Fair Play Rules
1. We ask that all players be respectful to one another in the Arena and on the BBS forums.
2. There is 0-Tolerance to any kind of smack-talk or taunting on any open channel or on the BBS.
3. There is 0-Tolerance to complaints about HO's, vulching, or 'unfair gameplay' that is disrespectful to other players on any open channel.
4. Three-strike offense system. First offense is a warn. Second is a mute. Third we ask you to leave. If the player refuses, we eject.
5. Players who reach the point of having 3 strikes will be banned from the arena for an indefinite period of time.*
6. Any player(s) found to be using an empty arena to advance their war effort without opposition is an offense - see rule 4.
Folks:
These are the rules now. Experience shows that if you relax them - even for the best of reasons - someone will find out and then complain that the staff favors one side or the other because someone was milking the strats and wasn't stopped. The rule is clear. Perhaps it will be changed some day, but until changed it is supposed to be followed.
Now: how serious is the problem, really? Someone has to log on first, what's the poor man to do with his time? I personally used to find myself in this situation quite frequently. There are plenty of things you can do while waiting for someone to show up on the other side. Fly a new plane. Practice with the AvA bomb sight on a deserted area. Dive-bomb a windmill (or strafe a bush). Sharpen your control skills by flying inverted through your own hangers. It's make-work stuff, but usually you don't have to do it for more a few minutes before someone sees you're in there and shows up. Then you have opposition and you can do as you please.
There will be times when no one is going to show up - 3 am, that sort of thing - and this will penalize the players who can only fly during those times. For good or bad, the risk-benefit analysis has resulted in a decision that the milking problem outweighs the sacrifice of that player's time. It's a customary aspect of the AvA, in a sense, because by definition we have always limited a player's choices. We still have the best arena in AH2, but there are limitations not present in the other arenas and one of them, at this time, is that you can't advance your side's war effort unless there's someone logged in on the other side.
- oldman