Night time please

[sullie363]

More and more I hear players saying they want night time back.  And we're only talking about a half hour of night, or so, at a time for every couple hours of day.  It isn't that fun to go from a blinding sunset to a blinding sunrise by the way.  Night added something to the game which allowed for different tactics that I thought were fun.  Night would also allow you guys to do some really cool effects.  Like when puffy ack is going off there would be a flash of light.  Perhaps this would light up near by planes for an instant, like a strobe light.  I also remember something about search lights that was mentioned during the switch to AH2.  Anyway, I never agreed with the idea of removing the micro night we had before and all I want is to have the old rotation of night and day put back.

[MadBull]

I second that idea.
 I've only been playing 6 months or so. And I had never seen the night time till christmas eve. It was so cool I had the film recorder on for most of the time and was snapping all the screen shots I could get.
  The best part in watching the films was seeing the tracers of field ack and planes flying all around. And seeing planes catch fire then explode. It was literally one of the best times I've had in the game. And makes some great films.
  It wouldn't bother me at all to put night into the rotation for however long they want to have it. The longer the better.
   By the way nice job on the moon HTC that looked very realistic.

[Octavius]

Hey MadBull, you can change the time settings offline if you like

the command is:  

.time Hour Minute Multiplier

Use military time.

ex:  

.time 14 30 20

... will give you  2:30pm with a slightly faster rate of time progression.  The higher the Multiplier value the faster time will pass.  A negative value will reverse time progression.

[ALF]

In its current state, AH2 with night adds NOTHING to the enjoyment of 99% of the players.

There are NO radar equiped fighters, so real darkeness is not used, only darkER.

There is NO way to prevent people from just cranking up the gama and preying on those who dont know the 'trick'

There is NO point to it as it just makes the game look silly as you chase the icons instead of the planes.

[Shuckins]

Don't care what you say ALF, flying at night was FUN!!!  The night graphics were some of the nicest in the game.  

Night flying also cut into the "horde" problem.

Different tactics had to be used.

Besides, there is a historical precedent for the inclusion of night flying in AH.  All the major combatants of WWII used night fighters that were not equipped with radar...at least part of the time.

[Fruda]

Originally posted by ALF
In its current state, AH2 with night adds NOTHING to the enjoyment of 99% of the players.

There are NO radar equiped fighters, so real darkeness is not used, only darkER.

There is NO way to prevent people from just cranking up the gama and preying on those who dont know the 'trick'

There is NO point to it as it just makes the game look silly as you chase the icons instead of the planes.

Man, you really would be pissed if they added night to the MA, huh? Do it HiTech, do it!

I'm saying this partially because it would really get on your nerves. But the real reason is because most of us WANT night back.


"Real darkness is not used" - What the hell are you talking about... Go outside at night, sir. It looks almost exactly like it does on AH2 Offline, that is unless you're in Los Angeles, where you can't see the sky at night, much less in the day.

"There's no way to prevent people from turning of their gamma" - Actually, there's plenty of ways to prevent people from changing their gamma settings. They use such tools and coding on Half-Life.

"You just chase icons instead of planes" - If your eyesight is really that bad, then you shouldn't even be playing games.

[MadBull]

Hey Octavius thanx for the tip.

Alf you obviously were not ingame on christmas eve when HiTech made it nightime. ( Or maybe your 1 of the 3 complaints I saw )
 You said 99% would get no more enjoyment out of the game at night. I find it hard to believe that out of the 300 plus people online when it happend only make up for 1% of the popular vote. Of all the people on channel 200 and on my country channel I personally only saw 3 complaints. But then again the message window was scrolling pretty fast with all the people asking HiTech to keep it.
  As far as people cranking gamma. There was no need to, it was a beautiful full moon with a sky full of stars. That created plenty of ambient light to see. But if people want or need to crank their gamma let them. It won't hamper my enjoyment of the nightime one bit.
  Silly, well there are plenty of silly things in this game. And we all know what they are. HiTech's Santa sled was silly. And yet ( from what I could tell )we all enjoyed and appreciated it. Along with all the hard work he and his team do.
  I don't think if HiTech re-introduced night time that he would loose very many customers. Or recieve much hate mail over it.
  Besides that I'm not asking for hours and hours of continious night time. Maybe a hour or so in the time rotataion. Or every other time rotation.

  I at least think he should address this issue with all players. He could easily conduct a survey that pop's up when you first log in. And run it for a length of time to recieve the majorities input.
  The results might just shock you and him.

  And for those of you that are new or haven't seen the night tim your really missing out on another great aspect of the game.
                     IMHO

[rogerdee]

ok so hiteck can turn off the icon at night.turn off the dar bar too over water and land with no bases or cities.only have the radar at bases  and then we could get some night fighters put in the game.
   no icons to chase  and only  when you are up close will a  friendly icon show to your view or on the night fighters radar.
  this should add  some mystery to the game  and a challange.

   also some squads used to run misions  that  arrived at a base just at dawn. this was fun  as mission planner didnt work till sunrise  so more guys had to think and fight and work togeather.
   


rogerdeee

[mechanic]

without night the game is only 50% of the fun it could be.

[Blooz]

With night the game returns to it's 50% no fun old self it was.

[ALF]

Originally posted by Fruda
Man, you really would be pissed if they added night to the MA, huh? Do it HiTech, do it!

I'm saying this partially because it would really get on your nerves. But the real reason is because most of us WANT night back.


"Real darkness is not used" - What the hell are you talking about... Go outside at night, sir. It looks almost exactly like it does on AH2 Offline, that is unless you're in Los Angeles, where you can't see the sky at night, much less in the day.

"There's no way to prevent people from turning of their gamma" - Actually, there's plenty of ways to prevent people from changing their gamma settings. They use such tools and coding on Half-Life.

"You just chase icons instead of planes" - If your eyesight is really that bad, then you shouldn't even be playing games.

First of all, Ive been here since Beta 1 and I know from where I speak, night is  a novelty that wore off quickly....thats why it was never 8 hours long.  At night the MA numbers took a dive.....a huge dive.  One of the issues in the MA is that you can quickly destroy a customers loyalty if they only get a chance to fly a short time every day, and for several days i a row its nigh at the time they log on....its the nature of the MA.
 

REAL DARKNESS IS NOT USED.  
Please go outside in the country, and try to see a car 1/2 mile away with no lights.   The MA is a constant full moon and so we get no real darkness....there is a reason that many military opps are done when there is no moonlight....because thats REAL DARKNESS.   All we have (as a comprimize to gameplay....cause who wants to play with the monitor effectively shut off...is 'dark-ER'.  The benefit of darkness is being able to fly without being easily spotted.....well since we all have daygloy neo icons...thats out.  So what we get is a time when numerous people crank up the gamma, and others log off in frustration.  Sure it makes pretty screenshots, but its nothing that helps gameplay or the game.  ANother huge issue, is to avoid really upseting customers, HT made night relatively short.  The amazingly silly thing there is that it all but precluded the ONE activity that actually took place at night regularly in WWII....NIGHT TIME BOMBING.....Since it took longer to gain 15-20k feet of alt and get to the target than the night lasted....well, there went the only real reason for night!

BTW  Half-Life (the game you play only when valve decides its ok you play), has an IN GAME gamma changer, and becuase you have to accomodate all sorts of hardware, you crank that to max and crank your monitor to max, and POOF night becomes day.

I personally love the 'most of us' comment.   Could you please provide me (and of course I know youve already provided this stunning info to HT) the list of the thousand or so players who really want night back.  There are some who dont mind it much, there are many who hate it, and Im sure there are some who want it.  I just love the way you threw out 'MOST OF US"....I guess the real issue is who you mean by 'US':rofl

We will soon have TOD....who knows, maybe you can play in the dark there once in a while.  

BTW....in case you didnt know this....there wansnt any real 'dogfighting' at night in WWII...it mainly consisted of special radar fighters chasing bombers, or occasionally non radar fighters chasing bombers based on ground radar readings.   But you didnt see SPits chasing 190s.....and you didnt have JABO squads bombing enemy airfields with dive bombing.

[Raider179]

Night is great. Ever been on a pre-dawn raid?

I dont care about people circumventing with turning their gamma up. I dont play for their experience I play for mine.

who cares about all that reality alf. You didnt see La7s escorting b17s in WW2 either but that is in game. IT IS FUN!!!! BRING IT BACK!!!

[Krusty]

Night time? God hell no!

[MadBull]

Alf your reality concept of the game has no leg to stand on. So you might as well squash that aspect of the argument. Can you find me documentation of Santa and his sled flying around in ww2. And yet can you find one player that was angry he was flying around. Not even you are complaining about that. And yet it is unrealistic by your standards.
  And I guess Dive bombing Lancs or B17's on gv's is so realistic that you could find me lots of documentation on that. And the rubber trees that flip over tanks. Along with indestuctable buildings no matter how much ord you drop. A whole formation of bombers being flown by one pilot that can magically change planes. What about reincarnation? And I could go on and on with a list of unrealistic things.  THIS IS A GAME GET OVER IT.

  But that is not what this post is about. I personally think HiTech and his crew are doing all they can. And are doing a great job at it.


   The simple fact of the matter is that this game is always changing. People come and go and the interest of the community changes from time to time. Along with i'ts members.
 
   A thought for you to ponder is. When Hitech created aces high II, why would he even take the time to model it into the game if it was never going to be used?

   I realize that 8 hours of night would get pretty boring but that is not what I'm asking for.  I see nothing wrong with one to two hours of night time for every 24 hour clock rotation of the ingame clock.  Or even every other rotation on every other day of the week. Jeesh just something to change things up a bit.

  You don't want icons. Ask for a way to turn them off and go shooting at everything in sight. You might get lucky and hit a enemy. But then again he might be flying the same type of plane as you. HUH, how unrealistic. Better send HiTech some hate mail.
Choose a side of the coin will ya. Quit trying to play both sides. It's just not working for you.

   I am still waiting for your excuse on how HiTech's Santa plane is so realistic. Maybe it's because he's the creator and owner of the game.  Or maybe you know the majority of the community was happy with it. Or had no problem with it, including yourself. Hmm,  Interesting affect that has on your realistic views of the game.

  The only way to settle the matter on what the community might want would be a survey. You or I cannot dictate what the majority might want. We can only make educated guesses based on what we have seen. And from what I seen on christmas eve. The majority of the people on that night was glad for the change.

I do not need to send all the loads of data to HTC from that night to prove it. For I am sure HiTech can read. And I am sure he glanced at the text bar at least once that night while flying the sled.

JMHO

[Leayme]

I think night would be neat, especially from a GV perspective or perhaps getting in position a Battle Group for a dawn strike, bomber missions or individual strikes and the option of introducing some new planes, dedicated night fighter versions, the ability to drop chaff and radar warning sets in bombers and mosquito's to detect enemy night fighters and fire bombs on pathfinder aircraft to mark targets. Then you have search lights and flares.....The posibilities can be endless.

Have the moon go thru a cycle from new moon to full moon and repeat, then you get partial and total darkness, with limited ambient starlight.

An hour or two every second day and then evaluate the overall response and go from there.