MA Off-peak is dying

[GScholz]

If they go F2P, it would be better to put a $/Gold/whatever price on late war and popular aircraft. People can fly a limited set of aircraft for free, and have to buy the "premium" rides for real money. Subscription is a business model that is fast becoming obsolete in the gaming industry.

[ReVo]

If they go F2P, it would be better to put a $/Gold/whatever price on late war and popular aircraft. People can fly a limited set of aircraft for free, and have to buy the "premium" rides for real money. Subscription is a business model that is fast becoming obsolete in the gaming industry.

F2P is going to bring in a crowd that I don't think any of us want. The game can survive without it.

[Vraciu]

F2P is going to bring in a crowd that I don't think any of us want. The game can survive without it.

The game can survive.   Famous last words.  See the folks over at Totalsims about that delusion.

[-aper-]

If they go F2P, it would be better to put a $/Gold/whatever price on late war and popular aircraft. People can fly a limited set of aircraft for free, and have to buy the "premium" rides for real money. Subscription is a business model that is fast becoming obsolete in the gaming industry.

You are right -  more options is always better. But for the quick start without tweaking a lot existing system/customer base  it is good enough  to begin with F2P (EW) and subscription options. If F2P numbers rise quickly it is time to add planes-for-cash options and other flexible payment solutions.

[-aper-]

F2P is going to bring in a crowd that I don't think any of us want. The game can survive without it.

I believe any us would love to spot the crowd of D3A's or Spit1's instead of flying on an empty map.

[guncrasher]

So if I'm willing to limit myself to EW equipment I don't have to pay?  I'm all in on that!

me too, some ew planes are actually pretty good .


semp

[guncrasher]

I believe any us would love to spot the crowd of D3A's or Spit1's instead of flying on an empty map.

I once saw a crowd of d3a's with my pony, them bastages in my country killed them all before I could get there.  we didnt lose a single plane.


semp

[Vraciu]

Small maps for low numbers time periods.

Bring back the free 8 player arenas.

Ditch MW and EW arenas.

Update cockpit graphics.

Enable lead computing gunsights for new players.   First 30 days.

Disable the lead computing gunsight after ten victories.  That way it isn't abused and noobs can get the taste of shooting down an enemy.  Then they might get hooked.

Perhaps allow Spit I free unlimited or something...

[Megalodon]

I wonder if a "beginners' arena" would help keep new players (an arena available only to accounts with less than X kills, with maybe some AI set to beginner skill flying around).  You'd have to preclude access by accounts from any credit card that ever had an account attached to it with more than X kills (so that you can cut down on losers to try to swindle their way into the arena when they shouldn't be there).

Also, in addition to stall limiter, maybe have blackout/redout limiter, with all the limiters and autotakeoff being enabled upon fresh install of the program RR.

Anything AW is not welcome here.

Newb arena ... No
RR......No

 

[Brooke]

Yep, I remember the relaxed-realism arena in AW.  The problem, though, was that the RR arena didn't seem very effective at getting more people into the FR arena.  RR players who tried FR found it hard, and they got shot down, and they went back to RR.  FR players fretted about how to get RR players to graduate to FR and stay there.

I think it's better to have options to turn off (if you want) in the Main Arena.  You are then in the Main Arena, not separated.  You can turn off the options if you wish.  It makes it simpler to fly, but has performance disadvantages (stall limiter doesn't allow you to pull as many g's as if you have it turned off, same for blackout/redout limiter if those were enabled, etc.).

[SlidingHorn]

A lot of these suggestions are essentially abandoning the entire concept of a flight simulator.  I get that we want to attract new players, but sacrificing what this game is at its core is entirely the wrong way to go about doing so. 

I can't speak for others, but for me, the difficulty and learning curve were a very large part of the draw for me to begin with.

If HTC wants to bring in more players, the answer is marketing.  You advertise, you update your website (so much needed here - there's a whole thread for it, but in short: a blog for generating lots of fresh content - which will help the next part, optimizing the site for search engine visibility {this is SEVERELY lacking at present}, and modernizing its design), extend your trial period to allow new users to get their feet under them before having to pay, and maybe offer incentives for referrals.  Say, get a month or so free for any referrals that subscribe after their trial.

The loss of quality players that would likely result from scaling down the realism and difficulty would FAR outweigh any benefits of an influx new, inexperienced, and unskilled (not that I have much room to talk here) arcade-jockeys.   

[Oldman731]

A lot of these suggestions are essentially abandoning the entire concept of a flight simulator.  I get that we want to attract new players, but sacrificing what this game is at its core is entirely the wrong way to go about doing so. 

Thank you!  I agree 100%.

- oldman

[nrshida]

Maybe it isn't logical to try and make AH similar to other games i.e. graphically astounding and easily accessible. Perhaps a better strategy would be to exploit its uniqueness such as the unrivaled flight simulation and realism. Are there many other simulators in this line?

How about giving players like Dolby (for example) and the others who excel at making movies some incentive to do so, say if they release a vid each every three months and setting up an area on the forum where we can all contribute ahf files as raw material. There's an awful lot of Dogfights episodes and other WWII aviation videos on YouTube, ensure Aces High vids are always suggested afterwards too. This might bring unexpected customers and places no workload on HTC.

How about increasing the trial period from two weeks to a month? Two weeks possibly too short to get anywhere on the learning curve.

Another suggestion is to make the TA a more interesting place, a place where even experienced players would hang out for fun, perhaps with an aerial parcour over the lake say, with different degrees of difficulty (something like the old Pilot's Wings game). This way new players could be encouraged and assisted, much more so than an empty TA.

I've seen two retired people join in the last month, perhaps that is an interesting demographic to recruit from. One of these is presently having a problem getting up to speed to take off. Minor issues like that should be jumped all over by an introduction session with a trainer or a manual.

Just some thoughts <shrug>

[Brooke]

I'm not sure either if such a thing (swarms of point-and-click mouse players) would work.  First is that they would probably only play if it were free, so the initial part adds no revenue for HTC.  Then, to get to real flying, they'd have to pay and suffer the shock of really flying an airplane, which means that probably few of them would make that transition.  The key would be how many of them make the transition.  Meanwhile, it might mean that the typical plane we engage in the game is a horrendously flown point-and-click plane, and so fights for us would degrade greatly in quality.  Also, you'd have to make the point-and-click flying so much worse than more-realistic flying that you don't lose current customers who decide to save $15/month and go to the free point-and-click play.  It's hard to know if it would work OK or disastrously backfire.

[SlidingHorn]

Maybe it isn't logical to try and make AH similar to other games i.e. graphically astounding and easily accessible. Perhaps a better strategy would be to exploit its uniqueness such as the unrivaled flight simulation and realism. Are there many other simulators in this line?

How about giving players like Dolby (for example) and the others who excel at making movies some incentive to do so, say if they release a vid each every three months and setting up an area on the forum where we can all contribute ahf files as raw material. There's an awful lot of Dogfights episodes and other WWII aviation videos on YouTube, ensure Aces High vids are always suggested afterwards too. This might bring unexpected customers and places no workload on HTC.

How about increasing the trial period from two weeks to a month? Two weeks possibly too short to get anywhere on the learning curve.

Another suggestion is to make the TA a more interesting place, a place where even experienced players would hang out for fun, perhaps with an aerial parcour over the lake say, with different degrees of difficulty (something like the old Pilot's Wings game). This way new players could be encouraged and assisted, much more so than an empty TA.

I've seen two retired people join in the last month, perhaps that is an interesting demographic to recruit from. One of these is presently having a problem getting up to speed to take off. Minor issues like that should be jumped all over by an introduction session with a trainer or a manual.

Just some thoughts <shrug>

+1

I especially like the idea of adding to the TA:  Maybe add an obstacle course or two, similar to the Red Bull Air Races?