The issue isn't about "I want to fly with my friends". The issue is "I want to fly with the hord".
If it was actually a problem of flying with friends then the logical solution would be to go to the less populated arena. One would infer that a lower populated arena with the larger cap would be easier for a larger group to get into all at once.
But noooooo. The actual issue is "I want to be where everyone else is." It has nothing to do with friends or squads flying together. It's all about "if everyone else is there, it must be better...."
How can we prove this? Reset Orange at 7am. Leave Blue alone. People logging on see Orange at 55/400 and Blue at 150/400 and start filling up Blue because that's where everyone is. I witnessed this one morning after a late night reset of Orange one Monday morning. Same map in Blue that had "sucked" all week was suddenly the fuller arena because that's where everyone was.
How could having one arena "Titanic" all the time help? Again, everyone would go there because that's where everyone was. The other arena would be empty.
IIRC the way the split was supposed to work was for squads who wanted to fly together to choose "their" particular arena and stick to it. Squad A would always fly Blue. That way the entire squad would always know where to meet. Squad B would choose to always fly Orange, etc. Unfortunately, with two arenas that really have no distinguishing features other than numbers, there is no incentive to choose one arena over the other.
Air Warrior had squads that chose to fly in specific arenas because there were specific plane sets and maps in the different arenas, Pacific in one, ETO in another. Separate and distinguishable.
The real problem with the "overcrowding" situation is easily solvable if people actually took the initiative to do so other than whine about it. Go to the other arena.
Of course, the problem I see with the "go to the other arena" idea is it would suddenly have more people in it and everyone else would want to be there too.
wrongway
