Ish, you know who I am. I flew in your "test" of the OAE or whatever you want to call it.. But I flew as "Kurt Wulfe" in your Great War. Yes it was intense, fun and amazingly incredibly cool to "live" the life of a pilot... OTOH, it was cool as an experience. It was extremely trying on the nerves and not for the casual combat pilot in AH, WB, AW, RB3D, FC, BoB or anything else that's out there. I consider myself a "casual" AH player. I log in, fly around, kill a few planes, and try my hardest to RTB. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But I get great amusement out of it. I'm still a "newbie" to combat sims by some of these guy's standards, I started with Confirmed Kill v.91 and have been flying since(1994). I consider myself to have learned a great deal since I first started and I'd say that I can fly **competently**. The only thing I WOULD like to see would be for HTC to write code to keep track of kill streaks and to keep track of your high kill streak. That would make for some interesting things to look at. Obviously they'd have to write code that also showed which plane they used the most for that streak and say someone who flies a F4U-1C against lower alt slower planes all the time will most likely have a high kill streak than say a Spit pilot or a zero pilot flying against the P51s, F4Us, 190s and 109s(of course it's always dependent on pilot skill.. someone could kick bellybutton in a Spit and dominate over every plane in the arena easily while someone could suck dirt and get wrecked on in a 109G10 against every other plane in the arena). This is not meant as a "oh this uber plane that uber plane" comment, just to say that streaks are dependent on pilots really and the planes they fly. That way, for those who DO care about living in the arena have a way of tracking it, while those who don't, don't have to worry about it.
In this long winded post that is really pointless, it honestly comes down to this. Having a pilot's name who you get to fly as and decide how long he lives and how many kills he gets before he dies or gets captured is extremely amazingly fun.. and very cool experience. BUT, it's fun to do that once or twice a week on planned events, and for a limited time. I would not want to fly your Great War for more than how long it was at the time, I had my kicks and my kills and I died in it. I was extremely cautious engaging and this lead to long long long boring flights until you engaged or were engaged. When this happen it was about 20seconds to 15 minutes of pure adrenaline rushes. Something you can also acquire in the main arena without risking losing a valuable pilot that you spent your time building up(and paying for in AH's case). Also the amount of crap HTC would have to redo for this to work would be simply horrific and I think everyone who likes scenarios where your pilot's life does matter would agree with me on this one, HTC's time would be better spent building new aircraft, new terrains and setting up cool scenarios or historical events. I enjoy the MA and these scenarios and I enjoyed your Great War. But they are all different and I enjoy them all for different reasons. MA because I get to learn new stuff all the time and have amazing fights without worrying about my pilot losing his life(note: I still fly cautiously and don't engage in suicidal fights and I never take the HO shot unless I goof and pull up to a plane at the apex of his vertical climb). I like scenarios because it's cool as hell to fly allied vs axis setups. And I liked your great war because I got to have a "campaign" like in single player games where my pilot's life mattered and I was rewarded medals and such for success. But take away my main arena and I'm gonna be one pissed off customer because I like AH the way it is. Maybe a few tweaks, but they are coming down the road and I'll just wait for HTC to complete them so I don't get a half-assed product(ala Red Baron 3D or European Air War-- this is not a slam.. they were/are fun to fly.. but nevertheless half assed).
-SW
