WW2OL open beta and welcome back soldier Next week

[Comstar]

I'm willing to talk and see another thread about it again -- But only when it's buried, gone, and ready to be forgotten. But for now, the fact that it even came into being is enough discussion for me.

Oh come on, don't tell me you don't like reading these trainwreak threads we get about every single MMOG out there at some stage. You can't have the railroad company going bankrunpt without a traincrash or stupid managerment choice on the way. The stories we hear at the end, such as AC2, arn't as interesting, nay, as amusing, as the journey itself.

How IS Horizons going anyway? For that matter, EVE and Anarcay Online seems to have recovered thier inital launchs and crashes to gain a solid base of players.

Unlike AC2 or EQ, WW2OL is CRS's ONLY source of income, so I would say that it won't close until and if CRS goes bankrupt a 2nd time, which IF the release of Battlegroupd Europe is a success, won't happen for a while yet (as the money that comes in will allow them to get the US and Italions into the game, and following that, North Africa with a new terrian and physics system).

How much you want to bet you won't be seeing a thread about the "death" of WW2OL for a few more years yet? But I bet there WILL be disasters and farkups on the way.

The Journey is a more interesting read (and as an added bonus, you don't have to read these threads if you don't want to :) ).

[Big Gulp]

Unlike AC2 or EQ, WW2OL is CRS's ONLY source of income, so I would say that it won't close until and if CRS goes bankrupt a 2nd time, which IF the release of Battlegroupd Europe is a success, won't happen for a while yet (as the money that comes in will allow them to get the US and Italions into the game, and following that, North Africa with a new terrian and physics system).

I honestly am not being snide, here, but come on, Comstar.  We all know that the reason CRS's only source of income is WWIIOL is because no other publisher will touch them with a 10 ft. pole after the collossal fuckup that is WWIIOL.  Would you, as an investor operating coldly from the view of whether or not you'll see a return on your investment, ever put any more money into CRS?  If so, why?  I'd have to say that it's out of misguided love for your game and certainly not out of CRS showing any shred of competence, ability to execute in a timely manner, or even an understanding of what type of gameplay will be successful in the market.

And I see no earthly reason why the relaunch will be a success.  Any new customers you do manage to get will be almost instantly put off by the poor UI, shitty graphics, and lacking gameplay.  How many new players do you really think this thing will retain?  If you think it's over 200 or so I'd say you're delusional, and I'm being generous here.  At best the only people who'll be buying this game will be current players as an act of charity towards CRS, and the clueless customer who'll pick it up at WalMart and proceed to be royally pissed at the amateur hour level of competence displayed.

If this is how CRS chooses to operate, relaunching a game that while improved, still wouldn't be even put into beta by a reputable company, then more power to 'em.  Why you people continue to subsidize them is beyond me.

ETA:  Also, I see no reason why you'd view spreading out the conflict by adding new theaters to the game as a good thing.  Why spread out players in what is already a badly underpopulated game?  I just don't see that as a wise decision to make.  In theory it'd be possible to do if the game had been a success because you could then spread out your playerbase without harming gameplay.  Unfortunately, the game wasn't a success, and never will be.  That ship has sailed.  Adding a new theater now to a playing area that is already way, way, way too large to support the number of players online in any given night is even more evidence of fetal alcohol syndrome run amok at CRS, or it's evidence that CRS is telling you what you want to hear in order to keep you paying your subscription.  I think the latter is more likely.

[HaemishM]

mostly because you CAN see other people up to 4km away (so you're system has to be able to track and load stuff within 16 square kilometers).

So I got my email, got the "Your account is only good for another day" email before I'd even installed the fucking game, and got into it yesterday. I played about 2 hours. I'll explain why I quoted the above in a moment.

This game has just about as many subscribers as its ever going to have. And it isn't because the graphics really are ugly as dried-out monkey shit. And they are. Really, really bad. No, this game has topped out because not only is this game not for everybody, this game has as little appeal outside of a small, small series of sim grognards as free sex with a female supermodel does at a NAMBLA meeting. This game didn't almost die because it was a buggy POS, though it was. It almost died because it's only meant to appeal to people who can tell you the armor thickness on a 1940 Panzer tank.

It is excruciatingly realistic, in the sense that it sacrifices all sense of gameplay and fun to recreate some magical theory of reality.

I died 7 times in the two hours I played. Two of those seven deaths I actually caught a glimpse of what killed me. It was a real short glimpse and I still couldn't tell you if it was a tank, infantry or an AI gun that killed me. All but one of those deaths took place AFTER running, then walking then crouching to regain stamina before running again, for no less than 10-15 minutes. Once I actually was able to get on a truck that rode me relatively closely to the front. That was only a ten minute ride with the only helpful person I saw in the entire fucking game. He was someone who actually explained what we were supposed to do, which was screen a few mobile guns as they attacked the city we were charged with taking. That lasted about 1 minute before we were flank ambushed by what I assume was some form of machine gun or tank. Then I died again.

I quoted the above because it's important. Sure, I CAN see for miles and miles and miles. Which means I can and do DIE REPEATEDLY with the only clue as to what shot me being the tracer bullet that hits me and the 3 pixel block of gray that represents whatever the fuck just killed me. What fucking good is seeing that far if I can't even distinguish if what I'm firing at is friendly, enemy or the Gorgotron?

The whole time I did get the feeling of something big going on around me. Planes flying everywhere (in what I assume was more fun than what I was doing). Gun emplacements firing at stuff I couldn't see. Shitty sounds going off all around me, in a really bad, choppy approximation of 3D sound.

The interface, such as it is, is shit. Like an mature MMOG, the people in the game are complete assholes. They talk in some kind of abbreviated code that makes almost no sense to a newcomer, and most of them are about as helpful as syphilis, even when you speak on the "Help" channel. Having to "rank up," which I assume means actually killing something sometime just to be able to pick a vehicle, or a different weapon loadout other than single-shot bee-bee gun just adds a mini-treadmill onto the walking simulator that the infantry game is. Yes, I know there are supposedly mobile spawn points. I couldn't figure out if our side had any, or if they did, if I could spawn at them.

The game takes more patience than I should have to be equipped with. It's charging a monthly fee, which means it should bring the fun to me, or get me to the fun quickly. It's the equivalent of the travel times of early EQ followed by death so quick, I might as well be a level 1 naked warrior attacking Vox solo.

I cannot believe this is the state of the game after years of release and added development. In every instance where the design had a choice between realism and fun, it chose realism and locked fun in a corner. It deserves Bruce as a board member.

[Der Helm]

The whole time I did get the feeling of something big going on around me. Planes flying everywhere (in what I assume was more fun than what I was doing). Gun emplacements firing at stuff I couldn't see. Shitty sounds going off all around me, in a really bad, choppy approximation of 3D sound.

That was, what gave me the feeling that this game could be better. It seemed to be extremly realistic, and that goes a long way with me, but I was an infantry soldier for several years.
But as you wrote above, the execution sucks. Badly.

[Comstar]

We all know that the reason CRS's only source of income is WWIIOL is because no other publisher will touch them with a 10 ft. pole after the collossal fuckup that is WWIIOL.  Would you, as an investor operating coldly from the view of whether or not you'll see a return on your investment, ever put any more money into CRS?

Well TriSynergy is one, and the other one is the Euro Publisher (can't find name right now). Or are you now advacating that 2 publishers would release it for free? LoL. Also, this page lists players who HAVE "invested" in CRS for $180 (Bronze), $500 (Silver) or $1,000 (Gold) dollers. The first round of people who did that, apperntly payed for the Speedtee licence, which help make the trees look a lot better (far better I would say, than a lot of other 4 year old MMOGs, but YMWV).

If so, why?  I'd have to say that it's out of misguided love for your game and certainly not out of CRS showing any shred of competence, ability to execute in a timely manner, or even an understanding of what type of gameplay will be successful in the market.

As far as I know, most game makers are in it for the "making of the game", not the money, CRS is yet another representation of that (it's DEFINATLY not for the money I think you'd agree). They ended up building it because no one ELSE was building it so they could play the game themselves. However, you may be right. Do you think the devs of WoW or EQ2 made the game so they could play it?

I left Warbirds because CRS made a game I wanted to play for a very long time. And currently the only game you'll play like it for a very long time to come. UO lasted past it's first year because there WAS no game like it. if another game came up with a realistic battlefield, that was better, I'd probably take it (though I'd hate to give up the socity of people I know from it).

As for "what type of gameplay will be *successful* in the market", the answer is obvious: a better World of Warcraft. Not a better WW2OL.

How many new players do you really think this thing will retain?  If you think it's over 200 or so I'd say you're delusional, and I'm being generous here.

Wanna make a bet? Though I'm not how it'd be payed off. For that matter, you'd probably have to trust Sirbruces chart, and I don't think you'd agree to those tems. Anyways if CRS annouces any numbers, I'll post them here if you want.

[Tige]

As far as I know, most game makers are in it for the "making of the game", not the money, CRS is yet another representation of that (it's DEFINATLY not for the money I think you'd agree). They ended up building it because no one ELSE was building it so they could play the game themselves.

If they were making the game to play themselves it wouldn't have been so shitty to begin with. 

CRS raced after something after the breakup of the Warbirds crew thx to wild bill the idiot.  Some formed CRS, the others went with HiTech and built AH. In the end you wound up with 3 games WB, AH and WW2OL spliliting a relatively small audience over 3 games.  Two of those three work, the other is having yet  another super-duper grand re-opening.

CRS squandered a perfect business opportunity plain and simple. All the talk of realistic plane, tank, inf models fell on its face when infantry had no place to take cover or concealment.  One tank machine guns could literally wipe out entire armies who had no place to run, no place to hide.  In a Stuka I could dump flaps turn inside anything and shoot it down w/o unloading my bomb.  WW2OL was set to hit the market prior to the onslaught of ww2 games and was in a perfect position however they dropped the ball.