As was previously (and very briefly) pointed out the idea that a game engine needs to develop to keep up with the new games is not necessarily true with AH, while it may be true with games aimed at other customers and genres. This is my understanding why:
As you may have noticed many other games have moved to bigger audiences with the introduction of "vanity" system where basic game play is free but all the better stuff and gadgets cost money, indirectly, but still. That is the way to ensure the cash flow and that kind of development is usually result of the game being sold to a bigger company to provide a steady financial base. But those games need to have all the newest eyecandy to attract new players, and that all the time as the player base in those games is not very steady, in fact the majority of new players quit quite soon and even the old times stay a year of so until everything is pretty much seen, or bought.
Take World of Tanks for a recent example. It looks good and while many vehicles and equipment have a real life basis there is a lot of fantasy equipment available and the system is certainly not a simulation and it really cannot be due to general mechanics of the gameplay. While it retains some features of a simulation it still is an arcade game in everything. And because of that they play on different rules to attract customers who do not necessarily even realize that the tanks in that game existed decades ago while the others never existed at all, but it does not matter if it all looks good.
It was also interesting to try eg. War & Thunder and boy it sure looks sweet. BUT the map is small, a fraction of that of AH's and the flight model is very arcadish while it manages to grasp the general feeling rather well but everything in it screams ARCADE. But it does not hurt if it brings up players who get interested on topic and maybe they eventually wander in to Aces High to try a more hardcore simulation and what is IMO the best of Aces High: the scenarios.
The huge majority of players in those games are not even interested in simulation aspect nor do they intend to stick with a game for years. All in all a game, or simulation, which has lasted a decade with many of its original players is still a fluke and in that way Aces High is a very interesting exception, and thus also plays with different rules compared to mainstream massive multiplayer games.
Of course it is an unfortunate fact that hardcore simulators do not attract big audiences (partly because of steep learning curve in game play) but they attract players who stick with the same game easily for a decade if the topic is something they have been interested about since childhood, as many of you and I have. What is also difficult for a simulation maker is that as the paying audience tends to stay small it gets more demanding all the time as all the data that is part of the game becomes or has been their long time hobby. This leads to a constant demand for higher historical accuracy which is hard to maintain due to nature of the data.
All in all I'd say that Aces High needs more other new features than enhanced graphics. If the ground war would be upgraded that would alone cause a major overhaul to terrain system to keep it on par with, say, WW2Online. And that would only be half of the work. New terrain objects, towns, more accurate maps etc etc. and all that would be a problem for the air aspect as many of those eye candy games need to use workarounds to keep the game playable for those who like to fly. Imagine AH with a fog that obscures the terrain almost completely when flying up high as is the case in WW2Online with its high detail ground. I'd say what ever the graphics many players would not tolerate such development in a game that is supposed to be mainly about flying. If HTC would manage to achieve this without negative effects on air warfare that would certainly be great but I think it is technically very difficult if not downright impossible even with computers of today.
IMO the graphics are still OK and with recent enhancements quite adequate for an aircombat simulator and the focus is right just now: to bring in new planes.
-C+
PS. This was an intended reply to Torqs recent post but unfortunately the little dogs got it locked before I managed to construct a sane reply.
