Just a quick update on my Massively Frame Rate Challenged Online game experience:

I'm still playing WW2OL far more than AO. My only interesting AO tidbit is that I finally saw something interesting. I came to a military base that had three enormous Mass Driver Cannons (for lack of a better term) that were shooting things into space (resources I guess). It was pretty cool. They shoot like every 10 seconds or so, and the entire screen shakes if you're near them. I could hear them from at least a quarter mile away. Of course, there was nothing interesting to do around them, but they did give me a sense that someone put some massive work into this game. Its interesting to think that as I'm sitting here in the real world there are three Mass Cannons in cyberspace firing away continuously.

As for WW2OL, I'm enjoying the new patches. The two major differances are that the load times are a lot faster, especially for respawning. My respawn times have gone from 5 or 6 minutes to 30 seconds. The second thing I've noticed are tons of new buildings, with interiors that have second floors. It definitely opens up the tactics to infantry (the only thing I really play).

Also, I took part in an experiment. I was playing Saturday, and the System Admin came on and asked all Axis to attack the Allied town of Dinant, and for all Allies to defend it. It was pretty cool, because the Admin was taunting us Germans to go get it. Well, I spawned in a nearby town and it was all crazy like. There had to be scores and scores of tanks, trucks, and infantry pooring out of the army base. For a moment it was very thrilling. The problems were that my frame rate dropped from a playable 20-30, to a staggering, 4-8 and as low as under 1. Also, there was so much radio traffic that nobody could orient themselves and work as a team. It ended up that I jumped in a truck and 4 or 5 trucks rumbled onto the hill above Dinant. People were saying to wait for the tanks to support us, but nobody did. I got gunned down coming off the hill towards the town, and it was so slow I just bailed. But, if they ever get this game smoothed out enough to play a scenario like that, then boy is this game cool.

Lastly, I got four kills last night. It night time in the game, and I was bodyguarding this sapper in an enemy town. We got deep into the place, and ran into a church, trying to shadow a tank just outside. Suddenly the sapper said, "Hey, this place is crawling with inf", and the next thing he said was, "I'm hit". Well I let loose with my MP38 as Brits came charging into the Church, and it was a total rush. I cut down 4 and then made a run for it. Unfortunately I didn't get more than a block away before I was nailed, but it was fun while it lasted.

Sorry this is so long.

-Rob

Man, WWII Online sounds like fun when it works. Maybe Planetside will be fun too.

My concern, besides the bugs, is the apparent lack of any real persistent element in these games. In games like EQ and AO you gain XP and become more powerful. For WWII Online and Planetside, what makes them more than just a massive game of Quake?

Rob you need to get some Flashpoint under your belt. The war experience is tremendous in OFP and it is far more accessible than that in WW2OL.

The focus in OFP is on strategy and tactics rather than working out which keys to press in WW2OL.

"For WWII Online and Planetside, what makes them more than just a massive game of Quake?

At the moment, not much. Personally, I wish someone would make a game just like this, except instead of making your hook all the realistic WW2 stuff, make your hook the gameplay itself. Its the difference between taking a historical thing and bending a game around it, versus taking a game and bending a historical (or imaginary- which would be easier, i.e. Planetside I hope) thing around it. But anyway, until it is a persistent world it is genuinely flawed (but still more fun than the current others).

"Rob you need to get some Flashpoint under your belt. The war experience is tremendous in OFP and it is far more accessible than that in WW2OL.

The focus in OFP is on strategy and tactics rather than working out which keys to press in WW2OL. "

Roger that. I play only OFP and WW2OL, at least while I can't get D2x up and running any more. I love OFP. I get my excellent solo play mojo on with it, and then when I want to fumble around a crowded battlefield I fire up WW2OL. Of course I wish the two would meet, but in a way OFP might ruin the experience if it was MMO. Why you ask? Because everyone would be getting killed so damn fast. Everyone in OFP is a long range killing machine. Its great fun, but its different from the "every man an amature" feel of WW2OL.

The stand-alone server update for OFP will be released in the next month. I personally can't wait for it. Small squad actions in OFP with real players should be fantastic.

Well, I would try WWIIOL again...if I could get framerates above, um, 1. Yesterday from work I tried and got 0.049 FPS as an infantryman. Now, Jason our tech guy tells me the number of people on screen shouldn't affect FPS, but in WWIIOL it seems to. If you spawn in a crowded area you'll get negative framerates sometimes, essentially.

The other guys on at the same time were getting a variety of FPS. The consensus was that 14 FPS was great and about all you were going to get.

That, ladies and gentlemen, sucks. No excuse for that, especially when the game looks as ugly as that one.

"That, ladies and gentlemen, sucks. No excuse for that, especially when the game looks as ugly as that one."

Um.. I can't disagree with you here. I'm still playing it, and although I think it is more fun than AO, I can't recommend anyone buy it yet.

As for OFP,

***********spoiler*************
****maybe 6 or 7 missions in*******


Sean, I played through the Lost in the Woods mission, which was next to impossible because you had to be Rambo to get out a live, unless you did what I did which was crawl out of there at 4x speed. But then I played the rescue the hostages mission, and that was simply awesome. I love when enemy trucks pull up, and you just start wailing on them from 100 meters out. You can see the guys getting tagged inside the cab! Brutal, but so realistic. I never realized how important trucks were to modern warfare until I played the Rescue the Hostages and the next one where you were dressed as a civilian and had to drive through checkpoints. Love this stuff.

Have you played much multiplayer? Is it unplayable due to lag?

This weekend, for my next mission, I get to defend the beach installation at night. I started it, but never saw a thing before being blown up from unknown sources. I'll have to find a better spot than loitering around on the beach next time.

I think the problem with WWII Online's framerate might relate to the way they handle drawing the world. Given that it's a persistent universe and they're tracking so many things on a simulation level, anyone in view of your position gets flooded with info about that guy and vice versa. Maybe they've even got the code that works for physics and graphics tied to the server side which means that your framerate is affected by every single thing on the screen?

The client is rather small for a game like this. That first patch was essentially the whole game. Consider that something like Quake 3 Arena has a multi-100MB install (I don't know the exact size since I'm at work), yet all of WWII Online is essentially held in that 67MB you downloaded after the game was shipped.

This is all speculation and guessing, but I think one of this game's major problems may lie in their decisions on what is server-side and what is client-side. There may not even be any client-side prediction in anything? That could also be a limiter on framerate...more objects equals more stuff you need info from the server for equals waiting around to get all the info for a frame draw...

If someone sniffed this game's packets, they could probably validate or invalidate these assertions. Just how much info is flying back and forth from client to server?

--Dave

Well, I can't validate or invalidate anything, Dave, but I suspect that the gist of your suspicions is on target. Something is amiss. I get the feeling that CRS isn't exactly pushing the envelope of network game design here, though I've heard from others that they really do know their stuff. I don't have the technical ability to decide which is true.

All I know is that I've played a whole hell of a lot of online games, from the original Neverwinter Nights on AOL to Air Warrior in GEnie to Kesmai to MPG-Net to UO, AC, EQ, BattleTech, Battle.net, and most every shooter ever made, and never have I seen something like WWII Online. And no, that's not a compliment :-).

I can deal with graphics that aren't that super, if the speed is good. Fast is an acceptable tradeoff for pretty if the rest of the game is cool (and WWII Online is nothing if not cool at least in theory). I can deal to some extent with less than zippy FPS if the game is stunningly gorgeous (but even then it had better not dip much below 30 FPS for an action game). WWII Online has the dubious distinction of being simultaneously ugly and slow. Like the football coach who once said, "We may be small, but we're slow!"

Oh, I finally remapped my keys and tried grenades (offline; couldn't actually move while online). Neat, but without a visual representation of whether you are in fact holding a bundle of high explosives, it's very easy to blow yourself up. And the fact that you have to remap your keys to use grenades--and nowhere of course do they tell you this, you have to just "know"--speaks volumes about the mindset behind the game design and implementation of this product....

---

Quote:

For WWII Online and Planetside, what makes them more than just a massive game of Quake?

---

WW2OL was complete, COMPLETELY, unplayable tonight (lag). Maybe they are going in the wrong direction...

Rob,

"Alone in the Woods" is a fantastic mission. I did not have to crawl around all the time but I did keep to the forests. There are quite a few different strategies for this one.

Definitely pick up the rockets and binos from your dead teammates. Take out a BMP then move on before they come searching for you.

The night beachhead mission is VERY good. It is reasonably short but the tension and feeling of "being there" is absolute. This mission reminded me SO much of my old army days when I was on sentry duty at night listening for any unusual sound. Creepy as hell.

As for multiplay I have only tried it a couple of times. The multiplay code at this time doesn't really favour modems and my line only runs at 28.8kbps max. But the little that I did try is awesome.

If you think the above two missions are good wait till you get deeper into the game. You only have about 30 or so missions to go ! J

---

Quote:

Sean, I played through the Lost in the Woods mission, which was next to impossible because you had to be Rambo to get out a live, unless you did what I did which was crawl out of there at 4x speed. But then I played the rescue the hostages mission, and that was simply awesome. I love when enemy trucks pull up, and you just start wailing on them from 100 meters out. You can see the guys getting tagged inside the cab! Brutal, but so realistic. I never realized how important trucks were to modern warfare until I played the Rescue the Hostages and the next one where you were dressed as a civilian and had to drive through checkpoints. Love this stuff.

Have you played much multiplayer? Is it unplayable due to lag?

This weekend, for my next mission, I get to defend the beach installation at night. I started it, but never saw a thing before being blown up from unknown sources. I'll have to find a better spot than loitering around on the beach next time.

---

Sean, had fun tonight ambushing some T-80s. Took a few tries to figure out that I shouldn't place the mines so close to my position that the following tanks pull up in my LAW blind. The rockets are great in this game, especially at night. The flare effect of the rockets power source is a trip.

I just messed around with the multiplayer, but couldn't get it to work much. I'll have to concentrate on this later, because for the most part I enjoy multiplayer games the most. Maybe we'll get to team up some time as a tank crew, or a chopper pilot and door gunner (if you can do that).

Wait'll you get your hands on a tank! or the A-10! Also the new mission A1 Revenge, that came with the weapons patch, has a pretty good battle feel and this time youre a Russian officer leading an attack on a resistance held town (also a hard mission imo). Try it, if you dare!

etc

If you want to try a game that has true persistance go to http://waronline.net/
Its a persistant world, massivley mplayer (although there arent that many people there)strategy game. The grahpics are dated, it can be slow durring the popular times, and u have to put up with some ad banners. Ive never had any problem getting help but it is a one man operation so experiances may vary...
But its free, constantly improving, andvery addictive.