Lucky me.

My practically brand new 19" monitor has decided to stop working.

Wow am I happy.

10 easy dot commands to make the game better.

edited due to stupid formatting errors

Or / commands to appease kfsone.

1. /brigade "text" : Transmits "text" on brigade channel only, in different colour (ie blue). Available to officers only.

2. /mwho : Lists all players on your current mission. Available to all players.

3. /prefix "#" -u -ic: Sets a automatic prefix on channel (#) only available to brigade, mission or objective channel.
-u will give unit type surround by paranthesis,
-ic is only available to mission commander or brigade officer. Sets prefix as OiC or something similar.
So if type /prefix 1 u each time I transmit on slot 1 it will automatically put a (A-13) (for example) in front of the text. Available to all players.

4. /boic -a -hc: -a Lists all officers online for your brigade. -hc Lists only AHC officers online for your brigade.

5. /missions -#: Lists all missions available for your brigade.
-# Gives detailed info (ie origin/target and poster) for that
particular mission.

Ok so that's only five, and yes some of them are just replications of information already available. The important part is that these commands are available while spawned into the game world.

I'll leave it up to you guys to suggest another five.

Cool site

ww2ol stats

Check it out. Great site. You can track town captures by campaign (including current) as well as RDP bombing progress.

Very nice.

Adding to links.

Metz situation rectified.

CRS are patching today and rolling back towns around Metz. Hopefully this patch will fix my CTDs as well.

Axis wailing can be heard from Metz to Berlin. Sorry guys maybe you shouldve spent more time defending towns up north than playing in obviously bugged towns (how many CTDs does it take for you to figure it out? 10? 20?). Realising this the Axis are now yelling for a reset.

Good work for doing something CRS. Im not completely unsympathetic to the Axis concerns but when certain players start spouting off that it's not their fault they took the towns and kept playing there then I start to feel less concerned for their cause.

And if the Allies ever are in the same situation and keep attacking bugged towns then I'd expect the same to happen to us. I'd also spend my time screaming at people to stop attacking obviously bugged towns.

1.19 so far..

Not so good.

CRS in all their wisdom started the campaign a day earlier than they said they would. They had stated previously that they would patch the game on Monday and start the campaign. No, instead they start the campaign on Sunday with some definate show stopping bugs. The one where no one could spawn at Metz and other towns nearby without CTDing was a good one. Of course the Axis took Metz, good work GHC for exploiting bugs!

The other problem is is that I keep CTDing like a mofo, I can safely say than in 4 years of playing this game I've never had this much trouble with CTDs. Joy is me.

Hopefully CRS will see the light and do a patch/reset to right this farce. We'll see.

Disclaimer: I love 1.19 itself, I love brigades and the new mission system (needs a few tweaks), sounds etc.

Here we go.

Gophur says:
"We are preparing the patch to 119 for release. This is going to be a very large patch, around 100mb. There are a lot of changes in the game, the biggest by far though is brigade and persona based UI and spawning. This will fundamentally change the game as players will no longer search the map for "where" to play but will look for "who" to group with by joining a brigade and going on the missions that the brigade has posted. The game in all respects will be a more local, more personal experience and one which we are glad to finally unveil.

We hope you enjoy the patch."

Download will also be available via bittorrent.

Per Badger there will be a short intermission with a Battle of Britain scenario (Howabout an Invasion France scen huh CRS?!) for stress testing/rule testing followed by the start of a new campaign.

yeehah.

Progress report.

New computer upgrades target: $450.

Progress so far: $90.

$360 to go.

My infantry wish list.

- Bouncing grenades: It's more than embarassing that after 4 years CRS can't figure out how to code these.

- Increased flexibility for LMGs: LMGs should have a greater traverse, and be easier to deploy/undeploy.

- Bazookas/PIAT/Panzerschreck: Decent ranged personal anti-tank weapons? Tankers won't like it but they should learn not to drive into towns unprotected or spawn into ABs that are camped by infantry.

- Mortars: I personally think that large scale artillery wouldn't be much fun to play with, but why not mannable mortars with HE and smoke shells. 2", 50mm, 3", 81mm. I'd love nothing more than to start an attack with a quick mortar barrage and laying down a smoke screen for the infantry's advance..

- Different paratrooper classes: At least rifles and LMGs please.

- Infantry loadouts: I want an SMG with 2 satchels and as much smg ammo as possible. Thats it.

- Medics: A little 'gamey' perhaps but still kinda fun and adds flavour to the game. You know there would be people that would love to play them.

- Better Command and communications tools: I espcially want voice commands , ala Day of Defeat, which have a limited range. Commands like 'follow me', 'rally here', 'charge', 'contact enemy' etc would be super handy for rallying blue tags around you and atomspheric to boot.

Alright CRS get on that would you? Thanks.

Day of Days

Just once I'd love to do a D-Day in ww2ol. This is still my 'dream' moment the one that crystallizes your hopes for the future of this game. I think everyone has one.

Of course an operation that large would simply get airquanked to oblivion in todays ww2ol. But let me give it a shot anyway.


It would be a massive operation requiring maximum effort from the airforce. Like real life, total domination of the air is needed (and even more so) to pull off a cross-channel invasion. However in ww2ol defending against air quake is hard so I'm going to go all out in my attempt to shutdown the Luftwaffe.

Air War:

RAF/FAF will peform CAP over invasion fleet, primarily to protect the transports and also over objective towns.
The bulk of our fighter forces however will focus on shutting down the Luftwaffe AT their airfields. We will attempt to airquake the primary airfields (Vliss, Knokke etc) and interdict from other secondary airfields (Cambrai, Lille, Seclin etc).
In fact to successfully pull this off I believe the MAJORITY of your players would have to initially be in the air. Getting the transports across the channel is the operations most vunerable phase.
This airfield CAP will be coupled with commando/paratrooper raids at each Airfield. Paras/inf will seek to disrupt/destory planes leaving those AFs + draw off Axis ground troops to defend those airfields.
As the transports land CAPing the AirFields will still be a priority but secondary importance will need to be given to defending MSPs and bombing of the target towns.

Allies have 'some' advantage in that there are so many airfields in the SE of England.

Naval War:

Transports: Transports will primarily bring trucks for MSPs and heavy armour. Secondary loads would be ATGs and AA for flak traps.

DDs: RAN are going to have to have DDs in close to the transports for AA cover and out wide for protection from enemy DDs.
Once transports are landed, DDs will provide fire support for ground troops and AA cover.

Ground War:

As many AOs are to be placed when the transports have landed.

(In 1.19 iirc) there is a link to Vlissegen from England. A force of paratroopers it to hit there as the AOs go up with their focus on delaying, distracting german forces.

Main forces of Para's are to drop on target towns (most likely two, Dunkerque and ??)as AOs go up. Again their main aim is to destroy armour in the AB, harass and distract the defenders.
MSPs deploy as safely as possible with several in reserve, with as much AA protection as can be given. Armour is also to be carefully hoarded.
Essiantely these towns will have to be overwhelmed with infantry with maximum effort coming from the RAF/FAF to absolutely bomb the crap out of said towns. Attacking forces will have little to no armour support. Its unlikely that if the attacking infantry cannot overhwelm the towns in the first 10 minutes then its not going to happen. Paratroopers will continue to be dropped either on the AB or surrounding towns to act as cutoff.

Even IF the intial captures are successful the operation would need to be continued to capture a couple more towns to act as a bridgehead.

3 critical portions to this plan:
1. Getting the transports across the channel unmolested.
2. Camping the AFs and having as much bomber support as possible.
3. Overwhelming the town quickly.


Of course what'd really happen is your fleet would get spotted halfway across the channel, your AF cap would get attrited to death and then you'd have 20 Stukas bombing your transports to smithereens. Eventually you'd get one MSP down and some Paras and they'd be dead within 5 minutes.

Still, if you had the numbers.....

Sweet sweet RAM

My gig's worth of RAM arrived back from Newegg yesterday.
Hopefully in time for 1.19's release this week. :D

Weekend notes.

Did a little beta stress testing on Saturday. Things of note:
-I hope this is not just anecdotal but battles appear to be LOUDER. Which is a good thing, nothing worse than going into a firefight and it being quieter than a walk in the country.
-New side strafing animation looks nice.
-MP40 seems to be less deadly.

On commanding, was reading Sres's post about his successful run of attacks OiCed (S! Sres) and noticed he acted as an MSP on at least one of them. My OiC attempt (and success.:)) this map was Engheim and I acted as the MSP for just about the whole attack. Having your OiC immobile with extremely limited visibility is not a good thing, but unfortunately a good portion of the time no one wants to volunteer to be the MSP.

Rightly so though, cause MSPing is damn boring. I must admit I usually don't understand why people want to have fully enterable and exitable vehicles in ww2ol so much but this is an instance where it would be rather useful. Allow the truck driver to hop out of the truck with a limited loadout (say a rifle with 50 rounds) and move around and more people would be willing to drive those MSPs out.

The other solution which Im going for is to have a second account and PC.:) Hopefully by the end of next month I will purchase the parts to a new system:
- AMD 64 3000
- AN8-E Asus Mobo.
- GeForce 6600 GT PCI-E

I already have the RAM (RMAed to Newegg and returning today woot) and have spare RAM for the old system (thanks to a $100 giftcard from BestBuy) so the old PC will become the second account/truck driver.

Hopefully the wife wont notice the $30 month charge from Playnet.:P


Oh and 1.19 is supposed to be released this week all things going well. Wootalicious.

Random 1.19 thoughts.

In-game keymapper: Good.
- Thankgod for this, I can remember one unfortunate occasion where I accidently hit the key I had mapped mouselook to...right before I was about to make my final run to sap a Pz IVD. It was like the scence out of a bad horror movie, Im trying to run one way and my head is pointed the other, and I didnt get the panzer. Damnit.

Btw go here for some great info on fine tuning your turret control or mapping it to your mouse! (This is an open forum so available to all players.)

New Sounds:
The best of the lot -
New Thompson
MG-34
Turret Traverse
Air raid siren (though this will probably get annoying.)
Footsteps
Smoke Grenades (pop crackle fizz!)
New richocet sounds.

First time I logged onto Open Beta I spawned in as infantry to find a pzIVg driving down the middle of a town...bullets ricocheting off it, mg34 blasting away...very SPRish. Im all inspired to get my ww2ol movie done. Working on storyboard right now and will scout locations tonight.

Seriously some peoples license's should be revoked.

Or maybe not. One 4G driver last night puts himself 50m from a French depot and proceeds to turn his tank 180 degrees away from the depot. Quickest , easiest sap I ever had.

Sres's myths of 1.19

Go here to read.

The new computer concerns are definately bunk. I spent all weekend playing open beta (and remember its still beta) on an AMD 2100 XP, 512mg RAM (half of what I usually have) and a gf5600 Ultra and had no problems whatsoever. If your trying to play ww2ol on anything less well then you should've upgraded a year ago.

4 years ago..

I went down to my local EB and picked up a first day copy of ww2ol. Oh boy those were the days. Multiple servers, lawsuits threatened and British Chars.

Happy 4th birthday ww2ol!

Comeback version 2.0

Lets try this again shall we?

So since last I spoke I've joined the AHC. I'm actually enjoying it. I think it's because of my inate need to boss people around.

Waiting for 1.19 to come out. Still contemplating taking a day off work just to play the open beta. Brigades will be nice, sounds are great (love the smoke grenade), can't wait for crouch sprint. Air raid siren will get annoying though I bet.

Favourite mission of the night: Armour EWS went off at Lacapelle and being somewhat bored I spawned in (sapper) to check it wasn't a real attack. Hoped in the church tower and noticed a pz IVg sitting east of town all on its lonesome. My eyes lit up as one word coursed through my head 'NOOBIE!'. So off I snuck with all my might ninja skills to nail this sucker. It was almost unfair, he didn't even shutoff his engine, he even fired MG at me at one stage! He mustve thought he got me! Dear god I could smell the noobiness! Anyway one charge later (remember boys and girls, halfway down the hull on the left side for your 4G satisfaction), and boom.
I started the walk back and lo and behold there's another lone 4g! (obviously I had some cosmic karma coming). I was behind this one so I didn't even sneak. Boom. Two dead noobs. Delicious.