CAV,
After 20+ years of constant experience with this venue, why has Hitech not been able to see a solution to interesting customers in playing a 24x7 war? When all they really want to do is shoot each other a few hours each evening and not take orders from anyone? Better yet, even in AW the customers had a tolerance for it just like here in AH of about once a week for three hours. If there were a raging demand for 24x7 war, after 15 years of being here, the Melee arena would be the 24x7 war arena.
We have AI missions, steal the sheep, real capture the flag where your plane carries a flag, and the AvA and special events arenas. All mechanisms by which players over the years could test the waters of something different while using the AH3 toys. They keep voting for the Melee arena or something similar in the AvA and WW1 arenas about once a week.
The only thing Hitech has not tried is the Combat Tour of Duty AH version that was never finished. If I'm not mistaken that would have been a mixed AI human 24x7 war arena played as an RPG. It probably would have had all the bridges, roads, trains and depots war fans would have ever wanted as their target for today. I was in the AH3 testing from the beginning in 2014 until it went live last year. I helped test giant AI bomber missions over Europe with massive numbers of AI defenders and a huge continent spanning weather system. I flew escorts, bombers and all the different axis defense forces. Visually it was thrilling and I wish everyone in this audience could have been there. It was like playing WW2.
Then I started listening to vets talk about it who were testing with me. To them it got boring and they preferred real people in the Melee arena. Maybe Hitech can put it up in the Mission tab for you so you can see what I'm talking about, it has an immersion quality to it because of the massive numbers. To this day I don't see many players in the AI missions just like there were not that many during the testing period for AH3.
Instead of pointing fingers at Hitech as being inept at his craft or a selfish egotistical meenie. Help answer the question of why after all of these years do customers keep voting for shooting at each other in the Melee arena over all the other offerings Hitech has coded? Why is it that versus your dream of the perfect AH game?