issue from my joystick and after this didn't help, we thought that the game has still some bugs
Anyway soon after that I bought the full version and we spent hundreds of hundreds of hours flying il2 with my class mates (I convinced three other guys to fly with us) online after school.

[ATAG_Dutch]

My mate Eddie gave me a copy of IL2 in 2001, which I tried to play on the wife's laptop at very low settings. I flew the MiG 3 v FW189 mission about 350times before it twigged how to use airspeed to gain height. Shot the bugger down eventually though.

I used a really cheap joystick by saitek which folded up for convenience into a tube, and which had the throttle control on top of the stick.
Then I got Forgotten Battles and subsequently 1946, and finally got an internet connection at home (didn't feel the need before!), tried the online play at Ubi.com, which ran at about 3 fps.

I'd managed to scrounge a really bad IBM Pentium 4 workstation PC from work and upgraded it with some more RAM and a ATI 3850 512mb card (AGP). Didn't even know I'd need a new power supply, so just ran it as it was.
(I've still got the card, in it's original box, in pristine condition, if anyone wants it?!)

The play at Ubi.com led me to Hyperlobby in a very steep learning curve about conf.ini files and the alteration thereof.

Then I actually bought a pc of my very own from Dell, and then realised it wasn't good enough, and replaced the Nvidia GT220 with a ATI 5770. Then I realised that wasn't good enough either and bought a power supply and a GTX570.

This game has cost me a bloody fortune. I sometimes wish Eddie had never given me the damned game in the first place (not really!).

Sorry for boring you all!

[GOA_Potenz]

2002 when i was working in a friends computer shop, one evening i was bored and said i want to play a WWII planes game, took il2 cause i remembered the amazing DM, in those times the only i knew it was visually amazaing, started that evening and stoped mostly after become a modder, and spent most time on java files than flying, and after CloD i never even install it again

[SlipBall]

For me, it was early 2003 or so...Oleg was like some type of guru to me. Tried to read all that he wrote, to get a sense of the future developement plans that he had in his mind...I don't mind saying that I miss him being with us, but I hope his child become's what he dreamed it would be.

[Richie]

I started with the Demo in August 2001. I flew online play right from the start as I had been doing for four years already with other sims. Pope Herr_Spay SR_Aces UHOH7 Joshua Willie Stigler Joshua Fritag those were the main guys I flew with to start with. Pope now Graf is the only one still around that I know of. Those were the days when everyone flew until your head hit the joystick. Sometimes I would hook up the VCR to the PC and record us. I still have those tapes. They're a panic to watch and listen to now. I have Graf on tape saying to me "I'm gettin the bleep away from you" in his Texas drawl...I had a habit of smashing into him on the runway. Other things like Herr_Spray screaming "AHH YA GOT ME HACKL" as he smashes into the ground. I was Hackl back then. Of course I ordered IL-2 way before it came out. When it did come out it came out a week earlier in the States than it did here in Canada. I actually thought about driving my beat up rusted out K car down to the States to get a copy. That thing was so rusted out your feet would get soaking wet if it rained. I thought better of it and suffered for a week. I can't remember the exact day Nov 27 2001 I'm pretty sure. Anyway I still have the big huge box it came in and the disk of course. Everyone downloaded the no disk crack so I'm guessing everyone's disk is in great shape. As the years went by I always kept up to date. I remember in the best years 2003 - 2004 you would see 1000 people in the Hyperlobby on a Saturday. On another note I remember watching the CFS3 movie online and thinking this Sim looks great. I brought it home installed it at took it back in a couple of hours. What a piece of crap and it probably out sells IL-2 100 to 1. I've converted two people from CFS2 over to IL-2 and one actually payed me threw paypal $30 for a case of beer the other one was thank you thank you thank you for a few days. As far as this one goes it's fine on my system and I know it will continue to improve. Eleven years and I'm still having a great time with IL-2.

[ElAurens]

December 2001.

[GOA_Potenz]

I remember a guy who used to fly with his nickname was wanderfalke, he teached me how to fly the dora, also was the best dora pilot i ever see, remember the guy out turning spits with his dora amazing skills, that time was when i felt in love with the 190's series

[aus3620]

A bit different from some of the il2 grognards here! In May 11 stumbled across 46 in the bargain bin. Heard about these flight sims being difficult and the manic obsessive players it attracted. Wanted a change from Silent Hunter 3 - Grey Wolves so thought I would pick it up.

Wanted to fast track the learning curve and found Joint Ops while browsing. Signed up for their BFS. Great course and enjoyed the online experience. As I'm from Oz I decided to look for a local on-line outfit.

The July 11 CLoD patch came out and I just had to have it! Obviously by this time the bug had truly bitten me! Since then I've put on 400+ CLoD hrs and have all the miscellany - pedals, upgraded joystick, IR5, upgraded graphics card ...

Gunnery still sucks and the flying isn't that much better! But having a lot of fun with it.

Looking forward, like everyone, to the next CLoD patch. The vision of 1C looks far grander than any other title out there - inevitable that issues would arise. Frustrating for us punters but without some risk in development you will only achieve mediocrity!

[Rjel]

I've flown it since the first leaked demo. Knew one of the beta testers who shared little bits of info with some of us who flew with her at the time. It seems that everyone knew about the demo leak as soon as it hit the net. At least as I remember it. I don't think I ever flew EAW again after flying the IL2 demo.