Your overall opinion on Squad Operations.

[BlkKnit]

You know,  I was just pondering the numbers thing.  I may go off on a tangent here, I apologize in advance

There must be many squads in the MA that have absolutely no interest in events.  I dont know how many we have on fridays, but I do know the squads themselves tend toward a higher turnout.  MAW will usually turnout 12-15, sometimes more.  We have such numbers because we are a HUGE dang squad!  with 15 showing its less than 1/3 what our our membership was a few months ago.  Even now I think we have around 40 members.  Some guys come and go, some are regulars.  I fly whenever I can, since events are really what I joined up for in the first place.

Now (I'll try to make a point...really)  how many members of non event squads might actually wish they were in events?  Sure, some of these could fly as guests, many do I'm sure.  But what if they were encouraged to form "event" based squads, outside their MA affiliation?  I considered trying such a thing myself at one time, but figured I am not well enough known to pull such a thing off.   Plus the fact that I would only be able to fly half the SSO's due to CM duties.  Attempts to put together a MAW group to fly sundays has resulted in only 2 interested responses.  Could be other squads with similar problems who might "band together".

Interesting tales of the events, told to MA squaddies afterward, could lead to added interest in SSO and boost numbers.

Or not.

[ramzey]

are they worry  about, somone judge his skills on sops? ;-)

[68falcon]

BlkKnit

As far as MA members who are in a squad that are not participating in Squad events you have a point. We have a few who fly with us on Friday nights. Also have had a few that have joined us because of our participation in other then the MA.
We make it a point to let people know that the MA is only one aspect of AH.
IMHO Sunday is just that Sunday not conducive to other then family events and get togethers. Possibly recuperation from Friday and Saturday in preparation for Monday work. I do not believe that Sunday will ever meet the numbers of Friday night.
It is not the scenario or the CM's or the plane set or the tactics, it is Sunday.
Well that is my opinion

[skernsk]

Originally posted by lucull
Geezus, one little post and 3 CMs answering.

 

I too was not being defensive .. I did have a look at the warbirds site and viewed the results of the latest events.  Seems the only populated ones are the Target for Tonight events.  Not being a warbird vet I have no idea what that is.

I have watched this thread closely and feedback and suggestions are important.  I personally like many of the ideas and will discuss a few among the team and try to make a few happen.

[ramzey]

is not , S3 running by players and all the rest by IEN crews?

[lucull]

I agree, that friday is the more attractive day/daytime, therefor sunday might never reach their numbers. I see you have a point that sunday is the family day, but in reality you have everytime at least 250+ people furballing in the MA while SSO. Is that reflecting family day?
We should try to get them away from Burger King into the "restaurant".

How?

1. SSO needs to run smooth (incl. designs, constant numbers, spirit, ...)
2. we have to get it in the players heads, there is such an exciting event (advertising)
3. players need to read what this event is all about (portal site)
4. players have to speak with other players to get other squads to try it out (personal approach is always better than an announcement in the MA; secondly we want whole squads and not single players)
5. if you start growing you get a snowball effect and numbers grow even more
6. mission accomplished.


I think we started last sunday with point #1

p.s. The points above are only directed to SSO and can only be partly transfered to FSO, even though it's based on the same concept.

[skernsk]

Some good points Lucull.  

Sunday squad ops is at that time of day where I am up to my neck in kids. The Friday squadop takes place after my kids are in bed ,,, I think that is a big reason why the numbers are this way.

I can jump into the MA for a few missions while I have 2 kids on my lap and spend 10 mins .. a two hour event is out of the question.

[lucull]

How old are your kids? I mean recruiting can never be too early and you could fly and do something together with your kids!

... or when they are too young...

"Sit down kids and watch daddy fly. For every kill you get a ball of icecream later."
I bet they will sit beside you and act like little cheerleaders.

However, I agree with you, but it should be possible to drag some from MA to SEA at least some europeans.

[daddog]

"Sit down kids and watch daddy fly. For every kill you get a ball of icecream later."

ROFL! Only a guess here, but you don't have any kids do you? That really made me laugh.

[BlkKnit]

Sit down kids and watch daddy fly. For every kill you get a ball of icecream later

Yeah...my kids would get pretty hungry

[EsmeNhaMaire]

A wee bit of history for those that don't know this:

Most of my direct personal experience of S3's was back in WB2, and numbers then, for what was a 3 hour game on a Sunday were straining what the arena could handle severly, ie: about 300.  When WBIII came along, numbers overall dropped, not only because of the far more powerful system required to run WBIII, but also because WBIII was released in a far from satisfactory state, and over time many of the players into S3-type games simply left, some ending up in AH.

It is my understanding, but I may be wrong on this, that numbers overall in WB are still not back to what they were when WB2 was in its heyday.  One has to bear in mind, that a direct comparison of numbers between AH and WB is not comparing like with like, because

- WBIII is far more graphically intensive than AH, therefore far fewer people CAN run it
- WBIII is still recovering from circumstances that looked horribly likely to kill the company, at one point., AH is not.
- when AW folded, it seems as if AH picked up more of the AW players than WB did

IMHO, with regard to the organised games, it's more sensible to compare AH now with WB2 in its heyday.


For the record, I don;t have any axes to grind with regard to particular games; I sincerely hope that all the current WW2 combat flight sims succeed. I do, of course, have my own agenda with regard to what I feel is necessary for the best WW2 flight sim experience, and speak out as I feel necessary in each game.

Esme

[skernsk]

Originally posted by lucull
How old are your kids?

I have 3.  6, 4 and 19 months.  As you can imagine even on Friday night squad-op I am going AFK to deal with crying kids, the usual stall tactics of 'my tummy hurts' 'can I have a drink of water?' or my favorite 'I have to go poop' .......

I don't even bother flying during the day any more.  My son is showing alot of interest but he wants to fly himself and not stand on the sidelines and watch.  I plunk him in front of the computer and let him fly offline.  He once flew through a hangar and I nearly peed myself laughing at him.  He mostly just stalls and thunders it in after running out of ammo.

[Squire]

I flew S3s in WB2 for 3 years.

They were a good event, and in many ways similar to the Squad Ops. There are a few things I liked better about them and other things not as much.

I would like to see the S.O.s take the best of the S3s, and fold that into an already very succesfull AH event. Namely CO and a/c continuity, and perhaps a closer look at ratios sometimes. There have been other suggestions as well, many of them look good.

I think this has been a great thread.

P.S. WBIII has so many in S3s because a large part of what player base they have left fly in them. When WB was "the" sim...you had 200 in the MA and 150 in the S3 on a sunday night. That was back in 2000. Not that that has zippity doo da about the subject at hand

[ramzey]

Originally posted by skernsk
I have 3.  6, 4 and 19 months..........

congrats:)  


I flew S3 twice this year. FIrst time around feb/mar
and secound jun or juli. Both times numbers was 200+

[EsmeNhaMaire]

Towards the end of WB2, there were 300 players or so in the S3s, regularly. As  I remarked, it was straining what the arenas could handle to teh limit. So much so that the last few S3s prior to WBIII actually had staggered start times for squads, each squad generally only being allowed to fly for two hours (exceptions being bombers rtbing; so long as they returned before frame end, that was OK).

If there were any S3's in WB2 that had as few as 150 people in whilst I was flying in 'em, it must have been early on in my S3 career, when I wasn't as aware of the overall picture. IIRC, the Axis numbers were alyways in three figures, and we were nearly always handily outnumbered by the Allies.

The IMPORTANT point, though, is that it was a quality event which was started by a couple of squads (JG14 and, I think, Daddy's FG, 52nd?) and attracted more and more people because of the quality of the event.  Bomber crews loved it because it allowed us to do what we like doing best the way that we like doing it (buffing is a "long", game, as compared to fighters being a "short" one).  

There is no reason why AH cannot have events of similar quality.  I know that the CMs have certainly been trying to improve things, but I think that part of the problem has been a failure by large chunks of teh community to appreciate just how different the bomber side of things to the fighter side, and that accomodating what is good for the bombers only means improving things further for the fighter side (If more buff pilots are having fun, there;s more buffs to shoot down, right?). Some seem to think that because the fighters are more popular that it isnt worth expending much energy on the buff side, but that just creates a vicious circle which ensures that buffing won't be much fun, and so few will want to do it.  It's a short-sighted view which makes no real sense any way that you look at it

Current AH is generally something like WB2+ (major negative with AH being fuel use/management, ever-present GPS,  and some oddities in the FM (I've never been convinced about the accuracy of the axial inertia in AH - but then that isn't such a big deal to bomber pilots).  It looks as if AHII will be providing even more in the software for us to play with. Well and good - so it's down to the quality of what is DONE with the software, and as some past games in both AH and WB have shown, well-organised games can help transcend some of the limitations of the software to produce truly outstanding game experiences.

As I;ve said - I have not been present in Squad ops for quite a while, therefore I cannot comment on them directly. But I hope my contributions here have helped promote ideas which can improve things all round for everyone.

Esme