Hey guys, been a long time since I played AH, must be at least a year now.
Ive been playing WWII air combat sims for years. I played Warbirds when it was not even 3dfx
Boy those spiky star shaped smoke has come a long way
After 3 years of Warbirds I joined AH for a good few years.
After WWIIonline came out I was playing both games, still enjoying AH, but then started playing less and less AH, till the time come when I hadn’t logged in for 2 months and decided there was no point in paying for something I don’t use, so I unsubscribed with many a happy memory
Ahh those long Lancaster buff runs with the VMF 222 flying deuces
What stopped me playing Aces High was really the lack of what originally made me play it like a hooked junkie.
Less intense battle, same old dog fighting and mostly that pizza map. Every time that map came around I didn’t play for a few weeks till the map rotated. It was such a chore playing that map, little action and miles of terrain till the next facility.
Anyway, I have been playing WWIIonline since then (yes I know a big boo hiss form some of you, but really WWIIonline is sweet I like it so lets not start a peeing contest cos AH and WWIIonline are 2 different games)
I have been watching and playing with the AHII beta, looking forward to its release when I may see a return of the game that I loved so much, with added whistles and bells. And hoping to re-subscribe.
Well I have kept quirt so far, as this is beta I know it dose not represent the finished article. Well now on the boards this last beta is about it till the full release.
So im left wondering, what is new??
OK I know Hi Tech and the gang have spent allot of hard work and time on this title, which is why I have these opinions and are asking these questions.
First off, this is how I see AHII as of latest beta (the supposed almost release version)
The first wrong thing I felt about AHII is the sense of nostalgia I got. I shouldn’t get nostalgic about AH1 playing AH2. They should look and feel different, but they don’t.
Apart from nicer textures, the aircraft look the same inside (which is where we spend all of the time) the dials etc are all the same, no moving control leavers joysticks etc, no new VR cockpit, just the same AH1.
The sounds are all the same (with a few added ones) The explosion sound and graphics are exactly the same, the MG sounds are the same, the engine start up sounds are the same.
The FEEL of the aircraft is the same, and somewhat weird. The glide ratio of all aircraft is amazing. Scrape the aircraft on the ground, damage prop and engine and glide for ages, then when you loose speed and are down to 20mph gently float to the ground as apposed to dropping like a stone, just like AH1 I thought was a bit amazing then.
The new ground is different but, im sorry to say Horrible. That garish dark green colour, I never seen such a dark green field in real life. There is no coast like there was in the first, just green stops and deep deep deep blue colour sea starts.
Those trees, well, they look like multi levels tables when your low
New building look nice, less child’s toy houses like the first ones are so a bit of a plus there. Oh and we got real time shadows, cool but at speed dog fighting at 5000 feet, im not going to notice.
you see, all in all the whole game looks, feels just like AH1, im sure allot of stuff has been done "Under the hood" but as a player and a possible customer I never see "under the hood" all I see is AH1 with a few high res textures slapped over the aircraft, a few new special effects like the tracer etc and the dated but pleasing to the eye ground textures of the first replaced by something out of a colour blind developers nightmare.
im disappointed because since I heard that Dale and the gang were making AHII, I have been as giddy as a school girl.
I was thinking AH1 gets severely rogerd by IL2. I was thinking VR cockpits with moving controls etc. I was thinking a more elaborate VISUAL damage model. I was thinking a more realistic ground sea and air, weather maybe.
I wasn’t expecting IL2 but a jump towards that kind of fidelity. At the end of the day if IL2 can do what it dose with such an awesome look and feel, online, in a large arena and FREE. AH should be able to emulate at least a little of that with its AHII title.
The only thing AH has that IL2 dose not is TOTAL in game single server numbers.
Whilst that provides limitations over IL2, surely not as much as to develop a AH1 clone with a bit of a paint job.
I know I sound angry, im not, just disappointed.
Please tell me there is a ton of Stuff to add>? I think I read on these forums that there is a lot of visual stuff to add??? Just how much and what type of visual stuff??
Are they going to replace all the cockpits?
Are they going to add a cool visual damage model?
Are they going to add more to the ground textures like coastlines?
Are they going to tweak the flight model more so the aircraft feel more like they are made of wood and metal than paper.
Are there some cool new features im un-aware of like barrage balloons or something
I’m not being a jerk, razzing on AH. It’s still a great Massive online WWII air dog fighting Sim. But after all that dev time and thinking of all the cool ways it could be developed. I didn’t expect to have to check the link I used to download the pre-release beta to make sure I dint get AH 1 by mistake.
I guess if this was called AH 1.19 I wouldn’t have such a problem with it.
My thoughts anyways
