World War II Online
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| World War II Online | |
|---|---|
  |
|
| Developer(s) | Cornered Rat Software and Playnet Inc. |
| Publisher(s) | Trisynergy GMX Media Strategy First |
| Engine | proprietary (Unity 3D) |
| Latest version | 1.24.2 |
| Release date(s) | New releases: 2005-2006 Original version: June 2001 |
| Genre(s) | MMOG Simulation FPS |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Mature |
| Platform(s) | Windows, Mac OS X |
| System requirements | See the Battleground Europe FAQ for current specifications. |
World War II Online, commonly referred to as WWIIOL or WW2OL, is a massively multiplayer online first-person shooter computer game (MMOFPS) set in 1940-42 World War II Europe. It is a combined arms war simulation otherwise known as a virtual battlefield. A player can command or crew a variety of accurately modeled aircraft, armored fighting vehicles, anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft artillery, and naval vessels, or fight as a foot-soldier with a variety of infantry weapons. The game is played in real time along-side or against other players as German, British (UK) and French forces in a 24/7 persistent world. Command structures and missions provide strategic and tactical layers while ranks provide a RPG layer by demonstrating leadership roles. WWIIOL online uses of a ½ scale map of Western Europe with 30,000 km² of accurate terrain (800 m resolution satellite data). It is commonly recognized as the first MMOFPS.
WWIIOL was re-packaged and re-released in 2006 under the new name of World War II Online: Battleground Europe, and the name Battleground Europe is sometimes used to refer to the game.
Contents |
[edit] Gameplay
There are two sides: Axis vs. Allied. The Axis consists of the German forces and the Allies are the combined British (UK) and French forces. Other forces, such as those from the rest of Europe, the rest of the British Commonwealth, the United States, Australia, Russia, China or Japan have not been introduced into the campaign yet. Players can play which ever side they want and may even switch sides after waiting a mandatory period of a few hours that begins when they resign from their current enlistment.
Play occurs on a 1/2 scale map of Western Europe. It is one of the largest MMOG maps, at over 350,000 km², with most play occurring in a 30,000² central area in which capturable cities, airfields and ports have been placed.
The general organization of the forces is historical. The exception is that the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (Nazi Party), the Schutzstaffel (SS), the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) and the swastika are not part of the game and any innuendo concerning these elements is against the terms of service for obvious reasons.
WWIIOL is team-oriented. Players are various troops, pilots, gunners, tank commanders, naval destroyer captains, mission leaders, high commanders and are organized into brigades. Everyone plays in the brigade of their choice. Smaller military units of heavily-themed squads are independently managed by players and can use their own tactics but must the follow the brigade and strategic rules set by the high command players and cooperate with other squads and non-squad players. Being a squad member is optional but encouraged. Some squads have vigorous membership rites. Anyone can, however, form their own squad, solicit members and register the squad with the high command for brigade assignment.
Each player holds a title of rank, based on the military ranks of the time. Ranks are gained through a performance-based scoring system. Rank is never lost as a result of an unsuccessful mission or death.
Detailed statistics are tracked by the server, and made available through a web interface, known as 'Combat Statistics and Records', or CSR. Statistics are very detailed, recording a history of every mission the player has attempted over the campaign. Summary statistics are available to compare player performance to those of other players. Statistics include elements such as number of kills, damages, deaths, time spent on each mission, and depot captures. The top 100 players for several categories are updated regularly.
In WWIIOL, it takes skill, teamwork, tactics, strategy, planning, patience and perseverance to win or lose battles, make progress and individually rank upward.
Communication between players is supported by a variety of communication channels for messages exchanged between players. Channels are automatically created for players in the nearby region, on the same mission, and players in the same squad (a voluntary group similar to a clan in other online games). Channels can also be manually created. Additionally, it is common for players to communicate via TeamSpeak, since cooperation with other players can be critical for success.
[edit] Playable equipment
A strength of WWIIOL is its variety of playable equipment, and the historical accuracy of the equipment weaponry. Like many other RPGs, the more experience the player has, the more equipment that becomes available to him or her. New recruits can only use the least potent vehicles (such as the A13 Cruiser tank and the Bf-110 heavy fighter). As the player progresses in rank, better vehicles and more infantry classes can be used.
The following tables list the playable armor, anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft artillery, and aircraft for each faction:
In addition to the vehicles above, there are several options for infantry gameplay. Players choose equipment from several predefined loadouts (Rifleman, submachine gunner, light machine gunner, engineer, anti-tank rifleman, and sniper). Each loadout selects equipment from the following list:
[edit] Damage model
The damage model in WWIIOL is more complex than surface appearance indicates. Several critical components within each vehicle are modeled, and often interact. For example, if a radiator is punctured, it may boil off its coolant, causing the engine block (an independent critical component) to seize. Damaged components also provide feedback into the flight or ground simulation model; for aircraft, damage to flight surfaces will result in increased drag and reduced performance of the vehicle. Armor is placed in all vehicles to protect these components, with historically accurate detail on armor angle and thickness.
The ballistic model is also detailed, taking into account drag coefficient properties and mass of each individual type of ammunition. For instance, a High Explosive (HE) rounds typically travel a shorter distance than Armour Piercing (AP) shells, when fired from the same cannon, due to higher drag coefficient and lower mass.
The game engine considers the physical details of all rounds at point of impact, calculating the angle of impact and energy of the round, and thickness of the target vehicle's armor. Rounds which manage to penetrate may go on to cause damage to components or crew members, depending on the point of penetration, in relation to them. Rounds that do not penetrate may cause spall (molten metal spray) within the vehicle, if close enough to penetration.
Because rounds may fail to penetrate or damage critical components, the complexity of the damage model can lead to incorrect beliefs about opposing vehicle's invulnerability, particularly amongst new players.
[edit] Strategic Layer (High Command)
Both sides in Battleground Europe have player-run groups, known as the High Command (HC), responsible for strategic management of the side's forces. High Command players have their own avatar and their playername has a 'C' after it, making their responsibilities easily recognizable to friendly players. An in-game list of all currently logged in HC players is available.
HC players have abilities that are not available to the rest of the playerbase, namely in the placing of Attack Objectives (AOs) and management of Research, Development and Production (RDP).
When an AO is placed on a town, the other side gets an automatic Defence Objective (DO) on that town allowing all players to know that it is under attack. When an AO is first placed on a town, tables appear in the town's Depot Office building, City Office building, and Rail Road Office buildings. These capturable buildings are collectively known as Capture Points (CPs).
After 10 minutes from the placement of an AO, a radio will appear on each table signifying that it is now able to be captured ("capped"), by the attacking side. Doing so gives the attacking side control of the corresponding building linked to the Office. If the Office links to a Depot that has a link to a friendly town, the Depot is referred to as "Spawnable" and players may spawn from new missions there, making them an important objective.
When an Office is captured, a table will appear in all the town's Army Bunkers, Airfield Bunkers and Docks. If the attacking side is able to hold ownership of any Office building for 10 minutes, radios will appear in these buildings allowing them to be re-captured. Once all the town's Office buildings, Army Bunkers, Airfield Bunkers and Docks are captured, the AO and DO are lifted and the town changes ownership to the attacking side.
AOs can also be placed on bridges. An AO on a bridge enables that side to destroy it, while a DO allows it to be repaired.
High Command players are able to move their side's "brigades." Each brigade can be moved once every 15 minutes. A friendly brigade in a town allows players to spawn in that town to either defend or attack.
Each army division has a Head Quarters (HQ) and at least 2 brigades (the British get 1 division with 3 brigades, as do the French, while the Germans get 2 divisions with 3 brigades) and the game's movement rules only allow the brigades to be moved to a friendly town that is no more than 1 town away from another brigade or the HQ in its own Division. The rule though does not apply in the case that the brigade is the only one left in its division and if this occurs it is free to move to any surrounding town. This occurs through the routing of brigades. Routing removes brigades from the game map for 6 hours and can happen in a few ways. If a town with a HQ has its Army Base (AB) captured then the HQ is routed. Normal brigades in a division will normally "fallback" if the AB is captured, but only if the game's movement rules allow it, that is, move to within 1 link of a brigade or HQ in its own division. If none of the surrounding friendly towns are within 1 link of a brigade within its own division when the AB is captured, then the brigade will be routed off the game map for 6 hours.
High Command players that are Commanding Officers (CO) of a Brigade or higher can give out side wide messages known as dot Axis or dot Allied messages. They are named thus as the command to type one out is, ".axis" or ".allied". These messages are seen by all players on a side and are used for a number of purposes. The usual purpose of the message is to inform players of important battles. The message will tell players what town is being attacked or defended, what brigade or brigades are involved, who the Officer in Command (OIC) of the attack or defence is and what chat and possibly Team Speak channels are being used. Most high command players liven their messages up beyond just the generic and quite humourous messages can often be seen. These messages can also be used to boost the "morale" of the troops by telling them how well they have been fighting and to announce future Operations that are being planned.
[edit] Requirements
In addition to other necessary computer system components, such as a mouse, internet connection, this game requires a powerful CPU (PC or Macintosh), an abundance of fast RAM, a fast graphics display interface with pixel shader version 2.0 or better, and any recently manufactured high RPM ATA-100 or SATA hard drive. Joysticks are optional, but frequently used for convenience, and are especially recommended for players choosing to fly airplanes.
See the Battleground Europe FAQ for current specifications. There are minimum system requirements listed, but players with systems of this spec may find it difficult to compete. As WWIIOL is an FPS, better performing systems will result in more responsive gameplay, improving their ability to react quickly to enemy players. In addition, because the game is constantly evolving to support newer graphical features and a more detailed environment, a system which performs well now need to be upgraded in the future to maintain the same level of performance.
Unlike the traditional MMORPG, Battleground Europe is simulation based PvP. This means that calculations regarding ordnance and weapon performance, collision, movement across the terrain, etc need to be calculated on your system. WWIIOL also models a 6000 meter visual range, compared to a more standard 500 meter range typical in other games, significantly increasing the number of items that may need to be rendered.
These issues make the game unusually demanding in terms of systems specifications, and it is not unusual for players to discover their system settings aren't quite as stable as they are used to in other games.
On average, mainstream off-the-shelf computers with in-game visual quality and performance settings adjusted to modest levels, require system tweaking. It's necessary in order to reduce calculation performance lag, frame rate stuttering, and even occasional system crashes. The vast majority of these problems are related to individual systems and it can be a complicated task to iron-out individual issues with individual players' computer systems.
Getting the game to run efficiently on a system that likely runs many recent mainstream game titles can be bafflingly difficult. By comparison games such as Battlefield 2 and World of Warcraft are computationally light, as most of their complexity is graphical. WWIIOL tends to be very computationally heavy. As a result, performance is an ongoing concern.
The game's engine is not considered mainstream. Graphics quality is traded off for visual range at which vehicles and buildings are accurately perceived (to facilitate long range combat e.g. anti-aircraft guns firing at planes); detailed damage models are used rather than simple hit boxes, which requires a trade off between the cost of calculating physics on complex models vs high poly counts for aesthetic needs.
The connectivity bandwidth requirement, minimal for this game, isn't usually an issue unless there is a real problem with an internet service provider. CRS is generally committed in the near-term to maintaining playability for 56K modem users. Broadband connections, while desirable, are not available everywhere and are not necessary for online play.
[edit] Technical support
Technical support for player problems is provided mostly by other players in the discussion forums found at the WWIIOL website. Support directly from the developer is scant to non existent, though rarely needed. The players who help players, known as the Player Support Corps, have managed to master, in most cases, the technical complexity of identifying individual system performance problems, finding and then offering solutions. The Player Support Corps stays in contact with the development team in resolving these issues in future game patches. Subscription billing and account problems are directly handled by Playnet, Inc.
[edit] Developers
WWIIOL is continuously developed by Cornered Rat Software (CRS) located in Bedford, Texas, USA. The development team, who are affectionately known as The Rats, includes members with experience developing World War II flight simulations such as WarBirds, Aces High and Air Warrior. CRS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Playnet Inc. which administers subscriptions, billing, accounting, the world-wide networks and game servers.
Cornered Rat Software was founded by a core group of former WarBirds staff, for the purpose of developing WWIIOL. The founders also saw potential to sell excess capacity, over what they would require to run WWIIOL, such as facilities management, co-location, networking infrastructure, and accounting. A parent company, Playnet, was created to manage those assets. When the launch of WWIIOL met financial difficulty, the company effectively dropped the Playnet concept and now the only real distinction between Playnet and Cornered Rat Software is on paper.
Although the presence and involvement of some of the original developers, such as Zee Tongue (Joel W. Solloway), have been sorely missed over the years; many developers, such as Killer (John MacQueen), Gophur (Dana Baldwin), Doc (Geoff Evans), Kfsone (Oliver Smith) and Rafter (Al Corey) are still highly active within the game community and players often find themselves in a situation of communicating directly with developers.
Because of the scope of the game, the team comprises a wide and disparate range of specialization including artists, animators, 3d modellers, flight modellers, simulation engineers, game designers, testers and several programmers. With so many of the admittedly small team being specialized, the development track has often puzzled players not familiar with the nuances of software development. But they have continued to fix, improve, enhance and evolve the game continually since its initial release in 2001 while steadily, if slowly, growing the player base.
[edit] Criticisms
The focus of WWIIOL design is on realism, teamwork, and to a degree, historical accuracy. These alone place the game into a niche market in the game industry. While some players crave this design, and join the highly loyal playerbase, the effects of these design decisions often scare other players away and become the major criticisms of the game.
[edit] Steep learning curve
World War II Online is a game with a steep learning curve. This is due to several forms of complexity. First, there is a large offering of vehicles - each with a somewhat different interface to control. Most vehicles are extremely hard to drive without a joystick, with some being next to impossible without one. Players coming in from non-simulation game genres may have to try several times before they can even get an aircraft off the ground. There are no "outside views" to tanks, and tank drivers must look out of little slits or periscopes in order to see the surrounding terrain. Getting a better view often involves "unbuttoning" which exposes the crew to enemy fire. Second, the tactics for effectively using any given vehicle are various and complex. Players have to learn to listen to engine noises to track other players, conceal themselves, shoot effectively, and work together with other players to be effective. Many players go as far as memorizing the different sounds that enemy fire arms make, in order to distinguish them from friendlies. There are always new tactics and strategies to learn even for 5 year veterans.
[edit] Realistic vulnerability
Because of its emphasis on realism, death comes quick and hard. A single, well placed shot, can end a player's sortie immediately. This causes a large amount of frustration to new players, who lack the skills to compete effectively. Even more frustratingly, it is often difficult to learn from mistakes - when you die, you're quite likely to hear a shot, and see your screen go blank - having no idea who shot you. To help compensate, there is a very active group of players who are willing to help train and encourage new players - but these resources are often overlooked or ignored.
[edit] Slower-paced, strategic gameplay
Some players find the game to be slower paced than they desire. In early versions of the game, it was common for players to spend 30 minutes or more before finding enemy players to engage. They would often have to wait for a truck, and then drive for miles to the action. This level of realism appealed to the gamer craving authenticity, but left the casual gamer feeling disenchanted. Recent efforts by developers have focused on bringing more immediate action to the field, through the introduction of a feature called "mobile spawn points". Similarly, changes have been made to add more structure to the game by limiting battle to certain arenas designated by players enrolled in the "High Command". This ensures inexperienced players aren't simply wandering around an unoccupied and inactive area.
Interestingly, these improvements, which are lauded by players craving faster action, are unpopular amongst some players who instead favored the previous design.
[edit] Graphics engine
To those who have not played the game, the graphics engine seems very outdated, and it is often cited as a main reason to not play WWIIOL. The official explanation behind these dated graphics as stated by "the Rats" is simple. The engine renders a detailed environment for many kilometers in every direction, including trees, towns, as well as character and vehicle models. Because this high view distance is a more realistic model of real WWII battles, the graphics must be simple in order to maintain a playable frame-rate. Some players point out that this only partly explains the dated graphics. For instance, a professional graphics programmer known by the callsign "Jeager55," analyzed the game and discovered a number of additional inefficiencies, revealing his discoveries in a post on the WWIIOL forums. Jeager55 is now retained by CRS as an employee, and his coming performance enhancements are highly anticipated.
[edit] Screenshots
[edit] History
[edit] Initial release
After a lengthy closed beta stage, WWIIOL went live on June 6, 2001 under the campaign title Blitzkrieg. The release was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the D-Day: Operation Overlord invasion of Normandy.
Like most online games, WWIIOL is a continual work in progress, and so has a rich history of updates that are frequently released to add new features, fix problems and improve existing features. Updates, or patches to the game code, are released on an average of about every 6 weeks and have proven to be a strong feature of the game. These patches generally include a wide range of features and problem fixes to the extremely complex application code. Everything from new weapons and vehicles to audits of the performances of existing weapons and vehicles are part of the patching process as well as terrain, structure, game play and performance improvements.
The first sortie for WWIIOL was a controversial and admittedly disastrous beginning for the game, largely because it was rushed out to stores while still in a beta state. Opinions are split on whether this was due to financial problems at Strategy First (the original publisher) or because of overly optimistic reports from Cornered Rat Software (CRS - the developer) on the state of the code. CRS' public position is the former due to Strategy First's haste to get it on store shelves. Beta testers under non disclosure agreements repeatedly warned CRS that the game was not ready for release.
The initial launch had a number of technical difficulties, similar to the launch of other online games, such as Anarchy Online. The game required a 60 MB update to be downloaded before they could play online. At the time, the majority of users had 56k modems, requiring around 3 hours to update the game. As the developers worked feverishly behind the scenes to complete other promised features and fix the software bugs on the gold CD, even more updates became necessary.
Additionally, three days prior to release, the colocation network facility used by CRS went into bankruptcy and the new facility, managed by Playnet Inc., had a bad fiber optic cable. This failure reduced the player capacity of the server cluster, from 10,000 players down to only 1200 players . With the support of two Cisco engineers, the problem was fixed after several days. Playnet's temporary solution was to set up multiple copies of the game-world on different servers, spreading the load out across the servers, but at some cost in game play. This solution lasted for several months while the developers resolved the server-side issues, enabling them to merge all of the servers into a single game-world.
Many of the features advertised on the game box were crudely implemented, or left out entirely, such as rank and high-command strategic features.
The combination of the above problems resulted in many game returns, complaints from customers, and a drop-off in sales as word spread of the game's state. Subscription fees for the first several months were waived, until the major problems with the game were resolved. This helped to retain many of the players, especially the long-term fans of the project, but it was not long before Playnet had financial problems. They filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in late 2001, and cut costs, resulting in a number of lay-offs within the company.
[edit] Accolades
World War II Online has received numerous industry press awards including GameSpy's 2001 Gamers' Choice Sim of the Year and IGN's 2001 Persistent World Game of the Year.
[edit] 2002-2006
Despite the problems in the early release, the CRS development team continued to support and improve the game, through frequent patch releases, upgraded servers and periodic investment in improved network infrastructure.
A number of patches have been issued, introducing significant gameplay improvements, including:
- Introduction of ranks
- Introduction of combat statistics (accessible through a web interface)
- Introduction of new vehicles and weapons
- Introduction of paratroopers
- Introduction of naval combat
- Introduction of the "high command"; functionality for high-ranking players with a strategic focus
- Introduction of brigades that regulate force movement (directed by high command)
- Additional in-game support of squads
- Expansion of the in-game map
- Improvements to the graphics engine (higher-polygon object models, improved shading, fog, performance improvements, SpeedTree(tm) technology)
- Improved cover and concealment
- Replacement of impassable "hard forests" with navigable forests
- Multiple user interface revisions
- Server tracked objects (allows for persistent player placed objects such as hulks)
- Variable weather states
[edit] Re-release
WWIIOL recently completed a third retail release under the new campaign title Battleground Europe. This new title was chosen because of legal considerations with the old title of Blitzkrieg, whose trademark was owned by another game. The Battleground Europe re-release was distributed across Europe in late 2005 and in the US in early 2006 by the game's new publishers GMX Media (Europe) and Matrix Games (USA).
World War II Online: Battleground Europe was largely a compilation of fixes already available through patches to the original game. However, compared to the initial 2001 release, the game was drastically different due to these changes.
The launch of Battleground Europe included an extensive open beta, and was based largely on a proven product. As such, it was met with considerably more favorable reviews in the media.
[edit] Future releases
Like many MMORPGs, Battleground Europe is a continual work-in-progress. As with other MMOGs, some players are inclined to see this as a pay-for-beta, while others see it as a commitment to the evolution of the game. The game continually expands in terms of gameplay, equipment, cities, etc, often introducing radical changes to gameplay.
As with other frequently patched online games, players are sometimes puzzled by, and in disagreement over the development priorities of the team. The game's producer, Geoff "Doc" Evans, is very active in the forums, listening to player feedback on designs and game flaws, helping to avoid disastrous design decisions, such as the missteps seen in the game Star Wars Galaxies and its New Game Enhancements patch.
Patches occassionaly introduce new bugs and other gameplay regressions. When unintended by the developers, the developers work quickly to resolve the problems. Players are generally invited to test new patches on an open test server, before their general release, to find the problems early.
Speculation is widespread about future introduction of new features. Among those new features speculated are:
- New playable armies ( such as U.S. Army, Canadian Army, Imperial Japanese Army, etc.)
- New theatres of combat (African, Italian or Pacific theatres)
- New vehicles (late war tanks, including the Panther, Cromwell, and Mk VC Sherman Firefly)
- New infantry equipment (panzerfausts, mortars, or land mines)
- Continued graphical and performance improvements.
- TOEs(Tables of Equipment), a long awaited feature, has been recently announced for the upcoming 1.25 patch.
Introduction of new features will be largely dependent on the continued financial success of the game, in particular the success of the recent Battleground Europe re-release. Devoted players have taken the initiative to organize their own private funding for the game, and private contributions are recognized by the developers through a program known as the "Builders program".
[edit] External links
- Battleground Europe WWII Online Homepage
- World War II Online Community page
- WWII Online Documentation Project Wiki WWIIOnline encyclopedia
- Axis High Command Axis strategic coordination site
- Allied High Command Allied strategic coordination site
- Battleground Europe Wiki
- Player Discussion Forums Q&A forum open to non-subscribers
Categories: Articles lacking sources from October 2006 | All articles lacking sources | 2001 computer and video games | Mac OS games | Windows games | Massively multiplayer online games | World War II computer and video games | First-person shooters | Flight simulation computer and video games | Tank simulation computer and video games | Naval computer and video games
