NEWS FLASH

[chester]

The Adrenaline Vault has learned that the former Interactive Magic laid off close to one-third of its employees today. The online gaming service, which hosts the air combat games Warbirds and Dawn of Aces, has reportedly laid off its president, vice president of engineering, online programming guru and others. The number of employees reportedly fell from 75 to 51. The company was not available for comment prior to the publishing of this report. We will have more on this story as it develops.
 Mabey things are changing?

[dawg]

I don't find this surprising at all. Rather than an indication of change it suggests that things haven't changed at all. They have been in a steady decline for some time now and recent events only confirm their continued decline. I read a post yesterday I think on agw that their stock was finally delisted (can't confirm that). Bad management never has been a viable substitute for good engineering.

[Cabby]

Dawg:  The management(thru all of WB's incarnations) is one thing, but the engineering of the game has never been in question.  Bad management has ruined many a company, but all of WB's developer teams have been top-notch, including the present team(which is unaffected by the current lay-offs).

Warbirds has never been better than it is now.  Connection problems have always been a problem for some, some don't like the Strat model, the Flight model, the pricing, the Me-109, etc., etc., but the game itself is still the Number One Online Combat Sim by far.  For now.

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cabby ++44th SOS++

[-cman-]

Yup, they've been dropped by NASDAQ.

While I agree that the state of the business doesn't affect the basic engineering of the game *right now* it does mean that in the long run they are screwed.  Without access to capital, they cannot run a loss forever.  Eventually they will have to sell (again), declare bankruptcy or possibly shrink the company back down to the size it was when I-magic first bought them--focusing more or less on just doing one good thing, flight sims.   Wouldn't that be poetic justice?

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-cman-
The Dweebs of Death
"Death before dishonor,
often just moments
before."

[-cman-]

Yup, they've been dropped by NASDAQ.

While I agree that the state of the business doesn't affect the basic engineering of the game *right now* it does mean that in the long run they are screwed.  Without access to capital, they cannot run a loss forever.  Eventually they will have to sell (again), declare bankruptcy or possibly shrink the company back down to the size it was when I-magic first bought them--focusing more or less on just doing one good thing, flight sims.   Wouldn't that be poetic justice?

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-cman-
The Dweebs of Death
"Death before dishonor,
often just moments
before."

[Surfer]

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Warbirds has never been better than it is now.
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I guess I just don't appriciate the 'improvements' implemented since the original team left.

Personally, I feel it is not as good as it once was, from my very limited perspective.

But that's just me...

-Surfer
=<XXX>= Tres Equis

[Downtown]

When I first flew warbids, 2.5, I was impressed by the way the planes flew, and looked.

I was not much knocked out by the D10 Laser Death Match asspect.  The Number of HOs and the lack of the Ability to get up to 50 yards away and then shoot bugged me.

That is the Air Combat I had read about.  Get CLOSE and then Shoot.  Short Bursts, Etc. Etc.

That wasn't Warbirds 2.5.

For 2.6 The D10 Lasers went away.

2.6 Was a bad idea.  WHY.

1. Packet Loss, micro warps, Etc.
Sure you had to get in close, but it didn't help cause your advesary warped away, or the bullets/shells dissapeared into internet limbo.

There have been IMO improvements that have made Warbirds Playable again, and for me Apparently recent connection improvement.

Right now AH is still in beta, it needs improvments, if it is anywhere close to Warbirds when the start charging, they will get my business.

Warbirds continues to improve, so does AH.

I love competition.

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"I could feel the 20MM Cannon impacting behind me so I made myself small behind the pilot armor" Charlie Bond AVG

[Westy]

 Fwiw, in regard to HO's.  That's how I die half the time in AH. It sucks. It's like JoustWarrior.
 And yes it takes two to HO but with the curretn grpahics as soon as I see the bloke is coming at me head on it's too late to break.  Quite oftne I like to fly under the bogies belly and come over in a vertical lead turn.

 --Westy

[Rojo]

Well, fully a quarter of my kills are head-ons.  At least AH has a collision code that actually makes a bit of since. To the best of my knowledge, I've never suffered a collision where only one plane was damaged or destroyed.  And the collisions appear to be mapped to the A/C like other damage (might be wrong here, but that's my impression). Despite all the head-on's I've made, I've actually suffered only a couple of collitions, too.

Last weekend was a particularly memorable one.  I made a head on with another Pony (I think). The collision seems to make a very distinct sound, btw. I instantly saw a kill message on the other guy, but I was still alive at, for the moment. Anyway, my A/C began to tumble, but by cranking full right trim, holding stick full right deflection, and carefull attention to the rudder I was able to hold (barely) controlled and level flight.  I risked a look out to my left and was amazed to see about half the left wing missing -- really, all I had left on that side was a stub of wing. I quickly determined it would be impossible to turn back toward my base, let alone land my damaged A/C; I hit the silk.

While my current internal compass is still leaning toward WB, there are definitely things iEN could learn from AH. I'm holding off final judgement on whether to switch permanently until I see what WB 3.0 brings to the table. Of course, if iEN melts down or 3.0 is a bust, I certainly glad I've something like AH to prevent flight-sim withdrawl syndrome.

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Rojo (S-2, The Buccaneers)

[Kats]

Well if going from 70 people to 50 something is a bad sign - what do you guys think of AH, how many guys you think work there and look at how much was acheived in such a short time.

Hell how many poeple you think ICI had when WB was pumping out revisions every three months? Maybe 20?

I don't want to pay $2.00 /hour for executives and vice executives heheheheh. I'd rather pay flat rate for coders, artists, and designers instead  

[RASTER]

It is very strange how such a good game could produce only failure. The loss of such a game whose entire reputation is based on adult realistic gaming can only make the community rethink the entire reality. WB's was just excellent programing but many of the attitudes stunk like a fish plant. There was an underlying message in WB's and I didn't really like it. Otherwise the game was excellent. More to the point, in January the loans come due and it will be a fuss. I would give it serious consideration right now where this is leading. For myself, had I the currency, I would love to own part of the game. But too bad, I spent my last million last week.

RASTER