Author Topic: WW2OL (warning, likely to set pom poms on fire) (Read 3074 times)

Kieran · « **Reply #30 on:** July 30, 2001, 04:15:00 PM »

There are things I like about WWIIO; there are a lot more I don't like, fps chief amongst them. There is no way a flight sim enthusiast can enjoy WWIIO in its current incarnation. I don't want to ride a tank, I jog everyday for excercise (hence, I don't want to be a virtual grunt), thus I am left with the unusable part of the game. Udie may be right, the debug code may very well still be in there- and maybe it isn't. The bottom line is there are many reasons not to play, and precious few reasons to play.

Sandman · « **Reply #31 on:** July 30, 2001, 04:31:00 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Udie:
Sandman,

Don't you remember that Microprosed stopped ALL support for F4? they game was still a POS when they did that. In defence of the F4 developers they said it wouldn't be finished at released, and it wasn't. The problem was that they never got around to fixing it. Thank you erazor and who ever leaked the source code. CRS is at least supporting their product after SFI made them release too soon.

Actually, 1.08 wasn't too bad. At least you could still fly offline and we had some limited success with 4 players. Sure, there were a few bugs, Mavericks and HARM come to mind but it was nothing like the abortion called WWII Online.

Vulcan · « **Reply #32 on:** July 30, 2001, 06:39:00 PM »

Jammer check out the graphics in Operation Flashpoint. These are fairly close to WW2OL in some aspects. I get hi frame rates in OFP running 1600x1200. This with things like shadows, the gorgeous fog effects (nothing like combat in 50 feet of visibility), the smoke effects (OFP has smoke shells which are tactically useful, I use them quite a lot to cover retreats). You can even enter the forests in OFP and use them for cover. And I've had many battles with more than 64 units present and the framerate barely suffers for it. This on a P3-600, 256Mb, GF2MX - a system that groans under the strain of WW2OL.

Next, check out M1A1 Tank Platoon II, and Microproses Gunship!. These use a similar engine, the later, is fairly close to WW2OL but with great viewing ranges. Gunship! is probably 2-3 years old now? It achieved good framerates on now obsolete systems.

The WW2OL graphics engine needs to be rewritten from the ground up. Its not ground breaking, there are other engines out there that achieve long viewing distances and do it a lot (vast amount) better. They might even look at licensing someone elses engine (OFPs would be a good start).

I have cold-hard examples to back up my opinions on the graphics. Its not just abusive rambling.

Gadfly · « **Reply #33 on:** July 30, 2001, 08:27:00 PM »

None of your cold hard examples transmit that environmental data, plus the data of all the units, bullets, and damage encompassed by 64 players, either. Nor do they do so in anything approaching an arena of the size already available in WWIIOL, much less with 1000 people in the same arena.

Call it a buggy piece of toejam if you will, but there is nothing else to compare it too out there, sorry. EQ, UO and AO are not good examples, if you have played them, either. They all go into terrible lag when you 10 people together, much less bullets whizzing about.

So far, WWIIol can only be compared to.....WWIIOL. There is nothing else of similar scale there. Keep that in mind as you enjoy yourselves picking it apart.

[ 07-30-2001: Message edited by: Gadfly ]

Gadfly · « **Reply #34 on:** July 30, 2001, 10:34:00 PM »

Here are some pictures of that piece of toejam that no one can play:

http://www.lizking.com/ww2olpics.htm

They are not great pics, and there are not many pics of the enemy, but when I was that close, I was much too busy puckering my amazinhunk to take pics.

indian · « **Reply #35 on:** July 30, 2001, 11:58:00 PM »

Hitech wont defend his creation but I will!! Anyone that went to the Convention last year will know Im right. HTC limits the graphics of the game so more people can get online and not take a huge hit in frame rate. Natedog and Superfly can choke the biggest computers out there if HT would let them, but he wont. Do a search I brought up this fact in a WWIIonline thread long time ago, and it for the most part came true. The graphics and scale they want over there will choke computers. Even AH slows down when in the company of many players.

Gadfly · « **Reply #36 on:** July 31, 2001, 12:30:00 AM »

Indian, I don't think anyone is saying that AH isn't a great game. We are talking about a different game, WWIIol.

Kieran · « **Reply #37 on:** July 31, 2001, 12:56:00 AM »

Gadfly-

I don't wish ill of the sim. I do tire of the people on their BBS that pretend there are no real problems with the game. I would enjoy it if I could manage a decent fps.

Jammer · « **Reply #38 on:** July 31, 2001, 01:29:00 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Vulcan:
Jammer check out the graphics in Operation Flashpoint. These are fairly close to WW2OL in some aspects.

Next, check out M1A1 Tank Platoon II, and Microproses Gunship!. These use a similar engine, the later, is fairly close to WW2OL but with great viewing ranges. Gunship! is probably 2-3 years old now? It achieved good framerates on now obsolete systems.

The WW2OL graphics engine needs to be rewritten from the ground up. Its not ground breaking, there are other engines out there that achieve long viewing distances and do it a lot (vast amount) better. They might even look at licensing someone elses engine (OFPs would be a good start).

I have cold-hard examples to back up my opinions on the graphics. Its not just abusive rambling.

Flashpoint is a lovely game, graphics are nice and quite well implemented. Make this game a persistant MMOG and in a WWII setting and I'm in!

M1A1 TP II OTOH is very bland looking. I don't know how you consider it to be on par with WWIIOL. Really.

Gunship is unknown to me and I can't comment.

I respect your opinion, but until I see an engine that do what the WWIIOL (unity engine) engine does in a superior way, I reserve the right to doubt any claims of it being a POS or inferior. When comparing graphics engines you have to pay attention to what it really does...also, it's hard to judge an engine when the rest of the code is not mature and optimized...

That said I might not agree on all design decisions on WWIIOL, neither do I belive the unity engine is "unique" or "revolutionary". If it simply does its job I'm happy.

texace · « **Reply #39 on:** July 31, 2001, 01:43:00 AM »

In all honesty, I do think that WWIIOL may one day become a great game, but only if:

A.)CRS actually learns how to use their code and apply that knowledge to fix the problems.

B.)CRS recruits someone to assist in fixing the code.

C.)CRS rewrites the engine so as to use better technology. I seriously think if the game ran with OpenGL support it would rock.

D.)Shorter time between patches.

Also, I don't see why people compare WWIIOL with AH, UO, etc. because they are all different genres. WWIIOL introduced the first "combined arms" type genre....(I think)

Gh0stFT · « **Reply #40 on:** July 31, 2001, 02:19:00 AM »

Vulcan at one point you are wrong, i dont think the graphic have "much" to do with the low frame rate in WW2Ol. When you offline i got approx 60fps+. When online in a area where nobody is around me i got 30 fps. And it drops more again if i have contact, it doesent play matter if i can see them or not (line of sight). It has something to do with the Netcode and maybe a still present Debug code like Udie said IMHO.
I'm really lucky with my 20-30fps online.
Btw. have u tested OpFlash online ? is the frame rate the same as offline ? anyone ?

Gh0stFT

Vulcan · « **Reply #41 on:** July 31, 2001, 05:14:00 AM »

I've seen OFP being played on a LAN, no frame rate drop. OFP is not going to be done as persistant multiplayer, all I was pointing out was that the graphics engine in it would be ideal for a WW2OL like game.

I realise that WW2OL suffers fps hits from the communications side. But even so the fps of a non-online PC is astoundingly bad, ie 30fps in low resolution with nothing else around is nothing to dance with joy over.

Vulcan · « **Reply #42 on:** July 31, 2001, 05:25:00 AM »

Unfortunately OFP is not going persistant unless a 3rd party writes it (CRS take note).

There are Mods coming for 1944, Vietnam, Star Wars (Hoth), Desert Storm and even WWI.

OK, sorry what I mean't to say was M1 TP2 was the predecessor to Gunship! which tweaked it and looked a lot better.

Now take the OFP engine, what does it need? A persistant server. The real problem will be when a lot of units get to one area. I originally thought this would be the limiter to the OFP engine, but someone mentioned earlier that WW2OL breaks at 64 ppl in view (or stops rendering the extras). So maybe the OFP engine would be better.

At the end of the day I'm no code expert. But I can spot a turd and I can smell a turd. And my honest belief is that no amount of dressing up will make the stink go away from WW2OL. IE they need to start from scratch. Mistakes are obvious (like fps being tied to the connection) and many.

Many people in the gaming industry have come to realise if you can't do something as good as the other guy... license his technology. And visa versa, if your technology kicks the toejam out of the neighbours, license it to him.

CRS need to wake up and smell the stale turd. 2 Years of work and there is better engines out there they can take advantage of. If they don't do something fast the only guesswork we need to do is whether its the users or the financiers who pull the plug.

I waited a long time for this game to come out. I visited the CRS website and downloaded all the screenshots the videos etc. I WANTED a kickarse MMPOG to come out from these guys.

Quote

Originally posted by Jammer:

Flashpoint is a lovely game, graphics are nice and quite well implemented. Make this game a persistant MMOG and in a WWII setting and I'm in!

M1A1 TP II OTOH is very bland looking. I don't know how you consider it to be on par with WWIIOL. Really.

Gunship is unknown to me and I can't comment.

I respect your opinion, but until I see an engine that do what the WWIIOL (unity engine) engine does in a superior way, I reserve the right to doubt any claims of it being a POS or inferior. When comparing graphics engines you have to pay attention to what it really does...also, it's hard to judge an engine when the rest of the code is not mature and optimized...

That said I might not agree on all design decisions on WWIIOL, neither do I belive the unity engine is "unique" or "revolutionary". If it simply does its job I'm happy.

Vulcan · « **Reply #43 on:** July 31, 2001, 05:27:00 AM »

Gadfly, who gives a flying f**k. Guess what? I played the game for 3 weeks. I've seen what it looks like. Don't you understand this??? A lot of people here have played it and know exactly whats going on.

A pile of screenshots is nothing to us!!! Because we've already been there!

Quote

Originally posted by Gadfly:
Here are some pictures of that piece of toejam that no one can play:

http://www.lizking.com/ww2olpics.htm

They are not great pics, and there are not many pics of the enemy, but when I was that close, I was much too busy puckering my amazinhunk to take pics.

Gadfly · « **Reply #44 on:** July 31, 2001, 06:07:00 AM »

Ahh, if you played it Vulcan, then why do you say it is unplayable? Even with all the bugs it has, and Cod knows it has lots, it is still the only game like it, and is very playable.

Maybe not to your tastes, or maybe not up to your high standards, but if that is the case why do you bother talking about it?