Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Kentso on March 30, 2007, 06:02:50 PM
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It may be a stretch - but allow an anology, if not only for the benefit of discussion :)
I've been away from AH for some time, waiting for the Combat tour to happen - yet subscribing for scenarios whenever I happened wander in and see a good one on. Don't take me for a "heavy user" that needs a break every now and then. Honestly, I'm a very average player that drifted out at some point in 2005 after joining in in 2001. Nothing specific that caused the drift, just happened.
I was just visiting the forums for the first time in a year and was facinated by the "plane voting" concept when I ran into it in the forums. There are pro-this and pro-that ride threads but at the end of the day user locality and volume will statistically take the day.
Here's the analogy - I happen to follow dpreview (a photography site) very closelly and there's a similar function at work. As a Canon shooter, there are a lot of lens but somehow the general "feeling" in the forums seems to be that only "L" lenses (so calles pro-lenses) are the ones worth purchasing. Yet, every time there is a thread with real photographs in it (not focus charts) the incredible photos are often made by the "cheap lenses." This does not mean that the "L" lenses are not without merrits (I appreciate them myself) but it is the - allow the pun - shooter that makes the shot. If the shooter knows his/her instrument they can operate within the strengths and weaknesses of the apparatus. Yet this group is not in a majoriy position.
Summa summarum, take a favorite topic of mine - the Brewster - it is not about the specks but what is made with it. Imagine getting your bellybutton handed to you by a Brewster while flying a LA7. I'd imagine it wasn't your fault - but due to the fact that the Brewster pilot enjoyed pushing the limit withing the envelope - and you feeling confy withing the LA7. Now, personally, I'd come out of that fight with a determination to learn how to never lose in a LA7 - which would be a good impetus.
Brewster will never be a "public at large request" as it is a conneisseurs platform - why the hell would one want to fly the piece of ***** (by general feeling) if one doesn't learn its strenghts & weaknesses be heart? Likewise not everyone in the world can locate every country on the world map - recognition tends to go by intrest or politics - which is fine. We just need to figure out a way of being able to also enable the needs of smaller intrest groups - read the PS for that.
Have a good weekend!
Kentso
PS. I'm assuming this monologue will be either ignored (realism) or slammed (whishful thinking) but let me suggest something constructive from a business point of view for HTC. With a uptake in Open Source software, a model for development that is taking up steam is having a OS company do product development partially through a bounty system. Ie - mainstream requirments (which Brewster/you name it realistically is not part of) get taken care of by the core team and outside that companies (players) that need something else get together. If the core team is too busy, maybe the community can pitch in? I don't know how to code but
I bid 200$ to get the Brewster.
With some 200 (just a guess) Finnish players getting up some serious dough for the Brewster should not be a problem - a 2 month contribution would be $6000. This is serious enough to intrest freelance coders - while I don't know the HTC set-up, I could imagine that this could have a benefit in that it would boost development beyond anything bigger players could match. While not playing AH currently, I feel "at home" with AH and HTC and would love to see AH prosper (abeit faster, given the wait for the Combat Tour)
This should work likewise for other nationalities - I feel for the Italians and Russians who have been asking forever for certain planes. Why not combine HTC business intrest and community intrest to fastract some projects?
Thanks for hearing me out, now I'm breaking left, wellcome to shoot me down - as many have allready done
;)