Population of IL2 4.08m

[LEXX]

JG27::

Currently 9 Million Players on World of Warcraft at 15 bucks a month.

Yep. Happy offliners are the barrier between Oleg and "pay to play" so to speak.

[jermin]

The population of IL2 is shrinking, whether you believe it or not. Open HyperLobby, you'll find the most popular servers there are arcade ones with cockpit off and external view on. The number of total online players at HL has also decreased greatly. It was usual to see 1000 plus players flying online at the same time before 2007. But now it is a different stroy. There were also many large squadrons flying at HL years ago which I have never seen for nearly two years.

[BLR_Tonin_fr]

Originally Posted by jermin

The population of IL2 is shrinking, whether you believe it or not. Open HyperLobby, you'll find the most popular servers there are arcade ones with cockpit off and external view on. The number of total online players at HL has also decreased greatly. It was usual to see 1000 plus players flying online at the same time before 2007. But now it is a different stroy. There were also many large squadrons flying at HL years ago which I have never seen for nearly two years.

+1
We share the same point of view...
...
...
...

One thing I've noticed : Fights moved from HL servers to forum's topics...

[K_Freddie]

Now we know why Olegs pushing IL2/BoB into XBox, Playstation, and that funny 'hand-held excuse' for a computer ..

The wider the market the more interest and eventual conversion to the PC.
Good strategy - actually no choice..

[Thunderbolt56]

There aren't nearly as many consistent users of IL2 online as there used to be. This is still the pinnacle of WWII flight simulation and those that realize it are the ones that continue to stick around and populate the servers. While there might be 500 servers out there, there are really only a dozen or so that have consistent pilot numbers and that's been common for the last couple years. Even though the DVD compilation release brought quite a bit of new blood, there also seem to be a number of pilots leaving for other things at about the same rate.

This sim will continue to have a strong and loyal player base that will no doubt still be flying this sim for a couple more years to come despite an engine that's long in the tooth and mildly dated graphics. They'll continue for the sheer broad spectrum of content.

The fact that there is a cross-platform game being developed is really only a good thing...yes, even for us hardcore pc bird nerds.


TB

[Bobb4]

You cannot count online figures as simplistically as:

" 5000 users for IL2 vs 9 Million Players on World of Warcraft at 15 bucks a month and Call of Duty 4 having over 20000 servers out there."

Lets put it like this, Battlefield 2/2142 have on average double the number of players Call of Duty 4 has. Counter Strike Source had even more but a lot have jumped over to COD 4.

Now 9 million players at 15 bucks a month may sound a lot but it is a game that is constantly being developed, requires an extensive backbone serverside to run. Put that against over 1.4 billion internet users worldwide and you have a problem. Then 9 million users are a drop in the ocean.
Mark my words, a realistic WW2 simulator covering, ground air and sea catering in the fps style (armed assault type) would have in excess of 30 to 40 million users easily.
That against a backdrop of 1.4 billion is still a drop in the ocean, just slightly bigger.
What flight sim companies should be doing is marketing their products together with after-market products such as trackir, joysticks etc...

Lastly, Il2 is over 10 years old and the fact that it has the largest online flight community bar none is and indication of what could happen with the right product.
Remember when Il2 came out broadband was in it's infancy in most countries.
All the other products that have been quoted have come out since the big internet boom.
Imagine a product that records stats like BF2, is ultra realistic and is great to look at...
time will tell but I believe SOW will reinvent how online flight sims are seen.

[HFC_Dolphin]

We still cannot discuss SoW, cause we have not seen it in public.

With regards to the IL-2, I totally agree that it's shrinking. Whatever is left is some DF servers, which is nothing if you consider that DF is just something arcade (no matter what the settings are) and IL-2 was not meant to be something arcade.

Online coops? Sadly only a few flown every day...

Online wars? Sadly no decent online war exists...

Players? We got to be honest and accept that every day we see the same 500-1000 names. And this list is getting shorter and shorter, not to mention those who just show up in HL and are not flying at all. They just come for some chit-chat and then they leave.

I won't be talking about offline players, cause we do not have any real proof of their numbers and the time they spend in this game.

Anyway, this game will keep some 50+ players for many years, even if no other sim appears.

I always liked "realistic" simulations (driving, ww2) more than any stupid shooter for kids...war of warcraft is another genre but still its full of kids and that fantasy shit isnt attractive to me....

[JG27CaptStubing]

Originally Posted by Bobb4

You cannot count online figures as simplistically as:

" 5000 users for IL2 vs 9 Million Players on World of Warcraft at 15 bucks a month and Call of Duty 4 having over 20000 servers out there.".

Actually you can... Take a look at the page rankings and the traffic for your favorite IL2 site. Even Ubi's forums are tiny tiny in comparison to the shear volume of WoW fans. We as in a community are in the thousands they are in the Millions period.

Originally Posted by Bobb4

Lets put it like this, Battlefield 2/2142 have on average double the number of players Call of Duty 4 has. Counter Strike Source had even more but a lot have jumped over to COD 4.

So what is your point? In terms of numbers playing this game online any any given time there are some 600 folks playing. That's Hyperlobby numbers.

Originally Posted by Bobb4

Now 9 million players at 15 bucks a month may sound a lot but it is a game that is constantly being developed, requires an extensive backbone serverside to run. Put that against over 1.4 billion internet users worldwide and you have a problem. Then 9 million users are a drop in the ocean.

Uhh sorry what are you talking about here? It's bar none the most successful PC game of all time period. Lets do a little math for a second.

9 million people purchased Wow = 9Mx$39.00 $351,000,000 just in the first iteration.

9 million people purchased Wow Burning Crusades at $29.00 = $342,000,000

That's $693,000,000 Just in revenue from purchases. Even if half were pirated copies that is more money than any other game or movie success right out of the gate.

Now lets add in the subscription fees per month. $135,000,000 now I know it didn't start out at 9 million users it started out with 4 million users and grew. I will play devils advocate for just a moment. Even at a modist 6 Million users a month that is $90,000,000 x 3 years = $3,240,000,000 just in Subscription fees.

Are you starting to get the picture? This title has blown away any Entertainment movie by leaps and bounds and it continues to do so. Yes there is overhead but when you've made about 5 Billion in revenue you can afford the servers and the development team that makes WOW work. Even if the overhead to run their servers at a 100 million a year (which is far from reality) They dwarf any WW2 Simulator and every other game by leaps and bounds.

Originally Posted by Bobb4

Mark my words, a realistic WW2 simulator covering, ground air and sea catering in the fps style (armed assault type) would have in excess of 30 to 40 million users easily.
That against a backdrop of 1.4 billion is still a drop in the ocean, just slightly bigger.
What flight sim companies should be doing is marketing their products together with after-market products such as trackir, joysticks etc.

30 to 40 million users? Uhh I don't think you understand the gaming industry and realistic numbers. IL2 and even all of it's iterations might have sold 500,000 copies at the most not 30 to 40 million.

Just start looking into Site traffic and it will show you very quicky just how tiny this genre is. Go to google and load up this site. It's tiny dude.

If you think having an integrated sim and ground war simulator is going to draw massive crowds take a look at WWII online as a good starting point.

Originally Posted by Bobb4

Lastly, Il2 is over 10 years old and the fact that it has the largest online flight community bar none is and indication of what could happen with the right product.
Remember when Il2 came out broadband was in it's infancy in most countries.
All the other products that have been quoted have come out since the big internet boom.
Imagine a product that records stats like BF2, is ultra realistic and is great to look at...
time will tell but I believe SOW will reinvent how online flight sims are seen.

The fact is there is a reason why 1c is releasing a Console and handheld version of IL2. Most gamers don't play PC games anymore. WOW and SIMs are the only ones making entertainment software company execs scratch their heads. Wow and SIMs are the most succesful PC games of all time. Even if you include Microsoft Flight Sim as being a competitor it dwarfs the IL2 community.

Do some research and you will see just how wrong you are.

[Bobb4]

Just start looking into Site traffic and it will show you very quicky just how tiny this genre is. Go to google and load up this site. It's tiny dude.

If you think having an integrated sim and ground war simulator is going to draw massive crowds take a look at WWII online as a good starting point.




The fact is there is a reason why 1c is releasing a Console and handheld version of IL2. Most gamers don't play PC games anymore. WOW and SIMs are the only ones making entertainment software company execs scratch their heads. Wow and SIMs are the most succesful PC games of all time. Even if you include Microsoft Flight Sim as being a competitor it dwarfs the IL2 community.

Do some research and you will see just how wrong you are.

You somehow seem to think I was taking a dig at WOW and have jumped to it's defense. Sorry if I gave that impression.
I was merely pointing out that with the internet having 1.4 billion users, 9 million people play WOW is really not that big.

To put it another way, there is a massive untapped market waiting to be exploited. I was just pointing out that a combined WW2 sim having all the elements of COD2, IL2 and Silenthunter 4 (include surface ships) would easily attract 40 million plus players.
Again it would have to follow the same stats, ingame world of the landmark games like WOW, EVE etc. WW2 online failed mainly because of a lack of developer support, the game basically remained the same from initial release...
So in a nutshell I was saying an online game, with a persistant universe featuring, planes, tanks soldiers and naval assets in a large FPS type world with complete stats, rank and upgrades would be successful especially if it was regularly updated and maintained.
If WOW is the alpha and omega of online game in the future then that would be sad. I firmly believe a persistant online ww2 war on an epic scale would be very successful.

I have played guild wars, Navy fields, ADW, Il2, Armed Assault, BF2, BF2142, Falcon 4, Lomac, Prey, Crysis, COD4, DOD online. Offline, Warcraft in all it's incarnation, AGE of empires and the list goes on...
As for consoles replacing PC's I say 20 years ago who would have though mobile phones would be available to everyone... Wher technology is heading is anyones guess. But anyone ignorning 1.4 billion users is an idiot.
Five to six years from now WOW will be one of hundreds of titles competing for the biggest market in the world.