Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Hajo on April 10, 2001, 11:14:00 AM
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I'm sure as numbers increase, and as I've noticed, many new names scroll across the text buffer, multi arena play will eventually become a reality. some terrains are already available for that, such as the Med terrain. would be great for an axis vs. allies arena.
One thing I've also noticed, when the MA approaches 200, the server starts spewing kill messages in blocks as opposed to singularly when the kill is confirmed. this I think means the server might be getting close to lagging. or already lagging hence the block of kills in text buffer.
I've yet to find the MA at 260, and that is good for gameplay. but that day will come as the new additions arrive from AW and other sims.
do any of you have suggestions for arenas? I'd be interested to see just what the community thought. ripsnort already posted about a furball arena, great idea! but other arenas will also be needed as gameplay numbers increase.
remember, numbers will have to increase to ensure multi arena play, and it looks like numbers are increasing, even though the MA hasn't become full yet, that day will eventually come!
Just interested in your thoughts and ideas as a community! maybe it's time we started thinking about it now.
Hajo
[This message has been edited by Hajo (edited 04-10-2001).]
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I'd support any alternatives to the Main. The Main is fun, but I like historical matchups as well...we do have the Friday and Saturday Snap shots, and the Sunday Check six events, it would be nice to have a 24/7 Historical arena, but I don't know how long that would last...WB's was quite successful when it was new, but then attendance fell off...think we've all seen the rise and fall via threads on AGW on the WW2 arena over there...
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just ask Laz..i am sure he has a good suggestion
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I think a early war and a late war arenas with appropriate plane sets would be good (maybe even a mid war arena too)
IMO the main arena is just like any quake arena. 2-3 more arenas with different plane sets might allow the wide varity of aircraft here to be used more often instead of always seeing a whole bunch of a certian type always flying around.
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Chuck Perry
"Sky61"
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It seems a multi-arena environment would only work if HTC were offered a "pay-by-use" billing on the extra bandwidth. I don't think this is likely to happen in this millenia.
Until then, having an arena sit mostly unused for 24 hours a day seems to be a bit of a waste. No matter what the server offers.
AKDejaVu
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I think you missed Hajo's point. With more people, eventually you have to go to multiple arenas and that creates an opportunity to expand the scope of the offerings, thereby creating more interest and attracting more people. The time is coming to where you are going to see a large expansion of the player base and that's going to open up some interesting possibilities.
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Doug "Pyro" Balmos
HiTech Creations
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I get the point Pyro. But is "full at times" enough to prompt more arenas? Or do we need "full all the time"? Is having more arenas without being able to keep them occupied justiification for things like.. oh.. lets say.. keeping the price at $30/month? The new arenas come at an increased cost to you, therefore an increased cost to us (via no reduction in price).
If we get the new players, then great.. the cost is absorbed. If the arena sits empty... then not so great because we have to cover the cost.
Also, when another arena is added, the fun will start. HA, Furball, Relaxed realism, Axis vs Allies, Icons, No icons, Early War, Mid War, Late War... The possibilities are endless... as are the oppinions.
Of course, being an unlimited play game means that the server really needs to be available to paying members at all times. Therein lies the catch.
Glad I don't have to make that decision.
AKDejaVu
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I guess my question is at what point does HTC
branch out? Numbers have been hovering steady
in the 180 to 200 range most prime time evenings that I've seen.
Also, what 2nd arena is most likely to bring in more people & keep them? Early war? Axis vs Allied?
Balance that by what will be easiest to produce & maintain & you've got a tough question to find answers for.
Best of luck HTC (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
We'll be waiting to see what you come up with.
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Euro and Pacific arenas maybe?
(I mean as the planesets develope further)
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well..... as i've said before... I like the "area" idea. Early war area, mid war area and say late war area all in the same arena. Early and late war being historically less popular would be smaller areas than the mid war area. Areas could be seperated by "natural" boundries such as 40K mountain ranges but you would be able to see and move to other "areas" fields from any tower.
The advantage to this idea is that the "community" stays intact. the radar and buffer still works for all "areas" and so... a person (or group) could switch seamlessly from one type/era of war to another as the whim struck them without leaving the arena and loffing on to another arena that may or may not suit them.
Basicaly you would have (at least) three arenas in one. More choice more parity maintain strong "community".
lazs
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Pyro, I sure do love limited icon/limited radar historic planeset arenas.
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Lazs, the discussion is based on the 260 player arena limit pushing the needs for a new arena. It has nothing to do with what currently goes on in the MA.
AKDejaVu
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I'll second that Rip, reduced icons/reduced radar, perhaps even Axis Vs Allies one day when the planeset expands? The CM crew do a fine job with check six events etc but a 24/7 server with this kind of setup would be great, perhaps we could try a server for two weeks and see where the community flys?
[This message has been edited by Revvin (edited 04-10-2001).]
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deja... I really didn't know that there was a 260 player limit in any one arena.
That being the case i would still like an area arena for one of em but... If we have to have other arenas how bout, at the very least, if we were able to switch to the other arenas "map" and check it out while in the arena we are in? See my point? It would keep the players all part of the community better methinks.
lazs
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Well, if the floor is open to suggestions, might i make this...
I despise this current map ("WaterWorld"), I liked the other and the one prior to the Isles one, since that gave the GVs a lot of room to play.
Perhaps a Land Arena and Sea Arena? The ships/pt boats *personally* don't turn my crank much at all. The Historic ones sound good too but I'd be curious, by means of survey or so, how many would populate such an arena.
Just random thoughts, thought I'd share....
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Paul J. Busiere
Aces High Arena handle: BD5Pilot
http://bd5.checksix.net (http://bd5.checksix.net)
BD-5 "T" (TurboProp) 90% complete, first flight in 2001 (We hope!)
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Furball arena sounds fun, but any place that dumps or limits these icons gets my vote. At least only put nationality in at 1,000 and AC type at 500 yards.
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Originally posted by lazs:
deja... I really didn't know that there was a 260 player limit in any one arena.
That being the case i would still like an area arena for one of em but... If we have to have other arenas how bout, at the very least, if we were able to switch to the other arenas "map" and check it out while in the arena we are in? See my point? It would keep the players all part of the community better methinks.
lazs
Only having limited expirience with large enough #'s of players to require more arenas (like WB 1.11, or when 2.0 brought huge #'s).
I like what Lazs is getting at! Makeing a possible 520 players "feel" like its 1 arena 1 community IS a good idea. Making it easy to see whats going on in a different arena(some other part of the world on the same map, say) might even help promote each other, balancing out the stress on any one server.
Good thoughts Lazs, 1 virtual arena, 1 community!
We are the world, we are the children, we can make a better place... sry (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
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If you do it Lazs way, you run into server traffic from each server bleeding over into the other servers. So lets say you are "strat whoring", you are going to recieve communications traffic from the "furballing weenies" server/map. The thing is, you need a permanent gateway that traffics information to each player no matter what arena they are in. What you do in here is effectively require a single server to act as the packet redirector while you have several other servers setup for each map or "arena".
Too much trouble, not worth the effort kind of thing. As numbers increase we are looking at multiple servers, with no way to intra-communicate with people from the other servers. This is a good thing, because then you can actually read the radio buffer and follow what's going on in the arena you are currently in.
-SW
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Isn't it great that we have to have this conversation.
Drex
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Yes it is drex! (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/biggrin.gif)
Before ghosth and I moved the Mongrels over from Warbirds one of the questions I asked pyro was if/when would they open a "Historical Arena". We were a HA squad in Warbirds and missed that in Aces High. This has been the main reason I have worked hard on the weekly events because we lacked a HA.
When a 2nd arena does open up (and it will) I would certainly look for something that would rotate our historical terrains and offer historical plane sets. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/biggrin.gif) If that happend that is the only place you would find this dog. I think several in my squad feel the same way.
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CM Weekly Events, daddog
332nd Flying Mongrels (http://www.ropescourse.org/flying.htm)
Snapshots & Check 6! (http://events.hitechcreations.com/)
(http://www.ropescourse.org/cdaddog.jpg)
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in his shoes.
That way, if he gets angry, he'll be a mile away - and barefoot.
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whoa guys <G> some of you missed my point....please read carefully what I wrote. I said that in the future as AH grows other arenas are going to be needed. I didn't say now! the time will come when the MA will be filled, in the future, near, far or whatever.
we are getting a large influx from other on-line flight sims. this seems to point to a trend of growing numbers and the possibility that the MA will be at capacity, hopefully in the near future. Just thinking ahead here guys, that's all, thats my business in the real world <G>
Ripper again, great idea, would love to see the spitv, fW190a3, 109E <emil> maybe the F model, the hurricane etc pitted against one another.
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so sea... are you saying that having a "clickable map" say would be impossible? You couldn't just flip through the maps of both (or more) other arenas while in another arena? I don't know diddly bout putters but have been told that this would be rather simple.
Everytime I have seen two seperate arenas one is empty either because it has limited the (percieved or real) choices or because people just don't want to bother to log out of one and log into another just to "check it out" they also have a hard time convincing buddies and squaddied to "check it out" with em. I would like to get around that.
lazs
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I would like to see arena with:
-WW2 matchups (axis vs allies)
-no enemy icons or very low ones (i have yet to be suprised in AH, those neon signs are pure arcade)
-storm fronts
-maybe some sort of timeline (later when more early war planes available)
Icons change way of combat really much. I find it too easy to judge enemy direction, speed and E-state from icons. Its gamey, not anything else. Even in WB you get much more realistic results without icons and it has much worse graphics than AH. If it works there it must work here too.
Well thats about all what ive missed in AH.
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Originally posted by lazs:
so sea... are you saying that having a "clickable map" say would be impossible? You couldn't just flip through the maps of both (or more) other arenas while in another arena? I don't know diddly bout putters but have been told that this would be rather simple.
I'm guessing you mean moving from one arena to the other without logging out. Question is: How does that differ from simply logging out and checking the other arenas? You are going to be effectively logged out of the arena you are currently in and logged into the other one.
-SW
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sea.. I mean.. you could "thumb" thru the maps of the other arenas and just click on a field if you wanted. The way seperate arenas work now is that you have no idea of what is happening in the other arenas until you log out and then log back in to the new arena to look at the map. If you want to communicate with someone in the other arena you have to log back out and then back in again.
i would want all maps available from anywhere (any arena) and you could get the arena map up that you liked and click on one of it's airfields and be there. or back again the same way. radio would work in the arena you were in.
lazs