Why are so many people registering just to post how much they support steam?
Bit weird that.

ALl you cry babies saying steam is crap and you can't mod and blah blah blah. Well I have Arma and Arma2 - and have a gigjillion mods for that and they work just fine using steam.

Get off ya high horses.

The current poll put up by the BIS developers suggests that 67% of the community don't want Steam for ARMA and 13% are not sure.

S!

The real problem with STEAM it's that we will not have what HL gives with all the team, coop, dogfight and international competitions rooms...

If they implement it as other games, we will have a shooter style of management of serves to connect with, just a damm list....

Hope the at the end we can choose between STEAM or any other Server Manager, this is the fair way.

After all this years playing in HL it's a real pity that we must leave it cause this..... hate when they forced me to use something that i don't want to...

Sadly they have lost all 33 buyers from one clan thats been buying IL2 since the outset because of the steam choice. I'm not too fussed but I believe its probably an attemp to make sure the game dont get hacked again.
Dont think we need online activation, solid sheild and steam though, kinda over kill.

My entire village is not going to buy this game because the elders said steam is evil, and we want no evil in our tribe.

BTW Why are so many people registering just to post how much they hate steam?
Bit weird that.

Oleg said some time ago that HL or other 3rd party clients could still be used; while we don't know if that's still the case there is right now no indication that you will have to use Steam as a multiplayer lobby.

Not weird at all. People have a concern and think it's worth registering to voice it. Not sure what's wrong with that :confused: Sure it probably won't make a difference; then again the way EA, Ubi and other companies have reduced various restrictions on their DRM in the last years was probably not for people staying silent.

Well, hooray for you and your opinion(s) and I hope you won't mind me refuting a few of them.

After the crapfest that was the Ubi-lobby (where it was impossible to host from behind a router ffs!) the advent of Jiri's Hyperlobby was a godsend for the online community.
Provided free to all-comers it has undergone development throughout its ten years hosting online support for the IL-2 community and has only rarely been offline in that time.

So,
-updating is occasionally necessary. It doesn't occur automatically as Steam does, but gives you a choice, called an Installer window.
-There you have the option of directing your update to wherever you choose on your hard drive(s) by using said Installer window. Used properly it will function perfectly.
-during the short time that it takes to update you are able to read the list of functions and rules that have been updated and why. It makes interesting reading.
-it's all about improved functionality and usage.
-your comment about needing to use the latest version in order to connect is surely self-explanatory?
If hyperlobby is "stealing focus" then that is, sadly, down to user error.

Overall, I find the 'dissing' of applications such as hyperlobby objectionable.
Sure, we're all being urged to go forwards and use the latest and greatest of apps, or suffer the scorn of the converted - but I resent this Orwellian "two legs bad, four legs good" kind of propaganda. However antiquated Hyperlobby is (and that's arguable) it was absolutely key to the early success of IL-2 online after the fiasco that was the Ubi-hosted server lobby.
Jiri Fotjasek really rode to the rescue of the online game and deserves a little more respect than you seem prepared to offer him. On the other hand a large number of us do feel grateful and I think it'll be a sad day if we don't get the option to use the HL for CloD.

I don't think this makes me a Luddite, does it?

I think most people recon that hyperlobby has indeed been a godsend and a brilliant app that's been keeping the IL2 community alive. With that said, it's still a dated product,
it lacks in many areas and it's far from userfriendly compared to modern standards, thus here the online community will really benefit from Steam.