They said the MMO will be released in 2013, which to me means BOM is the MMO.

It does point that way

This. Online is - and has always been, despite some serious bomber types in 1946 - a fighter and fighter-bomber centristic clusterf*ck which makes some people think they're something special just because they play vs other people and which bears absolutely no relation to real aerial warfare in the 1940s. Ever seen a Gruppe of player-manned Stukas attacking a fortified position? Ever seen more than a handful of player-manned bombers? A swarm of single-seat Il-2s? I haven't. Instead I had more than my fair share of planeset whines just because someone didn't get the fighter he wanted. I've come to accept that the overwhelming majority of the players thinks this is realistic (which it isn't). When one tries to move towards realism they have their counter-arguments down - it's usually "fairness", "playability" or other such smokescreen words which really only hide that they don't want realism but preserve their little own world.


You really think this will matter? I don't. We will have lone-wolfing as opposed to coordinated squadron-sized operations, we will see more fighter-bombers than ever produced/modified in 1940 because players detest having to fly the real strike aircraft of the Luftwaffe at that time (the Stuka), we will still have people hovering over enemy bases hoping for an easy kill, we will still have RAF fighters roaming over France (which in real life they weren't allowed to) and we won't see the kind of scrambles that were the daily bread of the RAF Fighter Command in the BoB. And you know why? Because people having fun and the kind of environment the BoB brought on don't mix well. In an offline campaign such experiences can be tailor-made for the player, the historical planeset can be observed without a need to "adapt" it to sooth some player's ruffled feathers.

Its the only way it will work as you will never organize a hundered bomber pilots or more on one server. The same with the Stuka's you would only need two Stuka human pilots to lead two squadrons of AI Stukas.

Lone wolves could be just classed a the fog of war, or if they camp bases boot their sorryass, your choice. Why couldn't you have scrambles, it would be relatively easy to build a mission online or offline with a hundered AI bombers or more already on the way to targets about the distance away a historic scramble might start. I think eventually you will see full 24/7 wars with AI run historic day by day Battle of Britain missions where human pilots can take over any AI aircraft at any point in the Battle. Either waiting to scramble or inflight.

I am quite aware that the system doesn't allow for that many human players - if one could find that many to begin with. My argument was against the - IMO - false statement that only online can lead to immersion. In my case it's the opposite as I detest how players are using history as a smokescreen to hide their "sportive contest" clusterf*ck menthality.