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Posted By	Discussion Topic: World War II Online
Froy King Shit *board owner*	posted on 03-14-2001 @ 6:00 PM
O&A Board Veteran Registered: Feb. 01	Late this spring Cornered Rat Software is going to answer another of my gaming dreams. With the release of the first installment of World War II Online, Blitzkrieg, thousands of gamers like myself will finally have the opportunity to go head to head in a massively multiplayer persistent world war. Forget all that crap about Dwarves and Wookiees -- for me nothing could be as exciting as fighting the battles of the Second World War in an online forum. Offering unparalleled scale, fantastic world modeling and an inventive strategic system, this game promises to take online gaming in an fresh new direction. But enough with the butt kissing, already. Let's talk specifics. World War II Online recreates the Battle for France. Players assume the role of a British, French or German soldier, aviator or sailor. Each individual server may be able to hold as many as 10,000 players (although the logistics of this are still being working out). I took some time out of busy schedule of napping and MP3 hunting to sit down and talk with Al "Rafter" Cory, Executive Producer and Marketeer for PlayNet, the host of this amazing game. What I discovered through that conversation has made me even more anxious than before to get my hands on a copy of this game. The game is based almost entirely on first-person action. (There are plenty of vehicles to commandeer, but we'll get to that in a minute.) Your character in the game is a full 3D model, not just a floating bubble with a gun. As a result, you can look down at your feet, get shot in the arm or have your head run over by a half-track. And WWII Online will do away with the artificial crosshair in favor of a gun barrel sighting model. Just like a real soldier, you'll have to look down the barrel of the rifle to line up your target. The game raises the bar for realism by including blood loss, oxygen levels and fatigue. You won't be able to run non-stop across the whole of France without taking a breather or two. When you start the game, you'll choose a nationality. From there you're really only bound by your own interests as to the part you play in the game. A dynamic newspaper will orient you to the overall shape of the war and a versatile mission board will let you select the specific conflicts that interest you (much more on this in a minute -- depending on your reading speed, that it). As you successfully complete missions, you'll be rewarded with advancement points and increases in rank. If you get killed during a mission, you don't receive any advancement points at all. You can freely shift between the three branches of service (land, sea and air) in your quest for promotion but each promotion level is earned separately within the ranks. For instance, you could rise to the rank of captain in the air force of your country but still only be a private in the army and lieutenant in the navy. I was impressed that the physics model for this game was as involved as it is. With over 50 separate vehicles to render, you'd think some corners would get cut. But you'd be wrong. WWII Online uses a force-based modeling system rather than the arbitrary system. In other words, they should be able to build a plane using specs from the period and expect it to behave as it did historically. In all theaters Cornered Rat is promising top-shelf simulations. The tank simulation or plane simulations alone are good enough to compete with more concentrated simulations on the market. But the physics don't stop there. Even when you take charge of a vehicle, you're still rendered as a 3D model within the vehicle. As you might expect, the cockpits are all rendered accurately. Unfortunately, from that view you don't get much chance to see the fantastic exteriors of the vehicles. Once again, given the ambition of the project, I expected the developers to skimp on the quality. And you can fully expect to see an equally impressive damage model. Each vehicle has a unique 3D component damage model. Want to blow the tread off a tank? How about shooting the landing gear off a plane? It's all possible here. And since your character exists as a 3D model within the vehicle, you might just survive a crash or explosion. Or you might just get cut to pieces as a shell bounces around inside your tank. We've got a preliminary list of the vehicles we can expect in this first installment of the game. On the tank side, Allied players will be able to crew the Cruiser A 13, Char B1 Bis and the Renault R35. Axis tanks include the PzKpfw 111 E and the Pz 38(t). To fight against these tanks, Allied players can employ three anti-tank guns -- the QF 2 Pounder and the SA-L Mle in both the 1934 25mm and the 1937 47mm versions. Axis anti-tank weapons include the FlaK 36 88mm and the PaK 36 37mm AT. RAF pilots will have Spitfires and Hurricanes (both MkI models) and the Blenheim MkIV at their disposal. Opposing them in the air will be the Bf109E-4, the 110 C, the Heinkel 111 and the Ju87B. Support vehicles include the Bedford OY 4X2 on the Allied side and the SdKfz 7 and Opel on the Axis side. Keep in mind that this is just a preliminary list and may be changed before the game's final release. The naval portion of the game (which will be a free download for owners of the original game) should be available by the end of this year. Most games this ambitious fail at this stage. The simple fact is that thousands of gamers logging onto a server aren't likely to cooperate on a strategic level. Except for long-standing clans or prearranged scenarios, the online world has always suffered from a lack of player organization. WWII Online solves many of these problems in some very interesting ways. Mission creation will be handled by players of very advanced rank. They'll draw up a list of required equipment and outline some general strategies and timetables. Then, when you log on as a lowly Sergeant, you can search through the available missions by type, location or the role you'd like to play. The game will find the mission that most closely matches your preferences and give you the opportunity to jump in. To prevent abuse and discourage incompetence, the WWII Online game masters will be responsible for promoting players to positions of high command. Another way to ensure that the best commanders are followed is by increasing the reward level for missions created by commanders who have organized successful actions in the past. Good commanders receive additional promotion points if their missions are completed. Al supposes that we may even see some sort of political game develop at the very highest levels, as the individual theater and branch commanders jockey resources and prestige. But as we've all learned by now, war isn't just an intellectual exercise -- it's a matter of economics. Each side in this struggle will make use of supply points. Possession of cities adds to your supply point total. Factories multiply the supply points you have and depots store excess points that your side isn't using at the moment. NPC supply convoys transport supply points from one area of the map to another. Supply points are used for resupply of ammunition and the creation of vehicles. But if the buildings that generate supply are damaged, supply points will first go the repair of those buildings before they can be spent on ammunition and vehicles. Control of supply centers is critical to your success in this game but the protection of the routes of supply is equally important. Okay, maybe not equally but still really important. Each of the cities in the game functions as a "choke point." These are the boundaries of control recognized by the game. Once an offensive mission is created, a fire base is generated forward of the closest friendly city. In other words, the game creates a small staging area (that looks like a makeshift motor pool) from which all of your land units spawn. The distance between the fire base and the objective will be around five to ten minutes. You can either hop in an APC and be driven to the scene of the action, or opt for a paradrop behind enemy lines or, where applicable, an amphibious assault. But the aircraft are not tied to fire bases. They must take off from historically placed airfields. Since the airfields are much farther from the action, the planes should arrive just about the same time as the land forces. Each choke point will have AI run defenses (anti-air guns, etc). You'll be driving and flying and marching across a detailed model of all of Western Europe. Rendered at half-scale, the terrain in the game is the largest online 3D terrain currently in use. It would take you a long time indeed to explore the almost three and a half million square kilometers that make up the game world. Cities, roads, airfields, bridges, factories and a whole slew of other features are all placed in their historical locations. And instead of just having a few buildings to represent a given city, the developers have promised to include lots of urban areas for intense close-combat fighting. You can even go into some of the buildings and fight from room to room. I've told nearly everyone I know how excited I am about this game. The great thing is that, despite being cynical members of generation-whatever-the-hell-they're-calling-us-these-days, most of the folks around here are looking forward to the game with as much anticipation as I am. The title should reach the public sometime near the end of the spring, with extra countries and vehicles being added as the war progresses. Cornered Rat is already planning to expand the series into other theaters -- North Africa and the Pacific are just two of the ones they mentioned, but we could easily see this series recreating the Battle for the Atlantic, the Siege of Stalingrad or the exploits of the Flying Tigers. At ten bucks a month, that's a whole lot of fun. I can't wait. -- Steve Butts -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- November 11, 2000 While the most popular online worlds have mainly been the haunt of dragons, elves, and wizards, there has been a long-time contingent of online aces ruling the skies in such games as Air Warrior, Fighter Ace 2, and WarBirds for years now. Even the flight-impaired duo of Steve and myself have jumped into a few virtual dogfights online, and as cool as it was to pilot a Spitfire or P-38 Lightning against the German and Japanese forces, we always wanted more. We wanted a battalion of tanks to charge in while we laid down a rain of fire from above. We wanted to call for naval support to finish off a freshly bombed port. We wanted to see hundreds of infantrymen flood a city after we had swooped in and laid waste to their defenses. Well, if the folks at Playnet/Cornered Rat Studios have their way, we may just get our wish. We recently had a chance to catch up with World War II Online senior producer Chris "Mo" Sherland and manager Rodney "Hatch" Hodge last week at ECTS, and they showed us what could be the next big online game. Oh, and in case you're wondering if these guys know what they're doing, Texas-based Playnet is comprised of several members of the former WarBirds team, so they have quite a lot of experience in the online war-gaming arena. As the name suggests, World War II Online puts you in the combat boots of a soldier on the front lines during the war to end all wars. The game starts off just as if you were a new recruit in World War II, only minus the physical. When you create your online persona, you'll pick to join either the Army, Marines, Navy, or Air Force for a variety of countries on both the Allied and the Axis side. WWII online will fully support land, air, and sea combat, so expect to see and hear planes flying overhead, battleships firing deafening salvos, tanks rumbling over the battlefield, and infantry charging in to capture enemy cities and factories. Just as in real warfare, you can't hold a ground position with air units, so you'll have to coordinate attacks with other branches to take cities and move the front line forward. While hopping into your own personal plane or tank may sound like fun, WWII Online will also support multiple vehicle positions, so your buddy might be driving a tank while you're seated in the gunner's position. After our recent experience with B-17, we asked about bombers and, while they didn't have anything in the game yet, Chris told us that it's something they're definitely planning on adding in the future. The first thing that really struck us when we saw WWII Online up and running was the level of detail the design team was able to push into an online game. Of course, since the team is comprised of ex-WarBirds developers, we were expecting well-detailed plane models, but the tank and truck models looked every bit as good as the first-rate planes. Even the infantry models look good, and even most offline games where you don't have to worry about lag have a hard time representing the human form. The graphics truly blew us away, and although we didn't get to see it in action, Chris and Rodney told us that we can expect full day/night cycles in the final, along with detailed weather effects. While you can have a number of online personas playing for several different countries in various military branches, chances are you'll want to concentrate on one main character as there will be ranks and promotions in the game, and if you split your time between too many characters, you may miss out on fully developing one character through an entire career. During the game, commanders will post missions so, depending on which branch of the service you signed-up for, you can browse the missions board and then take off in your shiny new Spitfire, head out to the battlefield in your hefty P38t tank, or grab a rifle and run through the muck to your next objective. You gain points for completing missions successfully. As you accumulate more points, your rank will increase, and so will your status and online responsibilities. With enough victories, soon you may be planning and delegating mission responsibilities. WWII Online won't just be about blowing the crap out of other military units, though. This is war, and war is a complicated business. WWII Online will have a fully functional economic model, and each side will have precious supply lines and production facilities that they'll have to protect from the enemy forces during the war. While destroying a factory will sap your opponent's resources until they can rebuild the plant, factories and supply lines can also be captured, which will drain your opponent's resources and redirect them to your side. This can be an essential tactic as resources actually play a very important part in the game as you can only buy units your side can afford. Run out of resources and that's the end of your purchasing power...and probably the end of the war unless you can do something miraculous with your remaining units. WWII Online will also simulate a number of actual battle arenas. Each arena represents an area approximately 1700km by 1400km, so there's plenty of room to work with. The first arena will cover the 1940 German invasion of France, and the development team is planning to add parts of China, India, Russia, and Africa over time. Right now, the servers carry about 500 players per arena, but the target is to get 1,000 or more people fighting it out in one arena ~Matt/Froy from Jersey Official Protector of Gay Marco & SwampJunk...if he ever decides to post. Also providing total immunity to Fayth
mrmojorisin	posted on 03-15-2001 @ 12:13 AM
Psychopath Registered: Sep. 00	sounds awesome!!!! I have adopted ak 47 gak gak gak
FatkiddX	posted on 03-15-2001 @ 7:54 PM
Psychopath Registered: Oct. 00	That looks good, I bet it will run great on my 28k!
Fez The sky is blue	posted on 03-17-2001 @ 9:58 PM
O&A Board Veteran Registered: Oct. 00	I've been looking foward to this one for a while. I've never been into the "massive multiplayers." Most of them are these stupid fantasy stuff, which I'm not into. However, I've always loved war-like multiplayers online (A la Firearms for half life). I'll defentatly sign up for this one See My Sig Pics! If you want to be adopted by me IM me at fezoanda and email me at meguyelvis@hotmail.com Currently I've adopted usofar and Bumpkinhead
FatkiddX	posted on 03-18-2001 @ 3:43 PM
Psychopath Registered: Oct. 00	Fez, do you play Team Fortress?
Fez The sky is blue	posted on 03-18-2001 @ 3:53 PM
O&A Board Veteran Registered: Oct. 00	Yeah See My Sig Pics! If you want to be adopted by me IM me at fezoanda and email me at meguyelvis@hotmail.com Currently I've adopted usofar and Bumpkinhead My signature has been violated by mods....I feel dirty
AK-47	posted on 03-20-2001 @ 1:44 PM
Hanger-On Registered: Jan. 01	is there a release date? is there a website with screen pics or other info? this might be better than team fortress 2. i bet there will be a monthly/yearly charge huh?
Fez The sky is blue	posted on 03-20-2001 @ 2:33 PM
O&A Board Veteran Registered: Oct. 00	I checked GameSpot and they said the releace should be in July See My Sig Pics! If you want to be adopted by me IM me at fezoanda and email me at meguyelvis@hotmail.com Currently I've adopted usofar and Bumpkinhead My signature has been violated by mods....I feel dirty

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