There are occasion times I think about it. But it's almost as if it occurred at the exact right time: the internet was just becoming a mainstream fad, the novelty of multiplayer gaming, and the enormous amount of free time I had as a pre-teen/teen. I left AH after about nine months once I enrolled in college and my free time got completely used up...that was twenty years ago and the amount of free time is just as limited, go figure - the joys of adulthood.
It does make me understand more the frustrations so many of the older pilots had once AW migrated off of AOL (whose $1.99/hour really kept the number of kids from playing for extended periods of time) to the flat rate offered by Gamestorm. We lost a lot of AOL AW vets after the switch because of the descent into immaturity. Some of that continued when we came over the AH.
But maybe one of these days I might just have to bite the bullet and rebuild my mancave with all the appropriate equipment to get back in the cockpit.
I totally get what you're sayin, and not sayin. I didn't interact with AH tribe very much after the migration. Totally refused to once they attacked BB on a post he made on the last night of AW. It was very snot nosed and mouthy. They had NO CLUE who they were bashing. They would not even have this had he not done his work in AW. AW would have just been "a game", Ah might not even have come to exist had it not been so successful. They thought they were some combat sims masters crowd. And we'd look at them with 12+ yrs experience and giggle. That shock of reality butt-hurt their egos, and yap yap they went. They didn't care for us tripling their base. NOT very welcoming folks.
I cut my teeth with the older mature pilots. Always was a great idea to learn from a "Full Realism" pilots, they were flying at a different level.
I still tell the story of the beta test night we had 10,000 planes in one arena at once. I think we were testing the new servers. We crashed em, but 10k in an arena,.. was a "WOW!". It still is to this day.
Ya I had a lot of time in those days, at 28 yrs old. I'd play 6-12 hrs per day,...I was so tuned in multi-killing was a subconscious act.
Took a 14 yr break. Life will have it's way with you as it pleases. Came back 1 yr ago. I don't play enough, like the old days, to be that tuned in, but I fly 2-3 hrs several days a week and have a blast. I still make them dance for their kills, lol.
It doesn't take much to get back going, except muscle memory. A decent stick and a decent computer will drive it very easily. Ya don't need a monster PC to run it well.
You'd know quite a few names still here.
$15 per month, the price of a Burger King kids meal these days. Wouldn't be a horrible idea to have a decent setup for when you do have time.
ALWAYS good to here from an old skewl AWer. This thread has brought back many flash backs for me.... it was created 20yrs ago. We've lost so many class acts since then.
If ya saddle back up, look me up,... I'll tag along with ya.