The "Variables" Arena

[Stalwart]

The way things are set up in the main arenas seems to work really well.  HTC continues to do a good job managing the game for balance, playability, strategic play etc. etc.  Little changes like the DAR settings change are introduced a bit at a time for minor tweaks, and the game stays pretty much "center of the road" stable.  Fine and good. 

I think it would be interesting, fresh, and engaging if there were an arena that changed dramatically every TOD.  Where wishlist ideas could be field tested.  Where nothing was sacred except the flight models.  I don't mean an arcade arena, where the planes fly crazy or carry lasers and force fields.  I mean and arena where the administrators can and DO experiment with the arena variables already built into the game. 

[ImADot]

Just wait...HTC is working on player-controlled rooms hosted on HTC servers. 

[Stalwart]

Just wait...HTC is working on player-controlled rooms hosted on HTC servers. 

Really?   Wow, that would be a major shift in the paradigm. 

[ImADot]

Yep.  It's a major coading effort, and there are many little things that can "quickly" be addressed while they dig into it.

What you've requested greatly resembles H2H. HTC has expressed they will eventually bring it back. I'm guessing it's somewhere near the bottom of the to-do list.

Actually it is the next large write on the to do list.

HiTEch

[OOZ662]

H2H was a big boon for the game, both for testing of bugs and for just screwing around with friends. Problem was that it gave the hackers a playground to test their systems out as well. I would suspect they're creating H2H that you have to pay for in order to discourage that sort of thing. (I can see the counterpoint of "they can test just as easily in a paid-for H2H as in a free one" coming, but if that were the case, the MAs would currently be flooded with cheaters.) Previously, whoever created the room actually became the Host, aka the game server. I suspect that leads to people being able to probe at server code, which became a big no-no. With a system hosted by HTC, that isn't a problem.

I can't wait for it, really. Especially because I'd love to test some quirks in tanks and armor modeling. That recent bug with the Sherman's mantlet armor could have been figured out quickly out-of-house if we had a sandbox.

[hitech]

H2H was a big boon for the game, both for testing of bugs and for just screwing around with friends. Problem was that it gave the hackers a playground to test their systems out as well. I would suspect they're creating H2H that you have to pay for in order to discourage that sort of thing. (I can see the counterpoint of "they can test just as easily in a paid-for H2H as in a free one" coming, but if that were the case, the MAs would currently be flooded with cheaters.) Previously, whoever created the room actually became the Host, aka the game server. I suspect that leads to people being able to probe at server code, which became a big no-no. With a system hosted by HTC, that isn't a problem.

I can't wait for it, really. Especially because I'd love to test some quirks in tanks and armor modeling. That recent bug with the Sherman's mantlet armor could have been figured out quickly out-of-house if we had a sandbox.

Your close, on the host I have total control of hack detection, if that code is distributed it gives people the chance to both modify it,  and find out what all is done. Hence we never implemented any of the detection in H2H mode. With player controlled host rooms all code and detection methods again remain on the server.

HiTech

[Pigslilspaz]

HT please show me how to be smart like you, lol