Well, the game I loved is dead and gone.

[Westy]

For sure AH's current "MA"  is definately BigPork only on a grander scale due to the numbers in just one arena.



"....the mentality seems less "mature"."

 I dissagree.  IMO it is essentially the same as AW's was.  But it would be unfair for folsk not to acknowledge that AH has always had a problem with channel one.  Simply search this vBB and the discussions about crap on channel one go back to the beginning. It's just that way-back-when there were just a hell-of-alot less people online who were afflicted with textual-tourettes or political-diarheal-dysfunction.

 The major difference between AW on Lamestorm and AW-4 (as AH is known now) was that AW had a large corp of volunteers that moderated the arena's 7x24x365.  They were indispensable, and helped enourmously, not only for assisting new players but for setting the line on tolerated behavior and talk in the AW arenas as well. When those moderators were "let go" during AW's sunset what was seen emmediately thereafter in the AW arena's is the same behavior, even a bit worse, as seen in the AH "MA" now.
 But even before that inglorious final chapter the jeuvinile macro spewage, whines about the game/plane/Kesmai/(insert specific support/developer employee) and adolescent chest thumping was essentially the same.  Even more so in the RR arena's.  

(RR??.... Now there's a whole nother extinct topic for discussion. One made moot by AH's novel, one arena, one FM concept  )

 So.  While players certainly do change, and burnout on the same ole same ole, IMO there is no way anyone can seriously claim that the online dynamics of AH has not.  While AH the program itself hasn't changed much in tha past couple of years the demographics (ie:  >>>>NNNNN>  playing AH has and they've seriously changed the type of gameplay experience one see in AH's MA now  (milk running or gang banging, pork&auger, divebombing Lancaster minions).

[Charon]

Urchin may be burned out, but the AW Big Pac mentality has arived at AH. It arrived about the time of the first large Bishop[?] Typhoon raids, transitioned to P-51s and has remained ever since. It actually took about 3 months or so to really set in.

For example, I clearly remember going from a Zero or Spit V in base defence mode to an LA7 (again, in the course of about 1-2 months) because you just couldn't catch them in their runs otherwise, and it was hard to find anyone willing to engage you until all of the ground targets and potential runway vulches were gone, or the odds were 5-1 or better.

The same thing had a very clear transition at AW too, during the gamestorm generation. I took off the first year of gamestorm because of burnout, came back fresh and found an entirely different arena. I think my first fight involved chasing a high p-51 two sectors to a deserted field, hoping he would engage with his huge e advantage, only to have him die to field ack on his bombing run.  I soon found that was the rule, not the exception, as was hordes of players flying far away from each other doing the steamroller against light opposition. Again, a night and day transition -- hard to miss.

When it got so bad that I was flying 2-3 sectors in the hopes of a decent, non-horde fight, I gave up and came to AH. Fortunately, for whatever reason (field layout, ground damage model?) the worst is not that bad here (for my $15/month). You can, with some work and some country switching, find good ACM fights. Just not as many (and many fizzle out on the way to the engagement) and it requires some extra work and analysis.

My $.02

Charon

[BlkKnit]

a thought...

I started over 2 years ago, Tour 23, as GT3man.  most wont remember that name, except maybe the ones who shot me down over and over and offerred advice.

I believe it was Tilt in a P38 who did the most damage (could be wrong, I seem to recall Lazer being around as well, but he may have been on my side), but there was another P38 there too who was amazing, plus Shane (dont remember what he was flyin, pony maybe) I musta lost 20-30 fights that day and had a nice Ch 1 talk about my poor choice of aircraft for a noob (190A8) and how to adjust views and all sorts of stuff.  Shane emailed me his views, very nice of him I thought.

Anyway, I seem to remember that day, we fought between 2 bases for quite a while, and no one tried to pork the other field or capture it.  All the while, there were maybe 6 guys to each side in that fight, and I dont remember a single Ch 1 whine or insult.  
That day I spent most of my time in a chute, but it hooked me.

From then I became a jaboaugerdweeb, and had fun with that, learning to dive bomb, but in those days, no one seemed to be trying to pork fields, mostly it was "hit the town" then fight if ya can.  I usually couldn't, but once in a while some good fights would spring up.

Then i became a runner.  Flying to survive.  I still didn't do very well at surviving when i engaged, but my flights lasted longer   i still died a lot trying up defense at capped fields.

Then I looked for furballs, died constantly and began looking at stats like kill/hour  wondering how the heck these guys are getting 10 kills/hr and 4+:1 k/d ratios.......I am still wondering about that one LOL.  No way i'll ever get to that point.

Now I just want to find fairly even, lower number / non horde fights.  I still enjoy a base capture once in a while, but not with a horde, thats just boring to me.  On the days when there is nothing but red hordes here and green hordes there, I can get very frustrated.

The point I am trying to make is:
Based on my experience, I think many new players might follow the same progression away from the horde.  maybe not, but one can hope

[moot]

So there's a simple solution: improve the df skills of all these new players.
Good old days of truly difficult and epic fights all over again, for everyone.

[Tilt]

Originally posted by Westy

"....the mentality seems less "mature"."

 I dissagree.  IMO it is essentially the same as AW's was.  But it would be unfair for folsk not to acknowledge that AH has always had a problem with channel one.  

I dont want to hold the AW horde up as some sort of "higher group"  it was a comparative judgement rather than a quantitative one.

I would just comment that it seems to me that the average age of an AH MA player is lower than what was found in AW FR or RR even during 2000/2001 and that that has its influence on the "persona" of the AH horde.

However we digress into an AW/AH comparison when the key point that is seen from both is that easily accessable (low cost high value) MMPG's attract hordes.............. .

The dilema is that hordes (ie lots of fairly new customers) is exactly what a company like HTC wants. It has to serve its core market.


The horde also contributes to the limit of the average customer retention cycle.

However by creating an MMPG that has sustained player growth and change it begins to address the challenge of lenthening the customer retention cycle by reducing the hordes influence on the individuals development and enjoyment.

[Tilt]

Originally posted by BlkKnit
I believe it was Tilt in a P38 who did the most

Tilt does not know how to fly a P38............saving that for his old age................

[BlkKnit]

heh, maybe I got it backwards....Lazer a 38 guy?

[AWCHKRS]

Originally posted by Steve
Pizza map Sux. This map above all others caters to the building battlers and steamrollers.  Every time I log in I feel a twinge of embarrassment and disappointment to see all three sides have their steamroller in gear at 3 different points on the map. It's frustrating yet at once amusing when a couple or 3 planes stem the tide of the steamroller only to see it pop up somehwere else where there is no resistance.  It's why I love the small maps, there is nowhere for these timid people to hide from me.

 I agree with Steve, also as for Squads dieing here lately ? I have been a member of The SEASERPENTS ( started in early AW days ) and it is now after many years, gone also.

  If I never see AK Desert again in MA would be just fine with me !.
 
  I usually stay out of these webboard debates lately , cause every time in the past when I voice my thoughts (or .02 cents ) on The  Great PIZZA MAP ,some self appointed WW II Combat Flight Sim  expert  proceeds to rip my bellybutton to pieces, telling me to play FighterAce  or some other dumb assed personal attack .
 
  As for me offering a suggestion or remedy into the this thread ?,
 I have none , except  this .....  "throw PIZZA  and Perk points in the trash can "
 
     

  CHKRS/ CHECKERS

[Zanth]

How long since a new airplane? This has a lot to do with the current state of affairs.

[Wanker]

Originally posted by skernsk
Simple reason for me not playing may be burnout as Hitech suggested.  But I feel that it is lack of excitement.  No updates in months .. no new planes .. etc.

And OLD terrains.  Look at the new OZterrain and how the community tripped all over themselves to fly in there again.  I realize that HTC has been working hard on AH2, but a few minor updates or new planes might have kept a few people around.  I have been busy with work and not on, except for special events, but I really haven't missed the game alll that much.

I agree with skernsk. Part of the reason I'm feeling a little burnt out myself, is that I poured my heart and soul into developing the special events back in 2000-2001, when I was the Head CM.  At that time, Pyro and HiTech worked as openly as possible with us, implementing many things we requested to help us run scenarios better. In fact, many of those cool arena settings found in the setup button, and many of the planes developed at that time were requested by the CM's.

In short, I felt that HTC was committed to adding planes and features that we needed as CM's to make the special events truly, welll, special.

I resigned as head CM when I started to feel that the responsiveness from HTC started to slow down.  Since then, I think it can be argued that the special events team have not gotten much in the way of additonal planes or features.  

Frankly, it's none of my business how HTC runs their business. But when I felt that the development team was starting to slow down on feeding us, I figured that my time devoted to improving the special events could be better spent elsewherre in my life. And since becoming "just another customer", I've been disappointed in the lack of releases.

I can tell now that the amount of worked needed to bring AH2 up to snuff was much greater than I(or maybe even HiTech) ever anticipated. It appears to be almost a complete re-write of the code, or at least the graphics engine.

In short, while I'm still impressed with HTC as a company, I'm starting to get that "it's dejavu all over again feeling".

Warbirds 1.x was a perfectly great game, and the planes were rolling off the assembly line on a regular basis. But, once the decision was made to go to WB 2.0, things changed. Plane releases slowed down, and other things behind the scenes(the whole ICI/IMOL/iEN bruhaha) helped to slow development to a crawl.

So, here we are again, 5 years later, with a perfectly great game, AH, that still needs to have it's planeset finished. Instead of that, the move to AH2 was initiated, and for over a year, development of AH has stagnated.

Obviously, HTC as a development team is not stagnant(AH2). I'm sure they've been working like demons ever since they opened the doors back in '99.  But the original plan of short development cycles as originally envisioned by HiTech and Pyro seems to have been either forgotten, or changed due to "unforseen circumstances".

Two years ago when I was at the AH con, and the Cornered Rats were struggling to overcome their extremely embarrassing release of WWIIOL, I never thought I'd say what I'm going to say now: Cornered Rat software is looking impressive to the sim community by keeping with their commitment to a small development cycle, while HTC still struggles to get AH2 out the door.

While I have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for everyone at HTC...as a customer, I still scratch my head and wonder if we're witnessing the beginning of the demise of AH. Was the decision to shelve AH1 and move to AH2 the right decision? I hope so. If this is the beginning of the end, or at least the end of the beginning, will we be lamenting the imminent death of AH in 3 years, like the gang over at AGW is lamenting the current state of WB?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. To keep customers from burning out, developers should try to adhere to short development cycles, with updates, additonal units and bug fixes arriving in small patches, instead of one or two big "super patches" each year.

This is all just my opinion. I'm no expert at game development. I'm just going on my experience as a long time customer and one time CM who wrote the book on "Gung Ho for Aces High".

[Westy]

I didn't mean to digress to an AW-AH comparison Tilt.  I also agree wholeheartedly with your analysis.

 
 Player "growth" is one reason I used to always ask for more aircraft/pilot management features.  Functions that worked along the lines the same way combat trim or auto-fuel for example do - user selectable options.  These things would be, and indeed do, go hand-in-hand with evolving the program as an immersive simulation too.  
 I'd always though that the longer it takes to reach the plateau in one's learning curves then it was possible the player would be involved a lot longer.  HTC (or any MMPG co.) then could benefit with more sustained, paying accounts.
 IMO AH did not evolve much as a "simulation" after 2000/2001. The focus seemed to change to be primarily gameplay additions in order to attract the AW masses. I think it worked for the numbers soared in AH and continue to remain so. Hopefully HTC's "bottom line" grew too.
 I now figure that if a company is sticking to the old "fantasy arena" concept then "simulation" may just be a silly thing simply for just a small few?  I've just about given up on thinking AH will incorporate more management functions, that HTC will get rid of the modern AWACS radar system or that HiTech will develop a novel, advanced icon system.

 Anyway.

 "TOD" is  the up'n coming "game" that draws me to these boards every day.  Just looking for that ever elusive "news" about it. (Did HTC steal or borrow the chapter from Kesmai on that or what?)  
  AH-II's "MA" gameplay would become attractive, for me anyway, if HTC improved the GV aspect, changed the clouds so that one could play cat& mouse in them (while inside the clouds you could still see opponants dots. AH-1 bug or feature?) and "fix" the damn pork&auger/dive bombing four-engined bomber gameplay problems.

p.s. edited to say kudos to banana for expressing ever so much better than I could my thought on the change in HTC.

[_Schadenfreude_]

Originally posted by Oldman731
ok so what should we have done....get to co-alt and the same E state as him

Well...yeah, something like that.  Let two of your group use their position and energy advantage to attack him, while the other two stay out.  Don't you ever break off when you see someone getting ganged?

It's a MASSIVE, MULTIPLAYER game - if you want one on one then go to the DA or set up your own room - don't complain that 4000 other people aren't doing things the way you like them and by golly they better change or you will- shock and horror - leave!!!

Isn't this Urchin's point?  By viewing this as nothing more than a play-to-win team game, you discourage individual accomplishment by emphasizing goals that have nothing to do with individual skill.  Fly with the numbers, and you'll never have to get good at flying.

- oldman

Well I disagree - I fly alone, no squad affiliation, however if I am going to fly alone I make sure that when I engage multiple enemy a/c then I have some advantage - either in speed, alt, firepower or manouverability - my idea of flying well is creating a situation where I can kill the enemy without any dange to myseff - the challenge is in creating that situation.

It all depends what you define "good" as and if that is what you are attempting to achieve.

[Urchin]

That is all well and good Hero.  One question... how long have you been playing AH?  Not meant to be deragatory ... just curious.  

As far as the "lesson" you taught me...  I'm sorry to have to say there isn't a lesson you COULD teach me.  After all, you appear to have stopped with the "fly fast plane, stay near ack, stay in crowd" lessons.  

The only problem I have with that is that the vast majority of the player-base appears to have stopped at those lessons too.

[Shane]

Originally posted by Oldman731
ok so what should we have done....get to co-alt and the same E state as him

Well...yeah, something like that.  Let two of your group use their position and energy advantage to attack him, while the other two stay out.  Don't you ever break off when you see someone getting ganged?

It's a MASSIVE, MULTIPLAYER game - if you want one on one then go to the DA or set up your own room - don't complain that 4000 other people aren't doing things the way you like them and by golly they better change or you will- shock and horror - leave!!!

Isn't this Urchin's point?  By viewing this as nothing more than a play-to-win team game, you discourage individual accomplishment by emphasizing goals that have nothing to do with individual skill.  Fly with the numbers, and you'll never have to get good at flying.

- oldman

took the words right out of my mouth oldman. i'm impressed. but i've known all along you *know* this stuff. just wish you'd stop reinforcing it with the uber-niceness while in the arena. subtlety is not the average arena weenies strong suit.



gotta love how people think they "teach you a lesson" in a 4 on 1, but are afraid to learn how to handle themselves alone.

[SlapShot]

banana ...

You admit to not being a game development expert and its obvious that you know little of software product development as a whole. This is probably the root of your frustration and others. Its not a slam by me ... just an interpretation.

HT told me at the last con that AH II is a complete re-write. With that in mind, you have to understand that a complete re-write is just that ... just like he was developing AH I for the first time.

Did anybody here get to use AH I while it was being developed ... this would be a period BEFORE AH I Alpha/Beta ?  I don't think so.

Did anybody get to use the Cornered Rat software while it was being developed ? I don't think so. Yet you try to compare HT's initial development of a product to one that is already out and updates are being made to an existing viable base. Your comparing apples to oranges. If you want to compare apples to apples, then compare the 24 Beta releases that HTC has made available since AH II Beta was first release in Beta to the amount of releases by WWIIOL.

You say that software development slowed down on "feeding" you. Well, they changed their complete focus to what will hopefully keep they gainfully employed for quite some time and also with the hope of making them all a whole lot of money. With that goal, I think that I would divert my focus from "feeding" the CM team and anybody for that matter, for that goal.

You say the AH development has stagnated ... I am presuming that you are referring to AH I, cause I am sure that HT and crew have been burning the candle at both ends to get AH II to the point that it is now ... that is not my idea of stagnant.

When developing something completey new ... such as AH II, you DO NOT go backwards and work on AH I. It is a complete waste of time/resource/money.

If they had released new planes into AH I, to appease the impatient,  while developing AH II, knowing fully that the plane(s) that they developed for AH I would need to be completely re-vamped inorder to work in AH II, I would doubt HTC's sanity and business sense. Why in the world would someone double their work load, with the amount of resources that they have,  so that they can make a very small minority of a populace "happy campers" ? Would you if it was your business ? Probably not.

"To keep customers from burning out, developers should try to adhere to short development cycles, with updates, additonal units and bug fixes arriving in small patches, instead of one or two big "super patches" each year."

You can't get into this mode while developing a BASE and you cant go back to the old BASE for the reasons I gave above. Once the BASE has been established, then you start spewing out your short development items. AH II is getting close to establishing its BASE.

Ask yourself ...  how much time have you spent in the AH II arena ? You want something new ? You want to see changes being made in a postive way ? ... then get into the AH II arena ... you won't be disappointed and maybe it will appease the impatienceness.