Any rumors about improving the terrain?

[GScholz]

Do you have any "stake" in this game? Would explain the fanboi defense...

[Lusche]

In the end I think most players play AH solely for the gameplay experience and only secondarily for eye candy. If they wanted only eye candy they'd flock to WT and the likes.

If I were playing the role of the Devil's Advocate, I'd say: "Yes, those that are still playing. Which are a lot less than it used to be."

 

[Gixer]

pcars has been in beta for years and it stinks compared to iracing. the physics aren't any better and the graphics are just slightly better (they've done good with the dynamic lighting effects). by the time its actually playable, it should be the top of the line racing sim bar none...it's taken long enough just to get where it is now.

Wasn't making a pcars vs iracing which is best comparison, just pointing out how far physics for sim racing have come especially in last few years, iracing especially included.

If pcars has been in beta for a long time and is developed by a community and not a major gaming house then at least that's better than nothing in development other than releasing odd new plane or tank for last few years into the same old sandpit.



<S>...-Gixer

[gyrene81]

Do you have any "stake" in this game? Would explain the fanboi defense...

actually yes, i do as do the other paying subscribers...i'm far from a fanboi as you appear to be for maddox and the crap ubisoft has been putting out.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Then grow the company, develop a community to increase resources like a lot of the new game developers are doing. It's been over 14 years with the same old engine, if increasing resources or bringing in outside paid help to assist with a new engine is what's required then it should be done and should of started over 10 years ago.

I know first hand what kind of challenges small software companies face. When you have only so much resources, doing a full update to your product is a very painful experience and if you pull it wrong it can lead to a lot of customer dissatisfaction.

We're currently in the middle of the third major revamp in our product and it's going to slow down or halt any development to the older version for many many months before the new kernel is ready for production. Last revamp lead to a full year of stagnation - luckily the previous version was at a level that we were not pressed to constantly update it.

Doing a major jump in the engine would require a major investment from HTC - I'm guessing the current subscriber level does not enable any drastic increases in development power especially when any new coder must first be accustomed to the existing codebase before he can even begin work. HTC has the option to get some investor money and make a risk move to F2P/Premium accounts for example but usually it means losing control of the company in the process and us, the end users would risk losing the game. Investors do not really care about anything but returns so they could just pull the plug at any time and end AH history.

[gyrene81]

If pcars has been in beta for a long time and is developed by a community and not a major gaming house then at least that's better than nothing in development other than releasing odd new plane or tank for last few years into the same old sandpit.


<S>...-Gixer

that's pretty much where pcars will end up unless there is a continual change of the base game engine, even iracing with their decent sized staff has been slow in that department. the effects of such changes to existing customers can be detrimental to the bottom line, more so than no changes at all. are you assuming that htc has no plans to make any changes to ah other than add some content? not sure i would make the same assumption, even though there seems to be some reticence to even make the jump to directx 10. it would be a decent change functionally though it wouldn't necessarily bring out the glossy eye candy people are wanting.

[GScholz]

AH is better now than it was ten years ago, so why do we not want to play it you may ask. The thing is that ten years ago AH wasn't so far behind the competition in visual quality, and as an overall experience AH was superior, largely due to the single arena massive multiplayer gameplay. Now however, the AH experience, marred by its dated look, is overshadowed by the overall experience of other products that have evolved with the available technology. The single arena gameplay is no longer able to tip the scales in favor of AH in the overall experience. Now, other games offer a better experience, even in single player mode against AI that is much better than what was available ten years ago. AH needs to evolve or die; it's Darwinism.

[Lusche]

I know first hand what kind of challenges small software companies face. When you have only so much resources, doing a full update to your product is a very painful experience and if you pull it wrong it can lead to a lot of customer dissatisfaction.

Actually a similar thing already happened to AH in the past. The transition from AH1 to AH2 was apparently a rather painful one, with a big cut in MA activity and player numbers. According to the stats, it took a long time to recover.

[GScholz]

... Double post.

[gyrene81]

gotta love Scholz...he loves to compare apples to oranges and wonders why people only smell poop with his comparisons.

when x-plane or any of the other stuff you marvel at can handle 300 people on a single map without needing top of the line computers...then come back and tell us what's what.

[GScholz]

Laminar Research is a one-man-company that produces the X-Plane simulator, now in it's 10th iteration, and it looks gorgeous. The Strike Fighters series of jet combat simulators is largely made by one guy and a tiny team. Being a small developer does not justify falling this much behind.

This is a one-man company product: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pCo3bILdkk#!

[GScholz]

gotta love Scholz...he loves to compare apples to oranges and wonders why people only smell poop with his comparisons.

when x-plane or any of the other stuff you marvel at can handle 300 people on a single map without needing top of the line computers...then come back and tell us what's what.

Again, visual quality has nothing to do with how many players that can play.

[GScholz]

gotta love Scholz...he loves to compare apples to oranges and wonders why people only smell poop with his comparisons.

when x-plane or any of the other stuff you marvel at can handle 300 people on a single map without needing top of the line computers...then come back and tell us what's what.

Ever played Planetside 2?  Up to 2,000 players on a singe large map (called "continents"), on foot, in vehicles or in aircraft.

[kappa]

Yes Cliffs of Dover was a buggy POS that was launched a year too early. However it still represents the state of the art in visual quality for a flight sim.

It is a lot better now though with community patches and mods. Online play is very good if you're into scenarios rather than furballinging
Some online play from JG52: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn6umUtXpWk

watched almost the entire vid.. that is just awesome..  do you play it?  I noticed the comment that sometimes you can't find a fight... how would you rate the action?

[GScholz]

Yeah, I play it, but not online. Not yet anyway. Playing it on full realism is quite the learning curve...