No worries guys - you're all obviously a bit insecure about the limitations of your chosen game and have to resort to constructive criticism along the lines of "It Sucks".
To me it's all just a game, not a religion. I was merely offering you an insight into the latest available alternative. You have a choice and the choice doesn't define you.
I guess to you guys, it's different. You have the kneejerk reaction of fundamentalists..."Aaargh - they have an ARCADE mode! Save me! Save me!"
It's funny though - that arcade mode seemed to keep you very happy for three years, Raub. Then I seem to remember you and the rest of LJK threw a bit of dummy spit about the 190 modelling and stormed off here...guess you would have been completely uninterested by the current D9 climb rate then (and the rest of the 190 series modelling)?
(BTW the LF IX now outclimbs the D9 by one second - it's beta, flight models are being refined all the time to get as near historically accurate as possible...my charts simply haven't been updated as quickly.)
Doesn't AH's 109K climb to 5km in 3 minutes 1 sec like ours? It should - that's what it did IRL...
The reason I don't fly in AH is it was more expensive and I prefer country-defined teams and more historical alliances of planes. I didn't find the environment very immersive either. I'm sure if I'd stuck at it, I would have done - but there was already a game I knew and was cheaper and more fun. That's not called getting defensive, that's just telling the truth.
Raub, say hi to Reschke for me. I saw him last week in one of the FA3 beta rooms...he seemed to quite like it, IIRC.
MS created a lot of problems for FA by inhibiting its ability to react to players' demands - that stumbling block has now gone and player-raised issues are dealt with literally within minutes now. Find a bug? It's fixed in the next patch (if it's done that easily). Find a modelling flaw and can substantiate it sufficiently? It's fixed in the next patch.
Additionally, many of the long-time arcade and intermediate fliers are now moving into the full real arenas. Often the full real arenas are now the busiest of all the servers.
Anyway, those who flew FA before will simply find FA3 is an entirely different proposition from the monster MS created.
Take it or leave it (and, yeah, I know what most of you are gonna type...*yawn*).
Oh and PLEASE - as for intruding on your newsgroup, go tell it to your players. We see it all the time - they even turned up at the Town Hall Meeting about FA's Future last year to plug AH!