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The interview
We’ve been fortunate enough to get an interview with Chris “Mo” Sherland, (producer) and Rodney “Hatch” Hodge (public relations), members of CRS’s development team to answer some further questions about WWIIOL:
Q: How did the idea for WWIIOL start? I mean, we know CRS came from online WW2 flight sims. Was it just a matter of someone thinking “Hey, I’d much rather strafe real people!”? Did the experience of designing WW2 air sims translate into the all-encompassing WWIIOL, or was it a “whole ‘nother beast”?
A: The idea for WWIIOL is not something new, it’s actually ancient in the gaming world. It’s the virtual battlefield. It’s been tried and has failed many times, and we just looked at those failures and said, “Well, we know what not to do” and started from there.
Q: The idea of pay-for-play seems to have survived the Great Internet Die-Off of 1/01. Everquest (et al) have proven conclusively that several thousand people will continue to pay $10-$15 per month for a chance to swing swords at each other. Did you have any trouble selling the WWIIOL business model – that enough people would be interested in a realistic WW2 game to make a go of it? If one views your competition as online flight sims, the monthly fee looks reasonable; but if you are looking to attract players from free similar-genre online games such Day of Defeat, Counterstrike, etc., do you see yourself facing a bit of a struggle? How do you plan to get over that?
A: WWIIOL hasn’t been done before. This model is compelling simply because its such a different idea. Massively Multiplayer PvP combat simulation with a rich RPG layer is simply a genre that has never existed. We are crating and breaking all the rules as we go, and gaining ground on both player base and confidence. Once you sit down and look at what WWIIOL really is, the idea alone is enough to rally behind. We did not have any trouble getting that idea across to our publisher, or our community.
Q: Why/how did you decide to try to bite off such a massive simulation at the very start? World War II is a pretty big subject, even if you limit it to the Blitzkrieg years. Jane’s Combat.net had a similar “world at war” vision but were planning to implement it as separate titles for each element (air, sea, land, etc.), with interlocking code. Arguably, this more modular approach might have saved some headaches over the past few months? By releasing the first game with the title “Blitzkrieg” it’s at least a strong suggestion that follow-on products would be coming out implementing later times or other theaters of action – how are you planning to continue the franchise? Is there a timeframe worth mentioning?
A: The modular approach is exactly what killed Jane’s project, and is the reason we went for a global combat system. This allows us to add any type of vehicle we choose, from a zeppelin, to a bicycle. Our plan is to introduce a timeline that will allow production of new theaters and vehicles to shadow the course of WWII. There are a few more technologies we are tightening up, and after that, we are planning on moving the timeline forward.
Q: Speaking of headaches, your release was … rocky. I’d like to explore that a little because it’s certainly given CRS and WWIIOL some PR ‘baggage’ that may or may not be deserved. The first issue was clearly the sales volumes that brought your servers choking to a stop. What sort of sales volume was projected, and who came up with this number? The first couple of months’ sales certainly exceeded expectations, but can you give us some rough figures?
A: We predicted a pretty big sell through at retail, and we braced for it, but it was more than we had prepared for. There were so many issues that combined to make that launch what it was, and was not, that it simply can’t be covered here. The bottom line is that we were overwhelmed both on a technical stand as well as the service fallout from that. As far a figures goes, I think we sold something like
30,000 copies the first day, and there were 40,000 sold by our pay for play date.
Q: Despite the initial shock, it seemed (as an outside observer) that at least some of the servers came up fairly quickly. (Granted, to those who’d plunked down $40 for the game it probably seemed a lot longer.) What was involved in getting these servers back up in a short time and getting the traffic stabilized?
A: Herein lies one of the dark secrets of that launch. Literally days prior to launch our connectivity provider went chapter 11. We had 20-30 server machines, routers, and all the host infrastructure tested and running in preparation for the launch, and the lights went out at the provider. We did a Counterstrike mission in the middle of the night to retrieve our hardware, and scrambled an agreement together with a new provider in 24 hours. It’s a miracle that we got up and running at all after that.
Q: Once the game was up and running, by most accounts the players were disappointed with what they had purchased. Some of the commentary became rather pointed regarding CRS’s motives and intent. Firstly, the game was buggy. Not just a little, but a lot. How did this software get approved in such a state? More importantly, the game lacked critical feature sets such as player advancement, supply systems (still not really working), etc, how did this game get out the door with major functions not present? It seems that the box – if not downright misleading, was exceptionally hyperbolic about what was in the game, even by marketing standards. “All the equipment… included” (the TO&E is actually quite limited); “strongholds, fortresses” (now exist, since 1.50); “sea operations” (a brobdingnagian exaggeration of patrol boats puttering up and down the rivers or possibly venturing across the channel); “dynamic flow of resources within the strategic system” (not extant) as well as a roster of flags implying units of many nationalities (in fact there are three). It may seem a trivial point, but a lot of people base their buying decisions on such text and frankly some feel deliberately misled. I’m curious (if you’ll reveal it) about the return rate for WWIIOL in those first few months, and if you feel that now you might start winning them back. Are you starting to see those early registrations renew their accounts again? Certainly, they didn’t have to pay to play until October, but the fact that the game was only minimally functional until 1.30 or 1.31 in late September makes this a less-magnanimous gesture than it first appears. What would you say now to the disgruntled customer who purchased WWIIOL in July?
A: Our return rate was, and is, below average. Don’t ask me why, indeed if I was a retail customer of WWIIOL back in June I’d have been hopping mad as well. The product was rushed. The reasons are many, and again, I’d just end up blathering along if I were to spill the gory details here. As well, I don’t think readers want to listen to me justify all the above issues on a one by one basis. But again, and in defense of what WWIIOL was, is, and is becoming, the idea transcends all or at least most of the game’s troubles. I’m not saying that from a political point of view either, the players say it when they agree to pay for play. This has never been done before, and regardless of how successful WWIIOL becomes, the virtual battlefield works now. It may not be completely polished, but you can fight on the land in the air and on the sea with other players in an environment that is huge. And when I say huge, I mean there is no other online environment that comes close. The fact that this concept finally functions is more profound than the success or failure of WWIIOL in particular. I know that the focus of this Q and A is WWIIOL, and that it may seem like I’m dodging, but the implications are larger than this game. Yes WWIIOL was a buggy, horrible launch; I am not dismissing that fact. But thousands of players everyday validate the IDEA. Massively Multiplayer PvP and the virtual battlefield are more important than this title.
Q: I’d like to ask you about some of the feature sets, since WWIIOL is breaking a heck of a lot of new ground not just in lumping all these genres together, but in many individual facets of the game. It was a courageous decision to include
multi-crewing as a regular feature of almost every vehicle and AT gun. I myself have seen the relative effectiveness of a
multi-crewed tank against a number of single-player vehicles. While that was individually fairly terrifying (I was trying to sneak up on an allied tank with a satchel charge, and it spun the turret and nailed me WHILE negotiating some complicated terrain) it seems that most field commanders/players would prefer an additional vehicle to the efficiency gain of
multi-crewing. Now that people have been playing with it for 6 months, do you have any statistics about how frequently this is used? Is the utility really there to make it worthwhile to support
A: It is no work to support at all. The fact that it’s there and is a choice is all we ever wanted it to be. I have also been the unlucky victim of a well-crewed tank, and it is impressive. But look at multi-crewing beyond what’s in the game now, and imagine the implications of what it could mean for a Battleship, or a B-17. There are folks who never use the multi-crew features, but there are some that use nothing else. Without interaction all we have is a game. We believe that what this market needs is more options for players to join and fight against other players. We’ll be introducing a join-in-flight multicrew option in the future that will support players being able to transport to instant action within the confines of a vehicle or weapon system that has already been brought to action by other players.
Q: One of the things that was hardest for me to grasp when playing WWIIOL was in understanding where the line was drawn between playability and realism. It seems that great efforts were meant to simulate reality in many minor ways, while things that seem rather critical (either to the structure of the game as a whole like the supply system, or to specific elements of gameplay like binoculars or LMG’s for infantry or LMG’s) were left for later?
A: Well there are two different problems there. One is striking a balance between gameplay value, and realism. The other is slating technology development. Simply put, a LOT of the simple features that are in the design but were not delivered we a product of our development team going into triage on the product and making our top priority stability. It’s not that we “left out” sniper scopes, or binoculars, it’s a simple matter of getting the team to work on the most critical issue. With a launch like ours you have to make some hard decisions, but holding off on sniper scopes wasn’t going to kill the game, whereas ignoring connectivity problems would have. With the last few releases we are all feeling a new stride, and all the little items that were pushed aside are re-surfacing in the production schedule.
Q: Graphically, some elements are beautifully rendered; the aircraft and the tanks particularly look great. The scenery at a distance is downright gorgeous, and the ‘scrimlike’ ground cover is an acceptable compromise between appearance and performance. But the individual soldier and especially the buildings seem stuck in about a “Quake (1)” level, which is jarring, especially when considered against some of your free play peers (Day of Defeat comes to mind). More technically, clipping issues are still pretty common – I’ve seen aircraft swooping through a forest unscathed, infantry still gets stuck in their spawn revetment occasionally, and vehicles drive through each other. This all seems like stuff that shouldn’t still be an issue in first-person shooter games in 2001 – these sorts of basic code questions were solved long ago in the industry, weren’t they? Is CRS having to re-invent the wheel in some way, and why?
A: Again, this stuff has never been done before. Your standard FPS with a 16-24 player limit can afford to send all info on all players to everyone. In a MMOLG that fidelity would bring connectivity costs to an un-supportable level. WWIIOL has to pick and choose who you update and with what info very carefully. Every bit and byte transferred must be only essential information. The anomalies you are talking about are the product of updating aircraft, ground vehicles, and troops in a persistent environment. These all move and update at vastly different rates, and in that light we ARE re-inventing the wheel. This aspect of WWIIOL is also getting renewed attention, and new algorithms are being worked on to fix those update issues. Now that we have the technology working solidly, we are going to focus on getting it to look great.
Q: Maybe I’m biased (ok, not “maybe” -- I am) because I spent a lot of time sneaking around Chars trying to plant a satchel charge on their radiators, but it seemed to me that certain ‘circumstantial’ balance issues haven’t been implemented (again we go back to the point of realism vs. playability). A constant historical refrain about the ineffectiveness of Allied AFV in the early stages of WWII is that they were distributed piecemeal to units, and French AFV particularly lacked radios. Despite this they are allowed to spawn without effective limits, and buttoned-up French AFV are allowed to use the in-game chat function freely. The historical French handicap of single-man turrets (the commander had to load and fire the gun) is a moot point until the number of players in the game makes
multi-crewing a necessity. It seems that the game engine could quite easily simulate most of these effects, but doesn’t. The Germans already lack strategic surprise, but it’s common knowledge that German tanks in 1940 were physically inferior (poorer armor, weaker guns) to their Allied counterparts. If the Germans are not allowed the organizational or communication advantages that they enjoyed in 1940, how is the ‘blitzkrieg’ supposed to take place? Are there similar handicaps to the Allied war effort that somehow balance this?
A: WWIIOL is a tough game to keep balanced. We don’t ever want to limit communications, because then you just have a lone soul playing a game. On the other hand communications were a big deal in WWII. Ultimately we will let the players write a new history with the vehicles and terrain of WWII, and the community tools that a MMOLG allow. It’s not about re-creating WWII, it’s about making something new happen with that weapon set.
Q: Currently, the game model requires that a player despawn in a friendly base to have their mission be considered ‘successful’ – this is obviously to prevent unrealistic ‘suicide squads’ from plunging into enemy fire heedless of the danger. But has there been any recognition that this prompts equally unrealistic behavior as someone returns to base just to get their ‘kills’ recorded? In the same vein, the whole mechanic of tracking kills and missions feels kludgy and incomplete. The kill-tracking especially seems to oddly promote ‘frag-seeking’, no matter the cost to the mission. There’s no intrinsic benefit to altruism (a tautology if ever there was one, I know) – why should I spawn as an unarmed halftrack and ferry AT guns and infantry all over the field if, at the end of the day, I stay a crummy private because I don’t have any kills? Is this a system that is going to undergo major
revampment?
A: Bigtime. We will be adding features that allow us to re-define mission goals to include re-arming and re-fueling other units, transporting units, and even safely returning recon information.
Q: For a game in which teamplay is crucial from the get-go, there is a distinct lack of training servers – online arenas where squads could practice and implement tactics. Is this something also slated for development? Players can practice offline, but even this is of limited value. Offline practice with a FlaK 36 88mm AT gun, for example, would be a tremendous benefit since its use is fairly complicated and it’s potential ranges very long. Unfortunately, the FlaK 36 is entirely non-manportable, so the offline spawning of this gun into a revetment where you can’t even see most of the targets is of no utility at all. I know you don’t necessarily want to be pinned down to a development list, but it would be a great illustration for our readers what sorts of things you’re at least planning for the next two or three patches. Some idea of the longer-term goals (Will you finish the map of western Europe before the east front? Will you finish all of the Euro-theatres before implementing the war in the pacific? Will there be subsequent games that one has to buy, or will one version plus online updates be enough? Etc.) would also give our readers a sense of ‘the big scheme’.
A: There will be a big emphasis on the HQ’s of each side, and hand-holding new players as they get their feet wet. The next few updates will include a complete re-work of the UI with streamlined functionality, and more focus on getting folks to fight together. A Mission briefing room, with a specific radio channel, and a pre-determined launch time, as well as new persona management elements will give the WWIIOL UI a whole new look and feel as well as lots more information and interaction. New theaters will probably start with North Africa, and then CBI, and then on to the Eastern front. And getting that danged FlaK out of the garage is a good idea!
Q: In this same vein, I’ve received an email from a reader that echoes my own thoughts: “It’s clear already in WWIIOL,” writes the player, “that the coordination of command and control in WWIIOL is a critical value in any attack or defense. This is a big credit to CRS, since this is true in real life. …is there any liklihood [sic] of them coding in some command cars or command AFV that would have access to better online maps, the ability to have more than 4 channels extant, or best a map that shows individual friendly and visible enemy unit locations (since the staff intel officer would be updating this regularly). Such a vehicle would be very worthwhile or gameplay’s sake, both as an asset and a liability that would need protection.” What do you guys think?
A: What a cool idea. I think I’ll write that one down. Armored cars are planned, and rank perks as well, but more tactical detail on the map had not been discussed. Again, I like that idea!
Q: It would seem from my experience that the gameplay of WWIIOL is its own best advertisement. In the (few) instances where I haven’t been terrified for my own skin and could kind of sit back and watch the action, it’s practically like watching World at War (the great documentary series). Bushman’s films are universally well received. Is there any effort at allowing non-players to view what’s happening (ala HLTV) directly in the game, or at least to see the ebb and flow of possession, attacks, and CP control on the strategic map updated live?
A: We will be displaying a dynamically updated map of the front on the web portal. Prior to [game] launch we will be allowing the players to view and obtain much more information on what’s going on “inside” the theater. One of the big focuses here now, is getting the players more opportunities to immerse in what WWIIOL is, and not only inside the game, but on the web, and within the community tools we have.
--- End interview ---
Thank you Chris and Hatch, for taking the time to answer our questions!!!
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