Does HTC really care what we want? I believe they do. I think it would be absolutely foolish of any business to ignore their customer base and disregard every reasonable request. The secret to any successful venture is to keep your customers happy - and, after all, we are their meal-ticket. Even though AH has virtually NO competition and they could get away with just doing nothing, I believe the "guys in Texas" are trying to "improve" this game and make it better, sometimes with great results, and sometimes -- well, not so great. But, at least they are trying. Which brings me to the point of this post. All compliments and ankle-humping aside, maybe its time to consider that "new" and "improved" is not always neccessarily better. Granted, the graphics and new plane models are great and I'm sure a LOT of work was put into these areas along with many other refinements but if we take the blinders off and step back and listen, in generlal the player base is not having FUN. The tremendous response to the "Bring back the MA" and "this game is booring" posts speaks volumes.
Of course you can't please everybody and no matter what you do someone will be unhappy, this is a fact of life. HTC can also scratch their heads and say "we gave em great graphics and new planes and tanks and terrains and their still bichin', what the hell do they want?" I think the answer is: "they want to have fun" and all the eye candy is useless when every night its the S.O.S. over and over and over. Add to that lag and low frame rates and arena lock -outs and you've got an increasingly frustrated and digruntled (but still loyal) player base.
Personally I am very gratefull for all the hard work done to improve the graphics and always want new plane models but yes, the game NEEDS a fun-injection. So, I have all this philosophy, but what about HOW to make it fun?
Well, maybe sometimes to move foward, you have to look back. How about dusting off some of the "moldy-oldie" concepts and bringing them back into the game. For example; remember "relaxed realism" and "Full realism" ? That would quell a lot of the whining and also deal with the server load issues. Diversity is the key - give em other stuff to do - the old WWI arena was great! The "Jet arena" was great. Getting tired of the MA stuff, go fly jets or biplanes. Now you got multiple arenas with plenty of stuff to do to keep everybody happy. (and, btw this would also pretty much eliminate the need for ENY)
Now, I'm talkin like this is as easy to do as flippin a switch. I have no idea how easy or difficult it would be. I know its been done, but is the code still available? Do these even still exist? If it is at all possible, IMHO bringing back these concepts or something along similar lines would give this game a tremendous boost and really make it fun again.
my 2C for what its worth...
TC
