f13.net

If anyone cares to poke their eyes out with sporks, here you are!

http://www.mmorpg.com/wwii_trial.cfm

I wish had the time...I have always enjoyed going back and checking things out. The game just takes too much time investment to really play properly.

This is as godd excuse as any to ask what is the relationship between WW2OL and Beyond Blitzkrieg (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=58354)? Is there any?

Apparently, WWIIOL is changing the name of the game when they release they upcoming expansion...probably to try and gain subs from people who kinda remember WWIIOL bombing, but don't know about the change.

Also, they must think BB sounds cool.

Hey, trucks can be used as mobile spawnpoints for infantry now.  That means you can just let that one catass drive all the way across Europe for you.

(http://www.mirror.wwiionline.com/images/bb/beyond_blitz_sm.jpg)

Beyond Blitzkrieg is a major relaunch of the product.  The game is still WWII Online and the WWII Online logo will be displayed on the box, but the obvious intent is to get consumers seeing this as a new product, and not associate it with the poor launch of the original WWII Online: Blitzkrieg.

And the game is completely different.  I mean, all the models are different, all the terrain is different, the UI is different, even the gameplay is different.  WWII Online now has things like depot spawning, mobile spawning, paratroops, R&D and production, tables of equipment, etc.  The mission system is much more robust.  Running across endless featureless plains looking for the enemy is a thing of the distant past.

Beyond Blitzkrieg not only relaunches the product in North America, but also serves to launch the product in Europe as well.  And this release will server as a springboard to the first real expansion pack, North Africa, which will hopefully come out next year if all has gone well.

Bruce

This will probably be the LAST free trial for some time, due to the re-release (can't imagine the publishers will allow some for a few months). Download is about 150meg.

The game is still hopelessly unbalanced as the poor Brits are expected to take on Panzer 4Gs and StugG (with 75mm guns) with the paper-thin armored Crusader III with a 57mm gun.  Fun.

Even more ridiculous are the plans to match the mighty Tiger tank against the M10.  Can you say 'Allied ass-rape'?  I knew you could....

You're right!  Hitler was so unfair for attacking when he did...

Bruce

So what you are saying is that the Allied side SHOULD get fucked in the ass on a regular basis until Lend/Lease and then the American entrance into the war is patched in 'soon'? Compelling gameplay...

Remember, that's REALISM!  Please just ignore all the blatantly unrealistic things in the rest of the game.

That's the entire problem with this game.  One, the developers are incompetent. Two, they have a case of Visionitis that makes SOE back in their heyday look like rank amateurs.  Anything that could be considered fun is shot down by the jackasses that inhabit their boards as, "Go play BF1942, Quanker!"  Apparently people have taken that advice, and the 100 people that play WWII Online continue their little idiotic circle jerk.

Anyway, it will amuse me to see another round of recriminations and pissed off customers that result from people who don't know any better actually laying down cash for this piece of shit.

In my opinion, yes.  Ideally, it should be very rare for the French not to get defeated, and very rare for the Germans and Italians not to subsequently get defeated once the Americans and Russians arrive.  Of course, the game doesn't simulate even this yet, and it is important to proivide compelling gameplay in the meantime.  This isn't Red Vs. Blue, though.

Differences in equipment and # of players should be easily balanced by differences in production.  Of course, I expect every war to play out differently -- in some, France may hang on in the Aquitaine; in others, America might find itself landing in Scotland rather than Normandy...

Bruce

You're right in that I'd much rather, from a business standpoint, have BF1942 instead of WWII Online.  But once the decision is made, there's no point now in turning WWII Online into BF1942.  Not only is it unlikely to succeed, even if you accomplish it, you'll just have a copy of BF1942, and you'll piss off all the other subscribers you do have in the meantime.

WWII Online will always be a niche game.  More people find WWII Online fun to play than A Tale In The Desert or Puzzle Pirates, and yet you aren't badmouthing those games for not being "fun" enough.  Just accept the fact that different people have different tastes.

Bruce

I'll accept that there are people out there who have bad taste.  Thing of it is that even as a simulator, WWII Online sucks hind tit.  It's so bad that it's not even successful in the supposed niche it inhabits.  It's a niche of a niche.

And frankly, when you perpetrate the kind of rank fraud that CRS did with the initial launch of that game you deserve to fail.  As in chapter 11, sell all the shit, you'll never work in this industry again, fail.  I've seen Serek Dmart games that displayed more competence than WWII Online at launch.  And yep, I understand that it's been improved, but when you're starting at something that most people would consider a pre-alpha state, that's not a difficult target to hit.

This game is like a fucking vampire.  JUST DIE ALREADY!

Hey, way to totally say something stupid. WWII Online is so totally dissimilar to either of those games as to be not comparable at all.

Both of the games you mentioned had: 1) no box on the shelf at release (and only PP is getting one now), 2) had Internet-only distribution and marketing methods until recently, 3) had no large or small publisher financing them. At release, WWII Online had a retail box and a publisher financing them, and it shat itself, only managing to turn itself around by firing anything that wasn't needed to keep the game running, declaring bankruptcy and reogranizing.

I'll even further one up you by saying that ATitD had twice what it expected in subscription numbers at release, and it managed to not shit itself, pretty much ever. Yes, WWII Online was ambitious, I'll give you that. But it did't work.

In your opinion.  And I'm not arguing that.  I'm arguing your assertion that the game sucks because they don't want to turn it into BF1942, which would be more popular.  And that's stupid, because that's like saying they should turn Puzzle Pirates or ATiTD into WoW, because that would be more popular.

Bruce

It's entirely compareable.  The fact that the latter two published titles is irrelevant.  Are you really suggest if ATiTD was in a box, it would get WoW numbers?  Or that Puzzle Pirates will now that it has a box?  No, they won't.  And yet, no one is saying, "Hey, those games should be more like WoW, because they'd be more popular!"  Because that would be stupid.

Just like it's stupid to say WWII Online should be more like BF1942.

But instead of simply admitting that, you'd much rather take this opportunity to bash the game some more.

Bruce

Is this the part where someone accuses Bruce of shilling and he gets banned for 4 months until the forums vomit and we all stand around talking about how he's probably a cool guy now and we should let him back in, and then we do and he gets banned again?

No?

Just checking.

CRS intent IS to create a Red vs. Blue games.  They have said many times that they are not trying to re-create WWII but create a WWII simulator that people battle in.  So in that way WWIIOL is not much better than BF 1942.  Sure the vehicles are modelled more realisticly but historical events will never unwind as they did because of the balancing factored into the game.

The best example of this is the Battle of France 1940. We have played and replayed it so often it is boring, but never have the Axis done as well as they did historically.

No, I'm suggesting that if ATitD or Puzzle Pirates had a box at release, they'd probably have garnered more subs than WWII Online currently has, would work better without the servers and client shitting itself, like WWII Online did at release, and not have sublimate the name of the product in a repackage in order to try to pay for an expansion.

BF1942 and WWII Online are comparable. ATitD and WoW are not, because they are two totally dissimilar type of games. No, making ATitD more like WoW wouldn't necessarily make it more fun for the people who play ATitD, because they just aren't the same kind of game at all. One is very combat-oriented, the other has no combat whatsoever. Sure, WWII Online may be a bit more simmy, but it isn't all that much of a stretch to make a simmy-FPS into a not-so-simmy FPS. And except for the hardnosed Grognards, you'd probably find more people saying it's a fun game.

As someone who was playing bf1942 competetively in league and ladder play...I would give my left nut for a persistant bf1942 that ran on well-administered servers. The public game of 1942 sucks ass, only when you get onto servers that are actively admin'd by a mature and observant admin does it become playable, imo.

Calling bf1942 Quankers is pretty funny, since we say the same thing. It's a huge difference from Quake-style UT-type games. You are rewarded with greater accuracy for crouching, more for going prone, we love bunny hoppers, easy shootin'. Also, bullet spread is handled pretty well, I now instinctually duck behind cover, crouch, and fire in small bursts, just from playing bf1942.

Now, the vehicles, yeah they are arcadey and could get more complexified without hurting the funplay much.

I'd say the key, much like in traditional mmogs, is trying to get disparate playstyles in the same game and having fun. There has got to be some esoteric stuff the grognards could do, hell, the game would need squad leaders and generals, anyway. But if you have some vague "classes" (or whatever) that take some refinement to play, and the average fps lover could just grab a grunt and blast stuff, with several degrees between...

I played bf1942 hardcore for almost a year when it wasn't a mmog. To say it's stupid to say WWIIOL should be more like BF1942 is exactly why I'm not playing it. It simply wasn't fun.

But you go with that. It's working great. And I'm not slagging WWIIOL, either. Just being honest. Hell, I'd like to play your game, but CRS needs to get over themselves and especially over their myopic fanbase first. A tough situation, sure. But there is NO WAY to find that middle ground? I just don't buy it.

They should do a version of the Pacific theater just to see the people playing the Japanese cry.

"OMFG the US has like 20 times our production ability!  CHEAP!  UNBALANCED!  Make Japan the same size as the continental US, you bastards!"

Okay, so just to make a point, and actually check into the accusations of incompetency I've been making, I decided to suffer for my art and sign up for the trial:



(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v490/spaeschke/WW2_1.jpg)
So far, so bewildering.  These names mean nothing to me, so I go by the little icons.  I choose the vaguely infantry looking guy.



(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v490/spaeschke/WW2_2.jpg)
Oooh!  Should I choose between the PzKpfw 38(t) or the PzKpfw II C?  Decisions, decisions.  Hmm, okay, I recognize the term "rifle".  I choose that.



(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v490/spaeschke/WW2_3.jpg)
And here we witness the fruits of the labors of CRS's crack art staff.  I can't decide if this is supposed to be an actual person, or if I've perhaps wandered into that fake army the Allies set up to fool the Germans.



(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v490/spaeschke/WW2_4.jpg)
Let it not be said that these guys aren't versatile.  They come in two positions, bent in half or ramrod straight!



(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v490/spaeschke/WW2_5.jpg)
Okay, guys.  You do realize that if you can't competently model something in 3D that you could always make these rifles bitmaps, don't you?



(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v490/spaeschke/WW2_6.jpg)
Because stairs cost polys...



(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v490/spaeschke/WW2_7.jpg)
Spacious interiors...  You know, if you put a mirror on the other side of the room, it'll look even bigger than it really is!



(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v490/spaeschke/WW2_8.jpg)
Does that line represent a dimensional rift?  Am I stepping through a stargate into an alternate dimension?  Sadly, no.  That's in fact a wall.



(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v490/spaeschke/WW2_9.jpg)
Again we see why the Germans were so much more advanced than we were at the start of the war.  No lowtech stairs for them, no way.  That's the treadmill fire escape.  Oh, and check out the loving detail on that railing.  That, my friends, is craftsmanship.



Oh, and to top it all off, they still have the same shitty keymapper, the infantry still moves like dogshit, and using the radio is incomprehensible.  There are entire conversations that I can listen to, but apparently not engage in.  Sure, I know it's possible to do so, but I shouldn't have to search through message boards to do it.  The UI sucks, Bruce.  The graphics suck and wouldn't have been acceptable 7 years ago.  There's no tutorial to speak of.  All these little things count; they show that you give a fuck about your game.  They retain players.  CRS hasn't shown any willingness to do any of these things.

You guys put this hunk of shit in a box and try selling it for anything over $10 and you fuckers should be slapped with a fraud suit.

That review deserves a frontpage.   :lol:

Has Haem played this game?  Sweet Christ, I can't see how FoM is worse then that, that first ss almost made me piss myself...

No, Haem heard about flying fucking tanks and decided Everquest really wasn't as bad as all that.

Taxi to victory! (http://wiki.onlinegamers.org/index.php/TAXI_TO_VICTORY%21)

I still love reading that!

Brilliant work, Gulp. 

WoW, even Goldeneye had better models. That's sad.

Frontpaged (http://www.f13.net/index2.php?subaction=showfull&id=1111700632&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2&). Because I am a bastard.

Oh, man.   I've just said Serek Dmart three times, haven't I?

Beautiful, Gulpman. Well, not really, but you know what I mean.

Hilarious that the gun has more polys than the soldiers.

Again, not the point.  The point is how many subs they have relative to what they could have in their genre.


And that's what you don't understand.  BF1942 and WWII Online are NOT any more compareable.  They are dissimilar.

Bruce

You're wrong on Red vs. Blue (in fact, they've said many times they don't want that), but you're right when you say it's not strictly a WWII re-creation, etc.  But Red vs. Blue is beyond that; it means things like balanced equipment, etc.  But as to historical events not unwinding due to game balancing, again, this is because the game right now doesn't have things like the Italians, the Russians, multiple theatres, etc.

But what I said before still applies to an ultimate vision of the game, and explains why they are still some imblances in the game that you do see in some areas.  But again, that's just my opinion -- nothing about the game's ultimate direction is written in stone.

Bruce

Good for you!  Let's hope you actually spend some time playing the game and not complaining about the artiwork.  You might actually have fun.

Bruce

PS - I agree about the poor UI; that's why it's one of the things being changed for Beyond Blitzkrieg.

I'd rather suggest this is the part where SirBruce gets red-named for Cornered Rat Studios, title "Mouth of Sauron" or something along those lines.

What genre is that? MMOG's in general, in which case that's a goddamn wide open field. Which somehow compares it to Everquest, Ultima Online, Horizons, etc. Or could it be the genre of computer games? In which case, we've lost the map and Clark W. Griswold is about to drive us off a cliff.

However, if you actually look at the games, ATitD is an online crafting and politics simulation, with people. It has nothing like it that I can think of. It has pieces and parts of other genres, but it is unique. The closest thing I can think of that's graphical is maybe some of the Shadowbane politics, but then, Shadowbane is less about politics and more about killing. While ATitD is about harvesting flax. The two audiences are wholly dissimilar, though some overlap applies.


And that's what you don't understand.  BF1942 and WWII Online are NOT any more compareable.  They are dissimilar.

Let's see, they are both about first-person perspective combat in a World War II setting, with the ability to play both as vehicles and infantry, and with team-based gameplay. While they may play differently owing to a lot of things, including lack of competence on dev teams, online infastructure, etc., they are in a much closer boat than ATitD and Shadowbane, or Puzzle Pirates and WoW.

The MMOG "genre" has too many options now to consider it as a genre. The market may be stuffed full with EQ-clones, that is only one genre in the online arena. As far as the number of subs ATitD or PP "could have," that number is currently and at their respective releases, much less than WWII Online could have had, simply based on the fact that WWII Online had a box on the shelf. The fact that CRS decided putting a silvery turd in a box and releasing it was a good idea shows a great deal about the company.

FFS, I remember when Bruce went on a WoW hating diatribe because some of his quests were elite, and he thought the developers were trying to shoehorn him into a group oriented playstyle.  All I can say is WHAT THE FUCK?  You're going to nitpick about a few elite quests making content unaccessible to you, and then defend this bush league cat terd?  This is how people go crazy, wondering how other people could be so crazy.

See:  Involvement, Financial

Also, head, rectally inserted.

Except for that it will obviously suck?  I'm sorry those ss's are just so goddamn fugly I can't imagine playing the game and I really dont give two halfs of a shit about gfx over gameplay.  

I feel there is a reason why historic war recreation should stick to turn based hex map games, its the same reason that MEO will suck.  Some things are too fucking grand to let people run around in them all willy nilly without it being either a shoddy fps/rts/mmog or a inaccurate pos recreation of something a world/event that is, well better then some fps/rts/mmog hybrid.

Be thankful they are using SpeedTreeRT for the trees and not the cardboard cutouts they use to have.


Hello, middleware developers? More plugin graphics solutions kthx.

You've undone all the good you've done in this thread.  In fact, you've undone all the good you have ever done, and all the good you will ever do.  Lord have mercy on your soul.

No, I'm just able to separate my personal tastes from objective ones.  My complaint about WoW was simply my own personal taste for solo PvE content -- that's the game *I* want to play.  But if someone wants to make a game that appeals to a different type of player, they are welcome to do that.  WWII Online doesn't particularly appeal to me either; it is fun in some ways, but I prefer shorter play sessions in my FPS experiences.

Bruce

You can't have it both ways.  Either the game is a historical recreation of WWII combat or it is not.  If you alter the timeline when units appear and alter the quantities of the those units for BALANCE purposes then you have the elements of a Red vs. Blue game.

I'd bother argueing but I know theres no point. I'll just enjoy the game. You guys can enjoy yours. I hope yours dont die because I know how much YOU must enjoy even I don't like them myself.

My first post was about my personal, ultimate vision of the game.  I said that in the meantime, allowances have to be made for balance purposes.  And even then, I don't control the content of the game -- if I did, it wouldn't have shipped like it did.  As for Red vs. Blue, yes, you have elements of it, but Red vs. Blue implies far more parity than what CRS is talking about.

Bruce

Soldner

WW2OL should be changed into flying tanks sim, this way it won't be competing with any other game out there.

Actually in the current campagin the allies have the Crud III (and yes, it was and is a piece of equimpent that is conisdered crap both in the game, and histoircally) and the axis do NOT have any tanks with long barreled 75mm guns. The Crusader III DOES outperform all the other german tanks below it. The allies have spent the last 4 weeks bombing the axis factories flat (because last campgain, the axis bombed the french factories flat, and stopped them from getting any new Shermans or P38's).

Just like the Matilda II does over all the axis 1st tier tanks.

Not true. One campagin after the allies won a very long one, the axis reached the channel in 72 hours. And the ALLIES are considered to having the harder time to get a victory, because the Axis generally win...

Well YES it is closer than The Sims online or Gemstone III. But Saying BF1942 is in the same context as WW2OL is like saying Falcon 4.0 is in the same context as Crimson Skies. One is a simulator, the other is not.  And Simulators are generally not nearly as big as more standard games are these dayes. Sillent Hunter III is well made from everything I've heard. It is not going to sell as many boxes as Grand Turismo IV.

For that matter, if BF1942 Online is going to be so good, surly someone out there would see that too and make it? How's Planetside going these days? If you want it to be populer, make a well made EQclone. A well made Falcon 4.0 Online or Operation Flashpoint Online won't be much fun if you're the soviet/DPRK hordes. So that leaves WW2 or SciFi.

Mabye Battletech Online with battles bigger than 8 people at a time might have done it, but that hasn't worked either (From what I understand happened to Planetside).

I suspect we'll have to see how Auto Assault goes to see if a MMOG PvP game can work, because so far none of the other PvP games seem to have been the big hits they were supposed to be.


Incerdently, the UI for taking missons is being complety redesigned for the re-release. As is the 1st person and 3rd person guns. The buildings are gradualy being redone, and all the pics in THIS thread are of the old city blocks you find in the few very large cities. All the buildings done in the last year have solid 3D walls (though the stairs remain 2D. Yes, Polys DO count when you can see for 4kms it seems, even in the buildings. And the old 64 limit no longer applies if you can handle more units tp be tracked).  The game needs a paper manual, I do not know if there will be one or not with the re-release. The game very much does needs a tutorial.

I get sooo tired of hearing this horseshit.  As though WWII Online were the first game to ever have a long view distance.  It's called LOD, fucknuts.  This game isn't ugly because of hardware limitations, it's ugly because of incompetence.  Yeah, those sub-1999 level of graphics are necessary because you're just pushing out so much goddamned information...  Puhlease.

The events of current campaign are interesting but it doesn't alter the current tier structure CRS has for the game.  As it currently stands the Crusader III is the BEST tank the brits will ever have.  And the Axis will get their 75mm tanks if they survive long enough.

And since you bring up the current campaign it is interesting how the GHC is insisting on maintaining their assault from Antwerp when there are Allied units in Germany.  Really there should be a game mechanic to stop this since I would not believe Hitler would allow this to happen.

This was just too funny to pass up, so I figured I would throw it up there for our mutual mockery.  This is from their support forums, where one of the people in the trial posted a problem with the game running slow.  The response?

The battle cry has been 'Buy more RAM' for years and years. It does help a bit, but the game runs like shit on anything but a bleeding edge system (at least it did the last time I played, a couple of years ago).

Yes, the graphics are actually much upgraded from what they were at release, so requirements have gone up considerably.  The latest are 1.2 GHz CPU (2 GHz Recommended) and 512 MB of RAM (1GB Recommended).  This is yet another reaosn why this will remain a niche game.  For those people unlike Big Guilp who understand there is more to graphics than high-res bitmaps and multiple LoDs (which WW2OL already has anyway), this is acceptable.

Bruce

It's not that we don't understand, it's that it looks like shit. And takes a nice computer to look like shit. I would think most logical people would say that's shitty.

I know you're not CRS, Bruce, but you sound like SOE. Only you never hit the eventual stage of acceptance after repeated denials.

I'd wager many of use would love to play WWIIOL if it were done right. But I guess you have that core audience to stick with...so good luck with that. But if you're just after grognards and don't care about graphics, why not just use a map and counters?

Nothing to see here, folks. Just the onset of dementia...

Nothing to see here, move along.

If all they cared about was how the graphics compared to other games they view as similar, sure.  Those who care about more than that, though, will understand why the graphics are the way they are.  Could they be better?  Sure.  Will they ever be compareable to the latest 64-person FPS?  No, nor should they be, because on other metrics (like view distance) WWIIOL will have the edge.


It has nothing to do with acceptance.  It has to do with a matter of funds.  Give me $20 million and I'll give you a BF1942 MMOG, but it won't be the same game.  In the meantime one needs to accept WWIIOL for what it is, just like one accepts that UO ain't going to be the latest 3D MMORPG.


Because we understand those grognards better than you, apparrently.  (Hint: they don't just want a map and counters!)

Bruce

Hey, I finally got you to SirBruce me!

 :-D

That burning sensation you feel from the rear won't go away without penicillin.

Why the fuck does any game that only requires a 1.2ghz processor need 1gig of RAM? Are some coders having crazy issues with memory leaks that they think are intentional? Wouldn't surprise me. Oh, game is still damned ugly.

My guess is that certain assumptions were made when the Unity engine was designed.  Since then the size of the world and level of detail have increased considerably.  Since there are no zones, perhaps all the textures of pre-loaded into memory.  This is just a guess, though; I don't really know.  All I know is Unity II will address some problems with memory footprint, but that probably won't come out until next year with North Africa.

Bruce