AH or WB3?

[dcat]

I'm sure this topic has been beaten to death and back. But I have been away from WW2 Flight Sim area for quite some time and I can use some opinions.

I use to play WB when v1 was in beta till v2.5. I played AH when it was in beta. But as you can see, it was long time ago and things sure must've changed a lot.

I see that WB3 is out if beta and offering it at $9.95/mo and AH is going at $14.95/mo.

I am interested in hearing what you think you like about AH over WB. I'm not sure if I get any opinions favoring WB here, but I also like to hear that as well.

-dcat-

[CptTrips]

WB3 who?  

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by dcat
I see that WB3 is out if beta and offering it at $9.95/mo and AH is going at $14.95/mo.

Welcome, dcat.  It's my understand that the post-beta WB3 will cost $24.95/month for unlimited play, not $9.95/month as it currently stands.  $9.95/month there will supply you with a limited number of hours, after which it will cost $1.95/hour to play.

Here's a thread concerning the price change:

http://agw.warbirdsiii.com/agw//Forum3/HTML/026475.html

-- Todd/Leviathn

[funkedup]

I played WB since the first pay version (post-beta) and I still have an account.  I have been flying AH since beta.  I'm part of Northolt Wing which fields active squadrons in both sims.

Here's how I see it:

AH is pretty much a continuation of the original spirit of WB, with a lot of new stuff added in.  Most of the stuff we asked for to improve WB 2.0 and WB 2.01 is here.

IMHO WB releases 2.6 and above were simply BROKEN.  WB has changed hands a few times and the different owners and development teams have tried to repair the damage and start in a new direction.  But I'm not sure that they know where they are headed, except to copy new features of AH.  The best thing about WB is the scenario community, but they haven't had a full scale scenario in years, and the AH TOD series is on par with the WB S3 series now.

WB3 Advantages
Damage Model (finite element analysis etc)
Graphics Engine (Looks better and seems to perform better on slower machines)
Player-Developed Aircraft (should give it a nice planeset growth rate)
Custom Aircraft Skins
More Educated Community (IMHO)

AH Advantages
Gunnery Model (Every bullet is modeled, with recoil, airframe vibration, and dispersion)
Engine/Prop Model (decent model of variable-speed superchargers and constant speed prop)
Weather
Gun Camera Film Recorder/Viewer
Built-In Voice Comms
3D Sound (sounds incredible on 5.1 system)
Custom Nose Art
More Choices of Planes/Vehicles
Terrain Editor and Player Developed Terrains (dozens of them now)
Active Head-to-Head Community
More Detailed Sea/Air/Land Strategy System (Player Controlled CV's, Trucking Depots, HQ, Many Factories, Train Stations, Truck and Ship Convoys, Trains, Towns)
Audio 6-Call Button
More Polished and Complete Product
More Diverse and Humorous Community (IMHO)


Things That Are Different But Not Clear Advantages
AH Controls More Responsive
WB Controls More Sluggish
Radar Modes (AH has mixture of in-flight "dot" radar and in-flight "sector counter" radar depending on the arena.  WB3 system is a little different.)
WB has some planes from 1940, AH has none.
AH has several "late war wonder planes" and WB has only 2 or 3.
AH view system more flexible, WB system less flexible but possibly more realistic.
Both Communities are some ugly drunk mothers.  I've been to the Cons, trust me.  

They still are not terribly different products in the grand scheme of things.  Supposedly WB3 pricing will go up to $25/month soon.  Compared to the $2/hr days they are both impossibly cheap.  Try them both and decide for yourself.

[Cougar68]

Just to further clarify a couple of things about WB3 that funked is saying:

WB will have 1:1 bullet modeling shortly.  They are running an open test on this Monday.

Slated for the March build are player controlled naval aspects as well as the ability to man gunner stations on cv's.  

Cougar

[Gadfly]

Neither, buy IL2.

[Udie at Work]

Originally posted by Cougar68
Just to further clarify a couple of things about WB3 that funked is saying:

WB will have 1:1 bullet modeling shortly.  They are running an open test on this Monday.

Slated for the March build are player controlled naval aspects as well as the ability to man gunner stations on cv's.  

Cougar

sorry but I can't resist


AH has had 1:1 bullet modeling since day one it's in there now, not slated for march.

[Badboy]

Originally posted by funkedup

Player-Developed Aircraft (should give it a nice planeset growth rate)

Any more info on that... I'm curious about what aspects of the aircraft the players will develop?

Badboy

[funkedup]

Badboy I know for sure that they are doing 3d models and skin textures.  I think also there is a process for submitting engineering data.

[Swager]

I dont know what is better.  I perfer AH.

Flying WB I feel as though my face is about 4 inches away from the windshield, no vision on the side front corners

I tried to run WBIII a number of times but no luck.  Would never start.

Alot of sim pilots prefer WB, but I feel more comfortable in AH.

Good luck in your quest!

Swager

[mrsid2]

I have to agree on everything above, I tried WB3 when it was free..

Gunnery was very different from AH, softball tracers etc..
The FM felt weird after AH, in AH planes fly smoother, you won't create much nose bounce at 300mph where in WB it's possible to bounce the nose like it's rubber. Especially the pony ability to zoom dive and turn to your 6 never stoped amazing me.
Then OTOH the planes feel sluggish, EXTREMELY sluggish on controls, especially the roll. The initial turnrate is dampened on all planes which does especially 190 harm.

Connections were definately worse at the time I played it.

Good sides: Community, easy kills *g*, rolling planeset (when it will come to WB3)

I played wb2.xx for a year or so before I learned about AH. After I tried it, I was sold instantly even though I was wasted all the time fresh from WB. In AH I realized the importance of E fighting, back at WB it didn't seem so important. I was just furballing

[Wotan]

I have a ah and wb3 sub.


wb3 cockpits look better the external skins are about the same. I think the wb3 terrain is not as good as say mindinao in ah.

otto gunners in bombers and ground vehicles are just gay.

the control delays in wbs are strange but manageable with experience.

you wont be doing any scissors in a 190a4 or 190a8 until you learn to deal with the "left aileron, center aileron, right aileron, center aileron, etc...."

you cant simply go from full left to full right aileron. Rudder authority is different as well. the 109f flies like a spitfire in wb3. the 190a4 is great the a8 is ok the d9 is crap(any more then 2gs the plane wants to stall at all speeds).

109g6 and 109g6/r6 are adequate.

WB3 has a "fog layer" i guess is supposed to represnt a cloud deck. Its no where near as bad as wwiiol but ah clouds and whether beat it hands down.

WB3 has a more restrictive view system (a bit to restrictive imho) however they gave ya a "\" and 3 fov views.

AH has a much too generous view system in most planes but you can preset your views which is good.

AH has much better gameplay as it stands now and at peak has 350 to 400 folks online in one arena.

AH is cheaper .

Also I dont know what joystick you use but my x36 works sporadically. Others at wb3 have the same problem. sometimes with a calibrated stick you feel like your flying around with a 500kg bomb strapped to your belly. This makes the controls delay in wb3 even worse.

Once the "big" update for wb3 comes in march and after a period for them to solve what ever obvious bugs there will be with a large update I will re-evaluate my sub. Especially since they will be upping the price to unlimited play to 25 a month.

Right now ah is the better choice in terms of gameplay and cost.

wb3 is a 96mb download
ah is 22mb

min requirements for wb3
Pentium II, 400 MHz, 600 MHz recommended.
128 MB RAM, 384 recommended for best play.
DirectX 8.0 compatible, or DirectX 8.1 compatible (recommended for best play)
sound and video cards with Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, and XP drivers.
Joystick, mouse and keyboard. Throttle and Rudder pedals are recommended. Several manufacturers make models of their flight control systems for the PC.
14.4K or faster connection to the Internet. To connect via PPP/SLIP/LAN, you must have Windows' Dial-up Networking and TCP/IP drivers installed (included with Windows).
16 MB 3D card.


fer ah

Windows 95/98/ME/2K

DirectX 8.0

DX 8 compatible video card

PII 333 or better

Sound card and speakers

Internet connection

both of these are the absolute minium.

[dcat]

Very interesting reading.

RPS was nice idea when I was playing WB, does any one know if it is slated to be adapted in AH?

I am just starting to find out about price increse on WB3 as well. at $24.95/mo, WB3 got to be twice as better than AH... right? If not, choice seems to be pretty easy.

I have just upgraded my setup to Ath-XP2K with Gf3. And I still have one of those old thrustmaster F22/F16 set with sickworks upgrade. I figure my setup can handle either WB3 or AH pretty well.

[funkedup]

Dcat there is no RPS in AH... yet.  I don't think there is RPS in WBIII either.


Closest thing to RPS is the Combat Theater, which is an alternate arena with a more historical focus, has a different planeset every week or two, always Axis Vs. Allies, and usually limited to a certain period of the war.

In the Main Arena there is a point system where you have to "buy" the best planes with points you accumulate by getting kills or destroying ground targets.  There is also a score multiplier system that benefits the early war planes.

[-dead-]

I started out online gaming in Wb 2 on a mac. I joined my current squad there, and the community was great. My squad tried out AH when it came out, and decided to shift to AH permenently. Which put me on the spot - no Mac support for AH - so I forked out for a wintel games machine, and switched to AH. Glad I did - because AH was and still is brilliant - a huge leap from WB 2.7 on the mac (which was still doing 2d Pyramid hill stuff).
Furthermore at the time I left WB, the people running ien were increasingly irritating - they never seemed to listen to anything the community said & basically treated their customers like an inconvenience that they were forced to put up with. And while WB3 had been hyped for a year or so (this was almost 2 years ago) - we saw nothing, and the current 2.7 WB was not being developed or fixed.

I still have a WB account (el cheapo), and still have a go in WB3 occasionally, but my general feeling is that it is the same haggard old wb2.7 FM wearing a shiny new suit. The feel of the planes is a bit simplistic & lacking something, and I feel far too uber in wb3, which I think is fairly suspicious (something is definitely porked with the FM if I'm doing well in a game I fly less than once a fortnight I put more hours in on il2 and I suck at that) whereas in AH I'm live up to my name sooner rather than later. I should state right now before the anoraks descend upon me like wolves: I am not a real pilot (although I do wonder how much more a modern jet fighter or cessna pilot brings to the table when it comes to flying ww2 combat planes than anyone else - kinda like saying I drive a Lambourghini or a Pickup truck so I know exactly how a model T Ford should feel).
 
As to communities - as far as I can tell both contain the same potent mix of anoraks, addicts, deliquents, drunkards, dweebs, whiners, frauds and idiots. Good people. Flight sim people. My people. To quote Tom Waits: "They all come from good families, but individually, over the years they've developed ways about them that just aren't right."

AH's best point for me is the view system - no other sim gets close - I find it immensely irritating now flying sims where you can't move your head from side to side. Another good thing about AH's graphics are they appear to be a proper size; all the other sims -even il2 which is damn fine-looking in all other respects - feel somehow like you're flying a model - 1/72 or 1/35 scale.

[whine] But so far only il2 does the sun right... *sigh* [/whine] [grovel] Purleeeeeese HTC - buy a copy of il2, look at the sun then steal the idea! [/grovel]

As to features promised for the big update for wb3 - the "coming soon" list does sound suspiciously like the AH current features list.

And finally, charging $24.95 - for a sim [oops sorry, "3" sims - hehehe WB v2.77 (why fly a 2 yr old version?!?) & v3 & DOA (the initials say it all)] really can't be justified these days - you can sign up for both major competitors (AH & WW2OL) for unlimited hours and still pay 1 cent less!

I reckon AH is best - but in the end it's a very personal decision - so try it yourself and see which one you like best.