Author Topic: Historical Realism or Player Satisfaction?  (Read 540 times)

Offline Seagoon

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Historical Realism or Player Satisfaction?
« on: June 24, 2008, 12:15:25 PM »
Hi All,

I was just reading a thread in the wishlist asking for yet another Spitfire variant and reading the replies got me wondering as to the aim in introducing new planes and vehicles? Is it to keep the majority of players happy, to promote greater realism, or some sort of uneasy mix of the two? Also, how does the upcoming change over to a more missions based game work into all this?

I ask because it seems to me there are some glaring holes in the plane and vehicle set that will make historical mission play more difficult, From a historical point of view - we need more axis bombers, we need an axis transport, we need early war tanks including the Generic Sherman and so on, but what the players seem to want is always more late war fighters and variants, and yet those areas are already well taken care of. 

Now I'll be the first to admit that I err on the side of historicism, and would rather see the introduction of planes and vehicles needed to plug historical gaps rather than historically little used late-war uber fighters that everyone wants to fly. Having said that I recognize that the planes and vehicles I want, will in many cases see little use in the late war arena where most players just want the technological edge on other players - hence the hordes of LA7s, Nikkis, Spit 16s, etc.

So how do you balance this? Does HT spend money to introduce historically necessary planes few pilots will fly or do you introduce unnecessary planes that will see a lot of use? And how does the historical mission based issue come into this? If we don't have the "gap" planes we lose historical accuracy in missions (The Battle of Britain without the HE111? War in the Med without a single Italian Buff and none of the fighters they used the most? War in the pacific without the Betty? etc.)

How does one strike a balance here that will work in the future?

- SEAGOON

PS: A moratorium on more US Planes would be a good start.  ;)
   
SEAGOON aka Pastor Andy Webb
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Offline jerkins

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Re: Historical Realism or Player Satisfaction?
« Reply #1 on: June 24, 2008, 02:42:32 PM »
Fill the gaps!   :salute
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Offline BlauK

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Re: Historical Realism or Player Satisfaction?
« Reply #2 on: June 24, 2008, 02:56:15 PM »
What do you mean "or"? ;)
To me they are pretty close to same thing.

When (if) the gaps get filled, there may be more opportunities to some different type of game play, I hope.
We all have some favorite planes we want to fly, and even some we might want to try, but they need their contemporary adversaries to enable the feeling of "being there".


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Offline waystin2

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Re: Historical Realism or Player Satisfaction?
« Reply #3 on: June 24, 2008, 03:12:35 PM »
Fill the gaps!   :salute
:aok I agree Jerkins. 

As far as what planes to add, it does not have to be a late war monster in order to be considered for workup into the inventory.  Some of the earlier & mid war stuff is some of the coolest yet to come to AH!

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Offline AWMac

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Re: Historical Realism or Player Satisfaction?
« Reply #4 on: June 25, 2008, 12:01:59 AM »
Late at night when there's nothing else to do I think back to the Historical Realism moments in my life and I eventually end up doing the Player Satisfaction thingy...

What?  Ohhh c'mon... Like I'm gonna go blind? :cool:

 :huh

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Offline moot

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Re: Historical Realism or Player Satisfaction?
« Reply #5 on: June 25, 2008, 01:02:17 AM »
Like Blauk said, the two aren't exclusive, so whichever addition adds up to the largest sum of the two's probably the most likely to be chosen..
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Offline FiLtH

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Re: Historical Realism or Player Satisfaction?
« Reply #6 on: June 25, 2008, 07:46:27 AM »
    Unless a new plane is better than the current crop of "the best" planes, few will fly it.

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Offline moot

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Re: Historical Realism or Player Satisfaction?
« Reply #7 on: June 25, 2008, 08:40:29 AM »
Nah, if it's as good as the (popularly) middling planes (e.g. mossie), it'll be used enough not to be a hangar queen at all.
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Offline Lusche

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Re: Historical Realism or Player Satisfaction?
« Reply #8 on: June 25, 2008, 08:45:38 AM »
I'm using that term myself quite a bit, but I'm wondering a bit how little usage does a plane need to qualify as a Hangar Queen?
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Offline Saurdaukar

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Re: Historical Realism or Player Satisfaction?
« Reply #9 on: June 25, 2008, 08:52:36 AM »
I'm using that term myself quite a bit, but I'm wondering a bit how little usage does a plane need to qualify as a Hangar Queen?

Dont think there's a quantitative benchmark. 

I think of them as anything generally ignored by most MA sticks but necessary for events.

Stuka, P-39, 109E, etc.

Offline moot

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Re: Historical Realism or Player Satisfaction?
« Reply #10 on: June 25, 2008, 08:57:04 AM »
You could say the worst P47 is a hangar queen.. Or the C205.  Etc.  It's a pretty blurry line.
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