Have been a WWI guy for a long time...and we, the larger community of WWI guys, don't currently have a home. There are a number of new accounts with AH because of the initial effort to develop a WWI arena. Though BoxBoy's comments are relatively brief, they are pretty much on the mark.
The people who developed AH had a well-populated and relatively well developed sim in DOA - and then it was sold to IEN. Little has happened in the past 10 years and the current version of DOA is not as well developed as what was there 10 years ago...and predictably there are few pilots.
There is a relatively large, and now wide ranging, group of folks who would prefer the old planes...but simply don't have a place that is very satisfactory to fly those planes. Most of then have gone to several WWII arenas by default, but if we had our druthers...would be in the old wood, wire and cloth planes. We remain optimistic...and I will keep my account alive in AH for that reason. I am certainly not alone in this. LOL...some of us currently have accounts in 4 different sims hoping one will develop at some point, and fly each now and again if for nothing more than to say Hi to an old friend.
Those folks who consistently complain that "any work on a WWI sim is a waste and simply detracts from further development of currently well developed WWII sim" that is well populated and not likely to have many more members for a modicum of additional development...grow really tiresome. There is a WWI audience...and when a diverse and relatively well developed arena is built...they will come.
On the DR1...with only a few folks in the arena and the fight on the deck...people are going to fly DR1's because they are more effective in that situation. When the crowd is a little larger and you can use vertical strategies to pick off individual DR's and then extend ... Dvii's can certainly work. Most people naturally worry about scores in a simple fur ball arena, you can say "not me"...but I suspect all of us would agree scores are some measure of the motivation to fly as we fly. In the current situation, you are going to do better in a DR. If you have patience and are willing to settle for fewer kills/sortie then there is no reason at all you can't do some form of b'nz, retaining superior alt, and be very effective in a Dvii. But, you are not going to often have 5 kill sorties. Maybe a scoring system that is more weighted toward survival and pcs would change the flying style. And, some folks truly like DR's. Taking them away will only further reduce numbers.
Hope all is well out there...
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