Hi. I'm the CO of The Haze, which is short for Commanding
Officer. That's sort of a misnomer, since we don't do all that much commanding in The
Haze. We have always tried to keep it loose, and rather than a tight military structure,
we're flexible. Hey, it's just a game, and we're here to have fun.
But don't get me wrong. WarBirds is only a game, but it's a good game with quite a few
realistic qualities, and we play it seriously. We try to win, and we try not to get killed
while doing it. We have an established chain of command that allows us to conduct
complicated missions. We practice our techniques so that we can get better. We work at it,
and we have fun. If you understand gamesmanship, then you know that games are both fun and
serious at the same time. So much for theory.
A lot has changed since we first formed the Squad back in
1997, but one thing that hasn't changed is our emphasis on the simulation aspect over the
"game" aspect. I don't really think of us as gamers, but as historical
simulation geeks. We emphasize living through the mission over accomplishing the mission
objective because it's more realistic. We will at times run strictly historical
re-creations of actual missions from history - even if those missions are irrelevant to
the game aspect of WarBirds. That's not everyone's cup of tea, but it is what I want The
Haze to be about. Weird maybe, but that's a simulation geek for you.
Vert++
