Ahhhhh, jdpete!!!! I think you are on the verge of it all!! Funny how you can have some knock down, drag out verbal wars on the channels, then switch countries and that same guy ends up being the best wingman you ever had....or laughs and welcomes you to their side.
This is the crux of my whole point in all of this. Not everyone has the benefit of having been around with Dale and crew since the Warbird days, but those of us who have haven't totally forgotten (although it seems many have).
I highly encourage folks to change around and get to know the other folks. You might be pleasantly surprised.
I honestly believe the current "issues" we are experiencing with the "numbers" arguement is directly due to pilots galvanizing themselves to one country. All you ever experience of the "other" pilots is shooting them down or getting shot down and the ensuing babble on channel 200...usually a knee jerk reaction of frustration. I'm as guilty as anyone else, but the difference is, I switch to that country a week later and end up flying WITH those guys and we have a good laugh.
As far as rude people, well, I look at it this way:
1. There will always be rude people, no matter where you go or what you do. These folks are discovered rather quickly and the .squelch command works great.
2. Being thin-skinned is not a particularly endearing trait for a fighter pilot :-)
3. MOST people on AH are pretty decent and if you take the time to go fly WITH them, you'd find that out.
Do I agree with everything in AH, or the way Dale has everything running? Not at all, but I don't blame the players in the game for that and I don't hold a grudge over it.
It is no one person's fault that the rooks consistently have high numbers. The current problems we face are our own fault as a group. We have brought it upon ourselves through our actions (or lack there of).
In particular, I feel the biggest culprit in our numbers issue is loyalty to one team. To me (i.e. this is my opinion, I am not stating this as fact), it is silly when someone calls you a traitor for switching teams, it is silly when someone tries to bring the notion of "honor" into a video game (ex: shooting parachutes). It matters none, the shooter gets no credit and the pilot under the chute loses nothing...at least nothing that really matters.
It's a game. Unfortunately, we have allowed an "us vs them" attitude to rule the day and all that is done in the name of the game. If you ask me, a SMART pilot will change countries and LEARN how it is that one particular pilot that always seems to kill them flies. LEARN his tactics and you learn how to defend against it.
I can honestly say that the game was much more challenging and enjoyable when we had the squads rotating around. The skill sets were varied. The challenges made you think instead of react to a pavlovian stimulus response.
However, I can not speak for the folks that are looking for the quick, easy kill without regard for a challenge. If you get your kicks by whooping up on people with 3:1 odds, well, that's your gig I guess. At the same time, there are very few people in the game that can fly lone wolf and expect to come out ahead. We experience some of this when we consistently get the furballers at A44 who seemingly ignore all logic and strategy to the detriment of our country as a whole. Well, what can you say? Winning the war isn't their agenda...should it be? Certainly it can be argued that the "goal" of the game was designed to "winning the war", but on the whole, the game is so varied and offers so many aspects, you can't really belittle someone for enjoying any one of those aspects and concentrating on it. I'm sure all of us "war winners" are just as "annoying" to the furballers as they are to us. Either way, that's getting off the subject.
I really, really believe that what we need is some plain old team rotating and general mixing of the pilots. As mentioned, we are a community, but we have holed ourselves up on one team or another and refusing to budge. This has generated a built-in animosity factor that has resulted in what we see now.
I wonder, when folks go to the con (not having been to one myself yet), does everyone divide up into seperate corners based on the team you fly for and refuse to interact with the others? I really don't think so, so why do we do it in the game???
