Author Topic: Midway(comments and questions) (Read 515 times)

McAnne · « **on:** November 10, 2002, 11:17:10 PM »

I think the event was a bit lop sided, and this was just looking at it from the registration numbers. I have perticipated in a few other AH multi-frame events. (Big Week, Sink the Graf Zeplin, to name a few) Both events went as well as could be expected, BUT had a serrious lack of commentement by the players, in other words after 2 frames many players just QUIT showing up expecialy if they were on the less popular side( Note: not winning side or losing side, just least popular) Great example of this was during the Graf Zeplin event back a couple of years ago the allies were stuck in F6F Heck Kittys and at the time they had a HORRIBLE snap roll bug, I mean you touch the stick and BAMB snap there you go tumbling over and over to the ground or till you gain control. Versus the 109G2, G6, 190s (all) and AR234 Oh and the Ju88 to name a few. The cedets over at the AF Acadamy did a wonderful job with their planning as the Luftwaffa but they also could count on a steady count of players. That and their was only a 5% difference in player numbers to begin with. This Midway event has almost a 50 player differance and the fact that the game with its "newer" bombing formations makes it MUCH harder for ANY navel group to survive. Before the "soft" CVs and the succide Lancasters would put a damper on anyday but that was rare in a event. During the later half of the Zeplin event about half of the Allied players were even showing up, most could be found in the main arena becuase they hated the F6F or the TBMs they were assigned. The worst was the Lancaster pilots that formed up in ENGLAND and flew almost 4 hours in 1 sortie without the benifit of the preformation massive numbers you can field before you take off. Picture 24 lancasters takeing off from england and each piloted by a INDIVIDUAL not 1 out of 3 being player controled.

Sorry that this ran off on a rant but I dont see how the Midway event will go either way with out some sort of side balanceing. I mean 50 players is a HUGE differance when only 400 are fling total. I was once a fan of AH and its events but it has lost me almost 7 months ago becuase of lag issues and shoddy damage models, besides the phaser cannons. I was once know as Hodo and I would have deffinatly would have enjoyed a event that invovled japan for once, considering all I flew was a KI61KAI and A6M5s.

jordi · « **Reply #1 on:** November 11, 2002, 07:43:22 AM »

I am not sure where you are getting your numbers ?

We had over 400+ people REGISTER for the Scearnio. the MOST ever allowed to fly at one time in an AH Scenario. We had almost 400 register within the first 48 hours !

We had 350+ Pilots make it for frame #1 - that is almosta 90% attendence ( Most have been aroundthe 75% attendence side ).

In frame #2 we had 310+ pilots attend - again almost 80% attendence.

This most # of pilots flying ONLINE with and against each other in the last 3 AH Scenarios ( BoB, Sicily and Bigweek ).

In both frames the number of pilots on both sides were within 10-15 pilots of each other - far from LOOPSIDED at the start of the Frame.

I hope this clears some misconceptions you may have about CURRENT AH Scenarios.

Dowding (Work) · « **Reply #2 on:** November 11, 2002, 10:06:03 AM »

I suggest you lock this thread, Jordi. It might turn into a flame war.

jordi · « **Reply #3 on:** November 11, 2002, 10:37:06 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Oedipus
[B I missed this scenario due to the frame dates. Howeverl I'm not convinced if I missed much. The screen shots I saw were great and some of the AAR's are what I crave but I really don't get any warm, fuzzies about Midway (or future AH scenearios) reading such things as this:

http://216.91.192.19/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=69624

Oed [/B]

Due to the time table involved we were unable to get the KATE into the plane setup as we had hoped. As in almost all scenarios plane substitutions have to be made so the IJN gets to fly the TBM instead of the KATE.

McAnne · « **Reply #4 on:** November 11, 2002, 12:56:59 PM »

Sorry about the 50 player number.

I looked at it again after looking through all the logs that I could find and they were close. But the drop in attendance after 1 frame is still big, perhaps adding something in to try and get attendance to stay up, at the rate you were stateing your attendance at, 80% of registered players by the second frame, that would be a 10% drop per frame. With 2 frames left you woould be just over half or 60% of registered players on the final frame. God forbid they ever do a 8 frame event....... it would be about 10% of registered players and rest walk-ons.

Oh and I have flown ingame in the past few months, I just refuse to pay the still higher rates for a less graphicaly and gameplay wise, but with better support and stability than most other online WWII based games. I will just wait for something good to grab my attention but as it stands now, there is nothing out there. AH held my eye for about a year or more but then after going to WWIIOL I seen graphics in such environment could have been better. But that came back to bite me in the butt, WWIIOL lacked the stability of AH or even the affective frame rates and I wont even compair the update frequancy, HT stomps all over CRS in that department. Perhaps HT should buy out CRS and build a TRUELY affective WWIIOL game. Sorry about the rant.

Oedipus, I think any out side opinion is better than a wet behind the ears greenhorn.

Nash · « **Reply #5 on:** November 11, 2002, 01:58:44 PM »

Yeah, the attrition over 4 frames has been nasty in past scenarios. Accordingly, we we went to a 2 frame/day format for the last 2-3 scenarios and this seemed to solve it nicely; although that format has its own set of problems and complaints.

Now that the player base has grown and it's been so long since we've used the 1 frame/day format, we're having another look at them to see if the attrition will end up to be less of a problem than it was in the past.

We've got another month-long scenario planned following Midway, but if we see the kind of attrition levels we saw in Hostile Shores or prior, we're gonna have to revisit the issue.

Basically, there's no better measure of what players want than looking at how many are actually showing up to fly these. If the numbers fall off, it says to me pretty clearly "we don't want scenarios this long". At least I don't know how else to read it.

There's not much anyone can do to force people into remaining interested... and I haven't really heard any solution to fixing the problem otherwise, so I reckon events need to suit the tendencies of the players.

Anyway... it's still too early to call. Attrition so far in Midway hasn't been a problem at all. We'll see.

Regarding balance, Midway has seen around a 10 player advantage to one side or the other. With over 300 flying that's really not bad.

Turbot · « **Reply #6 on:** November 18, 2002, 09:35:58 AM »

Battle of Britain was a good one.

Greg Stelmack · « **Reply #7 on:** November 18, 2002, 03:58:19 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by McAnne
AH held my eye for about a year or more but then after going to WWIIOL I seen graphics in such environment could have been better. But that came back to bite me in the butt, WWIIOL lacked the stability of AH or even the affective frame rates

It's easy to get better graphics if you're willing to take a framerate hit. Improving graphics while keeping framerate the same is quite the challenged, and in this day and age has a lot to do with hardware. Aces High visuals are plenty good enough for me at the moment, especially at 1600x1200 with greate framerates.

Esme · « **Reply #8 on:** November 21, 2002, 01:16:53 PM »

Personally, I think AH has the fundamentals more nearly right than any other game currently out there in WW2 flightsim MMOL land, and its track record of steady progress is second to none.

Bottom line is gameplay. If the gameplay is good, you'll enjoy the game. If the gameplay is bad, you won't enjoy it no matter how excellent the graphics are. AH's graphics are perfectly adequate, and cause far less of a framerate hit than those in other games, thus enabling better frame rates with larger numbers of players.

For land warfare, sure, WW2OL is excellent. But it's a beast of a program compared to AH. And AH's ground warfare is probably the best amongst the MMOL flightsims, and that is steadily improving, too. IL2 has superb graphics and some very nice features, but isn't MMOL, and is another beast of a program with loooong load times. WBIII has potential but isn't really out of beta yet, and is yet another huge beast of a program compared to AH (and still with a smaller planeset than WB2 had, and smaller terrains).

Every game I've tried has been deficient in its early-war plane set to start with. AH seems to be expanding its planeset faster and more often than most other games. (shrugs)... it isn't perfect, but it's better than the competition, IMO. What we, the players, actually DO with it may be another matter, but the fundamental game is IMO superb.

Esme