Il2
 

I just checked Hyperlobby and on a Thursday morning over 200 people are playing IL2 online, not bad for a game thats 10 years old eh?

I would think not many, if any games have had such a long and popular life.

Quite a achievement i think.

S!

Did they not sing years ago that the radio killed the rock 'n roll star? Well, rock is still alive and kicking ;)

I remember not long ago when close to a thousand would be online. Now-a-days I've not come across more than 300 online at one time. I've had to make myself content with offline play.

Well, thats one reason why there are not more players online!
Offline just isn't a solution.

well...its midnight now...and i still see 400 people flying :)

Depends on timezone. Anyway, as long as I see that servers can reach up to 60 players in the evening, I'm not too concerned.

If offliner would come fight something else than the AI, that would be great too.

some great Pilots and dogfights in Spits v 109's, had real fun the last few nights.

I solely fly in Warbirds of Prey servers. Spit vs 109 has been the primary server for pilots lately. I dont know why the pacific server lost all its pilots. But its a great server and good maps.

You have to take into account that not everyone uses HL. Me personally use xfire so the number of pilots on HL + other server browsers make Il2 rather popular.

Its a great game and the mods have stretched the life cycle and I think Il2 will played online beyond the release of SoW. Virtual pilots will probably want to fly other arenas than BoB until the SoW series expand.

You must take into account that out of those 200-300 players on HL, more than 50 are empty hosts.

I've been trying in vain to recruit a few sticks to teach them fullreal teamflying and accurate bombing for a year now. Back in 2004 folks were very eager in joining squads. It's the steady decline in seriously interested players that bothers me. All in all, we do struggle in a slow downhill trend.

Correct.

And about 25% more players join via x-fire or other alternatives, because they thought HL had been abandoned, when it was no longer developed.

Beyond that, Thrusday is not a good test to see how many players play a game. Come back over the weekend and you'll see some pleasant surprises.