Are WWII first person shooters finished?

They can't be finished I am yet to buy Call of Duty 5. lol

 

Tomcat:get it for pc,you will get more maps

 

I'm sorry, but long months on the internet provides a backdrop of doubt. If you are who you say you are, great! If you're even going to come back to this thread or this forum, here are your answers. And don't limit your target audience, I'm not seventeen years old yet.

1) I'm somewhere in the middle. Too involved in the community to be casual, and too interested in all the various games, but not hardcore because the actual hour count is not too huge.

2) The beauty of World War II games and the hell of World War II itself is that the sides are balanced, so, in World War II games, realism is balance of power.

3) I have no idea. I don't play any MMOs that cost money because I am rather short on funds. I'm a student, and a busy one at that. So, yes, I would support free things online, but I understand that you should have to pay for some things. But you shouldn't limit the free players. Rather, reward the member players. If you get that sentence, good.

4) Medal of Honor Allied Assault was my first one. It got me interested, and I started extensive research in the form of games, ironically enough. Eventually, at the age of about twelve, I realized books are better. Of course it was a shock to read about the true nature of World War II, as opposed to the war I saw in the games, but it made me value realism more. First thing I look for in a game is peer review. After all, gaming is gaming, and it has to be fun before anything else. Which is why I still buy Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, and all that.

 

Yes, yes... I'm back. I've checked this thread periodically, but do understand, I'm overwhelmingly busy and burdened with work. Well, I know the internet as well as any of us. Believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see, they say. Who ever 'they' are, lol. But it's irrelevant, really. I gain no benefit for making some 'bolstering' claims over the internet to people I don't know and who don't know me. I very much appreciate the answers, even though only you have responded thus far. It's definitely meaningful information. Our spheres of thought are often too 'polluted' with what WE like/want, rather than gamers randomly sampled throughout the community. So just one guy calling it like he sees it is valuable to us. I'm going to be sticking around to hear others' thoughts and anything you might like to add. Don't worry, I'm not one of those 'fly-by-nights' who makes a post and never comes back, heheh. But you seem to have the same general ideas about the topic as I do, which is very cool indeed! Thanks again, and I'm all ears for others and additional answers!

 

1) Do you consider yourself a "casual gamer" or a "hardcore gamer/simmer", and why?

I'd consider myself a Hardcore Gamer. I stay up-to-date on events and news in the current gaming world and buy games very frequently. I didn't get the name 'Gaming Guru' on these forums for no reason


2) What is more important to you: Realism or "balance of power"? Or do you believe realism IS "balance of power"?

Sticking with World War II Based games, I have to agree with what was previously said: Power of Balance is Realism when it comes to World War II.

3) What do you consider a reasonable cost for a "premium"/unlimited subscription to an MMO? And, would you support the idea of allowing players to play online for free, but not have access to all of the things (i.e., weapons, rank, points, High Command) paying members do?

I'm always wary of MMO's and the only one I've played is WWIIOnline. I'd like to be able to say "$5" a month for an MMO but understand that wouldn't cover the costs of running the game and updating it. Perhaps the standard rifle-man class could be 'free' but if players want to rank up and gain access to other classes (like in WW2Online) they need to pay. That way you should be able to get a pretty good core-base of Rifleman on each side, which were the bread and butter of WWII. The more devoted players would be in the more skilled positions.

4) What attracted you to WWII games, and what do you look for in one before you make a purchase? What's fun, and what's not?

I too was first suckered in by Medal of Honor, but that was before Call of Duty came around and COD far exceeds the MOH franchise now (though I don't agree with all the decisions they've made). I typically look for a realism factor as far as FPS go but there aren't hundreds of new WWII games coming out since its really done to COD and MOH now.

 

Well, I didn't wait long lol. You checked in a day after my response.

And I found CoD much, much better as well. I just actually played CoD2 first, then I realized what I was missing out on, so I grabbed CoD1. I know own every CoD except for Finest Hour, which I borrowed from a friend and completed (THAT WAS HARD).

 

First of all, speaking strictly from a PS2 perspective, I've found the Brothers in Arms series to be infinitely more entertaining the either Call of Duty or Medal of Honor, although both of those franchises serve a slightly different purpose and both do it well.

I don't think WW2 first persons shooters will ever be finished, but I can appreciate that the market is definitely saturated and I wouldn't be surprised to see a noticeable drop in the amount of WW2-related games for the next few years. A breath of fresh air is sorely needed here, and although there have been some excellent ideas posted here (I know I personally would love to have a go at a few alternative history type of games, and an US v. USSR in Berlin game would be amazing) but I think that what is more needed than a break from Normandy is a break from the same routine.

I understand that consoles have their limits. I get that. But for the love of God, enough with the fucking tunnel-vision bullshit. Where it's like you're playing a minor role in a movie instead of being a soldier. I know I'm in the minority here; I get that most people play war games to zomg pwn headshot noobs, but I'm tired of the same style of game, not the same theaters of war. I guess I'm just a weird dude in that while I always enjoy WW2 games to some level or another, I have a thousand pet hates to go along with them. I hate that your player can take 20 bullets to the head before dying, I hate that if you have a Thompson, and the ammo says 30/300 (30 rounds in the magazine, 300 rounds in total) and you fire down to 26/300, and reload, you get 30/296. Sod that, you switched clips so now you're down to 30/270, and really, you shouldn't even be able to have 300 rounds of ammunition anyway.

I just hate the way stories are so often presented. The way you're forced down a street, the way you can never choose the way to attack a town, or a train station or anything.

What I want, and this already exists on PC in particular through the Battlefield 1942/2/Vietnam series and through games like Red Orchestra, is a game that simply throws you onto a piece of land, perhaps a 15 minute walk by a 15 minute walk in real time through the game, and you have an objective. Maybe it's to secure a town, maybe it's to take out an enemy tank force, maybe it's to repel an enemy counterattack. It could even be more narrow than that - your task could be to find and kill an enemy sniper, and you would have to hunt him down while there was a battle going on in other parts of the map.

Ideally, I think this would be a good example -

You load up the game, flip through a list of maybe 20 or so maps, recreating battles from around war, and decide you'll have a go at securing a town in Normandy as an American soldier. Then you can choose if you'd like to be a pilot, and from there on choose your plane, or a regular old infantry soldier, and you could choose which gun you'd like to use (maybe you fancy a Greasegun, maybe you want to try your lucky with a Garand, etc.) Maybe you'd like to try out a tank, and you could give yourself a challenge in a standard Sherman, kick some ass in an M36 Jackson, lead the assault in a Sherman Jumbo, etc.

And so on, repeat as necessary for as many different battles. I just hate the claustrophibic feel of WW2 FPSs. If none of that last bit made any sense I can elaborate, but it's kind of off topic anyway but if someone's taken a particular interest I can go on.

 

I agree, but you may be looking at the wrong things here. BF1942 was very likely the least realistic game of them all.

And also, soldiers in the frontlines don't throw away magazines, whether they are all used up or not. They keep them, and later fill them with more bullets, because they aren't supplied with unlimited magazines. Ever notice how ammo boxes in the games and the wars are all filled with BULLETS, not with magazines? So, in reality, yes, you would pocket those 27 bullets, and yes, you might end up using those 27 bullets. If you use up the whole clip, you keep the magazine anyway.

And the games are supposed to be limited to historical reality. I know that that wasn't exactly your point, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a M36 or a Sherman Jumbo in Normandy. My point is, the amount of historical realism that I want is much more.

And you might want to watch your language.

 

All I meant with the Battlefield reference was the level of freedom - spawn with your chosen kit, the you're free to be a medic if you like, or lay a minefield, hop in a tank, be a tailgunner in a dauntless, etc. For the record, I don't actually play Battlefield 1942, but rather the Forgotten Hope mod for it, which is stunningly realistic in many ways and is quite honestly it's own game more than it is a mod.

As far as the ammo bit goes, I know it's a weird thing to get annoyed with, I just hate that you never have to watch your ammunition carefully. You never have to plan ahead, never have to think to yourself that hey, maybe you out to to pick your targets here carefully because on the other side of that village there might fifty more enemies. It's hard to explain, sorry if I'm not making any sense.

The Normandy/M36 thing is just my usual slip of the mind, for some reason it's imprinted in my brain than 90% of the war after D-Day was fought in Normandy and sometimes I don't catch myself referring to things in the right time frame.

And I'll watch the language. I just assumed that as it's not censored we could get away with it hear as long as we're not being abusive.

Cheers.

 

Ah...a real man...Forgotten Hope. I think I like you already. FH2 Normandy for BF2 came out. Wonderful.

Yeah, I do understand the ammo bit. I don't know how many times in Red Orchestra I've encountered an enemy, killed him, then decided not to reload. Five minutes later, I kill another, then forget to reload. Of course, I'm running low on bullets, and I don't even know. Next run-in with an enemy I hear ONE shot and then a click-click-click.

I used to do the same thing with Normandy. Comes with being a gamer. Spend a couple months on this forum and I guarantee you it will be gone.

Well, Musso's not going to kick you, especially since it wasn't used against anybody. I guess as long as the "f" bomb doesn't replace more moderate words in your daily vocabulary.

 

All I've got for a computer right now is a 512 RAM, 2.0Ghz microwave so I can barely struggle through FH1 most nights, but a badass gaming rig is definitely getting closer to becoming a reality for me, and then it's going to be sweet, sweet Firefly time. Here, kitty kitty kitty..

 

I would very much like to add to this thread...

1) Do you consider yourself a "casual gamer" or a "hardcore gamer/simmer", and why?
I believe I'm slightly to the the hardcore side of gaming, I kind of go in phases e.g. when I'm playing a game i won't be doing much else till I'm done. I don't call myself hardcore as i only own 1 version of MOH(airbourne) and 1 of COD(2) etc. My money is precious...

2) What is more important to you: Realism or "balance of power"? Or do you believe realism IS "balance of power"?
As said before realism is a balance of power, but I'd like to add that realism is a SHIFTING balance of power. Like a pendulum, if your on a roll momentum's in your favor... It seems fighting retreats and even full on routs in gaming is very rare...

3) What do you consider a reasonable cost for a "premium"/unlimited subscription to an MMO? And, would you support the idea of allowing players to play online for free, but not have access to all of the things (i.e., weapons, rank, points, High Command) paying members do?
Personally i don't get much into the online gaming for various reasons e.g. cheaters, being at bottom of world, account creating, annoying people with mics and yes the cost

4) What attracted you to WWII games, and what do you look for in one before you make a purchase? What's fun, and what's not?
ALL my games are ww2 games, except for the odd sports game (HHmm all realism games, no zombie killer robot stuff). I look for a game that's bringing something new to my collection but more importantly a game you can still play once you've finished it

People have been talking about some realism issues, although i agree in sorts i see it as more of a compromise. For instance the "tunnel vision" in FPS is balanced by having a map on the HUD, neither is realistic but by trading the limited vision with a map it equals out... i got more examples but i just thought of something else..

I HATE it when the most difficult part in a game is trying to find your way!! "DAmmit! i wanna shoot the hun not run around on a treasure hunt!"

 

One thing that is kind of weird in games is that, for some reason, there is A LOT of dying. In strategy games, or in large scale shooting games, everyone dies.

If a company in real life went into a skirmish, maybe a few men would be wounded, and one or two would die. If the fight was going bad, they would retreat, and yes, in a fighting retreat, not stand and die.

Perhaps the reason this is prevalent is because it is hard to prompt a human player to retreat, even if pressed hard. After all, when he dies he will respawn again. The only way to force them to think purely tactically, is to limit them to one life in a very long round. And what fun would that be?

 

The problem with most people is that, like Mussolini said, very few people who play WWII games actually know about it. Many of my brother's friends do just that, and all they actually KNOW about World War II is Pearl Harbor, Concentration Camps and D-Day. Not the greatest things to only know about WWII. Mainly because, you know... they were all bad (somewhat D-Day, as it brought the war closer to an end).

My brother and I are basically WWII freaks (But I bet that everyone on this forum knows more than both of us combined :/). Anyway, it's kinda funny, because whenever we see an inaccuracy in a game we're like "NOOOO!" and run around crazy. LOL

 

Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad Screens the sequel to Red Orchestra: Ostrfront 41 - 45 has a campaign where you play as a german. The game is not released yet.

There are also some strategy games where it is possible to play as germans i campaigns.

 

I hope I'm not too late!

I decided to take a little break and come check up on this thread. Been heavily engaged in writing a client/server communication application lately. It was originally a project I just started for fun; to share with family and friends, but people got interested in it and wanted it to be a retail project (surprise surprise, more work for me! lol...). Lots of nice multi-functionality though; send/receive text messages, photos, video, arbitrary file types, etc... Eventually I think I'll make it support some more UDP functionality like streaming audio (voice chat). But eh... I'll save that for the next version...

Other than that, working hard on (game) engine classes. Talk about something that can simultaneously be the most fun/rewarding and the most frustrating and troublesome! But, I love it. Been very tough work, since I'm such an obsessive perfectionist. I can't settle for anything but the most highly optimized and class decoupled algorithms. The code has to be "plug n' play", or I won't use it! Lol! Well, hopefully someone knows what I mean, heheh. Right now I've got lots of "boiler plate" code to work on... tedious stuff like multi-threading across multiple classes. But it's a necessary evil. The cool thing about doing that extra work is that it comes in handy later down the road; for instance, parts of the client/server application will be perfect in our game networking logic. Just got to love that! Lol... Btw, if none of this made any sense to you, basically I'm working on the "lowest" and most complex levels of the game engine; providing the core logic of things like physics and rendering.

But about the conversation here (sorry I went off topic, sorta'), I've absolutely LOVED reading this! I see that most people feel just like I do about the WWII genre and are wanting to see the same things! This is great news to me. Surprisingly, the team is getting more cohesive in our thought processes about how this should work. We're seeing that each of us have valid points that need to be addressed, and we're starting to come up with great solutions to the obvious problems in designing an MMO; and a WWII one at that! Yikes!!! This is a huge improvement, as we were initially squabbling over every tiny point, lol!

@FEARBEFORE_ -

Absolutely EXCELLENT post! Bravo! Just what I was hoping to hear! (Not to say other posts are every bit as valuable!) You sound like the type of person who is going to fall in love with this MMO. The things you describe are very close to what we're implementing, and you will probably find it more engaging and entertaining, I dare say. Basically, we hope to make your dreams of experiencing a realistic, virtual WWII come true. You are part of a huge team, populated by real, living, breathing and (usually) intelligent human beings. Everyone has a rank based on their merits/experience in combat and/or command. There is actually a command structure (aka High Command) for each side. Like a real war, the HC creates the strategic battleplan, which is then tactically executed by field command. Players will be devising and implementing plans to attack/defend towns and key positions, move units, disrupt enemy supply lines, destroy enemy factories/depots, and much more. The way you play is up to you and your team. Of course, you CAN play a "Lone Wolf", but working with your team will always be more rewarding, fun, and effective. War, after all, is a team sport! You will never be cramped into corridor shootouts, or boxed into a tiny "prison" by fake buildings and rubble. And YOU can pick you side, service branch, combat unit, and what you specialize in; or even change it if you get bored. Well, my post is long enough, so let me wrap it up...

That's only a (rather vague) description of a few key points of the sim/game (whatever you like). Those of you who are familiar with WWIIOL may be skeptical that someone is actually attempting this. I can relate; I am a former and disgruntled WWIIOL player, who played because of the total lack of ANY alternative. But if I can promise you anything, I can promise you this will NOT be another WWIIOL! We are not CRS, and we've vowed from the start that we will not follow in their misguided footsteps, bushwhacking away into the dark, lonely forest of mediocrity. The thesis of our design theory is: INNOVATION. You will see things you've never seen before, and maybe never dreamed of. I won't swear that you will love the game, or that this is the game for you; but I am quite certain you will be stunned, and most likely recommend it to people you know.

Once again, I know talk (especially online) means nothing. So take it at face value, and just how you like. I'm not here to argue the issue of validity or 'prove anything' (especially under an anonymous identity, lol). But when you see the fruition of this project, you can know, and take pride in the fact, that your thoughts and ideas played a role in molding its design. We will, like few other developers, be keeping a close relationship with our community after deployment. You will see us in game, on the public forums, and easily accessible to you to voice your ideas, concerns, etc. And yes, you will know who I am by then, heheh. But for the sake of business practicality, I'm anonymous for the time being. But feel free to come by our forums once we launch, send a pm to the owner & lead programmer, and say hello! I will remember you!

Thanks a million guys, it's been a pleasure!