Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: FiLtH on January 20, 2006, 03:24:40 PM
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Ive seen some posts talking about it being dead?
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check the AH home page. think its been renamed.
Bronk
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2 weeks. I promise.
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It is not dead, they renamed it to avoid potential copyright infringement cases.
They say it is in Alpha or early Beta testing now.
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But there are still no news.
Somewhat missguiding on the homepage IMO "Announces Combat Tour"
What should have been posted is that it has been renamed. It was announced, what? A year ago? And it is still "possibly" 6 months away.
HTC ain't feeding us nothing afai am concerned. Combat Tour has become more of an "if" then a "when" for me, which is also the reason I have hardly flown at all lately. At the moment I am still paying but not sure for what.
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Originally posted by Wilbus
But there are still no news.
Somewhat missguiding on the homepage IMO "Announces Combat Tour"
What should have been posted is that it has been renamed. It was announced, what? A year ago? And it is still "possibly" 6 months away.
HTC ain't feeding us nothing afai am concerned. Combat Tour has become more of an "if" then a "when" for me, which is also the reason I have hardly flown at all lately. At the moment I am still paying but not sure for what.
he's doing that annoying secretive weasel thing :D im sure when it comes out (first half of this year) we will all be pleasantly surprised:aok
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he's doing that annoying secretive weasel thing im sure when it comes out (first half of this year) we will all be pleasantly surprised
Doesn't really matter. HTC has taken a move towards what killed IEN in my opinion, meaning not really giving a damn about the community. Atleast when it comes to some things. While they still respond to some threads, much of what once made HTC a great company (when it was still small and had to make its way in on the market) has been lost IMO.
Things being "overlooked" in updates which should have been fixed (or never broken) years ago.
Like I said before, at the moment it is more of an "if" than a "when" for me although I am quite sure they will release it and when they do I will probarly like it alot.
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Wilbus there is such as thing as being burried in your own weight. Hence everything crushes to a near halt because the whole thing becomes too much of a burden to bear by the few. I think the whole CT thing sounds great but how do so few handle so much weight? I wish them the best but you are most likey right about the future. With so much to do little gets done and the core business stagnates.
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I'm with Wilbus on this. We've been waiting so long to hear something about ToD / CT aside from it is coming. I got very excited on January 12 when HTC "announced" CT, almost like it was some entirely new thing. I thought for sure this was a marketing ploy to get new interest in the product from the gaming community at large. So I was thinking that shortly after that "announcement", HTC would be releasing some sort of new screen-shots or game-play movies or something that would draw in new gamers.
Unfortunately, a week has gone by and there has been nothing new. Any potential interest from new gamers or magazines might be shot down when they visit these boards and find nothing to look at other than an "announcement" and several of these threads with us long time players getting tired of waiting.
I am expecting CT to be released (at least open beta) by the end of March. HTC cancelled the 2005 Con stating that the next Con would be in Spring 2006. That was supposed to let them concentrate on ToD development. We'll see...
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I can imagine making such a thing as TOD or the mission based thing would be really hard to do, and keep it human. Not all robotic in its nature. Thats why I love FSO. To me its everything I want in this game. The great combat we have daily, but with all the hard work humans put into the planning and stuff that I just cant imagine a program doing.
So for me..until it does happen..FSO and the guys who make it happen, are the best this game can be. The MA is just the training arena as far as Im concerned. If you havent tried Friday Squad Ops, check out the Squad Ops forum and get with a squad thats part of it. I look forward to it like I do Sunday football games. It really makes this game have win/lose effects, as compared to the daily real estate trading in the MA.
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You can get 90 percent plus of what you would get out of a automated CT with simply running a special events team. What are you missing? Promotions? awards? How hard would it be to make that a part of the current special ops? And you have humans running it. Thats what confuses me. Why spend so much to add so little when you can give what you have some more attention and get the same or better effect for 10 pecent of the effort and coad base. The extra effort then could spill over into the long stagnant MA and breath more life into the core business model and you already have a workforce doing by hand what you want to automate and its free. As you automate some of those functions to enhance the special events you are essentially building CT. The difference being you don't ignore your core business model and you get most of the work done for free.
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Originally posted by rabbidrabbit
You can get 90 percent plus of what you would get out of a automated CT with simply running a special events team. What are you missing? Promotions? awards? How hard would it be to make that a part of the current special ops...
Good Points, but I think it's a time issue for players, at least for me. I enjoy FSO, but I haven't participated in a long time, because I can't make the commitment to my squad or other participants every week. My play-time schedule has changed and keeps changing based on RL stuff. If I can't make it to an FSO or other organized event, other player's suffer and it's my fault.
That is where CT will be better. When I have time to play, I will get the feel of being in an organized mission with specific goals rather than the same old MA. If I can't play, some AI pilot will fill the spot I might have been in, so the other players that are there won't feel the loss.
Bring on CT... (But how about some screenies or video or news if it's not ready yet :D)
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True enough but there are already events most nights of the week. If HTC got involved in the process there could be many more. It still would be cheaper than a couple man years of Coad writing. On one hand you can jump on and fly missions 24/7 and the other you get shot down by real people instead of robots and you experience the realities of war were good decisions and bad play through. My point is humanity is best in its true self rather than coaded. To illustrate that how many complain about auto ack already? Imagine what it would be like if 90 percent of the time you died it was to a random number generator rather than another person. Also imagine how much worse it would be that when you died you had something to lose. Unless CT gets serious enough numbers of real pilots it will suffer dearly, just like out Axis and allies arena. Its a big gamble and that why I'm saying why not run with whats been proven and develop that in the direction you wish to end up instead.
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True again, however, turnout would still be an issue, no matter how well liked the organized events are. And the stress level goes way up when the CMs are trying to get the thing going on time and the walk-ons that have no clue what is even happening want to join up and play 2 minutes before expected launch time.
Also, in CT, players will be able to expect missions with, as HiTech stated, "hundreds" of aircraft. Without AI to take the vacant spots, that wouldn't be possible to do on a nightly basis, or with new missions starting every hour.
To accomplish what CT should do by using only humans (for CMs, mission planning, order distribution, pilots to fill all expected slots, etc.) you would need a full time staff of paid employees.
Special events are fun, and are probably the best thing to actually get adrenaline pumping when playing a flight sim, but it takes too much effort to do large scale events on a regular (multiple times per day) basis.
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Midnight,
You are making valid points from what I see but entertain the thought that the two are not mutually exclusive. What if for the the scenario the CM could add flights of unmanned bombers or fighters to complete the scenario. See what I'm saying? You could build the end product in steps by enhancing what is already there. You enhance what is there and end up with a product that is a blend of the two. From development point you can design and test components and then add to it piecemeal until you have the end product. This is much less onnerous than a entirely separate mega product. The community also sees some sort of progress other than a few smart remarks. Its always better to let the community participate than to lock it out.
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I think HTC needs to hire a PR guy/gal. There sole job would be just to keep the lines of comunication open between the company and the community. I can understand Dale and crew being too busy to keep up with this due to all the work they are doing on CT. I also think the time table has been accelerated by the contributions of some of the players doing the art work ....skins and cockpits... but the community "needs" these little tid-bits of info even if its just to keep CT in the news.
I'm sure a small release weekly like .... "Work continued on the AI portion of the code this week, heres a screen shot of 50 B17's in a loose formation."..... would have people talking about CT 100 times more that they are now. With that kind of "chatting" running across multiple boards and game fronts the "free" advertising would keep everyones intrest peeked.
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See the problem is.....for someone to sit down with HT and Pyro and be told enough to actually understand enough about things to be able to give us updates would take longer than HT doing it himself and keep HT away from that keyboard coding CT.
And I dont want ANYTHING to take HT away from that keyboard.
In fact the next HTC employee who read this.....tell HT to get back to it. What? You mean he wanted a bathroom break? Good grief, just buy him a potty.
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/209_1137109117_20029211530-0-swoop.gif)
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screen shots would be nice. :)
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Screen shots would be really nice. If we're this far into it, and expecting some sort of release first 1/2 this year, there MUST be something that can provided as screen shots. If there is nothing worthy of a screen-shot yet, I think that the CT release date is in BIG trouble. Many boxed games have screen shots out a year, maybe two (think HL2) before the game goes to full release.
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Originally posted by Midnight
Screen shots would be really nice. If we're this far into it, and expecting some sort of release first 1/2 this year, there MUST be something that can provided as screen shots. If there is nothing worthy of a screen-shot yet, I think that the CT release date is in BIG trouble. Many boxed games have screen shots out a year, maybe two (think HL2) before the game goes to full release.
If CT uses the same engine as AH2 does, how will screenies of something that looks no different than a squad ops event appease you?
That maybe the fundamental reason HT is so quiet, CT looks the same and people might be disappointed, whereas its a gameplay thing thats gonna be nice about it. Release screenies and all the naysayers go "big deal, looks the same".
p.s. playing ww2ol where they really rush things out - sometimes due to the community and telling the community to much - I can understand HTC taking it steady and not rushing us out a piece of coad full of bugs.
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Well, I thought that Sudz was brought in to be the graphics guy there at HTC. With the last couple updates we got a couple new effects and there is a little more eye candy than there used to be. I would like to think that with a new game as monumental as CT may be, some new graphical improvements will be forthcoming.
Granted, there won't be anything ground-breaking in the way planes look, but what about the terrain? We can't have hundreds of bombers going to drop bombs on the current version of an AH city. One of those can be leveled by just 2 or 3 formations (6 or 9 total aircraft) of B17s.
HiTech mentioned that the GPS locator may be removed, making navigation more important. If every square mile of ground is just a repeat of the same tiles we have now, people will be lost all over the place.
Besides, what about the mission briefing, and general interface? I hope it's not going to be as simplistic as the current clip-board. Waypoints will need a few more details about them than just the heading, alt and power settings that we have now.
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In my opinion AI pretty much kills the game for me. If I want to fly against AI, I'll buy a boxed Sim. I left WarBirds due to its trend to AI...is AH following this path?
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Originally posted by Midnight
Well, I thought that Sudz was brought in to be the graphics guy there at HTC.
I believe that Sudz was brought in to fill Ronnie's slot as a programmer. As far as I know, Nate and Fly are still the eye candy gurus.
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Originally posted by FiLtH
I can imagine making such a thing as TOD or the mission based thing would be really hard to do, and keep it human. Not all robotic in its nature. Thats why I love FSO. To me its everything I want in this game. The great combat we have daily, but with all the hard work humans put into the planning and stuff that I just cant imagine a program doing.
So for me..until it does happen..FSO and the guys who make it happen, are the best this game can be. The MA is just the training arena as far as Im concerned. If you havent tried Friday Squad Ops, check out the Squad Ops forum and get with a squad thats part of it. I look forward to it like I do Sunday football games. It really makes this game have win/lose effects, as compared to the daily real estate trading in the MA.
i agree! :aok
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Originally posted by Patches1
In my opinion AI pretty much kills the game for me. If I want to fly against AI, I'll buy a boxed Sim. I left WarBirds due to its trend to AI...is AH following this path?
The MA will still be here, AI free.
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That is probably what will hurt if not kill CT, the AI thing but you are stuck no matter what you do. That is one of the reasons for rolling the technology out as options for those running scenarios. You get to roll out components and get a feel of how they will actually work instead of trying to handle a monster in one big release. Honestly,I don't know why they don't roll this product out this way instead of holding it back.
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Originally posted by Wilbus
It was announced, what? A year ago? And it is still "possibly" 6 months away.
More like three years ago I'm afraid. Personally I hope they keep it in development as long as necessary to get it right though, no sweat off my brow.
What I regret is that other things are being back burnered for it. No, I don't mean MA development, we got AH2, new planes/artwork, and small but meaningful eye candy, that's all good. I regret the convention(s) being cancelled. AH-con-05 was cancelled due to the need to concentrate resources on ToD, and there was supposed to be one this spring. Right now I seriously doubt there will be one and even if there is attendance is gonna be bad since there's not enough lead time for folks to get time off anymore.
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The AI thing doesnt bother me a bit. Especially if you really dont know if its a real person or not. Im sure with the mix of real people, the ai units will just add to the fun as missions that many people dont wish to take part in, would still exist to kill or escort.
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Its a shame, TOD (or whatever) has taken much longer than everyone had hoped, and in the mean time the MA has suffered with patchwork attepts to keep the hardcore (loyal and been here forever) players and still attract newbies. In the end, as happens whenever a game wants to become 'mainstream' those who have been here the longest see many things that we once thought of as 'part of the game' disapear.
There has been some serrious issues that have crept into AH over the past year or so, and basic gameplay has suffered. While still a fine game, we have seen what once was an involving simulation with cooperation between squadrons dry up into a 'whats the point' game where what you and/or your squad does either makes no difference or you are actually penalized for playing well.
Gone is most tactical gameplay, and bombers have been made about as fun as your average doctors waiting room. With no challege there is no feeling of acomplishment...whoopie I can press a button.
Gone is any real incentive to take bases. For Y E A R S te Rooks where typically 'in the bucket' with less players than the other teams. One week the bishops lost some players, and the whinning was so thunderous that within a month we get the NME PUNATIVE SLAP DOWN SYSTEM. Now trying to capture bases is a bad thing...why bother to capture bases....the enemy will get discouraged, lof off...and like magic, your hard work, cooperation and planing have been rewarded by you being unable to fly half the planes in the game. Wow...now thats incentive to try and win isnt it.
Now we have these new huge maps, but nothing ever happens on 90% of them. The game takes place CONSTANTLY at the middle and lines rarely ever change. Becuse there is no incentive to capture bases there is even less incentive to defend them.
The game has truely deteriorated into air quake. No goal other than to vulch vulch vulch. The crazy thing is the ground war is actually improved while the air game has been castrated. HT made the mistake of announcing combat tour way early, and so inevitable delays that are so normal in software development are seen by the end user, and it can be very frustrating.
My squadron has basically disbanded, after years and years of playing together, few even bother to show up anymore on squad night. The game is just not what it once was, and if TOD doesnt arrive soon, I fail to see how it will endure at all.
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Screen shots, if they would have any yet. Any regular tidbit would be appreciated. Or you know what would be fun. A digital picture of hitech hunched over his computer working on the CT, but with just enough screen showing to give us a taste of what he is working on. ;) Of course it would probably look like
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Only 5 more daddog;)
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Happy 10 Grand Daddog!!!
Impressively pathetic, lol. :lol
:aok