Cya!!!

[NeverRetreat]

Industry News: Playnet = Bankrupt... WW2OL to follow? Posted by Steve "Spike" Wyatt @ 3:41

In this little piece is the news that Playnet has filed for bankruptcy. A sad loss for the industry, as they were willing to take a risk... but unfortunately one that didn't pay off.

However, the questions about World War II Online continue. Pie4Foo did some investigation and turned up the fact that the game servers are remaining on-line. He spoke with a former Playnet employee and affiliate, who told me that the site was simply down because they were moving their web servers to different ISPs.

Obviously, however, the company IS in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy (reorganization NOT liquidation), so there are some significant hurdles to bypass. Right now its livelihood is perhaps more on the short-term. So the game still works, but...well...who knows for how much longer?

[Slaughter]

couple Question...

1. Is WW2O still free to play?

2. If so, is it playable yet?

wondering..

[Widowmaker]

Answers:

1. It is now pay for play but they are doing some kind of promotion for free play for people that canceled thier accounts. Much like AO tried to do.

2. It still has some problems but is a much different game than it used to be. I still have an active account because I like flying the planes in it. The infantry model is better than it used to be, no more readying weapons to shoot for instance, but still needs a lot of work. They have added a few more units but need to add more. They did add some allied bombers, one medium bomber that you need a degree in calculus to operate the bomb site and anoter that is more of a low altitude or dive bomber so the pilot operates the bombs (I like this plane, the Blenhem Mk1 as opposed to the harder to operate Mk4). Both planes can be multi crewed with tail gunners and the Mk4 can have a bombadier. Allied units are now split by country, you can only spawn brit equipment at a brit base and frenchys only come from french owned towns. Spitfires are all held back in England (the English were worried about a luftwaffe attack on thier shores so kept all spits home, but if you are in for a senic flight you can cross the english channel in it). They added a very slick Bf110 and an anti-aircraft gun for germans to use. They have one boat that both sides use for some limited navel activity. The landscape looks way different than it used to, way different, hell it is hard to pick out tanks on the ground now there is so much clutter.

It still frustrates the hell out of you, but they have improved many things. Infantry can climb trees now and get on top of many buildings by fire escapes. Almost all buildings are enterable for cover but there is pretty much no fine details, it ain't Medal of Honor for sure. I like the expansive battle field and combined arms action. Mostly I fly, lately on the rare occation I play I fly the Blenhem Mk1 bomber so I can shake up ground units. I am toast if any german fighters are around though and to be honest my aim with the bombs needs a lot of work.

Framerates have improved greatly though there is still a lot of loading "stutter" when flying over a city are for the first time. Often in big battles my framerates hover in the mid to high 20's but it seems smoother than that to my eye for some reason. Very playable for me. There are suply lines in but no visable units moving resources... yet. However the truck rushes of old are gone since if you take a town with no direct line of suply from friendly towns all you can spawn is infantry which is easy to mop up and push out with a minor force.

But at its heart it is still the same game. Many things take a long time to happen, travel times can be anoying but they did tweak a lot of forward bases so you don't have to travel as long in many places as you used to . There is a hell of a lot more cities than there used to be. Brussels and Antwerp are usualy heavy fighting areas and both those cities are pretty big in game. You can still die fast as always so there is a lot of travel for ever somewhere and die. People are working together a bit better than before and there is coordination from a "high command" on chanel 1 (players should refrain from transmitting on chanel 1, high command requests should go out on chanel 10). When players do something together your survival rate is much higher and there is a lot of fun. Otherwise I get bored a lot hence I do a lot of flying. Faster action.

Hope that lets you know what it is like, it aint perfect but it is a lot different and in many ways is better. The spawn limits can be anoying though but at least there are no longer unlimited chars and PzIII's out there.

[Slaughter]

sounds very frustrating, to say the least.. think I'll just wait to try planetside..

[Widowmaker]

Yep. If MOH is as good as advertised that would be the end of my WWII Online account. I don't think the game will be around a lot longer either, maybe 6 months? It could be around longer if they do some more work on it but whatever. It is a great premise with poor execution.

[Slaughter]

Seems as though it may be a while before planetside is out though... SW:G will be out before then... now SW:G will be a game to play.