[Dowly]

Dont know if you have seen this before, but atleast I havent:
http://www.freewebs.com/heinkill/stormofwarnews.htm

SoW forum discussion: June 08

Oleg says users will be able to add 'and program' ground objects like AA guns
Oleg Maddox has given some more detail on Battle of Britain, Storm of War (SoW) in a semi-interview style discussion on the 1C Forums. Spread across several threads/posts, his answers are distilled here. Any transcription/translation errors are mine:
Philosophy on game development
We want to build into BoB many features that are not currently available in any sim, or in any future sims, we hope. I have been asked why we are modelling planes that didn't play any role in the war. This is a limited view. Each plane played some role and each plane that we model is an important part of history and gameplay for single play. It is also important for users that like to make missions around episodes in the war that we or others have never covered in a flight sim. This will make Storm of War unique compared to all other Battle of Britain sims. If you look a few years back, you will see that the original IL2 was really the same concept.
In this context, think of what it would be like to fly a military autogyro in 1940 to tune RDF, or try to escape attack by Me109s? I guarantee you for many people it will be interesting to experience things that were never experienced before. Only when you pay attention to such 'out of the box' details, is the product interesting for everyone.
The BoB basic engine will be used for the series of sims and this development is based on our experience with Il-2 on the market. We put into IL2 many features, that we will use even later, after BoB, but which are not yet in BoB. It's normal if you want a long life for your kid.
In short, we are trying to make a Battle of Britain that is unlike all the previous Battle of Britain sims.
The Storm of War expansion concept
We are trying to make not a single game, but a series of expansions, like we did with Pacific Fighters in the past. Either stand alone, or merged with the previous release, beginning from Battle of Britain. Personally I plan to expand beyond WWII and finally to model the Russian front at a new level.
After BoB we plan to make an area never yet modelled and it should be on the market a year or so after BoB.
But our first target after the release of BoB is to release end user tools that will allow them to incorporate new planes, ground vehicles, ships etc in the sim. We would like to create an industry around it, like it is around MS FS. This is a strong point of MS FS in the market. However we understand the problems of this approach and we are doing it with the target of not allowing any cheating online.
I think that MG will move forward with WWII, and we also will move forward to the jet era. This is one of variants in future. Another is WWI. But we at MG will stay long enough with WWII. At least I hope so.
There is a Korea sim in development. Probably it will not be possible to merge Korea with BoB, but within the limits of online play it should be possible to move aircraft from one to the other. But the main programmer hasn't confirmed that for me, and I should also check it with the marketing guys…I think you know what I mean.
Why is SoW taking longer than originally planned?
As we incorporated more complex coding, more complex AI features, more precision in the flight models compared to the real planes, we needed more time on development. If you want a new jump in technologies, visuals, damage, flight models, common physics united in one product that will be acceptable for many years ahead (like we did with the release of IL2) we need more time.
In real time the full development from initial to final code of IL-2 was 7+ years. And then 5 years success on the market. To repeat this is very hard, and it is even harder to 'jump over our own heads'.
I'm a guy who dislikes creating something good and then see it overtaken by something better from someone else. I want to stay ahead.(*sigh* I think we wont be seeing SoW this year then... Buddye and Co. are constantly bettering BoB2. Especially the AI, which was superior to IL2 even as stock, now it is being redone and tons of new tactics will be added)
We are not busy with the Birds of Prey project. It is a third party project, under control of 1C. We just gave them full source code and did the neccessary consulting. It looks good, but not like the BoB engine. The BoB engine it is not a modification of Il-2 engine, which BoP is.
Also I have tested periodically BoP and would like to say that the contol of aircraft there and FM is better than in other arcade sim-games, and controlling aircraft is more easy than in arcade sims... because the guys are keeping some of the original physics from Il-2.
SoW online
In BoB initial release, you will have controllable stationary AA guns. You can use them online or even in single play if you want to create such a mission. This is the first step in the realisation of our plans for online gameplay. You can imagine what you could do with this feature if you were a creative third party developer. We will have tools that allow you to 'program' in simple ways, ground objects such as AA guns and aircraft. But not in a way that will kill online play, we will ensure there is some sort of protection.
We don’t plan to copy WWII Online. But if we decided to create an online only game, then we could use the BoB engine.