Originally Posted by HalfManHalfGod
I don't understand you argument. Why limit the games features? I suppose people with larger monitors or dedicated voice comms for their outfit translates to an advantage but you're not whining about those...
The game should NOT be limited to the lowest common denominator. Otherwise why not restrict what hardware can play the game?
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The game will support in-game VOIP. So outfits without dedicated voice comms will have a minor advantage, at best, in that outfit mates can have their voice comms open while not playing. This level of communication is just as easily handled via IRC channels, instant messaging clients, telephone, etc. Or, you know, logging in to see if anything interesting is happening. I don't consider dedicated voice comms to be an advantage when there are good in-game comms. If you look at my posting history, you'll see that, before it was announced, I was a vocal supporter of in-game VOIP.
Likewise, duck over to the Multiple Monitors (Not Eyefinity) thread, and you'll see that I'm against Eyefinity support, too, because having a wide FOV is most *definitely* an advantage.
Monitor size is less an issue than monitor resolution, but that comes down to gamer preference and is just part of the PC gaming landscape. This falls into "Yes, it can be an issue, but reasonably large -- that is to say, large enough that there isn't a sizeable disadvantage -- monitors are prevalent enough among the gaming community that it's not worth worrying about" category. It's not like 90% of the world is using 640x480 screens with their computers anymore, so the guy with the 1680x1050 screen is smoking his allies before they can discern that he's not just a 4-pixel blob.
Similarly, widescreen has (thankfully) become prevalent enough, available enough, and cheap enough that I no longer believe whether to allow widescreen-appropriate Fields of View is worth arguing over. Which, you know, I used to do back in the day, as well -- see the Eyefinity comment.
Eventually, stuff like this will become less expensive, and built-into more things, and I'll welcome the day when you can make a game that takes advantage of cool gaming rigs with motion sensors, 3D, head-tracking goggles, etc., have those deliver a more responsive and higher fidelity gaming experience, and market that to a broad audience without restricting your market significantly. I love the tech. But loving the tech and thinking it's right for a given game are two different things. That sort of thing will fit a flight sim game before any other genre, I think, because the sim enthusiasts are early adopters and willing, as a market, to spend money on bleeding edge things like that. For a F2P game that relies on players to saturate its battlefield and provide a fun experience, though, the decisions you make will be different than the ones a more simulationist game makes, and that doesn't make either one "wrong."
In any event, I know you guys have this stuff, and enjoy it, so it's your pet issue, and you want it in game. And I can't blame you for it. I don't personally have one, but I probably could fit it into my budget if I had to in order to have fun. But that's not the point -- the point is, I want the game to attract a WIDE and BROAD variety of people, because fighting a massive battle with nobody around is not fun. And so I do want the developers to pay attention to what does and does not create a barrier to entry, or a barrier to success. I believe I've expressed that concern sufficiently, so I'll leave you guys to it here.