Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Apache on June 18, 2002, 12:00:53 PM
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I figured out lastnight one of my largest problems with WW2OL. I could never put my finger on it but something just didn't feel right. Why couldn't I get into this game? Where was the immersion? Why didn't I feel like I was a soldier on the battlefield with a fighting chance.
I logged onto WW2OL last evening before I logged onto THE sim, better known as AH, for a little ground pounding. I pick a site thats under siege, spawn and run inside a building. I run across the room, spin back towards an open door, drop prone and wait.
There is gun fire everywhere, machine gun fire, rifle fire, heavy ordinance blasting away. I hear tanks and aircraft everywhere! Then it hits me. There is no direction to the sounds. I'm lying here watching one little door and all this fighting sounds like it is the room with me. In essence. I'm totally lost. If I can't see it, I'm doomed.
No doppler effects.
It amazed me how such a simple thing that we've had here in AH really blows my gaming experience else where. Thanks alot HTC. :D
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Try operation flashpoint.
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Originally posted by Swoop
Try operation flashpoint.
(http://www.boomspeed.com/swoop/logo_small.jpg)
Got it. Incredible game. On the ground anyway. Air stuff sux.
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Me too, Apache. Tried FA 3...deleted it within 30 min. Tried WB3, deleted it within 24 hours. Was in WW2Online Beta. Never bothered with it after beta....probably should try it again...
I've yet to buy IL-2, but you see, I have one of the few coal-burning PC's left on the planet, I'm pretty sure that its not up to snuff for even low graphic intensity settings of IL-2 (and really, what would be the point?)
I need to upgrade soon! :)
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Originally posted by Apache
Got it. Incredible game. On the ground anyway. Air stuff sux.
Best description of OFP I ever read.
OFP: Resistance is out 28th of June.
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That was always the thing that put me off of WW2OL was the sound. A battle a mile away over a hill sounded like it was 100 yards in front of me.
I was sitting on the RW in AH yesterday after landing, and cut my engine. I sat there for a while and listened to the planes land and take off and the occasional GV roll by. How did we ever stand it before there were external sounds?!? How was HTC able to get external sounds (that work correctly) in the game in a relatively short period of time when WW2OL's external sounds are still screwed up after a year?
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Funny thing about external sounds is when I suggested them once I was shouted down by the usual AH experts and cheerleaders for it being unrealistic, "gamey", and waste of HTCs time. :)
Alas I dont have sound on my PC anymore, it's broken in a bad way and I havent heard these AH sound effects in months! :(
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yep got to hand it to um i thought it would suck. but its great best sound of any game and only doppler that i know of.
they really out did themselves on it.
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'AH has ruined me forever"
LOL!
My heart pumps peanut butter fer yah.
You ain't 'ruined' Apache. Yer mearly picky.
Talk to Animal.. he's been butt-reamed so much, he can't even fart in the audible sound range. Now, when he blows a big juicy fart, the dogs in the neighborhood howl... but nobody else knows.
Now, theres somebody who's ruined forever.
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The external noises when the engine is on, is extremely gamey and arcadish.
And every freaking air combat game with external noises STILL hasn't gotten it right! Hell, in Il-2 I can hear a f'in Stuka rear gunner firing at me from 300 meters ahead of me!
It's lame to say the least, and I wish there was a way to jack up YOUR airplanes noises to get rid of external noises... cuz you ain't hearin' jack toejam over airplane engines.
If you could, why would you need a radio and a headset to hear the guy sitting next to you in a Cessna 172????
-SW
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Originally posted by AKSWulfe
The external noises when the engine is on, is extremely gamey and arcadish.
And every freaking air combat game with external noises STILL hasn't gotten it right! Hell, in Il-2 I can hear a f'in Stuka rear gunner firing at me from 300 meters ahead of me!
It's lame to say the least, and I wish there was a way to jack up YOUR airplanes noises to get rid of external noises... cuz you ain't hearin' jack toejam over airplane engines.
If you could, why would you need a radio and a headset to hear the guy sitting next to you in a Cessna 172????
-SW
Yeah, have to agree...with the engine on.
After thinking about this, I became aware that I use the external sounds to my advantage. When my visual SA lets me down, my audible SA has picked up the slack. I've evaded many enemy by hearing him before I visually aqcuired him. I've unintentionally tuned myself to listen for specific approaching aircraft sounds.
Guess it is kinda dweeby when you really think about it...but oh well.
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Everyone gets the same concession Apache, it ain't dweeby to use it.
It's just annoying as hell that I can't change it to my liking. I absolutely can not make myself believe that I am hearing enemy planes when I'm moving along at 300MPH, firing my guns, and talking to myself....
I think it's "neat"... and is pretty cool if you are in the commanders seat of a Panzer, or manning the 37mm on a flakpanzer.. or well anything outside in the GVs... or in the tower, or in a gunner station at a field.
But, when I'm in a fighter or a bomber... I want everything external, except close flak explosions, to be mute.
-SW
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Don't cornfuse external sounds heard when playing a tanker or foot soldier in WWIIO to being like the external sounds in AH. As for AH's external sounds all I can do is echo what SW just said. When in an airplane and I can hear noises external to my closed cockit (and with the engine running to boot) I think it's hokey and silly.
But I also concur 100% with Apache on the complete lameness of WWIIO's own sounds. What I hear is just about as useless as white noise. The WWIIO sounds are an ambience setter. A type of back ground noise much in the way some box games play music. I've found nothing helpful in the WWIIOnlines sounds at all. One night I even noted at one point (I launched in the East CP when I should have from the West CP) that I was the sole person within at least a thousand yards of anyone else online and yet it still sounded as if I was smack dab in the middle of a ferocous tank battle and fire fight. So no improvement in that category at all.
Further impressions (or lack thereof) are...
I found being a foot soldier looks and feels only a little better - the new animations are an improvement. However given the state of the prior soldier "model" there wasn't much room to make them worse. They were simpley the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen for a fps model. Yet the new ones are nothing to "wOOt" home about though. There is still the age old bug of shots missing at point blank range with rifles, shots coming thru rock FB walls and invisio-silent kills just to mention a few of the worst issues. Also, the SMG's have a ferocious and massively over-done kick/recoil/barrel rise. I've shot a few and they're much more controllable in RL. Unless you're a 12 year old, 70 pound Girl Scout in which case the WWIIO recoil/ barrel rise is *very* accurate. So sadly no major improvement to being a foot soldiering has really occured imo either.
FPS is up for flying. But then again there is still the winking out of cons in hi density battle areas. The con limit-bias problem obviously still has not been fixed. But I played some the other night for the Allies by flying a Hurricane. I shot down a few 110's and 109's and also died a few times too (shot down twice and augered twice when the FPS hit the fraction level and I could not maneuver at all). My CH 8-way hat doesn't seem to be able to work yet ... still ... a year later. One fun thing was there must be a lot of newbies on cause it was very easy to nail folks :) I found I am able to use my sharp shooting habits from flying AH's YAK-9's with no problem as I found no need to get within 100-200 range to land lethal shots at all - with a Hurricanes 303's too. I think some guys who complain on thier BBS have "sycn to refresh" set OFF (rubber bullet syndrome) or are just shotty toejams, er toejamty shots I mean ;) The planes FM's IMO still feel all goofy. Maybe the replicate some RL aerodymanic effects correctly but with all the other specs off they're hard to appreciate to say the least (again, IMO) . So I'd give one positive check for the better FPS and another for the pilot fatigue feature. I also like the opening/closing of the cockpit feature It's cute, but I could live without it - escpecially when you see how much crucial stuff is mising. So I give that a shoulder shrugging neutral grade. However those do not compensate for the hokey features they have decided to implement; lame perpetual haze layers, seperate guage view, rigged six view with no rear view mirrors to compensate, worthless cockpit pilot arm/lever animations; and the pilot is still bolted straight up in his seat with no head/torso movement allowed AT ALL. I would rather have too liberal a view, as is the case for several aircraft in AH, than none at all given that current PC gear is not up to the task for the realism many of us would like to have.
I've yet to try tanking but that was the most enjoyable to begin with and other than a new tank or two not much was done with those at all. I did not subscribe last time to enjoy the only fun part for me, the tanks, and I don't think it's advanced far enough with 1.64 to bother - even if I could.
The flight and soldier segments still have a LONG way to go imo. (not even going to mention about the joke they call the Navy). My expectations have risen after having played DOD and MOH:AA for several months. If being a foot soldier in WWIIO were half as immersive (gameplay wise as well as in the actual machinations and graphical display) as it is in those two games then WWIIO would be pretty damn good to say the least.
Someone holler when 1.7 is ready?
Westy
p.s. Just saw on thier own boards in one of the many "Bye Bye" topics posting up thier lately. I thought it was a very accurate description - and funny too :)
The infantry play still looks retarded - models look like spongebob squarepants running with a rifle.
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lol Westy, your descriptin is better than mine. I've been in an area where I didn't see a bloomin' thing but I swear it sounded like the battle of all battles was right in front of me...more to the left actually.
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I just read on their web page that the next fix is the sound.
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
Funny thing about external sounds is when I suggested them once I was shouted down by the usual AH experts and cheerleaders for it being unrealistic, "gamey", and waste of HTCs time. :)
Alas I dont have sound on my PC anymore, it's broken in a bad way and I havent heard these AH sound effects in months! :(
It had nothing to do with wasting HTCs time. Everyone just feels compelled to disagree with you no matter what. :p
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These folks have made ww2 addons (http://www.foxypro.dk/miso1.htm) for Operation Flashpoint and has made a couple ofmissions. (http://www.foxypro.dk/add1.htm) In the first one, the night before D-Day, he uses recordings from "Band of Brothers" when they are just about to jump from their C47.. The effect works real good and sounds like your jumping into the pit of hell. His second mission, the Omaha beach landing, he first uses the famous recording of Ike addressing the troops that's nicely done, then he uses recordings from Saving Pv Ryan for the background battle sounds. With all the background explosions and smoke you really feel like your part of a very BIG show. So-- sometimes backgroud battle sounds really do work.
Oh, if any of you are gonna try these ww2 addons, place the ww2 weapons in your addon folder first then the soldiers otherwise it doesn't work right.
The pillboxes blockhouses and higgens boat are really cool. the also have a Sherman and Panzer tank.
Don't forget to pick up a Maxum 30c water cooled MG heheheh
here (http://ofp.gamezone.cz/index.php?sekce=campaigns) Plus they have an extensive addon section. Also lots of tuts to try and get some of you guys interested in 3d modeling.
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Ripsnort
I read somewhere that you got a P3 866MHz. Right or wrong?
Well, I got myself such a "coalburner". P3 866MHz+384MB RAM and GForce 256 vc. Im runnin Il-2 at 1024x860 without any problems in FPS or game speed. No overclocking, only using NVidia 28.43 drivers.
Sailor
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Originally posted by metronom
Ripsnort
I read somewhere that you got a P3 866MHz. Right or wrong?
Well, I got myself such a "coalburner". P3 866MHz+384MB RAM and GForce 256 vc. Im runnin Il-2 at 1024x860 without any problems in FPS or game speed. No overclocking, only using NVidia 28.43 drivers.
Sailor
P3-800EB+256k ram-Geforce 2 32 meg card. Not sure about IL2, but I use benchmarks in AH (which has quite a bit less FR hit than IL2 I'm told) and my best in AH Benchmark is 32 FPS. During battles over smoking airfields (with clutter off, and Shift F2, medium horizon detail) I get into single digits.
I'm not willing to fork out $50 to find out that my box is not up to spec and the fact that they STILL have a 32 pplayer limit on the servers. Once you've flown in arenas such as AH where 500 people are online, 32 just don't cut it..
Thanks for posting your info though!
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"I just read on their web page that the next fix is the sound."
Saw that too just before I came here and read your post :) Thanks Krusher.
But I find a bit of wry humor in that given a year of players being told by CRS and the 'tech help' there that nothing was wrong and that it was the players problem; cheap sound card, low system specs, misconfigured OS/DX etc etc. And then having to read fan boi accounts about how cool "the most superior sounds in on all of simdom" played on THIER boxes? ;) It's about time they fixed it - let alone finally admitting there is a problem. (another check mark for CRS in the "can stop the roadkill about (fill in the blank)...." category.
Wonder how much longed it will be before they actually do something about the year old problem on the con biasing problem which IMO is an even more important issue.
Westy
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I agree the sounds in AH are impressive, but we're still missing crital sounds like gun turret rotation, scrape of metal on pavement during a ditch, ground roll. Hope some of these gaps get filled soon.
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Rip- Il2 is nice to have though when the AH connections ain't exactly in tip-top shape. Been playing almost exclusively since the past 2 or so weeks my connx to the AH servers have gone to the deep south. They even gots a P39 in there... plus a few other neat things that have only recently been added (2 I16s, early 109Es, and 3 MiGs with different armaments/engines)..
I'm not trying to sell you on it, but the support for it is good- in terms of patches- and you can find some pretty fun hosts with good connections. Flew on a 1942 dogfight host last night- Germans vs Russians, Russian side had early Il2s for ground attack, I16s,MiGs, P39N-1, and a few other planes while the Germans had various models of 109s and a 190. It was fun, and had restricted views. The only thing I can honestly say that I didn't like was complete lack of icons on this host. You can't see a damn thing until they are within 400meters of you- and you can't really tell if they are German or not until you zoom your view in or they attack you.
The game is worth it- I paid $40 for it, running on an AMD Athlon 900Mhz(o/c to 1070) with 512MB PC133 memory(o/cled too), Voodoo5 5500, SB Live! and 56K modem for online play.
It runs "okay" offline, but need a fast CPU for all those AI objects. It runs real well online, and is pretty damn fun.
But I ain't trying to sell you on it, but it's my replacement for AH until the connections get better and the plane squidding stops(plane goes forward, slows down a bit, accelerates super fast, then slows down- repeat)
Anyway, your choice- they are having another upgrade come out in the fall. I'm only somewhat looking foward to it- they screwed the pooch for me when they announced that over half the human controllable planes will be La7s, 2 late 109G models (G10 and G14), 190D9, 109K-4 and a Me262... while only handful of earlier war planes that are human controlled. :(
-SW
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Yes and I guess every pilots account I have ever read that said pilots heard enemy aircraft firing weapons was a lie. :)
Or how exactly did the MK108 get its name "pneumatic hammer"?
Or why did I read accounts of pilots being able to distinguish between 20mm enemy fire and 50cal US fire?
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Sounds really weird.. I recall reading a preview article of WW2OL which praised it's awesome sound effects.. Doppler, time-shift, the works.
The reviewers were impressed on how they could see a distant spit strafe the ground and have the sound delayed according to the distance etc. effects.
I guess that was just one of the blatant lies CRS put out, they never could implement those sounds to the final product.
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I'm gonna re-cancel my WW2OL account, probably today. It's fun for a side but in reality... I think I'm gonna wait for vs 1.10 before I look at it again. It's just.... not.
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Funny really, but the one thing about this thread so far that has stuck in my mind, is that about the coal-burner pc's.... obviously, I have one, heh
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Rip-my PC still burns camal dung, but I get great performance and hosting up to 14 people, all at 1024x768x32 max everything. It is worth the bucks for IL2, my friend.
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I think the WWIIO program can do very well when there are only one or two sounds for it to actually concentrate on. But online and in or near a battle it falls flat on it's face.
Westy