You still didn't explain how the first people that bought it...the ones in the Russian market....were supposed to do their due diligence when there hadn't been any reviews on it and no one else had it to spread the good/bad through word of mouth, yet you say those people are partly to blame as the developers. The only thing they had to go on for information was the press releases and the statements of the devs....the ones that knew/should have known the state of the game before it's release. You can say they were pressured by the publisher all you want, it still doesn't change the fact that they delivered an incomplete and unfinished product without telling anyone. That's not good business.

As for not expecting features that were advertised in it's initial release....if those features aren't going to be there, a software dev will usually inform people of that beforehand...not after they've bought it. There's currently two racing titles in early forms of development that were very forthright with their buying/supporting public that features would be added in as the Alpha/Beta's were developed. People that bought it knew exactly what they were/were not getting.

In no way, shape, form or fashion was anyone informed or led to believe that CLoD was a Beta before it was published for sale.

I imagine a lot of people bought CLoD on good faith, using the past track record of Maddox Games as the justification. Thing is, once Oleg left...Maddox Games was no longer, only in name.

For me I bought CLOD for the adventure

I find this idea of "due diligence" puzzling to say the least! I suppose I am to understand that I should have been much more skeptical of the hype, promises and perhaps even hyperbole and fluff we got from the devs, including Oleg, in the month and years preceding the release of CLoD. But as some of our respected posters, or one poster in particular on this forum often reminded us of the fine quality the
makers of IL2 had provided in the past with the excellent IL2 forgotten Battles series and all the fine work they did with additions, expansions ans patches. It seemed reasonable to me to expect that kind of quality would continue with CLoD. But for whatever reasons the
game has been a failure so far. I certainly never expected they were going to collectively stick us all in the back and let down a loyal and enthusiastic user base! Did any of us really think that? Come now Mr. Chivas. Honestly.

His leaving or otherwise doesn't alter the fact that it's still him who's ultimately responsible for CloD's failing, because he had operational/managerial responsibility/control during CloD's developmental phase.

If you find "due diligence" puzzling there is no point addressing it any further. There were quite a few people in the forums insinuating they have been betrayed. These same people want the sim to succeed, but they don't understand the only reason the development is still in business is the early unfinished release. There is no way the investors would have kept putting millions into the development unless they were sure there was still a market. They would have thought thru all the possible scenarios and decided this was the only way the sim had a chance to succeed, and therefore save the series, and the investors a return. Money drives everything.

It's been an adventure alright.. an adventure in poor marketing, misleading information, and shoddy gameplay.
Apart from the brief online experience with ATAG, (bloody good by the way), the game itself is pants, and not a hint of the fun I had when playing the old IL2.

Even the online is getting boring after one week, its just airquake at 0 feet.

So really more of an earthquake by definition. That's a feature

No my adventure included debates about what kitten would outlast the other in a paw batting contest(we never did see a winner), the thread dedicated to the pleasure of eating croisonts. Other adventures as well

Yup, just like joining the US Navy! It's just not an Errol Flynn adventure, it's more an Elisabeth Shue Adventure in Babysitting...




The Jedi Master

Clod is the best thing ever, never in history of simming one product delivered so much in such short span of time.

THat guy that wrote the Dilbert cartoon strip should read this forum. Lots of great material to work with. "Due diligence"

No Steve, you see if we had done our "due diligence" before the game was released we all would have known CLoD was going to suck and nobody would have bought it. Then all this talk about sequels would be academic because the game would be dead with the plug pulled on it months ago, probably about two months after the ill-fated release.

II prefer to look at my individual experience, could not really give a damn what the masses do

I bought the game knowing it's conditioned and reveled in the alphaness of it all

To quote: ' Never in the field of human endeavour has so much been promised and not delivered to so many by so few'

I still wonder how much of his heart was in CLOD.

The original IL-2 was a labor of love for OM. I know he soured on it over the years, based on all the complaints about the FMs and the supposed "Russian bias". Supposedly towards the end, he was modeling the German planes with better data than the Allied planes to appease the Luftwhiners.

I know at one point, he wanted the next project to be about the Korean War, which I personally would have loved, but his financial partners thought another WW2 sim would be more lucrative.

I never got the impression he was really enthused about the Battle of Britain.

Luthier was main driver of the Korean War project which was to be addon to the new game engine. Oleg had a dream for a much more photo-realistic and complex game engine, that could be used for a number of different projects. Oleg didn't do a Battle of Britain map for the original IL-2 because he was saving that map for the initial release with his new game engine. Unfortunately he wasn't able to deliver, and he lost control because of the delays and mounting development costs.