So, where is the game?

[Brooke]

Howdy, Rapier.

If you stay until October 22nd, I hope that you play in the "Tunisia 1943" scenario, more details here:
http://electraforge.com/brooke/flightsims/scenarios/201610_TunisiaFeb43/registration/registration.html

I've been flying AH3 a lot offline and in special events arenas, but not much in the Main Arena.  Also, I don't use TrackIR.  So my comments below are with that caveat.

I'm flying the DX9 version, which seems pretty stable.  There are occasional crashes, but they are rare.

To me, the terrain looks nice, but I've been flying a lot on the Tunisia terrain for the upcoming scenario, which is beautiful and realistic looking except perhaps for the PSP runways.  I get no weird horizon anomalies.  I have no problems with vox.  The sounds are fine to me, but I am not very picky about sounds.  The guns sound better to me than AH2.  I haven't flown a huge amount over water, so can't comment on that.

My suggestion would be to try running aceshigh9.exe instead of aceshigh11.exe and see if that changes how often things crash for you.

[saggs]

After tinkering in the Beta a bit. I just re-subscribed after a couple years away.

Game runs just fine for me, graphics are prettier, I like the stars at night, and I found myself wishing for a ground crew to micro-mesh my canopy.

But the numbers on the other hand... ...

Most I've seen so far is >150...  Good furballs seem few and far between.  I found myself checking the map, seeing nothing going on except tank town (I'm not interested in GV) Then just waiting for an hour for a CV to get close enough to a enemy field to start up a good fight.  Then there is a good fight which only lasts for 20 minutes till somebody sinks the CV.  Then there is nothing going on again...

I miss the old days of Titanic Tuesday with 600-700+ on one map, (or even the 200-300 in the split arenas) always a couple of good furballs going on, and the base takers rolling as well.

I hope HTC has a marketing plan to attract a lot more players, otherwise I can't see myself sticking around for long.

[mutha]

I hope HTC has a marketing plan to attract a lot more players, otherwise I can't see myself sticking around for long.

My fear is that there is no one left to market to! Worries me that all I hear on Vox are geezers like me.

Maybe we can get the Russians playing world of tanks over to AH3 and then start shooting them up.

Mutha

[EskimoJoe]

If you quit, can I have your stuff?

[10thmd]

If you quit, can I have your stuff?

Best response ever

[JunkyII]

My fear is that there is no one left to market to! Worries me that all I hear on Vox are geezers like me.

Maybe we can get the Russians playing world of tanks over to AH3 and then start shooting them up.

Mutha

I know for a fact there is a younger audience in this game genre for ages 18-25...just watch Il2 or War Thunder streams on Twitch....thousands watch every day.

[Dobs]

So I'll weigh in here as a "noob" to the game.

First...never played AH2. I'm a Warbirds transplant--why did I leave? Because of low numbers and crappy game play (one person field closing and captures with no Strat at all)...

So Rapier has some valid concerns---

He cites low numbers...and I'm ecstatic to see more than 7 online in the morning, and "holy moly! 186 people online in the melee with almost that many in an event...at the same time!!"  It is all perspective.

With the varied styles of game play available, people gravitate toward what they are good at--and some are good at all--and some are the guys who think the wright brothers should have stuck to building bicycles--but it is what it is.

So Dobs opinion (that and $3.50 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks):

So this started as a fighter sim, and should keep its focus as fighter sim. That doesn't mean exclude, ignore, or degrade the non-fighter players...just means the heart and soul of the game are in its fighter roots.

Missing in gunnery--yep..I miss....alot!  Why? Because the gunnery here is more realistic than where I came from, and from what I've heard, more realistic than AH2.  I think the bullets are closer to "right sized" now hence the difficulty. 

Graphics are nice, but as pointed out, are not the end all, be all of "OUR" generation of cyber pilots...we grew up with pyramid shaped mountains, land was green, water was blue, and 1024x768 on a 17" CRT was rocking it.  However, the new generation looks at game and goes "WOW!! LOOK AT THOSE GRAPHICS!!", and then reads the specs to see if their system will run it....caveat being Minecraft:) 

But honestly if your computer is struggling to run this game...you are WAY behind in keeping up with current tech.  You don't need a cutting edge card...you don't need the newest bestest CPU....you just need 2012 technology to play.  If you are a golfer and you have been playing for 5 or more years, I've bet you bought another set of clubs already...if you are a simmer..this is your hobby. Support yourself in what you do (hard part is getting the missus to agree sometimes!).

Finding a fight has not been an issue, although sometimes it seems I have to go a little further to get one.  But that is part of the game.  HiTech has done several things to "promote the fight" in the game...with DarBar being one of the best. 

Does the game have quirks...yep!  Water is one of them...but by god, I have a cross check that would make a rat with ADD and Parkinson  look tame when I'm fighting over it....

But in the few weeks I've been here (Just completed week 3), I've found that Hitech is making constant, customer driven changes. We find a bug, he fixes it. In the hierarchy of software development, you have "Must Fixes, need to fix eventually, and "enhancements"".  So he is going to fix the Must fixes first, and then prioritize resources on the next two. 

I'm willing to go along for the ride and pay my "movie ticket and drink" price for a months worth of entertainment....

Cheers!
Dobs

[DmonSlyr]

My fear is that there is no one left to market to! Worries me that all I hear on Vox are geezers like me.

Maybe we can get the Russians playing world of tanks over to AH3 and then start shooting them up.

Mutha

IMO, it's about marketing to the masses rather than marketing to specific target markets. Even though its way more expensive. If you can get a commercial on FOX news or the actual History Channel or on CBS during a football game, instead of a military channel that people have to pay to watch, and that has an incredibly small market already, you will see a major jump in #s at least for the 2 week trial.

I realize it's very expensive, but it would work.

[DmonSlyr]

So I'll weigh in here as a "noob" to the game.

First...never played AH2. I'm a Warbirds transplant--why did I leave? Because of low numbers and crappy game play (one person field closing and captures with no Strat at all)...

So Rapier has some valid concerns---

He cites low numbers...and I'm ecstatic to see more than 7 online in the morning, and "holy moly! 186 people online in the melee with almost that many in an event...at the same time!!"  It is all perspective.

With the varied styles of game play available, people gravitate toward what they are good at--and some are good at all--and some are the guys who think the wright brothers should have stuck to building bicycles--but it is what it is.

So Dobs opinion (that and $3.50 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks):

So this started as a fighter sim, and should keep its focus as fighter sim. That doesn't mean exclude, ignore, or degrade the non-fighter players...just means the heart and soul of the game are in its fighter roots.

Missing in gunnery--yep..I miss....alot!  Why? Because the gunnery here is more realistic than where I came from, and from what I've heard, more realistic than AH2.  I think the bullets are closer to "right sized" now hence the difficulty. 

Graphics are nice, but as pointed out, are not the end all, be all of "OUR" generation of cyber pilots...we grew up with pyramid shaped mountains, land was green, water was blue, and 1024x768 on a 17" CRT was rocking it.  However, the new generation looks at game and goes "WOW!! LOOK AT THOSE GRAPHICS!!", and then reads the specs to see if their system will run it....caveat being Minecraft:) 

But honestly if your computer is struggling to run this game...you are WAY behind in keeping up with current tech.  You don't need a cutting edge card...you don't need the newest bestest CPU....you just need 2012 technology to play.  If you are a golfer and you have been playing for 5 or more years, I've bet you bought another set of clubs already...if you are a simmer..this is your hobby. Support yourself in what you do (hard part is getting the missus to agree sometimes!).

Finding a fight has not been an issue, although sometimes it seems I have to go a little further to get one.  But that is part of the game.  HiTech has done several things to "promote the fight" in the game...with DarBar being one of the best. 

Does the game have quirks...yep!  Water is one of them...but by god, I have a cross check that would make a rat with ADD and Parkinson  look tame when I'm fighting over it....

But in the few weeks I've been here (Just completed week 3), I've found that Hitech is making constant, customer driven changes. We find a bug, he fixes it. In the hierarchy of software development, you have "Must Fixes, need to fix eventually, and "enhancements"".  So he is going to fix the Must fixes first, and then prioritize resources on the next two. 

I'm willing to go along for the ride and pay my "movie ticket and drink" price for a months worth of entertainment....

Cheers!
Dobs

Dobs is right here. I really agree the approach should be more focused on the air combat and fighter aspect to the game moreso than the ground game. It's tough to compete with 5 different markets like WOT, WOS, (ships) is that what it's called, and have to compete with Battlefield, war thunder, and IL-2. It's just tough to model it all with the budget/man power.

The analogy may not make sense to most but I'll try. I use to aggressive skate on roller blades at skate parks. The successful skate parks had big ramps, where people could go fast, get tons of air, and do a lot of tricks. Then Skate boarding started to get even more popular. Sinse skate boarding was slower and people didn't get as much air, they made the ramps smaller to adjust to the increase of skate boarding so people didn't get hurt as easily, and the ramps were easier to go over. Well.. what happened, the skaters like me left because the ramps were small and boring. The skate boarders didn't have a challenge anymore. They never learned to face fears and go down bigger ramps. Skate parks turned into nanny parks and in turn they shut down in popular areas because they weren't exciting anymore.  What's the moral of the story? If you change the setup to a more boring type of game play, even though there is a growing market for it, while forgetting about the major factor that keeps a lot of players into the game, like air combat, you will lose the base of players and change the dynamics to the game that made it exciting for a lot of players.

Just something to consider.

[Rich46yo]

Rapier it sounds like you have a crap computer and/or dont know how to use it or set it up. Less then a week ago you were posting about how none of your USB controllers were working "because of the game" when in fact the game has nothing to do with Windows assigning USB IDs. I dont know what kind of rig you have but if you spent money on a new vid card and have a crap or old CPU or under powered power source then it was money ill spent.

I have a rig about 4 or 5 years old and tho it still works OK it IS 4 or 5 years old and I dont expect it to play like a new $2,000 dedicated gaming rig. Last night I had issues with frame rate and instead of coming here and whining about it I correctly diagnosed it as a heat issue and I took an hour to clean it, "which BTW you should do monthly". It had nothing to do with AH3.

The games been out a week. Give it a month.......yaknow.

[Lazerr]

Dobs you are right,  it did start as a fighter sim.

And when stupid crap like manned guns and field supplies were added,  basically alternatives to avoid combat,  the numbers started to fall.

Its hilarious to me that one guy can spoil the efforts of multiple guys working on a base.

People picked up on it,  no need to up and defend a base, hence not much combat,  hence low numbers. 

[JunkyII]

Dobs you are right,  it did start as a fighter sim.

And when stupid crap like manned guns and field supplies were added,  basically alternatives to avoid combat,  the numbers started to fall.

Its hilarious to me that one guy can spoil the efforts of multiple guys working on a base.

People picked up on it,  no need to up and defend a base, hence not much combat,  hence low numbers.

Yea but when we try to have a conversation about this, it's us mad we can't get easy vulches...lol

[puller]

What's the game coming to if Rapier can't sit above a furball and incessantly pick...Don't you people realize that he needs everything to be perfect to BnZ and then run...errr....extend away from anyone that gets within 4k of him...

Friday night I saw over 100 people in FSO and 212 in the melee arena...I'm seeing new names and old names...

The sounds are a little wonky...who cares...the game has been out for like a week now...or how about we come to the boards and scream the sky is falling...My guys are as pissed as anyone else because we cant tell how far other fighters are from us by sound now...I know I used to use the sound to make blackout crossing shots on overshoots...cant now... 

I have a computer that was new in 2005...with a $80 video card I get 30-45 FR and I am just fine...there is some slight stuttering but I will deal with it until I come across a new computer...sure as hell aint gonna spend 3 grand on anything but a boat or car...

I knew these threads were coming...and this will not be the last one or the loudest screaming and crying and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and stomping of the feet and holding their breath, till they get their way...

Maybe Bustr can tell us again how he was there through the whole process of making AH3 and kept telling anyone that would listen that they should be testing so they will be up to speed when the new version came out...

I did...even with my junk computer...in the Open Alpha I got 12 fps...I still tested...kept up with almost every patch...posted any bugs I found...So you didn't pay 15 bucks a month to be a tester...now you are behind the curve and crying because you can't catch up fast enough...

[waystin2]

Rapier, I counsel patience.  It will settle.  See you up there!

[jollyFE]

If I remember right, sounds like a lot of concerns that folks had when we switched from AH1 to AH2.  Yes there were bugs then(there always are with every new version).  Give it some time and if you have questions ask on 200.