Author Topic: $49.95 for................ (Read 945 times)

Roscoroo · « **Reply #45 on:** July 25, 2002, 05:57:26 AM »

must be a WB troll post .....

hazed- · « **Reply #46 on:** July 25, 2002, 07:34:43 AM »

no id pay an extra $5 for an arena called 'laz's furballin' arena' as long as he has to go there all the time

sorry laz couldnt resist

Rude brown tongueing his way up the HTC ladder

its not worth $49 a month.

the average price in online gaming monthly fees is already set around the net.No one would be willing to pay $50 a month for any game unless they are loaded to the gills and most people aint. $30 a month was too steep a price imo but i suffered it because the connections were always superb.Now the connections are generally terrible I wouldnt pay more than $15 odd it costs me now.
sorry but there it is no matter how much i like AH.I left AH because of a few issues , among them the high price.
to be honest I think i would have left AH again a few months ago except $15 isnt too much of a problem so i kept it open.Now if it was $49? or even $30 id see that on my CC statement and id remove it if I wasnt enjoying the game.

lazs2 · « **Reply #47 on:** July 25, 2002, 08:05:15 AM »

1.03 was terrible in both realism and gameplay. buncha guys circling around waiting for someone to attack a lower plane. any plane that was lower was meat.
lazs

VWE001 · « **Reply #48 on:** July 25, 2002, 09:02:29 AM »

I'd gladly pay more for a "low ping" arena... lets say cap it at 50? I get a solid 16 but I know I'm the exception to the rule, I'd like to know what people on DSL and Cable are getting. I do not like it that I get penalized in the MA for having a good connection, I say let all the dialup weenies enjoy a whole mess of their own company.

BUG_EAF322 · « **Reply #49 on:** July 25, 2002, 09:10:19 AM »

More realistic or harder FM ?
that's the question for some i guess i think whenever HTC is in the position to make the FM more realistic they wil.

Just for the same price

But...

I would think it's interesting to have more cockpit managment
navigating and other reallife stuff

On the other hand i'm not a trained pilot and it could become dissapointing.

As i might get lost and never find a fight or just blow up my engine

popeye · « **Reply #50 on:** July 25, 2002, 09:30:13 AM »

Having neither been there, nor done that, I would never use the R word. (However, it does seem to me that taking off in a high performance fighter might require one's undivided attention...)

Gameplay is subjective. I'll admit to enjoying the more calculated style of 1.03. I have also enjoyed subsequent versions.

Low planes could fare just fine in 1.03. Trolling with a Spoit V was one of my favorite passtimes. Imagine my surprise when a 1.04 Jug was able to loop over my head endlessly.... Time to change tactics.

My point was that the 1.03 FM, and price, did affect the character of the community -- for better or worse.

MrLars · « **Reply #51 on:** July 25, 2002, 01:00:22 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by VWE001
I say let all the dialup weenies enjoy a whole mess of their own company.

Just what do you think makes somebody limited to a dial up connect a wennie?

From my experience it's the highspeed connects that create the bulk of the warping strangeness in the arenas. I'd fly from my T1 at work if it was as stable as my dial-up connect. A stable connect is what's important, or is it just that you are tired of loosing HO's:p

easymo · « **Reply #52 on:** July 25, 2002, 01:38:06 PM »

"More realistic or harder FM ?
that's the question for some i guess i think whenever HTC is in the position to make the FM more realistic they wil. "

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
AH is a Game first and a sim 2nd.

----- HiTech

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The beauty of HT's statement, is that it allows him to go in either direction at the drop of a hat. Which ever he thinks might be more financially rewarding (nothing wrong with that)

"Show me the numbers" Is a game producers version of a child saying "just because" The mathematical variables, of this modeling, are infinite. Nobody models the difference in drag between a rivet that was driven in 10 thousands of an inch farther then the one beside it. It would be mathematically impossible to model the inviroment these planes fly through. Every current and eddy. This allows them to pick out the numbers that suit them. Point at them. And say, "see". Its very much like a politician quoting Percentages. They can make the numbers favor anything they like. In flight sims, its also doesn't hurt that they are not open source. And we have no idea what those numbers actually are. We can only point out when something is obviously out of wack. Like the inability to put a plane into a flat spin, in AH. Or a snap roll, in WB.

For a lot of us, the challange of the harder FM is what made it more fun. And I am sure there where some numbers in thee we could point at and say, "see"

Samiam · « **Reply #53 on:** July 25, 2002, 05:56:03 PM »

Rude,

There's a basic economic principal that you are ignoring. Raising the price doesn't necessarily mean more money to HTC and therefore they are able to cater to your desires.

Admitedly, it would result in HTC having to satisfy a narrower audience...well, fewer subscribers at least.

Here's a thought to ponder. Do all the folks who say they would pay more for AH for a better experience agree on exactly what that better experience is?

Raising the price would lead to higher expectations, but still widely varied expectations, and likely *more* dissatisfaction.

You're probably most likely to get what you want by HTC maximizing profit by maintaining a popular price and thus allowing them to satisfy a maximum number of broad interests.

Vortex · « **Reply #54 on:** July 26, 2002, 07:29:52 AM »

No interest here. The days of inflated pricing went away when AW moved from GEnie (thank christ). I don't see HTC even being able to provide the level of service that would be required in such a scenario regardless.

Toad · « **Reply #55 on:** July 26, 2002, 08:21:14 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by easymo
We can only point out when something is obviously out of wack. Like the inability to put a plane into a flat spin, in AH.

First, in all the flight games/sims I've flown, boxed or online, I've found that the spin modeling was the thing apparently most difficult to model. Some had decent entry, some had a decent spin and some had a decent recovery. I don't think I ever found one that had all three in the same game. From this I assume that the huge multitude of variables in spins must make modeling them pretty difficult. That's right, I said "assume".

Second, yes spins in AH now take a lot of manhandling and/or abuse of the controls to enter. They also don't recover using the "standard spin recovery". But they didn't recover using that in 1.03 and previous versions either.

The decades old NACA standard spin recovery is:

1. Power--Off.

2. Ailerons--Neutralize (& Flaps "up").

3. Rudder--Apply fully opposite to the direction of yaw.

4. Elevator--Push through neutral.

Hold These Inputs Until Rotation Stops, Then:

5. Rudder--Neutralize.

6. Elevator--Easy pull to straight and level.

I find that using the NACA recovery... and I'll wager just about every US WW2 pilot can still remember and quote these steps... doesn't work for me in AH. I usually have to use rudder AND AILERON to stop the spin. Note that above Step 2 is to NEUTRALIZE the ailerons.

So, yes, I can point to spins now and say "they're off"... but they were off in 1.03 too. They've been "off" in every WW2 aircombat game I've ever played.

I can also point to the Energy modeling in 1.03 and say it was "off". The simple proof is that a lot of the fighters could not indefinitely maintain a simple 60 degree bank 2G level turn at full power. The drag bled E off so quickly to the point where you couldn't maintain either the altitude or the bank. And this problem wasn't just in the horizontal. It was in every flight regime.

(In fact, I'm still a little puzzled at the way we retain E when trying to land... and this is the reverse problem; the planes maintain E too well. It was that way pre-1.03 and it still is. Go figure. Sometimes I think it has something to do with perception, like the way the airfields are scaled and that it isn't E modeling per se. But that's a whole different discussion.

)

There may have been a "fighter" that couldn't indefinitely (well, until it ran out of gas) maintain a 2 G turn in WW2 but I don't think any of those modeled here so far fit into that category.

For pity's sake, my PT-19 will do a "steep turn" for about 4 hours.. then you run out of gas. And it's a 200 HP primary trainer.

So, if one had to pick between two "flaws" in a flight model, which would be the more serious?

Difficulty in modeling spins? Or difficulty in modeling Energy use and retention throughout the flight regime?

There's no question that spins are probably a little too rare now and that the recovery procedure doesn't "match".

There's also no question that E use/retention is modeled MUCH better now than it was in 1.03 and previous.

As I said, everyone defines their version of "fun" for themselves. I have no problem with that.

But it should be pretty clear, given our venue (ie: PC flight games/sims) that getting E use/retention throughout the entire flight regime more closely aligned with reality is of far more benefit to the experience than having a spin model more closely aligned with reality.

BTW, there's lots of little things one can point to that seem "not exactly". There always is, in just about any endeavor, not just PC gaming.

However, this AH FM package, taken as a whole, is amazingly impressive considering that it runs quite well and fluidly on a relatively inexpensive desktop PC while striving for and achieveing a "believeable" WW2 flying experience.

~~HTC.~~

Rude · « **Reply #56 on:** July 26, 2002, 08:28:33 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Samiam
Rude,

There's a basic economic principal that you are ignoring. Raising the price doesn't necessarily mean more money to HTC and therefore they are able to cater to your desires.

Admitedly, it would result in HTC having to satisfy a narrower audience...well, fewer subscribers at least.

Here's a thought to ponder. Do all the folks who say they would pay more for AH for a better experience agree on exactly what that better experience is?

Raising the price would lead to higher expectations, but still widely varied expectations, and likely *more* dissatisfaction.

You're probably most likely to get what you want by HTC maximizing profit by maintaining a popular price and thus allowing them to satisfy a maximum number of broad interests.

I only was wallowing in my own selfish desires...the thread was not intended to be analyzed, critiqued or even taken seriously....I was just curious if anyone out there felt as I did.

easymo · « **Reply #57 on:** July 26, 2002, 12:37:24 PM »

I am not kidding.

I don't know if it was intentional

. But, as toad pointed out. Pre and post 1.03 were both less then perfect. It is just a matter of preference. I liked the edgy feeling that if I push this turn a little to far, this thing is going to fall out from under me. AND I AM WILLING TO PAY TWICE THE GOING RATE TO PLAY IT.

Samiam · « **Reply #58 on:** July 26, 2002, 01:24:50 PM »

Sounds like there should be an NA (Nostalgia Arena) that uses BETA map and requires vers. 1.02.

...AND it's own BB forum so we don't have to keep hearing how great it was in the "old" days