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Impressions of how far WW2OL has come since Day 1, 3 years ago...
me262a
Member Posts: 22
If any of you are day one players, or even Year one players, feel free to chime in here... Of course, no one is excluded in this thread at all. 
I was one of the few to actually manage to get signed up on June 6th, 2001. There were all sorts of signup problems and many people's CD key was fubar'ed. I managed to get in and spawned in at the very beginning in the town of Huy along the river W of Liege. I have always played German and I grabbed a rifle and walked up to a guy who told me to come to the FB and to help in the attack on Andenne. This was the northernmost edge of the map back then and there were French Chars everywhere. There were British and French both spawning in Andenne and there was not different map sectors for Brits and French, they all came at you at once. I recall little bumps along road edges that routinely flipped tanks, and even panzers flying up into the air! At one point in time our German smgs fired behind us and there were NO grenades. Cover in the game was EXTREMELY limited and all ABs had wire fences like at airfields now with not walled ABs whatsoever. German panzers were noticeably painted a less camoflaged grey color and stuck out in cover. Bombers could kill FBs with enough bombs one each spawn and an early stuka pilot from Taiwan became the biggest groundpounder in the game's first year. Bugs existed everywhere in the game, but it was addicting as hell. We actually felt fear and trepidation in an online game, for many, for the first time.
You could drive opels and beddies (there were no french lafflys for a LONG time) WAY behind enemy lines and capture enemy airfields. To cap a flag you just bumped a table, not time elapsed cap. You could only spawn at the ABs. I recall many in the game stopping the war on September 11th, 2001, and just talking on Roger Wilco, TS wasn't heavily used back then. Long battles at Dinant in the early days, defense of Bertrix slugfests/battles with Shilling yelling to everyone in all caps and giving useful orders to players in the defense of the key Ardenne airfield for the axis. Dutchmon was the first big German CO who galvanized German invasion forces (alas, he has left the game because of health reasons now). I was a member in Shilling's squad, 1st ToT for about a year and a half and then joined another squad I had contact with and was liason officer to for a long time, 91st Sturmbattalion, and interacted with its first CO, Penrose.
I decided I wanted to stay a grunt and resist the pressure to move up the totem pole into officerdom. The organizational stuff was interesting, but the planning required was more than I could manage. I turned town over a half dozen requests that I join the officer corps. I wonder if I had taken the first, I would probably be well up into OKW ranks by now. Many of my old squadmates did just that and one, Shilling, was the C-in-C of the German Army. Fun times, but the game has NEVER been as complete as it is now.
The efforts required to with the campaign NOW, are much more realistic than in those old days. To give you a good idea of the size of the Day 1 map: Maubeuge, Berlaimont, along river down to Guise was the West edge of the map's cities. There WAS and airfield at Cambrai, but nothing between it and Catillon. Eghezee and Gembloux was the Northern edge of the map and Liege was not fully complete. The only 2 German airfields were at Wiltz and Bertrix. The allies had 3, Cambrai, Berry-Au-Bac (not connected to the main part of the map at all, but had a wide open area between it and Dizy), and Maubeuge. The southern edge of the map was a Guise-Dizy-Launois-Sedan-Bouillon-Herbeumont-Neufchateu line. Neufchateu was the SE most city on the map. It was quite tiny compared to today.
The original German tanks were the 3f, and the 38t. I don't believe there was even a Pz2 yet. No armored cars. The 88 was there in the beginning, but had a horribly sensitive hitch that would always pop off. The Flak30 and Pak36 were also originals. There were only rifles, smgs, and sappers. The stuka, 109e, and 110c were all, I believe, in the game. As for allies, my memory isn't as sharp, but others can add corrections. French had: Char B1 bis, R35, A13 (yes, the french had a british tank), the beddy truck (same), they didn't have an AA gun at all in the beginning, the little 25 mm ATG, no 47 mm (if I recall), french hurricanes (no h75s or 520s), and spitfires were forced to fly from Great Britain in the beginning. Someone will have to help me with the British because I have tended to fight the French mostly for most of my career.
At one point, if you died, you could not reenter the game right away and were forced to pause as much as 60 seconds or so to begin respawning. It was an interesting experience in game for a time (a very short time).
All in all, count your blessings you either DID live through those WONDERFUL early game days of the first year, OR count your blessings that you did not have to put up with the bugs and the gameplay difficulties and can enjoy today's gameplay masterpieces CRS has engineered over time over the highest of obstacles (not the least of which was for a time period of about 18 months actually having declared for bankruptcy protection because of overwhelming bills they could not manage). I hope you all recognize what a great game we have here and will be able to bring in new playerbases to grow this game into a truly World War online with multiple game theatres that range the whole world from Guadalcanal to the Finnish front north of Leningrad to the deserts of North Africa to 'hypothetical campaigns' like the German invasion of Siberia.
Success to all in WW2OL and have fun.
Eagerly awaiting other memories of the game's past,
Me262
Comments
Oh aye, I was there on day one, And the affect of fear does catch up with you in the game, and i do remeber the no fire pact on 9/11, we sat in the fields and our bases, no one talking, watching the sun and night go by. but this game after awhile, does set some fear in you, i was a sharpshooter, and would find high places to sit and snipe, i was in game when the planes hit the tradecenters and all of sudden all the fighting stop, players would just stop and stand there. it affected the playing on all mmorpgs, you could not go in a mmorpg without finding some kind of tribute to 9/11 on that day.
this game will always be one of my favrite games ever, hiding in german citys in buildings with my buddys and on the roofs, just watching german tanks roll by and players just walking by. its kind of hard to fight at night but when it is night, all u do in sneak in to a german city and hide in a building and wait for daylight to come. the sence of team work in this game is crazy. What they should do is make airbourne troops, troops that all get on bombers and jump out over citys. this would be a great update and would make the game more livly.
and once i move and get cable back, you will once again see captain fatbob camanding brit troops to a german city near you.
-FatBOB
-FatBOB
Airborne troops are coming, Bob. They first need to get drivers and panzer crew to be able to exit their vehicles, but their next step is to do air transports and paratroopers.
It is definitely gonna happen.
Me262
-FatBOB
-FatBOB
-FatBOB
-FatBOB
The only Hungarian squad in WWII Online
HUN HQ: http://www.wwiionline.hu
Yep, i was there, i registered around June 21st or so. Man, i enjoyed it with all the bugs and stuff. I had a TON of kills with the Hawk. Why you may ask? No anti aircraft at all. I would kill anything that moved, and i mean anything. Man that was fun...
Anyways, i think i might give the reevaluation a try, CRS has done a great job over the years updating the game. They deserve it.
-Soli - Energy/Devices Blaster - Justice
-Night.Stalker - VFA25 - Lo-Mac (yea, yea, it's not an MMORPG)
-Solister Thunderblade - 50 Pole, Thrust Arms - Pellinor (retired)
-Splyt - 50 Skald - Tristan (reitred)
-Sniper22 - WWII Online (semi-retired)
-Structure Fire - 11 Fire/Devices Blaster - Justice
-Night.Stalker - VFA25 - Lo-Mac (yea, yea, it's not an MMORPG)
-Solister Thunderblade - 50 Pole, Thrust Arms - Pellinor (retired)
-Splyt - 50 Skald - Tristan (reitred)
-Sniper22 - WWII Online (semi-retired)
_______________________
Can't have my WWIIOL Sig cause making love with sheep is against the mmorpg.com rules =(
_______________________
I bought the game on 6/9/01, but didn't get in til 6/10, because it took me a day to download the 100mb patch on my old Dial-up account. This was a mandatory download. lol
The game has come a long way since that day. There were no trees back then. Like ME262, I started as German my first day and have never played Allied in all the time since then. The 88 was a beast back then. There were no trees to interfere with your line of sight. This was a good thing because there was unlimited spawn of all avatars, and the Char was the Allied vehicle of choice which meant the 88 was the ONLY piece the Axis had that could destroy it. There were no Sappers back then. Only riflemen and our backwards shooting SMG.
The only cover infantry had were the ditches that used to run alongside all the roads in the game (I still miss those things). These were the days of "False Dawn" and "Purple Haze". When we played on 9 separate servers. The Allies would be winning on some of them and the Axis on others. The High Commands did not really exist yet, and fought a very hard road to gain acceptance within the playerbase. Few players could fly, as most did not have a powerful enough computer to do so.
This was back when soon meant, shortly, not "Soon" (TM) (as in "don't hold your breath"). "Buy More RAM" was the phrase of the day (and still is sometimes) and many like me just decided to upgrade their computers immediately, because we all knew we were staring in the face of an entirely new concept in computer gaming (that hasn't been equaled yet!).
Ahhh..., the old days. heh heh...
!S
Generallieutenant Pruitt, Retired GHC
1st Lithuanian Brigade "Iron Wolves"
Generallieutenant Pruitt, Retired GHC
1st Lithuanian Brigade "Iron Wolves"
lemme get this right, there are sea transports now??? that can move armor and inf?? if there is, POST PICS OF IT ON HERE, can they be driven by naval players??? ahhhhh, that is great if this is true. but i have yet to see pictures of it.
-FatBOB
-FatBOB
The only Hungarian squad in WWII Online
HUN HQ: http://www.wwiionline.hu
-FatBOB
-FatBOB
Everything is player controlled in this game.
Yes, the freighter operator moves his crane and picks the vehicles up and then stows them. He then would pilot his ship to it's destination and off-load his passengers. It's very cool. It takes a pretty high in game Rank to operate though and getting Navale rank is one of the tougher things in this game to do. But it can be done.
Have Fun!
Generallieutenant Pruitt, Retired GHC
1st Lithuanian Brigade "Iron Wolves"
Generallieutenant Pruitt, Retired GHC
1st Lithuanian Brigade "Iron Wolves"
I want to know why they don't release any expansions for this game to get more players. It is a good game, I hate to see it suffer from a lack of advertising and availablity. The graphics update would have been a great chance to release an expansion pack to get the game back on shelves. I mean it's nice that no one has had to go shell out even more money but still it would improve the games life span.
The only Hungarian squad in WWII Online
HUN HQ: http://www.wwiionline.hu
Its has...
There will be an open freetrial after this "Welcome Back Soldier" trial period, so try it out then.
Btw i think the graphics not so bad know, and the scenery is awesome.
30+ tank column, 10 bombers in a formation with fighter escort, raging battles in a city, with divebombers, tanks, antitank guns and infantry everywhere....
You can not see this anywhere else.
The only Hungarian squad in WWII Online
HUN HQ: http://www.wwiionline.hu
-FatBOB
-FatBOB
Destoryer
Multicrewing: 2 ppl max, but they will change this soon.
The only Hungarian squad in WWII Online
HUN HQ: http://www.wwiionline.hu
Is poly crewing before or after the terrain update? I cant remember.
Either way its getting close so I dont guess it really matters eh?
Polycrewing is well after the Terrain Update. Probably not going to happen until sometime in 2005 at the earliest. To do polycrewing, they first need to implement the "Ordinance Server". That doesn't look like it'll happen till late in 2004 at the earliest. They'll get to all that eventually, given the chance, but it's still a ways off.
Have Fun!
Generallieutenant Pruitt, Retired GHC
1st Lithuanian Brigade "Iron Wolves"
Generallieutenant Pruitt, Retired GHC
1st Lithuanian Brigade "Iron Wolves"
New junk to play with, but gameplay never changed.
Come on people, buy the game for 5 bucks (including shipping) on ebay and GET 30 DAYS FREE, I'm sure that you will not unsurscribe! This is the best game ever made. I joined it right after LMGs came in and I'm glad I did.
Here's a pic of a brit destroyer.
ahero247-WWIIOL
Brig. General-Axis Army
Brig. General-French Army
Colonel-British Army
Col. ahero247-WWIIOL
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Black Knight Brigade-BEF
www.bkbhq.com