About the new terrain

[MrRiplEy[H]]

That sounds very much like the software you buy like office or windows, or any game on steam.... except I didn't pay anything ..... free.... for this one.

I suggest you re-read the EULA and then come back lol. Or if HTC really gives away the source code I'm interested.

Again, this is YOUR idea of growth, not every ones.

Yep, not yours obviously. But for the rest of the planet... An investment is not growth. It's an act that enables growth usually but if it never turns into one then it's just a loss.

[68ZooM]

MrRipley makes good points.

My question is this: How is it that F2P games thrive and make money?  Ads? 

They make alot of coin off the premium items be it tanks or planes ( depending on the F2P Game) theres always those players that must have the strongest and best items of such F2P games. F2P Games bank on a certian percentage of the player base that will buy the premium items.

[Sunka]

I agree. It is. But it's profitable. If AH would have a F2p arena with micro transactions and a subscription hardcore MA perhaps it would be best of both worlds.

O for sure,its working for the kids these days.
I want Aces High to be here 15 years from now,so i do try and not looking at it from my point of few, but the masses.
And i see many many good ideas on how to make the game important and profitable for a long time.
But one needs a "set", to pull the trigger and risk what is comfortable,and that can be hard.

[The Fugitive]

I suggest you re-read the EULA and then come back lol. Or if HTC really gives away the source code I'm interested.

Yep, not yours obviously. But for the rest of the planet... An investment is not growth. It's an act that enables growth usually but if it never turns into one then it's just a loss.

Nobody said anything about the source code. Much like every other software you BUY you are allowed to use it but not allowed to edit it or distribute it. AH software is the same but you don't have to BUY it....hence free.

I also never said what my definition of growth is either. I wouldn't presume to tell anyone what HTC's definition of growth is either. I just suggested what some peoples idea of growth may be. The point is "technology" doesn't seem to be the issue with the game right now.

[Vraciu]

Micro transactions. You pay a dime here dollar there, to get a better plane, better cannon ammo etc. If you have a lot of users it turns up as big bucks.

I don't pay anything on PSN to kill zombies with other players.  Why isn't that a viable option for HTC?

[Arlo]

They sell software and if hardware requirements are kept at 15 year old levels just because a small portion of customers still use literally ancient hardware, it may be a bad business decision if it means that it makes the game unattractive for new customers.

Because exaggeration makes one's argument better.  What business school are you a grad of?

Let's talk budget and return. 

[Arlo]

No they give the software away and rent out an environment for players to get together and play. The software they give away is structured to be used by as many players/systems as possible to allow the widest range of playablity for the largest subscription base they can get.

Rip, you get it? 

[Arlo]

But if that's the case then HTC is in big trouble.

Well, Mr. Sunshine. Doom and gloom if it's not your way is fun to read and all
but don't let that stand in the way of me not taking you seriously. 

[Arlo]

Dunno. I love AH but I have simply no time to invest to it anymore.

That's a Rip decision not an AH failure. 

[XxDaSTaRxx]

anybody got a face palm picture?


semp

There you go  

Or, if you feel you need to be a bigger arse about it

[wiskyfog]

Are the titanium and carbon fiber indestructable bushes still turning over 40 ton tanks?

[Karnak]

They sell software and if hardware requirements are kept at 15 year old levels just because a small portion of customers still use literally ancient hardware, it may be a bad business decision if it means that it makes the game unattractive for new customers.

15 years.  

15 years ago 3D accelerators were in their first generation.  The most popular was the add in board 3DFX, which came, IIRC, with 4mb of video memory.  Have fun trying to run AH on that.

When EverQuest was released in 1999 it required a 3D accelerator, the first major game to do so, and it was seen as a hugely risky move on Verrant/SOE's part to require that.  EQ's graphics compared to live AH are terrible.  The detail shown in that preview is better than World of Warcraft's 2004 release graphics and has higher texture resolutions than anything in WoW did until the end of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion when Blizzard boosted the resolution on player armor sets.  Of course a fantasy MMO like EQ or WoW only needs to display a few hundred yards of terrain at a time whereas a flight sim has to display miles of it, and the more miles it displays at once the better it feels.

In the end AH's (nor IL-2: Battle of Stalingrad's, nor War Thunder's) graphics are ever going to match a concurrent first person shooter's graphics or a third person MMO's detail level.  They can't and still provide usable view distances and frame rates.  The plane, and tank, graphics are the only places they are likely to compete as those are seen up close.  AH's plane graphics range from good on the newer units to terrible on the B-26B which dates from v1.00 released in 2000.  HTC is obviously not unaware of this as the newer units are obviously built of more polygons.  HiTech recently mentioned how many they use, but I don't recall the number, but it has gone ever up through the years.  Compare the B-26 from AH v1.00 with the A-20G from the end period of AH1 with the Ki-84 of AH v2.00 with the Mosquito Mk VI from 2010 with something recent like the Yak-3.  There are clear improvements at every step.

[Vraciu]

15 years.  

15 years ago 3D accelerators were in their first generation.  The most popular was the add in board 3DFX, which came, IIRC, with 4mb of video memory.  Have fun trying to run AH on that.

When EverQuest was released in 1999 it required a 3D accelerator, the first major game to do so, and it was seen as a hugely risky move on Verrant/SOE's part to require that.  EQ's graphics compared to live AH are terrible.  The detail shown in that preview is better than World of Warcraft's 2004 release graphics and has higher texture resolutions than anything in WoW did until the end of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion when Blizzard boosted the resolution on player armor sets.  Of course a fantasy MMO like EQ or WoW only needs to display a few hundred yards of terrain at a time whereas a flight sim has to display miles of it, and the more miles it displays at once the better it feels.

In the end AH's (nor IL-2: Battle of Stalingrad's, nor War Thunder's) graphics are ever going to match a concurrent first person shooter's graphics or a third person MMO's detail level.  They can't and still provide usable view distances and frame rates.  The plane, and tank, graphics are the only places they are likely to compete as those are seen up close.  AH's plane graphics range from good on the newer units to terrible on the B-26B which dates from v1.00 released in 2000.  HTC is obviously not unaware of this as the newer units are obviously built of more polygons.  HiTech recently mentioned how many they use, but I don't recall the number, but it has gone ever up through the years.  Compare the B-26 from AH v1.00 with the A-20G from the end period of AH1 with the Ki-84 of AH v2.00 with the Mosquito Mk VI from 2010 with something recent like the Yak-3.  There are clear improvements at every step.

Never say never.  Gates said nobody would ever need more than 256kb of RAM.    Well, if you run Linux that may be true, but we all know that tech moves faster than the imagination of even Star Trekkers. 

[kvuo75]

I don't pay anything on PSN to kill zombies with other players.  Why isn't that a viable option for HTC?

I don't know of any console game that I've played for almost 20 years.

[Vraciu]

I don't know of any console game that I've played for almost 20 years.

I do. Herzog Zwei. 

Since 1990.