The Good Ol' Days, or Rose-colored Glasses?

[Max]

Hm. I have seen frequent requests lateley to remove all EW & MW planes from LW anyway...

Why? Sometimes it's an insidious pleasure to bring a Hurricane Mk1 to a furball and tear up the uber-rides.

[Bruv119]

only way to get more people spread evenly between the EW/MW/LW arenas and drop the arena caps IMO,

late war, isnt late war, it is the old Main arena with a cap.  I'd think as a whole people would prefer the mid war planeset and drift there.  Resulting in better fights/ gameplay without the uber fast planes.

[The Fugitive]

only way to get more people spread evenly between the EW/MW/LW arenas and drop the arena caps IMO,

late war, isnt late war, it is the old Main arena with a cap.  I'd think as a whole people would prefer the mid war planeset and drift there.  Resulting in better fights/ gameplay without the uber fast planes.

How would dropping the caps get more people into MW and EW? All that would do is fill one big LW. We already know thats "bad" and isn't going to happen.

[Urchin]

I think he meant the only way to spread the population out more evenly would be to take the pre-1944 planes out of the "LW"MA and simply formalize the arrangement already in place.  Instead of a EW, MW (+EW planes), and LW (all planes), you have an EW (1939-1941), MW (1941-1943) and LW (1944-1945).  He suspects most people would gravitate towards the MW arena if such an arrangement were in place.

[Saurdaukar]

I think he meant the only way to spread the population out more evenly would be to take the pre-1944 planes out of the "LW"MA and simply formalize the arrangement already in place.  Instead of a EW, MW (+EW planes), and LW (all planes), you have an EW (1939-1941), MW (1941-1943) and LW (1944-1945).  He suspects most people would gravitate towards the MW arena if such an arrangement were in place.

While that may be the case, the whining would be deafening.

[moot]

I wouldn't like to lose the option to fly crappy planes against the rest of the LW planeset.  I think a lot of players would feel the same.

[Animl]

I wouldn't like to lose the option to fly crappy planes against the rest of the LW planeset.  I think a lot of players would feel the same.

Agreed.

[Ack-Ack]

I think he meant the only way to spread the population out more evenly would be to take the pre-1944 planes out of the "LW"MA and simply formalize the arrangement already in place.  Instead of a EW, MW (+EW planes), and LW (all planes), you have an EW (1939-1941), MW (1941-1943) and LW (1944-1945).  He suspects most people would gravitate towards the MW arena if such an arrangement were in place.

You would need to flesh out the Early and Mid-war plane sets further for those types of arenas.  Currently, our early war plane set is anything but early war.  Mid-war plane set is in a little better shape but still needs planes to further flesh it out. 


ack-ack

[Bruv119]

I wouldn't like to lose the option to fly crappy planes against the rest of the LW planeset.  I think a lot of players would feel the same.

well hitech did have it this way for about a day after the arena split,  the whining was deafening enough to re-enable all planes in the LW again  thus making it the same old MA again.

I enjoy owning people in early war rides just as much as the next guy but IMO it killed EW and MW as popular arenas before they had a chance as everyone DID gravitate with the numbers.

why bother with the other themed arenas if you can just do it with everyone else.   If more planes get added i think having another go at it will be worthwhile rather than every new plane becoming a hangar queen in the LWMA.

[BnZs]

Actually, in a Co-E 1v1 situation, turn performance and energy performance are more or less the decisive factors. The plane with a signifigantly worse turning performance must assume his opponent is competent (to assume otherwise means that someday you will find yourself sent back to the tower in about 1.5 seconds), thus he must have the E to engage using E tactics, or build it. And the latter isn't likely to happen if the more nimble bandit also builds E as well or better than less nimble one.

Frankly making use of turn performance with angles fighting is by far the easier, more intuitive, and often more fun strategy than E fighting, IF your opposition allows you to do so. That is why I find a HurriIIc a lark to fly sometimes, and no doubt a large portion of the reason you find an F4 more fun than a K4. You won't catch me complaining when lesser turners run away from my Hurri though. So sorry, IMHO you're still asking for too much if you put yourself 600 back on a P-51D in your Fritz and then expect him not to extend if he can manage it.

On the other hand, I do agree that the bandit who simply runs to the horizon AND then wastes your time and pins you in one location ad nauseum by re-engaging when you turn to head for greener pastures is asinine. I myself, if I found someone successfully reversed my best effort and forced me to run two or three times in a 1v1 situation, would either just go look for someone easier to kill (most of my kills in fast, b'n'z type planes are other b'n'z planes) or, as is so often the case, push the situation so hard trying to get the kill that I screw up and get shot down.

There is a lot more to ACM than turn radius and top speed.  You know this.  Winding up in a situation where you must rely either one of those two, exclusively, to survive probably means you did something wrong.

There are plenty of ways to kill a smaller, more nimble plane than extending for a sector at a time just as there are plenty of ways to kill a faster, less nimble plane than yanking back on the stick.

[moot]

So there's enough players on both sides (pure LW, and as we have it now) that the only way to do it would be to have one new arena added, with a pure LW planeset.

well hitech did have it this way for about a day after the arena split,  the whining was deafening enough to re-enable all planes in the LW again  thus making it the same old MA again.

I enjoy owning people in early war rides just as much as the next guy but IMO it killed EW and MW as popular arenas before they had a chance as everyone DID gravitate with the numbers.

why bother with the other themed arenas if you can just do it with everyone else.   If more planes get added i think having another go at it will be worthwhile rather than every new plane becoming a hangar queen in the LWMA.

[Bruv119]

if they did that moot  it will be empty just as much as EW/MW      bar a couple of milkers,

Most people want the MA with all rides available that is FACT.  The cap just annoys everyone.

The idea of having time specific planesets without any player caps  would be interesting to see IMO.

[Steve]

Most people want the MA with all rides available that is FACT.  The cap just annoys everyone.

Yup.  Get rid of the cap by having one LW  arena.

[Oldman731]

well hitech did have it this way for about a day after the arena split,  the whining was deafening enough to re-enable all planes in the LW again  thus making it the same old MA again.

I enjoy owning people in early war rides just as much as the next guy but IMO it killed EW and MW as popular arenas before they had a chance as everyone DID gravitate with the numbers.

Yup.  Only error I saw with the arena split was giving in to the people who wanted all rides in one arena.  Made the MW and EW almost meaningless.

- oldman

[Brooke]

The Good Ol' Days . . .

For most folks, the good ol' days are whenever they really started getting into the game.  A newer player's good ol' days are today; and five years from now, he'll be the one talking about how everything used to be better.

It's life's natural progression, as we move toward being the old guy yelling at kids to stay off his lawn.

But I can tell you that it was exactly the same two decades ago in Air Warrior, with nearly exactly the same discussions.

Air Warrior started (in 1987 or so) on GEnie and on Macs, Amigas, and Atari ST's.  When the PC version came out in 1990 or so, the seasoned vets lamented the passing of the good ol' days as hordes of ham-fisted, ho-and-run PC dweebs flooded in and ruined the game forever.

Of course, for those PC dweebs, that was the golden age.  They learned and progressed, and in 1995 or so when Air Warrior became available on AOL, the now-seasoned PC vets lamented the passing of the good ol' days as hordes of ham-fisted, ho-and-run AOL dweebs flooded in and ruined the game forever.

For those AOL dweebs, that was the golden age.  They learned and progressed, and on December 7th, 2001 (60th anniversary of Pearl), when Electronic Arts discontinued Air Warrior, the now-seasoned AOL vets (along with others from previous periods) lamented the passing of the good ol' days (this time, at least for AW, for real).

But a lot of them moved on to Aces High, where naturally people go through the same cycles.

Me, I've been playing since 1988.  I miss pals who drifted away from online flying, and I do look back at my early days with nostalgia -- as people tend to do.  I see the unavoidable fluctuations that cause people for a bit to enjoy things more or less.  But I can tell you, from my perspective of time, not focusing on fluctuations but instead on the overall trend, I feel that Aces High is magnificent and getting even better over time.

The good ol' days?  They are always today!