Stalker

I am concerned about the focus on player vs player. The anonymity of the internet brings out the worst in people (and humanity in general has a lot of "bad" to offer). I for one tend to only play on-line with people I know. People are much more polite when they know they have to face you in person again sometime. A continued focus on "encouraging player vs player" will only serve to drive away people like me who have been burned by others abusing the anonymity of the internet. If you change the system to give less xp against bots online than local, you will drive me to local only. That has the opposite effect of what you were intending.

I currently have port 8080 open (UDP) on my firewall. I can get to the lobby, but online missions won't start (regular or campaign, can't connect to server). Are there any other known ports I need to open up for DIF (and are they UDP or TCP)? I notice some traffic on 2234 and 2308 whenever I try. I tried to find some documentation on what ports DIF needs opened but struck out. I apologize if this is documented somewhere and I missed it...

I see what you mean. I just tried the Dunkirk campaign again. The last few times I played a campaign escort mission I was too aggressive, sending my fighters right after the opposing fighters. This time I hung back (luckily started at a higher altitude than everybody else) and waited until the opponent had engaged the bombers. Once the bombers had worn them down a bit I dove in on them and ended up winning. I think the key is timing your attack with the escorts. I was attacking too early and drawing too much attention to my escorts, so the bombers never got a chance to contribute.

I have been playing the demo and just ordered the game (waiting for it to arrive) in the meantime I have a question: How do you possibly survive bomber escort missions? I try the Dunkirk campaign as the Axis and get thoroughly trashed because it essentially boils down to a 4 on 2 ftr vs ftr melee and my axis fighters just get overwhelmed because the AI ignores the bombers until my fighters are destroyed. These missions are not so much protecting the bombers as they are lopsided fighter scraps.