Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: kilo2 on April 08, 2009, 06:01:54 AM
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WW2online is it worth the time to download?
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You either love or hate it. Regardless of what others say the best way to find out is to try it for a few days. There really isn't a simple answer to it as there's no other game alike, but it also has it's frustrating downsides too.
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I loved it. What killed it for me was when they went to AO's.
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AO's killed it
It sucks bad now
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AO?
You need a better system for WW2O than you do for AH, that's for sure.
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It needs a state of the art computer to look like 90's game. :eek:
Tried it and it really feels like going 10 years back in time. Blurry pixel graphics combined to glitching.
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I remember trying it circa 2002-2003 when i first came out (Xmas time 2002 i think?) Anyways, my P3 800 system ran down to the corner store and back before I was able to load into the game. Once there, I saw the horrible graphics (even for that time), and lagged out eventually. Deleted.
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AO?
:confused:
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AO = Attack order
You needed one to capture a town. Without it, you cannot take any enemy towns
Sucked big when it was implemented
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The AO were what they were intending to do originally in the first release. Not a bad idea on a strategic scale since it replicates an actual moving front. The problem lies in if some group moves ahead and takes a town but the follow on force doesn't take their town then the lead unit is toasted.
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there aren't many things i do like about ww2ol, but the damage model is definately one of them.
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Another thing the AO did was create a problem where not all enemy units were rendered, so you would be killed by someone you couldn't even see.
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If he hasn't seen the game don't confuse him. It is very different from AH ...or from any other game for that matter.
Let me give you a brief description of the game.
It is a game where you can play as either a fighter or bomber pilot, an infantryman, a tank/scout car/truck driver , a navy ship (destroyer or transport or PT boat), an artillery piece (or triple-a gun) or as a commanding officer (strategic play via map).
The game itself takes place in a persistent world server. There are no 'zones'. Meaning yes, there are an average of about 3000 people online playing the game at any given hour.
The map of the game is set in a map of europe with towns and airfields and naval yards connected by roads. In between these towns/airfields/naval yards there are Firebases.
The objective of the game is to capture the towns and airfields and naval yards of the opposing side. The map is moved by one side gaining control of the firebase and then launching attacking forces from that firebase onto the opposing town.
Each side has its armed forces split into divisions which are in turn split into several brigades each. These brigades are either armor brigades or infantry brigades (navy and air force are separate from land army but they have their own brigades). There is also a paratroop division with its own brigades (that can only be placed on airfields).
The way the game is played starts when players who are High Command (strategic play) move or order brigades or divisions onto towns and order them to attack or defend a place. High Command also manages supply (by resting a unit in a rear town or sending brigades to resupply towns where the division HQ is located).
When the orders are set in the strategic map by High Command players.. either attack or defend order, the town or objective becomes an AO (attack objective) and the town flashes on the map for all other players to see. When the enemy High Command places an AO on your town, that town automatically flashes a different color and automatically receives a Defense Order (DO)
There can only be a limited amount of AO's active at any given time. I've seen a max of 6 AO's on place per side (meaning 12 towns total can be involved in combat at any given time)
The AO / DO's focus players into playing on a certain front/town battle. Only towns with an AO on it can be captured. Towns with DO's alert players that the enemy is coming.
The battlefield can be very fluid. Since players on both sides are focused on these AO towns you get a huge variance in the coming battle. Sometimes the enemy will mass armor and assault the town in a heavy mechanized push...sometimes they will use a lot of infantry to infiltrate the area (especially at night!)... sometimes you will see an insane amount of bombers plastering the town... sometimes all of this at once.
The tactics of the players and the high command as well as that of the field officers (those directing the attack or defense in combat not from the map) coupled with the supply situation and bridage/division placement is what determines if a town gets captured or not.
Supply is the key to the game now. Before the AO's were introduced each side had an almost unlimited supply of units so the fighting was one of who attritted each other's patience the most or which side had the most players online to rush-bump the defenders out of the town. With supply in place and AO's in place, it becomes a matter of taking and holding positions in a town and destroying high value units of the other side (tanks mostly) and claiming victory before the other side can bring in another brigade with fresh supply to throw at you and overwhelm you.
Many old players didnt like the AO system (and truly, when it was first added it WAS a mess but it got tinkered and smoothed out, now it really works) because it limited their ability to choose where and when to fight. Before the AO system players would just ninja-rush empty towns, with some 5 man squads taking whole cities in 20 minutes which was rather ridiculous. Now, both sides must fight through the other's forces to win.
The game is not perfect. It has its good and bad things.
The good:
Nowhere else.. no other game will you see bigger battles of combined arms. Infantry and armor and air power all engaged at the same time.
The bad:
Graphics are out-dated. This is the biggest complaint of many people. Personally I dont mind them... I prefer solid gameplay over flashy graphics with poor gameplay. WW2OL has very solid gameplay.
Flight engine is arcadish. Dont expect an AH type fight in WW2OL air. At best its more like the old MS combat flight simulator on easy mode. Their flight engine also has a very crappy G-force effect system.. sometimes just pushing your nose up a bit with the G indicator showing just 2g's will black you out or lock all your controls (even when you flying slow). Aside from the crappy flight engine the flight itself has one neat thing: it does give you a 'feel' of flying because the cockpit is 100% 3D. Your head bobs as the plane turns which is a really nifty effect.
Finally, something that is good and bad about the game at the same time: Steep learning curve.
For many coming new to the game they get VERY frustrated because the game itself is very unforgiving. Most new players start with a rifleman or a light tank..head out of the army base in the middle of a battle and get killed in less than a minute with no clue who killed them, from where or WHAT killed them.
Worse yet, since the game itself is highly realistic when it comes to ballistics and armor stuff (which makes tank warfare so cool in this game!).. many players, especially new players, think the game is broken or that it sucks because they emptied their 100 round so anti-tank ammo from their anti-tank gun or from their own tank into an enemy tank and it didnt die..and the enemy tank turned around and shot them dead in 1 shot.
... and they dont realize they were using a light tank that carried a light anti-tank gun (2lbr) against a heavy tank (Tiger) shooting it in the front armor (where there is no chance in hell it would ever penetrate) from medium to long range (where the light AT gun really has no hope to even scratch the paint).
.. or that they were running in the open field with their rifleman and got shot and killed out of nowhere... by the enemy infantry machine gunner concealed in a treeline 400yds away.
.. or that they fired 20 rounds of artillery anti-tank at enemy forces from the hill they were in over a period of 10 minutes and then all they heard was a BANG and they were dead. Turns out their constant shooting gave away their position and the enemy marked them and vectored a dive bomber to take him out... but the player never figures this out.
All in all, the game is very fun to play even with outdated graphics. For flight stuff stay in AH, for ground combat go to WW2OL :)
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used to play it, loved it until i tried flying. Flight model, ao, and the drive/walk for a half hour before seeing an enemy now is bad.
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It needs a state of the art computer to look like 90's game. :eek:
Tried it and it really feels like going 10 years back in time. Blurry pixel graphics combined to glitching.
Graphics aren't a problem as long as they're decent enough. I'd rather take a game with content and a bit outdated graphics than a game with great graphics without content. I don't have that big of a problem with the graphics, but there are other issues that I don't like.
What killed the game for me was an abundance of athletic sappers with too much explosives and mobile spawns. I couldn't enjoy about anything else on the ground than infantry. If there's any shrub around then the ATG's will be outclassed by sappers. It's too easy to sneak up on guns which can't be defended with reasonable efforts. When on defense it's very difficult to get around with an ATG due to mobile spawns right there where would be a place to set up ATG. Can't really set up a defensive perimeter outside the towns due to the flood from mobile spawns.
One day I was a bit pissed off after being bored to constantly be on the run from sappers in a tank and getting killed by infantry in ATG. So I rolled out 6pdr ATG and headed for the shrubs. I began to roll along the shrubs and every once in a while I heard a scream as enemy infantry got squashed under the ATG. Eventually I passed their mobile spawn and destroyed it on the way by. Some time and pushes later I killed a tiger and something else. I also had a 'duel' with an enemy inf, eventually killing it. However my gunner got wounded and so I headed back. On the way back I again heard a few screams, I guess they got their MS back.
On defensive you really don't go anywhere with an ATG.
Running from sappers is bloody boring in a tank. They're always around within 4km of a town. Everyone's a friggin commando.
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Running from sappers is bloody boring in a tank. They're always around within 4km of a town. Everyone's a friggin commando.
Imagine players that look like poorly rendered monkeys with satchels running around porking everything.
Imagine WW2OL.
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The game is great and I would still play it ,but the lag in air support is a serious issue... Plus they have no in game vox so coordinating strategies with other people who are not on ur ts channel gets annoying..If they fixed these two issues I would never look back... It is a must try game IMO...
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I tried it here awhile back just to see what it was about. I actually enjoyed the gameplay, air war really needs work, but overall I enjoyed it. I just didnt enjoy it enough to pay for it and AH at the same time, and well I really enjoy playing AH when I get time :P
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Meaning yes, there are an average of about 3000 people online playing the game at any given hour.
Err I think you mean 300, dropping down to about 100 during off peak.
I took a break for AH for a year or two and played ww2ol. The players there are a good bunch, and make the game what it is. The developers on the other do their best to break it which is very frustrating.
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Yup, Vulcan, its been a LONG time since they had 3,000 players in that game at one time. A few things that killed it - AOs, Mobile spawning, reduced visability in the air, olympic running sappers chasing tanks, being stuck in 1940 playing with the same equipment for years [of course they do throw in a few new variants of the same planes they put into the game from 4 or 5 years ago].
Thing that pissed me off the most was Doc's arrogant attitude toward the players. I remember him telling all the pilots to learn how to fly when they complained about the rudders not working correctly. Even the slightest rudder input kicked the rudder fully and would have you augering all over the place. It went on for 3 or 4 years before they did check out the flight models and realized they weren't working right.
Not to even mention the infantry model which is left over from DOOM.
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Tried it a few times over the years, never lasts more than a few weeks before I delete it. Almost impossible to find a flight (once went an entire two-week experimental period without seeing another plane) and the FM didn't impress me. Non-stop strafing missions and a full tank of gas burned on patrol with no contact gets old fast.
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I remember the big buzz around WW2OL it was supposed to be the next big thing. 100 000 players online simultaneously etc.
I think their servers started going down when the first 1000 trials entered.
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I think thats a matter of perspective Vulcan.
I log on as infantry and head out to the boonies... I see about 20+ contacts of friendly ground units on my screen and that's just in the 500m 'radar' range.
I look up and I see about 10 or so aircraft, both friendly and enemy fighting it out or strafing/bombing.
I know there are quite a bit of enemy players around since there is lots of shooting between armor of both sides and we are losing and recapturing town objectives plus the chat keeps reporting certain areas swarming with enemy infantry.
I do not see the 100's of people. They are there though. You cant see them because you're not in the general area or simply because your client reaches the max number of objects it can display to you.
Jump on a plane and head to the same town and the sky if FULL of aircraft almost all the time. Planes you did not see when you were on the ground because your client did not assign them priority over the enemy tank 200yds over you. But they were there.
The number of people are there. Peak time is a mess and has the biggest fights ive been involved in on any game.
The max object limit is a big problem but its not terribly game-breaking as it was a couple years back. Back then the game would draw you a bomber 2kft above but not the guy knifing you lol.
Its not a perfect game nor the flashiest but it is very fun for the ground combat portion :)
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There's no arena caps. Yeah, none. Might actually try that game out again after this tour. The flight model was lacking a lot to me back when I played it. Maybe it got better over time.
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The flight model was lacking a lot to me back when I played it. Maybe it got better over time.
It hasn't.
ack-ack
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As long as they have Doc running thisngs it won't get fixed.
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Tried it a few times over the years, never lasts more than a few weeks before I delete it. Almost impossible to find a flight (once went an entire two-week experimental period without seeing another plane) and the FM didn't impress me. Non-stop strafing missions and a full tank of gas burned on patrol with no contact gets old fast.
wow how could u not find a fight? weird :rofl
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Graphics aren't a problem as long as they're decent enough. I'd rather take a game with content and a bit outdated graphics than a game with great graphics without content. I don't have that big of a problem with the graphics, but there are other issues that I don't like.
</snip>
One good example of this would be Red Baron 3D. Any time you log on, there are typically 200+ people playing at one time.
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wow how could u not find a fight? weird :rofl
Simply spawn in and start looking around for someone to shoot at, then 5 minutes later you find out they pulled the AO and figure out thats why nobody is around.
Happens ALOLT since they ran off all the players they had, trying to cater to the DOOM insta-action infantry players.
I remember years ago all the big battles they with towns under siege and seeing a column of freindly tanks coming in and counter attacking with squads of fighters duking it out over the whole area. It all pretty much died out when they started pampering the lazy players that wanted to spawn right into the fight instead of grouping up and organizing an attack. Tanks were not being killed in numbers by AT guns and other tanks but by Olympic running Sappers [who could chase a tank down the road] that were running around with mythical magnetic satchel charges.
They've been fighting over the same map [1940 france] since the game came out. With no evidence of ever moving to North Africa [which they said they were working on about 5 years ago and then said it was a no go]. No sign of ever bringing in more variety of planes or vehicles [just variants of the ones they have had for a while]. I remember the first NEW :rolleyes: planes they brought into the game was the 109F [a variant of the 109E], P-40B [a variant of the Hawk 75], and the Hurricane II [ a variant of the Hurricane I]. Everyone was excited about that for awhile then what did they do for the latest generation of planes? They just brought in the 109E-1, the Hurricane IIB, and the P-40E. Simply upgarding what they already have in the game without spending anytime on bringing some more variety into the game.
Players were hollering for them to bring in the US and the Italians and it all fell on deaf ears.
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What type of graphics card do you need for it? 5600GT good enough?
-FYB
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What type of graphics card do you need for it? 5600GT good enough?
-FYB
Judging from the graphics you'd think Geforce256 would do fine but I doubt that's the case since it runs like crap even on latest hardware.
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They've been fighting over the same map [1940 france] since the game came out. With no evidence of ever moving to North Africa [which they said they were working on about 5 years ago and then said it was a no go]. No sign of ever bringing in more variety of planes or vehicles [just variants of the ones they have had for a while].
Players were hollering for them to bring in the US and the Italians and it all fell on deaf ears.
I wouldn't like N.Africa at all, it's among the top of my least preferred theatres. The area from France to Germany, the western european theatre, on the other hand is my favorite theatre. The eastern front is the second and Italy is the third.
Italian units probably wouldn't do much good, unless they'd be put against infantry and light armoured vehicles. Any mediocre tank, even a stuart, could put up a fight against almost any of the italian tanks. It'd be waste of time, better put into new units for the existing countries.
The french already are the framericans ;)
It would be good if the real americans could replace the french by tier x, because the french are pretty much a dead end by '41. Get over the improvised "free french" hoopla.
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I tried that crap in a box when it first came out. Over half the stuff the box claimed was in the game wasnt even developed.What they had worked like more crap. I decided at that point a company thats going to blatently lie to you like that would never get my time let alone money.
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Italian units probably wouldn't do much good, unless they'd be put against infantry and light armoured vehicles. Any mediocre tank, even a stuart, could put up a fight against almost any of the italian tanks.
Just shows how bored everyone got playing with the same equipment for so long and they still probably haven't made any progress toward bringing in more variety of new vehicles. Just be variants of what they already have in game.
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One good example of this would be Red Baron 3D. Any time you log on, there are typically 200+ people playing at one time.
Still? That many people are still playing Red Baron 3D? Man, you flight sim guys are diehards! I love it.
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I think thats a matter of perspective Vulcan.
Actually it's a matter of facts. IE some people watching mission times and then plotting that data into realistic numbers. Cross checked with teamspeak numbers.
I didn't mind the graphics, I thought the numbers were fairly similar to AH (though I think AH has pulled ahead in those), I enjoyed the game. But in the end the visibility bubble ruined it for me in the air, as did the FM issues CRS were constantly in denial over. I saw CRS destroy the game by wanting to keep any power away from the general user base (ie squads) and start turning the game into a bunch of silly politics.
Then there were a few bugs that nailed it for me, connection type stuff, or people who didn't have tree's being rendered that would wipe out entire squads. AND the constant play balancing rubbish CRS played at.