Sale Frequency and Recommended Starting Pack

[JaylewAF11]

Hello! A few quick questions, then some background:

 

1) How often does IL-2 Great Battle Series have sales? Is it like once a quarter like steam or once a year?

 

2) Any rumors or educated guesses on the Bodenplatte release date?

 

3) If you could only pick one great Battle Series (including Bodenplatte), which one would you recommend to a new player?

 

I've been interested in picking up an IL-2 game for several years (I've heard great things), but until recently I haven't had a good enough computer to play. Now I have that, an Oculus Rift, and a joystick and am itching to expand my flight sim experience outside of Elite Dangerous. I played a lot of Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator (1, 2 & 3) back in the day, so Bodenplatte seems more appealing just because of the American, British, and German aircraft, but I'm definitely willing to try out BOS or BOM first. Just don't want to crazy and get everything and then realize it's not for me. Also, my apologies if the questions were answered elsewhere. I couldn't find anything solid in the forum or Google search.

[F/JG300_Gruber]

Hi, 

 

1) I don't have exact figures but sales happens more than once a year.

 

2) Development started just a couple months ago, so don't expect the full release to be done in less than a year from now. That being said, if you grow fond of this sim and don't want to wait that long, preordering gives you anticipated access to all the content when it is ready. For example, the 109 G14 and the new spitfire MkIX are already flyable. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the American planes pops out before Christmas.

 

3) It depends on how do you intend to fly. For offline mode, anyone is valid, it just boils down to the planeset you like the most.

If you are looking into multiplayer, I think BoS is still the best option to start with. Most planes are rather competitive, and will be available in a wide range of scenarios (you may be a bit limited on 1941 maps but they are not that common)

 

 

Edited June 8, 2018 by F/JG300_Gruber

[Eicio]

I heard somewhere that Bobp should be out on december 2019.

 

For the planes it really depend on what you like and don't forget that some planes (yak1b, ju-52,Bf 109 G6 and la-5FN) are only available as collector planes.

 

If you prefer the latest part of the war, since you seem really interested in bodenplatte, you might appreciate Battle of Kuban: latest planes we have right now and the most diversity amongst the planes within.

 

However I do not recommend you to take Bodenplatte since you don't have anything else right now, it would mean that you'd only have two planes, no career and no multiplayer capabilities.

[ShamrockOneFive]

17 hours ago, JaylewAF11 said:

Hello! A few quick questions, then some background:

 

1) How often does IL-2 Great Battle Series have sales? Is it like once a quarter like steam or once a year?

 

2) Any rumors or educated guesses on the Bodenplatte release date?

 

3) If you could only pick one great Battle Series (including Bodenplatte), which one would you recommend to a new player?

 

I've been interested in picking up an IL-2 game for several years (I've heard great things), but until recently I haven't had a good enough computer to play. Now I have that, an Oculus Rift, and a joystick and am itching to expand my flight sim experience outside of Elite Dangerous. I played a lot of Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator (1, 2 & 3) back in the day, so Bodenplatte seems more appealing just because of the American, British, and German aircraft, but I'm definitely willing to try out BOS or BOM first. Just don't want to crazy and get everything and then realize it's not for me. Also, my apologies if the questions were answered elsewhere. I couldn't find anything solid in the forum or Google search.

 

Hey there!

 

1) Much more frequently than Steam sales (although they also have sales during the Steam sales). I would guess that a summer sale will be up sometime soon.

2) Development for each of the titles seems to be approximately 14-16 months by my estimate. We're maybe 3+ months into that development cycle so we'll see Bodenplatte finished around summer of 2019. Completely an estimate until we get a better idea of the roadmap from Jason.

3) That's a tough call. The best sales are on older titles like Stalingrad and Moscow while Kuban will not have any substantial sales for the immediate future as it just released. If multiplayer is important, Battle of Stalingrad has aircraft that fit into both Moscow and Kuban time periods and it also gets the most discounts. Otherwise, I'd go with the battle or aircraft set that you find most interesting.

 

It's important to note that while I said Battle of Stalingrad is the older title, what you play today is by no means "older." All of the engine updates, visual enhancements, new ways of playing (Career mode) and so forth have been implemented to the entire series all at once. The team even went back and updated the Stalingrad map so that it looked good under the much improved terrain distance rendering (4X as far as before).

 

IMHO, get one of them on sale. Dip your toes in and see what you think. If after really getting a sens e of it, you like what you see, then Bodenplatte and other titles await. The team does an early access sale for titles under development so Battle of Bodenplatte already has content out for people who pre-ordered (the Spitfire IX and Bf109G-14) with more content arriving about every 5-6 weeks.

[RedKestrel]

BoK will probably go on sale before the end of the year, and just before BoBp releases there will probably be a major sale on the 'older' games (the way this game works is its all the same game, so we see all the same improvement no matter what). They also occasionally have sales for collector planes, campaigns, etc. 

Last sale I got BoS for 70% off and BoM for 50% Off. Basically two games for the price of less than one. 

[JaylewAF11]

Wow! Thanks for all the replies! All super helpful! I'll probably pick of BoS during the next sale, see how I like it, then maybe pick up some others before the sale ends. Seem like there should be one sometime over the summer. If I subscribe to the newsletter I assume that some sort of notification of the next sale will be sent out, right? 

[Porkins]

21 hours ago, JaylewAF11 said:

Hello! A few quick questions, then some background:

 

1) How often does IL-2 Great Battle Series have sales? Is it like once a quarter like steam or once a year?

 

2) Any rumors or educated guesses on the Bodenplatte release date?

 

3) If you could only pick one great Battle Series (including Bodenplatte), which one would you recommend to a new player?

 

I've been interested in picking up an IL-2 game for several years (I've heard great things), but until recently I haven't had a good enough computer to play. Now I have that, an Oculus Rift, and a joystick and am itching to expand my flight sim experience outside of Elite Dangerous. I played a lot of Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator (1, 2 & 3) back in the day, so Bodenplatte seems more appealing just because of the American, British, and German aircraft, but I'm definitely willing to try out BOS or BOM first. Just don't want to crazy and get everything and then realize it's not for me. Also, my apologies if the questions were answered elsewhere. I couldn't find anything solid in the forum or Google search.

Welcome!

 

1) I would estimate that they have a sale about every quarter. That generally (but not always) applies to both the base games and the collector's planes.

 

2) No clue!

 

3) I would recommend Kuban. Kuban's map is gorgeous and interesting, and I enjoy the relatively more modern planes and variants compared to BoS and BoM. It's a great lineup, with standard favorites like the FW, 109, 110, Yak, IL-2,  and 111 that are more "souped up" compared to earlier variants. Along with oddballs like the Cobra and 129 (Collector plane). Plus it has my personal favorite, the Spitfire (Mark V). Plus a very interesting and fun to fly US bomber in the A-20.

 

If you really like Western fighters or bleeding edge WW2 designs, then obviously wait for BP. I'm probably skipping BP, unless the map turns out to be incredibly interesting. Will still be buying the P-38 though! 

1 hour ago, JaylewAF11 said:

Wow! Thanks for all the replies! All super helpful! I'll probably pick of BoS during the next sale, see how I like it, then maybe pick up some others before the sale ends. Seem like there should be one sometime over the summer. If I subscribe to the newsletter I assume that some sort of notification of the next sale will be sent out, right? 

Just read these posts. BoS is a solid choice. It's cheap on a sale, got the engine upgrade, and the plane lineup is good. All the planes you would expect (except the 110). BoM in my opinion has the weakest plane set. A lot of planes you would never take into MP, even though some of them are very interesting. 

[Gambit21]

Aww come on - get BP if you want something to come after Gordo.

[ShamrockOneFive]

5 hours ago, JaylewAF11 said:

Wow! Thanks for all the replies! All super helpful! I'll probably pick of BoS during the next sale, see how I like it, then maybe pick up some others before the sale ends. Seem like there should be one sometime over the summer. If I subscribe to the newsletter I assume that some sort of notification of the next sale will be sent out, right? 

 

Subscribing to the newsletter works well for this. You can also subscribe to the announcements forum which will send you an e-mail whenever they post in there. Mostly not sale announcements but sometimes there are. Finally, a shameless self plug to bookmark my blog as I make it a point to post about flight sim sales (https://stormbirds.blog/) whenever they come up.