World War 2 online

This game is really amazing, the graphics are dated but it is the most realistic game out their. I expect many people here should like that-- WW2 Online

 

great site
thanks for link

 

Interesting looking game, do you play it? Any good?

 

How does this game compare to BF 1942? Any better? Is there a large following playing online?

 

BF1942 is the reason i bought this game... played 1942 at a friends house and wanted to buy it... but they didn't have it on MAC at the time so i took a risk and bought WWIIOnline. I don't think i'll ever go back.

I love the fact that the game uses iron sights (BF1942 doesn't).

It has realistic damage models and ballistics for all planes and tanks... meaning if you do enough damage to someone's wing it will fall off... if you hit their fuel tank it will leak fuel and then catch fire... if you hit their ammo box they'll blow up... if you hit their pilot he'll die and the plane will plummet to its destruction. Same goes with tanks and boats. I'm pretty sure you won't find that in BF1942.

The following is decent. Definitely not WoW scale... in the middle of the day on a wednesday things might be a little slow... most weekends, especially during U.S. primteime, you're bound to find massive-scale attacks... from tank columns to para drops to bombing raids. The vast majority of the playerbase are really good people... almost no 12-year-old CS junkies insulting everyone.

 

I play the game. Haven't in a month or so but thats because of school work. Its ALOT better then BF in my opinion. If you wanted to, you could fly a plane from a German Air Base all the way to London. Not sure you would make it with all the Ack-Ack, but its possible!

A lot of players have been playing for years and are usually pretty helpful. It has a points system that rewards you for kills. The more you get (and return-to-base gets you full points for each kill, getting KIA or MIA - aka quitting without being near a base - only gets you half the points per kill) the more ranks you unlock. You can only be a rifle-man when you start out, but you gradually unlock Sapper, SMG, LMG, and Paratrooper. Snipers too, but they are few and far between.

Also the same with Vehicles. Higher the rank the better the veh's you can use. Tanks, armored cars/veh, AA and ATG, etc.

Heer, Luftwaffe, and Kriegsmarine are all careers (along with British and French equivalents).

Things run on a supply system too, so a surrounded town will run out of resources. Only XX amount of troops allowed, so each death counts against that. Eventually people wont be able to respawn etc. Capture towns by capturing key points - some are barracks that allow reinforcements to spawn in. AB (armored bases) are always the last to fall as they allow Inf and Veh to spawn and have only 2 entrances, with a few crawl spaces in the wall.

Combined Arms is key. I once hoped on a Transport Plane that landed on a road with a few other squad mates, then landed behind enemy lines and snuck into a City, capturing a Spawnable point (i was the last to die and survived long enough to cap it and kill Enemy Inf) that led to capture of city.

I also performed a similar operation, this time traveling via the deck of a friendly Ship which landed us behind enemy lines but near a Forward Base. One idiot in our bunch stood up and got us spotted.

As far as ballistics etc goes, its pretty cool. Placing a Charge (as sapper) on enemy tank does not ensure a kill. Each tank has certain soft spots and it usually takes 2 - 3 charges (or maybe i just suck at it) to knock out a tank. Usually you'll kill a crew member.

Likewise, sappers are always targeted first. I saw a suicidal British sapper pop out of a bush and destroy the lead tank of a column (before being massacred by two tanks MGs and some supporting Inf rifle fire). Stalled the whole column and the attack.

On the same note, before i made Sapper, i was scouting out of town (night time) when two panzers drove up to my position. (playing as brits). I couldn't run (out in open) but the little ridge i was at hid me from them. I even crawled up and touched both, but then a third panzer came in and parked behind them. I nearly shat myself. I was dead meat if i gave away my position.

Unfortuneately, it was a pretty quiet night (at that point) and the tanks just shelled the town. Finally, the one Sapper arrived and killed the 3rd tank. In trying to get the other one (one left for some reason and didnt notice its dead friend) he somehow got run over.

 

What happens if no one is playing..and it's just you? and maybe another dude? Who do you fight? Can you basically take a town by your self if there is no one to play against?

Also..can you join the Axis one night and then flip to the allies the other?

 

No one going to answer me?

 

Theres a time limit that you have to wait out before switching sides.

Theres always a bunch of people on though sometimes it can seem pretty lonely. You can only capture a city that has an AO (attack Order) on it.

 

wow, that sounds pretty realistic

 

It is! Lots of fun too if you've got a buddy to play with and are on Vent/TS.

 

I would LOVE to play online but you have to pay.

 

do u hav 2 buy it...., or is it free, coz it sound fun

 

Its like any MMO - you pay a monthly fee to play.

 

I have been looking at this game. It looks really cool. Can somone explain to me like what it is exactly? fps? rts? what is the point and how do people win? and also i want to try the free trial but i dont wanna give my credit card number. any way past that?
-Josh

 

Google the game. It has its own website. Its a realistic FPS where you can also drive tanks, sail ships, fly airplanes, depending on the service branch you pick.

 

how does the navy work? is it like 5 ppl per ship? or what?

 

looks SICCKKKK, but, i cant, for various reasons...maybe when im older and can pay my own way

 

Young'uns...

Nope, 1 person per ship. You can move between the gun positions.

 

Just found this forum after realizing that without an active subscription I couldn't post on the OKW forums. Hard to find out what the state of the game is when you can't see what it's subscriber base are complaining about. Although I was not a member of the OKW, I was made OIC on atleast 6 occasions (I go into detail below). I haven't played for about 6 months, but before that I was active since the game first launched in 2001 with several breaks in between.

Anyhow, allow me to answer some questions and clear some stuff up.

1) What is World War II online?

It is a Massive Multiplayer Online First Person Simulation (MMOFPS), but not a shooter. If you know of such games as Air Warrior, Aces High, Warbirds, then this game is on the same vain, with some major differences.

2) Is the game "Free"?

Yes and No; the game download is Free. You will need a subscription to play, see below.

3) Do you have to Pay to play?

Yes; there is a $14.95 a month price tag. But if you keep checking the www.wwiionline.com website, usually they have "Welcome Back Soldier" or "Recruiting" specials, these allow you to play for free for about 8 days.

4) Can you play Offline for Free?

No; you cannot play the game for free offline. The Playnet gateway comes up and it checks for an active subscription before it even starts the game (unless something has changed since I last played).

Again, think like World of Warcraft, Everquest, or any MMORPG where you just can't play offline and you get the picture.

Now I'll give you an idea of the game itself:

1) How are the graphics?

Think circa 2002-2003 Simulation graphics. You're not going to get the flash and flare of the newer normal mapped, specular highlighted, HDR, Depth of Field effects the modern cards can do. The more recent graphical updates (bringing it to 2003 era graphics) give a lot of life to the world (bushier trees, realistic building textures, a significant amount of shrubbery). If you've played Operation Flashpoint, you've got a very close approximation to what WWIIO is like.

The terrain is still planar/angular and it is not rolling terrain like you've probably seen in BF1942, Call of Duty, or any of those games. If you remember what terrain in simulations of the late 90's was like, then you'll know how the hills/mountains and such are planar.

Also, don't expect the amount of detail and grime that you see in BF1942, Call of Duty, or any of the newer World War II simulations. World War II online is a very clean game, details are at a minimum. Most items are drawn unto the texture rather than normal mapping. So far I don't believe there is any Bump Mapping on models but I could be wrong. There is also no real time grass generation.

Regardless of it's graphical shortcomings, it looks good. The small team has been able to make do with what little resources they have. Also, due to the realistic nature of the gun sights used (sometimes 6000 meter ranges) compared to other "Action" WWII games, the simpler graphics helps a lot in keeping frame rates high.

2) How large is the development team?

The dev team (cornered rat software) is very small. I mean very small. There are 3 main guys, 2 artists, and a server/IT team that keep it up. Usually the 3 guys do any artwork/programming that is needed and the 2 other artists are on a contractual basis when ever something new is brought in(such as the recent terrain/scenery updates). There used to be as many as 8 core developers but from my understanding several have left.

3) How large is the population?

Very small. If you expect queue lines, large Ironforge lag, or any of the population issues we've come to expect in the gutted world of modern MMORPGS, you'll wish you had that in WWII Online.

-As of last count (German side), we physically counted and added up players in each brigade. We then accounted for players that weren't in a brigade and were perhaps in the lobby.
We came up with a total of roughly 500-700 players during Prime Time for the German side. Approximately three times that number for the Allied side (so 1500-2100). Spread out between the different brigades and missions. During off times we counted approximately half the number or even less. 200-300 German side, and about 500-800 allied. The numbers could reverse if the other side is winning (Germans getting the higher numbers conversely).

-This posses a severe problem. If you happen to be on during Prime Time, you'll have just enough players to do missions with (I'd say you'd have the bare minimum). If you're not on during Prime Time, you'll have a very big challenge ahead of you. The reason myself and my squad ranked up so fast was because we all worked, and logged in during off-times. On several occasions the 5 of us would hold a town just barely long enough to either bleed away at the allied force (since we knew they'd eventually cap the town), or just long enough to be relieved (which rarely happened). I'd sit in a Panzer IV, one guy would be a sniper/rifle, another on mobile spawn search, someone else would alternate between Sapper/Anti-Tank/Anti-Air, and the last would fit which ever role was needed, usually light machine gun to recap lost cps.

4) How is the action, and can I get to the action quickly?

Yes and No. This is a big issue for people. If you are on during Prime Time you'll be able to get to the action in no time. Simply select your brigade (or select a different one). You'll see a map of the theater and you'll see Icons of where the brigades are stationed at, kind of like an RTS. You then select the brigade and you'll see the places they are attacking or defending (usually 2 per Brigade). Cornered Rat Software realized some time ago that the population would stagnate, so in order to keep as many people in the action as possible the changed the way things worked. Now there are only a few divisions and each division only has 2 brigades, each brigade has only two field operations. There is also a limit as to how many Attack Order high command can give.

The result is that everyone is pigeon-holed into the few divisions and into the few attack/defense operations going on. Back in the old days there were a lot more divisions and an almost unlimited amount of attack/defend orders that could be given by High command players. I'll go into detail of what that is below.

The good thing is that now you can't just go some place aimlessly and odds are you'll always be in some type of action. They also changed made supply missions so that they could only be done one town away. This made sure that even on a supply run you were still in some way close to the action.

Selecting a Mission: As an infantryman, after selecting your brigade you'll the operations they are currently doing (you'll see an icon over the town). You select it and you'll see the Missions. The missions tell you how close to the town or Firebase you will be spawning. Fortunately players (as well as yourself) can grab a truck and "drive it" close to the town. Simply select a truck instead of Rifleman and now you'll be a truck. Once you get close enough to town you despawn the truck and are free to respawn by the truck. If another player has already spawned a truck you can always spawn through his truck. Again this option is only available if you plan on playing as some form of foot soldier (but not paratrooper). If you want to be a Tanker, Pilot or Ship guy see below.

5) Playing as Infantry or any sort of "grunt".

Everything in the game is called a Vehicle. The game treats it that way, you are selecting a "vehicle" no mater if its a Spitfire, a BF109, a Rifleman, or a Destroyer. You're a vehicle and a resource that is used up/killed etc.

That being said, when you select a mission you'll be presented with your choice of "vehicle".

Choosing a Rifleman, Sniper (its the same Rifleman but with a Scope), Sapper (a Rifleman but with a Satchel Charge), Submachine Gunner, and Light Machine Gunner, gameplay is similar to other FPS's you're used to but with some changes:

-The weapons have windage and elevation. So the bullet will actually
drop.
-You can't run and gun, you'll never hit anything unless you're at almost point blank range.
-The Field of View is very small, this is my biggest gripe (aside from population issues) with the game. I believe the FoV is set to 45 degrees per side (instead of 60 or more). At times it feels a lot less. Other enemy infantry make very little sound, so it isn't uncommon for new people to never even see or hear what killed them.
-With a small Field of View, enemy infantry will pass your FoV very fast. We did some tests back a few years ago when I was writing this big long-winded rant on the forums. It took one of my buddies less than 1/10 of a second to cross my field of view. You'll probably see only one frame of animation before they've passed you. Something they call "lagg surfing" is used as a tactic, this is new to me but it explains why so many times I didn't get kills I thought I clearly would have.

If you die you're taken back to the mission select screen. The "infantryman" vehicle is removed from the total available to your brigade. Sure you might not care (and usually no one does if it's a simple Rifleman). Eventually numbers do get really low, keep in mind that others out there are also dying and respawning and each time they do that it's another Rifleman. Riflemen are the most abundant, and a brigade has less and less of the other troop types. I forget what the numbers were but I believe Sappers and snipers are the rarest? There are also Mortarmen and Anti-Tank gunners but these came in after my time.

Playing as an Infantryman gives you points towards your Army persona.

6) Playing as a Tanker.

This is the same as being an Infantryman. Instead of spawning from a mobile spawns (like the truck) you'll have to spawn either at the town your brigade is currently stationed at, or at the Firebase.

Driving the tank can be a pita. You'll have to download some keyboard changes but once you get it down it isn't so bad (I use keyboard & mouse).

All positions on the tank are crewable All positions on the Tank (or on an airplane, or truck, or aircraft) are multi-player crewable. So if you have a buddy that wants to be your driver while you're the gunner, you can do that (or if you have enough people to do all positions on a tank even better). Do to lack of man power, people rarely do this. Why put three people on a single tank when you can field three tanks instead? I know the mentality doesn't make sense but that's the game I suppose...

Sappers will destroy your tank. It's impossible to avoid them other than to have a friend/squad mate pull sapper detail for you. Even if you're in a Tiger, a single Sapper infantryman will send it to the scrap yard.

Unlike infantry, if a particular position gets killed you'll automatically lose that position but often times can still drive, fire the main gun, etc. When all positions are killed then the whole tank is dead. This isn't always easy, but at the same time one hit from an 88mm can send you back to the mission select screen.

Playing as a tanker gives you experience points towards your "Army" persona.


7) Playing as a Pilot.

Playing as a pilot is nearly identical to any other modern WWII flight simulator. It's almost as if the game was designed for the aerial portion. Not surprising given the background the developers had as former Air Warrior, Warbirds developers.

I can't comment on the Flight Model as I have very little flight experience (I was tail gunner on a Stuka for a while).

Missions are similar as explained above (attack, defend, bomb, etc). Instead of spawning from a firebase or town you'll spawn at an airfield (about three or four towns back).

I'm not quite clear how pilot experience works, someone else can comment. I do know that pilots particularly in the German side are in high demand, I mean we hailed them as heroes. The first thing you did once you got your binoculars and had enough rank to post missions was become good friends with the Luft channel. If you had air support you could do anything!

Experience earned as a pilot goes towards your Air Force Persona. I do believe but could be wrong that experience earned as a paratrooper also goes towards your Air Force Persona (it hasn't been changed but is a planned change).

Planes fall apart and such like in any modern flight sim.

8) Playing the Naval game.

I originally got into World War II online so I could be a U-Boat captain. I remember back in those days on the forums and all the discussions we had. We were really looking forward to being U-Boat captains and such and going after the cargo lines in the north Atlantic. Sadly U-Boats were never put into the game.

Like air, you can spawn only at a Harbor your side controls. The exception to this are the smaller gunboats (farmiles) that can spawn at any town with a dock.

Boats like tank and aircraft are multi-crewable. This is very important as it is the only way to survive as a boat. Aircraft will send you down in no time as boats seem to be made of paper. On one occasion I took my Tiger out near this one town with a dock (I forgot the name) and sunk 3 gunboats encroaching on our own.

Unfortunately (going back to the population issue) the Naval aspect of the game is severely lacking. With no Naval action going on, it is very difficult for beginner Naval ensigns to gain any form of experience using the gunboats. If they don't gain experience then they don't have enough rank to get into a Freighter and if they can't pull out a freighter then they can't get to a Destroyer. Naval experience is the most difficult experience in the game to get. I know of about two captains, that's it. It's my understanding these captains "cheated" to get to captain by spawning as OPFOR until they gained enough experience to pull out Destroyers to test them.

The Real Time Campaign and RDP.

1) Is it historically and politically accurate?

No. None of it is. Used to be the vehicles had realistic penetration and armor values but that was removed due to complaining. The game is also anachronistic, meaning you'll see aircraft come in on dates different from their real counterparts and so on. When aircraft, tanks, and so on come into the campaign depend on what research the High Command for your side has elected to spend Resource Points on.

At the same time the Germans are just the Red team. No swastikas on the tail planes, no Waffen SS, or anything like that. Only a few of the historical brigade names were used and squad insignia often times use modern motifs.

2) Resources and RDP, there's a greater goal for all the fighting

Your side gains resource points in several ways. There are cities with resource facilities (which can be captured or destroyed), and uncontested towns generate resource as well. That's the basics of it. The resources are used to develop vehicles and introduce them into the campaign.

Since there's a limit to the variety of vehicles, it's really a matter of strategically introducing the right vehicle at the right time. Most of you will probably not get to experience any of this, I never did. Unless you really care for it and are willing to put up with a lot of non-sense and drama from a few players that have probably been doing it for years.

Resources also play a role in how quickly your Brigade gets resupplied. Going back to my comment; "when you die your brigade loses the vehicle you used" if the towns linking your Brigade has their Resource buildings blown up, then the time for those vehicles to be resupplied to your Brigade is longer.

3) So it's important to capture towns and bomb resource facilities.

Capturing towns has changed a lot since the old days. A town will have multiple buildings and finally one central Army Base. Cities might have two Army Bases and even more capture points.

-The town is immune if it does not have an Attack Order placed on it. Unlike before where you could cap a town regardless. The only way to get an Attack Order is if an Officer in Charge (OIC), usually someone from High Command, puts an Attack Order on it. There's a whole bunch of rules regarding Attack/Defend and High Command orders, I won't get into. Odds are if you got that far you know more than I do and this whole post probably wouldn't help you much.

-If the town has an Attack Order placed on it, the Attack Order is announced globally (air pilots get a big red mark thingy on the map). I believe it's 10 minutes before capture points can be "flipped" after the attack order is issued. So you can't issue the order and "insta" flip. Once all of the capture points in town are flipped (usually 4-5 for a village and 6-8 for a city) the Army base can then be captured, I believe another 5 or 10 minutes after all the flags in town are flipped.
This isn't as easy as it seems. When you "flip" a flag, it takes 2 minutes (you get a timer bar). During this time you can't move at all. You have to stay stationary at the radio (even rotating your body can sometimes start the timer again). Once all the town flags are flipped, you wait 10 minutes and the radio in the Armybase appears, you then have to flip that one and viola, town is captured.

There is still nothing preventing you front doing a late night flip. I was on many missions like that. Since I was good friends with an OKW (German high command) player, our team would do late night flip runs, he'd then move the brigade forward if needed(since you can only issue such orders one town away). But more often than not we'd be doing the opposite. Instead of attacking usually we were Defending from late night (probably European prime time) Allied players. This is why on several occasions I'd be made OIC so I could issue a Defend order so that he could take a team to defend one town while I'd take another team (usually less than 10 people) to hold out another town.

That eventually killed the game for me. It sort of turned into World War II Quake, but with all sorts of vehicles. I rarely got to see large tank columns (more than just 5 or 6) or large infantry battles or anything near what World War II really was like. It was usually small 8 to 10 man skirmishes. Occasionally on a good weekend you'd get large battles but those were pretty rare.

4) So what vehicles are available?

Before I list them, let me tell you that it's a lot less than what this list says. The reason being is that they have a lot of the same vehicle but a different version of it. For example, German fighter aircraft; the developers (in the wiki and in game and everywhere else) claim that there are 5 different fighter aircraft to choose from. In reality there's only 2. There are 4 variants of the Me109 and the differences are negligible, sure they have different weapons, but you'll be flying the 109 for a very long time (until RDP give you the Fw190).

Anyhow here is the list of vehicles (including troop types):
http://wiki.wwiionline.com/index.php/Units

5) Do I get to play all these vehicles?

No. It depends on two things: Rank, Availability.

You have to be a certain Rank to play the more advanced stuff. I believe after sergeant (E-5) most of the stuff is unlocked. Unfortunately I don't remember the exact ranks for what, but I do remember that after E-5 most of the vehicles were available to me. My character is currently an OberLeutenant (1st Lt.?)

Then it'll depend if there is enough of that vehicle. For example, the German Tiger is so rare that a Brigade will have maybe 4 available to it (sometimes more towards the end of a campaign). That means that if you take one out and get blown up, odds are that there won't be another available for an hour or more. Conversely, if all 4 were taken out by other players and log in too late, you just won't be in a Tiger. Same goes for any other "vehicle" in the game.

Finally if the vehicle isn't in the campaign (because it hasn't been RDPed or it was phased out of the RDP cycle) then it won't even show up on the vehicle list.


Conclusion
Whew! That was long. I tried to give a digest of my experience in the game. I also tried to answer as many questions as were asked on here. If you have any other questions feel free to post them and I'll try and answer them.

I quit the game for several reasons:

1) Mostly time and because I got lured into playing regular MMOs with friends.

2) Lack of population. I haven't checked recently but nothing leads me to believe the population has improved. There is hardly any marketing for the game anymore and the game was a niche within a niche, making it very difficult to maintain a large player base. Simulations have also taken a dive in recent years where other genres have skyrocketed in sales.

I originally had planned to be in the High Command and such after getting tons of encouragement from friends in the game. My issue with it all was I would have been forced to play WWII Quake given the lack of population.

3) Lack of development. The developer has had 8 years (even more if we include the time during development) to implement so much yet they've done so little. I was going to write them an email stating I'd volunteer my graphics artist services for free if they allowed me to add in missing vehicles and so on, all I'd ask for is a free subscription but doubt they'd take me up on the offer. I remember them getting offended when I said their German soldiers looked weird and I'd offer to remodel them for them...

Anyhow it's been so long and the amount of vehicles is still short. Only recently (in the last year or so) have they added things like Mortar men and anti-tank riflemen. Before that it was years before they added sub-machine gunners, scoped rifles, or light machine guns. I think nearly 6 years passed before they added those things.

The terrain hadn't been updated until about three years ago that means that nearly 5 years went by with the dated terrain even by 2002 standards. And the terrain is still out-dated and possibly will continue to be so for another year if not more.

The campaign still remains eternally locked in the Battle of France. Sure they run special "Historical" events every now and then, but it still uses the same equipment from the regular game.

When is the U.S. going to come in?
Where are the scores of famous but missing aircraft, tanks, vehicles?
Why no Italy? Brits and French, but Germany doesn't have Mussolini? No Italian equipment for that matter.
No Russia or Russian equipment either.
No U-Boats or simulated Atlantic naval battles. Rarely if any Naval battles at all.
Lets not even think about Pearl Harbor, US Marines, Pacific battles, or Japan for that matter.

The Developer in my opinion has stagnated. I've been told that there are issues with their engine making it very difficult to import new objects and such into the game. Something happened, I don't know what it is, but the game lacks any suitable expansions. It certainly looks prettier, but I can count in one hand how many new vehicles and items we've gotten since 2001, and that's a shame.