Two weeks ago I got the battlefield 1942 'demo'. Kinda cool but very gamey, but it reignited the mmpog-tank-troop-sim interest in me so I thought fek it! And downloaded WW2OL, signed up for the int'l player no cd-key required thing and away I went.
Joystick setup seems a lot better than it used to be. I clutzed around the keymapper for a while and eventually got my stick setup mapped nicely. And the controls seemed reasonable.
Graphics, well, they don't really seem to have changed or progressed. In fact, its downright primitive. It reminds me of M1 Tank Platoon II or the final version of Gunship. The entire world seems to be made up of 2D surfaces with bitmaps applied to them. Initially, if you look across a landscape, it looks ok, then as you play the razor thin trees and hedgelines get a bit - ummm - sad. The infantry aren't really animated either, which I found disappointing (ie no animated limbs when walking). They look like little plastic soldiers being moved about by big invisible hands. There are also rendering errors, especially in the sky, nothing major, but another annoyance after a couple of days playing.
What is scarey about the graphics is the framerate, my spanky new Athlon 2100XP+ with Geforce 3 card could only crank out 25fps @ 1024 x 768 x 32 bit in the ground war. A little less in the air. All this to drive probably one of the most primitive 3D engines on the market. I base this on my comparision with OFP, which I run at 1280x1024x32 in high FPS, even with loads of much better rendered objects and similar viewing distances.
Sound is reasonable good. The volume relative to object distance could use a little tweaking. It seems a bit high, but perhaps it helps identify or track distant contacts.
The FM? Who cares! I went there for the ground war. Plus, IMHO the WW2OL FM needs to be dumbed down for the general masses to be interested. So I think the FM is just fine for its purpose.
The ground war? Well, the players really make it. It can be a lot of fun. Especially in peak times. But it IS the players who are making it work, the game engine itself is barely up to it. Playing time is a bit more dragged out than AH. Especially if you're infantry.
The server connection seemed ok, although I did notice it was reasonably hard to track infantry. The update rates seem a litle low compared to AH. It wasn't unusual to see a guy jump 5-10 metres in a different direction from 'warpage'.
Player numbers was another interesting one. At peak weekend times, where I fought, there were roughly 30 guys per side, with around 10 major 'battles' going across the map. So going by experience I'd say peak numbers were probably 1000, with off peak down to about 300.
In summary, the game has the basic features it should have been released with. However the graphics engine is way beyond its use-by-date. The player base is really all that makes WW2OL attractive. After a week I've had enough of the low framerates, 90's graphics, and 'jogging' practise.
Sadly, it wasn't worth the money.
