Update- well, it's looking like, for my gaming anyway, I'll be heading back to World of Warcraft.
At first, WW2 Online is really intriguing, and obviously it has some great potential.
But that learning curve I mentioned? It starts to get tedious. And the game itself has a few flaws that become more and more frustrating when combined with said learning curve.
* "What the hell is going on?"- finding some really good action does not seem to get easier. You'll get lucky now and again- as in the defence of Eindhoven I mentioned. But more often, you spawn in at a mission, spend as much as half an hour searching out the enemy, and wind up finding nothing, no enemy at the location where they supposedly were, and nothing going on. I hooked up with one of the better, more helpful squads- and still, more often than not I'm left trying to figure out where to go/what to do.
*ranks- most every persistent online world game has some for of advancement- as in the more you accomplish in the game, the more options open up to you. WW2 Online does have this- but in a frustrating manner. It took a decent amount of time to gain the first rank- and then I did some more reading and found out you basically don't get any more weapon/vehicle options until you get to the *third* rank. Very frustrating. In Warcraft, the other MMO I play, you get new "things" at every level, and a good number of them.
*physics flaws. Easy to overlook in the first few days of playing when you're still awed by the potential and breadth of the game- but when this wears off, it starts to get more and more frustrating when you can't hit the guy standing right in front of you! I played Battlefield 1942 for about two years, so I'm pretty good (despite being an old-ish fart by gaming standards) at first-person shooter style games- yet I still cannot fathom the physics of this game.
So- my initial reviews were colored by the potential of this game and how impressive it is from a WW2 buff's point of view- but when you get over that and really get into the actual mechanics of the game and the gameplay itself, well...
My Palladin and Hunter in World of Warcraft may have nothing to do with WW2, but they're quite simply more fun to play.
Guess I'll keep the reading and books to WW2 stuff, keep the gaming to... games that are more fun.
Who knows, maybe we'll get a third review of WW2 online if I revisit it, but... bleh.
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