Despite 6 pages of this, the point we're trying to make is still not evident to certain persons, so I will attempt to make it painfully clear.
Many of the high kill sorties you see landed in the MA aren't due to amazing "skills", or hard "work"; they're either the result of extremely timid flying, or vulching. They're not earned in the thick of a raging furball, or against frightening odds. They are racked up by a small percentage of the MA who pretty much specialize in that type of flying. By landing far more kills than they typically do, and by choosing someone with some modicum of "skill" to do so, we have made a parody of 2 things. A) score padding vulchers/pickers, who don't fly for the fun of it, so much as rank and the WTGs, and B) the guys who set up a patsy or second account to rack up kills, ostensibly from risky flying in bad odds, but really just to get the WTGs.
After realizing the possible repercussions of too many bomber kills (the aforementioned porking of the kills stats, ty Zazen), we chose highly improbable, nonscoring, and very easy to track and separate GV "kills".
I don't know why I've wasted all this time posting, because those most upset, and whom I keep trying to calm down so they can see the humor in the situation, will read this and probably still be too thick to get it. We didn't change anything in the ranking (aside from Todd and I both took hits in a few stat categories -no gains of which I'm aware), we didn't rob anyone of their chance to appear on the homepage. ( A few of those guys are good guys, and fun to fly with. The others are timid, uptight, whiny dweebs). We won't cause the p40b or spitV to be highly perked. We won't soil the memories of those intrepid souls who've landed 30, 40, 50, or 100 kill sorties, because they were flying more timidly, and with more emphasis on ranking and scoring than we ever could. After landing or making many of his "kills" (caught off guard a few times and killed mid-milkrun), Lev immediately started "boasting" of how he'd gotten so many kills in such short time, letting anyone who'd listen know that they weren't "valid" kills, but just a stunt. If anything, the logic-defying number of kills will hopefully cause others to look with some skepticism at the 15, 20, and 30 kill sorties which now earn such praise, but in reality are just as pathetic and boring as flying around collecting proxies (as an aside, many of those kills are basically the same- a patsy account, or someone willing to sacrifice a 'rank' to help someone else look like a hero. the others, for the most part, are just vulching. Anyone can land 20 vulches in a Chog. Try it.). Instead of prancing around, graciously extending our thanks to our adoring crowds, we've attempted to make a mockery out of the scoring system in an aircombat game that rewards pretty much everything but fighting.
Falc, you surprise me. I figured you for a fairly intelligent fellow; I just can't understand how you can draw so many parallels between a game and real life, while missing the obvious.
Sure, you've been around for years. So have we. For you to assume that we're somehow lacking, depraved, or immature, but that you somehow represent some ideal to which we should all aspire, because of an arbitrary standard for behavior that you set, really only illustrates the extent to which you're self-absorbed, and displays a fundamental lack of respect for anyone who's opinion might differ from yours.
