Dev Update

[SunBat]

Sounds good.  It's all progress HTC.  Sometimes, in technical things, ya gotta take a few steps forward (which can take some time when it is complicated stuff) to help realize that there is a little better way that you didn't see at first, the initial way wasn't wrong, and moving toward it brought you to a higher plane that gave you a better view of how to go forward.  That's reality in a technical environment.  Congrats on the new path.  Looking forward to walking that path with you guys and having some good fun.  Woohoo!    

[whiteman]

Hope some of those huge cities make it into the game some how.

[Xasthur]

This is great news. The whole HTC team working on new terrain and new aircraft! Sounds great to me. I'd love to see a new damage model (including progressive engine damage) and more involved visual damage effects.

[MajWoody]

I read where they would like to bring H2H back. If that would lighten the squeaker load in the ma I'm all for it. 

[Furball]

Then people would have one more thing to whine about.

And contribute to/suggest things for.

No matter what HTC does will they please everyone, but at least if they are more open they may be able to get help from the community.  Look at the difference skins/textures had after they opened that up a bit.  If they are struggling with the small workforce they have, there is a fairly large, relatively untapped resource with a willingness to help in the community.

[moot]

Well contributing with skins and texture is one thing, but HTC having to keep a development log for the public is not comparable imo. If for no other reasons, because it's one more thing that's not that fun to do, it's one more way to be misunderstood, it fans the flames of armchair developers, sometimes there's really not that much to report (and then people say something's up because they skipped a beat in regular devlog updates, or there's no way to report anything without revealing stuff they want to keep private), etc...  Spending time writing these devlogs will be time that's not spent furthering game progress, too.
HTC usualy do their best, and so far there hasn't been an instance of them proving this precedent wrong.. I think what happened with CT is an exception and once we get back to regular development, there won't be any need to compensate with PR like such a devlog. 
My 2c.

[Furball]

I see where you are coming from.

But it doesn't have to be detailed or regular (to make it time consuming), or even that serious (to make it boring).

I was making the skins comparable to a devlog because that would allow people to know what was being worked on in the early stages of development, then maybe HTC could open it up to the community so that they could assist in the research or low level design work of objects like the current skinners do.  I guess it may already be like this to a select few. 

Clearly even with the best will in the world some of us like me would be of no help, but there are people here such as Tony Williams who is an invaluable source of information, and others who are pretty expert on computers.  If they are not already doing so, they may be able to help lessen the workload on HTC.

On the otherhand, volunteers can be a royal PITA.

[Shifty]

I read where they would like to bring H2H back. If that would lighten the squeaker load in the ma I'm all for it. 

I'm not sure it would lighten the squeaker population. Most of them already have mommy and daddy paying for their account. They love to draw attention to themselves and annoy others. Why would they switch to a smaller audience? 

[Max]

I'm not sure it would lighten the squeaker population. Most of them already have mommy and daddy paying for their account. They love to draw attention to themselves and annoy others. Why would they switch to a smaller audience? 

If and when H2H returns it will only be available to subscribers. I suspect it will be a squeaker magnet 

[Denholm]

We want to bring back the old 8 player H2H but expand it both in the number of players and with additional gameplay capabilities.

Ooooh.

[Shifty]

If and when H2H returns it will only be available to subscribers. I suspect it will be a squeaker magnet 

I hope you're right.

[Stang]

Ooooh.

See?  Yup.  Magnet!

[Denholm]

Yet this magnet will subscribe if pay-to-play 8-Player is around.

[moot]

You still haven't subscribed, in all this time?

[Kweassa]

It's a bitter-sweet feeling.

I guess the project halt of the CT is the last piece of straw for me.  Now I can't find any more reason to keep on subscribing despite hardly having the time to fly anymore, hoping my money is well spent on the development of something that looked so promising.

Come to think of it, nothing's really gonna change I guess. I like the community, reading the boards is cool, the people are nice, and bickering with some is fun . But now I really don't feel a need to continue the subscription.

Guess I'll go for another subscription some time in the distant future when the CT does materialize At least, I'm not wasting any more money on a game I can't play, nor a project that will be never finished... so I guess it's not such a bad news after all.