Just looking now:
BOS has 68 players online.
IL2 has 171 on the lobby. About 30 are servers, but a lot of people use direct connect.
CLOD is around 90 on ATAG (which is normally almost the whole CLOD community online).

Everyime i check HL there are like 6-10 ppl on the most populated servers i.e. AoE, SOV or BF.
The other night I joined AoE, as it looked promising with ~25 ppl - then I realized some squad had a squad night and 20 pilots were on blue side.

Which one? Pls tell me it wasn't "Charlie Foxtrott" one.

If you want to check exact number of players you should check their site.
Half of the people do not use HL to join.
This is SOV as I am writing. on HL there's 21 players.
http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...ps28ef700b.jpg.

this is BOS attendance in the same moment...
http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...psbb6d3859.jpg

None of BOS servers has the same number of players of SOV alone.......

I think BOS has very very low chance of replacing IL-2. It is true that good old IL-2 is not as realistic as BOS in terms of FM or DM, and its graphics isnt that great, but its scale is so massive that it simply cant be repeated in the future if you think about how long a game's development takes nowadays. Just look at all the maps, it covers almost all the WW2. Add to it hundreds of different planes. TD also implemented numerous improvements, which made it even better. And these are more than enough to offset the realism advantages of BOS. It cant be denied that it is slowly fading away, but it is slow enough that it will probably outlive even BOS!

Its sunday night, there are 13 players on SoV.
17 on BF.
Impressive(...)



Everything and can be repeated given enough time. 1946 had 14 years or so.
This is a flight sim, basically is is only about FM/DM and fancy graphics, not so much about versatility.
Virtually all of the German squads are gone, ask them why.
They will tell you they were sick and tired of the shitty graphics.
On the other side, our squad, which survived the darkness between 1946, clod and Bos even found new members thanks to Bos(Then again not a single pilot flies 1946 anymore).
Other squads seem to rise from the dead too.


Good luck tho'.
May the modders be with you. ;)

The numbers on training wheels servers are irrelevant when gauging whether or not a flight sim is dead. At least most Europeans get to enjoy realistic servers - they have their peak hours and... quiet hours, but it's not like anyone plays 24/7 anyway.

As for the He-177, I'm not too thrilled of the inclusion of a new bomber. It will be a treat that is enjoyed by a small minority of players. For example, on dogfight servers, most bomber ops are simply counterproductive. Of course, a bomber or two might add to the immersion, but those slots would better be filled with fighters instead.

I do not want to defend the server, but I was playing on Valor when you posted, the number you are quoting is from HL and at the map change with a chinese war map. The map before there were 30 and now with Operation Shingle server is filling again.

Obviously these are not the numbers of 3 years ago and this sim is on the sunset, but it is early to say that the new ones have the upper hand.

Wouldn't that be a good reason to get rid of the not so popular maps.



Never said that. We're still in kind of a vacuum.
What I said is:
Imho it's waste of time and money adding new stuff to 1946 at this time.

If we could identify them correctly we would...unfortunately map popularity is variable with timeframe. Put an MTO map during Italy evening and you'll see a lot of people in...put the same map during Japanese timeframe and will be empty...
Same happens with pacific maps. They are quite good with USA but usually not so appreciated from europeans.
When IL2 was at his peak this was not a problem because there were enough people to fill every map. Now it is different...



I agree. We are in sort of vacuum. There's not a true IL2 successor and 1946 is on the sunset. Seeing on IL2 the future of flight simulation is wrong.
Btw at the moment IL2 is the way to keep gathered around the genre those who aren't attracted from the new sims, hoping that those sim will improve with the time and attract also the sceptics......

There are very good point of view up there...but please...don t hichjack the thread. I don t really care if actually there are 2 of us flying online. This post it s about fundrising not about the sim s longevity. So Swiss, respectfully, you don t believe in this sim anymore, just dont post ion this kind of topics or at least, open a new one.