Alright, so I started playing some ET again about two weeks ago after having been away since november or so. I’d been meaning to jot down some impressions on things that’ve changed or not changed, and here they are. I must say it was surprising how quickly everything felt familiar again; I’d taken some breaks here and there before, after which the game tended to feel ‘new’ again when I started again. That wasn’t really the case now. Maybe it’s because one of the reasons why I’d said ET farewell somewhere before the holidays was because it was becoming a bit ofa drudge. It felt like I’d seen most every scenario fold out before, and generally matches tended to have the same result every time - such as the allies getting the tank to the Fuel Dump and then getting stuck for the rest of the match, or the axis not getting the tug on Railgun moved because only two or three people are actually escorting it. Maybe that’s why everything seemed familiar again quite fast. Maybe I’d played the game to death, and I’d seen it all before a couple too many times.
At any rate, I must say it’s fun revisiting the game, and it does seem like a few things have changed where it concerns how the game’s played. In other areas however, it almost looks like time stood still. Fuel Dump for instance, probably still my favorite map in ET, remains an Allied deathtrap. It’s kinda sad how this great, wide open map always tends to play out the exact same way. Allies just never seem to win anymore, I think mainly because most every possible allied tactic is well-known by now to the axis players and an eye is kept on the base from the very beginning to ensure no-one slips through unnoticed. I think the fact that the allies have to travel some distance to get to the FD while the axis spawn right inside it might also have something to do with the fact that the Dump is so easy to defend and so hard to get into. I believe giving the allies the option to spawn inside the hangar after the CP’s built there might even things out a little, somehow, for various reasons.
One map that’s changed a lot on the other hand is Gold Rush imo. I remember when I uninstalled ET and called it a day, the allied team would almost never get the tank to move into the courtyard; oftentimes it’d remain unrepaired for an exceedingly long time, and if it was stolen and escorted it seemed it’d often get stuck at the first barrier. Those days seem to be over now; usually the tank’s stolen very quickly, and I’m happy to see the days of allied engineers buggering off to go fight pointless battles over the truck (not tank) barriers are long gone as well. Overall I see much less XP whoring now in ET, which is definitely a good thing. Something else I notice about Gold Rush is that the allies more than often seem to win this map. I was actually astonished the first time I saw them make off with the gold, thinking it must have been a fluke, but I soon realized allied tactics have improved vastly here during the time I was away.
As for the other maps, Radar, Railgun, Battery and Oasis, I think Oasis in the end is probably the most well-balanced map, along with Radar. As far as I can see no one team seems to win/lose there most of the time. I think both maps are generally quite tense, with mostly good matches all around.
Railgun on the other hand still seems to suffer from the fact that most of the axis will dive straight into the tunnels or head for the depot yard, leaving only a handful of players to move the tug. Often frustrating, not in the least because you’d expect things to have changed there over time. In any case it does seem to me like more people than before concentrate on the tug now; often in the past it was just me and one or two other players and that was it.
Battery then, finally, is still kind of a strange animal - sometimes the allies will be kept outside indefinitely and won’t stand a chance at all, and oftentimes the base is totally overrun and allies will manage to plant and end the match in minutes. The latter scenario is probably the one I’ve seen most now; allied tactics appear to have improved here too, which I can only think positive.
Sorry for the somewhat long post; I’d be interested to know how others feel the game’s changed over the past year, though. There’s more to be said but I’d like to see if anyone’s interested in discussing first.
