[Shrike_UK]

in reply to xnomad. I totally agree the thing is to avoid fragmenting the community, which is why Steam would be best for that purpose. If you look at UBI lobby for example. This is what everyone should have used if they didnt want to fragment the community. I was there for many many years, but, anyone who played there was bashed as being noob, it got bad press as it was the game room that all the non-expert players went as it was the one new people were first introduced to when buying the game, whereas hyperlobby on the other hand recieved tournament games and better organised squadrons, more features related to IL2 specifically that UBI (and Steam for that matter) dont have. and mostly rooms with full real switch players.

I think if we are going to try to keep the community together then we all need to act responsibly, and those that are veteran IL2 community members do need to promote staying together. Anyone who used to play on UBI servers would most likely know me. But Hyperlobby Users wont. I had the largest active memberred squadron on UBI. Alongside MH and MD, TX squadrons. Going to Hyperlobby when UBI went dead however we was the new kids on the block. And we never really took off again on Hyperlobby as other Squadron were much more recognised and well known as being the best in Hyperlobby domain.

One thing to have a think about is game experience. Weigh this up. On Steam, as with UBI, you dont get information on settings used in a game before you join. Apart from what people write in the game room title. This means you could well join a Coop or Dogfight with CEM turned off for example. Now we dont want that do we, being experienced pilots. And so time is wasted. There can be many features a lobby can have to support its game. Generic game lobbies will not support them. This is another reason why Hyperlobby became more popular.

Personally, i would rather see a purpose built lobby for IL2, and well, maybe link steam hosted games into it to provide a better overall coverage.

And yes, i'll wait till we see what we get in game, the information might be sufficient and the community might not need some 3rd party addition. we simply dont know yet.