Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Wishlist => Topic started by: earl1937 on December 09, 2014, 07:31:39 AM
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:airplane: I know there are a lot of discussions about frame rates and etc when talking about "eye" candy of aircraft sitting around airfields, trucks and other objects to make it look like a real airfield, but how about swapping a few of these scarily look a somewhat like a tree, for something which would add a little realism to the game! (and P.S., if you hit one of these parked aircraft or trucks, you crash, not go through the thing!)
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+1 for aircraft parked at the field!
They don't necessarily have to affect the base in anyway, just would add to the immersion of an active airfield... Plus i really want to strafe parked planes! :ahand
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Not just a Perfectly Fine/Burt out wreck, setup either. But effects based off of where you hit. Shoot up the R wing, the wing comes off and the plane drops to the R. Come around and nip the tail, tail falls off and the nose goes up. Something like that would be nice. :)
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More objects in the environment will take up more memory/FPS.
-1 with the new garphics coming out..
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Big +1 awhile back they had that setup in the AvA with planes parked around the field, it was a blast :cheers:
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:airplane: I know there are a lot of discussions about frame rates and etc when talking about "eye" candy of aircraft sitting around airfields, trucks and other objects to make it look like a real airfield, but how about swapping a few of these scarily look a somewhat like a tree, for something which would add a little realism to the game! (and P.S., if you hit one of these parked aircraft or trucks, you crash, not go through the thing!)
You do remember this one? We don't know for sure what they are coming up with in the new version, but just this lay-out makes things more interesting.
(http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=359447.0;attach=18732;image)
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Thats why, i guess, this game took longer (so long?) to get graphic upgrades : a minority said "dont touch anything, or i wont be able to run game as smooth as i want, and if u do it, i ll quit !"(not talking about u specificaly).
IL2 and WT got millions of players. If they had listened to this minority, no doubt numbers of players wouldnt be so incredibly high. :old:
Its 2014, AHII can -easily- upgrade graphics without fearing the "wont work on my machine, i ll quit if u do it" argument. :)
More objects in the environment will take up more memory/FPS.
-1 with the new garphics coming out..
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Thats why, i guess, this game took longer (so long?) to get graphic upgrades : a minority said "dont touch anything, or i wont be able to run game as smooth as i want, and if u do it, i ll quit !"(not talking about u specificaly).
And the majority left. So whats the lesson learned? The last general game graphics upgrade was in tour 114 when the Brewster and i16 were introduced in July of 2009. That month there was a combined 1,354,592 K/D in the 3 arenas.
4 and 1/2 years later in tour 178 there were a combined 498,780. In tour 94 in LWA alone there was a combined K/D of 1.4 m out of a combined "3 arena's" 1,502,310.
And it wasnt just their game policies that lost them.
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Rich, except for the people we know personally I don't think anyone knows why the population declined so badly. I would bet that a significant portion of those that are gone now are younger players. My suspicion is that the economy has more to do with it than any particular, or group of negatives from within the game. While Aces High may not be the most realistic in some areas it does offer the most fully fleshed out environment of the WWII era. No matter what someone thinks of the other games they simply cannot offer the same consistent gameplay that Aces High has to offer, especially when you consider the shear numbers AH is capable of hosting. Obviously, AH is not without problems, but the fact that people have left is a matter of choice and options being available rather than in-game issues.
And on the in-game issues they are not something that a little time and effort by the 'AH community' could fix, but it's been more than a year and there has been no change there.
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Rich, except for the people we know personally I don't think anyone knows why the population declined so badly. I would bet that a significant portion of those that are gone now are younger players. My suspicion is that the economy has more to do with it than any particular, or group of negatives from within the game. While Aces High may not be the most realistic in some areas it does offer the most fully fleshed out environment of the WWII era. No matter what someone thinks of the other games they simply cannot offer the same consistent gameplay that Aces High has to offer, especially when you consider the shear numbers AH is capable of hosting. Obviously, AH is not without problems, but the fact that people have left is a matter of choice and options being available rather than in-game issues.
And on the in-game issues they are not something that a little time and effort by the 'AH community' could fix, but it's been more than a year and there has been no change there.
The economy has not ever had an impact on the number of players that have participated, at least for the money reasons. The "because of the economy" reason is getting old.
Stagnant is the word that needs to be used. Game play adjustments have been far and few between, or completely absent. No MA winter maps. No MA desert maps. The game play is rather narrow, to be honest. I've tried to use as many different planes to do as many different things possible, but the odds of seeing an arcade player's plane gets a bit old. There are other issues as well, but I'll stop here.
I'll be recruiting players from other game realms as soon as the new version is out.
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The game play is rather narrow, to be honest.
So far as I can tell, game play is "narrow" in most games, once you've grasped the initial concept. I suppose it's why people hop from game to game after they've mastered the game play. This should be an issue with any game that has lasted for years - and, now that I think on it, AH is one of the rare games that has lasted for, what, something like 15 years now. It's not logical to expect that it will always retain its peak numbers.
- oldman
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No matter what someone thinks of the other games they simply cannot offer the same consistent gameplay that Aces High has to offer, especially when you consider the shear numbers AH is capable of hosting. Obviously, AH is not without problems, but the fact that people have left is a matter of choice and options being available rather than in-game issues.
As I have said in numerous posts. I couldnt name a game, most of all a MMO, that offers the stability of AH. The game has many strong points, tho less as more and more time drags on.
The biggest of which is a very poor damage model and insufficient graphics. The game just doesnt "look" good nowadays, tho I wouldn't call it a show stopper. I personally like the business model. The pay per month and having an actual human not from Bangladesh picking the phone up when you have a problem. But I think many, most of all the young, dont like it. I guess they'd rather be screwed paying once for 1/2 finished games and then Msquealing them in a forum all day.
This game has never truly been "young". Its always been an older crowd and between dropping dead, losing jobs, and not having Mommies credit card # to steal, maybe makes it the wrong bunch to depend on. Thus catering to 60yos with Pent-ll's, 2 gigs of RAM, and phone modems seems to me a losing proposition. A self fulfilling prophesy.
Here are the recommended requirements for War thunder, "which is kind of a weird game", but if AH brought in an engine that came close to its look and damage model it would be awesome. Its long over due and while it would be painful at first the world would catch up to it and the players would come back.
OS: Windows Vista/7/8
Processor: Dual-Core 2,4 GHz
Memory: 4 Gb
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 460 or higher, AMD Radeon 55XX series or higher
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Hard Drive: 11 Gb
DCS is a little higher. If you want to compete with these games you have to start looking/sounding like them. Its no secret why 6yo games are in the bargain basement of digital retail.
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The economy has not ever had an impact on the number of players that have participated, at least for the money reasons. The "because of the economy" reason is getting old.
Stagnant is the word that needs to be used. Game play adjustments have been far and few between, or completely absent. No MA winter maps. No MA desert maps. The game play is rather narrow, to be honest. I've tried to use as many different planes to do as many different things possible, but the odds of seeing an arcade player's plane gets a bit old. There are other issues as well, but I'll stop here.
I'll be recruiting players from other game realms as soon as the new version is out.
This is your choice to turn a blind eye to the situation. A large percentage of the AH population used to be younger players. Mom and Dad force little Johnny to choose one game and they didn't choose AH. Simple.
@Rich: **** Thunder has the derogatory reputation for a reason. It has eye candy and nothing else.
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Sometimes I wonder if AH's user base has been whittled away at both ends - the high fidelity users leave for DCS and/or IL2 variants, and the players who prefer arcade style leave for War Thunder or World or Warplanes. All are free to play online, aren't they?
But can you imagine what a juggernaut among sims AH would be if it had all of its traditional strengths, plus WT's graphics? I mean, to me, this Liberator and the ocean surface is damnear photo-realistic:
(http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd148/tjlaven/WarThunder-B-24-over-water.jpg) (http://s225.photobucket.com/user/tjlaven/media/WarThunder-B-24-over-water.jpg.html)
I also think the pilot's head is connected to the view switch, as in this movie you can see their heads turn at points. What an unexpected, but very nice touch.
But eye candy only goes so far. I have also seen films of WTs gameplay where the players fly around in external view. That just has zero appeal for me. I need to feel I'm in the cockpit, for the sake of immersion...
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War Thunder is arcade-y, no denying that. At the most you have 32 people total fighting on one map. Even the biggest maps are tiny compared to even the smallest AH map. But graphics wise, it's amazing. I can run it at a fairly high graphics setting and stick around 35 frames. If I tried to push AH's graphics that high, I'll be lucky to get 20. In War Thunder I really like how they worked the different smoke/vapor trails. It's similar to what you see in guncam footage. You'll see a plane get raked by bullets, and start puffing a little smoke here and there. The damage model is superior in that it isn't a "it's there/it isn't there" setup that AH currently has. You have degrading effects as parts of your plane take damage. Granted, WT would need to work on it as I've had my plane raked by 20's, and while damaged, still fairly stable. On the other side, I've been raked (while in the same plane type) by 7's, suffer damage but my plane is hard to control.
In the end, AH has a LOT more going for it. Compared to WT, AH is an infinite universe. FAR more targets for my bombers to hit. :)
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I'm not sure how many planes have had their damage model graphics updated, but I remember flying the P-39 often, and when your control surfaces were hit, the image was replaced with the image of a damaged one - skin peeled off, ribs showing through, etc. It looked good, much better than just removing the damaged control surface from the model.
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See Rule #4
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Motherland, do you have an active account and currently play Aces High?
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Last time I have record of playing online was 2012, but I may have tried a month or two since then. The game looks exactly the same as it did then, two and a half years ago, save that a few more of the AHI models have been updated and planes have been added. Only three versions have come out since I last played online. I do install and fly new planes when they come out so I guess the last time I 'saw' Aces High on my own computer was when the Tu-2 came out however many months ago. (I also updated a couple of my skins when bump and spec mapping came out)
I can see that the game still invokes 90s nostalgia. I can see that, even as a former subscriber with a huge interest in WWII aviation, even a former content creator, the barriers of dated appearance and feel of the game which drives away new players. Maybe Aces High will never look as good as a high fidelity sim or an arcade game, but it has to at least look like it's from this decade.
The online gameplay is moot. I can't even get to that point to be disappointed or not.
For the record, I don't think HTC is incompetent at game creation, they made a game that I loved for a long, long time and invested hundreds of dollars and hours into. I do think it's clear that the staff is too small for the specialization and volume of new content that's needed to bring the game back. At least to get people to feel like trying to learn how to play it once they've downloaded it instead of being put off.
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Last time I have record of playing online was 2012, but I may have tried a month or two since then. The game looks exactly the same as it did then, two and a half years ago, save that a few more of the 1999 models have been updated and planes have been added. Only three versions have come out since I last played online. I do install and fly new planes when they come out so I guess the last time I 'saw' Aces High on my own computer was when the Tu-2 came out however many months ago.
I can see that the game still invokes 90s nostalgia. I can see that, even as a former subscriber with a huge interest in WWII aviation, even a former content creator, the barriers of dated appearance and feel of the game which drives away new players. Maybe Aces High will never look as good as a high fidelity sim or an arcade game, but it has to at least look like it's from this decade.
The online gameplay is moot. I can't even get to that point to be disappointed or not.
For the record, I don't think HTC is incompetent at game creation, they made a game that I loved for a long, long time and invested hundreds of dollars and hours into. I do think it's clear that the staff is too small for the specialization and volume of new content that's needed to bring the game back. At least to get people to feel like trying to learn how to play it once they've downloaded it instead of being put off.
...or just to keep up. I think this is the biggest issue. It shows how much work goes into updating the game as this last update has been going on for what, a year? I think the dream of keeping a small crew must be rethought. The updates have to come quicker to keep the "eye candy" crowd happy. Waiting a year is too much and so players leave. While some of us are more than happy to get a new plane/vehicle every 3-4 months, it isn't enough for many others.
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Motherland, I'm sorry to hear that you do not currently play. I could give you many reasons to come back but you will need your own, but if I may sir, <S> Please, come back and play.
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...or just to keep up. I think this is the biggest issue. It shows how much work goes into updating the game as this last update has been going on for what, a year? I think the dream of keeping a small crew must be rethought. The updates have to come quicker to keep the "eye candy" crowd happy. Waiting a year is too much and so players leave. While some of us are more than happy to get a new plane/vehicle every 3-4 months, it isn't enough for many others.
I don't think new vehicles or planes is the issue. Honestly 6 months or so is a fine pace. Features, artwork that keeps the game feeling contemporary, updates to things like the damage model to keep the game on the cutting edge (or, again, at lease contemporary) in fidelity are necessary. Keeping pace with studios like Gaijin which are, what, 10, 20, 40 times the size of HTC is a monumental, likely impossible task.
Motherland, I'm sorry to hear that you do not currently play. I could give you many reasons to come back but you will need your own, but if I may sir, <S> Please, come back and play.
I'll at least try when the update comes out, I remain hopeful.
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I'll at least try when the update comes out, I remain hopeful.
The dust on your crate is exceedingly thick, Sir.
Better days - they are a coming.
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Bigger studios would have a bigger budget too, and they still have to make money. So how does Gaijin do it with no monthly subscription fee? Are the starter/action packs for $17-$23 a pop enough? That's less than two months of an AH subscription. So AH would make much more $ off me than Gaijin would, even if I kept buying all the packs.
Or do they save costs by not having to support arenas with 200-300 players in them?
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The dust on your crate is exceedingly thick, Sir.
Better days - they are a coming.
Hopefully
Hope hope hope
Bigger studios would have a bigger budget too, and they still have to make money. So how does Gaijin do it with no monthly subscription fee? Are the starter/action packs for $17-$23 a pop enough? That's less than two months of an AH subscription. So AH would make much more $ off me than Gaijin would, even if I kept buying all the packs.
Or do they save costs by not having to support arenas with 200-300 players in them?
Steam publishes statistics of people playing games through their interface
http://steamcharts.com/app/236390
There are currently almost 8,000 people playing War Thunder through steam. Probably has something to do with it.
(it's funny that Gaijin is also considered an 'indie' game studio)
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Bigger studios would have a bigger budget too, and they still have to make money. So how does Gaijin do it with no monthly subscription fee? Are the starter/action packs for $17-$23 a pop enough? That's less than two months of an AH subscription. So AH would make much more $ off me than Gaijin would, even if I kept buying all the packs.
Or do they save costs by not having to support arenas with 200-300 players in them?
because some people do pay a monthly subscription fee. that and buying "extras".
semp
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More objects in the environment will take up more memory/FPS.
-1 with the new garphics coming out..
And you know this for a fact? Not trying to be a sphincter, but we don't know what the new graphics engine will hold. There is a chance it could work better on older systems... <shrug>