A perfect example tonite was how the LTARs were doing there thing at 129. They were taking bases as they like to do. I sat in an Osti for a bit as they steamrolled it with very few of us around to do anything about it. That's what they like to do, more power to em. A few of us tried to up into the mob and got vulched etc, which isn't much fun. Went from another base but by that time they'd taken 129 and landed and probably went looking for another undefended base to go adfter.
Went to FT to have at it and had a ball in the old 38G target of mine cause I wanted to dogfight.
If you like base capture, go for it. If you like furballing, FT gives you the chance. And as most of us do, you have the opportunity for both on maps that have a FT. One doesn't have to interfere with the other. After a bit of mugging at FT I tend to want to find a fight away from it, but FT sharpens the SA and really makes you work at the ACM. Found myself in a rolling fight with Levi's Tempest on the deck and knew I was in trouble, but got to really work and actually hung with him for a few seconds. That just doesn't happen away from FT. Chances are the bad guy is going to rev to his mob and I'll get mugged
What I do hear you saying between the lines is you want guys to up at the bases you are taking so that the vulch can begin? Or are you looking for guys to go with you to cap/vulch the base while the bombers clobber the FH and VH so the map can get 'won"?
- Guppy35
You see, the above statement by Guppy is a prime example.
For one thing, a 'vulch' should be something very hard to obtain in the first place. Achieving a vulch is either a result of spectacular planning that catches a certain side totally off-guard, or a result of a turbulent power struggle to obtain total air superiority.
The reality is very much different in the MA. Rarely does a vulch come from such hard work. The MA is stock full of the "vulch or be vulched" mentality. When a certain side starts to gain an advantage in local air superiority, people just tend to give up the fight and go elsewhere, and join another part of the map where the friendlies are winning. It's the same thing for all three countries, and the result we get is the three separate hordes for each country, each hitting empty enemy fields. You want a vulch? Just follow the horde. You want to be vulched? Defy the horde and actually try to defend a losing front.
Obtaining a base should be the result of hard effort in the air - not something determined so easily by the size of the locust herd gathered in one spot.
However, the MA is basically a happy-go-lucky place where everyone ups anywhere he chooses and does whatever he wants. It's not hard to imagine why - IIRC AH started out like that. A handful of experienced developers going independant to create their own combat flight sim. They first model the planes, and then create a room for people to fly and fight with them. It was all fine and dandy when there were only 100 people in the MA, all of them 'vets' friends to each other, even friends with the developers Pyro and HT. They liked flying and fighting itself, so the 'strat' aspect of the game was always nothing more than a small sideshow feature to add some spice to the A2A fight.
It wouldn't be too far off to say that HTC basically made a room for a bunch of kids, and threw some toys in the room and let them play whatever they wanted to play. That's basically the MA - raw and unchanged, unstructured, and empty play room.
The problem is, that's the past, and this is the present. Like it or not AH has grown into THE combat flight sim game of the world, bustling with some 500 people every day. Not all of these people share the same sentiment as the old vets, and the numbers of people wanting to experience some kind of 'WW2-ish war and combat' grows everyday. These people don't just come to find a fight - they want to fight it like how WW2 was fighted, in the land, sea, and air.
However, the MA remains stagnant, unchanging. It's still the empty play room it was. The limitations are clear for individual players to create some kind of voluntary structure inside the game. You can't change the MA with voluntary work alone - the system itself must better accomodate a more advanced concept of strat. But as it is, there's no such thing in the MA up to date. Therefore, the kind of fight people crave for are now near extinction. The only thing exists is the horde, and thus people ask a sanctuary from the horde, like a national park would protect some endangered species.
...
The point is, you shouldn't have to create a "Fighter Town" and go there to find a fight. The fight should be always everywhere - all the pilots at each of the fronts and airfields, should be trying to obtain local air superiority to gain freedom of operations to ultimately advance in territory. It is because the MA strat system is non-existant at best, that it cannot ensure such a fight happens, that people need the Fighter Town.
I'm not saying a FT or a TT is fun.
I'm saying the game has problems which should be fixed, so there needn't be a FT or a TT in the first place.
The grand irony of this is the furball-lovin' "old vets" who complain about the MA horde game play, and praise the Fighter Town and Tank Town and individual combat, are also the same guys who oppose any kind of proposed changes to the game that might fundamentally solve such problems and actually give them what they want. Despite it is the stagnance of the game that brings out such problems, for some reason the 'old vets' fail to see it. They just want to play AH as it has always been played - no matter how much reality has been changed around them.
In the end, I'm kinda guessing that one day those 'old-vet' attitude will ultimately be the death of AH, sorta like the guys who stay on a sinking ship. Instead of actually ttying to figure out where the ship is leaking, they just sit there and argue that if everyone does what they've been doing, everything will be alright.
A wet dream?
At least I dream about spmething that should come, instead of endlessly dreaming about "the goold ol' days."
Hello, Earth to vets.
The good ol' days are over. It ain't coming back.
