Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: LtHans on April 27, 2002, 09:21:12 PM
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My brother is getting back into WWII Online now that it is starting to become what it was supposed to be last year. He keeps bugging me and bugging me to restart my account so he can have a partner to run tanks and tow cannons around.
So far I've said no, but I'm planning to threaten his very life if he asks me one more time.
I wanted WWII Online to work. I knew a game like it can work. The problem was not the technical issues, as online multiplayer games are up and running (like AH here). The problem was their design had some obvious gameplay flaws. Too much land to cover by too few players, not to mention not giving the infantry their place to be useful. They've already fired half their employees to keep above water, and their publisher went bankrupt.
I'm wondering if anybody will try again? I think they will. Ultima Online fell flat on it's face, but a few years latter EverQuest is wildly popular (in fact, I saw a BBC report that said it makes more money than Bulgaria does).
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I tried it again this month. Lo and behold, my account was still active a good SIX MONTHS after I cancelled it (1 month after that virus went pay for play). I'm going to go check my bank statements to see if i've been billed or not, this thievery CRS is so well known for is extremely annoying.
Logged on... and its still the same POS. The only progress made that I can see is in the spawn limits of tanks and in new "castle" army bases.
The infantry is still nothing but a target for tanks. They even screwed it up even more by making the inf. models point that rifle foward all the time a-la DOOM 1 (and looks just as bad), they disabled the kneel/prone/stand toggle into a single "kneel" button (which you must keep pressed the whole time.. ouch!), rifle shots dont kill with 1 hit at point blank range (but 1 pistol shot or smg round will.. w00t), Visibility is still CRAP (and the 64 object limit STILL has you fighting enemies that phase in and out of existance.
Tanks are still Quake 'R Us.
Flight Model is a joke. Stuka's out-perform the H75 and Hurri1 and Spit 1 , 109E has a phenomenal roll rate and can turn inside a hurricane 1... the Blackout model is so incredibly moronic that you actually DIE from pulling a little bit too much, going from no blackout to instant blackout to death in a split second. Gunnery in Air to Air is also a joke. Reminds me of the old Atari 2600 games where you shot little lines at gonzo speed.
THE ONLY good things I see about that disaster of a game is the icon system (really excellent, I hope HTC copies it) and the little vapor trails the wings leave during a fight (sooo purty!).
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I'd like to try WWIIol just to see what it's like. i doubt i'd fall for it but well, gotta try everything once
too bad it wouldnt run on my PIII 800
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WW2OL:
Idea was great; Implementation leaves so much to be desired that it is not even funny.
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WWIIOL is still only of its kind and therefore good game.
It is kind of neat to get in a stuka and go bomb & strafe live targets or just duke it out with airplanes.
It isn't just quake on the wings like in AH.
They're getting it better and better, however, in some areas not.. like before mentioned inf model where they disabled kneeling and walking etc. changes. (it doesn't kneel anymore, just crouches a bit)
I don't know what they've been thinking when they did that to inf.
one thing is good to keep in mind; it can only get better.
Im sure there won't be another game of its kind for many years, it's simply too risky to do - as we've seen with WWIIOL.
Simply too big project, when you have easier ways of making money by cloning Quake (Thats what MOHAA basically is, with WWII looks) and other kind of simplier projects.
Aces High isn't any wonder game either, neither was Warbirds, neither was Air Warrior...
It's the kind of game which can almost surely get fair benefit.
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Originally posted by Fishu
WWIIOL is still only of its kind and therefore good game.
It is kind of neat to get in a stuka and go bomb & strafe live targets or just duke it out with airplanes.
It isn't just quake on the wings like in AH.
Originally posted by Tac
Flight Model is a joke. Stuka's out-perform the H75 and Hurri1 and Spit 1 , 109E has a phenomenal roll rate and can turn inside a hurricane 1... the Blackout model is so incredibly moronic that you actually DIE from pulling a little bit too much, going from no blackout to instant blackout to death in a split second. Gunnery in Air to Air is also a joke. Reminds me of the old Atari 2600 games where you shot little lines at gonzo speed.
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If you want to try it and you don't have the boxed game Staples had them on close-out for 9.99...
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One of the reasons I brought up this subject is Aces High and it's attempts to try to have a ground war.
I now really beleave that HiTech himself said it correctly. People of different gameplay angles don't want to play against other types of warfare. I.E. Fighters vs tanks, or infantry vs warship. The styles don't match.
However, we do want a God game that has everything.
If I were to redesign WWII Online I would split the army up from the navy/airforce. The army would run their own game arenas using small, but detailed maps, while I think we could get away with combining the airwar and navy into a single arena that is very large, but basic terrain like AH is. There would be some interoperability between the two games, and quite a bit when it comes to supply and strategic targets (factories and cargo ships). Combat between them only comes in the form of army forward obsever players putting down targets on the map, which are duplicated in the air/sea arena. If the air/sea guys hit it, it's evil twin in the army arena also blows up.
Add to that the infantry should be allowed to play as squads. A single player, plus 8 AI idiots who only ape his movements and fire in the same direction as him. No AI at all really. Just extensions of the single player (like gunners on AH bombers). He doesn't get sent back to the tower/user interface untill all nine men of the squad are dead.
HiTech talked about doing something like this for AH, to give the groundpounders enough to work with
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Originally posted by LtHans
However, we do want a God game that has everything.
Nah, I don't want a "God" game, thanks all the same! ;)
I do play WWIIOL though, and certainly enjoy it - I just wish I had more time to play it as well as Aces High, but often go for long periods between sessions.
I love the tanks in WWIIOL, but unfortunately they recently severely limited them from each base, and its no fun watching three of my squaddies roll out in S35s, leaving me to either take a far inferior R35 or go out as an SMG and catch a ride on one - I nearly always end up dieing quickly that way at the end of an otherwise uneventful ride.
For this reason, I have not played at all much recently, and unless they change their policy sometime soon I may end up dropping it. I don't want to, it is a great game otherwise, especially if we can all work together - and the scenery is fantastic! I don't fly in WWIIOL, as my main interest there is the ground war, and I do all my flying here. :)
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Well, I reactivated my account last week to check it out and was disappointed with the progress since when I last played (back before pay to play).
The air war is still very poor - I can't see any discernible differences, and the whole thing still chugs when you actually get near any combat. The black-out system defies belief, and the key mapper is particularly poor.
The tanks side of things is really well done. But it was before, so hardly a relevation.
Infantry is the most frustrating part of it. The controls are just soooooo cumbersome and survivability is ridiculously low. I really do think this side of things would have been better if they had made things a little more like existing FPS games. Day of defeat springs to mind (v2.0 models stamina etc, and at least the lethality of the rifles are something like what they ought to be).
Ambient sounds still seem buggy. A tank can be on the other side of a valley and sound like it's parked on your head.
The division of the game into two separate launch pages is a nice improvement.
I hope it survives, but I'm not holding my breath.
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Fishu wrote:
WWIIOL is still only of its kind and therefore good game.
Uh right! It doesn't matter if it IS the only game like it it still blows.
I tried to play it again after their big patch...still sucked.
I was lied to so many times there is no way in hell I would ever trust those rat bastards again nor will I ever try a game of theirs.
I think this was the only time I really wished a company would go under.
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Personally I think they tried to hard. They really didn't need to go full bore with the ultra realism in the physics, particularily on the ground.
Ballistics, yes, but not with the vehicle suspension and inertia. A simple system would work just as well.
And their plan for spawning infantry and needing to truck them to the fight is not too bright. Infantry need to be near the fight from the get go. What is needed is a fight with both sides spawing infantry near the fight, and fighting vehicles further back.
I just shake my head at obvious.....obvious....proble ms like that. I didn't even need to play the game to know it wouldn't work well at all.
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Mighty,
I'll rather play WWIIOL than Aces High :)
Aces High is a simple quake on the wings and thats it.. just doesn't get me interested anymore.
Has bug and has issues, but it's still better than air quake.
Oh.. by the way, it got 88 points in 2-page review on finnish gaming magazine plus 3 pages dedicated for rookies ;) (total of 5 pages in one magazine)
It's all about that what people wants.. I want something more than quake on the wings.
Tac & Animal,
Stuka comment? anyone who knows how to fly, can win stuka hands down.
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yes fishu, and im sure the hurricane 1 went to 580 mph in 5 seconds of dive and still retained manouverability. Or better yet, the im sure their gunnery modelling is Ssssooo correctly modelled it doesnt even resemble gun camera footage in ANY WAY at all.
WW2OL will go under in a year or so when other companies finish their own MMPOG WW2 games. Heck, if 3000AD adapts their BCM:XP2 game to use WW2 units, itd be a thousand times better looking and better modelled than WW2OL will ever be.. right from the very start.
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It sure did get hammered in our reviews, the hardcore sim gamers (as in, us, the customers, not some magazine that charges for positive feedback)
It IS a very good idea for a sim, it had potential. But the execution was poor. We know you have personal grudges with Aces High, but please keep a scientific mind, be objective, or you will come as a fool.
Generally we praise what is good (IL-2, Falcon 4, Comanche Hokum) but dont fool yourself by standing by, a product that was poorly made, and coming here to tell us that what we enjoy and admire is pure crap.
Vent your insecurities elsewere Fishu, go work on those nice mods you make for Rainbow Six, you excell at that, not at trying to prove your whiney opinions.
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Originally posted by Elfenwolf
If you want to try it and you don't have the boxed game Staples had them on close-out for 9.99...
It's been a free download for quite awhile now .
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Tac said.. "when other companies finish their own MMPOG WW2 games"
Any links to these projects?
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I intend to try WW2OL again once the new interface get implemented sometime in May or June. I have no intention of buying a box copy and then downloading 150MB of patches though. I hope that Gigex updates the version they are shipping out.
"Ultima Online fell flat on it's face"
Are you on drugs? UO is the second most succussful online product ever, behind EQ.
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Originally posted by Mickey1992
I intend to try WW2OL again once the new interface get implemented sometime in May or June. I have no intention of buying a box copy and then downloading 150MB of patches though. I hope that Gigex updates the version they are shipping out.
"Ultima Online fell flat on it's face"
Are you on drugs? UO is the second most succussful online product ever, behind EQ.
I think he's refering to the initial release, where some of the players tried to sue the company to recoup money spent on the game (This is all just a fuzzy memory, and probably all wrong). Didn't UO's original release have some serious problems?
-Sikboy
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Dang!, AcesHigh's "Quake on Wings" doesnt have Stukas easily winning dogfights against Spitfires and Hurricanes, blowing them up with ... (takin' a deep breath) ... 2x7mm. Moreover AH doesnt have the mighty "endless loop" feature in every FM ....
I really hope that AH's "Quake On Wings" will catch-up with WW2OL's "Quake On Wings, Tracks and Boots" ... :rolleyes:
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Well Fishu I glad you like WWIIO...really.....no kidding!
I think it blows but hey who am I? I don't pay for your games so do what you want.
I think it IS funny though how you keep calling AH airquake. I mean that's all that people want in WWIIO is quake.
One of the reasons I quit was because all the quakers wanted to get rid of tanks and only have soldiers.
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I discovered WWIIOL a couple of months ago thanks to the free trial. I loved it so much I ordered a box from the USA and had it shipped here to Belgium at twice the price...(btw now it's a free download :o ).
I enjoy both games, I'm still paying and playing AH. Some people here make very harsh (and not justified anymore) comments about WWIIOL...dunno why. Is WWIIOL perfect? No. Neither is AH. Are both games fun? Hell yes! Do they compete? Not really.
WWIIOL is hard. You die fast, most often from an unseen enemy. This can be frustrating. However, it makes you hunch on your K-board while you run thru open terrain. Immersion is at its best, action is intense.
WWIIOL FM is unrealistic? Dunno. Certainly different from AH. Still unfinished too. However, please remember you're fighting a WWIIOL 110C, or an AH one. Not a real one. Who cares if one turns much better than the other? You're still fighting another human player....the best will come out victorious...just like here.
If some of you are interested, go to the free trial. You have nothing to loose. Don't rely on the comments you can read here. Too much are deeply biased.
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deSelys some of us may sound harsh but we were a part of the original screwing and some of us don't feel that the rats should be trusted OR supported.
I really wanted WWIIO to work because I enjoy tanks more than I do AC but after the way they treated us I will never buy another product from them again. EVER!
It sounds like you missed all the BS they put us through in the beginning so you really don't have an idea of how pissed some of us are or why.
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AH is everything that HTC has claimed it should be.
WWII On-Line is nowhere near what Cornered Rat claimed it would be 1 year ago... to the point of even falsely advertising the game features on the box.
That is my major problem with the game.
AKDejaVu
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it all comes back to the people/company supporting the product.
WB sucked
WWIIOL sucked
HTC has it's watermelon together
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WWIIOL showed, if nothing else, that there would be a ton of people who would fork over some money to play a massively multiplayer air, land & sea combat sim. Someone will make another attempt at it, maybe after technology catches up with the idea somewhat.
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Wow, I didn't know that you could download the whole product now (ver 1.55, 116 MB). You still have to get your hands on a user account though, which means that you still have to buy a box.
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Originally posted by Fishu
It's all about that what people wants..
I want something more than quake on the wings.
First statement is correct in general, second is subjective. Together they are nonsence.
What people in general want ?
They want the most dumb down that they can get. They want as easy as it gets.
You want examples ?
AOL ? Biggest ISP in US ?
McDonalds ? Need i say more ?
Fighter Ace ? Beats all other sims number wise
Look at music those days ... NSynch ? That's what people want.
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You don't need to buy the box to have an account to play online .
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Originally posted by Samm
You don't need to buy the box to have an account to play online .
You have to have the 12-digit key off of the CD to create an account. Where are you able to create an account without a key?
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It didn't require you to put in a cd key . I only played it online three times and decided I wasn't going to subscribe and I haven't been back since .
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Originally posted by Samm
It didn't require you to put in a cd key . I only played it online three times and decided I wasn't going to subscribe and I haven't been back since .
Exactly, you have to have a CD key to subcribe and play passed the 30 day free download trial thingy.
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But you don't have to buy it to find out that it is not what they have fraudulently advertised it to be .
Hehe Imagine how many CD's they wouldn't have sold if everyone had the opportunity to try it before buying it .
You DO NOT need to buy the cd to play the game online . I advise anyone considering buying it to dowload it and play it online first .
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Mighty1, I understand that some of you felt fooled by the game when it came out because it was still some kind of early beta. However, a lot of games are launched while still filled with bugs and barely playable (Falcon 4.0, Hidden & Dangerous come to mind). Why does this one raise so much aggressivity? Was it more expensive than the 2 previously mentioned box games? No.
Most us have learned the hard way that what lies on a game's official website should be carefully read between the lines, and that it is wiser to wait for the first reviews before eventually buying the game. I won't say that you're the 1st to blame if you skip this step and pay some well-earned money to get a grab on a copy the 1st day the boxes hit the shelves....I'll just say you're taking a risk.
Even before WWIIOL beta, I was amazed to read CRS forums. Some people there were already discussing tactics and gameplay....about a game that nobody had ever tried yet! Some of those people had huge expectations and seemed unable to do something else than talking about what the-best-game-of-the-universe would or should be, and impatiently wait. The hype growed by itself to much oversized proportions. All those people could only be disappointed by the release...
I won't play CRS's advocate, but they had to eventually make money, and they weren't the only ones to decide (Playnet, Strategy First,...). The release came certainly too early, and the boxes stated non-existing features, that's a fact. Again, all this happened before with much expensiver software than WWIIOL.
About CRS account policy, I can't give you an opinion. I haven't noticed any irregularity (yet?), but I haven't tried to close my account neither.
I'll be honest: although I was curious (and skeptical) to see if CRS could deliver something as good as they stated, it is well possible that, forgetting my onw wise advice, I would have rushed to the nearest store to buy a copy on the 1st day, only to break the CD into tiny bits due to frustration and disappointment on the 2nd day. The non-distribution of the game in Europe relieved me of this crucial choice.
However, whatever your experience may have been, the final point is: the game is now much enjoyable IMO.
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deSelys the problem was that you could not play the game right out of the box AND most of the things it claimed were available on the box were not in the game.
Hell! You had to download 100meg of patchs just to play it.
This wasn't just buggy it was incomplete. They knew it was incomplete when they sold it to us and they wouldn't even admit it for a long time. All they could say when someone complained was "Buy more ram" or "It's your system not our program".
Even if you could excuse the lies there is no way you could excuse their attitude towards us. We were told many times if we didn't like the way they ran things to just go away!
Real nice!
What they were trying to say was "Give us your money and shut up! We don't care if you can play or not just as long as you send us your money."
I don't care what the game is like now I gave them a chance and they screwed me.
If WWIIO works for you great! But don't come in here and try to tell us we are wrong in how we feel about those bastards.
I hope you are not taking any of this personal. I don't know you and I have no reason to attack you I'm just trying to explain WHY WWIIO is not well liked. (by some)
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I think you both need to stop using "we" and "us".
AKDejaVu
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Nothing personal against you either, Mighty1. Although I don't support your POV, I can understand it, and I certainly don't want to debate about WWIIOL early problems. I wasn't there then.
It just irks me when some people says that the game is crap because feature X is missing, or because boat Y outturns plane Z.....when those particular issues have been corrected long ago.
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AKDejaVu I have every right to say "WE" or "US". I ask everyone in my head what they think before I post anything.:p
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I love ww2online.. It is fun carpet bombing a town an acctually killing other people... and when I am tired of flying,, I can Drive a Pz, Grab a Mauser,, or drive an Opel Blitz with Real soliders too the front.. :D
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Actually, I should have titled this post, "Do you think CRS will cave before they finish version 1.0".
It isn't 1.0 despite the fact the software says version 1.55 on it. It isn't. It won't be untill air, land, and sea are all working properly. Right now aviation has some wierdo stuff going on, and navy consists of river gun boats.
AH kind of goes that way, but I get the feeling that CRS just did it to make us all shut up, but stopped short of actually making the non-flying parts useful as a full time game play style.
Tanks are useless without terrain. Like I said, it doesn't need to be complex terrain. A few farm houses, and simple 2D treelines and solid box forests that you can't enter. Infantry could/should be done as squads, not single soldiers. Ships are in the game and work pretty well (better than the tanks), but a few additions wouldn't hurt like having a few lone cruisers with two destroyers as escorts roaming around in addtion to carrier fleets.
AH could be a halfway decent air/land/sea game. I just think HiTech and Pyro don't want to try.
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First off to the AH cheerleader squad: This is the offtopic forum, check the name of the thread... it's about WW2O - noone trying to convince any of you to come over, just opinions about WW2O being posted!
I've recently renewed my WW2O account and I am having a good time there. At the moment I share my online time between AH & WW2O - both have their strenghtes and weaknesses.
WW2O greatest strength - the historical setup, combined battlefield - is AH greatest weakness - AirQuake*, as Fishu stated before! WW2O arial warfare is far from complete but it's a good start and I still have faith they get it right.
*AirQuake: totally unhistorical setup, unlimited spawn, no real interest to RTB, AWACS radar, laser-rangefinder and billboard icons, railgun gunnery
Had good fun last night - flying a few 109 sorties with Glasses. We b&z'ed those Hawks and Hurris to death! I even got promoted to Private First Class... :)
What puzzles me most is that axis&allies are very good balanced numberwise most of the time. Unlike the praised 3 sided arena, where 1 side outnumbers the rest 2:1 most of the time - the 2 sided, historical arena seems to work... ;)
Anyway - why don't all the game developers merge their products and bring us the PERFECT online war sim?!?!!
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Originally posted by Kirin
What puzzles me most is that axis&allies are very good balanced numberwise most of the time. Unlike the praised 3 sided arena, where 1 side outnumbers the rest 2:1 most of the time - the 2 sided, historical arena seems to work... ;)
LW gets an additional 30% of players probably becouse in WW2OL 109Es and Ju87s turn inside Hurricanes and Spitfires.
Ok, ok, only joking .. couldnt resist ;) :)
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First off WWIIO cheerleader squad: Shove that AirQuake comment up your asses!
If you want to be a fanboy for WWIIO fine but don't expect civil conversations while you bash AH on the AH UBB! I don't care if this is OT Forum or not!
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I've played both AH and WWIIOL.
HTC gets $15 a month from me.
CRS gets $0 a month from me.
'nuff said.
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Originally posted by LtHans
Actually, I should have titled this post, "Do you think CRS will cave before they finish version 1.0".
It isn't 1.0 despite the fact the software says version 1.55 on it. It isn't. It won't be untill air, land, and sea are all working properly. Right now aviation has some wierdo stuff going on, and navy consists of river gun boats.
AH kind of goes that way, but I get the feeling that CRS just did it to make us all shut up, but stopped short of actually making the non-flying parts useful as a full time game play style.
Tanks are useless without terrain. Like I said, it doesn't need to be complex terrain. A few farm houses, and simple 2D treelines and solid box forests that you can't enter. Infantry could/should be done as squads, not single soldiers. Ships are in the game and work pretty well (better than the tanks), but a few additions wouldn't hurt like having a few lone cruisers with two destroyers as escorts roaming around in addtion to carrier fleets.
AH could be a halfway decent air/land/sea game. I just think HiTech and Pyro don't want to try.
Yeah man, what LtHans said. HiTech is too busy laughing all the way to the bank with wheelbarrel loads of OUR money and Pyro is undergoing hormone therapy in anticipation of his upcoming sex change operation so they are too busy to care about AH. After all, what have they done for us LATELY?
One thing I'd love to see in Aces High is marching bands. Wouldn't that be cool to be the drum major of a marching band following the infantry and tanks into battle? Nothing big, maybe a few 2-D bugle players and a couple of cymbol bangers, but really, Hi-Tech and Pyro, I'd like a marching band, and maybe a roving USO show to entertain the troops, if it's not too much to ask. Hey, it wouldn't hurt.
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No way your "USO Show" crap gets modeled before my "Zoot Suite Party in HQ" feature. I've been asking for this for years, but HTC doesn't care. I mean, how can we have a WWII Sim without Sailors beating up Minorities?
Also, I'm sick of these primitive terrains. I mean, the ground is just sort of mapped on there. We NEED to have individual blades of grass modeled :mad: I bet that would also stop the .50 cal guns popping tanks BS :mad:
-Sikboy
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hehe Kirin, if AH had WW2OL icons.. it'd be a completely different game :) :)