Game Size JMO

[ekaneti]

Just my opinion but Ive been playing all three running games and it seems that 200 players is optimum, perhaps a  bit more if market sizes are larger. Jet Age 2 is by far the most fun. Plenty of planes and not overly crowded.

[Sigma]

Bah.  200 players is rather boring.

I'm playing Jet Age #1 and Jet Age #2, and #1 is way more entertaining.

Jet Age #2 is way too easy.  There's no strategy.  There's hardly even anyone to worry about.  You just pick some planes and put them on some routes and watch the money come in.

I know different players want different things.  But I for one have no desire to play a "Management Simulation" in EasyMode^(tm).

Previous games of AWS ran with north of 300 players and they all ran just fine.  There's always going to be some players that get upset because they can't get the planes they "want".  I don't know what else to tell them that this may not be the game for them, judging by sami's comments on how he sees things.  I'm playing Jet Age #2 like a lot of these players would -- I stuck to buying nothing but 737s right from the start and refused to buy anything else that overlapped the market.  And, yeah, it sucks.  It's pretty boring.  The game moves about 100 times slower when you're stuck in a queue waiting for the exact planes you want watching everyone else pass you by and eat up precious slots (not quite so precious with less players)

[pharmy]

I chose the wrong airport for Jet Age I , Vienna, can't quite expand beyond a certain size and area (707s being the only long range mid size airliner, and they are unsuitable because of their gas guzzling), made up for this in 2 by starting at BKK, which can easily support DC-10s and etc... But it is way too easy, with only one competitor at BKK, I am the top airline with a minimum of effort. Even routes like LHR-BKK and LHR-HKG are below capacity with me being the only one fying them. No challenge. Now Airboom, with 5 airlines at DXB, that is a lot more fun. I have about 50 planes now with over a hundred on order, and its going to be huge an entertaining fight for slots/routes with the others at the airport. Rather have 300 players then 150.

Just one problem with the game right now as I see it, if you go bankrupt now, then you can't really get back till 50% of the game is over and people are getting rid of their older planes. In the older game I started at around 50% of the game at DXB and came up to something like 33rd in value. Here you have no chance. Almost all useful slots for planes are booked solid for the next 4/5 years

[Kontio]

I agree with Sigma. Some players seem to think that the game is perfectly balanced when they can get the planes they want and fly them on the routes they want and make heaps of money. It is obviously very much a matter of opinion, but in my humble opinion you could just as well take a world map, draw your routes on that and write your schedules on a spreadsheet. I mean this is a game, for me the challenge is that I can't have those DC-10s or A320-series or whatever it is because it seems the whole world is in line before me. I have to come up with some other solutions. It's the same with routes, the "obvious" ones are insanely crowded so you have to have a price war, or look for other routes that are not as "big" but may be even more profitable because of lack of competition.

[swiftus27]

It is what killed the Private game.  Too easy.  I had billions sitting in the bank.  The day that planes would come out, someone would BUY 20 or more of them.