Grizz- Never noticed I could upload to here, and have been too lazy to create a photobucket, there you go.
Fugitive-
What I tend to see happen with a typical horde, from whichever side it comes from, is a bunch of people in the same area head in a direction. Sometimes it's because someone said 'Hey, let's take that base.' sometimes it's just because the group happened to up there looking for a fight. They head toward the enemy base, or the enemy bardar if it exists. If there are enemy, the two fronts collide, and one side comes out on top. Those who enjoy fighting that just died on both sides reup, those who don't, go elsewhere looking for a fight. People are probably watching the bardar fairly close after they die to see if they're reupping into a meat grinder. Again, those who like to fight against long odds reup if they're shorthanded, those who don't go elsewhere.
The horde that's winning (let's call them country A) eventually presses over the other side's (country B) airbase, someone whacks the dar, and the vulching commences. If there are enough people who are so inclined, a counter-horde from country B sometimes up from a nearby base and grabs to come in high to deal with the vulchers. As the vulchers run out of ammo/fuel/get killed, country B usually winds up having the bigger numbers over the field at that moment. Depending on the commitment level of country A, the fight sometimes fizzles, sometimes gets really interesting as people reup and head back. There are also those who up from the capped field because that's where they find their fun. Multi-on-multi engagements, fun, kills, and excitement. Sometimes Country B presses back over Country A's airfield.
What a lot of people fail to realize, I think, is depending on where you come into the above story you can have a profoundly different view of what's happening there. This is why I think a lot of people feel that both of the other countries are full of skillless hordelings.
If you come in early and are in country B, 'Country A has upped a horde! The bastards!' If you're in country A and notice the fight after country A has had a lot of attrition and country B has started pressing back, you might see the bardar and go, 'Country B has upped a horde! The bastards!' If you come in at the right time and see two full bardars in between the two airbases, I myself am thinking, 'Great! A decent fight!'
Now, as to why people horde, I think a lot of the root cause has to do with chesspiece loyalty. I think the majority sticks with their chesspiece. Some think switching is 'cheating' because you have knowledge of what was going on in your country when you left. Some think the other countries are just plain morally inferior to their chesspiece for reasons I can't begin to understand. Either way, if you're sticking with one chesspiece, sometimes you're going to be outnumbering the other sides, and the only fight you can find will probably result in your side outnumbering the enemy. This contributes to hordes.
Another factor is, committing too much to defense with no offense or ineffective offense means you are slowly going to lose ground. Often, I notice the Rooks tend to approach the war with the 'Ever diminishing circle of base defense' tactic, which never works. How often do you see two countries attacking each others' undefended bases? At that point, it becomes a matter of which side is more efficient at capturing bases.
You very often see people grumbling about how the other side took 3 bases in the time it took us to take 1. If your offense is faster than the other side's, you gain ground using these tactics. Splitting your people into offense and defense slows down your forward progression, even though it also means you're losing ground slightly slower to the enemy, most people don't see this, IMO.
Another factor is, in an online game you can't really rely on people you don't know ingame to be inclined to help, or have the skills to help efficiently. Some don't understand how to work with you to let you help them, like when you go to clear a guy who's being mobbed and he turns into you so to get at the threats on his six, you'd have to dump your E and put yourself in danger where if he turned at 90 degrees to you you can come in, clip the guy behind him, and reset to do it again if anybody sticks around. Basically, you can't trust anyone's capabilities unless you know them. With the amount of people in game, it's just plain easier to stick with overwhelming force than to try to keep straight who on your side you can rely on.
The worst scenario is when your side is being pressed on one side by one country and your side is pressing the other country on the other side, which is pressing the first country. If your idea of fun is base defense with a chance of winning, no matter which side you're on, all you see is an insurmountable horde rolling your bases. Again, perception when you look at the map.
A lot of the old guard guys who've been playing since Air Warrior have a different mindset from the average person who plays these days. It used to be people with an interest in aviation played flight sims. The games came to be because people liked flight, not because the consumers were gamers. The gameplay was the most compelling thing for them, they'd fly in a scoreless arena with 2 bases, just to have fun shooting other people down, being shot down, and working on their ACM. If I hadn't been a poor student back in the day of hourly rate flight on early AW and WB, I'd probably be one of them.
Nowadays, it's far more common for people to find flight sims because they like games moreso than they have a deep interest in WWII history and ACM. For better or worse, that's the majority tendency, I think. And neither side is going to change the other's way of enjoying the game.
Simply put, the more recent people are mostly more goal oriented when it comes to a game. Their thinking is mostly something along the lines of, 'Ok, what's the objective? Win the war. Ok, how do we win the war? Taking bases. Ok, what is the easiest way to take bases? Crushingly superior numbers. Right, let's go.'
Same thing if they're into fighter v fighter. 'What's the objective? Kill enemy planes. Right then. 4x20mm, put pipper on target. pull trigger.'
The other thing about the newer people, I think most of them don't particularly care if they die, as long as the objective they've set for themselves is being accomplished, hence the HOing, and bomb and bailing. That is the logical extension of the 'it's just a game' mentality.
Myself, I'm somewhat in the middle, been playing flight sims since JET.exe on an 8088 computer, up through Red Baron 3D among others, but I also have played a lot of other video games. I have what some on here would call a passing interest in flight and history, but a bit moreso than the hardcore gamer mentality types.
And just to be clear, when I'm talking about 'newer players' I'm talking in the last 5 years or so, it's probably crept in. I had noticed a shift in the other game before I came here, and knew and talked with quite a few of the older guys who were still around.
Holy wall of text, Batman... Sorry folks.
Wiley.
