What to do?

[hblair]

I am at a crossroads. I don't know whether to cancel my iEN account and go full time Aces High, or straddle the fence for a while longer. I really enjoy the Scenario Lites, S3's and ACA furballs   over at Warbirds.

Off the top of my head, I can recall at least 5 guys who used to fly Warbirds a lot and have apparently canceled their accounts to fly full time Aces High. What was the deciding factor for you guys? (The cost would have to be part of it)

 

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hblair,
<===< The ASSASSINS >===>
 

[This message has been edited by hblair (edited 02-01-2000).]

[Mighty1]

What got me to drop my WB account was that I could never connect after they moved to NC.

I think AH is going to be better than WB in the long run so I'm pretty sure I would have switched soon anyway.



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Mighty1
The New Baby Harp Seals

"Come try to club THIS Seal"

[Thorns]

You got to ask yourself, "do I feel lucky today?"  Hehe.  I would say yes you are.  Aces High might not be up to the arenas of Warbirds, but something must be driving people here.......maybe a great flight sim.
You are lucky enough to have a choice.  Your call............me, I'm here, and loving it.

Thorns_Musketeer
CO Musketeer Escadrille

[Ripsnort]

I canceled my WB account in late Dec. for the following reasons, in priority:

-Boredom of Warbirds, been there since V.82, was tired of SL's, blah, blah, I did,however, still enjoy the HA....but all in all, I was bored.

-Graphics: Dogfighting in clouds, what a hoot! Only problem is, theres not enough of them. Dogfighting in the mountain valleys is something that heart attacks are made from...

-iEn: bad connects, etc.

-HiTech: This is a guy you want to be following online, he's gonna create nothing but good things in a flight sim (Brown-nose Disabled)

Cost was not a determining factor...doing something new primarily was.

IF HTC gets their priorities set to do ground vehicles soon, they will, IMO, strip Warbirds of 50% of their flyers and draw them into AH.

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Brian "Ripsnort" Nelson
++JG2++ ~Richthofen~
(Formerly VF-101 Grim Reapers~Defected~)
"There is no reason anyone would
want a computer in their home."
   Ken Olson, president, chairman and
founder of Digital Equipment Corp.,1977

[TT]

 Everyone acts as if they are jumping off a cliff. You can always go back if the sim doesnt develop in the direction you like. It IS easy to dominate in the ACA. Your to good for that HB. Thats got to get boreing. The SL and such will, no doubt, develop here in time. I would say try it for awile see how it goes. Thats what I decided anyway.

[dolomite]

Simple. Connects to iEN (for me) are impossible. I came here as a result, got used to it, and now love it. Had connects been better at iEN I would have remained "loyal". Even now, when connects are at their worst, they are not even as bad as the best days I had at iEN.

Doesn't matter how good a concept the game is if people can't play. I'm here because I can be, I like the sim, I like the people, and I think developmentally there is a future in it. Price shore don't hurt none, neither.  

[Yeager]

Couldnt get a decent connect fer two weeks solid and got bored with it.

Come to think of it Im getting bored with the current terrain in AH and no CV!

Yeager

[This message has been edited by Yeager (edited 02-01-2000).]

[rosco-]

 MY advice would be to sign up here and just keep a basic 9.95 account over there if you can affoard it. You could then fly the SL's and such while enyoying unlimited flight time in the big boys arena over here. I would hold an account both here and IEN if not for the crappy connections, that just frustrated me to the point of saying to hell with it. If My connections were good both places but I could only affoard to pay for one sim, I would stay here for the flat rate. Yea they have more planes and events but this sim is growing in leaps and bounds while the other one seems to be stuck in netural.

[popeye]

I'd say dump the WB account, unless you think you will be happy being a dweeb in AH, in WB, or in both.  I think there is enough difference in timing, graphics, flight models, and gunnery, that it will be very difficult to be good in both sims.

popeye

[Gator]

> I think there is enough difference in timing, graphics, flight models, and gunnery, that it will be very difficult to be good in both sims.

Alas, you are probably right ... but I'm addicted to Dawn of Aces and AH does not yet have a P-38 or "historical" scenarios.  

I guess I'm doomed to be cannon fodder until AH adds the P-38 & "historical" events ...

[funked]

I'm keeping the $9.95 WB account to fly special events and the odd squad night.

[Maniac]

I really dont know what to do either   I think i will wait for 2.75 to come out of beta and then evaluate that ver before i make my decision.

Gunnery issues is an biggie for me, as for FM´s i dont know wich one got the best, ive heard several RL pilots say that WB has the better one and then vice versa. . ..

I will djust have to wait an while longer for my decision. .

// -nr-1-

[dolomite]

I'm a real life ultralight pilot... I say that AH more closely models inertia (for instance) than does WB. My light aircraft experience tells me that snapping the rudder back-and-forth does indeed induce nose swinging that continues a bit after the rudder is centered.

There are some areas that WB does better, some that AH does better. It really is a toss up to me. I will say that there is one way AH is infinitely more realistic; have you seen any 190's warp-roll in here as in the other sim?  

[leonid]

Well, I played WB from 1.09(or was it 1.05?), and when word got out that HT and Pyro were leaving I made my mind up that as soon as those two got something going, I was gone.  For me it was the combination of a small independent company coupled with people who were seriously talented and into their craft that hooked me to WB.

I guess too it has always been about the people who make these games, and not the games themselves.  If I trust the people, then I'm set, because the quality of the game will always be there.

In my opinion, there is no one better able to perform this type of venture than HTC, though if CRS pull off WWIIOL, I'll definitely have to tip my hat to them.  Which, incidently, I won't have too much trouble doing, since they too came from that small independent company in Grapevine called ICI.

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leonid
129 IAP VVS RKKA

[-raxx-]

My reasons though numerous are fairly simple.

1) The connects to IEN are so crappy that flying a buff was too damn expensive for the result.  I got really pissed off spending a week of nights organising a squad bomber raid, (maps, timings, ingress points, pictures and orders all on web pages only to have half the flight, or me, disappear 3 minutes out from the target).  On top of it all to have the otto gunners neutered more and more to make the buffs flying drones for the fighter jocks was really starting to p*** me off.  For this reason alone I had effectivly ditched Warbirds already.

2) I live for bombers and resented the attitude at IEN that bombers are now treated as an evil necessity, (closing the field was remade into a requirement for capture to encourage buff pilots back but those skills have already been long, long gone).  I resigned as Bomber Section Commander for the RNZAF squad last year and haven't made the minimum 5 hours a month for over 6 months.  I don't remember there being an organised squad buff mission other than those made up in the arena last year.

3) The development path for Warbirds appears to be stagnating.  What really has been "new"?  Only a beta and it's a pity if you were on a Macintosh last year as the Mac version of the Kernal was porked =(

4) I choose what 6 view I want in AH! =)

5) did I mention the crappy connects?

6) I've got some personal time invested here during the pre-open beta testing.  Many thanks to the Crew at HTC for the opportunity to help bring this sim to the world.  It was funny finding the reason for a bug, (when I flew at 8pm-midnight in NZ the ground was really dark and it was hard to see buildings, yet pilots in the US didn't get this problem), untill I went out to feed the guinea pigs one night and realised the sun was down, (outside my house as well as in the game because the time on the server wasn't resetting the sun's position correctly =)

7) I like the customer service.  The Beta was free and yet if I had a problem someone would answer on the bulliten board, (if not the crew at HTC then one of the other pilots)

8) I should mention the crappy connects to IEN again!

9) The cost.  The only "recognition" you get in Warbirds is from a big score which forces you to spend lotsa $$$.  In Aces High I can fly 10 hours a week and still be ranked top 20!  In aces High that costs me NZ$60/month and warbirds damn near NZ$100-120/month.  You do the math.

Finally the main reason I'm sticking with AH and ditching Warbirds is the community.  I am certain the vast majority of Warbirds pilots aren't a petty minded, squabbling bunch of spoiled brats.  However since argo shut down his web board for a day and with the ejection of killa from the arena I felt that something had been eating away at the core of what made Warbirds great and nobody seemed to care enough about it.  The two incidents above were just symptoms of a greater problem which hasn't been resolved yet.  Look over argo's and look at any thread with over 20 replies, there's bound to be a flamewar going on.

However...

I actually enjoy myself in the AH arena and don't squelch anyone or de-tune the open channel.  There are pilots I fly against who I would like to think I could share a beer with in the pub on a Friday night, (waving hello to Packrat and Gigantor while looking over my shoulder for Jekyll, up high for Wardog and over my gunsight for Vulcan =)

We have differences of opinion and more often than not the buggers leave my loverly 190 or B17 all full of holes and shuddering towards the deck like a petrol doused clay pigeon.  But I still have fun.  Even when Vulcan calls me a "dorklander" and I taunt back about "his IQ being low enough to start a career as a politician".

In summary I could have said AH is fun and the connects to WB suck but then I'm known for my verbosity =)

Spotcha in the Air