HiTech,
Read your post then mine I have cut and pasted below for you. I could not find my original post about MA country demographics that more comprehensively explains how the three countries have different age/economic (closely related) demographics but you get the idea. It is my contention that if you had just been patient after launching AH2 the numbers would have balanced rather quickly on their own. The transition to AH2 was expensive for alot of people and prohibitively expensive for some, especially alot of those from Bishland and to a lesser extent Knights. Rooks were either already equipped to run AH2 or had the finances to get equipped rather quickly. If you had paid attention to the MA country affiliation of your beta-test participants you would have also predicted this as I did. You seem to grasp the, 'each country has a unique collective personality', concept but are at a loss as to how demographics effects gameplay and balance both in the short and long-term, especially during this recent period of transition. I'll keep digging for my original 'MA demographics' post I think you may find it usefull.
Those you lost in the transition will be back sooner or later (most sooner) and they will affiliate with the country they affiliated with in AHI for the most part, especially if that country is also numerically disadvantaged. Rooks simply got a head-start for economic reasons. You hit the 'panic button' before you even got AHII fully implimented (TOD? that will effect balance too btw, think about it...) and pissed off alot of your formerly impressed, satisifed and content customers on all sides of the fence when you should have just let things be to take their natural course, in my opinion.
Even your little account percentage summary thingy can prove this to you. I quoted it in the above post. You have a snapshot of the accounts and their general country affiliation after the release of AH2, now compare that to your account demographics prior to AHII beta. This will show you what your customer base was and who they affiliated with before those with insufficient funds for the necessary upgrades or new computer realized they would not be able to play AHII. They likely cancelled their accounts either during beta or shortly after AHII went live to avoid paying the $15 dollars/month for a game they could not yet enjoy. My guess is you will find there was parity within the margin of error for all three countries prior to AHII beta. On a similiar note, what you perceived as people quitting because of numbers imbalance near the time of the AHII release was actually people quitting because they lacked the necessary hardware required to run AHII within what they deemed acceptable performance parameters. It's quite possible you may have misjudged the whole entire situation.
Zazen
Have been thinking about this. So far Im thinking it just happens randomly.
I have noticed that all the time I have been in flight sims, Each country eventualy devlops it's own personality.
This isn't to say that every person flying for a country is the same. But wrather more people of one group or like mindes gravitate together just because of humun nature. There is no prediction how this gravitation will end up, or what the personalities of each country will end up to be, just that the personality will form.
I' starting to think in the current situation we ended up with a unique set of countries that for some resone didn't want to balance out like it always has in the past. Still have no idea what common personality trait made it this way.
HiTech
No, actually, dividing is taking the current player base and partitioning it into two groups that will be unlikely to ever come back together again. Those that do not come to AH2 immediately will more than likely 'rejoin' the community once they have surmounted whatever obstacle that prevented them from doing so in the first place. Alot have described their intention to do exactly this on the BBS.
Obviously, there will be a few who will never buy another computer or upgrade?!?! so may never come to AH2, but those people probably have some other more important life issues to attend to anyways and will likely be better off devoting their free-time elsewhere, like getting an education or a job, or perhaps a second job. My contention is that in the final analysis, once those just naturally resistant to change decide to do whatever they require to try AH2, the vast majority in AH1 today will make the transition to AH2. This may take a while, but Aces High in whatever form is simply the best massively multiplayer combat flight simulator there is. Those hooked on this genre will be there, those that are not hooked, well, have fun playing card games online, we'll sure miss ya
Zazen
I forget what I called the thread, but as beta began I predicted Rook numbers would become disproportionately greater than Knights and especially Bishops for reasons of customer demographics. To make a long story short, demographically speaking, Rooks are older people with careers who are better able to afford the necessary hardware required to run AH2. Your average Bishop 16 year-old flipping burgers at McDonald's for minimum wage simply cannot afford a $499 256MB Radeon 9800 XT. Obviously, this demographic distribution is a gross generalization, but accurate overall. As Morpheus noted the numbers support my earlier speculation.
Also, realize each country has numbers at different times of the day. Knights have alot of US West coasters so tend to have superior numbers 10pm to 4am Central. Bishops have alot of European players so tend to have superior numbers 4am to 4pm Central. Rooks have alot of US East Coasters so tend to have numbers 4pm to 10pm. The reason Rooks 'appear' to be advantaged numerically is because their period of superior numbers occurs during prime-time for the most amount of players, therefore more people witness this time period than the other two time periods.
But, look at it from the vantage of statistical significance. A 25 player advantage during prime-time when there's 100 people on each team on average is less impactfull percentage wise than the same 25 player advantage Bishops tend to enjoy during the day when there's 50 people per team on average. Those same 25 people represent a 50% advantage during the day, but only a 25% advantage at night during US prime-time. The same 50% advantage applies to Knights after midnight central. It's much easier for Knights or Bish to counter 125 Rooks when they have 100 people online than it is for Rooks or Knights to counter 75 Bishops when they have only 50 online during the daytime, for example.
Most people are only aware of the numbers situation during their particular play-time window, the numbers are actually more even than they appear subjectively from your particular play-time window if you were to see it from a 24-hour play-cycle perspective.
Zazen
