homepage Forums Read Only Forums Read Only Forums WWII Fighters (Read Only) Re: The present and the future

Everytime I search for the community forums, I end up at a different site. Which makes it hard to maintain coninuity.

Tonight I was at the original boards and read through the General Discussion topic "Is WW2F DOA?" I wanted to drop in and post but I couldn't remember my password for that particular board. I'm on a borrowed computer so my password isn't automatic.

As time goes by it does seem harder to really justify remaining a die-hard WW2F fan. So few people really have any understanding or interest in learning how to 3D model with the J3Editor that I doubt that we'll see a new generation of modelers find this sim and put their energy into developing it further. On the other hand, the tremendous work by Hammerd, Rammjager, MEGA, Spudkopf, JHAT, Buccaneer, Pfarrer, Hemingway, CZ_Gray, Jaxon, Snorri, MIKH, etc., has shown us what amazing creations that are possible with the J3Editor. They and many others have kept this sim competitive with (and nearly contemporary to) the IL-2 and CFS series.

WW2F is still the sim I most enjoy jumping into. It has that punchy Swing music to greet me ("Hello, old friend!") when I fire it up. It has those beautiful cockpits. It has that mission builder that allows me to put objects wherever I want on the map. It has that unrealistic-yet-supercool target window so I can easily watch my victims go up (or down) in flames.

But with all these new addon planes now available for CFS-3, and with "IL-2 FB" possibly including the P-51B, P-51D, P-38, B-17 and many other favorite U.S. planes, why should I bother with ol' Jane?

First, at the forum there were some excellent screenshots of projects in development by MEGA. He had some previews for his Don Allen skins, and I'm pretty eager to see this come to fruition. Ramm's P-51D(v2) is an excellent model; I was playing it in some missions last night and was thinking about MEGA's skins and how great it would be to see individual variants of the Ramm P-51D flying around to make a 'real' squadron. Or Fighter Group.

On that thought, I was also thinking about Bucanneer's "Razorback Attack." To be truthful, I haven't played with that one yet but I plan to install it soon. I've pretty much only stuck to the Hammerd D/M version in my setups because having the Razorback's canopy frame obscure the cockpit's frontal view bugs me. But I'm curious about seeing individual skins in the game so I may install the Razorback Attack mod for AI planes later this week.

Johnny Red really made some nice skins, didn't he? I was looking at one of his P-47D/M skin packages and thought, again, how nice it would be if the bubble canopy P-47D/M had been developed into the multi-skin mod. I remember Hammerd ran into some problems trying to do that, so perhaps it can't be done. If it could, Johnny Red's "Hellhawks" skin pack would make for a good start; he put several noseart options in that pack.

MEGA's P-38 mod looks really good also. I know that he sent it in for posting and I know that the community site has been in transition. MEGA, perhaps you might be able to send that P-38 mod to me? You knows my e-mail address. I'll have to clear some old mail from my box though to make room.

And whatever happened to the Battle of Britain map? The Tobruk project? The Stuka?

It's funny that I still get excited about new projects like I do ... but there is something about noodling with Jane's WWII Fighters and then firing up the game for a ground-pounding mission that makes me indescribably happy. I hope that there will continue to be the occasional mod or skin released to keep this wierd little obsession alive.

"Everytime I search for the community forums, I end up at a different site. Which makes it hard to maintain coninuity." Skycat

How true - too frustrating when it used to be a fun place to easily stop by. Too confusing. Lost continuity and momentum.

I give up! (for now anyway!)

I keep saying the same thing. I post in here or in ww2fighters.net saying yeah its time to give up. 10 minutes later i'm flying over the Ardennes again and looking for new stuff to download. If i could ever figure out and have time to play with mods/skinning etc i would. I think the die hard fans will never give up. I'll just continue to post in here until the ww2fighter.net site gets straightened up.

Talked with Bucc a week or two ago, and at his suggestion, got a new domain name so we could consolidate all. Unforutnately, he is busy with the new home and haven't heard more on the subject.

Like the rest of you, would like to see a forum up and running, but I'm not capable of running it, so we wait and check in here for deployment orders.

This flight sim has, well, for lack of a better term, a "soul". Never say "Die"!

TimeBandit

P.S. Skycat, if you contact Bill Grant, I bet he could E-mail your password to you, as he CAN get in that forums inner workings, to some extent, and do some tweaking and such.

Skycat that was my post under the name I used to be known as here. I know what you mean. I used to stop by the old forum several times a week to keep up with what the mod developers were doing and just look for new stuff. When I got through to post last week that was the first time in months I could access that forum. I ran WW2 Fighters because it was a awesome sim and I didn't have a system that could handle IL2 FB. Funny, I used to anticipate how everything would look maxed out on a new system, but now that I have finally got one I have not re-installed WW2 Fighters. Why? Not sure. Hate to puruse something that will lead to a dead end I guess, but you're right. The mods did keep it on a par with CFS3 and IL2. I still think that the "Shangra - La" P-51B the Flying Dutchman came out with is the best looking Mustang ever. The P-47 Razorback and Fw-190 mods were great too. I had all of MIKH Russian Front mods, they were great. But the East Front has always been my favorite theater simply because of all the strange planes that flew there, combined with the Luftwaffe Experten that ran their incredible scores up there. So now that I can, I have immersed myself in IL2 FB. It's a great sim, though perfect by no means. But on occasion I still yearn to fly WW2 Fighters and attack another bomber box with a ME-262. Or bomb and strafe a ground column in a Jug. Maybe I will re-install I don't know. I was once deeply into EAW, but its quirks combined with its age caused me to leave it behind. I hope the community can get a new board up and going, as I beleive its the only way WW2 Fighters will make it...

I'm not giving up!I am working on a B24D for a Ploesti mission(60th anniversery)The 3d model is almost done.....mapping and skinning are the areas I need to improve in.I have a Rumanian Air Force skin for the Bf109E that is really cool looking(thanks for the templates Bucc)I think the forums just picked a bad time to go down.The dog days of summer when you have to close the pool,get your kids clothes for school etc....Ramm and Hammered set a really high standard for the sim,it's hard to achieve that level for me right now,but I am trying.

I enjoy CFS3,but its just not the same.The planes dont look or fly as good as Janes WWIIfighters.I dont know what happened to BOB?It seemed like it was close to being finished.I do enjoy working on abandoned projects and would take on more of them in the future.Animation and creating new cockpits are areas that I feel never got the attention they needed.I would guess, that is holding back a cache of new aircraft from getting into the sim.I think all the mods have one thing in common,there all very time consuming to create.

I thank everyone who had a hand in making this sim better,by there mods,advice,support,humor.....links to awesome web-sites and extreme knowlegde of aircraft and military vehicles.If this thing ends here, it was great for me to have participated in the forums. I do hope to contribute a couple more things before it's over.TFD

Everybody be patient. I have the new domain name and am willing to pay for the server, but I'd really like to have the set up look like Bucc had designed for us on the "old" site. Kinda looked like Jane's, or at least I think it did.

However, I know nothing about admin or even how to set up a web site, so we wait.

Wish I could speed it up, but I can't.

LockNLoad, that's nice to hear. I'm sure I'm like many others in being a regular visitor to the old site, although not a contributor. It was really useful to have a central home for all the Jane's WWII community and it's a great shame that all of Buccaneer's hard work in running the site can be wiped out so casually. Good luck in getting things going again.

You never know, someone may release a budget version of the game one of these days and give it a boost.

If you need the site set up I can help. The frames, pics, text, files and the links are easy to install and manage. The forum is another matter.

Are you saying Bucc is bye-bye?

If so we can set up a committee to run the site. Call it a 'club' and install club 'leadership' - Bink would like to manage the ladies air auxilary.

No. Bucc is not bye bye. He is just buried with work and moving and unfortunately the site problems came at the same time.

We're working on it. News from the front shortly, we hope.

Thanks for the offer PC. Let's see what develops in the next few days (or maybe 2 or 3).

I am going to try and come up with a tutorial for the j3editor.I have found a few shortcuts that make it a little more user friendly.If anyone else has come up with a shortcut or two,please forward them.Also,any tips or theories on animation and developing new cockpits would be helpful.Maybe we can coax a few more into mod making.I have been on ebay recently looking for a backup copy of Janes WWIIFighters.There seems to be a lot of interest in the sim in the secondary market,as I am getting constantly outbid.A rerelease would be great.Maybe they could include the addon cd as a bonus?

Did you say P-38 Mod!! I can only echo the setiment's in this post and I hope for the best I know I will continue to search out and hang out with the JanesWWII fighter Club ... Thx gents...

Thanks MEGA ... I received delivery of your P-38 shipment.

I'll fly it as soon as my home internet is working fast enough to download.

On a similar note, I finally did a Photoshop thing ... made an OD wing to replace the silver replacement wing on Ramm's B-17. It's not that I don't like Rammjager's version, it's just that seeing eight or twelve exactly the same in the sky interupts my 'suspension of disbelief.' So now I see all-olive drab B-17s. Not exactly a revolutionary mod or anything, all I did was copy and paste the other wing over the silver portion, put the star decal on top of that and then touched the final product up with Photoshop tools. If anybody else is interested, I may be able to e-mail out copies of the 'fix' bitmaps. My home internet is running crappy right now, though, so if I don't reply to requests right away its because I can't even connect to Yahoo! mail and sometimes I can't even post on this message board from home.

Dutch I would be glad to help on the J3E help thing. We used to have something similar somewhere along the way and I think it was quite helpfull.

Thanks BigDog;My e-mail address is mmillerin@attbi.com. I will create a file with everyones information,and make sure credit is given to those whom submit their theories,shortcuts,ideas,etc.I would also be willing to create a file for unfinished projects.It would be great if some of these could make it into the sim one day.I still think this sim is the very best out there,and is going to keep getting better and better.

Im glad to see that interrest is still there for this awsome sim. I Flew WWIIF last night forthe first time in months after IL2 and the truth is as much as I respect and enjoy IL2 I think WWIIF is "nicer". With the newer (I have all the 2d gen models and mods by Hammard, Snorri et al. and FM5.1) WWIIF is incredable to fly and fight. The lighting effects on the planes is still first rate.

The Ai in WWIIF are the only ai adversaries I am afraid of. The only thing I find lacking is the terrain map but I probably just need to download some new mods!

Janes WWII Fighters Lives!

Well, I'm still alive, so is the Battle of Britain Map, as it's still on my hard drive, just waiting for my main machine to be connected up again after our house move.
I still enjoy this old game loads, just don't seem to ever have time, which is a real shame.
What we seriously need are some new missions dedicated to some of the new aircraft models we have to play around with.
Hey, how about some more Russian Front missions, that's quite a cool environment, when you get it all set up properly.

OK, back to hameering, plsatering and laying tiles......

BOB Map - now ya talkin! Just so happens one of my favorite series on PBS on Spits is running again and has me fired up. PIECE OF CAKE - ever see it?

Be a boost to the sim if we ever get that one rollin' - Swipe that!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/archive/116/116.html

" OK, back to hameering, plsatering and laying tiles......"

Man! Is EVERYONE doing some kind of home improvement project right now? LOL! I'm right in the middle of a major remodel of the kitchen myself.

TimeBandit