ok before i get to my point i'll admit i skipped a few pages of this thread... thing is after seeing so many posts putting down the OP I felt i must say that pretty much all ive seen/heard ingame is " oh they've made this game unwinnable now" " what the hell?? now we only have half a week to win? thats BS " and similar comments about the new arena switching , which , IMO, kinda backs up the OP's sentiments.
Ok so maybe I took a 4 year break away from the game but the amount of changes I've seen and thought " ouch" over since coming back surprised me... this is yet another that I can see causing dissension amongst players for quite some time.
Oh and to the poster on the first page (oldman i believe it was ) who commented on the " men-in-tights MMPGs) if I was you I'd go back to your oh so knowledgable friends and politely ask them to stop talking about things untill they know what they are talking about. I was a GameSage for a MMORPG for approx 18 months and can confirm that PvP is very much a part of 90% of MMORPG's.. Its entirely up to the players if they wanna fight other players or AI , more often than not you end up fighting both.. could you imagine if in AH your 1v1 with another player when you blunder into the range of 3 or 4 AI controlled planes... actually that could be rather interesting....
Enbough ranting back to doing what I prefer to do... playing the game and having fun!!