Cornered Rat Software is about to go all the way and implement their one world philosophy. I'm pretty psyched. They've been improving the game steadily for the last month, and now it just rocks. The game is smooth even with over 1000 people, and the scenery is really shaping up. There are tons of individual trees, and new buildings. You can climb into the buildings to get incredible views and sweet sniper shots. The rivers are well implemented, and you can play E Boats on them now. Night battles are intense, and they only last 45 minutes or so.

They have implemented the ranking system and tank limitation rules. Quank is dead. There were so many infantry running around tonight it was dizzying. I love playing infantry, so I'm psyched, and now I can go into battle with anything from a rifle, a smg, a grenade, a satchel charge, or a luger. Yes!

And now the ONE WORLD is getting close to really happening. I'm sure that it won't meet everyone's expectations, but it should meet most everyones. I really have to tip my hat to CRS for holding off on their monthly fee until this was up and running (they start charging in a week or two for us who have been playing since opening day, or close to it).

So, come on and give it a try. WW2OL is ready to win you back, or win you over.

-Official QT3 Cornered Rat Software FANBOIS

This is the squad I'm trying to join:

http://home.tampabay.rr.com/dutch/wwii/warstory.html

The screenshots are excellent. And it documents the first English town captured by the Germans. Love those beer hall tunes!

does it still run at 0.00025 fps ?

last i checked they made huge improvement as far as fps are concerned.

During battles (that is when it really is usefull to have good fps), my fps has improved from a poor 3 fps to a stuning 4 !!
amazing isnt it ?

the game will soon be pay to play : i, like many other won't pay for this crap
i'm afraid this game won't finish the year btw...

Hey! Wow! A fellow WIIOnline player!

I've been playing WWII Online on and off. Unfortunately, more off then on lately. I was totally addicted to the game when it first arrived on retail shelves, even during the most frustrating times of CTDs, CTHLs, and extremely long load times. Luckily, I've never been bothered with the FPS issues.

The problem I had with the game lately was that it was becoming stale for me. The changes were far and few between. Even after 4 months, it still "feels" like it's unfit for a retail release. CRS' rules for the game aren't as smooth an operation I hoped it would be. The original game manual now is almost totally worthless because they changed the rules so many times or still trying to make them. Right now, most of the rules are cumbersome or vague.

The other problem is the shrinking player base. It doesn't seem like there would be an issue with ONE persistant world now that no more than 2000 players are ever plyaing at any given time. This is still during the free-trial period. On October 15, it'll be interesting to see how many will continue.

Personally, I want this game to succeed and become the great game it appears to be on paper. This was the kind of games I was dreaming about playing since playing my first MMOG, "Confirmed Kill" years ago, and hearing stories of a virtual battlefield.

The guys over at CRS/Playnet/Strategy First are working hard. The seem very competent and I give them alot of credit for doing something like this. It's too bad they are still going through their growing pains, and everyone is hurting.

I too played through the bad times, and it was the cool concept and the interaction between players that kept me coming back. The fps is up above 20 even during the worst action, and the load times are very manageable now. When I first played it took 15 minutes to get on the battlefield, and 5 minutes to respawn (damn I must have liked this game). Now I can get onto the battlefield in around 5 minutes and I respawn instantly within a city or its forward bases (takes about a minute and a half to respawn at a new town).

The rulebook has always been horrible. I think the fan sites may be the best way to learn how to play the game now. I have pretty much learned as I've gone, but I'm still sure I don't know how to do everything (how do you see what gear you are in while driving a tank? I still look down at the stick and take a guess).

The game is entirely community driven. I remember so many terrific evenings when I would pal up with a small band and battle it out over a town or a base. People can be so funny with their emotes and comments. My absolute favorite part of the game is that this isn't Everquest or AO, where every one is working on building their character. In WW2OL we are all created equal, and success is built on playing smart and gaining experience. I love the awkward shift-rightclick-leftclick when firing a small arm, it slows the whole process down and makes you learn specific mechanics to become good at the game. And people who are good at the game are just that, "good", not "uber-good" like a 50th level paladin that you couldn't touch unless you played for a month solid.

Sorry, I may have wondered a bit in driving home my thesis sentence in that last paragraph. This game is f-u-n. Try it. Or try it again. It is quick and accessbile for people who only want to casually play it, and it can be engrossing for anyone who wants to burn a Saturday night defending Chimay from British thugs and French goons (like any true geek).

I tried to play today from work. Trouble is, with XP, 128MB isn't enough to play WWII Online any more. I wish the new RAM we're supposed to get would show up :-)

I do plan on continuing my account. Every once in awhile I do get that urge to fly. With more infantry running around, there are plenty of 'soft' targets. ;)

Your right that this isn't like EQ or AO. I like that as well. You're not building an online character to improve his skills. It's your own skills you bring to the table.

I'm hoping for the best for this game. If it can stay alive for a couple more months, I think it'll be what it's supposed to be when it was released.

I'm not supposed to say how big an improvement v1.30 will be. So don't quote me.


--- Alan

Who quoted you? When are they releasing v1.30?

My biggest problem currenty are the CTDs. I get them every once in awhile and it's very random. Some nights, I can play for hours on end. Other nights, I get a CTD any where from 10-30 minutes.

This is frustrating because I would want to gain rank and not lose points to a CTD. I hope they get this issue resolved quickly.

I'm interested in seeing the release of v1.30. Hopefully it'll happen before the 14th so that it'll give a people an incentive not to cancel their accounts.

Well, version 1.3 is due Monday, and here is a preview:

http://www5.playnet.com/bv/wwiiol/media.jsp

If you've got the bwidth, watch Bushman's video. If you played WW2OL in the first week, then this will look like another game entirely. The forum people seem at times to be psyched and at other times paranoid about what the patch will really do. I think it will be a huge success if they can just get the tanks to roll along the ground rather than sort of hover. I'm very, very excited.

Ok so what does everyone think??

--- Alan

Well, I actually like it alot. The stretch between 1.20 and 1.30 I probably logged in a total of 5 hours total.

Now, I play about an hour or two a night. I even joined a squad.

I like the increased ground cover. It's still VERY flat (tress and bushes). The frame-rate has inmproved slightly. I never really had a problem with it before, though.

The new planes are very cool. It adds a nice variety, especially for the Allies now that they have a nice bomber.

What I really like so far is what seems like the number of players returning to give 1.30 a try. I fly mostly and seeing more air targets is nice.

It's fun to log into player services to see my progress. Now it also me to set goals. Before this feature, there was nothing to note my achievements since winning the "war" seems unimportant at this point. This lends to the feeling that the game still feels a bit shallow, that your efforts are not important.

I mostly just fly around 90% of the time. I haven't really delved into playing the ground forces.

What I think will help the game (for me anyways) is a very good manual. I'd like to know what I have to do to do certain things. How rankings work, scoring, missions, etc. What are the required steps to get form point A to point B.

It'll make the game a bit more immersive if i knew my actions x where affecting factor y. It'll give me more purpose then search and destroy only to know they'll spawn a minute later.

Ok, I'm back from Maine, and I have the patch downloaded. I'll give you the grunt's perspective in a few hours.

Ok, 1.3 is great. The additional cover and increased FPS are terrific. They really modified the infantry to make it more accessible, but I liked the old way quite a bit. But it is an improvement as far as survivability goes.

They have one world now. And it is a lush representation of Northern Europe. You really get the farmland feel when you stand on a hill and look down on all this patchwork countryside. In a word: awesome. It still gets reset, but I think they'll always have to do that to keep one side from dominating (at least until North Africa comes out, or maybe Russia).

So, if the game came out today, and you guys were reviewing it today, I would bet it wouldn't get a score under 8.5. Its that good. The missions, the rankings, the battles, the choices (tanks, infantry, boats, planes), and a pretty decent community, are all terrific.

I'm not asking anyone to review it again (aren't there LAWS against doing something like that?), but I do recommend anyone who is interested to give it another try. It will blow you away.

Man, I'm really glad to hear that. This game is one that I've had high hopes for. I haven't played it -- probably won't, just 'cause I don't have the time to devote to MMOGs -- but this is one that I've really wanted to see "come into its own."

"cause I don't have the time to devote to MMOGs"

I can't type long, just about to run out the door, but I wanted to say that this is not anything like EQ, DAOC, or AC. This is a pick up and play game where you can be in the thick of things from the second you are in game. I just read a gamespotting feature about DAOC, and a quote was,

"An aspect of Dark Age of Camelot that I haven't fully experienced yet is its player-vs.-player combat. This is a major selling point of the game, but also something that you can't participate in until your character is of sufficiently high level--specifically, you probably won't get a chance to try PvP combat until you've played Dark Age for a hundred hours or more and raised your character to at least 15th level."

A 100 hours!!!!!!!! Thats insane! How can the average gamer be told this is a "major selling point", but you need to dedicate your life to be allowed to do it. WW2OL is not a MMORPG, its a MMOFPS. Its Planetside and Halo, not Anarchy Online. Its the bombdiggity. And its stable.

"WW2OL is not a MMORPG, its a MMOFPS. Its Planetside and Halo, not Anarchy Online. Its the bombdiggity. And its stable."

Too bad it took them more than four months post-release to get there and all their players left.

"It's stable." Well no shit. If only they could have said that in June before they took my money.

Cry me a river Mr. Anonymous. I didn't build the game, nor defend it when it stunk. I'm saying it is really good now. Next time read some reviews before you purchase a game if you're gonna be all indignant.