Author Topic: Flak 36 - 88cm versus tanks. A WW2OL action report. (Read 2271 times)

fscott · « **on:** June 11, 2001, 01:49:00 AM »

The one thing I've always wanted to do was fire an 8.8cm AT gun. I don't think firing an 8.8cm will will ever get as real on a computer as it is now with ww2ol.

We were attempting an assault on Namur from Andenne, but were met halfway, by an allied assault. We spawned at a forward base, tanks, infantry, and a few 88's. Someone offered me a tow in his Sdz 7 and we planned on flanking the attacking force. We went to the south of the allies, and popped up over the horizon with numerous trees and bushes for concealment. I could see the attacking force moving from my left to right on the main road.

We unhitched and I deployed the 88mm. I was amazing seeing tanks roll by with 4 or 5 soldiers hitching a ride on top. Some had their heads down as if sleeping, while others were looking around.I zeroed in on one of the A13 MarkIV's as it was passing every other tank full speed up the road, with 3 soldiers on it. The first round found it's mark and it continued to roll as fire flew out of its hatches and began to smoke. I let out a WOOHOO! I saw as 2 soldiers jumped off and hit the prone position looking for their attacker. 2 other tanks stopped in their tracks after seeing their buddy explode, and I saw as their turrets began spinning left and right looking for me. They never expected me. I fired off 3 more rounds and 2 more MarkIV's went up in smoke. Then I saw numerous soldiers getting up from their prone position and almost instanty they all saw me at the same time. They were too far away to fire on me, so I began loading HE rounds as I called for my Sdz7 friend on the radio! Get me out of here, they are coming straight at me!

I started pouding out HE round after round but they were too high and my rounds were going over their heads. My friend appeared out of the bushes and tried frantically to get me hitched. Then he was hit my small arms fire. I was doomed, and all went black.

This wasn't the first time I have used the 88, but it sure was the most fun. I have found myself doing ground work more than I am flying. This ground war is just too much fun. Anyone else got any 88mm stories?

fscott

[ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: fscott ]

mrfish · « **Reply #1 on:** June 11, 2001, 03:10:00 AM »

here's my after action report:

tried 38.7 times to log on, finally succeeded. after 22 minute load time i chose to fly a stuka. i fly about 4 miles and the terrain dissolved into a huge grey sheet of nothingness so i turned south.

ran into some friendlies which caused my fr to fall below 1. every few seconds my plane would leap forward 200yds then freeze upside down til i crashed.

part II

decided to go as a tank. after another eternity of loading i see the tank materialize around me. as i am weaiting for my 466 pii, 256 mgs ram, 32 meg vid card, to stop clicking through data someone kills me on the spawn point.

- fscott i either:

1. want the money they are paying you to report these glowing adventures

or

2. want the game to work.

Mickey1992 · « **Reply #2 on:** June 11, 2001, 07:54:00 AM »

I'll post another AAR as soon as I can log in. The servers have been full for me for 3 days.

fscott · « **Reply #3 on:** June 11, 2001, 10:40:00 AM »

Wow, sorry bout your luck. My suggestion is to look to upgrade. PII 466 just ain't gonna get these power hungry machines anymore.

I rarely drop below 15 fps even when flying.

fscott

MrRiplEy · « **Reply #4 on:** June 11, 2001, 10:48:00 AM »

Fscott: I doubt many people will want to spend a fortune on hardware just because some game has a buggy code.

I've seen Geforce3 owners complain about toejamty framerates (and your 10-15 really is not even playable.)

If I'd be getting anything less than 30 fps in aces high in combat, I'd trash the game without a second thought.. Things just get too jerky below that to enjoy the combat.

Udie · « **Reply #5 on:** June 11, 2001, 10:51:00 AM »

I had a great mission yesterday. I left some town in a t38 and headed to another town that was under attack. When I get there all I see is smoking buildings. I had a guy or 2 riding on my tank and they jumped off as I pulled into town.

They moved off to the left behind a building and I continued slowly down the road. That's when I started hearing the gun fire. I rotated my turret to the left to cover the 2 grunts just in time to see a limey tank blast them. He was turned away from me and I was able to get about 20 yards away from him before he started turning to cover his 6. I put 2 shells into him, then he started smoking from the turret AND THEN his ammo caught fire and flames started shooting out under the turret, it looked realy cool. Then I saw a french guy walking up the road, so I machine gunned him

At this point I decided to go hide and I parked my tank in a burt out house. Once inside the house I rotated my turret out the openning which was facing the direction the enemy was coming from. I waited for about 10 minutes when a patrol of french soldiers came over the hill on the side of the road. I was grinning from ear to ear

I started blasting with the 37mm and the MG and finaly killed all 6+ of them. Unfortunately I didn't see the tank that came with them and he saw me. PLUNK! and everything went red then black!!!! My tank commander was history. I switched to the driver and put her in reverse to escape, but it was too late and I died in short order.

Over all it was a VERY immersive experience even with the low frame rates, which I pray to God they fix soon. I just hope all the pissed off people don't scare too many away, this game will rock once they get things ironed out...

Udie

fscott · « **Reply #6 on:** June 11, 2001, 11:03:00 AM »

The vast majority of people on the forums can't even get the game going, or they have some real probs once they get in. They can't play it so they have nothing better to do than flame the game and CRS. The others are spending their time playing.

When you sell 20,000 copies, your bound to get several thousand who only want to post flames.

Nice report UDIE! Let's hear some more.

fscott

[ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: fscott ]

Westy MOL · « **Reply #7 on:** June 11, 2001, 11:31:00 AM »

"When you sell 20,000 copies, your bound to get several thousand who only want to post flames."

That is the single worst "WW2O excusionist" remark I've read since Wed regarding the enourmous problems customers have been experiencing.

-Westy

Dowding · « **Reply #8 on:** June 11, 2001, 11:38:00 AM »

Quote

When you sell 20,000 copies, your bound to get several thousand who only want to post flames.

Heh - perhaps you are a-okay with the downright fraudulent claims pasted on the box, but it seems others have a problem with it. Not to mention the people who have yet to get online yet.

There is no disclaimer stating 'Some of these features will be added over time'.

If you bought a DVD and it said 'Extra 15 minutes of unseen footage', and instead you got the bog standard film, would you accept it? I don't think 98% of people would.

It breaches any trades description Act in the UK, and I assume you probably have similar in the US.

The WW2OL forum is hilarious. People who are legitimately and quite rightly PO'd are blasted to pieces as soon as they pop their head over the virtual parapet.

Perhaps the game will be developed into something worthwhile - who knows, but things look like they are at least moving in the right direction. But when will the money from sales start to dry up?

[ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: Dowding ]

Fatty · « **Reply #9 on:** June 11, 2001, 11:44:00 AM »

There's also a lot of us who could get the game running, only to be confronted with that warm, unfinished feeling at every turn.

I'll try again in six months, they're so far behind I don't see them even getting to the roughly finished stage before then.

rosco- · « **Reply #10 on:** June 11, 2001, 12:44:00 PM »

Hmmm 7 thousand out of 20 is better than a third of you customers not happy...Im glad your enjoying yourself but I hope your realise your opinion comes off as a wee bit biassed.

All I have heard so far is it is a great tank sim. I havent heard much good about the air war portion, and nothing about the navel aspect. Anyone have any comments good or bad on these? Bugs aside, its there anything to look forward to in the future here?

Karnak · « **Reply #11 on:** June 11, 2001, 01:01:00 PM »

I have the following system:

Althon Classic 700
GeForce 2 GTS 32mb 12.41 drivers
256mb PC133 RAM
Windows 98SE
DirectX 8a
ADSL Internet connection

With the detail set to the absolute minimum at a resolution of 800x600 in 16 bit color I get between .5 and 5 fps while online in WW2Online.

Offline I get 20-40 fps.

As it stands now the game is completely unplayable.

I will wait and see if they survive long enough to fix the problems.

BTW, anybody who thinks that I should upgrade forit, keep in mind that my system is at the topend of mid-range systems out there right now. That means that my system probably ranks in the top 33-25% of their prospective customers.

Nifty · « **Reply #12 on:** June 11, 2001, 01:12:00 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by rosco-:
Hmmm 7 thousand out of 20 is better than a third of you customers not happy...Im glad your enjoying yourself but I hope your realise your opinion comes off as a wee bit biassed.

All I have heard so far is it is a great tank sim. I havent heard much good about the air war portion, and nothing about the navel aspect. Anyone have any comments good or bad on these? Bugs aside, its there anything to look forward to in the future here?

There IS no naval aspect right now. It's just not in the game. They have said all along it will be included after release, but on time frame.

Most everyone that's upset over the game expected an all aspects playable game out of the box. That's nowhere near the case right now. Infantry and tanks are do-able, flight isn't. I dropped to under 5 FPS when I got over friendly troops, IMO, NOT playable. I tried disabling some of the eye candy, but not one setting I changed stuck. I'll play with it more tonight, but I couldn't tell any discernable difference in the screen at 1280x1024x32 and 800x600x16. Must mean that setting isn't working right either, even tho it says 800x600x16 in the settings now. They've mentioned a settings patch and a performance/loadtime patch coming this week, I'll report on the air stuff again after that happens.

Until then, I'll tweak the settings again, and if air is still FPS challenged, I'll stick to infantry/armor.

btw, my system specs are Athlon 900
Asus A7V
384mb pc100 ram
hercules prophet II 64mb (original, not pro or ultra)
sb live! platinum (original, not 5.1)
win 98SE
dx 8.0a
nvidia 12.40 drivers
Saitek 36F, and CH pro pedals USB.

Not a screaming processor, but it's still a -good- system. The thing grabs 70+ fps in 1280x1024x32 in AH offline flying against the drones in fighters (don't remember what the AH B17 benchmark scores were.) Regardless, far better 13FPS (that's what I get when no one is around me in WWII, the 5 FPS is when other people are around).

[ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: Nifty ]

Creamo · « **Reply #13 on:** June 11, 2001, 01:27:00 PM »

I rarely drop below 15 fps even when flying.

fscott

Ok, Im used to 50-70fps in AH, but 15, as horrible as the diffrence would be, would still be playable Im guessing.

Regardless, you seem to be the only one with this experience online, so if you would contact the WWIIOL people and tell them what your doing to achieve these numbers and success, instead of writing short stories here, they could publish a "how to" guide and Ill go buy the damn thing for sure.

It sounds like a blast.

[ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: Creamo ]

fscott · « **Reply #14 on:** June 11, 2001, 04:14:00 PM »

How to:

Step 1: Athlon BadAsslon 1.3.Ghz overclocked to 1.53ghz.

Step 2: 256 MB PC133 CL2 (just upgraded to 512 MB)

Step 3: Gefarce 2 GTS 32MB (soon to be Gefarce 3)

Step 4: Roadrunner Cable Service (Motorola SB4100 cable modem)

Ok I got a badass system I know. Not everyone has anything close to this. Sorry perhaps my opinion is a bit biased. But then again, opinions are based upon perspective. When/if they ever work on the fps issue, Ill probably be running silky smooth 100% of the time.

fscott