You are basically asking people to buy AH for anywhere between $100 and $1500. Their other games would benefit as well, true, but usually computers are way over specced for 90% of what you do on them (I am not including 14 years old addicted gamers in this statement). I am now out of the game because I cannot get an acceptable frame rates with my current two laptops. I will not buy a 3rd computer just to play AH, as much as I love this game. Instead I have to wait it out till it is a good opportunity to get a new computer and not just for AH (required specs will continue to rise in the mean time).
This is not a reason to prevent upgrades from the game - it must advance to survive and I want it to be top notch when I finally get a computer that can run it. But please, cut the "it is only $<3-4 digit number> to upgrade!" crap. HTC know that they have to make this a gradual progress or loose a large fraction of the customers if they make a sudden large jump.
I bought my first computer in summer of 1996. It was an IBM with a 150 Mhz PII CPU, 16 Mb of RAM, 2 Mb on-board video RAM and a 4 Gb HD running Windows 95. Between that, a monitor, printer, speakers, keyboad, mouse and scanner I paid about $2000. I played AW and AWII on it. I upgraded it to 32 Mb of RAM and 4 Mb of on-board video RAM along the way (yes, I was able to add a second 2 Mb VRAM chip to the motherboard). No more upgrades could be done. Should that system still be able to run the new version of AH?
In 1999 with my first system already hopelessly outdated I bought a Dell with a 600 Mhz PIII, 128 Mb of RAM, a dedicated 16 Mb video card and a 13 Gb HD running Windows 98. Again, including everything for a complete new system, I paid about $2000 and I played AWIII on that machine. When I moved to AHI I upgraded to 512 Mb RAM, a 64 Mb video card and two 120 Gb HD's. I played AH on that until March of 2008. Since then I've upgraded that machine to a 1.2 Ghz CPU, 768 Mb RAM and 440 Gb of drive space with a Win98/Win XP dual boot and it's still in use although not for gaming (although it will still run AH at 14-30 FPS along with most of my other games). Would most of you think that this machine should be able to run AH?
In March of 2008 I built a new machine with a 2.66 Core2Duo which I overclocked to 3.2 Ghz, 4 Gb of RAM, a 512 Mb video card and 1.5 Tb of drive space running Windows XP. Again I bought a new monitor, speakers, keyboard, mouse, etc. and paid about $2000, a quarter of that on things other than the box itself. This machine runs AH pegged to my monitor's refresh rate (60 FPS) with everything maxed out. If I were to do it again I don't think I'd have spent as much... probably more like $750-1000 for just the box.
Technology marches on. I don't make the rules. If I could still get by on that machine I bought in 1996 I'd be several thousand dollars richer and believe me I wish I was but that's just not reality. Period.
My total investment in computer technology is $38/mo. over 13 years and will continue to decrease as I get more use out of my new machine. It was $27/mo. until I built my new machine. Fortunately, technology advancement relative to computers has leveled off somewhat and obsolesence is less prevelant than it once was. The other fortunate thing is that I use my machines for more than just playing this and other games. I watch movies, listen to music, surf the net for news and information, use e-mail, type correspondence, build spreadsheets and a multitude of other things so the amout of my investment allocable to this or any other game is minimal. I see it as an investment in connectivity to the world, personal productivity and entertainment and IMO it's well worth it.
BTW, I also have a laptop that I'm typing this on right now.
I guess if you want to keep driving a Yugo, a Ford Pinto or an AMC Gremlin then more power to you. Most people have upgraded. It's a good analogy as vehicle technology also continues to advance. I started driving in a 1964 Chevy Belaire. I could hardly imagine that being my daily driver today (although I wish I still had it).