What would get AH growing again

[Animl-AW]

You need about $3M and a bunch of people… just to get started.

I disagree

Edit: as soon as you hire a dev they want labor cost x3 to turn profit for work.
We have a few very capable ppl who would contribute.depends on the laws if you must pay for work profited on. We ran into this issue when AW moved to EA.com for techs. We decided to provide the services for free as volunteer work.

[DmonSlyr]

Smaller maps that streamline action. Most of my friends I try to get to play are bored after 10 minutes flying to a field if they get that far. If new players don't see any action on the map, they aren't going to know where the battle is. Less than 50 players with a huge map and one tiny dar on the other side isn't going to get them to roll and spend time.

Marketing - still hardly anyone ever heard of the game. The military channel commercials were probably the best marketing strategy this game ever had. Too bad we can't get more of them. Hell even youtube commercials would be great. None of those games are even close to AH, so would get some clicks for sure with a good commercial.

Perking more super late war fighters/ENY adj. The amount of BnZers in Temps, La7s, 190Ds, and spit16s is too much. while they may "help" the new players, they aren't being helped having to constantly defend against better sticks in these planes. The constant BnZ and running makes the game more boring for them and feeds the "i need to fly the best planes too in order to suceed".

Having early war planes FTP. This would allow players to come in for free and be pawns for the rest of us. To fill up #s with planes that not even really great sticks would be able to do much in. It would just provide easier kills for noobs, bring players back to try the game after their 2 weeks is over. Bring a lot more #s to the game, balance the arena with not such hard planes to kill, and increase the #s for overall better fights.

People want battles that dont take 10 minutes to get to where they die quickly. That's 100% the issue. If they cannot find battles, they log off. If they don't have to fly as far, than dying isn't as time consuming where it feels like a giant waste of time.

[fuzeman]

A historic layout wouldn't work I don’t think.  Who would want to fly on the Japanese side in 1945 as one lopsided example.  There have to be other fronts where it was lopsided also but they escape me at the moment.

[Animl-AW]

Smaller maps that streamline action. Most of my friends I try to get to play are bored after 10 minutes flying to a field if they get that far. If new players don't see any action on the map, they aren't going to know where the battle is. Less than 50 players with a huge map and one tiny dar on the other side isn't going to get them to roll and spend time.

Marketing - still hardly anyone ever heard of the game. The military channel commercials were probably the best marketing strategy this game ever had. Too bad we can't get more of them. Hell even youtube commercials would be great. None of those games are even close to AH, so would get some clicks for sure with a good commercial.

Perking more super late war fighters/ENY adj. The amount of BnZers in Temps, La7s, 190Ds, and spit16s is too much. while they may "help" the new players, they aren't being helped having to constantly defend against better sticks in these planes. The constant BnZ and running makes the game more boring for them and feeds the "i need to fly the best planes too in order to suceed".

Having early war planes FTP. This would allow players to come in for free and be pawns for the rest of us. To fill up #s with planes that not even really great sticks would be able to do much in. It would just provide easier kills for noobs, bring players back to try the game after their 2 weeks is over. Bring a lot more #s to the game, balance the arena with not such hard planes to kill, and increase the #s for overall better fights.

People want battles that dont take 10 minutes to get to where they die quickly. That's 100% the issue. If they cannot find battles, they log off. If they don't have to fly as far, than dying isn't as time consuming where it feels like a giant waste of time.

I’d stay away from settings. Everyone has their own take on them and they are all over the place on opinions.

Settle fir graphics, nothing more. Some suggestions require major over-haul, rewrite. Pushing limits on getting an update.

Put the settings down, focus on graphics. Graphics will sell way over any setting change. Don’t turn a to do list into the book of War and Peace, which will make it overwhelming to even start.

[~ZoSo~]

You wanna know what will help AH grow?

Aces High IV

Then you can implement "seasons" which are themed events that run for a couple months.

How much would the update cost? Would the current players be willing to incur that cost? From what I understand, Hitech doesn’t have a crew to do that right now. How much is the game worth? Would Hitech be willing to sell it? What about the patents?

[Animl-AW]

How much would the update cost? Would the current players be willing to incur that cost? From what I understand, Hitech doesn’t have a crew to do that right now. How much is the game worth? Would Hitech be willing to sell it? What about the patents?

Under volunteer work and NDAs, we could do this cheaper than some may think. Stay off the settings until you pass that point. Think graphics.

I think Fugi has a firm grip on the situation.

As for a hired dev team, if I worked for one and charged $50 per hr, they would charge $150 per hr to profit off my work. We can’t do that and be affordable too.

[Shane]

I’d stay away from settings. Everyone has their own take on them and they are all over the place on opinions.

I see nothing wrong with the graphics currently presented. 

It's as much about retaining existing players as it is about getting new ones.

There are several settings that could be tweaked, and several maps removed. You're right in that there are varying opinions, but there are a few commonalities that many agree on, night time being one, sideswitching timer being another, as well as the removal of certain maps.


For example:

nightlenghthhours = lessen or remove totally, currently set at .3 of some variable (hour?) = 18 mins approximately

Observerseen, planeseen, and vehicleradar, vehicleseen, and vehicle sector  = icon/radar ranges

changecountrytime = side switching timer, currently 21600  seconds (6 hrs)

daystilterrainchange = currently at 1 week, could be lowered to 3-4 days

There are a ton of viewable settings, and some that we do not have access to (eny tables), but all require changes that only HTC can make on the server side.

[Animl-AW]

I see nothing wrong with the graphics currently presented. 

It's as much about retaining existing players as it is about getting new ones.

There are several settings that could be tweaked, and several maps removed. You're right in that there are varying opinions, but there are a few commonalities that many agree on, night time being one, sideswitching timer being another, as well as the removal of certain maps.


For example:

nightlenghthhours = lessen or remove totally, currently set at .3 of some variable (hour?) = 18 mins approximately

Observerseen, planeseen, and vehicleradar, vehicleseen, and vehicle sector  = icon/radar ranges

changecountrytime = side switching timer, currently 21600  seconds (6 hrs)

daystilterrainchange = currently at 1 week, could be lowered to 3-4 days

There are a ton of viewable settings, and some that we do not have access to (eny tables), but all require changes that only HTC can make on the server side.

Graphics are ok for you, not new or return players used to modern graphics. Setting changes won’t even move the needle, except for current players. Other sims have real stupid settings, their draw is graphics. You
Might gain 5-15 over a setting, 200-300 over graphics.

On just settings it can go both ways gain 10 lose 20, net gain of -10. Some have no idea how making one setting change can cause implosion from thise who disagree. Dangerous area. Graphics would be a positive gain hands down.

HT is more than welcome to call me and see fx examples I could DONATE.
Graphics is something everyone agrees on. Never bet on the roulette wheel.

[Spikes]

Any thoughts of making the game full time "Axis vs Allies" is the dagger that will kill this game in weeks instead of years that we all hope we still have. Any other flight sim game that tried to run a A vs A type playfield even for shot amounts of time lost all kinds of population. If it was such a good idea IL2 would have much bigger servers and much larger crowds playing it.

That's kind of an odd take. FSO used to have 450 people playing Axis vs Allies events. Of course, not a nightly thing like the MA sandbox, but 5 of 7 days a week there were Axis v Allies Special Events being run, not including the AvA arena itself. I don't disagree that making the MA an AvA setup probably wouldn't be great, but suggesting people don't want Axis v Allies is intriguing.

IL2, at least in my understanding, was never designed for supporting large servers/# of players like AH was designed for. The maps tend to be much smaller and much more detailed than AHs. Combat Box is the most popular IL2 server and they just upped their limit to 84 somewhat recently, but they have a very beefy server (16 core, 32 thread cpu and 192gb of ram). AH by comparison was designed mostly for large amounts of players with great netcode, and of course was/is a marvel in that regard, especially in the early 2000s. I'd have to look later, but I assume on an average night there's about the same amount of people in the MA and IL2 (IL2 being spread across a few servers).

For what it's worth, I agree with you on graphics. I don't think they're bad and those who say they suck have never had the experience of cranking them up and putting on a VR headset. I've played very little DCS, but I find IL2 and AH graphics on the surface somewhat comparable. Where AH lacks, imo, is effects. Things like hit sprites, bomb explosions, fire and smoke.

[Shane]

Graphics are ok for you, not new or return players used to modern graphics. Setting changes won’t even move the needle, except for current players. Other sims have real stupid settings, their draw is graphics. You
Might gain 5-15 over a setting, 200-300 over graphics.

On just settings it can go both ways gain 10 lose 20, net gain of -10. Some have no idea how making one setting change can cause implosion from thise who disagree. Dangerous area. Graphics would be a positive gain hands down.

HT's forte is coad, not graphics, tho' - the graphical updates are simply not happening due to limited resources and no amount of "volunteer" work will make the needed changes and testing before the current player base ages or bores out.

Current settings that contribute to quality of gameplay seem to be driving players away, not the graphics.   There are very few players who want to retain night, or certain maps.  Side switching timer also puts people, who are unwilling to buy multiple accounts, off.

Some settings can be changed with minimal negative impact, and quite possibly a boost.

[Eagler]

Maybe it's been so long since a code change the process has been forgotten...

Having retired only a year ago what I  used to do daily then it but a distant blur and would take a bit to get back into the swing of things...

With that thought in mind,  if HT does not need additional financial assistance I don't see him taking on the headache imo..

Eagler

[Yarbles]

A historic layout wouldn't work I don’t think.  Who would want to fly on the Japanese side in 1945 as one lopsided example.  There have to be other fronts where it was lopsided also but they escape me at the moment.

Good Point. It would have to be limited to fronts that were competitive.

Despite what people say this seems to be a growth area elsewhere.

I realize it would not appeal to the wizz bang gamers but would to the more mature history buffs who when hooked would likely stay hooked as there is nothing else I know of with the quantity and variety of models. We seem to have enough types to stage all the major battles in sequence.   

[Animl-AW]

I get the points made.
But the entire thing was made by basically 3-5 people, and a lot of planning in first time around.

Some requested settings/ideas would require coding rewrite. Thats the hardest part that would be all on HT. Leaving things as is and just going after graphics is easier path that is more possible than coding. Coding would require updates for new bugs, and thats the biggest headache. IMO, graphics only. <shrug>

[Yarbles]

Would it be possible to run SEA all the time. ?

Keep running through scenario in historical order or perhaps for a limited period ever week?

[Shane]

Good Point. It would have to be limited to fronts that were competitive.

Despite what people say this seems to be a growth area elsewhere.

I realize it would not appeal to the wizz bang gamers but would to the more mature history buffs who when hooked would likely stay hooked as there is nothing else I know of with the quantity and variety of models. We seem to have enough types to stage all the major battles in sequence.

AH has had in the past, a perfectly viable AvA (Combat Theatre) and I spent many enjoyable hours as the weekly plane sets changed. Learning rides vs their historical matchups has skills that translate to MA play, plus exposure to the extensive plane set AH has on offer.  The AvA was never really so much about base-taking as much about the matchups.

<Those set ups still exist somewhere, and having some good maps made it more immersive - not sure how many made the jump to AH3.>

It might be a draw if the AvA was made reduced $ to play if the hassle of creating a new subscription would be not worthwhile (i.e., wouldn't generate revenue, just more overhead.)  It would also need some kind of managing in changing plane sets/maps on a weekly basis, so there's that additional administrative burden.

I've viewed MNM as a potential to bring this AvA idea back in to play - where one side is axis and one side allied and the plane sets could be entirely variable with all mid-war available or more historical matchups with the occasion off-brand MNM feature special plane sets available to both sides.