Its a shame, TOD (or whatever) has taken much longer than everyone had hoped, and in the mean time the MA has suffered with patchwork attepts to keep the hardcore (loyal and been here forever) players and still attract newbies. In the end, as happens whenever a game wants to become 'mainstream' those who have been here the longest see many things that we once thought of as 'part of the game' disapear.
There has been some serrious issues that have crept into AH over the past year or so, and basic gameplay has suffered. While still a fine game, we have seen what once was an involving simulation with cooperation between squadrons dry up into a 'whats the point' game where what you and/or your squad does either makes no difference or you are actually penalized for playing well.
Gone is most tactical gameplay, and bombers have been made about as fun as your average doctors waiting room. With no challege there is no feeling of acomplishment...whoopie I can press a button.
Gone is any real incentive to take bases. For Y E A R S te Rooks where typically 'in the bucket' with less players than the other teams. One week the bishops lost some players, and the whinning was so thunderous that within a month we get the NME PUNATIVE SLAP DOWN SYSTEM. Now trying to capture bases is a bad thing...why bother to capture bases....the enemy will get discouraged, lof off...and like magic, your hard work, cooperation and planing have been rewarded by you being unable to fly half the planes in the game. Wow...now thats incentive to try and win isnt it.
Now we have these new huge maps, but nothing ever happens on 90% of them. The game takes place CONSTANTLY at the middle and lines rarely ever change. Becuse there is no incentive to capture bases there is even less incentive to defend them.
The game has truely deteriorated into air quake. No goal other than to vulch vulch vulch. The crazy thing is the ground war is actually improved while the air game has been castrated. HT made the mistake of announcing combat tour way early, and so inevitable delays that are so normal in software development are seen by the end user, and it can be very frustrating.
My squadron has basically disbanded, after years and years of playing together, few even bother to show up anymore on squad night. The game is just not what it once was, and if TOD doesnt arrive soon, I fail to see how it will endure at all.
