I've been thinking about the game lately. I'm making a bit of a return after a couple months off and an extended period of low play time.
My first thought the other night was that the "give-up" factor is a lot higher now than I ever remember it being. By that I mean enemy attacking a base will simply give up much sooner than in the past if there's a defense.
My second thought was that the fights are much better than I remember recently. I've been able to get into (largely) one-on-ones every time I log on. Oh sure, a countryman usually ends up joining one side or the other but you expect that in the MA. I'm rusty but it also seems to me the overall skill level of those willing to fight has improved.
I was also thinking about the long running land-grabber vs furballer debate/divide. I need to point out I'm neither but instead a strategic chess player or suicidal maniac as my mood and skill, or lack thereof, dictate.
I think when people join the game, once they figure out how to operate the planes and vehicles, they simply want to do something to help out their country, whichever it is. It's a basic desire to be liked by the community. If you do something to help people will like you. I know when I first started here, I'd look at the map and go wherever the odds were worst against us. I've gotten smarter about that but it was my way of trying to help. No one still liked me. I jest.
All these people looking for a way to help will follow different paths depending on their interests and skill levels. They'll congrgate in similiar circles. They'll form tight knit bonds, reinforcing their direction. They'll form squads and sometimes MEGA-SQUADS. Now imagine a player, online just hanging out with his MEGA-SQUAD looking at the map trying to figure out how to help and make all his squad-mates successful and liked by his countrymen. The choice is clear.
Now furballers... they really don't provide that much help to their country. Their game is mono a mono... fight and live or die. Rinse and repeat. Some of the aformentioned new people inevitably joined to experience WWI or WWII airial combat. They'll eventually become furballers but even they will sucomb to wanting to be liked, if only for a brief period. How can you be liked if you're not helping? How can you have fun fighting buildings. Oh the internal strife the furballer faces when he first joins Aces High. They blow up their last building before their head explodes although the blast radius is quite impressive I hear.
OK, actually these guys go one of two directions; deadly hunter or furballer (or target... can you imagine signing up to be a deadly hunter or a furballer and end up a target? Oops... might have made a bad choice). Also deadly hunter's are still helping by taking planes out of the sky. Aren't furballers doing that too? Well, yes, technically, but they're just other furballers and they don't count.
Well anyway, there's a bunch of wildly random thoughts after "coming back" so to speak.
I
![salute :salute](http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/salute.gif)
the diversity within the game and all those players who have chosen differnt paths. There's room for everyone.