the thing Steam doesn't have is a live community like HL does.

HL used to have a community, perhaps. But it certainly does not any more and likely never will again.

People have a lot of nostalgia for HL but quite frankly if you look at it from an objective perspective, putting aside your emotions it's plain to see that HL is a sub-par program.

The game's got a built-in lobby. If it had a chat feature that connected to an IRC channel it would be infinitely superior. Why do we need a 3rd-party external lobby that doesn't show accurate player numbers if people direct-connect and whose chat is 99% full of trolling anyways?

HL is a relic of the past struggling to maintain relevancy.

So where are the 500 or so IL2 1946 pilots meeting & flying from these days ?

Its server well over 10 years as a support, meeting, recruitment place.

It looks like it will keep going.

Maybe for 1946 it will. For CLOD though, I doubt it. 500 pilots is a shadow of the former online population.

Objectively speaking, what is good about HL? Other than the chat, what does HL have that an ingame lobby doesn't?

Agreed there used to be 1000+

Some will argue the numbers halved after the mod packs arrived, some will argue the mod kept the game alive.

Numbers tell us that the v4.11 revived the IL2 1946 online community, users are coming back to stock CooP's and Df servers.

HL has a section for CoD I use it to host from there's a few in there right now.

HL is a point of contact for other pilots to interact outside of the game before any-things launched, so mission and tactics can be discussed also general information exchange can take place about squad or individuals activity including recruitment.

So generally necessary if you want to be part of a community, if you just want to hop in a server and fly around shooting stuff and not be part of anything bigger that's up to you.

:)

It's a big 'if', but if CLOD ever gets to a workable state, I suspect that the numbers for 1946 will die off. My opinion is that the shoddy, dismal state of CLOD is a large contributor to the high number of pilots still flying 1946.

Last time I checked, HL servers couldn't accurately report the server population unless everyone joined through hyperlobby. Is this still true?

I agree that it used to be. But 10 years ago some people were still on dialup or ISDN lines. 99% are on broadband now, and voice chat servers are cheap, easy to set up, and a much better medium for getting help and support than text chat. Speaking is just faster than typing, and also frees the hands up for multitasking.

Nice jab. I myself have been involved with numerous "bigger things" so your assumption doesn't really fit. I've flown in online wars, the USL, etc and every time I found it much simpler to just join via direct connect than waste time fiddling with hyperlobby.

The point is not about how the folks communicate once they've already formed a group, the problem is that its not possible to form that group by joining a TS. I can't ask the TS fairy what IP address will bring me to the right group of sim pilots.

Chat is the best way to do it. You already know whoever you're chatting up is able to join a server with you, you reach an audience that isn't already involved, and the list goes on.

The devs if, my memory serves me correctly which it may not, have a chat feature planned for the CoD lobby, rendering hyperlobby obsolete. Like many features in the sim not yet implemented, this feature is a lower priority untill the bigger issues are solved.

It wasnt directly aimed at you but a general statement for those reading.

When I heard that CloD was going to be on steam I was actually kind of happy... I figured the servers and squads would all form steam-groups and players would join the appropriate group(s)... This would have allowed squads to have an instant blog style place to meet up and communicate (via steam) with chat or voice (yes, I honestly thought people would just use steam for voice chat since it's built in).

I also thought the individual servers would have their own steam groups for communication, announcements, posting events, map rotations, etc...

A chat lobby in game and better integration with steam servers (like l4d2) could have turned out completely differently... then folks who are not into the forums would find the CloD related groups (squads) and servers on steam and we'd all be more of a community....

Instead we are pining for HL (which is great!!!) but it seems like we really just need better mp lobbies in-game that accomodate coop style gameplay and pre-mission chat (and maybe better integration with between the servers and steam itself).