Now that AHII has gone live, an important question needs to be asked. Is there enough development bandwidth and resources to continue to make frequent updates and improvements to AHII, while at the same time progressing with TOD?
I must admit feeling that HTC's original goal of keep development cycles small, has gotten lost in the big push to get AHII out the door.
As a paying customer, I would hate to see new aircraft, new special effects(eye candy) and gameplay enhancements to AHII lose out to 100% effort to get TOD out the door.
Pyro once stated way back in 1999, that one of their goals in AH was to keep development cycles short. This they were able to do wonderfully at the beginning. We were seeing new aircraft, GV's and naval units, and new gameplay enhancements about four times each year.
Is the goal for AHII the same? Are we going to see new aircraft, new eye candy for the new graphics engine, and new gameplay enhancements every few months?
Frankly, at least 3/4 of my AH squad of 32 guys is waiting on the fence, watching to see what happens now. If HTC puts AHII on the back burner while they focus 100% attention on TOD, I'm pretty certain that they will lose about 24 paying customers by the end of the year.....myself included.
It's hard for me to actually contemplate leaving AH, because I have met so many fine people at the cons and in the arena. That being said, nothing kills the enjoyment of an online game for me like stagnation, and I have been holding on for the last year waiting to see the final result of AHII, in the hope that it will see a return to short development cycles, new aircraft and new eye candy.
Many account holders who think like me will be watching HTC's progress in the next 6 months very closely.
