Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: -aper- on December 22, 2010, 01:48:57 AM
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There was a recent topic regarding Combat Tour a week ago. It would be good to discuss the possibility of bringing some sort of CT directly into the Main Arena.
We have three countries at war with each other, two countries may stay exactly the same as they are now. But the third one may be converted into the Combat Tour country. That means that the people who will join this country will play the game in “Combat Tour” style while the other people from the other countries will play the game in old good “Main Arena” style.
What does Combat Tour (CT) style means?
CT people start each tour with a very limited numbers of available planes / GVs. It will be a very hard and challenging start - For example:
Fighters: P40B
Bombers: D3A1, B5A2
Transport: C47
GVs: LVTs, M3, SdKfz 251, M16, and may be T-34-76
The scoring system should work completely different for those people (in CT country). They should gain points for completing successful missions. So, for example if the mission was to capture the field and the field was captured, the people who participated in this mission and survived got lots of points and the people who died/got captured – got some points. If the mission was not successful the people who survived got nothing and the people who died lost some points. This will make people to play smart if the want to achieve some success.
After several successful missions when the person got enough score points he will be promoted to a new rank and new planes will become available for him to fly.
For example after several successful bombing missions in D3A or B5N the Ju87 becomes available following by SBD, TBM, two-engine bombers, and so on. For the fighter pilot the next planes after P40B could be Hurricane I, Spit I and bf109E, following by A6M2, I-16, Brewster etc. The same story should be with GVs. These planes/GVs “trees” must be thought out well.
You may say it is insane to put so much effort to get just Ju87 while the other people from two other countries can immediately fly B17s, Lancs etc. The people who play CT will be sitting ducks for people from the other two countries who fly the later war planes. I agree that there would not be enough people from current Main Arena, who would like to play CT this way. That is why HTC may consider the way of bringing a new blood: make it possible to the people with free accounts to play CT on Main Arena. From the first look it seems quite unfair that some people will pay to play and some will play for free, but the people who pay will have all the benefits they have now and the people who fly for free will be strictly limited to a few early war planes being always hunted and the only way for them to turn the tables is to stay very well organized. It is not a secret that the huge number of people has already played AH for more or less long time and for some reasons has cancelled their accounts. I suppose many of these people would like to return back if they see changes in gameplay and at least give it a new try even it will be quite challenging setup. A big group of new people would also take a chance to play for free even in handicapped conditions. Probably many people from IL-2 will give it a try, as they used to buy a box game and play for free on small arenas, they may consider to try mass multiplayer for free as well and if they like it may be they will end up subscribing to pay for play accounts. Obviously the more people will give it a try – the more will become pay to play customers eventually. CT will be like a start up platform – after several tours CT people will think they may be better to pay for play and fly whatever they want, becoming a hunters :)
It will work much better than free H2H (which actually didn’t work well) as H2H people flew whatever they liked and furballed as long as they wanted without a craving to become a subscribed customer just do the same things in MA.
Of course some people will play CT for free for a long time if they find a way to get somewhat success in CT tours playing smart and organized – which would be also a good benefit for Main Arena. The more populated and organized the Main Arena is – the more action, targets an fun for everybody.
CT would be better than RPS (rolling plane set) which was introduced in WarBirds quite ago. RPS means that day after day “historical” time moves slowly and new planes become available in particular time, though you can not accelerate this process and you do not need to put any efforts to get new planes just to wait until they become available. This conception doesn't make a lot of sense in MA and quickly becomes boring. CT means the better you try – the better and quicker results you get. Everything depends on you and your teammates.
The early war/middle war planes will become a main weapon for CT people (especially in the beginning of CT tour). These birds will never be a hangar queens anymore in MA. Modelling of the new early war planes will be highly appreciated.
CT will not be a “historical” tour, but Main Arena has never been a historical place for WWII flight simulation. To be able to play historical missions in Special Events arenas CT people who play with free accounts will have to subscribe and become a pay to play customers.
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I would absolutely love to see an organized, historical type aspect brought to the mains, but I just don't think it'd ever work. For one reason we have way, way, way to many guys now concerned with just getting a kill, pretty stats, or a low rank. Guys would just hover over the CT guys waiting to pounce on a mass of D3As or P40s.
I can see it now, spixteens and 51s everywhere landing double digit kills in there quest to be the #1 fight jock of the day.
That, and I just don't think there are that many interested in CT to make it practical in the MA. Those guys tend to do the scenerios, FSO or AvA.
The "free" no pay players I feel would be too few and far between to even be a factor. You might get 20,30 or 40 people that check it out, but the learning curve for the game
would quickly overwhelm them and they'd quickly lose interest. :salute
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I would like to see the GV game enhanced with more features and better physics and a GV only arena.
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Maybe you could just try scenarios, or try adapting this to snapshots. CT team would be pounced, clubbed,vulched, and base rolled in a matter of hours. :rofl
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I would like to see the GV game enhanced with more features and better physics and a GV only arena.
I would love to learn to GV :)
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CT would be great but the non CT guys would just gang bang the CT side outa the game.
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I would absolutely love to see an organized, historical type aspect brought to the mains, but I just don't think it'd ever work. For one reason we have way, way, way to many guys now concerned with just getting a kill, pretty stats, or a low rank. Guys would just hover over the CT guys waiting to pounce on a mass of D3As or P40s.
I can see it now, spixteens and 51s everywhere landing double digit kills in there quest to be the #1 fight jock of the day.
Yes, I see it would be many sharkies around craving for easy kills. If it makes them happy - it's fine. For CT people it will mean - many enemies around and they need to use smart tactics and good teamwork.
That, and I just don't think there are that many interested in CT to make it practical in the MA. Those guys tend to do the scenerios, FSO or AvA.
The "free" no pay players I feel would be too few and far between to even be a factor. You might get 20,30 or 40 people that check it out, but the learning curve for the game would quickly overwhelm them and they'd quickly lose interest. :salute
I feel that it will be much more people who would like to play for free, and I can see the difficulties for everybody when arenas will start to reach their max numbers. The only solution is to bring more big arenas to play. Learning curve is really hard, doesn't matter what plane you are flying, of course it is even more harder in early war plane, but from the other hand it is better when you are a part of the team. I suppose It could be good idea to bring some kind of a trainers to CT country, the experienced persons who will organize CT people and help them to plan a good missions and if necessary be a group leaders.
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CT team would be pounced, clubbed,vulched, and base rolled in a matter of hours. :rofl
It is a serious problem and it may be necessary to make more fields for CT country that can not be captured by other countries. That will ensure that CT people will not be cornered to a few bases being instantly vulched from the beginning of the tour.
From the other hand I can see completely different picture when CT people will learn how to make their missions more and more successful, will get better fighter planes (like 109F, SpitV) , faster bombers that can be flown in formations (like Bostons) and after that they will start to launch massive, coordinated missions attacking several fields simultaneously. It will be very impressive base roll back and I feel it will make main arena people to apply all their efforts to stop this aggression otherwise they will end up being cornered and vulched and their super fast planes will not help them a lot in this case. I am sure there will be lots of action and lots of epic battles around which Main Arena haven't seen before.
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:old: I would love to see more mission based play. The code for Combat Tour I believe is still pretty far away for the MA. However, as pointed out the AvA hosts FSO style setups that are available 24 hours a day.
Before the big update in AHII, CT stood for Combat Theater, that was the old Axis versus Allies Arena. Although even back then the numbers were few, there were dedicated players that logged a great deal of their time there. With the big AHII update, more arenas were added EW, MW, and another LW. The training and dueling arenas took on new awesome designs. And the AvA has been almost always empty during Euro times and LW off hours play since.
What most folks that fly during the day are missing, is that an AvA arena with 4 or 5 players is actually a pretty busy place. The fights occur almost instantly.
The question, what will it take to get the daytime / LW off hours players to step outside of their sandbox and visit and arena with 0 or 1 players in it and sit long enough to fly a couple of patterns about their base, before another "displaced sandboxee" joins in to engage. Get an AvA daytime arena with anywhere near 10 guys in it, and you could pretty much get the kind of game play that you are describing.
HTC has been very generous with allowing AvA, Training Arena Staff, and Special Event Staff the tools to put together some very interesting scenarios that alter the reward system to encourage different play styles, such as cooperative missions, multiple frame events or even on the job training sessions, offered by volunteer trainers.
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Try The
Axis Vs Allies arena
http://avaarena.org/ (http://avaarena.org/)
(http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/1631/coeii.png)
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It is a serious problem and it may be necessary to make more fields for CT country that can not be captured by other countries. That will ensure that CT people will not be cornered to a few bases being instantly vulched from the beginning of the tour.
Oh this would surely piss off the 20-30 plane noe base taking squad horde for sure. :rofl
A SEA style event would be the way to go. :aok
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Oh this would surely piss off the 20-30 plane noe base taking squad horde for sure. :rofl
A SEA style event would be the way to go. :aok
Sure , we could do this on Tuesday nights . Run 2 or 3 scenarios . And it could be done in LWO arena for maximum pisofstudmuffine .
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AvA :noid
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AvAhova Witnesses..
I like the idea though.
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only playing smart for the ct country would be to switch.
semp
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"Rolling plane set" has been tried before in another MMO flight sim, and it didn't work out too well.
Add in the imbalance a 1 country plan would create? Pretty skeptical here.
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It wouldn't work. The CT country would be crushed night after night and before they could get going/better equipment most players would switch countries. NOBODY likes getting hammered night after night.
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:old: I would love to see more mission based play. The code for Combat Tour I believe is still pretty far away for the MA.
It's hard to say what was planning under the original CT (it was a big secret). I suppose they planned to make special arena something like AvA arena but filled with drones manned by AI where people will fly historical missions together with or against drones gaining ranks etc.
My idea is quite opposite and much more simple - to bring CT into Main Arena and make it possible for people with free accounts to play it. We will get self-learning leaving drones (CT people :) ) without a necessity to write tons of AI code . Too easy :) Human intellect is much better than AI anyway so these "drones" will strike back in a matter of time and the fun will begin :)
What most folks that fly during the day are missing, is that an AvA arena with 4 or 5 players is actually a pretty busy place. The fights occur almost instantly.
It seems that people who like instant action prefer to play in DA instead of AvA. Some time I see up to 50 people in DA and 0 in AvA at the same time.
The question, what will it take to get the daytime / LW off hours players to step outside of their sandbox and visit and arena with 0 or 1 players in it and sit long enough to fly a couple of patterns about their base, before another "displaced sandboxee" joins in to engage. Get an AvA daytime arena with anywhere near 10 guys in it, and you could pretty much get the kind of game play that you are describing.
I agree that the AvA is a very interesting arena but we have to admit the AH rolls around the Main Arena and the future of the game depends on it.
I can see that the number of people playing AH has decreased slightly in the last couple of years and this is dangerous tendency. It would be pretty sad to see AH ending up like FA or WB. That is why it is so important to bring more people to Main Arena which on a log run will be a big benefit for everybody.
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It wouldn't work. The CT country would be crushed night after night and before they could get going/better equipment most players would switch countries. NOBODY likes getting hammered night after night.
It would be the same for all the CT'ers though. Let the cream rise to the top. :aok
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It wouldn't work. The CT country would be crushed night after night and before they could get going/better equipment most players would switch countries. NOBODY likes getting hammered night after night.
Just imagine that CT country outnumbers your country 3 to 1. Who will win? The quality or the quantity ? This is a quite historical question BTW ;)
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I very much doubt that the CT country would ever out number the others. So the CT country would get crushed. After a day or two of getting crushed I don't care who you are or how into the history you are it would no longer be fun. At which point there would be people leaving the CT country in droves. Again dropping the numbers. The even with the top of the line equipment they would still be crushed.
Most of the people who play this game play it to have fun. Getting hammered night in and night out isn't fun....ask the knights :devil A structured game play system won't work for the long haul. AvA has been working very hard to get rid of its poor reputation and bring about many different types of game play. They have had "Win the war" scenarios, capture the flag type scenarios, just strait up head to head stuff. And still there are very few in there.
The majority of the people don't want it, nor will they play it. Personally I didn't think "Combat Tour" was going to be much of a success, but I was willing to give it a shot, after all HTC was building it :aok Look at the senarios that are run now. Historic set-ups, months of planning by a number of very talented people. They have trouble filling out the wings! While there are people who like that type of play, there are many, many more that won't even look at it. It's just the way it is in this "we want it NOW" world.
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fugitive by getting hammered night after night, you mean getting killed in the game and not the drinking part right?
semp
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I think you are more likely to apply CT aspects to the AvA or SEA.
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I very much doubt that the CT country would ever out number the others. So the CT country would get crushed. After a day or two of getting crushed I don't care who you are or how into the history you are it would no longer be fun. At which point there would be people leaving the CT country in droves. Again dropping the numbers. The even with the top of the line equipment they would still be crushed.
The number of CT people will depend on how good these changes in AH gameplay will be advertised and supported by HTC. AH is well known for an excellent flight modeling and best mass-multiplayer gameplay among flight simulators. If CT will be for free why not give it a try.
Give CT country more fields that can not be captured by other countries and they will be able to carry out their missions deeper from their territory not being vulched instantly. It's not a shame if mission is not successful - everybody understands that early war planes are quite handicapped comparing to later war birds. But it will be still much better tryout comparing to current two week trial when a person most likely will be shot down ten times in a row will feel himself helpless finding the game is not fun at all. In CT the new person will be immediately assigned to a mission (and probably squad) will get instructions and support from flight leaders and other people. And on the obvious question - why can't I fly P51, I don't want to fly P40b! He will get a fair answer that his is playing CT for free and that's why he can not fly whatever he wants right now, but he have a chance to get a better bird and even a P51 could be possible in the end of the tour for him if he becomes a good team-member. And you know - give a person a hope and he will show an unfainting perseverance trying to get his goal.
Most of the people who play this game play it to have fun. Getting hammered night in and night out isn't fun....ask the knights :devil A structured game play system won't work for the long haul. AvA has been working very hard to get rid of its poor reputation and bring about many different types of game play. They have had "Win the war" scenarios, capture the flag type scenarios, just strait up head to head stuff. And still there are very few in there.
That is exactly what I am trying to say. Main Arena is a best fun so far to everybody because people with quite different playing style can play there together. Someone likes furballing, someone likes base taking, someone likes score boosting etc. Cut the part of it, reduce it to AvA and only a few people play there.
That is why I am not suggesting to cut anything from Main Arena, but to add something new (some kind of RPG style) in addition to what is already there. Some more variety, more people and more fun to everybody.
The majority of the people don't want it, nor will they play it.
It is hard to say what majority of the people want... For sure they want B-29 :) But give a CT people right to vote and they will vote for Ki-43 instead... and I think it will be a healthier choice.
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We have three countries at war with each other, two countries may stay exactly the same as they are now. But the third one may be converted into the Combat Tour country.
We have 3 arenas still fighting P51 vs P51s, why not convert one of the LW in AvA style, 2 teams only and let the war roll ?!
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We have 3 arenas still fighting P51 vs P51s, why not convert one of the LW in AvA style, 2 teams only and let the war roll ?!
Why would we need another AvA?
Forcing everyone who can't fit into one LW main, into an AvA set up isn't the way to go.
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We have 3 arenas still fighting P51 vs P51s, why not convert one of the LW in AvA style, 2 teams only and let the war roll ?!
The AvA already proves that that only works for 20-30 people. HTC as a company can not survive with 20-30 subscribers. All out, use anything you want type arenas are what the people want, so thats what HTC will continue to try and provide.
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The AvA already proves that that only works for 20-30 people. HTC as a company can not survive with 20-30 subscribers. All out, use anything you want type arenas are what the people want, so thats what HTC will continue to try and provide.
QFT. We have about 34 members on the AvA website http://www.avaarena.org
We think we can boost the number of AvA players maybe even as high as 100, but it will always be a smaller player base than the LW main.
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Some sort of "Combat Tour lite" with a RPG aspect in a separate arena or adding these capabilities to the current AvA arena might work.
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QFT. We have about 34 members on the AvA website http://www.avaarena.org
We think we can boost the number of AvA players maybe even as high as 100, but it will always be a smaller player base than the LW main.
This tour you had 221 pilots with at least one kill or death so far.
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It's hard to say what was planning under the original CT (it was a big secret). I suppose they planned to make special arena something like AvA arena but filled with drones manned by AI where people will fly historical missions together with or against drones gaining ranks etc.
The CT design was never secret. It encompassed 3 main components.
1. Is the RPG aspect in that your character would advance his skills.
2. Was the idea that there would be not be open arena play, all play would be mission based with multiple mission to choose from at any time, each starting at a regular interval, I.E. new missions would start at every at 1:00 1:15 1:30 1:45 ....
3. For every offensive mission there would be a defensive mission of the opposing side. Any spots not filled by players would be filled by AI.
The pieces that stalled CT were 1st the needed aspects of art and coding for the character animation that attaches you to your character. And 2nd the volume of work required to create the volume of missions needed to maintain interest.
HiTech
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This tour you had 221 pilots with at least one kill or death so far.
Thanks for that info, better than I thought.
Well then, 100 "hardcore regulars."
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"Rolling plane set" has been tried before in another MMO flight sim, and it didn't work out too well.
and guess what, they are doing it again in an attempt to keep what players they have. :headscratch:
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The CT design was never secret. It encompassed 3 main components.
1. Is the RPG aspect in that your character would advance his skills.
2. Was the idea that there would be not be open arena play, all play would be mission based with multiple mission to choose from at any time, each starting at a regular interval, I.E. new missions would start at every at 1:00 1:15 1:30 1:45 ....
3. For every offensive mission there would be a defensive mission of the opposing side. Any spots not filled by players would be filled by AI.
The pieces that stalled CT were 1st the needed aspects of art and coding for the character animation that attaches you to your character. And 2nd the volume of work required to create the volume of missions needed to maintain interest.
HiTech
Should you ever want to revisit this concept, or test out some aspects of numbers 2 and 3 especially, you might consider farming out that high volume of work to an arena with a team of volunteers.
I happen to know of one. :D
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Should you ever want to revisit this concept, or test out some aspects of numbers 2 and 3 especially, you might consider farming out that high volume of work to an arena with a team of volunteers.
I happen to know of one. :D
2 and 3 are covered by special events. make it happen everyday people will lose interest.
semp
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2 and 3 are covered by special events. make it happen everyday people will lose interest.
semp
You appear to assume CT was trying to appeal to our existing player base. And while special events are great , They really are not the same as what was designed for CT, how can you play any time you wish in a mission encompassing 100's of planes?
HiTech
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The pieces that stalled CT were 1st the needed aspects of art and coding for the character animation that attaches you to your character. And 2nd the volume of work required to create the volume of missions needed to maintain interest.
Thats interesting. I would have assumed that it was convincing AI that would have been the main stumbling block.
The first item I think you could have worked around. I guess I could see the second item being a problem.
Regards,
Wab
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So basically the way it would work is to have a number of mission slots to choose from and any unclaimed ones would be replaced by AI, so the scheduled missions would always launch.
People don't like to fight AI but it would be a mixture of robots and humans and in a lot of cases it would be the less desirable mission slots that would be AI.
For example, a large escorted bombing mission where a lot of the bombers would be AI piloted and the escorts and interceptors would draw more human pilots.
On it's own, it might not be a big draw, but as a part of a system where you had to fly in a certain number of missions to advance your virtual career, I could see it being popular.
Might not be something that could sustain itself 24/7 but run a few days per week, perhaps it could work.
A smaller version of this could be implemented in an existing arena, AvA for example.
Open play could be suspended for all day CT mission style play a couple of times per week, or it could run independent of whatever other activity was going on in the arena.
Any future improvements in AI capability would be icing on the cake.
I still think it's worth pursuing, but possibly on a smaller scale "Combat Tour Lite" if you will.
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The pieces that stalled CT were 1st the needed aspects of art and coding for the character animation that attaches you to your character. And 2nd the volume of work required to create the volume of missions needed to maintain interest.
It sounds little bit strange to me: character animation is not that important for flight sim, should not be one of a main reasons to hold the project, as for the amount of work on missions - may be our community could do this - people here are very creative and have made lots of excellent maps and skins, so it might be possible to involve them into this project as well.
Anyway CT was planned to be carried out on special arena. How do you like the idea to bring it to the Main Arena the way I suggested before. The numbers of people playing on MA is decreasing slowly. You might be intrested in bringing new style and new people to it.
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It would be the same for all the CT'ers though. Let the cream rise to the top. :aok
slime and scum also rise to the top.......so thinking the cream rises is kinda not really accurate.
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Politics the world over defined in a succinct manner ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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<snip>
3. For every offensive mission there would be a defensive mission of the opposing side. Any spots not filled by players would be filled by AI.
The pieces that stalled CT were 1st the needed aspects of art and coding for the character animation that attaches you to your character. And 2nd the volume of work required to create the volume of missions needed to maintain interest.
HiTech
HT -
Hearing that CT completion was not limited by the large mission flight aspects gets me thinking: Is there any possibility of special events having access to the AI and formation flight tools?
I'm imagining a Snapshot or Scenario with large numbers of, say, bombers on one side and interceptors on the other. Players could join whatever side they wanted, and the AI could make up the unfilled balance of numbers. Or, they could fill the skies with drone bombers and let real players try to stop enough to blunt a bomber attack. The mouth waters...
Scenario designers could have a blast with this - relieving HTC of the need to design enough stuff to keep a nonstop CT arena interesting.
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HT -
Hearing that CT completion was not limited by the large mission flight aspects gets me thinking: Is there any possibility of special events having access to the AI and formation flight tools?
That seemed to be the plan and I was hoping this would be offered to AvA CM's as well
We’re going to pull the CT AI mission system and redevelop it for use by CM’s in scenarios and special events.
Anyway CT was planned to be carried out on special arena. How do you like the idea to bring it to the Main Arena the way I suggested before. The numbers of people playing on MA is decreasing slowly. You might be intrested in bringing new style and new people to it.
To belabor the point, wouldn't it make more sense to bring this into arenas already set up for a two country immersive style of play?
I think HTC is more concerned with player acquisition and retention than which particular arena people choose to play in.
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Having tried out World of Tanks, I would say their model is ideally suited to MA Aces High. A quick breakdown:
Overall model is free to play with premium being a 50% bonus to experience and credits. It's possible to play for free but getting premium for about $15 bucks a month makes it much more viable. Real money = gold which can be converted to credits or free experience. It costs you credits for ammo and repairs. Experience is used to buy vehicles and upgrades to them. Everyone starts out with a low level free tank and as you earn experience you can upgrade it with better engines, parts, weapons etc and eventually open up the tree to better vehicles. As you get higher up in the trees, things get relatively more expensive and a bad run will cost you. This encourages new people to either pay for a subscription or play for free at a penalty but as your time investment increases, your incentive to pay increase proportionately. In AH, this would essentially be your "perk" price for a higher end ride thus limiting them. Of note, the current early war, mid war. late war arenas would be well suited to this model.
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From HTs responses here I stick my neck out and say reading between the lines that the CT idea is not permanently dead, just a long time off resources permitting.
Not sure how quite it would work i guess would have to be seperate arena, I cant see it mixing with the MA as others have said.
I enjoy AH for the teamwork the historical aircraft and the challenge of improving my skills as is. but I also enjoy the challenge of character development vs reward that rpg's bring.
Kill 10 rat rpg's are boring meaningfull pvp brings them to life with the challenge only a human opponent can bring, CT and AH would bring the two together in a fashion that I think would appeal too a wide playerbase.
I like flying more challenging or niche role aircraft, some of you may have seen me furballing a D3 I could up a 16, K4 or an LA and get my name in the text buffer but would get more satisfaction from getting another little plane painted on the side of my cockpit with no publicity, things like that are equally pointless you may say but for me AH is not a shoot em up with highscores and could be so much more.