Custom Arena and Extra Sub Fee

[Shuffler]

I would have to question it.... IF I had not seen how the WWI arena turned out. Each time I have been in there, even alone, I have had a pretty darn good time. You did an excellent job on that.

After seeing what can be done, this is an idea I think is ready for the prime time.

[CptTrips]

I would have to question it.... IF I had not seen how the WWI arena turned out. Each time I have been in there, even alone, I have had a pretty darn good time. You did an excellent job on that.

After seeing what can be done, this is an idea I think is ready for the prime time.

Thanks.  It was an interesting adventure.  I appreciate Hitech's forbearance. 

Hitech had to make a few tweaks for that particular implementation, but I am amazed at how little the attention the Staged Mission AI system has gotten.  It has an amazing amount of potential. 

There are some sharp edges and there will always be bugs to work around until they can be fixed (we found and fixed quite a few during that effort), and every system has limitations and constraints, but the possibilities are astounding.  90% of what I did was using the tech that's just been laying around for a couple of years unused by anybody.

When I first started looking at it, I was like "Whoa!  Hey, you guys!  Don't you see this over here???"  lol.

[Ciaphas]

One idea that just popped in my head was having squad homelands for those that have a squad and a server. It can be attacked (scheduled war) and squad points could be based off of wins, losses and draws. just an idea.


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[guncrasher]

I thought this idea was stupid, then again this just might bring some new faces


Semp

[Ciaphas]

I thought this idea was stupid, then again this just might bring some new faces


Semp

I believe it would be used for many things to include: Squad home servers, squad vs squad battles, 24/7 action in many different flavors for those that want to go down that route. The MA would still be used just as much as it is now but adding personalized servers the player kind of has ownership over their arena. When someone has ownership or a vested interest in something they often work harder to make that something succeed or they give it hell trying.
 
I would like to see the size of the maps at about half of what they are now for these "rented" servers and allow Squads to get help from a map maker to create a home terrain that they call their own and when challenged, they have to defend their own on either their turf or the turf of the challenger. I would also like to see logs printed to a whole new section of the main webpage detailing true squad score and ranking and perhaps ladder tournaments to go along with it all.

 

[lunaticfringe]

I may not be seeing the point here-but if people don't want to pay 14.95 regular 10.03 for Texan's-subscription fee for Melee and the other stuff why would they want to pay for this that you all are talking about. I'm all for HiTech making more money to feed his real life stuff and keeping AH3 going. but am I missing something here?

[Ciaphas]

I may not be seeing the point here-but if people don't want to pay 14.95 regular 10.03 for Texan's-subscription fee for Melee and the other stuff why would they want to pay for this that you all are talking about. I'm all for HiTech making more money to feed his real life stuff and keeping AH3 going. but am I missing something here?

If they don't want to pay for a persistent custom arena then they wouldn't be forced to do so.


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[Vraciu]

If they don't want to pay for a persistent custom arena then they wouldn't be forced to do so.


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Bingo.

[AAIK]

If this works it will probably kill what is left of the MA.

I've seen countless games communities split up using such schemes. It works with things like Battlefield because of the sheer number of players and it works the same on Minecraft as well for the same reason.

This really sounds just like a reimplementation of the H2H arenas.

I hope I am wrong and this thing rockets the game back up in popularity, its hard to see the big picture and cause and effect sometimes.

[hitech]

If this works it will probably kill what is left of the MA.

I've seen countless games communities split up using such schemes. It works with things like Battlefield because of the sheer number of players and it works the same on Minecraft as well for the same reason.

This really sounds just like a reimplementation of the H2H arenas.

I hope I am wrong and this thing rockets the game back up in popularity, its hard to see the big picture and cause and effect sometimes.

Your wrong H2H arenas already exist in everything but the name, there is no real difference in the current custom arenas or the old H2H arenas.


And BTW the $ charge would not really provide any real revenue , but it would act as a filter so that people would not just create an arena and leave it.

HiTech

[CptTrips]

If this works it will probably kill what is left of the MA.

You say that like it would be a bad thing. 

Honestly, I think you are being overly dramatic and alarmist.  Most people are cattle, and cattle herd reflexively into the MA.  It takes a huge effort to get them to do anything different than brain-dead clicking on the MA button like they always do.  No one is going to march MA players out of the MA at bayonet point.  If it did draw off any players, it would only do so if it were providing a superior experience.  Are you against players being provided a superior experience?  Should the MA be protected by not allowing any custom server that might be more fun?  Soviet much?

My guess is that it would not affect MA population much at all. What it might do is provide more content for the AH ecosystem.  More content means less boredom for existing players and more attraction for new players.  I've seen a lot of current players state they got their start in the H2H servers back in the days when there were H2H servers running constantly. Some played H2H for years before getting an account.  A lot were youngsters who's parents wouldn't pay for an account and had to wait until they got their first job.  Maybe it would help grow a new generation of young players instead of relying totally on an aging/dying player population.





 

[pembquist]

What this would need is instructions, less bugs and maybe a friendlier interface.

On the IL2 Clod server missions would be dispatched by players to make bombing runs on targets with their targets announced. There was no radar but occasional sighting reports would be shown in text. In addition there were AI fighter planes all the time. The battle would be won and the map would change when sufficient targets were destroyed either by AI or players or in combination. Only one AI mission at a time could run due to server limitations.  very different game play than AH. Now if AH had the flexibility to make this possible and not really time consuming and difficult for a player who is not a coder or masochist I think you might get some interesting and possibly popular things getting created or at least making it easier to experiment. I always found the most interesting things in this game to be the scenarios, snapshots, FSOs and AH racing. These are pretty difficult to set up and their scheduling limits who can play. I don't know that giving players the ability to create essentially different versions of the game from the MA, (easily,) would result in more game play but it might and it would be significant expansion of the potential of the imaginarium.

I still think that drones and match play have a lot of potential but I think you need to be able to have a more flexible implementation of the drones.

[Ciaphas]

The different event times do present a bit of an issue for a lot of us who cannot attend because of real life schedules.

Allow the renting of persistent servers would kind of elevate some but not all of those types of short falls.

This is how I imagine it will work with regards to the MA:

Player A will log in and check the MA numbers, seeing that they are low, Player A will log in to a rented server running missions and fly for a while. Player A will check the numbers in the MA from time to time and if the numbers are right, player A will switch over to the MA and when they drop Player A will log in to a rented server to continue playing.


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[Shuffler]

What this would need is instructions, less bugs and maybe a friendlier interface.

Are you saying my face ain't friendly?

[hitech]

The different event times do present a bit of an issue for a lot of us who cannot attend because of real life schedules.

Allow the renting of persistent servers would kind of elevate some but not all of those types of short falls.

This is how I imagine it will work with regards to the MA:

Player A will log in and check the MA numbers, seeing that they are low, Player A will log in to a rented server running missions and fly for a while. Player A will check the numbers in the MA from time to time and if the numbers are right, player A will switch over to the MA and when they drop Player A will log in to a rented server to continue playing.


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You can already do what you describe.

HiTech