PUH-leeze, Zoney....
The AVA is not more "hard core" at all... Its an arbitrarily decided set of rules that a select few think is "more elite" and "requiring more awesome skillz" that they mandate based upon their own prejudiced ideas taken from the IL2 community.
It's far more gamey than the MA, even. 1.0 fuel burn with bases 10 miles apart means every plane flies around near empty weight. Almost every time I'm in there it's nothing but people hiding from fights until they think they can pick without being seen. Flying without icons is akin to flying legally blind, and no pilot would be allowed up in the air, ever, with the kind of vision it provides. In reality you can spot airplanes with great clarity at very long ranges. The select few AvA bandwagon-riders use TrackIR and maximum zoom to get around this but don't be fooled -- they have found a way to game the limitations they set for themselves.
It isn't any more realistic nor is it any more elite, and the constant claims that it takes more skill, talent, and l33tness to fly in the AvA is just self-stroking on their part. They throw a condescending attitude into any conversation to the contrary and with a dismissive wave ignore any details, facts, or logical/scientific arguments that counter what they want to believe in.
The first thing to ask is what is the purpose of a post like this? If you don't like the AvA then don't fly in there, but there is no good reason to flame and try to steer people away.
Let people make up their own minds.
Now I'll address the post itself, lot's of misinformation here.
We tried no enemy icons long ago and a lot of people thought it was really cool, so we kept it for quite a while, but due to complaints by folks like Krusty, last year we experimented with turning them back on and guess who was still absent from the arena? The vast majority of the people who demanded they be turned back on.
We did got a lot of complaints from people who were pissed that we turned them back on though.
We conducted an invitation survey and we gathered all the names we could match up with BBS handles who had flown in the arena during times when we had enemy icons on and during times we had enemy icons off.
We expected at best an even split on preference for icons but instead the results were OVERWHELMINGLY in favor of no enemy icons. It wasn't even close.
Arbitrary my butt. We'll listen to the AvA community more than we will bomb throwers with too much time on their hands, thank you very much.
We have two commercial pilots and at least one private pilot who fly in the arena and prefer the no enemy icon setting. You can decide for yourself who is worth listening too.
I never advertise the arena as "elite" and I hate and I mean
really hate it when I see other people do that, but there is no doubt that it is a different experience. One that a lot of people who actually fly with us really like.
If you are never there, you won't hear it when more people say "this is really cool" than say "this really sucks."
If AvA is someones favorite arena what do you expect them to say? "Our players are gamey and really suck. The MA is much better!"
I don't know of anyone who flies with view zoomed in, but like everywhere else, we do have a lot of folks who use trackir. So what? No one complains about people using it in other arenas.
It's not easy to run an arena like ours. All the things that make other arenas successful, we can't do. We can't gather scores and stats to match our weekly runs. All that is done on a monthly basis and we aren't going to leave the same setup in for a month. We do not have access to any kind of event logging program.
We can't limit things like 70% fly the P40E and 30 % get the P-47D
We can't have an automatic win the war map rotation and reset because that system is based on 3 country everything enabled and random map rotation, so if it does reset it becomes a mess instead of an AvA playable set up. We can't use perk points because in a Midway or Battle of Britain inspired set up there is no place for C-hogs or 262's.
We are in no mans land without a good way to run an automatic 24/7 arena and without a way to run structured events, but we do sometimes designate special nights to concentrate our smaller population in at the same time so there will be a playable population.
We try to provide an alternative. That's all we can do.
If you don't like the arena, don't fly there, but why trash it? Can't you just keep your effing nose out of it?
Why even try to tell us how to do things when as proven in the past, if we do try them your way, you will be nowhere to be found anyhow?
For anyone who would like to try AvA, we'd love to have you and will try to give suggestions on when you are likely to find the most players in there, but before you listen to other people who try to drive you away from it, you might click on their profile and take a look at how much time they devote to trashing the efforts of volunteers who are not paid or compensated in any way, but still spend significant time trying to provide enjoyment for others.
