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I can offer a single example of what WWIIOL is like, and what it isn’t. After playing since October 2001, I had a buddy over to my house and showed him this game that’s been taking all my time and getting me so darn behind on my review-schedule. He was skeptical; he too had seen all the crummy reviews, and saw one online publication had nominated WWIIOL as “most disappointing game of 2001” while in another in won Best Sim of 2001 by fan voting. What’s more, he’d heard the scuttlebutt, which was even more insidious: the game is boring, you just drive around, there’s nothing to do, it looks horrible, and so forth. It was pretty much the kiss of death and he was reluctant to even check it out, but curious enough that I was spending a lot of time playing, and talking about playing, WWIIOL when clearly I have a LOT of other games I could be working on.
I admit, my outing that day was rather stellar, given my feeble level of competence. Just jumping in (not seeking out my squad mates) I stumbled fortuitously into an Allied attack on Waterloo. Just a couple of weeks ago, my unit had been deeply involved in taking, and holding Waterloo already, so I was familiar with the terrain. I spawned up in a Panzer III, a German medium tank. Rolling out of the firebase, I machine-gunned two Allied infantry trying to sneak in. Climbing the hill to the west, I spotted a British truck disgorging infantry along the road to the south. It was long range, but I managed to land a couple of HE main gun rounds and some mg fire, killing the truck and a few more infantry.
Given a general axis of the attack, I rolled to the south ridge of the hill, and managed to get hull-down to the allied units on the ground below. A Char (heavy tank) was pounding shells into our base a few hundred meters to the left. I put at least a dozen shells into his turret and radiator until he started smoking and then burst into flame. Spinning my turret to look for more targets south, I spotted two Allied A13 tanks racing across my front about 500m out to try to flank the town from the west. My first shot at them was incredibly lucky, nailing the lead tank and leaving him jetting fire from his hatches. The second tank, panicked at what he must have thought was a nearby ambusher, swung into cover and (I think) stalled or hit a tree. In any case he stopped and I already had the range, making him a sitting duck.
Finally, radio reports advised of 2 more Chars coming up from the south. Our FlaK 88mm AT gun was engaging them, but I had a few shells left so I joined in. Once I was down to a half-dozen rounds of any type, I had to disengage and pull back to base to despawn and register my kills: 1 char killed, 2 more damaged; 2 trucks killed, 2 A13’s killed, 6 infantry killed. Sure, according to some guys in the forums this is their daily fare, but I was positively giddy.
My friend was apparently impressed – after playing a bit on his own (he managed to damage a Blenheim bomber in a dogfight over Rocroi) he went out and searched FOUR stores to find WWIIOL software, and is now giving it a try. And he was a skeptic. Subsequent to his purchase, I’m hearing him complain about all the things that bothered me at first: it’s too hard to see things at range, if you don’t stumble onto a battle, it can be boring; and (the perennial complaint of the German player) “that Char is too damn tough to kill!” J.
I can support that all of these things are true for the newbie; I can also attest that after a couple months of playing 1-2 times per week for a few hours, I have noticed that my eye is far better than it used to be (like most games, as any Counterstrike player will attest), and the occasion is rare now that I can’t get back to the garage without a kill or two under my belt. I don’t notice the driving times anymore. I can’t say they’re shorter, but a lot of it has to do with being involved in a squad. The necessary coordination and communication that takes place as an attack is forming makes the few minutes spent in transit fly quickly by. This cannot be understated – the organization one belongs to makes or breaks the experience. A good squad will always be doing something useful, and will need a hand almost any time day or night.
This is not to say the WWIIOL has worked out all of its bugs yet, conceptually or technically. Infantry, which should be the backbone of the game, is very rudimentary. Right now WWIIOL is very much more like “Panzerblitz online” than “Squad Leader online”. Infantry, while vital, is simply not much FUN to play. There is little or no terrain that infantry can move through but tanks cannot – the ditches, walls, and hedges where infantry might stand a chance against armor aren’t there. Tanks charge around without the danger of mines, or the risk of bogging or breakdown. The net-prediction code for infantry leaves them warping in and out of buildings, through walls, and the clipping problems – bad enough for vehicles – are massive for infantry. Anyone coming from a Day of Defeat, or MoH:AA, or Operation Flashpoint background will be deeply disappointed at the low-poly infantry models, lack of options, stilted unrealistic movement, and basically feature-less experience of playing WWIIOL infantry. It’s worth mentioning again though that CRS has mentioned that the next patch is going to focus on infantry issues.
There are other, even more troubling strategic issues on the horizon that will loom large as WWIIOL tries to expand to fill its mandate. The ground mapped is expanding with every update, but this means only that the 3500 or so players that are online each evening are being spread over more and more ground. Unit densities are already so low that the welcome addition of AI defenses in 1.50 doesn’t seem to have much of an impact on play. Adding more mapped ground, theaters, and weapons systems will only dilute this pool all the more. At what point does the number of players fall below a certain ‘critical mass’ needed to keep this from ending up a lonely game of “cap the abandoned flag point”?
Patches are another issue. Certainly, no online game is ever really ‘done’ but at this point any new player has to download 130 megs of patches to play. What about the poor SOB on a 56k modem? That’s like 5+ hours unless I miss my calculation. By the time the whole West Front is
modeled, this could be well over 500 megs. The time is coming when CRS should consider a re-issue of the CD’s to get people caught up a little more quickly.
The naval game (regularly brought back up into the forum threads by never-say-die players) is conceptually distant. How will they cope (even with a half-scale ocean) with the tedium of ocean travel? Who will be willing to spend 2 weeks (logged on!) crewing a cruiser just to get to a battle area, and spend day after day searching for enemy units like in real naval combat? Naval sims suffer from boredom when you (the player) get to be the fleet commander or the whole task force commander. How will it be if you are a single gunner? Tank crewing alone is hard enough jumping from seat to seat: first you’re a driver, then you get lined up with a clear stretch of terrain, then you’re a gunner, scanning for targets, then (whups!) the tank slews around suddenly – you jump to the driver, to find you were actually in a slow turn and hit a tree. What about a battleship? Are you going to have to “jump” seats like this to lay in and fire all the guns if you can’t find the (at least) 30 people willing to crew with you for days at a time?
Further, the interview above notwithstanding, I think CRS could take a lesson from id Software, or other very successful online game companies. There is a good deal of transparency lacking in the official relationship between CRS and their fans, and the name “Cornered Rats” sometimes seems to take on the air of self-fulfilling prophecy. I hope the interview is a sign of this changing. I’ve found the WWIIOL community to be on the whole deeply committed to making this game work, but they don’t seem to be getting a lot of feedback from CRS on what are their goals, and the next steps. The idea of a .plan file for everyone involved (pretty commonplace in the FPS market) is a good one, keeping fans abreast of changes.
Let the fans contribute – the energy is clearly there, and it might take some of the steam out of the bigger forum complainers if they had to ‘put up or shut up’ and offer fixes for their complaints. Maybe even let people have some of the server code; let them test out new weapons and vehicles; hell, let them do the models/skins for new vehicles. Combat Mission did this and went from mediocre-looking to outstanding in a couple of months. Want better-looking infantry, a bigger variety of models with ultra-correct uniforms and markings? Let the players pitch in, and I’d guess you’d see a 10x increase in skin options for players within 10 weeks. Player balance an issue? Show players how many are playing Allied and Axis at any moment, and then let them choose who they will play – years with FPS online games shows that most players will try to even out the teams, rather than exploit a lopsided situation. The players out there have been extraordinarily dedicated to stay with WWIIOL, and I hope CRS understands that is a resource that can be usefully tapped (and can equally be tapped out, with a lack of attention) to seriously address whatever weak points WWIIOL still holds.
[In a follow-up to our article, Rodney "Hatch" Hodge, (CRS PR) pointed
out:
"We have to be careful with the stuff that we use from players like skins,
models, etc. With WWIIOL being a service for profit (as far as the law is
concerned) it is hard to use player contributions without some sort of
contract payment for those services. And its not as simple as giving them
free accounts because we could do that over a period of time, and then
several months down the road several of them decide a free month isn't
enough for the work, and we find ourselves in court and losing as AOL did
not too long ago." Sadly, Hatch is right; with a litigous climate and
a
for-profit business model, the context simply is not as freeform as that of,
say, a moddable FPS game. Their decision regarding community participation
is clearly the prudent choice at this time. -Ed.]
Can these problems be solved? The recent announcement of Playnet’s filing for Chapter 11 may make it all moot, but hopefully not. The fact is that their subscriptions apparently aren’t meeting their cash demands, and no matter how you spin it, that’s a very bad sign. Therein lies the bitter difficulty in writing this. I deeply want this game to succeed. I think CRS has made a very good effort at it (and has performed with superhuman prowess considering the hurdles fate has tossed in their path: overcoming their first portal’s closure pre-release, and now relocating servers to a portal-neutral site WITHOUT shutting the game down – amazing). I agree also with Mo’s comments above, this is also bigger than the game: I fear for the genre entirely if they can’t make it at least marginally successful.
I think ultimately the consumer’s response to WWIIOL depends a lot on what is expected. I think overly high expectations have hurt WWIIOL at least as much damage as game issues. Therefore we should be clear about what WWIIOL is, and what the player will get for his money. Since the 1.50 patch, much of what CRS is accomplishing shines through. It’s wonderful, as far as it goes: an early WW2, tank-combat sim with planes and some infantry. Certainly there are technical issues outstanding, but I think these will be fixed. Welcome to the bleeding edge of computer gaming – there is new tech involved here, and sometimes problems take time to solve.
As a player, the first time you finally play a critical role in capturing an enemy airbase, defending the critical flag against amazing odds, or make that great kill that breaks the enemy’s assault, you’ll suddenly forget all the negativity. All of it. And for a brief shining moment WWIIOL is everything you’d hoped it would be. In the instances where a major effort can be coordinated, WWIIOL really feels like being in WW2 … which is the whole point. Right now it’s a very playable game that is engaging and fun. The potential? Well, the sky’s the limit. SGO will be keeping an eye on (and our fingers crossed for) WWIIOL to continue improving, and ultimately to fulfill its tremendous promise. We will continue to keep you posted.
Again, our deepest thanks to Chris “Mo” Sherland and Rodney “Hatch” Hodge for the precious time they spent answering our questions, and generally putting up with all of our correspondence. Also credit is due the members of the 23rd Panzer Division, whose help, patience, and exemplary skill is greatly appreciated (as well as giving me some great screenshots). Any errors in fact are entirely my own.
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