World War II Online

[wokelly]

I doubt many of you have ever heard of this game, but it exists. Its name is exactly what it is, a Massive Multiplayer WWII simulator that has an air simulator, tank simulator, infantry simulator and naval simulator all in one with a map that is 1/2 the scale of Belgium, the North of France, and the Ruhr of Germany. The map is over 20,000 square with no reload zones.

http://www.tgpo.net/images/BGE_Large.jpg

This game features an era of WWII that is not often mentioned in video games. It starts during the Battle of France, and its equipment tree stretches out to 1944. The three sides are the Germans, the British and the French. The game starts with such equipment as the BF110, 109E, Spitfire 1, Dewotine 520, Blenheim 1 and 4, Crusader A13, Matilda II, Panzer 2, Panzer 3F, Char Bis1, Somsua 35 just to name a few. Now since the game goes to 1943-44 era, and the French did not survive that long, they use primarily lend lease equipment that the Free French forces used during WWII. As the game moves on such tanks as the stuart, Panzer 3H, crusader 2 and crusader 3, Churchill series, Sherman series, Panzer 4G and StugG, Tiger, and more, plus planes as the FW190, Spit 9 , P-38 and more. Anti Tank guns such as the 2 pounder, 6 pounder, 17 pounder, pak36, pak38, pak 40 and Flak 88, and mle37, 57mm, and 3" make their appearances, plus anti-aircraft guns like the bofors, cmle, and 20mm flak are available to down planes.

The biggest thing you will notice about the game is that it is a simulator, not a frag fest like BF2 . You will die from one bullet to the chest, and you will NOT know what hit you, nor who killed you unless you check the state page. Tanks in game have real armor values and real guns that penetrate historically accurate amounts of armor. Range, angle and type of gun plus ammunition type all determines whether a shell will penetrate or not. Tanks and Planes have real fuel and ammo storage that can be hit and result in a tank being blown to piece with one hit, and a plane losing a wing or catching on fire. Naval battle take places at ranges of 5km or more, and a hit in the wrong place will end you mission.

Overall this game is not for all, it is at the most realistic level possible while being practical for a game to survive. You will NOT walk to a battle on foot just to die to an unseen enemy, its not that realistic because that was impractical... and also how the game use to be which was not too popular.

I will try to explain this game the best I can from my experiance:

Diving in on contacts in a FW 190 A-2. While the allied planes can generally out-turn you, the 190 can outdive, outroll, and outclimb all but the spitfire 9. With 4x20mm and 2x7.7mm the best tactic is to dive in on the enemy, hit him with all guns (a quick burst is often enough to kill him) and run away thus making it impossible for anything but an enemy plane following you in a dive to catch. If an enemy plane did follow you into a dive, the 190 can out roll it, thus allowing you to quickly change direction while the enemy pilot struggles with his controls.

My best night ever, a total of 8 kills with the same FW190 without loss. Again the best tactic for the 190, and basically all Luft planes is to climb high, dive on the enemy and hit him, then continue to run. If you did not get the kill you superior climb rate, plus all the speed from your dive you have not used up can allow you to climb back up to good height, and simply rinse and repeat until he is dead. Never attempt to turn with your enemy for prolonged periods. The 190 has good instant turn, which means if you target breaks you can follow for a short while, but getting slow in a 190 means you will die.

WWIIOL is all about teamwork. Flying with other players will help you survive, as you call out planes on each others 6, or if an enemy plane is on your 6, they will come and help. A favored tactic for the LW since their planes are generally faster but poor turners is to fly fast and straight and drag the enemy plane in a straight line while a fellow pilot come in from behind and kills the enemy plane.

A massive dogfight between british planes and axis planes. In that picture are 18 planes both RAF and LW, plus tracers farther away where another air battle between several other aircraft are taking plane. While it is not always the best idea to get into a dogfight with the LW rides, it does not mean you can't. As long as you do not bleed your speed away in turn fights, you can dogfight in a small area.

Several Bf110s and Hurricanes tangle up north while an enemy freighter attempts to shoot down enemy 110s with its 20mm anti-aircraft guns. For the first week of the map the 3 planes fighting are the hurricane 1, the Hawk 75, and the Bf110. Later it will be the spitfire 1, hurricane 2b, 109E, and Dewo. After that it will be the Spitfire 5, 109F4, and Hawk81. Finally it will end with the Spitfire9, FW190, 109G-4, P-38, and Hawk 87.

A burst from the 2x20mm and 4x7.7mm guns on the Bf110 rips off a wing on a hurricane.

A low level dogfight between 110's Hurricanes and H75s.

There is a tank simulator as well. Real life armor values, penetration values and the works. This is not RO armor, this is realilistic armor combat, with ammunition storage, fuel blowing up, gunsights and all.

A StuG IIIG about to be hit by a 57mm 6 pounder on a British crusader 3 tank from the flank. Its 30mm side armor will be easily penetrated. The tank was killed within seconds of the picture being taken.

Sometimes people feel the need to dive a tank to their enemies airfield and camp it. A shot from a 6 pounder 57mm round from my British crusader 3 tank stopped that from happening.

The French attempted to bring tanks from a rear town up to relieve a town under attack by the Germans. many sliped though the forest and did relieve the town, but not this one. A flank shot from my StuG IIIG 75mm L/48 easily dealt with the tank, hitting something vital because the one shot blew the whole tank up.

The British Churchill 7 tank is slow, with the 75mm allied gun. Its main advantage is its massive 152mm of frontal turret and hull armor, which can even stop an 88mm from a tiger round up until about 200m. Its side armor, though less thick then the front, is 90mm making it stronger then the tigers side armor. However from about 700 meters a StuG IIIG's 75mm round can get through with a good angle. This shot was much closer.

This abortive attack resulted in the axis withdrawing back to their field base. quite simply the enemy had more tanks left then we did, and our inf was getting slaughtered. I decided to reverse my tank back to base because the Stug IIIG has no turret. This British Crusader 3 tank lost its turret as it appeared in front of me.

I started playing the ground game from the beginning, and while it is quite fun, I am now flying in the air most of the time. However that does not mean I do not play ground, and some of the ground battle are utter bloodbaths.

A massive preplanned attack by the axis. This was the start of a large operation which ultimately resulted in huge losses in the center of the map and won the map for the axis. However the attack force suffered huge losses in tanks because many people spawned the tanks and not infantry. Anti-Tank guns plus Anti-Tank infantry ended up taking a heavy toll on the panzers which had been supplied for a few days to one specific brigade.

A MG-34 deployed from a depot window. The LMGs can deploy on any flat surface, from windows, to low walls or holes in the walls.

A LMG MG34 covers a Panzer IV Aust-G from any anti-tank infantry, plus picking off any enemy infantry that comes down the alley from the buildings on the left side.

During the battle for Roosendael, a fierce battle for a depot began. Here a Panzer III Aust-H covers an area of road around the depot preventing enemy troops from breaking out that way.

The battle continues, the bodies of several British troops give testament to the losses both sides suffered over one depot.

More bodies in the surrounding building show how hard fought the battle for a single depot was, but taking a single depot can alter the map, and had this town fallen a large hole in the axis lines would have oppened allowing the enemy to break through, possibly surrounding 2 or 3 brigades up north pinned against the Zeelands waterways.

A fairly typical weekend battle for a town. While WWIIOL can not boast the numbers of WoW, its battle for a town are usually larger then a shoebox battle. At least an equal number of allied units were attacking the town, putting the numbers at close to 100-120 people.

While the graphics can be seen as quite dated, the RATs constantly attempt to improve graphics. As the map is about half the scale of northern euroupe, there is a lot to process. These new ruins replaced one of the older 2-D ruins, making for some great fun in the gutted walls of the town.

A French rifleman covers the entrance to a depot. This depot was under heavy assault by the Germans, and the bodies of 3 German Soldiers can be seen near the entrance.

While the French were gathering to retake the last depot in the town, thus liberating it from the Germans, a JU-52 fill of German Paratroopers dropped over the Armybase and quickly eliminated the few troops defending the bunker. A quick and fierce attack by the French with bolt action rifles took back the bunker occupied by several German Paras with MP40s. Here they are by the radio, and were killed before they could capture the Army Base, thus routing the French Brigade.

A bit of a graphical error, but the bodies of 3 German paras in the bunker lie together, all 3 being killed by a French Rifle Grenadier who shot a nade down the hallway.

A French Trooper runs down the hallway to secure the bunker, a dead french man lies in front.

More bodies, both French and German bear testament to the ferocity of the French attack on the bunker. Though Armed with only bolt action rifles against the German Paras with MP40s, teamwork between the French Players and the one Rifle-Grenadier allowed the French troops to clear the corners with few causalities.

[wokelly]

An attack on an German controlled town by French forces. This Pak38 50mm guards the entrance to the German Army base, allowing it a flank shot on any tank entering. As the side armor of tanks are weaker then the front armor, this makes the pak38 able to defeat all tanks that will enter, even though in a head on battle it would be unable to penetrate their frontal armor.

A French M10 Tank Destroyer stands guard in the French attack on the town. With a High Velocity 76.2mm similar in penetration to the German 75mm, 5x magnification optics, and a strong sloped mantle (front turret) at 45 degrees and 64mm thick (This gives its mantle a equivalent strength of over 100mm of flat armor) it is a very dangerous tank to get into a fight at ranges if it is hull down (hull behind cover, thus making the turret the only visible target to the enemy). However its slow turret (90 seconds to go 360 degrees), weak hull armor, no frontal facing MG, Open Top, and paper thin side armor makes it unsuited for close range battles. However at this point all axis tanks in the spawn list were dead, along with most Anti-Tank units, the M10 has come in for close support using HE and its rear Facing .50 cal MG for both anti-infantry and Anti-Air support.

Two dead soldiers, one French and one German fighting for the ruins of an nameless town.

A true bloodbath, a French Brigades last stand. Tanks and infantry have the area surrounded yet the French still charge into your guns, resulting in the death of many of them, but also the death of many of our troops. The Encirclement weakens several times, almost allowing the enemy back into the town to recapture depots, but ultimately it holds.

The battle for Knokke, the last British Town on the European mainland. As the town housed a British para brigade along with a regular army brigade, the German forces faced more troops then usual. Here British paras and German troops lie dead attempting to take the bunker from British Troops.

The aftermath of the attack on Knokke, British Troops lie slain in their barracks which was surrounded. They bear mute testament to the their determination not to let their last position on the European mainland fall without a costly fight for Axis Forces.

Ultimately the game is extreamly fun. As soon as you get your first kill you are hooked. I still remember my first kill back in April 2005. I was a British Tommy Armed with a Lee Enfeild. A German Soldier runs around a corner and me from the second floor of a depot put a round through his chest. He falls over dead. I was hooked.

FIST OFF JOIN A SQUAD IF YOU SUSCRIBE. You will die... ALOT... you will be running and then black screen... you are dead and you did not even hear the gunshot. You will die a lot at first, and it will be frustrating. You will be armed with a rifle, and you will not be able to use anything else until you get some rank. Quite frankly join a squad and they will help you learn the ropes. This game has an extreamly high learning curve, but one you learn it is easily the funnest game out there. Graphics may be weak, but gameplay makes up for it.

Well I am gonna say one other thing, though many people do play this game, the world is not always very populated. Games like BF2 and other shoebox games have a large teen population that can dedicated lots of time. WWIIOL is actually a game with many more older players, I think I heard the average age was like 30. That makes me quite young at 18, and I have been playing for two years. Anyways a lot of guys have families and other things to deal with, so at some points the map can be low pop.

The point is if you log on and don't see a lot happening, its not that we lied to you or something, just some days you will log on and not find much is happening. As a rule of thumb, fridays, weekends and holidays are usually quite fun days, the week days vary from some huge battle to really small skirmishes for control of a field base.

Basically what I am saying is give it more then just a day. What day you happen to play can determine if you have fun or not.

One other thing. The UI can be quite confusing so here is a nice little flash tutorial:

Originally Posted by gnasche
I made an interactive Macromedia Flash movie to help new players understand the map and get to better battles quicker. 2MB and requires Flash 7

Map Guide

If you have questions go to this page:

http://forums.battlegroundeurope.com...splay.php?f=35

You do not need a account to post questions in this forum.

Also some links for good info on WWIIOL here:

Web-page: Battleground Europe- WWII Online Homepage

Wikipedia: World War II Online - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Weapons of WWIIOL: Units - Battleground Europe Wiki

Some youtube videos. The game is called 3 different names, WWIIOL, WW2OL, and Battleground europe, all will get different videos. It should be noted these videos are from all different years of the game, since it was released in 2001. There are videos from 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007, so be mindful incase you think the game is a POS, some of the terrible laggy day videos such as SmackD's videos are not true to how the game now is.

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

[wokelly]

Last night there was a massive bombing raid that involved 66 planes. 33 He 111s and 33 BF 110 escorts. I have screenies, however to make sure I do not get lag spikes my player visibility limit is turned down, so you never see all 66 planes. The screenshot of the map gives you an idea about the size of the raid though, and even the pictures are pretty cool.















The formation was harassed all the the way to the target and back. By the time the formation had dropped their bombs on the english factory town we were down to 22 HE 111s and 18 BF110s.

Quite a large number of enemy fighters were shot down attempting to intercept but they still did their damage. At first the formation flying close together, so the concentration of fire from the upper and lower gunners were enough to drive may of the fighters away, but as the battle went on and the formation got stretched out and losses started to mount.

[Hawkeye90]

The game seems really well made, although I have never been up for games that you have to pay for monthly.

[wokelly]

Depends on how you look at it. For monthly subscriptions it is kinda expensive at 15 bucks a month. But you take the year subscription and it comes out to 10-11 bucks a month.