[off topic] World war 2 online

[DanSteph]

I thought this deserved a new topic to not post off topic in off topic thread

For recall WWIIOnline is a massive multiplayer online game.
I played it during three month and it was the best online game I ever played.
This game replay again and again the run that German had in 1940
throught Belgium.  This world is persistent, One complete war until
one side win can last from one week to somes month.
Once one side won, the map is resetted and you start again.
German win often but allied had some nice victory.

(BTW Frying tiger the designer of the deltaglider and ShuttleA in Orbiter
work as model designer for wwIIonline... the world is small)

No FPS here, 100% realism, one shot in head your dead, plane
take forever to climb, tank run like turtle, path of bullet are really computed
so for example you must target some know weak point on ennemy panzer
the rear aire intake of motor, the side of the turret etc etc. If a panzer IV
is heading on you and you have a S35... well, better luck another day ?
Same for plane, men , truck... evrything that can be hit.

You can play alone, but it's really better to enter a squad, there is a
complete chain command and often your squad are instructed by
Hq at higher level (commander recruted in the older players) to
do some action (take a town, defend one etc etc) So you can
have some action that include several squad and hundred peoples.

The map is really wide you can travel several day from the german
border line to the sea.
This game is history accurate and you can find about every vehicle that was
used at this time.... each that you encounter in the game driven by a real player.

Here the actuall state of the game with the front showed in blue and red:


here the main page of WWIIonline with daily report: http://www5.playnet.com/bv/wwiiol/index.jsp

And here below my original off topic post that was in the off topic thread
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Imagine a 3d world that would take you one day or two if you travel to go from one side
to another.... imagine that every thing that can move and fight is drived by a real guy
Imagine that you can do missions with 15-20 friends in tanks, by foot, with gun, with plane
and that you speak in real time with team speak....


Imagine town attacked by 200-300 guy and defended by the same ammount....
600 online guy fighting, while you hear your friend  from air force dying in the air
on the channel 8.... You come back to channel one to ear that the tank column
that drive 10 friends 2 km before you is attacked by a stuka squadron....

The whole map often contain 2000-5000 online player....

That's WWIIOnline.... the most amazing Online experience I had in my life.






Guard:





Stucka raid:





attacking a 88 with knife... it seem many allied life will be saved in the  town several km away.





Freinds in hurricane:




Massive mutliplayer uh ?





Rear gunner place:




A friend take a truck and drive his friend in the combat zone, occasion to have nice chatting
with team speak.. travell can last half an hour



(****, the image don't show)


It seem it will be a bad day for some spitfire, watch flack !






It was my main tank the S35... a completely outdated tank in 1940 opposed to some panzers.





And my sigi when I was in the alliance:





Ah the good ol' time



Post Edited ( 06-13-04 02:48 )

[AphelionHellion]

8o Cooool! And you say Frying Tiger does modeling in WW2OL as well??

I used to be totally addicted to Day of Defeat (a WW2 online mod for HalfLife). It was pretty realistic considering that it
was an "amateur" mod of Half Life. They managed to soup up the graphics as much as is possible with the HL engine.
Aww now ya got me all nostalgic. I remember how fun it was sneaking up behind people and bayonetting 'em in the
butt    That was essentially my entire strategy - sneak so far behind enemy lines that they never suspect that you're
there, hide, then encourage my teammates to liven up by getting a few good shots off and saying "Hey if I can do it,
so can you!! Charge!"
They didn't know I was being a dirty ambushing weasel, but it helped boost our morale  Online games teach you
some useful lessons that way - for instance the importance of teamwork and self-confidence

Not sure if I can run WW2 OL on my computer, though. I tried running Battlefield 1942 on this thing and it -barely- ran
at all. Of course BF1942 looks like it has flashier graphics than WWII Online. I should see if there's a demo I can try...

[freespace2dotcom]

Is it just me, or are there a lot of off topic threads being created lately?

[schumanna]

Latey yes.  Maybe we should go back on topic?  We should not note when we are off-topic but only when we
are on topic. heh

[AphelionHellion]

Actually I prefer numerous small off-topic threads to one huge useless-post-thread behemoth But you're right, they
probably don't belong on this particular forum.
How about an entirely other fourth forum? Besides the Add-ons, Orbiter and French-speaking ones? Dan?
Forget I even mentioned it if it'd just be extra work for you, but I'm sure plenty of the long-timers here would be willing
to moderate and help out
Hopefully it wouldn't be a huge forum, either... We're all still Orbiter addicts, right?  

[DanSteph]

AphelionHellion wrote:
8o Cooool! And you say Frying Tiger does modeling in WW2OL as well??
...

It's his work yes.

AphelionHellion wrote:
I tried running Battlefield 1942 on this thing and it -barely- ran
at all. Of course BF1942 looks like it has flashier graphics than WWII Online.
I should see if there's a demo I can try...

BF1942 have better graphic but it remain a "mission-game" with a small amount of people
doing somes precise stuff on small map in a limited time. wwII is perhaps graphically less appealing
but you have a real war going there. Your action can modify the destiny of thousands others
peoples. You can have a weight (negative or positive) on a battle that can last two month.

One time we lost a key town in the middle of the map, ennemy was well organized:
hidden tank and troops around the town to forbit resupply, plane bombing and
88 bombing (long range big gun). In this case the stucka weren't the main danger (appart for the resupply column)
but those 88 on the colline litterally killed us and all our town supply. (town have a limited
amount of soldier and material that they can spawn)

We made some commando action to try to kill the 88 but we failed. we didn't had luck.
After a 6 hours (real time) battle, town ran out off supply and falled into ennemy's hand.
The lost of this town lowered the moral of all the allied army and was perhaps the start point
where we lost the whole map (one week later).

We lost the town because allied HQ command was unable to weight precisely what was going
(or was not really aware of it because of bad communication) and failed to send a major airplane (reserve?)
attack to destroy the 88, there where the key. (anyways the few allied plane I saw where killed by flack immediatelly)

But if our commando action (5 guys, on a truck) succedeed to destroy the 88
perhaps we would have won the war ?  who know ?

And this lead to the reason I stopped playing this game: as in 1940 the allied
command totally sucked, failing to organise combined action, often squad where disobeing
and there was flame ware going beetween different allied squad... and as counter
part axis have a really nice command line and good squad. ( but this game look so real that I
didn't wanted to play axis, they deal with symbol that I don't like)

Dan



Post Edited ( 06-13-04 13:20 )

[DocHoliday]

*Doc watches the thread drooling* Screw graphics, the idea and the massivness of it!!!

Argh. I think I will not even read this thread or I will go crazy.. BUT the $13 or so subscription I am not prepared to
spend.. at the moment

Cheers,

[DanSteph]

I may someday suscribe again.....
Too bad that I don't speak well english, it seem the best squad are english
and often on the german side. (kampfgruppe wiking for example http://www.kgwiking.com/ )

They are the most serious, my former squad was a bunch of tourist
that had difficulties to mount an operation with more than 15 guys.. pfff

There was two main french squad and both boss hated heach other.
The day when our chief decided to not run anymore our squad in the same
division (4LMB)  I quited the game.. disgusted.

Only 30 active french guy in two squad and they even can't fight together.
I expected a 100% realisme game but not SO real that french act as in 1940

So if I suscribe again it will surelly be in an english team perhaps even on axis side.


BTW you can download the game and try it solo.. but there is no ennemy so there is no salt...

Dan



Post Edited ( 06-13-04 22:06 )

[freespace2dotcom]

DanSteph wrote:
my former squad was a bunch of tourist that had difficulties to mount an operation with more than 15 guys.. pfff
Dan

The appropriate term is n00b. but I understand. don't feel bad, because they're everywhere! I myself would probably
have a hard time doing something like that until I got used to it...

[DanSteph]

no we can be noob but serious... don't get me wrong I met several cool guy
and we had many adventure together, but it was to often with a few people 5-8
of the squad and rarely with more... this was our chief's fault. A squadron leader
must be here everyday, training must be serious and action should be organised
with others squad, order must be followed and criticism against others squad kept
in pocket.

He was a good soldier, most people of the squad played this game more than one years
they where all good as individual soldier... but again our chief should never had been
nominated to this squad command...

Next time I'll look several day before joining a squad.
here the allied ahq with all the unit affiliated: http://www.alliedhq.wwiionline.com/arfr/index.php?name=arfr

Dan



Post Edited ( 06-13-04 22:09 )

[AphelionHellion]

Ah, I'm all too familiar with Dan's complaint. As he said, you can be a n00b but still be serious. You can also be
experienced, and still be a selfish arrogant prick  
In a game like this, particularly on this scale, you're sunk unless you work together in a tight unit where people can
anticipate the needs of others and work together to accomplish an objective. This is what a real military does, after all.
They don't just hand you a gun, point you toward the enemy lines and tell you to blast away. You wouldn't live long if
this were the case
Sure there are moments when you get to play Rambo, but ONLY when it benefits your team. You don't run out and get
yourself killed right when they need you to be alive (to cover them, for instance).

On the opposite side of the coin, you have squads (or clans or tribes - it's similar for all online multiplayer games) who
are a bit TOO serious. I've quit a couple of clans when the leaders were so serious about the military rank/file thing
that they'd rant and curse and threaten to demote you just for not showing up online for practice on time every single
time. These groups typically had a lot of power struggles going on, as well.

So it's tough to draw the line... You need to be organized and disciplined, yet not quite so serious that it ceases being
fun

An idea - what if we were to start an Orbiter squad? Could we all be pilots? We could fly P-51s or even Me 262s

[DanSteph]

AphelionHellion wrote:
In a game like this, particularly on this scale, you're sunk unless you work together in a tight unit where people can
anticipate the needs of others and work together to accomplish an objective. This is what a real military does, after
all.

Right, rambo just get a bullet in their empty head in this game... there is no individual actions
possible that can really have a weight.

in three month we never won a town with our squad... we tried hard even with two squads
(about 30 peoples) and finally the whole 4LMB  (100 people?) but I never saw that.
But I saw many action, we defended successfully several town and made some nice actions.
My best score was 8 panzers, 9 soldier and two truck in one "session" (you don't die) with my S35.

Just to say that this is perhaps the only game where using real tactic work.

Try the demo, it cost nothing.

Dan

[AphelionHellion]

Dan: No individual actions that can have weight, usually, no - but you also pointed out a turning point in a battle you
were in. If those few guys firing at 88 weren't there, there would have been a totally different outcome (maybe).
So your own little team can make a difference I guess that's the cool thing about a persistent arena - most games
just go in 30 minute rounds...
One question - who gives the orders? Who takes the place of the generals and top-echelon commanders in real life?
'Cuz I don't want to be following the orders of some 10-year-old kid with a penchant for futile human wave attacks  

[DanSteph]

You are totally free to play as a "lone wolf"
there is chatting channel where you can chat with people that are
near your zone, so you can spawn anywhere on the map and
insert yourself in somes 3rd action. (with any arm, soldier,tank, truck, plane etc etc)
it's often only a matter to pass some messages on the chatting room.

If you play a squad you are free or not to follow your squad order
your squad leader is often affiliated with hq command (often played
by old passionnated people) and you chief is free to follow or not
the hq command.

As in real life if your chief suck you will die more often, if your squad suck
you will loose more often and if your squad don't agree with hq command
you will often play with 5-15 guy in your corner doing some "solo action"

Everything is possible. as you pay and as it's finally only a game,
nobody can force you to obey any order or to play with one material only.
(you can even spawn on the other side, but this is time ruled)

In brief the whole command chain is only a former things.

Anyway I think that one must try this game one time in it's life... for me
it's the ultimate ww2 game  and it give a very *real* view
of real war: good place good time good chief and many luck ? you live
and you win, else.....  

About individual action: as in real life the result depend of thousand individual actions...
somes have more weight, some are insignifiant on the big picture.
nobody wake up a morning and decide that he will be a heroes, so it goes in ww2

Ps: as it a paying game you dont' have the "basic" moron... all people are motivated.

Dan



Post Edited ( 06-14-04 04:55 )

[freespace2dotcom]

of course... but as a result of all that paying business, you miss out on people like me! that game definately looks
super cool. and if I could find some way to play for a cheaper (likely a one-time deal) then I'd be all for going to the
store and buying it on the spot. I like games like that. however, it seems likely that I'll only do it if I can get it on a
hacked "free" server, then I'd be all for it...

just listen to me, I have no ethics... just ignore me....

[DanSteph]

freespace2dotcom wrote:
of course... but as a result of all that paying business, you miss out on people like me! that game definately looks
super cool. and if I could find some way to play for a cheaper.

It cost only the price of one movies per month.

nothing

Anyway unless I'm wrong you have a free trial period (three day? one week ?)
When I started I had one month free trial offered by a game magazine.

And last if you just want a taste the demo is free to download but you are limited
to a training area with target. but here you can try all the vehicles and soldier.

Anyways if your minor and your parents are against army... well. (you need a credit card)







Post Edited ( 06-14-04 13:51 )

[McBrain]

Dan, how much data transfer would be there over internet when I play this game?
I ask this because my father bought DSL with double speed but with 2GB data transfer limit pro month.
When I download more, it becomes VERY expensive!!!!

[DanSteph]

Sorry don't know, when I played this game I had only ISDN
so it should not be so important, depend on how many time you play
per day.

Anyway you will get an accurate answer if you ask your question
in one of the many wwII forum , for example here the officials forum:
http://discussions.playnet.com/index.php

I searched trought the FAQ and the forum with "data transfert limit" keyword
but didn't found a reply. But I'm sure this question was asked before.

Dan



Post Edited ( 06-14-04 15:02 )

[AphelionHellion]

McBrain: Ack! Sounds like kind of a raw deal to me.
Even with dial-up I bet I could break 2GB per month    But that's because I'd have eMule running 24/7
BTW Sorry I didn't try your chat room when you were there - I'll be back later, in the evening. Er... In the evening in
California.

Anyway, in my experience, online games don't transfer huge amounts of data (unless you're downloading custom
maps and textures from the server, and since everyone is playing on the same "field" here, I doubt that'd be a
problem)
Is there a way to check how much throughput you've used in a given time period? If not, I'd be pissed at that DSL
company charging you extra for going over a limit you can't even see.
You might just want to try playing the demo once or twice and then check and see how much data got transferred.
The thing about online games is that they seem to transfer very small chunks of data very rapidly. For instance, when
transferring your location to the central server, they only need like 4 numbers (XYZ and heading). When you fire,
again, it's just a vector that gets sent to the server.
Of course, I've only played in games with maybe 64 people max. I'm not sure how this game handles thousands of
people at once. But then, since they're spread out over an entire continent, I doubt it's sending you data for the
locations and actions of players who are hundreds of miles away. That'd be pretty sloppy coding  

[DanSteph]

And your right aphelion, data are sent only for object within a small
circle around you... there is no intterest to receive position data of a bullet
that was shot 300km away

it *seem* to me it was something like 10mo per day or per hour but I'm not sure
at all.

Just checked my account, 6.56 GB already transferred this month...
limited data transfert isn't for me

Dan