Aces High II adding new terrain tech

[FuriousMeow]

It's been a long time since I played AHII. I only played it a few months because I was playing the Il-2 series when it came out, but I played Aces High for years.

 

But looks like they are developing some new lighting, shading and water simulation features that are pretty cool. The FM there has always been pretty solid, as has their ground handling model. The DM is about like the original Il-2 series.

 

Anyway, here are the videos and they look pretty nice. I will probably go back to paying a monthly sub for it when this comes out just for the scenarios that are run there because those have always been fun. I think the sunrise video is especially nice.

 

To prevent the nonsense that is sure to come, this title is designed to be a small package that can be downloaded easily, played on a very wide range of computers - including single cores - and isn't supposed to be a 1.5GB+ product as it's online only but supports several hundred individuals in a single arena over a single terrain with a perpetual land grab war going on. If it doesn't interest you, move on, there's plenty of things to complain feverishly about but games shouldn't ever be one of them.

 

Edited March 1, 2014 by FuriousMeow

[Revvin]

Well its long overdue. I ran a squad on there for a few years but we just got disillusioned by the pace of development. Aces High II came along and it felt more like Aces High 1.5 with just a slight make over. The cockpits don't compare well with what we have had din IL-2 and more recent titles and it just felt like the simulation was being held back in an effort to cater for as many customers old systems as possible which is understandable for their online business model but for those who want to be immersed in a realistic looking cockpit and terrain it left some wanting. It also got tiring listening to the same old moaners complaining about bombers ruining their furball's just because we dared play the strategic element of the arena format.

[SimFreak]

Hopefully they can regain market share....I used to enjoy early beta but left after they dumbed down FM. 

[Revvin]

It does make me wonder how these sims stay in business as numbers dwindled considerably in Warbirds, WWII Online and Aces High when I used to play there as players drifted away to sims like IL-2 which had a strong on-line community. I do miss the persistent arena format - particularly WWII Online where you could view an interactive map on their web-site and see how the 'war' had progressed since you last logged off with the front-line moving back and fore. What eventually killed Aces high for me was when they moved from a single large 400-500+ arena to small 200 player servers and it split players over different servers to balance them out. At peak Euro time zones the player count quite often barely went over 60-70 players on each server which wasn't really much more than some of the popular IL-2 servers of that time so I no longer saw the point of paying $15 a month.

[FuriousMeow]

New water effects:

 

 

And although I was playing Il2 a lot more at the time and stopped paying for AH, costwise $15 a month really isn't that much. Additionally, the FM was always better with AH vs Il-2. AHII's ground handling is better than Il-2 and CloD's. The FM wasn't dumbed down, they added the easy mode FM that just kept the planes trimmed for those who used it - but they didn't perform any better than those who didn't use easy mode. In fact, I never had an issues playing against easy moders. I did try out AHII for a two week free trial and was considering paying for it - there was no other WWII product out that was good enough (Il2 had been hacked/modded and once that happens I stop playing those games) and CloD, well...

 

I only didn't pay for a sub since I didn't see anyone I knew from the past playing, and none of the guys I still talk to that I played with back then had any interest. With these new effects then they might come back and I'd definitely join them.

 

Splitting up the arenas was a bad move but they decided to go with it. One of those things that comes from listening to the vocal customers. Most of the time it ends up screwing up the product.

Edited March 5, 2014 by FuriousMeow

[Bearcat]

There's a lot to admire for a game as old as it is.

 

I don't play any game enough to warrant a pay to play subscription.

Same here..