The VOSS CONSPIRACY... fascinating new book

[Brooke]

Originally posted by DoKGonZo
Last email address I have for him was aruond the beginning of '03 after he left MS: Luscombe1516b@hotmail.com

Thanks, Dok.  I'll give it a try.

Now . . . anyone have contact info for Airmigan?  They do have P-38's in AH, after all.

[Brooke]

Originally posted by AWBrat

I haven't touched a flightsim in probably 4 years now? Any ACM I had is pretty much gone...I priced a few sticks the past few days and am thinking about it...but the demise of AW seriously broke my heart...I loved that game with a passion...and I don't know if I can bring myself to start all over again.

It's like skiing/snowboarding...I learned how to ski when I was 5 years old...and I got good enough at it where people would point at me and say "wow, that guys is really good at skiing"...

All my friends snowboard now and want me to try it as well...but I really don't want people pointing at me and saying "wow...that guy sucks!"

Brat, until recently, I hadn't flown on-line in many, many years.  There were a couple things that caused it for me.  There was the dissolution of the AW community once it lost GEnie as the main place to be.  Usenet newsgroups and AOL forums didn't cut it for some reason.  There was the sad loss of AW itself.  There was the loss for a while of grand scenarios or at least the loss of my knowledge of where to go to participate in them.  And there was a bit of what you talk about -- that in AW at my peak I was skilled, and starting again would mean for a while I wouldn't be.

But AH is an excellent sim.  It is in my opinion a better sim than AW, having more realism, which I was always requesting more of in the GEnie days.  Scenarios, even of the grand Dok-inspired style, are played here in AH.  There are lots of ex-AW oldies here, and this BB system might actually succeed in helping to create the sort of on-line flying community that AW used to have.   That for me would be a dream come true.

As for the skill factor, yes, it does take a while to get back into it.  My flying skills came back quickly.  My gunnery skills took a lot longer, probably because the gunnery in AH is much more realistic.  So, yes, my kills/deaths really sucked at the start and still isn't what it was in AW.  But the relearning *is* fun.  Part of what I got tired of in AW in its main arena and what caused me to fly a lot less there even before I drifted away almost entirely was that my skill had plateaued, and there wasn't that much I didn't already know or hadn't already done.  When you jump back into things, especially here where there are differences compared to AW, there are things to learn and rapid skill advances to be made.  That actually is enjoyable.

So, I think you should go for it.  Will this place have the community that AW had at its peak?  I'm new here, so I don't know for sure -- but damn, look at this thread and who has shown up!  I think it will happen!  As for gameplay, quality of simulation, scenarios, and everything else, it seems to be here, too.

-- Brooke

[Grits]

Originally posted by Brooke
So, I think you should go for it.  Will this place have the community that AW had at its peak?  I'm new here, so I don't know for sure -- but damn, look at this thread and who has shown up!  I think it will happen!  As for gameplay, quality of simulation, scenarios, and everything else, it seems to be here, too.

-- Brooke

I think it can happen, even though I was only in the GEnie era for the last 1.5-2 years, I do miss it. AW had a sublevel of seriousness (probably not the right word) because of the cost, you just dont have very much 12 year old XBox style game play when it costs you $7 an hour to play. When I first started AW, I had to dial long distance to get to GEnie, so the $7 hr LD on top of the $6 hr for GEnie made it a strictly rationed pleasure.

I have extreme difficulty working up much sympathy for biotches whining about "I pay my $14.95 a month and I demand HT and Pyro wipe my prettythang for me!!". This is a game, even with areas that can be improved upon,  that is better than our beloved AW in every way (except community) and I can play an entire month unlimited for what I used to pay for ONE HOUR[/b] of AW. How much better can you get? I dont thing folks that were not around back then realize what value they get from AH.

[Brooke]

Dok, this thread and the people in it have for me started bringing back memories long dormant.  I see people here I haven't interacted with in 10 years or more.

As a veteran of Indian Ocean (my first scenario), Battle of Germany, Imphal Plain (my first CO role), Sicily '43 (my first high-complexity CO role), Munda Weekend (my first CO role on winning side , Kursk III, and other non-Dok (but Dok-inspired) scenarios such as Battle of the 5th Air Force, Target Germany, Carthwheel, Fortress Rabaul, Kursk 4, Guadalcanal, Africa '42, Carthwheel 2 --

I would like to thank you for your role in shaping what scenarios are.  For a while, scenarios were one of my greatest pleasures.  The main arena was only a place to practice for scenarios.  Scenarios were to regular AW what AW was to a stand-alone game, a whole new and wonderful dimension.  In your absense from AW, I and others started the Scenario Masters' Guild, an organization that attempted to carry on the tradition and regularly run Dok-quality scenarios.  It worked for a little while, but then it drifted apart and came to an end.

That was years ago, and for a long time it looked to me, perhaps just because of my own failure to check in the right places, that there was no place of community and big scenarios.  Now I see that AH seems to be the place where the flame is continued.  Starting beginning of August, I'll be playing in my first scenario in many years -- and it does look to be in the grand style of old.

So, with my getting back into scenarios and hoping that they once again will be a great pleasure in my life, one so long gone, and with my seeing you here after so long, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for your role in the creation of a great thing in the world:  the concept of the scenario.

-- Brooke

[Brooke]

Originally posted by Grits
This is a game, even with areas that can be improved upon,  that is better than our beloved AW in every way (except community) and I can play an entire month unlimited for what I used to pay for ONE HOUR of AW. How much better can you get? I dont thing folks that were not around back then realize what value they get from AH. [/B]

Heh!  Hello, Grits!  Yep, I agree with you 100%.  When I first started playing AW in 1988, it cost per hour about (or more than) what we pay here per month for unlimited play.  I had a pal who got hooked (I told him so) and spent $1200 one month playing AW.  (Inflation adjusted to today's dollars, that is, um . . . $957,362.32, I believe.)  As much as I love and admire AW -- Kelton's AW was THE pioneer in this area -- AH has surpassed it, as you say.

I would not like to see AH get too cheap.  There's the Laffer curve.  I want Hitech Creations to make money -- as much money as possible -- because it is a great game.  I want it to continue and to be vibrant forever, damn it!

[DoKGonZo]

Originally posted by Brooke
Dok, this thread and the people in it have for me started bringing back memories long dormant.  I see people here I haven't interacted with in 10 years or more.

...

So, with my getting back into scenarios and hoping that they once again will be a great pleasure in my life, one so long gone, and with my seeing you here after so long, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for your role in the creation of a great thing in the world:  the concept of the scenario.

-- Brooke

Much appreciated. Really. All that stuff seems like it happened a lifetime ago and I guess in a way that's true.

The uber-scenarios came up on one of the mailing lists I belong to as well - lots of us old fartz there too. The tools and resources - and player capacity - in AH has already got me thinking of what is possible. I mean, we could get some serious multi-dimensional air  campaigns going here with complex decisions needed at all command levels.  But you'd need at least 9 or 10 missions to play it out - you don't want something that massive and time-consuming tipped based on one strong mission by a side. And you want a longer time component to play on attrition of replacement planes and so on.

But in looking at the Scenarios forum topics it looks like any new event from outside the CM team has like a 6- to 9-month wait to get scheduled. And that's well beyond my horizon for planning my time at the moment. And I also don't know if the current player base is such that they could dedicate 3  nights a week for a month solid to one of my patented torture-fests.

So I don't know ... it's kind of up to the people who are running things.

[Grits]

I think my worst month of AW addiction cost me around $600, but I had more than a few $400+ months before Delphi/CRIS came along and I could play at $2 an hour with a local number. $600, that is equal to 40 months worth of AH.

I too want HTC to make money so they can do all the things they want for us, but I agree it is possible for AH to get too cheap.

[AW=B17=]

Originally posted by DoKGonZo
But in looking at the Scenarios forum topics it looks like any new event from outside the CM team has like a 6- to 9-month wait to get scheduled. And that's well beyond my horizon for planning my time at the moment. And I also don't know if the current player base is such that they could dedicate 3  nights a week for a month solid to one of my patented torture-fests.

So I don't know ... it's kind of up to the people who are running things.

Rocket Man designed a Longbow scenario that (someone correctme if I'm wrong) ran 16 frames.  I think it was run in a Phase one and a Phase two format. It got knicknamed "too Longbow" and had a little bit of attrition from burnout problems as it neared the end.  I don't know how the current player base *here* would respond to a "mega-scenario" but RM did OK with his monster over in AW.

I don't think the long wait to get scheduled in AH discriminates against "insiders and outsiders" per se.  I think that there are (at any given time) X number of events already in the pipeline in planning stages of one form or another.  I know even going back to late AW six months was not uncommon to get an idea from concept to Frame one taking off.

Back when you were doing events, you (as the trailblazer) always had a wide open road ahead and you could get an event going as fast as you could humanly get it ready.  Since then, evolution spawned the "Scenario Masters Guild" that took over where you left off in AW, then came another group called "The Futile Dweebs" that chimed in with several good events. And in AW there was even a third group called "Catch 22 Productions"

When AW collapsed some of the memebrs of *those* groups melded into the existing Events Team over here. It seems there has been no shortage of event ideas, concepts, etc etc.

The one guy I would suggest chatting with would be Mike "Jordi" Bowman who is on the CM team here and was a leader of the "Futile Dweebs" productions in AW.  He's a truely awesome and helpfull feller and he's very plugged into the goings on here.

 I think what you'll learn is that there is an "upside" to the wait in so far as that the existing team can greatly assist you with setups and signups and general infrastructure BS. This so that you don't  have to put up with a learning curve as to "how to push the right buttons" to make the back end do what you need it to do, unless you wanted to learn that stuff.

Lastly,  I know you'd have *no* shortage of people to fill out your command staffs all the way from the CO's through the XO's and the GL and FL slots. You'd have (for the lack of a better word) "star=power" in your favor and a lot of people would crawl out of the woodwork to get a good slot in a real live DoK Gonzo event - just to reach out and touch the history base.

I've done all the slots at least once - but my best position is as a lowly buff Group Leader.  

Consider yourself with *one* volunteer.    

-W

Who really outta be finishing a door install up at the shop.

[DoKGonZo]

16 missions is a haul. I think the sweet spot is to be done in 3 weeks. Either 9 or 12 missions depending how many weeknights you want to try to use. I prefered 4 missions a week as there seemed to be a good split between people who could fly weeknights versus weekends.

I wasn't implying discimination, only that they have things organized and anything coming from "outside" has to get in line.

I cruised the topics and some of the ideas were things I had in mind. At least as far as the setting. But, as you know, a good event is so much more than depicting which units flew where and when.

[Arlo]

I've drempt of the mega-one frame-scenario-from hell for awhile now. 24 hours of pure bedlam. No regeneration. One hour life windows. Units logging on in shifts. The battle concluded.

[DoKGonZo]

Originally posted by Arlo
I've drempt of the mega-one frame-scenario-from hell for awhile now. 24 hours of pure bedlam. No regeneration. One hour life windows. Units logging on in shifts. The battle concluded.

Kind of like Le Mans meets Aces High.

Depending on the complexity of the mission objectives, you may need the senior command staff to fly desks for that - just to keep track of where the squadrons are.

And there's a risk of it breaking down into something like the MA. You'd have to enforce some kind of rule that squadrons had to launch together.

[Lizking]

As internet gaming has become cheaper, the incentive to actually show up for a claimed slot has dropped.  Towards the end of the WB Scenarios it was 50% or more.  Hard to run a war when half yer pilots are AWOL.

[AW=B17=]

Originally posted by Lizking
As internet gaming has become cheaper, the incentive to actually show up for a claimed slot has dropped.  Towards the end of the WB Scenarios it was 50% or more.  Hard to run a war when half yer pilots are AWOL.

Back in AW there was a system set up where if a pile-it had X number of unexcused absences he could not sign up for another scenario. Sounds harsh but it worked to keep fannies in the seats. I think DoK started that informally with a "you don't show up for a frame - screw you" clause.

We also added the "reserve pilot" system where each 6-8 man squadron had an extra pilot or two built in. In the event of a no-show you rotated. If the slots were full, then the reservist could gun on a buff, or drive a tank, or turn the computer off and  go outdoors and play with his sheep.

Now, when I was running buff squads for a living (hehe) I'd try to have the reservist gun. Then if a driver got booted and didn't come back for 10 - 15 minutes, I'd have the reservist bail and go grab a buff at the closest friendly base to intercept the group. Sometimes that was cutting the "grey area" of the rules a bit.  But I always figgured I was entitled to 8 planes in the air until someone got shot down or crashed.  


-W

[Lizking]

Yeah, we even tried, with some success, a walkon arena.  you went there if you wern't slotted, and then the CMs (working on VOX between the event arena and the walkon arena), would shuffle them in one at a time with an assignment.  It worked so well that I don't see why it couldn't be used for a 24-7 arena, so long as yuo have CMs and COs to "fly the desk".

[TweetyBird]

>>But Hating, my boy, is an Art."
-- Ogden Nash<<

And requires discipline I'm told. Good to see you Dok