You are correct in that all SEA terrains are 1:1 or pretty close to it.
Understand, I make a distinction between a true full-scale historical Scenario, and what I'm willing to do for just an evenings fun.
In a Scenario, I'm all in. I want to relive to whole thing. I'll take long flights and boring patrols. It's not my favorite part, but I don't feel necessarily cheated. I'm mentally prepared for that and I only do those every so often.
I have totally different expectations for a normal evenings fun. It's not 1995 anymore, where I'm in awe merely at the fact I can fly though this 3d world with people from all over the world online. Yawn. OK. That newness has worn off. The mere fact that online gaming is possible is not enough to hold my interest any more. I get that part, I need some action.
And my life is different now days. I am very busy, not retired, and only have limited amount I can periodically dedicate to gaming. I need a gaming experience that makes respectful use of my time.
The great Sid Meier once said "simulate the fun part, and throw away the rest." Or something like that. Most of the time, a 20 minute climb out on auto-pilot adds nothing to my fun. There is nothing intriguing about that anymore. An occasional, true historical reenactment, would be a rare exception. But I wouldn't have time for that very often.
Your 3 hour mini-scenario sounds like what Snapshot used to be on Wednesday/Thursday. An hour or two with some basic objective for both sides. Usually a CO would step up on each side and try to organize everyone, but it was pretty loose in terms of structure. I would say it falls between Friday Squad Ops and Combat Challenge in terms of gameplay. We've toyed with bringing it back perhaps on a weekend or something, but interest is always the issue.
Yes. Herding cats is always the problem.
To me that sounds awesome. I enjoyed the Scenarios, but I can't often plan and commit to something months in advance, and am most often busy on weekends.
I was tempted by FSO, Friday works better for me (Tues-Thurs is ideal for my personal schedule though). but I still have commitment issues. I can't always guarantee to be there every Fri for a month. I can't always guarantee to be there at a exact starting time. Having something running that I know I could drop in as a walk on when and if it is convenient and get placed where they need me would be ideal, if not practical.
When I do play though, I like some structure, I like working with a team on a specific goal with defined victory conditions achievable within a specific time frame. So, the random meandering, maybe drags on a week and finishes in Euro time when I never see it, Melee, is less satisfying to me.
I think you get hoards in the Melee partly because people desire a structure whether they realize it or not, since there usually is none, they will clump up into something that sorta feels like it has a purpose because it is better that wandering around pointlessly. But it becomes one hoard because there in no one coordinating instead of someone directing, ok you 5 guys go there and 6 of you go take the port. You four go patrol this sector they might be trying to flank us.
I know everyone gets tire of me talking about Battlefield, and I'm sure it activates certain peoples knee-jerk fanboi defense mechanisms, but I've spent 95% of my gaming time since 2000ish playing either AH or BF. So I can't help but continually compare and contrast there various design decisions and how they effect gameplay experience.
First, I like the low commitment, respectful use of my time. I can start it up and drop in when ever I please and be in action quickly, and the action is intense (unless I want to take it easy then I snipe so options), and consistent and lasts as long as I want to stay logged on.
But the other less obvious thing I love about it is how it handles it's team/squad dynamics. It's a great mix of sandbox and structure.
By default, when you enter a game you get dropped into a ad hoc "squad". You have to take an extra step to unjoin and be a lone wolf. By default it drops you into a squad.
You can switch to a different squad if you don't like that one, or form your own, or unjoin all and just lone wolf. (I sometimes do that when sniping because it is annoying to have a squadie spawn on you and start stupidly raking off machine gun fire from your sniper hide. Uhhhh dude. Can you go somewhere else and do that? I'm trying to be like stealthy and stuff.
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But most often the squad thing works great. Most people will instantly start coop'ing and playing the objective. The squad leader has tools for easily marking targets and objectives and there are point incentives for everyone to comply, but even so it is just more enjoyable everyone working toward a series of mini-goals that lead to a team win in a known time frame. Those games last about 30-45 minutes. That's too short for AH, but 2-3 hours sounds about right.
There is something about that combination of action, structure, goal orientation, team/cooperation, clear victory conditions that are achievable in a completable time frame... its like crack-cocaine. Then the map changes and you are like "Oh shoot, I love this map, do I have time for one more?"
If its going to drag on for a week, there is no sense of being near the end, and little "Oh we're almost there!". That happens, but how often. How often does the map get won by some randoms and you weren't there for it. Knowing you'll probably never see the victory makes it feel less important. It's just a pointless treadmill then.
I was really hoping the WO:P was going to adopt a more BF structure, but it looks like it is going a different design direction.