Massively Multiplayer WWII FPS/SIM!

Battleground Europe (AKA WWIIOL)

When it comes to realism in a world war two game, nothing else can compare.

It's been around for a while, but not well known. I freaking love it. There's way too much to the game for me to explain here, so i'll give you the gist of it:

They call it a combined arms sim - you have air force, navy, and army all working together to achieve the goal of winning the map. This means as you gain rank, you can use things like patrol boats, destroyers, fighters, bombers, tanks, anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft guns, trucks, and of course infantry.

The "map" takes place in central europe during the blitzkrieg (actual start date is may 1940 i believe), and consists of literally hundreds of towns, each with anywhere from three to thirty capture points. Once one side captures a certain number of towns and moves the frontline a certain distance, they win. The map is half-scale, so you could fly from one side to the other if you wanted, but it would literally take you hours!

This means maps last a long time - the current one is still going strong and started three months ago - in november!


The game uses very realistic ballistics and damage models - every tank and plane has historical armor thicknesses, ballistics, and internal components. What this means is if you can manage to penetrate a tiger's turret and hit one of it's ammo boxes, it'll likely blow up. If you hit it's fuel tank, it'll likely flame. If you hit it's gun, you'll likely disable it. If you hit it's tracks, they'll be destroyed.

Likewise, if you can lay enough rounds into a planes wing or tail or ammo box or fuel tank, you'll shoot a wing off, set it on fire, etc.



What this means is there's a tough learning curve. You can't shoot a tiger with a rifle and expect it's "damage bar" to hit zero and then kill it. There are no damage bars. You have to learn what guns work against what tanks and where to shoot them to get a kill. You have to learn basic fighter maneuvers to keep from gettin shot out of the sky. You have to learn to lead an enemy infantry running five hundred meters away with your rifle in order to kill him.

There's a TON more to the game: naval bases, paratrooping, high command, brigades, attack objectives, research and development (your high command has to research the tiger before you can see one on the battlefield), factory bombing, it goes on.

It's tough at first, no doubt. But once you get a hang of the game, you'll never go back to crap like call of duty or medal of honor

Best game i've ever played. and remember TBoMBeR told you

 

couple more screenshots - the graphics aren't the best but then again it's a MMO with unreal visual distances (up to 10km).

 

I think its like WoW where you have to pay a monthly fee to play the game.

I've checked it out (the main website is great - has a newspaper that tells you what is going on) and the gamelooks pretty awesome. My main problem is you have to pay-to-play. Maybe once i get a job (graduate in may) i might get it.

EDIT

I signed up for 14 Day Free Trial (remind me to cancel account in 2 weeks) since i figure i might as well give it a shot. Got some free time on my hands today.

 

yes - there is a monthly fee (IMHO well worth it)

but as you've discovered - also a nice two week free trial to get an idea of what the game is all about.

 

It sounds amazing! Do you know how many players the game currently has? If not for the $15 a month fee, I would be playing this now.

 

the makers of the game (called the RATS) don't disclose that information, but a good estimate would be in the ten thousand range.

their forums (http://discussions.playnet.com/index.php?) has about 150,000 members, but you're probably looking at closer to one tenth (or less than) that number of actual paying subscribers.

the game is played all over the world, so don't expect everyone to be on at the same time, but on a good friday or saturday night (US primetime) you're sure to find some epic battles accross several towns, that will easily last for hours.

our most recent campaign just ended on sunday (axis victory)... it was the longest ever at 102 days (thats the equivalent of one "map" on call-of-duty)... Just to give you an idea of the scale of things in this game.



oh: and one other thing: this game has more 5+ year members than any other. How many people you think will be playing planetside in two years? Games like that and WoW have to constantly make new "expansion packs" to keep people interested. I personally have been playing the same WWIIOL since April of '03 and I still remember the first kill I ever got.

What keeps these people coming back? Give it a good month of playing (1st month free when you subscribe IIRC), and you'll see.

 

I just cancelled my subscription (on firday) (14 day free triial). How do i get a month free? My B'day is in March, so i am expecting a few $$ to come my way. I killed 13 Brits as a Sapper on one life I'm 300 pts shy of becoming a Para...but another month free will give me enough time to get soem money. What are they doing while the campaign is over? I heard there was a battle of britain during a previous inter-mission.

 

I looked into this and saw that you only fight as British or German. Not to mention the website is huge and confusing with so many links to different things. It's best if I took a large cup of coffee and a day off to read it all.

I'm not saying it's bad to fight as a British soldier, but being American, you know how that goes.

I think I'll download the trial, and if I find no interest then I won't play. But everything aside, I must say it's simply the most amazing WWII Rpg/Shooter yet.

 

I dont think its a confusing site. You play as the Germans or as the British or French. It takes place during the Blitzkreig of France, so no Americans. Play as Navy, AF, or Army. Lots of fun if you ask me!

 

yes you play as british or french... HOWEVER

due to lend-lease, you'll find a TON of american equipment later in the war (when the high command researches it).
Infantry (british):
Thomson SMG

Planes (french):
Lockheed P-38
Bell P-39 (Airacobra)
P-40 (Hawk 81)
P-36 (Hawk 75)
Douglas DB-7 bomber

Planes (british)
Douglas Havoc bomber
Douglas C-47 transport plane

Tanks (french):
Stuart M3A3
Sherman M4A2
Sherman M4A3(?) 76mm
Wolverine M10

Anti-tank Guns (french):
M1A3 57mm
M5 3 inch (76mm)

so as you see, although you're technically not playing as the US army, with all the american equipment ingame by the time you hit higher tiers, you had might as well be.


i'm american too, but my favorite weapon is the french LMG: the Chatellerault. It's hugely based on the BAR, and i'm damn good with it. Point is, i have tons of fun even though i'm playing as an army that got stomped pretty quickly in the real war.


and to answer your question mussolini, i think you have to subscribe to get your first free month. So once the month is up, you just need to unsubscribe. It's possible that as a senior member I can actually give you an extra free month (through this gift-giving promotion the RATS gave out), but it may require you to create a new account. I'll look into it and get back to you.

 

Well... I tried it.. and all I have to say is I'll stick to COD3 where I'm a respected rifleman/sniper.

 

Yeah - the allied tanks are Shermans and M-10's and the like. Very realistic game but its not CoD. Its not meant to play like one either. Hell, to drive a tank you need to shift gears to pick up speed. To fly a plane, you've got to turn the engine on, hold both breaks, then full throttle and steer in a straight line, pulling up on the joystick at the right time. Do it too soon and you'll flip and crash.

I think its a great game.


Yeah - find out for me. At the end of the free trial if i wanted to continue, i would be charged a one time fee of 24$ (some free trial, huh) and then be charged the monthly bill the following month.

 

hmm well i had no idea there was a one time fee (i suppose it's toward the "CD key" they give you).

unfortunately I checked and the promotion has ended (it was an xmas gift thing), so i can't give you any codes for a free trial - sorry



terror, like i said it's tough to start out, but if you give it time you'll find that games like CoD just dont compare (ive got cod2 and i get bored after maybe an hour... i could easily play ww2ol twelve hours straight... in fact i probably have LOL). The top riflemen/snipers in this game are well known because players can appreciate how difficult it is to make it on that list. After all, ballistics are real so you have to lead your targets, and the map is huge, so some players can manage kills five hundred to a thousand yards away. You'll never see that in any other game, not even close. I've had my share of 1000m kills (they're hard as hell), and at that distance the enemy infantry is literally one pixel high.

What i'm getting at is you don't know what sniping is until you've done it in this game. period

i'll try to dig up a screenshot of a long distance kill to show you what i mean...

these are both kills from about eight hundred meters away (which is and was entirely possible, but incredibly difficult):





THATS sniping, and you'll never see that in any call of duty game.

 

Yeah I also play this game. Basically WWIIOL is several simulators all in one. Right now I am focusing on the air war. I will give you a few screenies. Just to give you guys a heads up, due to the fact the computer monitor can never give you the resolution a human eyeball can, the air war is the only aspect of the game where they give you tags over the enemy plane, and within certain ranges the tag will go blue or red, telling you what type of enemy plane you are fighting though not what verson. From a distance all you will see are grey circles.

There is a tank simulator as well. Real life armor values, penetration values and the works. This is not RO armor, this is realilistic armor combat, with ammunition storage, fuel blowing up, gunsights and all.

 

I started playing the ground game from the beginning, and while it is quite fun, I am now flying in the air most of the time. However that does not mean I do not play ground, and some of the ground battle are utter bloodbaths.

 

Ultimately the game is extreamly fun. As soon as you get your first kill you are hooked. I still remember my first kill back in April 2005. I was a British Tommy Armed with a Lee Enfeild. A German Soldier runs around a corner and me from the second floor of a depot put a round through his chest. He falls over dead. I was hooked.

 

I was playing last night too. No screenies (Not sure how to take them or where they get saved) but had a good deal of fun. I'm part of KVD (Knights) and teamed up with a buddy in the Air-Force. We were flying a German Heavy Fighter - he as the pilot and i as the Tail Gunner - and had some fun. To use the tail gun of this particular plane, i had to open up the canopy at which point i could deploy the gun. A very cool touch if you ask me. We didnt do too well in combat though- first time around a Spit i think came up behind us but below my angle of range and killed me. The next time around, we lost one engine (twin engine plane) which made us really slow = easy pickings. Still, lots of fun! I'm almost a paratrooper!

 

Wow...looks good (sounds even better)

I'm an avid player of BF2 and BF '42.

I do not like the arcade style these game have, Seeing this game...I really like the strategy part of it..and the realsism

 

FIST OFF JOIN A SQUAD IF YOU SUSCRIBE. You will die... ALOT... you will be running and then black screen... you are dead and you did not even hear the gunshot. You will die a lot at first, and it will be frustrating. You will be armed with a rifle, and you will not be able to use anything else until you get some rank. Quite frankly join a squad and they will help you learn the ropes. This game has an extreamly high learning curve, but one you learn it is easily the funnest game out there. Graphics may be weak, but gameplay makes up for it.

Well I am gonna say one other thing, though many people do play this game, the world is not always very populated. Games like BF2 and other shoebox games have a large teen population that can dedicated lots of time. WWIIOL is actually a game with many more older players, I think I heard the average age was like 30. That makes me quite young at 18, and I have been playing for two years. Anyways a lot of guys have families and other things to deal with, so at some points the map can be low pop.

The point is if you log on and don't see a lot happening, its not that we lied to you or something, just some days you will log on and not find much is happening. As a rule of thumb, fridays, weekends and holidays are usually quite fun days, the week days vary from some huge battle to really small skirmishes for control of a field base.

Basically what I am saying is give it more then just a day. What day you happen to play can determine if you have fun or not.

 

One other thing. The UI can be quite confusing so here is a nice little flash tutorial:

If you have questions go to this page:

http://forums.battlegroundeurope.com/forumdisplay.php?f=35

You do not need a account to post questions in this forum.