Hi all,

After playing this game for years and spending far too much time on it and the forum, I wanted to thank Joaquín and this wonderful community for a great time.

Although I hardly play anymore, since I ran into one more lagstorm too many, I still frequent the forum at times.
To be honest, I was quite addicted to this game and the promise of things to come kept me following the development of the game through the hick-ups and downs......to a point that was not healthy anymore.

Zup, you asked for input over and over through the years, and I must say you built a great comunity of flight game enthousiasts.
What I don't get though is that in the origional promo for Elite you talked about raising awarenes about the history of flight in the First World War, and yet create a game that is not much more than a 'shooter' game with hardly any historic authenticity at all.

I kind of got put off by you introducing Second World War planes into the game to fight totally inferior ones.
What I get is that this is just a beta stage of the new Elite, but is it going to go anywhere, either first or second World War?

I would be delighted to see you making aircraft performances really historically correct, flying against contemporary planes on a far bigger historicly correct playing field.......but I guess that's all a long way off.

Sure, since I didn't subscribe for the last few months and flew off to another game, you should not feel obliged to reply, since you might not want to disclose this just yet......but I'm just curious. (and yes,........I care.)

I second much of what Rudolf said above. I have had times over the last many years where I haven't been able to put the game down even to the point of it conflicting with some of my real life commitments. I've really enjoyed it. I've had friends come to my home and ask about my WW1 aviation interest; a few models, some books and a couple of framed pictures...most of which were given to me by my kids. I have spent some time reading and watching WW1 documentaries, fiction and even visiting museums.

The game is handsome and the planes are beautifully done, flying with tilt controls is tactile enough that it captures my imagination and I can get lost in the skies of dogfight. The many little things that don't fit with history are no big deal for the game play, in fact many of them contribute to the enjoyment and complexity of the missions, but...

I've always had to stop short about the authenticity when sharing dogfight with friends. Many times I've started explaining how it is this great mobile game that can be played in real time with people from around the globe and that it is based on WW1. Eyebrows often raise in interest at that. There are many flying games which feature more modern fighters but very few that focus on the early days of aviation. I feel that it would have a stronger appeal if there were more authentic features. While many of the daily players seem to enjoy the simple arcade aspects, I think it detracts from the mystique. While the core daily players heavily resist the changes you are making with elite, I think having more nuance and complexity will eventually attract more real enthusiasts. The more like "real" WW1 air combat the more unique the game will be. It could draw more attention from aviators and historians... Maybe it could be something that museums would back or just take more interest in.

The "DF community" is great and all but it is largely used as another social media outlet with very little game related content. Just the fact that so many players would choose poor performance and lag over being able to play with their "friends" illustrates this. Most come to the game because they were searching for a flight/battle/simulator. Dogfight stands out because of the older planes. Unless someone has brought in a friend, the new players don't usually find the "community" until they get to the forum.

When I first logged into the game it was very challenging but there was a lot to check out... lots of "Easter eggs" just around the next corner, amazing skills and tricks that other experienced players were demonstrating... lots of wow! The more simple and less unique the game is the less allure there is. I would love to see the missions played as team efforts with more emphasis on use of strategy and flying skills. Having the ballistic drop helps greatly with the amount of skill needed, having the trees and clouds which you can hide in makes more "depth" to the game.

It would be great to have more performance difference between the planes and things like guns that overheat to prevent the relentless arcade firehose shooting. I've always felt it would be good to have certain missions which only use the earlier (lower tier) planes. The way it is, once you get an upper tier plane there is no motivation to ever use the others anymore... Like if the WW2 planes were in the same missions with the early planes, why would anyone ever fly a Neiuport?

There are still many game variations which can be done without going to WW2. How about a mission where AI ground forces send tanks to try to destroy the enemy airfield? The planes would have to destroy the enemy ground troops while defending their own. Or some balloon busting games, where you have to take out enemy spotting balloons before you can get bombers to the target? You've talked about introducing bigger bombers over the years...why not have slow heavy bombers which can be piloted by one person where you can set a vector then hit the view icon to access different guns? Like the engines on the zeppelins you would have to take out the bombers guns or engines first before you can kill the bomber. Ballistic drop can help prevent the long range arcade shooting. If you had the option to switch planes whenever you spawn it could add a lot to the way games play out.

Please, keep dogfight unique. Make it so there are more ways you can accomplish the missions. Making WW2 planes that fly the same map and the same missions with similar performance doesn't do much to add interest.

I'm not leaving. I love dogfight. Joaquin, thanks for the many years and countless hours of enjoyment. You have a created a great thing here.