Quote from 2003 that I responded to then. Same old same old.
Originally posted by beet1e
"MuckMAW. It's easy to understand. There is a huge swathe in this community that has no interest in WW2, no interest in learning ACM (which is why you see all the HO) and who just want to pummel a fire button and make stuff go boom. The Spit and LA7 are the easymode planes. P51 is a good survivalist plane if not quite as easy, but still easy enough. Just as folks can't be bothered to spend more than 5 minutes to get to a fight, so are they victims from their own lack of attention span when it comes to learning new ideas/planes. So instead, they'll just choose an easymode ride.
Do not confuse the fact that these oft chosen planes feature so prominently in the obituaries with the reason why they are chosen in the first place. More of them get killed because so many idiots fly them. Look at the kill stats for any pilot ranked in the top 200. In most cases the P51, Spit ix and LA7 will be in the top 5 in his list of fighter kills."
Sound familiar Fugi? 
Certainly does, and bettle hasn't been seen in years.
Those of us who stay are the hard core players. We play for the fights and even if we only find one or two a night it is what brings us back because its enough. We can find fun in the many things available in this game.
The problem is we are quickly approaching the population/kd numbers we had 13 years ago. Of those numbers from years ago the vast majority where hard core/ history type players. You flew and fought looking to beat guys like wldthing, bettle, blumax, and many others. At least that was how I went into it. They weren't my "heros" but I certainly wanted to get good enough to beat them.
Today the vast majority are players who look toward running in hordes to grab bases and win the war as quick as they can.... or at least before mommy comes in and tells them its time for bed
These players get bored doing the same NOE missions time after time and go looking for the "next best thing" in gaming. I'd be willing to bet the turn over of players these day is pretty high. Players just aren't staying like they use to.
My son is a hard core gamer. He has all the game systems, all the most popular games and will use his vacation time to run marathon gaming sessions to beat a new game in as few sittings as possible. I've asked him to look at Aces High and tell me what he thought. The only thing he liked about it was the actual fighting. Flying too a fight is a waste of "game time" flying back??? Why bother! Whats the object of the game..... just fight?
Like Fester posted in the other thread, running "grinds" to finish side quest and such is an attractive option for these players, there is an END GAME. Fighting doesn't end, there is always another fight. To a gamer there is no end game. So fighting isn't that attractive to a gamer. Capture a base... end game. Win the war.... end game.
Why do you think COD and WoW have "new updates" with these big changes, new worlds, different eras, different weapons? Because they KNOW the players will get bored and move on. If they bring out the new stuff often enough they can keep them happy and playing. Unfortunately that is how todays gamers are. That is the gaming world they were brought up in and it is how they are "trained".
Don't get me wrong, I love this game and will be here until they close the doors.... just like Air Warrior (they said that one wouldn't die too). I thing the reason the numbers are dropping as slow as they are is because of the awesome people at HTC. They have put out one heck of a product, I just don't think it is enough to KEEP todays players on board.
