Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: sullie363 on December 26, 2007, 09:09:41 PM

Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: sullie363 on December 26, 2007, 09:09:41 PM
So another Santa flight has passed and we again flew around for an hour or so in night.  Now I fully realize some of you HATED night as it was in AH1, but from what I saw things have changed a quite a bit.  While there were a few, and I really do mean just a couple, that I saw complain about night befalling the arena during Santa's flight, I saw many many more people saying just how cool and fun it was.  Now I never messed with my gamma settings in the AH1 since I actually enjoyed what night brought to the game, but I do remember on many occasions not being able to even see the runway.  But now, night really isn't a whole lot different from day.  The ground is very easily seen and so are enemy aircraft.  Everything is very well illuminated under what seems to be the brightest full moon possible.  I noticed no slowdown in the amount of kills being landed, I certainly had no trouble.  If anything, night made it easier to spot enemy icons.  I honestly think most people online at the time enjoyed the night flying while it lasted and I think it should be revisited with a fresh perspective.  Perhaps a trial period in one of the late war arenas where it turns to night just a couple times a day and only for maybe 20 or 30 minutes at a time.  If it turns out people like it, then we would have added back in something cool to the game.  Otherwise, things stay just the same.

By the way HT, very nice light effects in the cockpits, I heard many positive comments about them.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: WMLute on December 26, 2007, 09:17:18 PM
With a simple adjustment of an Arena Setting (I tried to get HiTech to do this on Xmas eve) nightime is a clear as daytime, but w/ the cool sky, stars, and neato cockpit lights.

I've run many a SnapShot and KOTH w/ night time.  It's quite do'able.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: Sketch on December 26, 2007, 09:23:37 PM
Now if we could just dim that sun a little bit....  :cool:
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: Yeager on December 26, 2007, 09:43:27 PM
I was reminded of how much I dislike the dark in AH.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: Captain Virgil Hilts on December 26, 2007, 09:52:16 PM
I guess I must have missed the instructions on how to turn on the instrument lights, because my P-38J sure didn't have any. I turned south and couldn't see ANY of my instruments. And only at certain times could I see anything other than icons and stars.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: kilz on December 26, 2007, 11:24:25 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Captain Virgil Hilts
I guess I must have missed the instructions on how to turn on the instrument lights, because my P-38J sure didn't have any. I turned south and couldn't see ANY of my instruments. And only at certain times could I see anything other than icons and stars.




got to open your eyes LOL just kidding. you can always ajust your gamma.

 I loved the night time we got for xmas eve. i had no problems spoting hangers in my bombers. i had no problem spotting rooks and bish to kill. me and my squad had a blast with the night fall.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: Slash27 on December 26, 2007, 11:27:47 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Sketch
Now if we could just dim that sun a little bit....  :cool:


Or just reduce its size a tad. It looks like its 10 times larger than it should be.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: Jaxxon on December 27, 2007, 12:15:59 AM
Quote
Originally posted by kilz


 I loved the night time we got for xmas eve. i had no problems spoting hangers in my bombers. i had no problem spotting rooks and bish to kill. me and my squad had a blast with the night fall.


You see now, that's the problem with night. If you're below or behind something you can't see it till you're in close :aok
When you're above it, it's as plain as day from way out. Even under a full moon it's not right.
The light source is too bright.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: Gixer on December 27, 2007, 01:16:18 AM
Quote
Originally posted by Sketch
Now if we could just dim that sun a little bit....  :cool:


Agreed...

Use to be fun doing low level Lanc raids at night in AH1 especially in maps like the Baltic, though I haven't been in a buff since.


...-Gixer
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: trotter on December 27, 2007, 02:22:19 AM
perma daylight is one of the low points of this game.

Even just 1 hour of night would make a huge difference.

I wasn't around for night in AH1. One of my favorite snapshots ever was a nighttime lanc raid against factories with 190D's defending. I was flying a 190D and was absolutely amazed (this is after 2 years of flying with perma daylight) absolutely amazed with the way my cockpit lights shone in green, the way I literally had to squint and put real effort into spotting possible bandits. It was just beautiful. And after all this, it turns out that the bombers did not arrive until it was dawn (I was told this was intentional). Still, very cool, but I don't understand this aversion to night, even to the point of purposefully designing a snapshot so that the bombers that historically dropped their eggs at night are now arriving at their targets during dawn.

I think night in the MA's would add an entirely new element. During the cover of darkness, many more people would be inclined to fly pork missions, HQ raids, any sort of ord dropping in general. That, in turn, would spark fighter patrols at night chancing on the increased frequency of these sorties. Would certainly be nice to have the environment dictate a bit of what we do as virtual flyers, even if it is something as simple as light. Next, is the weather :)
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: kilz on December 27, 2007, 03:33:18 AM
Quote
Originally posted by Jaxxon
You see now, that's the problem with night. If you're below or behind something you can't see it till you're in close :aok
When you're above it, it's as plain as day from way out. Even under a full moon it's not right.
The light source is too bright.



that would go back to my other part of that post learn how to use gamma:aok
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: Adonai on December 27, 2007, 03:38:54 AM
Other day I had the pleasure of doing snapshot in Africa at night, Spitfires vs C205s (yeah little one sided there) it was a PLEASURE to fly at night, believe time was 12am and I LOVED it, made it a strain to see those enemy fighters coming in (yeah its night time right?)

I even managed to bounce 15 c205's since it was so pitch black and I didnt have my Icons on I was suprised neither the C205s seen me as I seen them.

I really think It would give a great edge in the arena (I know some will oppose to this) but I pay my 15 dollars a month as others and my opinion should matter, perhaps having 1 arena with day and night arena, other just day and dusk?
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: BiPoLaR on December 27, 2007, 04:24:32 AM
Bring back the night time...i had a blast...felt like a n00blet again i had so much fun
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: kilz on December 27, 2007, 07:50:30 AM
Quote
Originally posted by BiPoLaR
Bring back the night time...i had a blast...felt like a n00blet again i had so much fun



your saying dont count. you dont have enough sheep to even be heard from :D
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: WWhiskey on December 27, 2007, 09:04:50 AM
I missed it! DARN!!
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: AWMac on December 27, 2007, 10:31:57 AM
Man night CV landings used to be the schnizzel...

Wish we had at least 1 hour of night back.

:aok

Mac
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: RATTFINK on December 27, 2007, 11:42:02 AM
Put me down for nighttime :D


Nighttime Snapshot:

(http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u7/rattfink31/ahss163.jpg)
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: Yippee38 on December 27, 2007, 12:16:52 PM
To quote Savatage (one of my favorite metal bands):

"Lord bring on the night
Wrap it all around me
Let it hold me tight
Soak up all that I bleed

And I'll fly away
Yeah I'll fly away
Yeah I'll fly away
Watch me"

That "bleed" part is especially true about me.

I'd love to see night return in at least one arena.  I always enjoyed night the way it was and could never understand why so many people hated it.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: MajIssue on December 27, 2007, 01:13:28 PM
I agree with the night flying is FUN contingent! Also, that even 1 hour of night is preferrable to none, and that 3 hours of washed out windscreens when flying east or west is a real downer.  Just a little tweak on the clouds and wind would be good as well (maybe a 5 or 10 knot wind and a few more clouds). Perma daylight: BAD!

BRING BACK THE NIGHT!!!
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: trax1 on December 27, 2007, 03:07:58 PM
Night time flying is the one thing I really look forward to on AH, and it's unfortunate it only happens for a short time once a year.  I say bring back night flying.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: Yeager on December 27, 2007, 03:12:16 PM
just a reminder.  night sucks.  leave the dead horse be.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: Stang on December 27, 2007, 03:40:54 PM
Toolshedders love night because they can be even more sneaky and avoid fighting other human opponets.

Make it noon 24/7.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: SFCHONDO on December 27, 2007, 04:44:20 PM
Apperantly most don't know or forgot why they got rid of night in the first place.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: rabbidrabbit on December 27, 2007, 04:56:55 PM
You have 2 MA's now...  Would not hurt to play with night a bit in one while leaving the other be.  Whats wrong with variety?
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: acfireguy26 on December 27, 2007, 05:01:25 PM
Quote
Originally posted by rabbidrabbit
You have 2 MA's now...  Would not hurt to play with night a bit in one while leaving the other be.  Whats wrong with variety?


I agree bring night to one arena atleast.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: DH367th on December 27, 2007, 05:38:21 PM
I hope that as a community we could use the power of voice to get HT
to add night for 1 hour to just 1 of the arenas. Heck it could add color to mid or early and help the low usage of said arenas.
Dh367th
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: Stang on December 27, 2007, 06:58:31 PM
Coad some mean night fighters and I'd be for it.  Night in its current form is a gamey and pointless.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: Gixer on December 27, 2007, 07:31:12 PM
Stang has a point, reason why night was dropped in the first place people whined long and hard about it to go.


...-Gixer
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: trax1 on December 27, 2007, 07:53:37 PM
Like others have said, they could atleast put it in one of the arenas.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: hubsonfire on December 27, 2007, 08:31:36 PM
Why would you play an online aerial combat game with the sole intention of hiding from the other players?
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: sullie363 on December 27, 2007, 09:37:53 PM
Nice to see so many positive comments.  I would also say that the old complaints that some are bringing back up are no longer valid, AH2 night simply isn't comparable to AH1.  I mean visibility is just fine and I had no difficulty in finding and keeping track of enemy targets, so sorry but there's no hiding.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: trax1 on December 27, 2007, 10:44:26 PM
Yeah I think alot of the people saying that you can hide at night haven't seen what night looks like in AH now, I had no problem seeing any cons on Christmas eve, visibility is just as good as day time, it's just the sky is dark.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: moot on December 27, 2007, 10:55:59 PM
Night isn't good because you can hide in it.  It's good for the same reason rain, snow, turbulence, etc would be good to have.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: LePaul on December 28, 2007, 12:14:46 AM
Ah, *selective* realism is the word of the day   :)
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: moot on December 28, 2007, 12:30:06 AM
I just don't see how it detracts from good dogfighting.  The icons should be revised (fade in/out at different distances than now), radar should too, etc.  
As an analogy, rally racing is no less racing than F1.  

We could at least get storm fronts back.  It was fun to have clouds you could hide in or lose targets into.. It made finding bomber formations in them and flying right up to them to get a clear shot very fun.. It was a challenge to get hits on them outside of that visibility too.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: LePaul on December 28, 2007, 12:47:14 AM
As a Lanc driver, I loved night...cruise along at 14k and few people would try to stop you.  Those that did were really good and a challenge to defend against.  

Boring flight?  Never!  The Ch 1 whining was all the entertainment I needed!
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: Yippee38 on December 28, 2007, 09:23:54 AM
Quote
Originally posted by LePaul
Ah, *selective* realism is the word of the day   :)


Any sim producer has to employ selective realism.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: MajIssue on December 28, 2007, 10:05:24 AM
Quote
Originally posted by rabbidrabbit
You have 2 MA's now...  Would not hurt to play with night a bit in one while leaving the other be.  Whats wrong with variety?



Yea, What the rabbit said...
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: sullie363 on December 30, 2007, 08:28:49 PM
Quote
Originally posted by LePaul
As a Lanc driver, I loved night...cruise along at 14k and few people would try to stop you.  Those that did were really good and a challenge to defend against.  

Boring flight?  Never!  The Ch 1 whining was all the entertainment I needed!


That's what I found.  Night fights that used to be almost impossible in AH1 have now become fun, perhaps because there is just a slight bit of challenge to them.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: splitatom on December 30, 2007, 09:00:28 PM
how about we do a kind of snapshot/fso like this weekend but with like the night raid on the reserch phacility at pumunde or however you spell it :aok
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: SD67 on December 31, 2007, 12:23:05 AM
^Not a bad idea that one^
A few night snapshots and FSO's might reawaken the desire and illustrate the improvements ;)
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: kj714 on December 31, 2007, 02:12:45 AM
Night rocked, only lasted a few minutes, sometimes the whiners win.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: AirFlyer on December 31, 2007, 02:21:36 AM
Quote
Originally posted by Yippee38
Any sim producer has to employ selective realism.


Oh no, my fuel mixture!

But in all seriousness, I would love to see night-time, could add a new level of fighting when seeing cons gets a little bit more tricky. For everyone who doesn't like night-time, jack up your gamma when it comes around and it's like it never happened.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: UNIstrut on December 31, 2007, 02:37:40 AM
In AH1, I hated night but I never whined about it, I either stopped playing the game for a bit while day time came again or just tried my best to fight.

But..... I think night should be brought back to AH2, like people have said, even just for an hour or so. I'd like to give it another try, as I didn't get to Xmas eve.

Why should some whining men about getting rid of night spoil it for everyone? I mean night was only there for a couple of hours (Can't remember exactly)? So that leaves at least 22 hours of daytime, now I'm sure 22 hours of daytime is more than enough compared to 2 hours of darkness? At least that way everyone gets what they would like, instead of selfishness.

--BRING BACK NIGHT--

Uni.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: thrila on December 31, 2007, 05:35:02 AM
I wasn't here for night recently so i can't comment on it, but i absolutely hated in in AH1.  Nothing worse than logging in for a the spare hour i had and it was either pitch black or sunset/rise.  When night approached numbers in the Ma used to plummet.  I too used to log.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: TEShaw on December 31, 2007, 06:00:17 AM
How about this?

A night time arena for all who crave darkness.

Otherwise leave stupid dim night out of the existing arenas.

(This could be explained in many ways:

1. 8th Air Force didn't fly at night

2. We don't  have incendiaries to drop on Tokio [contemporary spelling.]

3. No 'Christmas Trees', nor pathfinders, nor slant music.)
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: crockett on December 31, 2007, 06:37:19 AM
I'm up in the air on the night time deal. While it was fun I'm not sure if I would want it very often. One thing that was a plus, most of the fight stayed fairly low. It seemed once you got too high you couldn't see much of anything, but below 5-6k it wasn't so bad.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: SKJohn on December 31, 2007, 07:02:56 AM
I remember night in AHI, and to me it seemed rather pointless when you have the large, red glowing icons showing off your positions.  Same with night fighters - how stealthy can you be with your icons giving you away?

With some type of icon adjustment (only visible from shorter ranges?) I think night would be fun and would an extra challenge or variable to the game.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: Easyscor on December 31, 2007, 12:05:38 PM
Night is a hardware issue on your front end, not the game. People who upgraded to LCDs have seen the biggest improvement while those with old monitors and vidio cards have missed out. I have one of each, side by side, and on the CRT it's black as pitch until I adjust the gamma properly while on the LCD I change nothing.

In the Close Escort night frames I ran in the SEA, I posted clearly to all participants to adjust their gamma for a reasonable playing experience and it was enjoyed by all. Further, you have to be within icon range to see those nice big icons, it's the distant dots that are hard to see. Maintain an alert SA to keep someone from sneaking up on you, that's the real difference, are you the sneak or the sneakee. ;)

Put me down for it: Bring back the night.
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: kj714 on December 31, 2007, 03:46:03 PM
Quote
Originally posted by thrila
I wasn't here for night recently so i can't comment on it, but i absolutely hated in in AH1.  Nothing worse than logging in for a the spare hour i had and it was either pitch black or sunset/rise.  When night approached numbers in the Ma used to plummet.  I too used to log.


I forgot about the mass exodus, who would be in favor of "night" for a while as opposed to "eny" junking everything up?
Title: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: moot on December 31, 2007, 06:44:12 PM
The closer we get to CT, the least interesting it will be for the MA to have night.
Title: Re: Exhuming our dead horse named Night
Post by: ghi on December 31, 2007, 08:42:02 PM
Quote
Originally posted by sullie363
Exhuming our dead horse named Night  


:rofl :rofl :rofl