A little sympathy for Macboy.

[Downtown]

Well, I have read his posts and find them quite amusing.  I left my iEN account and WB Squad behind for Aces High.  I had a lot of great squaddies in Warbirds, and unfortunately since AH doesn't play on MACs my squad couldn't move over.

I readily admit that my favorite features of Aces High are the Flat rate $29.95 a month and the 3D view system.

Following closely behind this is that HTC appears to have almost exactly incorperated several suggestions I made on the GAMEPLAY/FEEDBACK Forum into this sim.  We have a much more indepth strategy than Warbirds does, and will apparently have.  Additional suggestion that other made (like the hot rearm points) have been incorporated and IMHO add imensely into the sim.

I also readily admit I have seen better graphics in Flight Sims.  Not in a online sim yet, but in box sims.  Of course I haven't played a boxed sim with a 3D cockpit.

Well, there is my opinion with Aces High and everyone who posts here has their own opinion and is more than welcome to post it.  I haven't flown a WWII Aircraft so I can't speak for the FM, both WB and AH's FMs seem close to what I imagined in reading books by WWII Pilots.  Also for the short period that I had both an HTC and iEN account, I know my AH Flying made me a better WB pilot.

So, to the point.  MACBOY.

He keeps comming here and posting about how much better WB is than AH.  I personally don't see it.  I also believe that a good portion of this community came over from Warbirds and apparently they don't see it either.  I read posts by players who hold accounts still in AH and WB and fly both, and they say that the differences are slender also.

So who can't fly AH and see for themselve.  The Mac community.  I guess that they are becomming frustrated.  Flying a 2D version of a game on a graphics engine that is 5 years or more old and paying $2.00 and hour to do it would anger me also.

I just think I would direct my anger in a more profitable avenue.  IMHO Macboy has two options.

Continue to wait for the development of WBIII which promises to have a 3D Mac version, or hope that HTC will port the sim over to Mac compatiable.

Instead of being patient and attempting to show HTC that he could bring hordes of MAC flyers to AH, Macboy chooses to Attack HTC and its product and members of the AH community.

I feel that this has the opposite effect of what Macboy desires.  I haven't seen anyone get their way through throwing temper tantrums.  If you want something I find the best way is to propose a logical argument.

Macboy could be saying, hey HT if you give us a Mac version I can have 200 pilots here in a month, 200 X $29.95 = 5990 A month, thats $71,800 a year.  That should pretty much take care of a MAC programmers salary.  If that isn't enough, Macboy needs to find 50 more, or 100 more, but make the argument, and show HTC that it would be worth its time to have a Mac programmer.  I feel that this avenue would work.

But I feel that saying, Hey, your product sucks, I wouldn't pay $29.95 a month for that crap, well your demonstrating right there that it wouldn't be worth HTC's time and effort.  Why do something if you know fromt he get go that it won't pay off in the outcome.

Anyhow it is very apparent to me that Macboys childish outburst and posting temper tantrums are based on jealousy and PC Envy.

I feel that the members of the AH community need to show some understanding and compassion for our unfortunate Mac Flight Sim brethern.  Don't be so hard on Macboy, how would you feel if your only choice was Warbirds?  How would you feel if your only choice was to fly in 2D?  How would you feel if you had to pay between $1.50 and $2.00 an hour to fly?  You would be pretty frustrated wouldn't you.  How would you react?

So when you see Macboy go off on a rant, just remember where he is comming from.  Tell him we understand that it's frustrating, and that if he just calms down, and will be patient, everything will be okay.  I mean he shouldn't have more than a year or two too wait for WBIII, which will have a 3D Mac version.

Honestly, I find his posts amusing enough to put up with them for that long.

Post away Macboy it reminds me of my kids when they can't get what they want.  Do you clench your fists and stomp around when you see us get a new release?

------------------

"Downtown" Lincoln Brown.
    lkbrown1@tir.com    
 http://www.tir.com/~lkbrown1
Wrecking Crews "Drag and Die Guy"
Hals und beinbruch!

[Wanker]

I do feel sorry for the Mac people up to a point. They are a good part of our flight sim enthusiast community, so nobody likes to see them not be a part of it.

On the other hand, an analogy of DVD vs. VHS may work in this case. Seems to me that if I want DVD quality video and audio, I go out and buy a DVD player, instead of yelling at the VHS manufaturers to produce the same high-quality sound and video of the DVD format.

For whatever reason, HiTech and Pyro don't want to get into the same multi-platform situation that they found themselves in with Warbirds. Can't blame them for that.

You Mac guys have a great machine out there. It does many things very well. But for whatever reason, it has not been supported or touted as a gaming rig. In this day & age, if you want to be able to play all the games you want, you have to buy a PC. I'm not saying it's right, but that's the simple truth.

[Westy]

 Good post Downtown with valid points and a compassionate view. Imho MG had crossed the line quite a while ago and could care less about any repercussions to his jeuvinile behavior.  Other MAC users have posted here and for those folks I wish there was a way to bring them together with us.
 It's not just MAC users who have a problem. They just have the biggest and most vocal of love muffines representing them. In my opinion there is a larger group who cannot fly here because thier Pentium I or II's cannot run AH. I don't see them whining or being disruptive.
 I don't see any reason anyone (especially HTC) should cut MG any slack. He's never been a community member in AH and he's certainly never tried to be one.

  -Westy

[RAM]

While I can undestand MG´s pissing because lack of Mac version in Aces High I cant feel sympathy for him. If he wants a Mac version of AH is because he wants to be here. If he wants to be here, then he likes AH. If he likes AH why does he underrate it so much?

Remembers me about the story if the fox who cant get the grapes. "they are too green"  says the fox , to try to convince himself that the grapes are bad,when they taste just great, to try not to miss eating them.
That is an actitude of a 4 year old kid. My little cousin does that, too.

So I feel sorry for the Mac players ,but for sure I dont feel sorry about Macboy, MG or however he is called. If he doesnt like AH, as he yells at 4 winds, then there is no reason to want him here, if he likes AH then there is less reason to want him here as he acts like a little kid.

[miko2d]

 This whole Mac/PC issue is ridiculous. When I want to ski, I buy skiing equipment and fly to the Alps. I do not try to use the skiing equipment for anything else and do not worry that it is idle for the most of the year. I do not do anything else in the Alps but ski and eat (I go to the French Alps). It costs me money, but that is why I work eight hours a day.
 It would be extremely stupid on my part to squeak that I cannot ski well using my office chair and why don't they landscape the mountains to make it possible. I do not ask them to make special ski for me so that I could do it in Brooklyn.
 That is what some Mac users (in many cases you could say fanatics) are asking for. "I already have my crappy overpriced non-standard computer that is much better for word-processing then the PC, now make everything else revolve around me".
 Yes, I do call Mac crappy. I am using real stuff - Sun hardware running UNIX - for my work. For my gaming I have bought two computers over the years and I am considering the third one. I do not care what model it is, as long as it runs the game(s) that I want to play. It so happens that all three of those have been PC's so far. Pure coincidence. The fourth machine I will consider may be Mac, X-box, Nintendo, Sun or whatever else the best flight-sim will run on at the time.
 AH runs on PC and I will buy a PC. I do not want HTC to dedicate any resources to porting and maintaining to any other platform even if they have money for a programmer. As an experienced professional I know that any system with duplication is three times as vulnerable. There may be features not supported by OpenGL, that DirectX suports and vice versa, so the feature set will be the lowest common denominator. Any feature will take different time to implement on different platforms, so the upgrade cycle will depend on the slowest one. Time will have to be spent on testing, debugging and technical support.
 The only reason AH is evolving so fast is because the HTC guys do what they know best with minimum of distractions. Many people can't play AH - those who cannot afford any computer, those that do not have access to the Internet, those for whom $30/months is half their monthly income, etc. So a few more people who would not buy a PC will not be able to play it either. My heart bleeds for you...

miko--

[Nash]

Good analogy miko. Flight simmin' is a hobby. Much like skiing is a hobby. Hobbies cost money. If yer serious about yer hobby, you will find a way to afford it. If that means buying a PC, so be it.

As far as MG goes...

What a bratty little kid he is. Spoutin' off on the quality of a sim he knows nothing about, has never played, is nothing short of pathetic. And the funny thing is he posts like he's some kind of authority on it.

I've been in his shoes... having been a Mac flyer for roughly 5-6 years... I never once felt the inclination to come on to one of these boards and incessantly squeak about the fact that a sim wasn't available for...er wait... no, he's not complaining about that. He's just saying AH sucks.

Right then. I don't feel sympathy for Macboy. Pity, yes.

[Spritle]

Miko,

That is the worst analogy I've ever heard.  Not that I would advise anyone to ever buy a Mac.  But skiing on an office chair.  Come on.  Mac has a viable OS and viable hardware.  I guess in your perfect little world everyone would be forced to buy one brand of computer in order to do word processing, one brand for photo editing, one brand for games, one brand for finite element analyses etc.  Yeah everyone want's to spend $10,000 on 4 different computers.  That's about as far-fetched as anything I've read on this board.

So in essence your saying that HTC is telling the Mac community that if you want to play our game not only are you going to have to fork over $360/yr but your going to have to go plunk down an extra $1,300 on a PC.

No in fact I'm pretty sure that HTC doesn't plan on blowing off a huge section of their market because they think that PC owners should only be the privileged few that can play their game.  In time I imagine that they will port AH over to Mac.  After all would you be willing to just hand over 1/3 of the possible market share to your major competition?  

Use your brain man.  Remember where most of the HTC team came from?  
Spritle

[Macboy]

I hate Bill Gates with every fiber of my being.

And hate all things Windows. Detest all things Microsoft. And will not, with my utmost power, not put a dime in his pocket.

And when a game comes along that splits a community because of it. I scream bloody murder.

Warbirds brought Macs and PC's together. Aces High splits them apart again.
The only time I come on this board is to reciprocate PCcentric advertising on a Warbirds Bulletin Board.

No, I won't buy a PC. I am vehemently for keeping Macintosh alive and growing. I will NOT give in to Billy, the ripoff crook, EVER, plain and simple. A lot of German's gave into Hitler too. I will not go that route period!

I am for a new era of cross-platformability. I love my Mac and want it to enjoy interaction with other computers of all other persuasions. Because of Billy Gates way of keeping his stuff proprietary, he has excluded Macs in a lot of things. Inevitably, mac has gotten to a point where they have to meld into the population, or die. This also takes a concerted effort for the programmers to use development tools that are cross-platform. Because HT/Pyro can't evolve, you have a game that isn't evolving. Thus, a cheap PC-centric game using old, hard-to-port coding. If that is what they can live with, and accept being antiquated, then so be it. Sad.

Aces High is PC-centric. Fine and dandy. Warbirds is cross-platform. Cool. So I obviously have a stake in keeping Warbirds alive. Alive and flourishing. For the most part, Aces High, to survive must leech as many players as they can from Warbirds et al. Fine. But I take issue with PC guys who could care less about Macs and the importance of cross-platformability for a competitive environment, as Billy is totally against, and come spewing toejam on a board I hold dear for my reading pleasure.

Warbirds and WWIIOL will be mac-compatible, and they are taking their time to get the sims right. They are not throwing together a slap together continual beta-test sim only available to windows to earn a quick buck.

Bad mouthing Warbirds on AGW will get you people like me screaming at the top of my lungs on your board to go jump in a lake. What's good for the goose, is good for the gander. This is WAR!!! as far as I'm concerned. Ego-driven types like Pyro and Hitech will have to deal with people like me if they are going to try and leech off the players that keep me flying/fighting in a mac-compatible game. I'm just passionately vocal about it. I don't hate AH for lack of compatibility, I hate AH players coming to an ALL-Warbirds UBB, AGW,  and bad-mouthing MY game. Well, of course, I'm going to take offense. And I won't sit idly by as it happens.

Play your slap-together outdated code of a game, but remember, if you are going to come bad-mouth and/or advertise a PCCentric game on a UBB where macs/pcs co-exist, you are going to get some definite feedback from the participants that CAN'T come over to your game because the programmers think it not feasible at this time. Cheap and shallow are they.

Take in consideration, many who bad-mouth Warbirds don't play now, or never have played Warbirds. So whats different from me badmouthing Aces High? Hypocritical some of you are.

Stay off AGW with your bad-mouthing and advertisements, and I will reciprocate. AGW is a haven for me and many others to discuss WB issues, as this board is for you and your AH issues.

When I need to work through the issues about WB, trying to have healthy dialogue about things in WB that need fixed or stuff coming in the future, or just to chat about fun stuff, inevitably, here comes an Aces High fan, spewing somewhere on the board about how IEN sucks, Jay sucks, Iceman sucks. It gets quite trashy. We have to put our faith into these guys, they are in control of the game that we play now. Whatever happened in the past is now past, and some of us go with the flow, because we HAVE TO.

I don't care about discussing AH on the AGW boards, by any means. Its when the bad-mouthers come on defending Aces High, using language that defames IEN or the game, then I take offense, just as you do when anything is mentioned about WB in a good light on this board.

So call me childish, call me what you will, its all prejudice on your part, and hypocritical at the least. But, I stand up for my convictions, even if I make enemies in doing so because, selfishly, I want to keep using my Mac, AND fly with friends on the internet. Aces High doesn't provide that, fine, but don't come over to AGW and cram a limited platform flightsim in my face and call my flightsim things that it is not, turning my pleasurable reading into disgusting flames and untruths. If we want to talk badly of AH, fine, that doesn't mean some sappy, blinded by love, star-struck flightsim AH newbie come spewing and ranting defensively about his crappy flightsim. For the most part, if there is anything negative about Warbirds written here (lol, every other thread), you don't have WBers coming over to defend WBs. We leave you alone with your community and judgements. You don't allow it. I am a perfect example of that. Why should we allow it at AGW?

No other flightsim enthusiasts come to AGW to advertise their product without rebuttal, why should Aces High be able to? If some other PC flightsim came to AGW to advertise how wonderful their shallow product is, I'd be on their boards in a heartbeat to let em know how I feel about them posting community-splitting crap.

Comprende? I didn't re-read or edit this as I post, so hope nothing gets lost in my un-disciplined amatueristic writing and ideas I am putting forth. But if you comprende.

Good.

[JimBear]

Please Go Away.

[Macboy]

JimBear,

You can relate, eh? I have the same feeling over at AGW.

[Superfly]

   


------------------
John "SUPERFLY" Guytan - Art Director
HiTech Creations
"Happiness is a warm gun momma" - The Beatles
-=HELLFIRE=- SQUAD

[Kieren]

Ever consider the fact that you might be taken more seriously on your point if you weren't being a hypocrite in the process?

I am not for insulting WB, AW, FA, AH, et. al. I try not to make any comments too personal. I respect others that do the same. I hate it when someone, on either side, stirs up trouble between our communities. I knew that your posts were rebuttals (at least in your mind they were). Does that make you any less guilty than those here you detest?

As for asking people here to stop insulting iEN, WB, etc.- how do you say that with a straight face, then slam HTC with practically every reference you make to them? While fundamentally I agree with you about posting on AGW about AH, your delivery here always prompts me to respond when I would never consider posting on AGW- in effect, your attempts here to stop us from posting on AGW backfire.

There was no doubt you would be here to take issue on this topic, and I don't blame you for that. You should however take issue with the people personally that wrote on the topic, not the company whose sim they fly. I'm sure you are an adult, and can see the difference.  

[This message has been edited by Kieren (edited 07-05-2000).]

[Westy]

 You're full of sh&t or a real pshycho MG. Both now that I think about it.  You added in a post on WWII Online last week that it was now time for you to go harrass the AH players at thier web board.  You're not fooling anyone here MG.

  -Westy

[Wardog]

MG

You and others forget 1 important thing when bad mouthing either sim.. Many of us fly both WB & AH. I still fly and hold 2 WB accounts as well as my AH account. No doubt ill also join and have an account with wwiionline. But wwiionline will be strickly an Sub thing.

As for cross platform play, HT said that will be down the road a bit. So back off the slurring till it happens, your not making to many friends here at the moment,and youll have few to call your 6 when Mac is part of the system. HTC has done well with 2 people programing, if you cant see this then and the amount of work that has been done there is some wrong with your gray matter!

I fly both with equal enthusiasim,as do many others. Your choice of platform is just that,your choice & yours alone.

Suggest you give it time & start making friends now! This will help greatly in the future..

Dog out.........

[Apache]

Apache deleted this post. Ain't gonna use the language I had in here, just ain't gonna do it!

[This message has been edited by Apache (edited 07-05-2000).]