WW2OL, 2nd Impressions

[cobra427]

ive been play'n WWIIOL for about a week now and i love it  i dont fly unless in a bomber cause in the air i only get a FR of 5-8 but i love the ground war when there is a lot of people around ..... its tak'n me a while to get used to nobody willing to help you out unlike AH all you have to do is say help and you got a hundred ppl go'n me me me me ill help

altho even in the ground war its hardfor me because i dont even get a halfway good FR on the ground ... 10-12   but only thing i really dont like about it is that you cant see the look on the driver of the pzr that you just places a bomb next to the driver's window

[hardcase]

Cobra part of the problem is no dedicated channel that auto loads. You can log in, not take a mission and no one would hear you. Check the OOB page when you launch. That is the second page with the Enter Button. It list various channels for both sides.Also set a frequency to "origin" ..minus the ". There are two channels for air for north and south for axis and Eng and French for the allies. You can set a frequency to someone's ID. When you are on, type ..hardcase...and if I am on I will help get setup.

HC

[Staga]

wasn't it  .m hardcase blaahblaahblaah


btw I heard that in axis side there's some lonewolfs etc using channel 93 to organize concentrated attacks; check that ch if you're playing axis ground.

[cobra427]

ty i will see if your on sometime ... i allways take missions cause i cant use the map when u start up or the in game map

[hardcase]

Cobra try checking texture reduction.

HC

[AKWeav]

Thanx Jekyll, I got it taken care of with the calibration screen.

Hardcase, posted my specs and settings in community forums

[cobra427]

it is checked

[Fishu]

I have good FPS in WWIIOL.
In the air FPS is at least 20 for me, unless I'm flying straight over a town with somewhat alot of action and lots of bushes etc., then it might go to under 20, but not always.
When nobody in view, I get to 60-75 fps (air and ground)
On the ground FPS is even better.
Although sometimes the terrain graphics for some reason might drop it into ~14 fps when looking at certain direction and if theres alot of people also.
Otherwise alot of people doesn't matter that much.

It was worse FPS wise in the open beta/first official 1.7 version, when there was very tiny stuttering.
Then came the next version, where 3D sound began working for good.. at least for me the first time, it became smooth.

Packet losses are annoying though.. if packet gets lost, it gives quite a freeze and then continues.
Although my connection usually is pretty good so no packet loss
(who wants to play with severe enough packet losses anyway..)

Oh yea..  I'm having XP1600 (1.4ghz), 512mb, GF4 TI42 128mb.



AKweav,

Did you try the axis side?
Especially channel 93?
In my impression, most lone wolves and must-be-in-squad things are in allied side, whereas on axis side lone wolves (rather the 'indies') are more working together, even if not in a squad.
At least lately alot popularity gained channel 93 is often good place for squadless people on axis.


I really think you can squeeze more FPS out of your system with WWIIOL.
I'm having considerably better FPS with roughly equal system.

Maybe you should check with rivatuner or other tweaker how you've set your GF4's anisotrophy settings for direct-x.
8x anisotrophy for DX can really reduce FPS. (and gee.. did I notice that once with 3D mark.. were wondering wtf is making results so low, but then finally found out it was the DX anisotrophy)


Staga,

Bah.. works fine with 1.4ghz!   even though athlon but anyway

[EvilDingo]

I just re-opened an account for WWIIOL (this being my 3rd time). I had the game the day it was released and let me tell you how pissed off I was. What was even WORSE was the lies they had printed on the homepage. "Tactics how to raise that elusive rank" was one of the outright false 'articles' -- since rank wasn't even in the game at the time.

That made me very angry. Also, the game did not work.

So I threw it out in a few days time.

I tried it again several months ago. At that time I didn't have the horsepower to run the game at a smooth framerate in the air. All the aircraft seemed  to defy physics and could loop endlessly in the air with bombs loaded.

So I canceled my account.

I now have an AMD 2400XP, GeForce 4 Ti, and 512DDR ram. I gave it another shot.

This is what I think so far:

The communications are too much of a burden. WWIIOL NEEDS a range channel so bad it's not even funny. With range, you could talk to anyone nearby and be recognized. What an asset something that simple could be. I do tune to the correct radio freqencies when I log in and that helps, especially if you tune to a frequency tied to a specific city's defense (or offense).

Once you get communicating with the right people, the game really starts to shine.

With more than 64 people in a battle, icons will start to blink out. This doesn't happen very often in the smaller cities. Fights for the larger cities play out over several days and can be frustrating places for dogfights. All WWIIOL needs to do is add some kind of enemy bias to the system and the problem would go away instantly. Instead of blinking out that 109 that's dead ahead, blink out one of the dozens of friendly infantry hiding in the trees below.

I too am a flight person. I fly for the allies using primarily the Hawk and Hurricane Mk1.

FLIGHT MODEL:

I like the flight model much more now than I did before. Having more control over the engine (without it becoming a burden) makes flying more interesting.

The Hawk and Hurricane perform very differently and more believeably than before. The Hawk has a nasty violent stall, while the Hurricane is much more gentle when you push it to the edge.

Blackouts are nearly instant and very hard to get used to. In heated dogfights they'll kill you quickly.

Landing is very easy and the damage model seems a bit too forgiving when you bump into objects. For example, you could be flying at 400kph, rub the ground with your belly, and fly off unharmed. This isn't as bad as it sounds though. Clip a tree or something and you're done for. It just makes landing trivial.

The icons in the air have no range (besides a circle around the plane that slowly unwinds as you get closer) and are very well done. You need to get in CLOSE to hit your target and I always get a rush when I shoot someone down.

The best thing about the icons in WWIIOL is you can really exploit your opponent's blind spots. If you find yourself low and on his 6 he WILL NOT see you. He has no idea you're there. The icon range is also much shorter than AH, so if you're in trouble, try to confuse your attacker, and dart away in his blind spot. This has saved me many times.

The icons in WWIIOL allow you to sneak up on your opponent and shoot him down before he knows you're there. Wingmen are vital in high-risk areas.

DAMAGE MODEL:

This applies to aircraft only.

I've only flown the Allied aircraft online so I don't know the effects German cannons have on planes, but I can say I REALLY like the damage model.

I don't know how advanced it gets at an internal level, but as AKWeav said, nothing breaks off. If you take damage and live, you will notice something isn't quite right. One wing may lose lift, some of your controls might seem more sluggesh, you might seem to be constantly slipping through the air.. etc etc.

I really like this aspect. There is no list you can pop up in mid flight and see whats wrong. Sometimes you might not even know how badly damaged you are until you land.

I have had wingmen many times tell me to RTB because I was leaking something important.

.30 cals are moderately lethal. I think this is due to the fact you have to get in real close to hit your target. There are no 'hit sprites' per sey. If you are close enough to see your bullets impact the aircraft (and you should be) you'll see tiny explosions and some debris break off of the impact point. It's better eye-candy than AH, but far short of IL2.

Damage is local to the point. There is no 'general damage' to the aircraft. Most of the aircraft's frames can soak up a TON of damage. It's best to go for a critical point. If you shoot the left engine of an aircraft, the left engine will be damaged. If you shoot the tail gunner, he'll die. This is one of the best points of air combat in WWIIOL.

Good pilots go for their opponent's critical systems. For large aircraft (Like the Bf110) I always go for the engines first. If I can, I'll shoot for the cockpit. One good burst on an engine will kill it.. or at least get it leaking thick black smoke. That in-turn ruins the 110's limited dogfighting capability and it's only a matter of time before I finish him off.

I do fine tune my aim in AH too. But not to the extent I do in WWIIOL. In AH if I get a good bead on an aircraft it's going down where-ever they may land. In WWIIOL, the air frame can soak up a lot more damage.

If you wound the pilot, he'll have a harder time pulling excessive g's in his aircraft. A wounded pilot in a damaged plane is going to be fighting to keep it flying much less actually fight you.

In AH, 9 times out of 10, you'll know when someone is going down because they'll be missing a particularily important part of their aircraft. In WWIIOL, you don't get that kind of visual cue (unless the plane is on fire). So I get in close, I make a guns pass and see a few hits but instead of breaking or pulling into me, he starts a gentle spiral dive... into the DIRT.

Ah, I love those.

Attacking armored ground vehicles is a waste of time. You can kill people inside the tank, but only if they have their hatches open, and only if you somehow manage to get a round through the hatch. It can happen... but it never does. Attacking tanks with machine guns or 20mm cannons is wasting ammo. Bombs do the trick though.

You can kill flaks and towed guns by shooting their crew.

And if you think shooting chutes is fun in AH, try attacking a truck filled with infantry! Oh man it's so funny to watch them all scatter. You can kill infantry with machine guns obviously and it's a blast doing it. Most people are smart enough to head for the trees if you're harassing them.

Okay, enough about that. Damn I'm wordy.

GRAPHICS:

Just going to touch on one thing. The cockpits look good. They're modeled individually. There is no 'one guage fits all' like in AH. All the cockpits are different and in my opinion, look a lot better than AH. The gunsites are historic and LOOK like they're illuminated. No gunsite I've ever used in AH looked like it actually was illuminated like these do.

I think AH aircraft models look better though.

SCORING:

You only receive score and rank for LANDED kills on missions. Missions are very important and most players in-the-know will post meaningful missions. As you go up in rank you'll be able to post more missions with better vehicles or aircraft.

I haven't messed around too much with creating my own missions, but I always join missions. By joining a mission you're almost certainly guarenteed a wingman or two and a channel to communicate on.

During a mission, you wont know what you've killed until you land (or die). You get no notification. This adds enormously to the immersion -- especially on the infantry side of things.

CONCLUSION:

I am happy with WWIIOL at the present time. My computer runs the game well enough that I never have any problems with framerate.

It really feels like I'm flying over Europe in the middle of a large scale war.

The communication (though difficult initially) and cooperation in WWIIOL is mind boggling. If you pick it up be sure to tune to your side's correct frequencies to get updates on what needs to be done.

WWIIOL really is a virtual battlefield (finally).

Beeker

[lord dolf vader]

sent them a email asking for help getting on to try it again last night. have reply from them by noon gonna give it a shot. this is the fellow who helped me.





rhodge@playnet.com

[AKWeav]

Well, you've both certainly expanded on my review quite nicely.

I just wanted to pop back in and say that I recieved some further advise on how to get better performance in the game from Hardcase on the ww2ol bbs. With these, I'm now getting in the high 40s fps wise while in flight. I just came out of an engagement with several 109s, and a couple of 110s. I was able to down one 110 before my Hawk was shot down in a furious 10 minute dogfight. My fps never went below 25.

Btw, while I was on the ww2ol boards, I saw a post from HC relating to AH. He was letting all know about HTC's free two week trial.

Right now, ww2ol is still an experiment for me. AH is still my main ride, and will no doubt remain so. I think there's room for both on my hard drive.

[hardcase]

FPS increase?..excellent  AK:)

Comms can really be a pain for a newbie, CRS is aways looking for way to improve. I want an ingame chat room before launching. You can use the mission chat once you select a mission.

 My post seemed not to be enough for some, but that was all the freebie info I had to choose.

BTW, anyone with a ww2ol account can post there.

I will be in tonight as allies, posting priority 1 missions. That is unless my new compressor and air brush dont grab me.

HC

[hardcase]

   DarkLord, Rhodge is Hatch

HC

[Staga]

EvilDingo 20mm shells kill A13 Cruisers pretty easily.
Use some flaps to keep your speed down, dive in steep angle and aim to the engine compartment or turret.
Short burst to back of the tank is usually enough to make it a rollin' bonfire.

For French tanks and MatildaII all you can do is shoot to the tracks and immobilize them (you can kill Matilda's engine thought it's pretty hard to do).

[Vermillion]

A couple of questions?

1.) Did the Flight Models ever get fixed? It use to be there was a serious lack of fuselage drag (I'm not going to go into how it was proved) and planes could loop and turn forever. Energy was hardly ever lost.  (And don't even get me started on the "helicopter 110" )

2.) Did load times ever improve? It got old to die and then have to wait for 3-5 mins to spawn again, because you were sitting there staring at the "loading" screen.

I loved the tank aspect of the game, thought it was great.  But the infantry (which were useless because tanks could kill you before you could see them) aspect, and the plane aspect left alot to be desired.  And the whole system resources thing was a real "game killer" in my opinon, and I had a decent system.