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

[Tr0jan]

Pineapples!

[moot]

Now if there's already someone up at that field they land and go elsewhere so they don't have to fight you or they call in their squaddies/countrymen so they can have a defensive hoard.

I asked if someone would roll off this base on ch200. Was gonna totally bleed E after the merge, for a nice fair fight.  Instead he runs from a 1:1 fight to....

[Tr0jan]

I asked if someone would roll off this base on ch200. Was gonna totally bleed E after the merge, for a nice fair fight.  Instead he runs from a 1:1 fight to....

thats lame

[Anaxogoras]

I asked if someone would roll off this base on ch200. Was gonna totally bleed E after the merge, for a nice fair fight.  Instead he runs from a 1:1 fight to....

I don't know what sort of conversation you guys had on 200, but from his perspective you attacked when he was barely wheels up, maybe?

The guy who's lame in that film is the one in the flak.

[moot]

No conversation, just me asking for a fight. Flak guy upped first.  Yak was already up when i turned to it, and I came in parallel.. turned to without scrubbing speed when instinct told me he was about to run.. didnt ho or rope in case i read it wrong, kept full power when he ran. 
Anyway... this is the typical stuff nowadays, i could find dozen more films as examples.  This didnt happen back then. Nor bomb & bail at a base thats already nearly flat & capped. etc etc

[Anaxogoras]

Oh, in the film it looks like he had just taken off.

[moot]

He did. I was above the field asking for a fight.  I didn't dive on him as soon as he was out of the ack.  I didn't HO, he didn't even try to fight, just ran to the field ack and WW.  Remove the speed and alt advantage I had and you have a perfect picture of what I'm talking about.  I don't know about good old days but this crap is rampant nowadays.

[FALCONWING]

He did. I was above the field asking for a fight.  I didn't dive on him as soon as he was out of the ack.  I didn't HO, he didn't even try to fight, just ran to the field ack and WW.  Remove the speed and alt advantage I had and you have a perfect picture of what I'm talking about.  I don't know about good old days but this crap is rampant nowadays.

 

I would agree for opposite reasons that "this crap is rampant nowadays"

[The Fugitive]

I started flying in AW in 96, switched to Aces High in "tour 21" and have been here ever since. I have been flying for over 20 years....and still suck btw    NEVER took a break. This game and AW both had the same challenges ...find the enemy, and shoot him down before he does the same to you.

Yes the game has changed, we have gotten more toys to play with, more options on how to play, but the base of the game always was combat. Out think the enemy, out plan the enemy, out last the enemy, out FIGHT the enemy. But the biggest change has been the change in the type of PLAYER we have.

I too have gone through change, I have 2 sons that I've watch grow into manhood. One has graduated from college, the other has one more year. I think I've done a good job raising my kids. Neither one does drugs, nor do they drink even... tho the computer geek was hooked on Coke-a-cola for a while  but I've seen the "new age" attitude in both of them. They want it NOW! I have seen them start new games on game consoles as well as computer games and not bother even looking at the "manuals". More often than not it was a quick jump out to "GamesFAQ" then start playing.

In the "old days" most of us were there to play a fighters game, some a "war" game. Everyone started out sucking, but with help from the community, you learned to get better. You learned that a fighter sweep 5 minutes in front of your buffs cleared the way to a field, you learned to turn and lead your target to gain angles on him, but the important thing here is everyone wanted to learn to get better.  Today most people don't want to bother to learn how to do it, they just want to get it done NOW.

Too many shortcuts have taken away the skills. There are always ways to "game the game", but to those of us playing the game just for the thrill and fun of playing the game, there is no short cuts to use. If you play Monopoly, you can slip that extra 500 out of the bank and it could help you "win the game" but did you really "best" the other player? If you dive in on me and we go round and round all the way to the deck taking pieces off each other the whole way down and just as I'm about to blast you out of the sky as you flutter out of "E" hanging in front of my guns 2 of your buddies cherry pick me and you get the kill. Did you really best me?

If you are part of 20 guys attacking a base and you vulch the only 3 guys upping to defend did you really "win"? To us "old guys" all you did was horde a base and vulch a few kills... dweebery. Let those guys up, FIGHT for the base! In the old days goons almost never landed to drop troops, you know why? because there was more fighting then, always a ton of fighters up.... it was the birth of many a furball! Goons came in at 5-6k and when they got the "all down" they would dive in and pull up over the town zooming strait up and flopping over at the top dropping the troops in an arc over the base. This would land them in a clump more than a line and cut down on the time they were running.

You know why they don't do it that way any more? Because the majority of players today suck! They can't keep a fight low, or pinned down at the field. No strategy is used, just brute force. I don't have a problem with the enemy taking down the FH, then a town, but you have better had your buffs come in at 12-15k, of course that means a high cap to watch for the late comers coming to defend the field from other bases, planning intercept courses and areas most likely to be used for their flight paths..... oooooo my brain hurts!!! You can hear the cries now !  LOL!!

Yes the game has changed, and for the better if you ask me. Have I changed, I hope for the better too  Has the player base changed, you bet, and unfortunately I think bad apples are leading the new players to the bottom of the barrel. The new player has to learn that there is so much more to this game than just "winning" !

[Rolex]

In AH1, the lonely, singular map was small and field capture attempts could seem like epic battles lasting all night. There were NOE missions, but they just seemed to propogate another fight. The war was doing what it was supposed to do - create battlefields. With hundreds of people on a single small map, you couldn't hide in the air; you had to fight. There weren't so many fields per side, so losing three of four fields was a big deal. Any mass attack seemed to generate a mass defense.

Now, with large maps, a country can lose 10 fields and never blink because they still have a hundred more fields to lose until it means something. The large maps with mega squads (or gangs might be a better word than squads) may be promoting all these NOE 110 missions with little defense. I can understand why someone would not want to up against 20 planes, knowing that they'll not get many others to help defend against the horde because they'll just get killed over and over. Three against twenty isn't something many players can handle for very long.

I think that is why some older players get frustrated and think the good old days were better. You can be timid and hide now. You can sneak around the map now, searching for somewhere to fly unmolested by an opponent. You couldn't do that in the past. There weren't that many places to run to.

I don't know for sure if the old days being better is an illusion or not. I'm inclined to think they were. One thing I am pretty sure about is that the old days always stay gone forever, and you have to adapt or make your own new days.

I have no data to back this up, but I think more people came to the game with a fascination for aviation and many of todays players are gamers. I don't think that's bad, it's just that I think I know the minds of the aviation types better than the minds of gamers. I'm not a gamer.

Added:  I cannot believe that Fugitive and I said the exact same ratio of 3 vs. 20... 

Some of us older guys see red dots and bogies and say, "Yes!" Other players say, "Oh no!"

[ROC]

It will always come down to getting out of the game what you put into it.

I gave up expecting things from other players many years ago.  If I fly assuming the guy pointing at me is going to go for the HO, I'm not surprised if he does, and will avoid setting one up for him.  If I assume I won't get a "fair" 1v1 fight, I fight expecting to get jumped and am not disappointed when it happens.  I try very hard to put myself in situations that when I am actually surprised, it's because the silly stuff didn't happen.

The game itself, whether evolving from a very rough early Air Warrior to the now more evolved Aces High II really hasn't changed much at all if you think about it.  Your still a bunch of people sitting in your homes manipulating a small screen, the graphics have improved as they relate to what they used to be, but remember when AW went 3d?  That was a "stunning" improvement but poor in today's standards.  There are games with far superior graphics, like MS FS X with the quality ramped up to full.  You can't play them with 300 people in a room though, so compromises in quality for playability must occur.  Still, between the two extremes, the basic game is the same.  Take off, fly, die, rinse, repeat.  The only variable is your direct participation and expectations.

The players will always make the difference, and not in the way you would imagine.  There has been and always will be dweebs, noobs, squeakers and the like.  You all were, you just didn't have the experience to know it was you, and don't really want to remember that you acted at one point in your gaming career as a clueless dolt.  You have more experience now, and your perception of the game has changed.  The game hasn't.  The game hasn't changed since games were played with rolling dice.  The basic playability is the same.

If you launch in the main arenas, where there is a designed free for all setup, you simply have to accept the fact that someone will do something you don't agree with.  Get over it.  I see more players complain about things they have no control over, then don't attend the special events where they have complete control.  Nothing new, it's always been that way.  Take this exact same conversation and change the format from Air Warrior on Genie to when they went to AOL.  Darn near verbatim, same thoughts on the good old days compared to now.  Always going downhill, always changing, but more people log in now than ever.  The game hasn't changed, perception of it has, and it is inevitable, as your experiences change.  It is impossible to look at the same thing twice and see it without changes, as your experience has changed.  Knowing that, I go back to the original comment.  You will only get out of the game, regardless of the game, exactly what you put into it.

[Ghosth]

Agrees with Fugitive, Rolex, and Roc.

Game hasn't really changed, the community has, and how people fly has had huge changes.
The worst of it is that its "OUR" fault. We have failed to educate, show a good example and ostracize those who don't learn.

Anytime your giving people <S> for 2 kills in a uber plane your part of the problem.
Anytime your flying in a horde, your part of the problem.
Anytime you do get a good fight and fail to <S> your opponent, win, lose or draw your part of the problem.
Anytime you get on ch 200 and berate your opponent for _ _ _ _ _ when you lost because of a mistake you made, you sir are part of the problem.

[FALCONWING]

Ghosth, Fugitive and Rolex...I can understand your point of view but IMHO human nature is human nature...

In other words...in an arena of 400-500 is 20 pilots (less then a squad) the new definition of a horde???  And the fact the opposing country can only launch 3 planes in response to one of my personal favorite things to see on country ch "NOE base 154!!! scramble!"  Is that really the fault of the 20 ppilots or the folks who don't want to ditch/bail and help out???

The biggest difference for me between AH2 and AW is numbers in the arena and size of the maps...

When max numbers were 100 in an arena a "horde" or "gang" was 3-5 v 1.  statistically is that far different from 20 v 3?  No, the difference is the multiplier.  Also bases were easier to capture almost single handedly...now you must have a force that drop town/acks/vh and hold position to capture...whose "fault" is that?  It sounds like purposeful design.

In AW and AH1 the maps were fairly small...limited front bases...afternoon/evening noe's were about impossible...now with multi front base maps why wouldnt anyone expect that different strategies for attack and different values placed upon defense would develop???  Is it fair to blame the player for this???  They are directly reacting to developer design.

One is rewarded for base captures with perks...etc etc.

So am I somehow upset with Hitech et al for the changes?...heck no!

If the game had never evolved from AW days both strategywise and game improvements...I know some of the purists would still be here...but other folks would have left for greener pastures.  Personally I love the diversity of the game...some nights I just want to GV...other nights furball/defend...other nights taking bases seems fun.  Most of all I think all of us just want to have fun.  So far so good

[Animl]

Seeing all the threads and disparaging remarks about the state of the game today got me thinking: was there REALLY such a thing as "The Good Ol' Days?"

I'll admit I haven't been around Aces High II as long as some, and I missed AH1. To be honest, I haven't noticed much of a difference between today and when I started. N1K2s, Typhoons and C-Hogs still go right for the HO. Ponies sit at 20k and dive to the deck the instant they get a whiff of a co-alt conn. Vulching, ganging, hordeing. None of that's changed in the 3-4 years I've been here.

I WAS, however, around for Air Warrior for Windows. And y'know what? Except for the lack of HOs due to the game mechanics (the hit bubble didn't register them) everything that's happening in today's game was happening then. Vulching, ganging, hordeing, picking, alt-monkey 51s diving to the deck rather than fight an even fight, etc.

The game hasn't changed.

Eggackly

I hear ALLL of the whines that existed in both game,.... in both games, to the same degree with all the same venom.

I also look at this occurs sometimes because some people are just professional whiners. They live to find something to complain about.

OTOH we have another set of people who talk about the same rehashed stuff so much all it does is remind others to whine about the same rehashed stuff yet again 1 week later. If some stop talking about it so much people wouldn't notice so much. It's like taking a bad thing and making it more horrific. Overt-stated.

Again, I don't see HTC interacting with the snivels so most likely it's not going to go any further if you snivel about it every day then once a month. In this area I am not seeing much input from HTC,.. almost at all. WHo are you whining to? I mean they built a great game, generally great people, and maybe they read more then I notice,.. but I'm seeing it falling out of touch with the player base. Maybe it's just me I dunno. they seem great at everything else. <shrug> On one else can do anything about SOME things, the rest is just more of the same I've seen in 10-12 years, or more.

Here's my solution to some of this, SLIGHT sarcasm of course.
Does your game work? Yes? Then don't sweat the small stuff.

There should be a penality for constantly repeating already over-winded whines. <snork!>

BTW I'm also tired if P-51 whines. <GGGG>

Dr. Animl (who was born with a nail in his brain)

[Saxman]

Animal hit what I was saying right on the head: ALL the same whines in the game today, are the same one I heard 10 years ago in AW4W. It's a misguided notion that the people in the game have changed. People are PEOPLE. They're going to naturally gravitate towards the easy thing. They're naturally going to jump in the uberplanes, HO, vulch and pick because it's EASY. It happens here, it happened in AW.