The virtual environments of Aces High are BY DEFINITION an Open world / Sandbox (as I understand the terms are interchangeable). "An open world is a type of video game level design where a player can roam freely through a virtual world and is given considerable freedom in choosing how or when to approach objectives" [1].
Open World refers to games that allow the user to travel anywhere within the mappable game region.
Sandbox can be used to describe the same when speaking strictly about the accessible environment; however, it is more often used to describe games (usually MMORPG's) where users do not have class-restrictions, fixed rules of engagement, etc. set out before them (i.e. they can build their characters and setups any way they'd like, as you could in a sandbox). Star Wars Galaxies was such a game, where there was no restrictions on class, no stats, no in-game games, etc. Compare that to WOW, where you are restricted to classes, have set competitions, battles, etc. That is typically what is meant by "sandbox" environment.
In a sandbox game, most all aspects of gameplay are player-driven/determined (players set the economy, the prices, the rules, the alliances, etc.). FPS and combat games, by nature, are almost never sandbox games. In that regard, the Main Arena is
not a sandbox game - the DA, by comparison, could somewhat fit the description.
I'm a developer/programmer.
Allow me to point out a huge gulf in your logic: you claim this is the only correct or least deviant way to play the game. However your very success and your modus operandi DEPENDS on others not operating to your criteria. Your tactic, approach and philosophy can only be effected by preying on those who do turn fight, who do fly slower non BnZ aircraft, on those who do fly alone or in lesser numbers that you do. This is the reason for your mechanistic "don't give a damn" default clause. This least deviant belief of yours could not exist if everyone thought like you.
Not true whatsoever. In fact, your very statement suggests you've never played a combat sim where e-fighting and snapshots are quite the norm (hint: we have). You imply that BnZ does not work on even grounds, or rather that a pilot that exercises it is helpless against another pilot who does the same. There is so much fundamentally wrong with your assertion that it shows a complete lack of understanding for the other half of the ACM spectrum.
All Aces High would be then would be a contest of jockying for advantage, halfway between bases at the co-alt point, everyone flying in groups of BnZ aircraft with considerable diving away and running to ack as the temporal ebb and flow went back and forth and the only kills being of those who were least robotic in their execution.
I will grant you that it is very robotic in nature, but that does not make it unplayable. Quite the opposite, and, in fact, it's that "roboticness" (i.e. discipline) that determines the winner, and honestly, I find those fights quite enjoyable. Of course, that's irrelevant, my only point is that you seem to think that we've never encountered environment, when in fact we flew it daily for years.
Who else did this? Oh, Eric Hartmann did.
