ah is a sandbox game. At one point, HT on this message board did say something to the affect that the field capturing mechanism was in place to promote fighting. He said nothing about it (taking bases) being the object or point of the game. The game is many things to many people, problems arise when many try to claim that it should be played in a certain fashion, and that there is a correct way to play. This is just false. In that, I'm always relatively sure that HT does not want his game to become a game about hoardes steamrolling bases...otherwise eny would not exisit. Arena cap kind of gets 2 birds with one stone. Obviously AH wants people to fight, otherwise, he wouldn't have changed the fuel porkage from 25%...or added more ack....or changed hangars.
I don't think the majority of people play to win the war. If that is true, then the community as a whole is just terrible at this concept. It is why bases take forever to capture, why maps are seem to be rarely reset (large ones anyway). From where I play I would say the majority of players want to shoot at planes with base taking a sideline. But really it depends who you surround yourself with. If all your friends are base takers, and you frequently fly in missions, of course you would think that is what most people want. It's really all meaningless and the only objective way to do it would be to have HT post a poll in game on a monthly bases to see what is more important to people. At this point it wouldn't matter anyway, as clearly HTC wants a game that is appealing to a wide range of people. As many people who only like to furball, there are equall parts who only take bases. In between there are probably far far more people who enjoy both. Arguing that most people play to one extreme end or another just doesn't seem to be all that viable of an argument when considering the game is targeting people who like to both. Just mho
