Please decommsion the big maps.

[Vraciu]

It is true and has been shown to be true in multiple online flight sims.  You can ask HiTech yourself, he'll tell you the same thing I as I did.

Examples please. 

My experience shows the opposite.   People sideswitch for balance. 

[bustr]

Hitech's explanation for three sides. Your opinion is your opinion. Hitech's game is Hitech's game. Argue with him directly to get two sides in the Wish List rather than all of these drive by sniping contests.

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TT We are going to remain 3 sides in the main arena.
What 3 sides does for arena play.

1. It balances out 1 side having more players than the other.

2. It Spreds the fights out accross the arena. If you only have 2 sides you would see a lot more of everyone fighting in 1 spot.

3. It provides everone with more enemys to fight. If all 3 sides are = numbers you always have 2 enemys to fight for your sides 1.

4. It creates a more dynamic enviorment because who each country is attacking changes . As opposed to 2 sides where you are always attacking the same side.

5. Countryies devlope a personality over time. With 3 countries we end up with a more diverse flavor.

HiTech

[hitech]

(Image removed from quote.)

I'm making a bit of a joke here, but serious in this way.  A good portion of the life of Air Warrior had many fewer players than Aces High, yet it was fun to play and very active, even down to only 4-6 players online.  Why?  Because players/area was still fine.  When there were 4-6 players up, you flew and encountered them.  They weren't flying off somewhere impossible to interact with.

Sectors in Air Warrior, by the way, were 12 miles x 12 miles.  So the above map would fit in about 1.5 by 1.5 sectors in Aces High.

Action is all about players/area.

If you have 40 players, but a terrain where there is a person here, then 4 sectors away another person, and so on -- there will be no action.  It will be no more exciting that flying offline.

If you have 40 players, but a terrain that is 3 sectors by 3 sectors, you will have action and plenty of it.

It just depends.  Does your on-line multiplayer flight-combat company make more money in the long term catering to people who want an offline flying experience while flying online or catering to people who want many-on-many fighting while flying online?

I'm here for many-on-many fighting among humans.  Without that, it has no appeal to me.

btw brooke the map would be equivalent to a 3x3 sector terrain in AH do to the 1/2 time velocities.

HiTech

[Latrobe]

OK, just download this image, open it, and paint. It is 10 (25mile x 25mile) sectors which is the small terrain 256x256. Show us what you are talking about in terms of a better terrain for our current numbers in the MA. Some of this audience should be able to talk about base placement theory for funneling of fights as the fronts change. Or to change the fronts.


(Image removed from quote.)

There, I made one. I call it LinkedLakes. Now someone go make this for me because I literally have no time to spare to learn how to use the terrain editor and create it myself.

[Vraciu]

We need a "Wheel of Fortune" like map.   Starting at one o'clock and moving around. R K B R K B R K B.  Now you have a dozen fronts. 


I would love a map that's based on real geography, too.  Surely one can find a balanced way to do that, no?

[Vraciu]

There, I made one. I call it LinkedLakes. Now someone go make this for me because I literally have no time to spare to learn how to use the terrain editor and create it myself.

I like it. 

[guncrasher]

We need a "Wheel of Fortune" like map.   Starting at one o'clock and moving around. R K B R K B R K B.  Now you have a dozen fronts. 


I would love a map that's based on real geography, too.  Surely one can find a balanced way to do that, no?

provide one example.

semp

[bustr]

I like it. 

With the AH3 terrain editor, it would take you 1 month if you didn't want super detailed 4mile x 4mile terrain geo features around each field. The actual land masses, use the elevation tool and work back from SL changing the elevation in steps to follow the changes in color on the work sheet. You can set it in multiples of 1000 to increase each step, then you will have giant irregular blocks of sand stacked up on each other.

Then use the increase\decrease tool set between 200 and .2 and cut away everything that shouldn't be there. Easycor or Greebo can explain the terrain tiles and painting for elevations. Once you have a giant empty clutter and tree painted land mass, they can tell you how to lay down bases, ports with task forces and the strats. You can crank it out looking at playability versus eyecandy. Use the cloud editor and simply place 25k heavy stratus layers over the whole terrain so you don't have to get too deep in the bushes with the cloud editor. Greebo has gotten very good with it due to CraterMA, so the stratus layers will be eezy peezy.

With your graphics program skills the terrain editor should be a snore for you.

[DmonSlyr]

There, I made one. I call it LinkedLakes. Now someone go make this for me because I literally have no time to spare to learn how to use the terrain editor and create it myself.

I actually think that would work. Obviously a few modifications perhaps, but all three sides could fight each other, close bases, easier to up from a back base to defend. Looks like there would be plenty of opportunity to find fights. The altitude would be pretty low. I could see some big battles.

[save]

The important factor is how many fields the front line consist of.
 Dolby's map example could also be larger, facing max 3-4 fields in width, enough for 30 players on each side to be able up and defend them on each front.

[Oldman731]

I cannot for the life of me understand ANYONE wanting air spawns, that is just plain stupid.

Well, OK, you've discovered my closely-kept secret.  Here I thought I was fooling people.

I love air spawns.  Only useful way to raise the fights from deck to historical altitudes.

- oldman

[Vraciu]

provide one example.

semp

You guys are the brainiacs, not me. 

[Vraciu]

With the AH3 terrain editor, it would take you 1 month if you didn't want super detailed 4mile x 4mile terrain geo features around each field. The actual land masses, use the elevation tool and work back from SL changing the elevation in steps to follow the changes in color on the work sheet. You can set it in multiples of 1000 to increase each step, then you will have giant irregular blocks of sand stacked up on each other.

Then use the increase\decrease tool set between 200 and .2 and cut away everything that shouldn't be there. Easycor or Greebo can explain the terrain tiles and painting for elevations. Once you have a giant empty clutter and tree painted land mass, they can tell you how to lay down bases, ports with task forces and the strats. You can crank it out looking at playability versus eyecandy. Use the cloud editor and simply place 25k heavy stratus layers over the whole terrain so you don't have to get too deep in the bushes with the cloud editor. Greebo has gotten very good with it due to CraterMA, so the stratus layers will be eezy peezy.

With your graphics program skills the terrain editor should be a snore for you.

My laptop can't handle the editor.   If the day comes I upgrade this is something I would consider doing.   

I still have a lot to learn about skinning, too.  Trying to decide if I should wait until AH3 to update my skins or just do them all now. 

[bustr]

Manually creating a terrain in the editor is easier than creating skins, just time consuming. It becomes complicated when you want to automate all of the geo feature creation through third party code interfaces that it becomes graphics design rocket science. Check out the beta forum and talk to Easycor, artik, Greebo and 715 for help at that level.

If you have 8G of ram and at least a Core duo, you should be able to create a 10x10. Running a build takes it's own time because of all the data being processed. Go shopping and let it run while you look for Christmas present for the grand kids.

[ghi]

Imo, the 2nd ever worst  setting for this game (after arena split few years ago) is the 7 ( seven days , 1 week) !! maps auto-reset time; I hate large maps, (this game was more fun on H2H arenas 8 playes, 2 teams on 4 bases maps) ; but i understand there was a democratic vote and majority wants to keep the large maps in rotation.
  Ok, i respect your taste, but why 7 days same map?  we are spending most of the time on boring dead large maps, ; it's almost impossible to reset the maps earlier with this low# and increased base capture difficulty. Imo map auto-reset time reduced to 24 or 48 hours would improve the quality of gaming, won or not just change it  around 4AM ET, every day or 2nd day, when the # are low and doesn't affect the war effort.