I loved WW2 planes from the start. Since I was a kid I was somehow specifically intrigued with WW2 planes.
I honestly don't know what influenced me, as my country had no active role in WW2 - it didn't even have an airforce until WW2 was over. (Well, my country didn't exist before WW2 in the first place - was under Japanese colonial rule until 1945).
It's kinda strange, as there are many types of planes spanning the 20th century - and yet, I never was interested in jets or WW1 prop planes. It was always just WW2 planes, and only those.
There wasn't much 'video games' when I was growing up, and the best I could get my hands on was a "Chuck Yeager's" game. Then, in the early '90s Dynamics' "Aces of Europe" and "Aces of the Pacific" really got me hooked into WW2 flight sim games. Since then I tried almost every WW2 sim that came to pass.
And then, at some point in the '90s internet started surfacing, and the first Mulitplater game I got to play was Fighter Ace 1. It was called "Air Attack" in my country, and that got me into some serious addiction.
I started look for groups and communities of Flight Sim gamers in my own country - there weren't many. Unlike in the West, most Asian countries except Japan, don't have any actual war-time aviation history and the appeal of the flight sim genre is generally very weak.
I joined a community called "Nownuri Wings", which was a community of flight sim gamers, which, probably made up 90% of entire flight sim gamers in my country, which again, was not even 100 people total.
Among them were three veterans Raomi/Raaf, Feed, Taillight. I'm not sure if anybody nowadays remembers these guys, but they were one of the most excellent game pilots in my country, and was a pretty well-known figure in their WB days. These guys talked about "WarBirds" - how much it was different from Fighter Ace and etc etc.
When I first heard of WarBirds it was already in a state of decline, and AH was just launching. Overhearing their conversation, I felt cocky and exclaimed, "hey, how different can it be?"... needless to say, I wasn't very much interested in it.
I have been playing Fighter Ace series until FA2.5 arrived, and I was pretty sure that I was a good pilot. I could take on most of the usual dweebs - the famous "Green Horde of Great Britain", mounted in Spit14s. I made it a habit of tracking them down and blowing them out of the sky in a Bf109F-4.
But at some point, I started hearing things about Aces High. Most of the veterans in my group made the jump to AH, and had very nice things to say about it. Finally, I got interested in it and tried a 2-week trial. I remember it to be version 1.04.
My first impression was that the graphics sucked. I selected my favorite steed - the Bf109F-4, and gave it a hop.. except, I couldn't get my plane rolling. I was stuck in a cockpit which I was not used to, and there were no external views...no easy mode helpers... and the planes stalled like a bathroom stall would do when pushed off from a cliff.
"Geez, what kind of a stupid game is this? Is this supposed to be realistic?"
And of the 2-weeks of free playing I played it for two hours, and quit. That was my first encounter with AH.
....
Ofcourse, my first experience was dreadful, and like most n00b would do, I started ranting in my community boards. Again, like all n00bs do, I naturally assumed that since I'm such a good pilot, it's the game that must be warped and twisted... except the veterans Rraf(Raomi) and feed stepped in and explained how my knowledge of realism was messed up.
Since that discussion I started asking questions about air combat, and how my previous FighterAce-oriented knowledge was wrong in what ways. They took the time to explain it quietly. Slowly I began to realize that everything I knew about WW2 planes and aircombat, I would have to learn again.
At that point, I cancelled FA subscription, and started my AH life as a usual n00b cannon-fodder. AH was in its 1.05 version.... and I've been here ever since
