I think in the new version of AH, we may see an arena or two with a set up like this that would have PvE and PvP staged missions where players have to defend and intercept mass bombing raids.
I can tell you where staged missions left off when most resources started concentrating on AH3. There were two main users of missions FBKrabby in the custom arenas and me in the AvA and later, the playroom. We had the ability to run missions but the system was still a work in progress. We were not really able to build a following partially because the missions would often crash.
We had started doing missions in the AvA that just ran in the background and players did not have to join the mission roster but there needed to be an admin available to start them. We really couldn't do multiple missions with a beginning and ending, so we made some very, very long missions and planes would fly around in circles for hours.
Then we got the mission scheduler. This was a helluva tool. We could run a big bombing mission on one side and then one on the opposite side an hour later. At this time I was also given access to the "playroom arena" because the AvA wasn't meant to be a dedicated mission arena.
In the play room, I could set up missions on a variety of terrains and they would run on a schedule. I could set up a battle of Britain mission and when that was over, the arena could change terrains to Burma for Flying tigers and then to N Africa for a Desert Air force mission, etc, all the way back to starting over with BOB.
Most of the missions I intended for the playroom, had a lot of content with a combination of terrain building with custom 3D objects and the mission system. Most had sound effects, some music, simulated radio chatter, custom briefing rooms with detailed briefings, etc.
The only problem was the mission system broke and I could make no more working missions, and HTC had to move on to the graphics update.
I believe that when the new version comes out so we will once again see these things and more, but I don't think the LW is where it's going to happen.
