The chaos and cluster%^&* known as the TA

[Lizard3]

do you smell something burning?


Yes, but its not the roast....


Carry on!

[Furious]

At the very least, the mannable ack should be disabled.

Without tracers, alot of newbies are being killed by it and have no idea what is occuring.  

They become extremely frustrated when they keep dying on the takeoff role when no planes or GV's are present.


F.

[Exile]

Fuze ... you might want to put that shovel down and step out of that grave you're digging.

[hitech]

Fuze, I would suggest,at the very least you drop the shovel.

[Grizzly]

I dropped in to the Training Arena yesterday to see what it was like. As stated, many players were going at each other. There was no AH person there to smooth things out.

I think this is to be expected, leaving these players on their own is going to result in this. But I did notice something else. Those experienced players in there to help spent their time hollering at the players for breaking the rules. It seemed to me that they were more concerned with beating up on the bad guys than helping the new ones.

This kind of conduct does nothing to train anyone and can make the situation worse.

[fuzeman]

30 minutes in the TA.
Racial slurs, the typical 'your momma' stuff, and the regular and expected every rule in the book going by the wayside. The experienced players are overwhelmed by the infractions and CAN'T train new players.

You want it that way... you got it that way.
I just go there to laugh now, and it gets funnier every day and 'they' let it continue. There are still some who haven't given up on it.
I suggest... phooie. 'They' don't give a hoot, period, end of story.
fuzeman

[Drunky]

30 minutes in the TA.
Racial slurs, the typical 'your momma' stuff, ...

Same as the MA.  That's why so many people squelch channel 1.  There are many, many immature people (even the experienced ones) in the MA...the TA is not an anomoly

...and the regular and expected every rule in the book going by the wayside. The experienced players are overwhelmed by the infractions and CAN'T train new players.

Not true.  Saturday I helped one player with bombing and two or three others with simple questions.  During this time I nicely reminded people who engaged me without asking first that they should before hand.  If they kept doing it...well then, I shot them down (but I did not shoot the deputy  hehe, a little Marley).

As an experienced player, one would expect a little more restraint than to refer to some of the people in the TA as "pinhead".  If you absolutely can't train at A1 you can simply move with the trainee to another base.  It's a big map with 3 countries to chose from.  As Gene Wilder said in a movie once, "I'll take this town and you take the rest of the whole world."

Incidentally, I did get shot at without permission 8 or 10 times Saturday.  Funny, thing is only one killed me.  It was relatively easy to me evade most of them.

You want it that way... you got it that way.
I just go there to laugh now, and it gets funnier every day and 'they' let it continue. There are still some who haven't given up on it.
I suggest... phooie. 'They' don't give a hoot, period, end of story.

Carefull...you might have gone from digging a hole to skating on thin ice.  You might want to watch your comments because 'they' obviously read this board also.

[Thrawn]

fuze, I think you pissed away any moral authority you had on this thread.  I don't see why you continue to make an bellybutton of yourself here.

[Grizzly]

Originally posted by fuze
...You want it that way, you got it that way.
I just go there to laugh now, and it gets funnier every day and 'they' let it continue. There are still some who haven't given up on it.
I suggest... phooie. 'They' don't give a hoot, period, end of story.
fuzeman

Left to their own devices, there will be mayhem in the TA regardless of the rules. I have to assume training can still go on if it is done in a remote area, using the proximity or personal channel with others muted (can you mute the country channel?).

I'm not going to second guess HTC. They have to balance services with cost. But I suggest a few things that can help and keep the cost down.

*  More use of volunteers for training, supervised by a volunteer with skills to do it well. I understand this may be the case now, but I have to wonder how much priority it has. I know someone who can make it work with little involvement from HTC. I've seen this work with great success.

*  A change in the arena to eliminate friendly kill damage. A kill message can be displayed without actual damage to the target. This would work for training (even better since the killed player would not have to reup) but prevent fraggers from causing disruption.

* Two arenas, training, and new players. The training arena only open during scheduled hours when trainers are available. The new player arena stops supplying ammo after a player has accumulated X amount of points or has played AW for X amount of time. That way experienced players can't bully the new players, but can still help them.

Unless something like this is done, the traing arena will always be chaos when unsupervised, and even then too much authority and ejecting can dissuade new customers. Going in there and chastizing players for breaking the rules, and shooting them down if they ignore you, further aggravates the situation and makes you part of the problem.

[Grizzly]

I have another suggestion for the training/newbie arena.

A new player needs to know how to use the radio before anyone can help them. I suggest basic instructions on this be made available as sort of a Help File, perhaps displayed on the clip board.

Other basic  commands, such as navigating the around in the user interface, what the various rooms are for, how to sign up for help, selecting a vehicle, starting engines, a key command chart, etc.  This will allow players to get started more easily. Lord knows they aren't going to read the manual  =o)

A lot of simple questions are asked repeatedly, and players can get weary of answering them. This usually results in a RTFM reply, which isn't very cool.

[AKIron]

Didn't read all the posts, maybe someone has already suggested this: make killshooter an individually selectable option in the TA.

[fuzeman]

[POP, fuzeman pulls his head out of his arse]
[[ It was up there so far it took awhile. ]]

It seems 'they' do care and changes have been implemented and are being implemented.

Vaq, I don't think this will mean much but, my aploogies to you and yours. I was out of bounds by a light year or two, if not farther. I STILL deserve a big dope-slap upside my head though.

HiTech and the HTC staff, my apologies to you also. It has to be a bear at times doing the things you do. You do a good job with the resources you have.

There was no excuse for my actions, except that maybe at times, like days that end in y, I'm just a stOOpid marOOn.
I can only hope I learn something about myself from this, even with this thick skull I have.

fuzeman

[VAQ]

fuze, it means everything, of course.  I have edited my previous post.

I want to apologise to you, fuze.  I was wrong to attack you the way I did.  I was upset and I "spoke" without thought.

I know that I cannot put the thermonuclear explosion back in the casing- but would like you to know that I am sorry for what I said.


vaq

[fuzeman]

VAQ,
I accept it but you don't need to give it.
You did absolutely nothing wrong.
If some bonehead, me, didn't start this it wouldn't have progressed as it did. Any good man would come to the defense of his flesh and blood.
Lets bury the hatchet.
I know a good spot to... right in my pointy head.
VAQ
fuzeman

[Elfenwolf]

I drop into the TA from time to time and I'd like to offer my .02 cents worth, if I may.

HiTech spends a ton of money to produce and air a commercial to TRY and get some new players in here, gets some new players interested and what happens? A few MA "sportsmen" drop in to take advantage of the Seal Clubbing and use it to sharpen their vulching techniques. Now THAT'S how we show people how much fun Aces High is- we vulch them!

Last night I drop in and the ammo lethality was turned way down. Guess who was squeaking about it? LOL That's right, the same group of MA seal clubbers who were waxing the newbies earlier were frustrated because they were shooting blanks.  Thankfully those "sportsmen" left in frustration over having to possibly work for their kills in the MA.

But do you know what I noticed? The new players were actually getting off the ground and flying for a bit. They were actually enjoying themselves. Face it, nobody likes getting shot down, so why should their introduction to Aces High be a stream of red screens? I upped in a B17 formation and after an hour or so of flying around I think every newbie put some cotton balls in my 6 while I praticed calibrating my gunsight. Turning down the ammo lethality was a wise move IMHO. There was also less squeaking about the vulching too. Who cares if someone shoots you if it doesn't have a significant result?

Another thing I noticed was the amount of MA pilots who were in the TA to help out the newbies. Ghosth, Chenault and many others are taking the time to help out these new players with advice and suggestions. Skuzzy popped in on his own time also to help out. Every newbie question was answered by half a dozen vets willing to help out.

There's an old saying that says if you aren't part of the solution then you're part of the problem. Our problem is attracting and KEEPING new players intrested in our Sim. The solution is all of us getting involved occasionally and helping out trainees, all of us doing what we can to promote AH and all of us acting civily to trainees and each other in the TA and the MA.  

Ordinarily I don't post here but this is important to me on a selfish level. I'm spending my time learning to play this game and I'd hate to see the plug pulled on this sim and other similar sims due to a lack of a player base. If AH and WB close up then what's left? Fighter Ace? Red Baron? WW2OL?

HT, keep the ammo settings all the way down in the TA please. It lets the newbies get airborne and keeps the MA vulchers out.