My honest first impressions of the game

[SD67]

Sounds good Wantok, who's going to provide it?
Do you have the resources to provide full time around the clock support for new players on a small budget?
I Didn't think so, what makes you think HT has?
How many proficient players do you think there are in this game? How do you think they got that way?
The existing tutorial/help system worked just fine for me and thousands of other players.

[waystin2]

It's interesting to me that this fellow took the time to download and try the game, and took the time to sign up for the BBS.  He makes 1 post knocking HTC, then never replies to the post he started.  Flygreen had 3 sorties and 3 deaths and a whopping 13 minutes and 57 seconds trying to "figure" it out.  This is hardly a qualified opinion on how well HTC has set itself up for new players.  New players I will tell you the road is tough, but worth the effort. As you can see by all the folks who have posted, there is a great group of folks ready and willing to supply all sorts of help to newcomers!

[Ack-Ack]

Man, the guy does HTC a favour (yes, a favour) by posting his first impressions, and gets nothing but puffy ack in response.

Actually, he was offerend  help and advice which he completely disregarded when he first entered into the arenas after demanding people help him start his plane and tell him to take off.

ack-ack

[welshlad]

Right, Here goes for my first post...

First a bit about me, I'm 22, from the UK and have an interest of all aspects of WW2, found AH purely by accident.

I'm a new player and have just finished he two week trial. I am not subscribing just yet, I am working my way through HTC's website on getting started until I can get the basics sorted. I have dabbled in the MA a fair bit during the 2 weeks, but crashed and burned and been cannon fodder on too many occasions. As soon as I think I have got the basics I will try and hook up with a trainer and move into the MA for a bit of fun. When I did venture into the MA the advice I received over 'country' was valuable and supportive. I don't feel flygreen or whatever his name is has much patience and my first experience of the game/sim was completly the opposite.

Fair enough you pay your $15 bucks, you don't have to do that straight away, play off-line, take the time to READ things that might be useful.

Many Thanks, will now hide behind my chair.

Welshlad

  to all you out there 

[whiteman]

My steps into the game went as follow. Note this the first SIM/online game I have ever played.

1. Visit the BBS for info and steps to getting started.

2. spent the next 2 days reading all the support sites on control setup, ACM and AC evaluation. (I have been fascinated with WWII aircraft so i knew all the basic stuff about most the AC just not the down and dirty of turn radius climb rate & etc.)

3.once i was setup I spent the next 2 weeks off line killing drones adjusting views convergence, dropping ord and getting a basic feel for a few AC i figured I'd stick too.

4. Went to the MA and was immediately turned to cannon fodder, but at least i knew what was going on and knew what the red and green bars on the map were.

5. Found a vet that was average but really helped me out in better understanding "E" management and and basic ACM.

After all that and this being my first "true flight sim" I'd say a year and half latter I'm at least a  decent stick.

[ViperDriver]

1. Visit the BBS for info and steps to getting started.

2. spent the next 2 days reading all the support sites on control setup, ACM and AC evaluation. (I have been fascinated with WWII aircraft so i knew all the basic stuff about most the AC just not the down and dirty of turn radius climb rate & etc.)

3.once i was setup I spent the next 2 weeks off line killing drones adjusting views convergence, dropping ord and getting a basic feel for a few AC i figured I'd stick too.

4. Went to the MA and was immediately turned to cannon fodder, but at least i knew what was going on and knew what the red and green bars on the map were.

5. Found a vet that was average but really helped me out in better understanding "E" management and and basic ACM.

After all that and this being my first "true flight sim" I'd say a year and half latter I'm at least a  decent stick.

Pretty much sums up the steps I took...and EVERY NEW GUY should take.  I would add, however, to spend some time in the Training Arena (TA) and work with the trainers and others in there.

Trouble is though, in reality there are many people that just want to load up a program and have it do everything for them so all they have to do is point and shoot.  And as we all know, AHII is NOT one of those kinds of programs.  To get anything OUT of it, you need to put some effort INTO it.

[Krusty]

Maybe I'm a bit dense....

I'm not the smartest of folks at times....

I often have trouble in games I've never played before.

However, moving to AH from only a few scattered other flight sims, the ONLY thing I had to do was read the key mapper and control mapper.

You don't even have to read it all. Just the really basic OBVIOUS stuff.

"Oooh, right, I'll need to know the engine start key! Oh, and the gear key, and guns! Mustn't forget guns!"

I mean, hey, let's be honest, I still coulnd't FLY, but I could get in the plane, rev the engine, roll down the runway and plow into any number of game objects (including the ground).


Maybe I'm dense, but you know what? ANY game I ever get into I read the keymap first. Otherwise wtf are you doing in a game? Pressing W, uparrow (FPS commands, btw). That's not how ya fly a flight sim.


There's an argument to be made for showing folks in bold letters how to get started, but after a certain point... C'mon! Sometimes they're just not going to get it.


So sure, put the "getting started" in bold and in an obvious place, but don't have pop up windows bearing blinking red fonts on rainbow backgrounds using CAPs pointing new players how to get started.

Because if they don't bother to read the bold, they're not going to bother reading the <BLINK> tags.

[flygreen]

Man, the guy does HTC a favour (yes, a favour) by posting his first impressions, and gets nothing but puffy ack in response.

Yes, there's good website help.  But a large percentage of new players will just jump in, because that's what a lot of people do with every new game.  Of course it takes many months to play well.  But the issue here is what happens in the first few minutes.

The take-home lesson is that AH needs a better in-game help / tutorial system for first-time players.

Thank you.  I did try reading the website, but only after I was told about it in game and it felt confusing.  My total time from first logging in to giving up was a little over half an hour, and that includes reading.  I would of gladly spent hours learning about the game, but I'm just not going to spend 3-4 hours learning about a game that may be terrible.  My thoughts were that I would evaluate the game, see if it is good, and if it is spend more time getting better.  Because I could not evaluate the game, I had no clue how good it was and therefore wasn't ready to invest a large amount of time knowing the finer details.

People are taking my post as a personal attack, and it's not.  This *seems* like a game, I mean electronic program I run on my computer for the purpose of enjoyment, I would enjoy.  I just wanted to post my honest thought process while first playing the game.  This post isn't a request or critique or review, it is merely a data-point.

As an aside, I once did UI research and I understand how frustrating it can be thinking "JUST CLICK THE TOP RIGHT BUTTON!!!" when looking at how people use programs.  However with UI we don't expect every customer to do the optimal thing, and sometimes we had to move buttons around or change error/help messages to lead them to the correct action.  Things that would seem infinitely intuitive to us from the inside other people JUST WOULDN'T GET OR DO!  At times it felt frustrating, but in the end we collected mountains of data on how people used our program and with it were able to optimize first impressions and revenue.

[airspro]

I hope you try it again . It's always nice to have new players to play with IMO ..

I "think" I met a bunch of them just the other day in fact . Helpfull they were to me and our squad .

cu up
spro

PS: Oh yes quite of few of the peeps replying have flown online for 10 plus years now , they will most likely enjoy
playing with you also .

[Motherland]

Try the training arena. Lots of help if theres a trainer in there 

[uberslet]

<SNIP>

PS: Oh yes quite of few of the peeps replying have flown online for 10 plus years now , they will most likely enjoy
playing with you also .

only 2 here   

[Motherland]

only 2 here   

I can think of two just in my squad, off the top of my head...

[uberslet]

I can think of two just in my squad, off the top of my head...

that only been plyin 2 years?

[633DH98]

I think I started offline practice over a month ago and don't feel ready to start my free two weeks yet.  I'm having too much fun trying not to ground loop Corsairs and Mosquitos.      I hope to eventually have my controls set up in a way that keyboard use will be minimal (using a hand-me-down X35/6).  I don't plan on going to the arenas until I can fly and land  several planes in my sleep since I'll have to learn SA, navigation and communication while trying not to get shot down over and over again.          Until then I'll be working on barn-storming hangers and scrubbing off speed for hot landings.

The information is available but takes a little searching and printing to gather it for quick access.  I just recently turned on LCS Gunsite to help practice deflection shooting. 

[whiteman]

I think I started offline practice over a month ago and don't feel ready to start my free two weeks yet.  I'm having too much fun trying not to ground loop Corsairs and Mosquitos.      I hope to eventually have my controls set up in a way that keyboard use will be minimal (using a hand-me-down X35/6).  I don't plan on going to the arenas until I can fly and land  several planes in my sleep since I'll have to learn SA, navigation and communication while trying not to get shot down over and over again.          Until then I'll be working on barn-storming hangers and scrubbing off speed for hot landings.

The information is available but takes a little searching and printing to gather it for quick access.  I just recently turned on LCS Gunsite to help practice deflection shooting. 

I flew off line for 2 weeks still didn't feel ready but decided might as well jump in at some point.