The barometric pressure is dropping rapidly, and there's a strong, cold wind beginning to howl from the east. Hold on to your ushankas, Boris and Natashas, we've a Red Sturmovik Rising and its predicted landfall is in mid-November.

Your're probably joking (right?), but just to set the record straight . . . Never before have so few coded such a good sim for so many!

I dare say that what Bob wrote is not hype. IL-2 will go a long way toward polishing the tarnished image sims had gotten from so many titles that were released before their time.

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I should tell you all, why we have such campaign statistic.

Because it is result of complex module Mission Builder and Statistic. There were a lot of contradictions, which were not possible to solve by easy way... We prefer to give more features in mission builder and don't limit some features of future add-ons with new planes, etc. That was one of the main reasons to do not make to complex menu of single play statistic.

New add-ons should be fully compatible with the release that to do not allow the players to dowload too much, say for one plane 100 or more Mb. So the structure of the sim is predicted by such things: easy to use, easy to implement new campaigns by player or by us, etc...

As for the gameplay online... Demo wasn't for that purpose. There was LAN only in menu, however people found that even in this case is possible to play online. But it is very important to select there in menu the proper device (modem, cabel, etc). That thing plays great role in smooth play online. Anyway I think we found the best online speed solution for the current moment. I sit in Moscow and play with guys in USA and Australia without lag... That was one of our goals that to allow people such feature.

I hope with IL-2 release I will take at least 3 weeks of vacation... I wasn't in vacation about 6 years. Two years agao I bought new flat in Moscow and still wasn't able to move there from the old.... Simply I had not time due to work over the sim. Now I hope it happens

I can't help wondering what B-17 could have been like if we'd had a management that was as dedicated to producing a masterpiece as the ground-floor staff were.

Even so, we did pretty well with what we were given. But it's nice to see that it CAN work when talented people are led and managed well. Hopefully IL2 will change the way sims like these are developed.

Best of luck!

Thanks for that extra information about multiplayer and the campaigns.

You and your team don't just deserve a holiday, you deserve an all expenses paid cruise in the Caribbean or Bahamas.

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By all means, I'd suggest you take as long as necessary to get it right...then take a huge vacation!