CrazySchmidt, absolutely no offense taken and in fact, I very much defend your right to your beliefs and opinions. That's one of the things that makes
http://www.airwarfare.com a better forum than UBI. We can just come out with it and discuss things. That to me is the healthiest, happyest and in the end, besat thing for flight sims in general and IL-2/Maddox in particular.
I think I'll also have a section where people can download missions and an area for coops to be posted etc. This way, all the heavy bandwidth and server intensive stuff can be found at one site for a low yearly cost. Remember, this is $10.00 U.S. a YEAR and that's all. We could also have an area where squads could have their sites as well and work things out. Pulling together, we can have a great server system and not have censorship of ideas like we see at UBI and all the personality power grabs that go with it. The websites associated with this project would have complete control over their part of the site. We could even get Sharx to set up the suad sites and all and yes, I will insist he get paid for his service!
Anyone thinking I'm trying to enrich my "buddy" is mistaken because Sharx is not a personal friend, he is just respected by me for all the time and money he's already dumped into a mostly ungratefull crowd of selfish people. What I mean by that is not the people who already bought legal copies of the game and have contributed to sites like IL-2skins and other worthy projects. But let's face it, most of the more vocal crowd out their that won't pay the $10.00 a month are also the same people who are pirating the game (not you Schmitty, so don't take offense please!). These same ungratefull types buy games every week or month and play them less than four hours and then leave the discs in a ever growing stack of games they'll never play again. They do this all the while whining about a lowsy 10 bucks! I don't mind them because they don't matter. What matters is that the core, paying community needs to come together and get over petty differences and get this thing going again. Maybe you see the world and say why? I see the world and say why not?!!!
I am going to have an area where everyone can see where all the money goes. If someone... and believe it or not, I've already had a guy respond saying he'll give $100.00 a year just to help out... and if that person(s) don't want to be identified by name or nickname, I can put confidential by their name. Either way, I want this to all above board and beyond reproach. Any money raised for the site will be used for the site and everybody can see who (privacy allowing) paid what and where exactly the money went.
Does this mean it is going to be Luckyboy's Kingdom? Hell NO!!! I would never want to be cursed with being king of anything and my only, I repeat, my only intention here is to help. I love this game and I love the international feel of the community and would want to continue to promote that. I'll be looking for volunteers to act as kinda a board of trustees to serve as a governing board to direct how, when and where the money goes. Still, I find those who think $10.00 a YEAR... not a month or a quarter or a half a year, but a full year... come on guys, if we can just work together for a change in pace we can improve game development. If you don't think the game developers are looking at this thread and thinking about whether or not they can make a go of developing games you are again hiding your head in the sand.
Also, sites that are having trouble paying for bandwidth... hey, we could make it where they can have all their features except download and upload of heavy files hosted by this system for free. They could keep their autonomy and administer it, have their own forums and allow whoever they want and don't want in and even badmouth me while doing it without fear if some petty reprisal. I'm from Montana where there is a saying...
If you don't like the guy, leave him alone!
Like Montana which has about 600,000 people in the entire State, we are like it or not a small community and simply cannot afford to fragment and fracture ourselves to the degree we do now. We simply do not have a large, paying crowd to support game development.
BoB's stuff is going to have even bigger skin and coop files to hump around. The mission generators and all will be bigger files as well. Right click your FB file now and see how big it is and compare it to your other games. It's just going to get bigger, not smaller as time goes on and everything that goes into it will get bigger as well.
The first quarter of the year is the slowest time traditionally for most businesses. As a result, Sharx has his best shot at getting this project done now. I'm not going to spend more than another week or so waiting for responses. Either there will be enough support for it and right away or I'll let it drop for at least another year and by then, the lack of a site like this will have definately hurt the game. I don't want to see it happen. So, it's up to you guys. Don't sit and think about it. If 10 bucks for this expansive a site is something you'd have to think about, then I feel you probably don't feel like I do about the game and while it is as valid an opinion as any other, I'll just do the Montana thing and leave you alone. I simply will not spend more than a couple weeks trying to generate the needed interest in this deal because the interest is either there or it isn't and from this, I will be able to tell how folks feel about this game.
However, some folks have like kids and want to restrict the bump and grind show. I'll see what we can do to have it so those who register as not being adults or who request not having access to possibly questionable material can have those skins filtered out. Along that line, there are a few who don't like the Nazi symbol and fair enough. maybe we can make a filter for that too. I'll ask Sharx and let you know.
