When I was forced to leave in 09 when lightning smoked my gaming PC and everything else that was on, it was still AHII. Then work quadrupled and prolonged the return by many years. Sometimes working 50-60 days in a row with long hours, 2 days off, rinse and repeat. I was only "home" to eat, shower and sleep. There was ZERO time to get all setup again, my PCs would not handle it very well anyway.
Having lost my wife and son in 2010. the hell I lived through the last 14 years on top of that, I needed to find a happy place.
Now 2 years from retirement I started declining jobs to live a "normal" life again, not sure i know what that is, but I'm learning.
The itch never left. Finally, like others in a growing pattern I'm seeing today, I sprung and got another gaming PC.
This PC was not up and running 10 minutes before I DLed AHIII again. I was hoping that it was at least the same, despite the over the top rivalry and personal bashing by morons of the past who suffered from the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Took a good while to get some mysterious coating off on certain plastics in storage that was on my stick. Never found out what it was, other then a real mess. I was on a mission.
After 4-5 weeks into the game again,.. it was much better then I imagined.
The graphics in all areas are really nice and easy on the PC. They found that honey spot of great graphics vs amount of players at one time.
The comradery is high.
Despite some venting or sore loser taunting, which is normal, IMO, it's still less then years ago.
Despite some rantings about bugs,... there is really very few bugs from my POV. I wouldn't even know about them had they not been mentioned. What is there like 2? It's a very solid game as a whole. When I'm sniveling about Proxy Kills that means there is little error to find.
Anyone who knows me knows I was always looking for flaws and things to tweak or build, I've got nothing.
Ya, I can do sounds and probably will, but even the default are not bad, they just get old in the ears. The next set will get old too, do it anyway.
For those thinking about coming back, they won't be disappointed. It's a different game in the positive direction.
As for HT's remarks about no further development, but tweaks will happen. I can find fault with that if I look hard enough. Personally, I think he did meet his self-imposed mission/goal. I see very little that requires a major update. They gave plenty of tools to elongate the game and make it even better. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'd like to see more presence, but hell back in the day of AW, I saw one single post from the suits, and it was bad news. HT and his team was much more apart of the community then coders/suits in any other game I've been in, so any absence is just noticed more. He's living life, good for him. For some of us, he gave us life, a happy place.
I see those numbers creeping up as people get new gear. The most common post I see is someone getting a new PC to get back in the game. I don't see any good-bye posts. I'm thinking the game just hit a valley of peaks and valleys.
Again, if you have the itch, scratch it. I'm happy to be back. It is well worth the journey. I'm just sad about missing 14 yrs. I was impressed my first day back, and that hasn't faded.
The best advise I could give is "just do it". It's still addicting, it's still a blast, maybe more so.
