Positives IMO in point form
- Extremely solid foundation dating back over 15 years now.
- Exceptionally positive phone customer service (somewhat of a paradox compared to some of the occasional hostility/frustration on the bbs at times, but that said, easily among the best or the very best of any gaming company I've ever had telecoms with).
- Staying power. Again, that whole 15 years thing.
- Despite all of the things that many think could improve the game not being implemented or even entertained, I always have fun every single time I play. Still. I can't think of anything that truly drives me to frustration when playing vis a vis the game itself.
- A singular experience. This goes back to point number 1. Having created the genre post AW (I'm talking about WB), HT and his crew made 2 large evolutionary jumps froward in the genre of MMO gaming, having really invented it in many ways. The first IMO was the jump from WB to AH, and the 2nd was from AH1 to AH2 or whatever you want to call what we play now. Hopefully the long, long wait for jump 3 (it's been over a decade in coming IMO) will be as positive and entertaining as the first 2 leaps forward were.
- The community. I've played a lot of online games, like many here, and I've never seen a place like this before, with acquaintances that have stayed in touch for what will be closing in on 2 decades in just a few short years. Guys you like, love, dislike, and even hate - it all makes it worth sticking around IMO. I've never seen another game where such respect is shown for fallen members, in the form of both forum threads as well as in game memorial flights and the like.
- The cost. When the game first went live with subscription, it was 29.95$ USD, and back then, due to the strength of the US dollar to the Canadian one, the cost was anywhere from 49$ to 52$ depending on the bank charts, which resulted in large amounts of wife ack, considering early cable and dsl service was around 55$ back then, resulting in a 100$ a month cost just to play. Arguments that WB and AW had cost 300$ in past years just didn't act as a strong argument as I thought it would, trying to suppress the wife ack with a SEAD mission of comparison to past higher prices. Then came the "test", which brought about one of the first really nasty forum battles, but turned out to be the best thing for every customer, as the 14.95$ price decrease was the end result. It was, and still is, an extremely good deal, even considering it's been the exact same game really for the last 4 years or so - I'm happy to pay 15$ for the same deal, as are many others.
- Hope for the future. One of the major reasons I've stuck around is that some new stuff is on the horizon. I know many others have a similar outlook in this regard. I'm very hopeful that some game adjustments and improvements coming in the new version/beta/etc will help HTC with the as stated need for new players to flow in, and hopefully many of these "new" players will be old ones as well, coming out of the woodwork. It should be quite the reunion. Some 500 and 600 player nights with a new update will be just the ticket to quash any of the current misgivings that pop up here on the forum.
