Not been an entirely unproductive discussion although patterns now seem to be repeating in a bit of a theme we will touch on later
We have maybe concluded that AH isn't a mainstream game and isn't appealing to the young whose user-interface baseline is Siri and not pseudo linux and DOS commands, for example! From some of the AH YouTube channels I watch it is clear that a lot of ex-military personnel come here and find an analogue for the comradeship they experienced there. I believe in the US you have some kind of community-centres for veterans don't you? Why doesn't HiTech or AH players start to form some kind of collaboration. There's already a collaboration with a museum somewhere I heard about. For this you don't need television adverts etc. perhaps just some donated 'good enoigh' PCs cobbled together from your updated builds and the odd Logitech joystick. That's probably a more practical way to get players introduced who would stick around and would be seeking more than just any old random game they'd play to keep themselves occupied. Won't reach the multiple-hundreds but it's something and helps keeps the game alive. Maybe even help people who have had a hard time and made a contibution to your society. Who knows to what end such a collaboration might lead.
Regarding this cannon-fodder motif. I really don't think that's attractive at all and is more motivated by a lot of AH players basicaly wanting more live people to shoot at - that's if we are being brutally honest about the nature of the MA. The suggestion we give new players P-51Ds, Doras and LA7s while experienced players fly mid-war makes more logical sense, only as players like Semp point out he pays his subscription to fly the P-51 and that's totally fair enough.
I think it's important to point out paying for access to the game is neither here nor there to certain demographics which it would be more sensible for AH to go after. Nor is consequently attractive. You can make the gameplay as free as you like, and no prospective player is going to spend any longer than a weekend or two taking off and climbing to where an apparent fight is only to get jumped by a P-47M, two LA7s and a 190D-9 simultaneously who are essentially campling a certain base on Saturday afternoon. Let's flip this concept on its head and pose the following question: if there was a first-person shooter who newly openned their doors to limitted free-play, only the other players have already been there for years, have better rifles than you, know all of the good places to hide and won't tell you, how many hours of your own free time would you waste on that? The proposition is absurd.
Shan't even bother to discuss the time of day I can play which is marked by first the Knight mini-horde followed by the full on Bish horde with players like J0ker at its core because that's untypical but is the start of every AH day. I've played the game for a long time and can dogfight a bit and upping from a base outnumbered (at least!) three to one at an energetic disadvantage, with a Wirb and an M3 in town is about as attractive to me as seeing how make cocktail sticks I can poke into my retina. And no there aren't any fights anywhere else because there's safety in numbers. Which does raise another point:-
The MA is weird. Joker - to belabour the example - isn't a bad Corsair stick - he has of course had twenty-years to practice, it's a hell of a plane especially if its weaknesses in energy-building are plugged by highly-coordinated squadmates and always having a base or carrier to run to. The thing he does (just an example, nothing personal) best is to play the arena. I to this day don't understand it well enough because I am basically a DA-head that simply stuck around too long for personal reasons, never joined an MA squad and preferred to fly alone. I'm sure to most of you it's completely understood and normal but consder how a new player will experience that. He won't understand at all the nuances of why certain players suddenly give up alt or get very pseudo-aggressive because their M3 has just openned the doors at the maproom gate and they're trying to draw you away. They'll jusy move along because the MA is weird.
Then the last point which is significant but never mentioned: the culture has changed. No new player is going to experience the apprentihip we ALL experienced because down through the years the players, nature of play and environment has been filtered leaving only a very narrow band of activity now closed-off to any prospective players. When I started there was quite an actvie and friendly duelling culture here, that's gone. There was an alternative and populated arena to the MA where flying and shooting well and developing your ACM was the only focus, that's gone. Then you would likely get invited to join an MA squad in which all the - I don't know what to call it:- abstract ways the MA models a war - would've been taught you. Pensioner, Veteran, squeaker, doesn't matter that fellowship of introduction to the game is gone. Then discussion of aircraft attributes and ACM which there used to at least be some of on this forum, tips discussions - right or wrong - about ACM was not exactly encouraged especially during YKW's term of office which would draw an attempted ego-humiliation video and just in general any thought, discussion, help and emphasis on that (I think quite attractive part of AH given its flight-model, previous focus on fighters and hell, even its title(!)) is gone.
HiTech to my observation is extraordinarily rigid to changing things which to some extent can be understood if you expend time and resources to endeavours which don't result in being productive. WWI arena for example, or that awful Pacific thing he made. What do you call that acquired-apathy or something I've heard Amercian psychologists discuss. That is absolutely normal in game-development, maybe, maybe 10% of the prototypes make it. Also any change he does make now such as turning off that daft AWACS radar is inevitably going to alienate someone and cost cancelled subscriptions. So bear in mind how fragile this all now is. AH is now mostly a static entity: the usual suspects endlessly whiling away their afternoons repeating an ever narrowing set of activities and essentially not trying anything new because of the percieved backwards 'progress' you have to suffer to do this. So if you want change YOU change first. Besides it is a proven FACT! (as Zack would say) than trying new things keeps your mind flexible and young.
