Look what tool Hitech let back on.

    Quote from Gman

    There was a map where when one side got close to winning, the losing side's 163 bases were in range of the oncoming enemy bases grabbed, so you could do a quick zip into the middle/combat area between the 2 fighting bases, fly around and fight for 5 or 10 mins in the 163, then toot home. Using a lot of throttle modulation, you could cruise at 250 mph or so easily at low alt, then boost yourself around in fights, then zip home. It was great, I remember flying with Grizz, Kappa, and a couple other Muppets doing that, I still have the film, one of the best fights and times I had in AH. It was a low alt area with a lot of terrain/hills/mountains, and the bases were really close together...such a gas. Way more fun than the 262 IMO, although that was fun often too.

    I often flew with a bunch of guys who specialized in HQ takedowns back when the game was really hot (2005 era). They would do NOE raids using Me110's and Mosquitos. They'd think nothing of going off the map (on flat featureless water) for an hour or more (adjusting RPM for ridiculous long fuel burn time), a few feet off the water on autopilot, and they'd kick back, drink beer, smoke cigarettes and just shittalk over local coms (that alone made the trip worth it - the laughs were colossal). Then they'd get close to the HQ GV base, switch gears and be all business, WEP climbing over the mountains and doing the quickest and most devastating takedown they could (usually within 30 seconds). A couple of guys would just fly goons - like that's ALL they did for years.


    Do anything for years on end (and nothing but) and you'll get real good at it.


    I told GG about these guys years back, one guy might fly a goon NOE for 2 hours somewhere, deep behind enemy lines, and land it somewhere under trees. He'd sit there for hours until the others got online that evening.


    The payoff of all this boring effort was to take the HQ down, and announce on country channel for everyone to UP GV's and drive over the HQ town proper and take down everything with HE.


    The response was the big payoff - and how all these people would fly over with whatever they had, GVs would up by the dozen, and on the other side all these fighter/bombers would up, along with swarms of Me-163s.


    Pure mayhem, and it was one of the better times both sides could have - the carnage would last typically a good hour before naturally the defending country would take it back. One time I saw a line of like 20 Goons dropping GV supplies - it was like the Normandy Landings.

    They would even send a 2nd raid party to another (Non-HQ) base that was nearby as a distraction - like land a single plane within flash range under trees - just to divert attention. They'd also sometimes have 3-4 guys do this to a cluster of bases somewhere to make the country think a massive raid was happenging, and when they'd send all these people there, they'd quickly snatch the HQ GV base. They'd spend an enormous amount of time and effort thinking of schemes like that LOL.

    A lot of people cared about off map flying. Those who did it were glad they could and just as many didn't want it done for various reasons. HiTech finally put markers on the edge of the map to show when people were flying off map but he could have just as easily prevented it completely by increasing fuel burn to ridiculous levels.

    Quote from Elf Man

    A lot of people cared about off map flying. Those who did it were glad they could and just as many didn't want it done for various reasons. HiTech finally put markers on the edge of the map to show when people were flying off map but he could have just as easily prevented it completely by increasing fuel burn to ridiculous levels.

    I was fine with the markers. That was a good solution,

    My job was mostly blah-blah in an enemy language. I only suggested some algorithms for Freehost. No programming, just suggestions. It went funny when iEN tried to sue us, all that crap with Russian trade representative in the US and FSB guys. Idiots at their best.


    Funny thing is that since than I travelled to the US twice. No one stopped me.

    I always thought that there should be no "off map". If you fly off the left side, you fly onto the right side. Fly off the top, fly onto the bottom. An easy solution that would add a level of strategy. Think of the map as a small globe rather than a two-dimensional plane.

    Quote from El Sluggo Loco

    I always thought that there should be no "off map". If you fly off the left side, you fly onto the right side. Fly off the top, fly onto the bottom. An easy solution that would add a level of strategy. Think of the map as a small globe rather than a two-dimensional plane.

    I think that's a good solution also.

    Quote from Gina

    I was fine with the markers. That was a good solution,

    The off-map markers only turned on if you were over a minimum altitude (15 feet or so). Radar worked like that on the map as well as off. If you were off-map NOE, right over water, the markers stayed off. Going off-map only made it easier to fly because you could get real low and engage autopilot. Very few people would fly for an hour hugging the contours of trees and hills. You can't exactly kill that hour with your feet on the dashboard, draining beers, and shooting the shit with your 5 best buddies (which A LOT of players loved doing).


    The alt minimum had been higher in the past, but a few persistent whiney bitches cried so hard that it was lowered to the absolute minimum.


    Now, what there was no solution to, and was a constant problem, was double agents who would change countries and bust your mission. That behavior was endorsed/tolerated by Hitech (to be fair how could he stop it), but it led to the minimum time to change countries rule. That made it very hard to get all your friends together if they happened to be in different countries.


    The most damaging change to the game was courtesy of the same people (whiney bitches) who couldn't tolerate base captures as part of the war mechanic. Used to be 3 people could take a small base. Eventually, it took a very large number (like 20+). This marked the great decline of the game IMHO, many entire squadrons left AH for other games.


    Most people back in the day weren't ace dogfighters, and they didn't want to spent their time doing that - they wanted to take bases, fly bombers and fighter/bombers (and run GVs etc etc etc). Anyways, most (not "many", "most") of the players left the game because of those big changes in hardening bases.


    I liked the 2005 era game - there was a ton of players, and there was always a place to go to, for what whatever it was you wanted to do. Lots of chaos, depth of different activities and action action action.


    I was one of those guys that loved all the aspects of the game. I liked furballing. I liked dueling. I liked flying buffs, doing Mosquito or Stuka Raids. I liked messing with GVs, manning the ship guns... hauling ass in jeeps... basically everything. I also liked putting up my feet on the dash and drinking beers with my friends going NOE for long periods of time (when I was in that mood).


    I think the game that I loved (2005) was ruined by whiney bitches. Basically these were dogfight-only, furball only type guys, that HAPPENED to be mediocre sticks. They wanted to force people to furball who weren't good fighter pilots, so they could get easy kills.


    Think about it if you were an AVID furballer, and most of the game became GVers. Then the GVers started resenting the furballers, and pressured HT to just get rid of the fighter planes to force everyone else to be a GVer. Would you not expect the furballers to all up and leave (pissed off) ?


    Well that's basically what happened and they hardened the bases to make captures much more difficult - and it led to people leaving the game, when the game was in it's prime.

    So if I was to critique HTC, all I would say was that he should have ignored the whiney bitches, kept the game like it was in 2005, and have the option to buy perk points. What do I know though.,... I don't know what I don't know about making and running a massive multiplayer game.

    Quote from slamfire

    Basically these were dogfight-only, furball only type guys, that HAPPENED to be mediocre sticks. They wanted to force people to furball who weren't good fighter pilots, so they could get easy kills.

    I would strenuously disagree with this. Most furballers (I was one) didn't really give a damn about winning the war or tool shedding and god forbid if we ignored the tool shedders pleas for help. Losing the war and the resulting map reset/change only meant that I got to furball over/between different bases. I can't count the number of times tool shedders dropped fighter hangers at bases they had no intention of taking (yet) in pathetic attempts to force me and mine to help them win their war.

    -gg- there was what ? Maybe three eras of Elite Top Aces right ? First one was strictly mass dueling/furballing in the Dueling Area. That was a blast. Then, as time went on, the WW1 arena came of age and we all did that for a long time. Again, that was really fun and new. Then in the latter years we just did a whole shitload of things in the Main Arena, and started flying a lot of missions as JABO missions using FW190-D's (with a lone P-38 as cover). Lots and lots of fun.

    Quote from Elf Man

    I would strenuously disagree with this. Most furballers (I was one) didn't really give a damn about winning the war or tool shedding and god forbid if we ignored the tool shedders pleas for help. Losing the war and the resulting map reset/change only meant that I got to furball over/between different bases. I can't count the number of times tool shedders dropped fighter hangers at bases they had no intention of taking (yet) in pathetic attempts to force me and mine to help them win their war.

    You know what Elf ? The best ever furballing, BY FAR the very best... was in the DA Arena. They had this one map in particular they kept as a semi-permanent map for years - it was a big lake, and you had three main bases arranged in a triangle. The time to fly from any of these three bases to the center of the lake was about 2 mins. The bases were all very high alt - about 10k, so you rolled off the runway and were at a great combat alt. Everyone in the DA would just up and keep going to the center of the lake and it was a Fucking Mixmaster of Mahem (what I called it). Even better, people actually tended to hold off from ganging up on people who were already engaged. Not everyone of course, but there was a lot more honorable and respectful behavior in that DA than in the MA. You'd also have times when everyone would agree to upping in certain planes (like the Me163!).


    There was typically a good 25-35 people in there on weeknights... time frame, about 2010 or so. This is where Elite Top Aces was born... -gg- put out the call for us forum guys to meet there, and shitloads of us did.


    I remember Toad, Lazs, Assi, -gg-(-nuke-), Phatz, ack-ack, and a huge % of the old forum members there, consistently for the entire Xmas break (I think it was 2010). Anyways, that was the best best furballing ever I've seen on the game - in the DA.


    So having said all that, I never understood the guys who "loved furballing" but hated the war/toolshedding. If it were me, I would have stayed in the DA all the time and would have never set foot in the MA. WWI Arena was also excellent for furballing, but it was WWI planes (not everyone's cup of tea).


    It it's prime, there was a place for all kinds of players of the game to find -and be happy in- was my point. But SOME guys wanted everyone to fly their style, and if they didn't, they should be forced.


    So yeah, when I met such killjoys, I'd toolshed their fighter hangers and not take their base as a FU. :blacksmile :rofl

    AS for me, I was an ok stick. A little better than average, but I was no ace. There were three guys I tried killing many times and never once was able: Lazs, Toad and Murd (RIP). I did tangle one time with Skyrr and killed his worthless ass though - and Elfie, I think I remember that you were right there along with -gg-. I really rubbed that in his face as he never killed me once at any time.

    There was a time when the DA wasn't used as a furball arena.


    Before that, the donut map had the best furball area of any map. It was taken out of rotation because the tool shedders wouldn't stop bombing the figher hangers or whinging about us not helping them win the war.


    The vast majority of us furballers couldn't have cared less about what the tool shedders did and in fact many of us encouraged them to play the game in whatever way was most enjoyable to them, just leave us furballers to do the same. Sadly, just like socialists, they couldn't live and let live.