Integrity

[mQuinn]

The punter NEEDS a reasond explanation as to why he should trade in his faithfull beloved for the newer upto date product which comes down to benefits.

I think that still points at "Integrity" and justification though.

or can you forgive a coder for not managing the aspect of BENEFITS ?

We will all forgive.  I already have ( and I am a coder by trade ).  I just wish this had been done less like New Coke in '85 and more like the new Dodge Challenger.  Get feedback first and see what the customer really wants.  If they don't really like it, at least hear them out.

Coca-Cola decides that for the company to advance they need to adapt their product

We all protested this in '85 and they changed it back.  They could add as many flavors as they wanted, but when they removed old Coke (the MA in this case), they didn't do what consumers wanted and lost many to Pepsi.  Coca-Cola would have folded if they did not bring back the original flavor.  

I don't really want the original "flavor" back, but the arguments here have some holes.

[DaPup]

The ananlogy about coke is too funny....but I sure don't see coke telling me that once they sell out of regular coke I must drink one of the others and to like it or leave (which isn't HTC talking, it's you other players).

I own a Plumbing & Heating wholesale supply company and change product lines from time to time, I always consult with my core customer base before I make a significant change merely to be sure that the product line I want is the product that my customer will buy. Sometimes it requires me to keep the existing line and bring in the new one that I think can grow with my business.

I don't tell my customers that I'm only going to bring in 200 of the old line and it's going to be first come first serve.

God forbid....but I don't like the change....I'll never cancel my account but the change doesn't work for me, I like the 4-500 players at any given time in 1 arena. If LW had a 600-700 player cap then I would be very pleased with the new changes.

I remember when the land grab guys were telling the furballers that the DA was where they should go and the indignant responses that they shouldn't have to go to another arena to play their game...it seems like they were all full of hot air since they are they most vocal guys now telling everyone else to go somewhere else and to keep quiet about it.

[pluck]

it's one thing to have a negative opinion of change. it's something totally different to call into question integrity and such.  it's a game, you don't like it, then you don't have to play.  Its not like HTC just raised your taxes.  so what is next, an organized protest...looks like we'll be marching through grapevine.

honestly, HTC said the MA had too many people.  obviously it was affecting gameplay and headed in a direction that HTC did not want.  So he changed it.  i thought he gave the full story.  i see a people asking for numbers, why, do you want to second guess HT, LOL. why don't you believe him?   i don't see what how telling people what he was going to do would have changed anything.  He was still going to change the MA in the way he seemed fit.  but please, continiue attacking HTC integrity and moral values, i'm sure that will get you where you want:rolleyes:

[FBplmmr]

actually HT sat down with all of us (except you) and explained everything a couple of weeks ago.

we all agreed that if it would make you quit, then it was a change for the better!:lol

whats your deal dude? do you think they are lying to you ? that they didn't think the MA was unhealthy (whatever that means exactly) ... do you think they just did it to F with you?

so you want your "old MA" back... its radically different than the current LW... however the only way your going to get it back the"way it was" is if you force everyone to fly in it .. well we don't like you anymore .. get over it:cry


seriously the old "ma" ceases to exist because the new arenas exist, let the people fly where they want !:D

[TexInVa]

Originally posted by DaPup
I own a Plumbing & Heating wholesale supply company....

You and I need to talk.

[Max]

I happen to drink Diet Cherry Pepsi  Coke sucks.

[DaPup]

Originally posted by TexInVa
You and I need to talk.

Send me a pm or email me.



Pluck, if he had given anything resembling a full story I doubt there would be as many posts regarding the lack of one.

[SlapShot]

Thirdly, Hitech opened the door when he stated the MA was unhealthy..I am given the impression that a long deep analyasis was done to study the issue. I am not asking him for extra work to be done I simply am asking to hear, see statistically data that supports the premis that the MA was unhealthy, work that has already been done I imagine. I'd like to see the questions they asked of themselves etc.

And if he gave it to you ... what would you do with it ?

Basically ... you are saying that HT doesn't know watermelon from shinola about this industry and his game ... right ? ... He made his decision and he must be wrong and you and the rest of us are more qualified to diseminate the data and make a more informed decision.

I think not.

When Sam Palmisano (CEO of IBM) makes a decision ... When I disagree with him, I always email him and ask him to send me the data that he used to make the decision ... after all ... all his decisions directly effect me and the greater IBM.

[hitech]

999000: To put it as directly as I can conserning our propriatary data.


Go suck an egg.


HiTech

[SlapShot]

Here ya go 999 ... hope it helps ... from another thread (HT should hire a sociologist) ...

Originally posted by ALF
What I see at this point is a baseless attack/troll to begin the thread.  Please enlighten us with your scociology skill MrDick.  I think that , yes there is some discomfort anytime there is change, and taking a large group of people and splitting them amoung several areas, even on a volentary and non perminent bases, can cause some degree of angst.  However, I am also forced to remind myself that smaller, more memorable groups tend to form tighter, and more meaninful bonds.  

In a MA populated by 600-700 player at any given time, and a rotating base of over 2000+, you tend not to recognise many people.  I work in a building with thousands of people....and I know very few of them, and have little sense of belonging with all of the people in the buiding....noone is going to start chanting, "Big glass bulding 105 Rules....Big glass building 103 Sucks"....too many people....we just dont care.

In an arena with only a few hundred, we will move back towards what AH was a few years ago, and you will quickly start to recognise many of those around you, friendly and enemy.  Sure some people will float between the arenas, but a good portion will stick in one arena more than not.  This also will help make use of an otherwise wasted planeset.  Why fly an older model, if the newer is better in every way?  Now players who like older planes have a place with at least a little more parity.  So we have more sense of community, a better opportunity for those who like older planesets, and on top of all that, we will now have another valid reason to add some very cool early war planes.......why did we need a sociologist again?

Originally posted by hitech
ALF: You have just stated our resones, almost as if you were a part of our discussions.

HiTech

[999000]

Slap Shot I'll tell you what I feel has been the most drag on the game....or maybe what Hitech has described as "unhealthy" or what I pearsonally have found most offensive.....That being the rude, bully and general **** attitude demonstrated by not all BK's ....but by several ...of you who seem proud of the fact that you want to be jerks to the rest of the community.
999000

[999000]

Hitech,
Again I'm really impressed by your professional responce sir. It says much more about yourself than I.
Thanks for the information.
999000

[lazs2]

999999000078

You are correct... HT is treating us all like we were numbers.

I think HT explained what he was going to do and why.   I think that his explanation made perfect sense as far as the things we could see... the slum that the game had become and the problems with gameplay with the one arena of 500 or so.  

He aluded that there was gonna be a big influx... we can't know that and it is not our right to tell him how to prepare for the influx.    It may be that WWII online is going down like AW did.   Can you imagine the confusion in one big arena?   No one was helping anyone in the MA..

In EW I have had 4 people ask to "join my plane"  I didn't know the option existed but I accepted.   I doubt they learned much but know they learned nothing in the old MA.

When I was a contractor... people could have what they wanted if they wanted to pay extra... a lot extra...  Is that what you want?

and.... If you think that the HTC crew was influenced by me (except possibly negatively or maybe a supressed chuckle now and then)... You don't know those guys...  

Maybe you should try threatening them?

lazs
Public Relations Officer for the BK's

[Stang]

Originally posted by Pyro
Thanks to your patronage Aces High has grown to the point where a single Main Arena is no longer a sufficient solution. It is time for us to move beyond a single main arena. Today during the weekly terrain change, we will be revamping our arena structure with an entirely new model. We’ve looked forward to this point because instead of just simply offering more duplicate arenas, we’ve planned to use this opportunity to diversify our offerings by making different arenas based on different time periods. So instead of having a single arena with all planes available (which naturally emphasizes late war planes), we’ll have 3 different types of Main Arenas- early-war planes, mid-war planes, and late-war planes. This will give us far more diversity.

We hope that through further growth we can add even more diverse offerings such as more time periods and perhaps even time periods outside of WWII such as WWI or the Korean War. This format will also provide more impetus for us to try and comprehensively develop the plane and vehicle set with stuff that would otherwise get swallowed up by the late-war monsters and see little use outside of special events.

Multiple Mains may seem like an oxymoron, but in fact it isn’t. It’s not just a matter of semantics because they are all connected through the same scoring, squad, and perk point databases. If your squad decides to spend the night in the Early MA, they don’t need to reform the squad there because it already exists. There are no separate scores or perk points for these different arenas- it’s all shared. In that regard, these Main Arenas are all one in the same. It neither harms nor benefits your score or perk points to change which Main Arena you fly in from day to day. Perk points earned in one MA count towards the same total as in any of the other Mains. The only difference is what planes and vehicles qualify as a perk ride varies from arena to arena.

Being in this business a long time, we understand that people are creatures of habit and old habits die-hard. Going through any major change is uncomfortable until people become acclimated to the change. This change is especially difficult because we cannot simply add these new arenas; we need to redistribute how the arenas are populated. To accomplish that, we’re going to be reducing arena caps so as to not have one arena dominate just by virtue of everybody following the herd. We’ll also be using small terrains exclusively for now, but that is not a permanent change. Once we’re comfortable that people have acclimated to the new format, we’ll begin to work those elements back in.

With players spreading out, we are aware of the need for better tools to find and communicate with your buddies. We will be working on some new tools to handle this but for now that can be accomplished with the squadron message of the day. (MOTD). The squad MOTD will reach across all the Main Arena’s so the squad leader can be sure that everybody knows where to go on a given night.

Once again, thanks for your support. We hope you will find these changes refreshing. We’ve waited a long time to get here and we’re very excited about the many development directions this opens...

I'm going to shut down the first thread due to its size and continue here. I'll start off with a FAQ of sorts on some things that were brought up in the original thread. Keep it civil please.


Why did you make this change?

We made this change because it will allow us to support an unlimited amount of players in a much healthier online environment that gives us better long-term growth. The single MA has grown to the point of being unhealthy. This is not a subjective evaluation, it is quantifiable and they are numbers that we look at every day. It’s obvious that we simply cannot keep pumping more players into a single arena without hitting a stagnation point.


Why are you doing this now?

There’s a convergence of factors such as current arena health, player mass, time of year and a couple of things in the pipeline that we believe will provide an influx of players. Taken together, we believe this is the best time to make this transition.


Is this being done for technical reasons?

No. While some people on lower end machines may see some performance benefit, it’s not for technical reasons that the change is being made.


This is going to fracture the community.

We disagree. Communities grow and healthy growth requires structure. Just packing in as many people as possible creates a slum, not a community. We now have multiple neighborhoods in our community, but they are all connected.


The caps need to be adjusted.

The cap numbers as well as the numbers of arenas will undergo adjustment as needed. During the transition, we feel its important not to make them too large in order to overcome habit and herding behavior. Things will change as we move through the transition period and people begin to regain their comfort level.


We need better tools to find or communicate with people across the different arenas.

We agree. We have some host side changes that will be coming out shortly that will facilitate cross arena communication and hooking up with your squad mates and we’ll continue to develop more things that will help in this area.


Are you crazy?

No, we are rational and unemotional about this. We don’t undertake a major change because we’re masochists; we make the change because we believe that it is ultimately what’s best for the game.


Why didn’t you take a poll or announce it earlier?

It wouldn’t be useful to us for this change. We know it’s going to be controversial. The real test is not whether people think they’re going to like it or dislike it, it’s what happens after we make the transition and things are settled. I didn’t like beer the first time I tried it but I’ve grown quite fond of it since then. The transition is the worst part and we have no interest in dragging that out opening up a conflict of speculation before it even starts. We ultimately have to do what we think is best for the game.

Try reading it again, maybe it will help.

[hitech]

999000: Considering you have called my integrity into question, consider yourself very lucky you are still with us.