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World War II Online
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World War II Online: Battleground Europe, also referred to as WWIIOL:BE, WW2OL or BE is a massively multi-player online first-person shooter computer game (MMOFPS) first released June 6, 2001. The game is set in 1940-43 World War II Europe. It is a combined arms war simulation otherwise known as a virtual battlefield. A player can command or crew a variety of accurately modeled aircraft, armored fighting vehicles, anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft artillery, and three naval vessels, or fight as a foot-soldier with a variety of infantry weapons.
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Encyclopedia
World War II Online: Battleground Europe, also referred to as WWIIOL:BE, WW2OL or BE is a massively multi-player online first-person shooter computer game (MMOFPS) first released June 6, 2001. The game is set in 1940-43 World War II Europe. It is a combined arms war simulation otherwise known as a virtual battlefield. A player can command or crew a variety of accurately modeled aircraft, armored fighting vehicles, anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft artillery, and three naval vessels, or fight as a foot-soldier with a variety of infantry weapons. The game is played in real time alongside or against other players as German, British and French forces in a persistent world. Command structures and missions provide strategic and tactical layers while ranks provide a RPG layer by demonstrating leadership roles. WWIIOL online uses a ½ scale map of Western Europe with 30,000 km² of accurate terrain (800 m resolution satellite data). It is commonly recognized as the first MMOFPS.
WWIIOL was re-packaged and re-released in 2006 under the new name of World War II Online: Battleground Europe, and the name Battleground Europe is sometimes used to refer to the game.
Gameplay
In imitation of the war itself, there are two sides: Axis vs. Allied. The Axis consists of the German forces and the Allies are the combined British (UK) and French forces. Other forces from the actual war, such as those from the rest of Europe, the rest of the British Commonwealth, the United States, Soviet Union, China or Japan have not been introduced into the campaign yet. Players can play whichever side they want and may even switch sides after waiting a mandatory period of a few hours that begins when they resign from their current enlistment.
Gameplay occurs on a single server, with a 1/2 scale map of Western Europe. It is one of the largest MMOG maps, at over 350,000 km², with most play occurring in a 30,000 km² central area in which capturable cities, airfields and ports have been placed. Two alternate servers are available for training events and beta testing the next version.
The general organization of the forces is historical, with the exception is that SS units are excluded, along with all political elements (for instance, the Nazi Party, Gestapo, swastika).
WWIIOL is team-oriented. Players are various troops, pilots, gunners, tank commanders, naval destroyer captains, mission leaders, high commanders and are organized into brigades. Everyone plays in the brigade of their choice. Smaller military units of heavily-themed squads are independently managed by players and can use their own tactics but must follow the brigade and strategic rules set by the high command players and cooperate with other squads and non-squad players. Being a squad member is optional but encouraged. Some squads have vigorous membership rites. Anyone can, however, form their own squad, solicit members and register the squad with the high command for brigade assignment.
Each player holds a title of rank, based on the military ranks of the time. Ranks are gained through a performance-based scoring system. Rank is never lost as a result of an unsuccessful mission or death.
Detailed statistics are tracked by the server, and made available through a web interface, known as 'Combat Statistics and Records', or CSR. Statistics are very detailed, recording a history of every mission the player has attempted over the campaign. Summary statistics are available to compare player performance to those of other players. Statistics include elements such as number of kills, damages, deaths, time spent on each mission, and depot captures. The top 100 players for several categories are updated regularly.
In WWIIOL, it takes skill, teamwork, tactics, strategy, planning, patience and perseverance to win or lose battles, make progress and individually rank upward.
Communication between players via text is supported by a variety of communication channels for messages exchanged between players. Channels are automatically created for players in the nearby region, on the same mission, and players in the same squad (a voluntary group similar to a clan in other online games). Channels can also be manually created. Additionally, it is common for players to communicate via TeamSpeak, since cooperation with other players can be critical for success.
Playable equipment
WWIIOL has a variety of playable equipment, each modeled with data from historical references. Like many other RPGs, the more experience the player has, the more equipment that becomes available to him or her. New recruits start with a limited equipment selection. As the player progresses in rank, better vehicles and more infantry classes become available.
The following tables list the playable armor, anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft artillery, and aircraft for each faction:
In addition to the vehicles above, there are several options for infantry gameplay. Players choose equipment from several predefined load outs (Rifleman, submachine gunner, light machine gunner, light mortar, engineer, anti-tank rifleman, and sniper). Each load out selects equipment from the following list:
In total, there are currently 109 different playable weapons.
Damage model
The damage model in WWIIOL is more complex than surface appearance indicates. Several critical components within each vehicle are modeled, and often interact. For example, if a radiator is punctured, it may boil off its coolant, causing the engine block (an independent critical component) to seize. Damaged components also provide feedback into the flight or ground simulation model; for aircraft, damage to flight surfaces will result in increased drag and reduced performance of the vehicle. Armor is placed in all vehicles to protect these components, with historically accurate detail on armor angle and thickness
The ballistic model is also detailed, taking into account drag coefficient properties, muzzle velocity, and mass of each individual type of ammunition. For instance, High Explosive (HE) rounds typically travel a shorter distance than Armour Piercing (AP) shells, when fired from the same cannon, due to higher drag coefficient and lower mass
The game engine considers the physical details of all rounds at point of impact, calculating the angle of impact and energy of the round, and thickness of the target vehicle's armor. Rounds which manage to penetrate may go on to cause damage to components or crew members, depending on the point of penetration, in relation to them. Rounds that do not penetrate may cause spall (high velocity metal fragments) within the vehicle, if close enough to penetration
Because rounds may fail to penetrate or damage critical components, the complexity of the damage model can lead to incorrect beliefs about opposing vehicle's invulnerability, particularly amongst new players.
Strategic Layer (High Command)
Both sides in Battleground Europe have player-run groups, known as the High Command (HC), responsible for strategic management of the side's forces. High Command players have their own avatar and their playername has a 'C' after it, making their responsibilities easily recognizable to friendly players. An in-game list of all currently logged in HC players is available.
HC players have abilities that are not available to the rest of the playerbase, namely in the placing of Attack Objectives (AOs).
When an AO is placed on a town, the other side gets an automatic Defence Objective (DO) on that town allowing all players to know that it is under attack. When an AO is first placed on a town, tables appear in the town's Depot Office building, City Office building, and Rail Road Office buildings. These capturable buildings are collectively known as Capture Points (CPs).
After 10 minutes from the placement of an AO, a radio will appear on each table signifying that it is now able to be captured ("capped"), by the attacking side. Doing so gives the attacking side control of the corresponding building linked to the Office. If the Office links to a Depot that has a link to a friendly town, the Depot is referred to as "Spawnable" and players may spawn from new missions there, making them an important objective.
When an Office is captured, a table will appear in all the town's Army Bunkers, Airfield Bunkers and Docks. If the attacking side is able to hold ownership of any Office building for 10 minutes, radios will appear in these buildings allowing them to be re-captured. Once all the town's Office buildings, Army Bunkers, Airfield Bunkers and Docks are captured, the AO and DO are lifted and the town changes ownership to the attacking side.
AOs can also be placed on bridges. An AO on a bridge enables that side to destroy it, while a DO allows it to be repaired.
High Command players are able to move their side's "brigades." Each brigade can be moved once every Hour. A friendly brigade in a town allows players to spawn in that town to either defend or attack.
Each army division has a Head Quarters (HQ) unit and three combat brigades. Two of the brigades are Infantry brigades (with a high proportion of infantry and artillery, with only light tanks) and one brigade is classified as an Armoured brigade (with a high proportion of heavy and medium tanks and less amount of infantry and artillery). The HQ unit is mostly used to resupply the other three brigades, and is vulnerable when placed on the front line by itself. It is common practice to attach the armoured brigade to one of the infantry brigades and use the HQ unit to resupply both.
The game's movement rules only allow the brigades to be moved to a friendly town that is no more than 1 town away from another brigade or the HQ in its own Division. The rule though does not apply in the case that the brigade is the only one left in its division and if this occurs it is free to move to any surrounding town. This occurs through the routing of brigades. Routing removes brigades from the game map for 6 hours and can happen in a few ways. Brigades in a division will normally "fallback" if the AB is captured, but only if the game's movement rules allow it, that is, move to within 1 link of a brigade or HQ in its own division. If none of the surrounding friendly towns are within 1 link of a brigade within its own division when the AB is captured, then the brigade will be routed off the game map for 6 hours.
High Command players that are Commanding Officers (CO) of a Brigade or higher can give out side wide messages known as dot Axis or dot Allied messages. They are named thus as the command to type one out is, ".axis" or ".allied". These messages are seen by all players on a side and are used for a number of purposes. The usual purpose of the message is to inform players of important battles. The message will tell players what town is being attacked or defended, what brigade or brigades are involved, who the Officer in Command (OIC) of the attack or defence is and what chat and possibly Team Speak channels are being used. Most high command players liven their messages up beyond just the generic and quite humorous messages can often be seen. These messages can also be used to boost the "morale" of the troops by telling them how well they have been fighting and to announce future Operations that are being planned.
Requirements
In addition to other necessary computer system components, such as a mouse, Internet connection, this game requires a powerful CPU (PC or Macintosh), an abundance of fast RAM, a fast graphics display interface with pixel shader version 2.0 or better, and any recently manufactured high RPM ATA-100 or SATA hard drive. Joysticks are optional, but frequently used for convenience, and are especially recommended for players choosing to fly airplanes.
See the for current specifications. There are minimum system requirements listed, but players with systems of this spec may find it difficult to compete.
The connectivity bandwidth requirement, minimal for this game, isn't usually an issue unless there is a real problem with an internet service provider. CRS is generally committed in the near-term to maintaining playability for 56K modem users. Broadband connections are not as widely available, and while desirable, are not necessary for online play.
As WWIIOL is an FPS, better performing systems will result in more responsive gameplay, improving their ability to react quickly to enemy players. In addition, because the game is constantly evolving to support newer graphical features and a more detailed environment, a system which performs well now need to be upgraded in the future to maintain the same level of performance.
Mid-range and lower-end computers may require system tweaking, and it is not unusual for players to discover their system settings aren't quite as stable as they are used to in other games. Tuning can help by reducing calculation lag, frame rate stuttering, and even system crashes. The majority of these problems are related to individual systems and it can be a complicated task to iron-out individual issues with individual players' computer systems.
Unlike the traditional MMORPG, Battleground Europe is simulation based PvP. This means that calculations regarding ordnance and weapon performance, damage models, collision, and movement across the terrain need to be calculated on the player's system. WWIIOL also models a 6000 meter visual range, compared to a more standard 500 meter range typical in other games, significantly increasing the number of items that may need to be rendered, and thus decreasing the number of polygons used to detail each item. These issues make the game unusually demanding in terms of CPU requirements.
Technical support
Technical support for player problems is provided mostly by other players in the discussion forums found at the WWIIOL website. Support directly from the developer is rare. Volunteering players, collectively known as the 'Player Support Corps', have managed to master, in most cases, the technical complexity of identifying individual system performance problems, finding, and offering solutions. The Player Support Corps stays in contact with the development team in resolving any software bugs that are found. Subscription billing and account problems are directly handled by Playnet, Inc.
Criticisms
The focus of WWIIOL design is on realism, teamwork, and to a degree, historical accuracy. These alone place the game into a niche market in the game industry. While some players crave this design, and join the highly loyal playerbase, the effects of these design decisions often do not appeal to many players and become the major source of criticisms of the game.
Steep learning curve
World War II Online is a game with a long learning curve. This is due to several forms of complexity. First, there is a large offering of vehicles - each with a somewhat different interface to control. Most vehicles are extremely hard to drive without a joystick, with some being next to impossible without one. Players coming in from non-simulation game genres may have to try several times before they can even get an aircraft off the ground. There are no third person views to tanks or planes, and tank drivers must look out of little slits or periscopes in order to see the surrounding terrain. Getting a better view often involves "unbuttoning" which exposes the crew to enemy fire. Second, the tactics for effectively using any given vehicle are various and complex. Players have to learn to listen to engine noises to track other players, conceal themselves, shoot effectively, and work together with other players to be effective. Many players go as far as memorizing the different sounds that enemy fire arms make, in order to distinguish them from friendlies. The burden of dedication this places on typical gamers is partly responsible for Gamespot stating "World War II Online is a dangerous mess of a game that can't be recommended to any but the most hard-core game players in its current state" shortly after the games release in 2001. In 2008, version 1.29 added the beginnings of a tutorial system that will be expanded in future releases.
Realistic vulnerability
Because of the game's emphasis on realism, game play experience is frustrating for inexperienced newcomers for whom character demise is rapid, sometimes as the result of a single shot. The inability to learn from mistakes - no detailed debriefing is given - increases the level of frustration. The community has fostered veteran players willing to help train and encourage newcomers, but these resources are often overlooked or ignored.
Slower-paced, strategic gameplay
Some players find the game to be slower paced than they desire. In early versions of the game, it was common for players to spend 30 minutes or more before finding enemy players to engage. They would often have to wait for a truck, and then drive for miles to the action. This level of realism appealed to the gamer craving authenticity, but left the casual gamer feeling disenchanted. Recent efforts by developers have focused on bringing more immediate action to the field, through the introduction of a feature called "mobile spawn points". Similarly, changes have been made to add more structure to the game by limiting battle to certain arenas designated by players enrolled in the "High Command". This ensures inexperienced players aren't simply wandering around an unoccupied and inactive area, but has been characterized by many to result in other players dictating how, when, and where one will play. This loss of self-determination in the game has also been widely criticized.
Graphics engine
The WWIIOL engine renders a detailed environment for many kilometers in every direction, including trees, towns, as well as character and vehicle models. Because this high view distance is a more realistic model of actual battles, the graphics must be simple in order to maintain a playable frame-rate. The level of detail in the depictions is accordingly lower than in other mainstream games involving smaller polygon counts and fewer active elements, causing the game's appearance to suffer in direct comparison. Other inefficiencies in the program may have also resulted in graphic depictions generally considered below the current industry standard.
Subscriber Forums
The Terms of Service (which players are required to agree to in order to play the game and use the forums) for the CRS/Playnet forums expressly forbid forum posts that are critical of the game, the forum moderators, or CRS/Playnet staff. Any posts of that nature are considered hostile by the staff and are deleted. Offenders can and have been issued "TOS's", a formal communication of warning from the company. This communication is some times accompanied by a ban from using the forums. Bans are typically short lived (one to ten days), but on repeated serious offenses (intentionally posting explicit or offensive images, threatening other players or criticizing CRS), paying customers have been completely banned from using the forums or playing the game itself.
Furthermore, the TOS explicitly prohibit posting links to, or even the mere mention of: competing games or websites that they deem are unfavorable to the game, CRS, Playnet, or the community forum moderators. Again, offenders typically have the posts deleted and receive bans from the forums.
Small Player Base
Though CRS has declined to list it's current number of subscribers, current and former players have complained that the number of people still playing the game has dwindled over the years, taking the "massive" out of "massively multiplayer". What this means is that, at times, the action is non-existent. One could travel in game for literally hours and not find a worthwhile engagement.
Developers
WWIIOL is continuously developed by Cornered Rat Software (CRS) located in Bedford, Texas, USA. The development team, who are affectionately known as The Rats, includes members with experience developing World War II flight simulations such as WarBirds and Aces High. CRS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Playnet Inc. which administers subscriptions, billing, accounting, the world-wide networks and game servers.
Cornered Rat Software was founded by a core group of former WarBirds staff, for the purpose of developing WWIIOL. The founders also saw potential to sell excess capacity, over what they would require to run WWIIOL, such as facilities management, co-location, networking infrastructure, and accounting. A parent company, Playnet, was created to manage those assets. When the launch of WWIIOL met financial difficulty, the company effectively dropped the Playnet concept and now the only real distinction between Playnet and Cornered Rat Software is on paper.
Although the presence and involvement of some of the original developers, such as "Mo" (Chris Sherland), "Hatch" (Rodney Hodge), "Frying Tiger" (Roger Long), and "Squirm" (Kevin Rivas), have been sorely missed over the years; many developers, such as Killer (John MacQueen), Gophur (Dana Baldwin), Doc (Geoff Evans), Kfsone (Oliver Smith) and Rafter (Al Corey) are still highly active within the game community and players often find themselves in a situation of communicating directly with developers.
Screenshots
History
Initial release
After a lengthy closed beta stage, WWIIOL went live on June 6, 2001 under the campaign title Blitzkrieg. The release was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the D-Day: Operation Overlord invasion of Normandy.
Like most online games, WWIIOL is a continual work in progress, and so has a history of updates that are frequently released to add new features, fix problems and improve existing features. Updates, or patches to the game code, are released every 6 weeks, on average. These patches generally include a wide range of features and problem fixes. Everything from new weapons and vehicles to audits of the performances of existing weapons and vehicles are part of the patching process as well as terrain, structure, game play and performance improvements.
The initial launch had a number of technical difficulties. The game required a 70 MB update to be downloaded before they could play online. At the time, the majority of users had 56k modems, requiring around 3 hours to update the game. As the developers worked feverishly behind the scenes to complete other promised features and fix the software bugs on the gold CD, even more updates became necessary.
Three days prior to release, the colocation network facility had a bad fiber optic cable. This failure reduced the player capacity of the server cluster, from 10,000 players down to only 1200 players. As a temporary workaround, Playnet set up multiple copies of the game-world on different servers, distributing the network load, but at some cost in game play. This solution lasted for several months while the developers resolved the server-side issues, after which all servers were merged into a single game-world.
Some features advertised on the game box were partially implemented, or missing, such as rank and high-command strategic features.
The combination of the above problems resulted in game returns, complaints from customers, and a drop-off in sales as word spread of the game's state. Subscription fees for the first several months were waived, until the major problems with the game were resolved. This helped to retain many of the players, especially the long-term fans of the project, but it was not long before Playnet had financial problems. They filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in late 2001, and cut costs, resulting in a number of lay-offs within the company.
Statements from both the developer (CRS), and publisher (Strategy First), indicated that CRS wanted a longer open beta, but the game was launched anyway, due to financial reasons.
Accolades
World War II Online has received numerous industry press awards including GameSpy's 2001 Gamers' Choice Sim of the Year and IGN's 2001 Persistent World Game of the Year.
2002-2006
Despite the problems in the early release, the CRS development team continued to support and improve the game, through frequent patch releases, upgraded servers and periodic investment in improved network infrastructure.
A number of patches have been issued, introducing significant gameplay improvements, including:
- Introduction of ranks
- Introduction of combat statistics (accessible through a web interface)
- Introduction of new vehicles and weapons
- Introduction of paratroopers
- Introduction of naval combat
- Introduction of the "high command"; functionality for high-ranking players with a strategic focus
- Introduction of brigades that regulate force movement (directed by high command)
- Additional in-game support of squads
- Expansion of the in-game map
- Improvements to the graphics engine (higher-polygon object models, improved shading, fog, performance improvements, SpeedTree(tm) technology)
- Improved cover and concealment
- Replacement of impassable "hard forests" with navigatable forests
- Multiple user interface revisions
- Server tracked mortar rounds & objects (allows for persistent player placed objects such as hulks)
- Variable weather states
- Introduction of player-led missions (OIC system)
- Semi-persistent Corpses
Re-release
WWIIOL recently completed a third retail release under the new campaign title Battleground Europe. This new title was chosen because of legal considerations with the old title of Blitzkrieg, whose trademark was owned by another game. The Battleground Europe re-release was distributed across Europe in late 2005 and in the US in early 2006 by the game's new publishers GMX Media (Europe) and Matrix Games (USA).
World War II Online: Battleground Europe was largely a compilation of fixes already available through patches to the original game. However, compared to the initial 2001 release, the game was drastically different due to these changes.
The launch of Battleground Europe included an extensive open beta, and was based largely on a proven product. As such, it was met with considerably more favorable reviews in the media.
2007 to Present Day
Some of the features released in WWIIOL from 2007 to the present day include:
- Addition of mortars as infantry units
- Three new medium tier planes (Hurricane IIB, Hawk-87 B3 and Bf109 G6/U4)
- TOEs (Tables of Equipment), allowing better control of weaponry assignment at a strategic level.
- Air Warning System, to help airborne players better locate enemy aircraft.
- Personalized vehicle markings.
- Differentiated army brigades - Every division has two infantry brigades and one armor brigade.
- Tutorials, improving the accessibility for new players
- Predefined mouse/meyboard controls for vehicles
- Improved performance
Future releases
Battleground Europe, like many MMOGs is a continual work-in-progress. The game continually expands in terms of gameplay, equipment, cities, etc, often introducing radical changes to gameplay.
As with other frequently patched online games, players are sometimes puzzled by, and in disagreement over the development priorities of the team. The game's producer, Geoff "Doc" Evans, is very active in the forums, listening to player feedback on designs and game flaws, helping to avoid disastrous design decisions.
Patches occasionally introduce new bugs and other gameplay regressions. When unintended by the developers, the developers work quickly to resolve the problems. Players are generally invited to test new patches on an open test server, before their general release, to find the problems early.
To provide additional financial support for new features, devoted players have taken the initiative to organize their own private funding for the game, and private contributions are recognized by the developers through a program known as the "Builder's Program".
WW2OL is also receiving a massive graphics update in the near future. Its original engine, Unity 1, was created in 1999 when the most advanced graphics card on the market was a Voodoo 3. The developers have stated that the current game graphics are like 'band-aids' on top of a large problem, and the only way to solve the problem is with a massive engine overhaul. The new engine is called Unity 2, and will feature vastly improved graphics.
- UPDATE* In early 2008, CRS was contracted by Chinese investors to design a version of "World War 2 Online: Battleground Europe" for the Chinese market. This version will include Chinese language support, "anti-addiction" software as required by the Chinese government and tutorials to aid new players in understanding the complexities of the game.
This event has delayed the development track slightly but CRS has promised the subscriber base that the infusion of new capital and exposure will insure that WW2Online will continue to grow and evolve for the foreseeable future.
Additional Sources
- Playnet, Inc.
- Dev Announcements by Playnet employees
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External links
WWII Online homepage Official Battleground Europe wiki community page Axis strategic coordination site Allied strategic coordination site Third party Battleground Europe game monitoring tool. CRS's BBB rating of F
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