Is Aces High II soon to become just a memory of good times past?

[bustr]

Skyyr I understand walls of text and am guilty of many. On the other hand, yours are looking like someone from the IRS being grilled by congress.

[Skyyr]

Skyyr I understand walls of text and am guilty of many. On the other hand, yours are looking like someone from the IRS being grilled by congress.

So you've dodged the question now for the third time whilst throwing in a red herring attempt. Got it.

[bustr]

No skyyr, I'm not playing your game. Teflon becomes you in the light of day.

[Skyyr]

No skyyr, I'm not playing your game. Teflon becomes you in the light of day.

You just can't type a single reply without trying for personal attacks, can you? Pity.

[Copprhed]

Having read your "recommendations", as one of a "dying minority", who has a modicum of intelligence and technical ability, I say keep the game the way it is. We don't need more of a group of people who know nothing about computers, planes or WW2 coming in expecting an arcade game. That the game requires some effort to learn the intricacies of is a good thing. Quit trying to make the game into pablum for the masses, we don't want or NEED that.

[Lusche]

Quit trying to make the game into pablum for the masses, we don't want or NEED that.

I think most fellows posting their proposals in here are not hoping to bring in the "masses" but simply are hoping to essentially 'save' it.

If those proposals would really work is a totally different stroy, though

[sunfan1121]

If a game is fun people will play it. If it's not fun they won't. In most cases fun means fair. Kinda simple.

[Kruel]

And then this would be "Skyyr High" and no longer "Aces High".

Seems like you should take this up with Hitech in person Skyyr if your credentials are as impressive as your focus is to change AH into your image. Removing in cockpit only views. Now that would be a whole can of unintended consequences along with making it easier for some players to not have to learn SA or ACM and just focus on grief with their running. It got the IL2 changed from a bomber to an attacker. But, then you are free to move over to WT since much of what you are taking umbrage with AH is the heart of WT.

So why not simply open a wish stating you want Hitech to copy WT and stuff his physics engine into it?

This is exactly what's wrong with the community. Do people not remember how long it took them to set up the game to get it "just right"? .(dot) commands, separate video settings in 2 different areas (in-game / out of game). All these hidden and hard to understand options like damping and deadzone and how it actually affects your control. Combat Trim..how does it work , what does it do , what difference does it make? I have been playing for 6 months and I still don't think there is a consensus among people on how exactly its used. These are easy to fix..implement Tool Tips.

Lets not talk about the graphics, I believe gameplay trumps graphics. but the UI design seems like its from the late 90's.

This game is part of a GENRE of games..it competes with OTHER games, if it wants to compete it must offer what the OTHER games offer and MORE.

A quick example I have used in the Past:

Everquest was the biggest MMO at the time, a little company named Blizzard was making a game called World of Warcraft, you know what they did? They asked the most reputable players from Everquest what they liked about EQ and what they didn't like. They implemented the things they liked and fixed the things they didnt like. WoW is the most successful MMORPG of all time with nearly 16 million players in its prime. Whats funny about it its that its CONSTANTLY changing, it keeps the game fresh. Why couldn't HTC do the same with more commercially succesful games like WT/WOP/IL2COD, AH offers one thing that none of them offer, a massive arena where everyone is in at the same time.

Now, I am not stating that HTC has the resources Blizzard did, but the changes they COULD make are relatively INEXPENSIVE and EASY to implement. Instead of fixing the graphics they should have focused on fixing the GAMEPLAY/Quality of Life and THEN polished up the game. See Minecraft as an example (retro graphics, rabid fan base).

You are predicting people will forget ACM and Run and grief yet you haven't even TRIED to see it. Have you seen some WT videos out there that discuss the very ACM topics that you are stating will disappear?

People here suffer from such kainotophobia, that in the end it is going to be 3 people in the MA and 2 of them will be in a GV.


There are such relatively easy things to implement that would vastly improve the game:

1. Smaller Arenas - Nothing sucks more than taking off and climbing for 10 minutes only to have a 30 second fight, or worse, get shot down by ack 15 miles away, get a pilot wound. If you are spending an unproportional amount time (as a new player) taking off and climbing out than you are spending time actually fighting, something is wrong. Smaller arenas would fix this somewhat as fights would be more intense and easier to find.

2. Padlock views - most other games offer an inate Padlock view, this way people don't have to spend 150$ on TrackIR and new players wont feel like they are at a competitive disadvantage if they don't get it. No need to fiddle with hatswitch views and seat positioning.

3. Updated UI/Tool Tips - Enough said the intro music feels dated/the UI looks dated and there are so many options and ways to configure the game that Tool Tips would at least help navigate this maze.


People need to be able to at least TRY these things and see how they work out. I don't know if we are beating a dead horse here. It seems HTC is more of a Hobby than it is a company that is trying to compete in the WWII online sim space.  Maybe they are wishing the glory days are coming back when there were 10,000 subs. What's worse is that everyone is here arguing about it and showing more passion for the game and we usually get nothing but silence or petty forum moderation from the devs. That's not community management, that's baby sitting.

Couldn't we have some of these issues addressed? Maybe bi-weekly update or replies to the forum posts with the most hits...SOMETHING.

[Kruel]

Having read your "recommendations", as one of a "dying minority", who has a modicum of intelligence and technical ability, I say keep the game the way it is. We don't need more of a group of people who know nothing about computers, planes or WW2 coming in expecting an arcade game. That the game requires some effort to learn the intricacies of is a good thing. Quit trying to make the game into pablum for the masses, we don't want or NEED that.

YOU don't want or need that. What you are saying is that you would rather run the game into the ground until there is nothing left rather than change and possibly flourish.

I LIKE this game the primary reason for those types of suggestions is that I WANT the game to be around. But more importantly I want more PEOPLE to play it. Why do you suspect that computer illiterate or people who don't know WWII sims or planes don't belong here. When I played Air Warrior I knew NOTHING of these things..yet here I am.

Kainotophobia at its finest..its my new favorite word..and it should be written all over these forums for people who have any recommendations that they should STEER CLEAR. The game is FINE! Although our numbers have declined heavily and new players a joining in 1 and 2s.

Stop speaking for everyone dude.

A choice remains, change and more players (if its not already too late). Or no Change and ultimate death of the game (unless its privately financed by HTC and its a hobby, then until HTCs death (I hope he's young!) )  But then again if a game comes out that Offers massive arenas and are willing to listen and respond to their player base, there will be nothing here to see anyways).

[The Fugitive]

The learning curve isn't an issue. There are players that are attracted to competitive games, as there are ones who avoid them. Neither is the cost, except to young kids and those who might not have $15 a month, but those people typically don't have gaming computers anyway.

The biggest reasons that this game is failing, from the perspective of someone who is both a programmer/developer, as well as a digital interactive team manager, are:

1. Accessibility - the game is incredibly difficult to set up for an average user. Want hi-res graphics? Download that separately. Want better sounds? Find them yourself and then install them - don't mess up or you'll have to reinstall the whole game. Even the download button is relatively low-key. As a rule of thumb, if you can't point an organically-referred user to the direct download link within 3 seconds, you'll lose them.

I don't think the game is all that tough to set up for a normal person. Today more and more players seem to like things hand fed to them as they believe it is the right  I do think the hi res graphics should automatically be part of the game in the main download and if you want them all you do is check a box and they are on. HTC has always been very careful of file size. They started in the dial-up day and worked hard to keep the code clean and so the file sizes as small as possible. Keeping things as tight as they have also goes to working with as many people as possible. Many of us have hi-speed internet and 600 meg is nothing to download, but there are still people out there who use dial-up as it is the only service available. So they have to weight that..... how many people need the smaller file sizes against how many more can they attract having all the goodies part of the main download.

2. Lack of high-end demoable gameplay - There's nothing on the site that actually shows users what gameplay looks like. Sure, there's fan-films, and there's screenshots, but nothing that shows the user what the game looks and feels like. This does two things - causes many users to be disinterested, and it causes the users who do follow-through to have false or non-existent expectations.

Agreed, the sites... both the main and the trainers site are old. Built but "old school" guys, aimed at old school guys. When we were working on ideas for the trainers site I always advocated brite, bold, in your face graphics with the use of youtube/vimeo. You need to grab their attention and hold it long enough to get them to find the Download button.

3. Graphics - Simply put, they suck. War Thunder uses a graphics engine from 2008, so stating that graphics are tied to ultra-new tech doesn't cut it. Enough said.

Not enough said. While the graphics could use an update.....and they are working on it..... comparing them to WarThunder is foolish. How big are the arenas in WT? can the hold 1000 players at once? AH are very big, and can hold 1000 players.....tho they never have at one time (arena, not server). That is where you run into the computing power. If WT tried to run maps as large as AH with 600 people on they would crash before it fully loaded.

4. Accessibility in-game - Finally, if a user manages to deal with all of the above, then what? Now they have to set up complex views, buy software/hardware, etc. Simply put, while many of you hardcore and long-time users don't think much of it, you are a minority. A dying minority. The majority of users need to be able to control the game with minimal additional accessories. Most players who come to this game, at most, own only a joystick (if that). Dependencies on hardware and complex setups only deter new users.]/quote]

Again this goes back to "hand feeding" these people. What ever happened to working for something you want??? oh.... right, never mind 

Each of the above points acts as a filter, removing more and more players through each successive hurdle, until there are very, very few left. Those that make it then face a steeper learning curve, a hard-to-use UI, etc.

Streamlining the website for accessibility (easy to do), putting together some amazing footage/gameplay - not the usual crap, but something visually amazing that sucks the player in (example: Str8 Rippin Halo 3)  (also relatively easy), updating the graphics (already underway), and fixing the ingame UI and removing the in-cockpit views only (moderately difficult) would go a LONG way for the game's longevity.

Sure some things need to be done.... we won't even bother discussing the "removing the in-cockpit views only" thats just stupid. While I do have TrackIR I rarely use it as it hurts my already horrible aim. I have used a Hat switch for over a dozen years and I have very rarely lost sight of a plane, or even 4-5. It just takes a bit of practice.....oh wait, were getting into that "working for it" thing again.

[LCADolby]

If a game is fun people will play it. If it's not fun they won't. In most cases fun means fair. Kinda simple.

People need to know about it.

Wanted: Quality Advertising.

[TequilaChaser]

Skyyr,

I don't know what you mean about the UI being difficult to use or why you would say the graphics aren't appealing... I would search and read up on the ability AH has of rendering every object/vehicle, plane and at the distances from a player's position the game is actually calculating all other surrounding opponents up to something like 17 miles ( drawing from memory, I may be a little off here )
AH has alot more engine under the hood, this being I think IIRC the 3rd graphics engine and 2nd or 3rdcomputing? <--- might be wrong here...am on my phone so haven't bothered to go and refresh my memory

BTW, AH II was changed back to just "AcesHigh" like it was originally... about 3 or so years ago

Chilli, yep I knew I left a good number off... The 367th, Freebirds, WOT, hmm that squad the seahawks? they had ch at end of some of their gameids... The 327th and several more, heck the muskies...

I'm with Fish42's post regarding not removing in cockpit views and AH has padlock view ability, I believe it is F8 or F9

 

TC

[Gman]

That's very true regarding WT, graphics, and comparing them to AH.  It's apples and oranges due to the arena/player number size.  HT made a very accurate post I'll go find regarding the ins and outs of terrain graphics, model graphics, and how it all affects performance based on the size of the environment.  The horsepower needed to run WT graphics in an AH arena would price almost everyone out of the game, and those who could play it would be complaining up a storm over performance, or lack thereof.

So far as file size, I don't think it's an issue any longer, ask HTC how many clients are on dial up.  Most games now treat this as a completely irrelevant issue, Star Citizen with the millions of players just in alpha released with a 10 gig download, Arma3, Rome 2, every MMO out there - all of them have massive files in relation to AH, and it sure hasn't affected their numbers.  I agree that in the beginning many HTC customers were on dialup, I remember having an @home email addy in 1999 when I first started playing, and everyone would instantly say "you have a cable modem", like it was a pot of gold or something.  Now it's the reverse, if you're on dialup, and in almost every case it's due to the unavailability of anything else due to location (farm, acreages, etc).   But now, say even in the last 5 years, high speed is available even in area where it was impossible before. I realize there are a few clients still using dial up, and I'll bet it's single digits % wise, likely under 5% if I was to wager $.   My summer place is at a lake in the middle of knowhere Canada, 87 miles from the nearest city over 500 people, and I have wireless high speed 7mbit there even now, and get 100 ping to HTC.  


Regarding fairness and game action speed - it's impossible to regulate fairness in this type of game IMO, the aircraft are inherently different in performance - unfair.  Second accounts impossible to stop - unfair (to those that care, which isn't me).  Large groups end up fighting small groups - unfair.  It isn't an easy environment to try and maintain some sort of "fair" combat, like say a 4 v 4 in Quake, where everyone has the same weapons, and only skill, and ping time make any difference in the outcome.

Game speed - well, groups of vocal people have tried unsuccessfully to lobby for change in this area with a large number of issues, from the base locations, map sizes, 12 hour rule, and on and on.  It typically starts with a "not going to happen" response, then progresses to angry posts, which then ends up with punishments being handed out.  Outside of posting something in the wishlist forum, players don't seem to be generally encouraged to pipe up with their ideas, and lobby for them to be integrated, even on a trial basis.  Game changes seem to be very methodically considered, and metered out in a "long view" sort of way, IMO at least.  It is what it is, and like everything else, likely won't be changing anytime soon unless HTC decides so.

[BuckShot]

No padlock views, too gamey: I'll never use track ir. I don't want to move my head around to play. I've never had a problem with the hat for views or blind spots. I don't use pedals for similar reasons; I sit sideways, kneel if my back hurts, etc.

No FA/ turd thunder style gun cam view: it would remove some of the realism that makes AH what it is. It would allow straight down views. Want to look straight down? Point the nose that way or bank and look sideways.

I was in FA for about three years before it shut down. Had I seen AH when I discovered FA, I would have never downloaded that crap. (advertising! I agree)

[craz07]

All about the non-arcadiness... Reduce field of views, adjust sounds/sound levels.. add new terrain and refined cockpit art and you have a worthwhile online game all day..