CptTrips -- thank you so much for those posts! Truly outstanding! 
Thank you and the CM Team for putting this together. You are providing a priceless service to the community.
Compared to flying in the MA, flying in a meticulously curated experience like this is transformative. It is everything that Aces High should be. Having experience it, it makes the MA even less palatable.
I can't believe I was so stupid as to never have tried Scenarios all the years I've been coming back here. I guess there were a couple of reasons:
1. Back in the day, when there were 500 players in the arena, that can cover over a lot of flaws in the MA. You couldn't throw a rock in any direction without hitting a mad dogfight. And it went on all night, every night. Even at 3am there could be 300 players. It was just a kind of crack cocaine hamster-wheel that kept me from ever needing to try to find something better. Now that the player-count tide has gone out, every flaw in the MA is left exposed in sharp relief.
2. I also probably felt intimidated. Scenarios seemed like something for the elite pilots and I was afraid of being embarrassed. But you know, sometimes teams just need warm bodies. The important thing about teamwork, is that it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at. And even elite pilots need wingmen they can use for bait.
3. There was always a set of extra hurdles you had to jump through to get involved. It seemed complicated. There seemed to be a lot of friction. It was always on my list to try, but as long has there were hundreds and hundreds of players in the MA, I never quite got around to it. Just mindlessly clicking on the MA button always seemed the path of least resistance. My loss.
It struck me last night in-route to the second to last bomber run, just how superior the experience was to the MA. A mass of bombers (you never get that many in the MA anymore) in disciplined formation surrounded by flanks of fighters were arrayed around them. The tension was palpable. We knew they would be waiting for us, but we HAD to accomplish the mission. They HAD to stop us. An irresistible force, was about to meet an unmovable object. Sparks were going to fly. It was glorious.
Bomber pilots weren't going to just bail when the attackers arrived.
Defenders weren't going to just stay high and use the bombers for bait and cherry pick from safety.
Attackers couldn't run to their field ack the second they lost the advantage.
The structured mission, with a specific defined goal focused all the players to a specific point in space/time, and the constraints forced all players to put themselves into uncomfortable positions where conflicting motivations left no choice but to collide.
The open sandbox design loses all that. Doing whatever the fk you feel like, with no point or purpose, just means running to ack as soon as you lose the advantage, bailing out of bombers the second you see an interceptor. Abandoning a field attack the second resistance is met. Leaving all your bases undefended while you all cluster up in one hoard. It's like chess with no rules. Just randomly moving pieces randomly around on a board in a sick imitation of playing a game. Because there is not goal or mission, no accountability of results, there is no reason to give a fk.
Think of it as playing a piano. It is the structure, and planning, and intentional design of the notes on the sheet of Beethoven's piano concerto #5 that make it a impressive experience. Compare that to someone's spoiled 5 year old banging randomly on whatever keys they want...... endlessly. One is music. The other is just really annoying noise. Same piano.
Man, that second to last bomber run ended up in a furball I won't soon forget. Crazy. It was a swarm of 109 and Spits. Nobody ran, everybody fought to the death. My hands were shaking and sweating after that. I haven't felt that kind of rush in Aces High since...2004. So thanks to the CM staff for helping me remember what Aces High can be.
