OvS's words on what he believes Hell's Angels is all about....
- posted 08-26-2004 18:18
There is a specific reason why Hell's Angels is free. It's
a patch that allows people to contribute to, has taken from the past and pushes
to the future as well. It's an open patch that allows users to take from and
hopefully build on to keep the game going, rather than close it forever. As time
goes on, I wanted folks to see how a patch is made, and use the files and
artworks that are there for MMP, SP and other ideas that they might have use
for. I am aware that some of the skins are not top notch, but others in the
patch are beyond anything I've seen before.
After the last release of Hell's Angels, (HAGII), a big push came to make the
next release as historically accurate as humanly possible. A tremendous amount
of time was dedicated to research and tracking of many squadrons in the patch.
More accurate than we've seen before. This move was spearheaded by Shredward and
the help of the team at The Aerodrome.com, including Guru Dan San Abbott. To
highlight the effort, HA contains Entente Ace skins and squadron markings never
before present in a WWI game. There is more color and truth to the Brits Camels,
Pups and SE5a's than I've ever seen. Shredward took the time to individually
pick apart every Squadron and Escadrille to find the correct placement and
insignia marking for each unit. From the N11's all the way to the Snipes. I
myself dropped in a few skins that I found from research we both did together.
For the Frenchies, the bombers in RB were never right. The French never flew the
RE8, and or if they did fly the FE2b, it was in VERY small numbers, so in HASP,
with the mechanical help of Baron von Helton, I was able to open an extra slot
and add in the correct crates for the French Bombers. Now the French bomb and
recon in the Cauldron G4, then move up to the Dorand AR1... then on to the
normal Strutters, Bre14's and so on. This totally changed the base of RB from
the completely wrong standards that it was programmed with back in 1998.
On the Ace side, HASP is balanced. There are almost an equal amount of German to
Entente aces for you to hunt and or fly with. Where I could, I used Ace paint
profiles from Bob Pearson provided by Shredward, and Steve Fabert to give HASP
as close to the real thing as I could. It was a lot of fun. I used SPAD skins
from Steve's extensive collection to try and get the best look and feel of a
SPAD. Instead of an ACE flying a plane, it was an Ace flying HIS mount.
To top it off, HASP moved away from being a registry for artists and into being
a Gallery for artists. With skins pulled from Pat Wilson's WFP and revamped,
items from Andreas, DeltaK, Shreward, Baron von Helton, Kessler and a long list
after that, HASP became a living gallery for everyone to enjoy. I even went so
far as to contact James Deitz and ask permission to use 5 of his own world
famous artwork pieces for the background screens in the Title and 4 shell
screens.
FCJ are two different games, period. There is nothing similar to them other than
they are both RB3D patches. Yes, FCJ houses the best graphics and more new items
than RB has ever had the pleasure to support, but HASP also boasts the most
variety and historic depth in a non-date based patch than RB has ever seen. Kess
and I both committed to making our patches the best the community would ever
see, today and hopefully tomorrow. In HASP, Shred and I even went so far as to
have 4 Aces that flew 2 seaters in early 1916 fly them in HASP. Collishaw,
Coppens, von Schleich, and von Richthofen fly Strutters and Whalefisch
respectively early in the war, prior to becoming aces. I had to bend the
historic placements a little, but for the sake of working them in, it was worth
it.
So in a nutshell, that's why HASP is free. Yes, it would have been dynamite to
sell it, but ya know, in the end, I still enjoy knowing so many folks were able
to jump on the wagon and get thier artwork noted and actively used in a patch. I
was selective with artwork. If I didn't like it, it wasn't used, so there is a
level of quality maintained, but to the user, you get a lot of variety and
depth.
FCJ and HASP are two different games, and are not meant to be compared. I would
disrespect anyone that does a side-to-side. It's not fair to the artists that
put thier time and work into making what they did, and it's not fair to the
community. What's fair is that you enjoy each for it's intended use and that you
discover what makes each patch unique because they both are.
I hope that was a wordy enough explanation for anyone that was reading this.
[Smile]
It's free... because it's all about you.
Now go fly!
Brgds,
OvS