Bierbaer
10.05.2005, 12:17
Beyond Blitzkrieg
this is a little thread looking forward to the new patch 1.19 which everyone is waiting for.
to make it easier to our new members [short: n00bs ;)] ill write down some words with (not) all the changes which will come with 1.19. i made the decision to write this thread in english cause i think its easier to translate it in german later just in case it is necessary.
First of all i have to say WWIIonline will be renamed in Beyond Blitzkrieg so that everyone knows what im talking about.
there are a lot of changes and i really dont know where to start. if you read the playschool and ghc forum you surely noticed some threads about brigade spawning (BS).
---
this is the new feature given us by the rats which will change 'maybe a little bit' the gameplay of the game we used to play. every single player will be attached to a brigade. the necessary changes in the command chain for BS were finished nearly 4-5 month ago.
we will be assigned to KG1 4th PD (6.armee / 27.corps / 4th PD / KG1) so there is nothing new for you. if you need an overview about the structure of the 6.armee i recommend this page (6.Armee Roster (http://www.okw-ressourcen.com/12/6armee_roster.php)).
lets get back to brigade spawning. to start a brigade will be a group of players that have mission leaders and soldiers attacking objectives together. brigades will at this time not be strictly geographical, they will have primary areas of play. a brigade will be active whenever an officer of that brigade is online and has posted a mission. soldiers in that brigade will then be able to take those missions and contribute to the success of the missions as well as gain scores on their sortie which together will rank the brigade and the individual.
The Persona Select Screen
The game currently moves you through the UI as a player; only really identifying you as a persona (say German Air) once, you have actually selected a facility. In a persona based UI you will choose your persona first and that will then limit what you are presented with until you return here and select a new persona. At this point in the process, there is no
chat, as you are not anyone yet so we cannot filter to whom you can talk. If this is the first time, you have played this persona or he is newly created (more on that in later releases) then you will need to select a brigade. On to the Brigade selection screen.
The Brigade Selector
Once your persona is chosen you will need to select a Brigade to join. This screen will show you a list of all the currently active brigades that your persona has access to, say all French Army Brigades. You will be able to see which brigades are currently active, meaning that there is an officer posted mission available for you to join. Of course, if you are an officer you can pick any brigade you like really, since you will be posting the mission and being scored on the results of the men whom you lead.
The Brigade Selector will also show you some default information about the brigade to help you make your selection easier. One nice touch we would like to have done for release is showing you the top languages that have been selected by players that are currently online in that brigade (based on settings preferences).
There are two views planned for the Brigade selector. The list view is a sort able list that shows only the brigades you have access to and some minimal information about them. The Tree view shows a SET-style tree menu of the entire force structure for your side, while still limiting you to selecting the brigades to which your persona has access.
No matter what rank you are you will have to have a brigade to call home. This brigade is your access points to missions in the field. You will also be able to freely transfer between brigades to help you find the right group of people to play with, at first anyway.
Later we will add things like loyalty, which will drive you to stay with not only your side but also your brigade.
Once you have selected your brigade its time to move to the Brigade Home. You can always transfer out and return here though as you progress in ranks there may be associated penalties with that transfer.
The Brigade Home
This is the central area of the UI. Personas who already have a brigade will move here as soon as they select there persona. From here, you can access many sub sets of information that will be available either specifically in the brigade home or globally throughout the rest of the UI.
The brigade home at this time is not a set place in the world. It is a UI room where brigade mates can come together. Chat begins here with access to your brigade and other channels.
The first pane in the Brigade home is your brigade info screen. Here you can see the MotDs from command as well as any specifics about your brigade. Think of this as the daily news.
The second major part of the brigade page is the Mission pane. Here you will see a list of current missions being run by the officers in your brigade and will be able to select and join one in much the same manner as you do now.
We will get deeper into missions as we get closer to the box release but a few things to note are:
Missions no longer time out, they are complete when the poster stops leading them.
Missions can still be placed from anywhere, as the brigade is not yet tied to a strategic objective. These will be added as we progress to ToEs.
Mission origins designate where the brigade is currently deployed and like current brigade, structures will have areas that they prefer to work in as part of the overall structure of their sides force.
Other tools accessible from the Brigade Home include Settings and Command pages as well as a Who page that is not yet implemented that will allow players to seek other players who are online and in their brigade, side, friends or squad lists.
From the Brigade Home, you will go to the mission pane and select your mission, get your equipment and spawn in to the mission origin headed to the mission objective. From this point, the process is similar in function to the current play style since, in the live game, once you get to a facility you are a persona.
Now that we have the background, let us return to the question at hand. Geography for brigades.
Once we have Brigades in and functioning as groups it will be time to start placing them on the map, as outlined in the Deployment Primer, with a few modifications. A brigade will exist along with the other brigades in its division to fill the front line gap between the Divisional supply point and the strategic objective (currently referred to as an AO). A brigade will also receive its own table of equipment from which it can draw forces.
This starts to open the door to such things as personal vehicles. The idea that if you RTB it, as now, you keep it. However, when you are tied to a Brigade and you have a supply point to draw more equipment from and your ToE belongs to your brigade, and you are always moving with your brigade even when you are logged off, we can allow you to keep that vehicle to use at your own time.
So tying Brigades to a geographical point is still going to happen though there will be some changes in how they operate in conjunction with strategic objectives. That geographical placement is not necessary for the primary objective of brigade implementation, which is forming a group of player together for unit cohesion, teamwork and structure.
---
the next thing the rats redone is the rank structure and mission scoring system.
there will be a seperation between soldiers, officers and commanders. they also want to be able to have a king of the hill system within each brigade that promotes and demotes within a few prestige ranks the soldiers and officers in the brigade.
mission success goes bye bye as they focus individual grunts and NCOs on their primary tasks and score them for such. RTB status is still a huge part of our score. Kills will be awarded based on the RDP value of
the Killer and Killee with a cap. 100-point tanks will not get many points for killing a 10-point truck. they are also adding Mission Highlights, which getting any one of will add a bonus to our score. These include things like despawning at the right place on a Resupply mission or capping a flag. Dropping bombs or destroying the right kind of target will also earn us the bonus. the rats will tally up our last several sorties to come up with our score and rank we based on where that places we in our brigade. Grunts will advance to Sergeant and have the option to go NCO or Officer both of which will be a king of the hill ranking structure within a brigade. NCOs will primarily be ranked on their ability to kill and not be killed while the NCO will be responsible for posting and leading missions and will be ranked based on how well the men under his command achieved success. If the kill well, capture well, bomb well or deliver supply well, he will do well. Officers and NCOs will continue to get features added that separates their gameplay style and focuses their responsibilities. Players who want to lead, place waypoints and work the tactical game plan in hopes of advancing to command will want to be officers. Players who want to have the biggest Tiger K/D ratio will want to be NCOs.
---
yes! they want to add new icons to the enemy warn system (EWS) to tell us if a EWS warning represents a few or a lot of the offending type. there will be soon no eDD which is not triggering EWS.
---
there are optical changes too. they redesigned the GUI, HUD, infantry models, map, terrain and some buildings. i wont lose a word bout it, cause there are screens and vids everywhere.
An extract of the planned new vehicles with 1.19:
"Pz Mk VI: The Tiger. What more needs to be said. This tank is the most well known Axis tank of the war and makes its appearance in late 42. The Tiger brings us to the end of the first stage of the war and like the other tanks in this set preps the way for North Africa. These tanks will mark a turning point in our focus for vehicles as we focus on broadening the set
in all directions. Not to fear though, once this tank is done, when we return to tanks, the Panther will be a welcome addition.
Churchill: The next tank for the British is planned to be the iconic Churchill. Big on armor this tank is a replacement for the Matilda giving the British late model cruiser and heavy tanks. By any estimation the Firefly and Achilles should be in the future after these tanks in the coming months.
M10: The French will get a variant for the Sherman that will bring them the 76mm gun. This tank hunter should lead to a nice upgrade later to the Sherman 76.
C47: The allied transport is in the works though the tanks are likely to be delivered first.
omg i forgot the new water ;). the rats are very proud of it. well we will see soon.
---
HE stat:
"What will HE stat do for the game?
Stat HE is about the worst tag line we have ever had for a feature since it primarily has nothing to do with the HE component of the shell. Stat HE is more correctly a statistical shrapnel model that allows us to model only the pieces of shrapnel that are going to strike a target. This saves a huge amount of processing power while at the same time allowing us to overall generate more shrapnel than was possible before. The result is an explosion with the same concussive force that we have now, and that is well modeled I think, but with more shrapnel, though not necessarily bigger shrapnel. The net result is that we can use real world data about how many pieces of shrapnel are generated from a given weapon at any given distance in a 1-meter square and work to replicate that functionality in game."
---
there are a lot of more features and bugfixes. follow these links below to read more.
attention: you have to be logged in (playschool) to read the threads.
http://discussions.playnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=153938
http://discussions.playnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=161123
http://discussions.playnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=167878
http://discussions.playnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=173625
http://discussions.playnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=175816
http://discussions.playnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=179542
http://discussions.playnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=184726
thx londo for this horrible job and thx god for copy and paste!
bierbaer
this is a little thread looking forward to the new patch 1.19 which everyone is waiting for.
to make it easier to our new members [short: n00bs ;)] ill write down some words with (not) all the changes which will come with 1.19. i made the decision to write this thread in english cause i think its easier to translate it in german later just in case it is necessary.
First of all i have to say WWIIonline will be renamed in Beyond Blitzkrieg so that everyone knows what im talking about.
there are a lot of changes and i really dont know where to start. if you read the playschool and ghc forum you surely noticed some threads about brigade spawning (BS).
---
this is the new feature given us by the rats which will change 'maybe a little bit' the gameplay of the game we used to play. every single player will be attached to a brigade. the necessary changes in the command chain for BS were finished nearly 4-5 month ago.
we will be assigned to KG1 4th PD (6.armee / 27.corps / 4th PD / KG1) so there is nothing new for you. if you need an overview about the structure of the 6.armee i recommend this page (6.Armee Roster (http://www.okw-ressourcen.com/12/6armee_roster.php)).
lets get back to brigade spawning. to start a brigade will be a group of players that have mission leaders and soldiers attacking objectives together. brigades will at this time not be strictly geographical, they will have primary areas of play. a brigade will be active whenever an officer of that brigade is online and has posted a mission. soldiers in that brigade will then be able to take those missions and contribute to the success of the missions as well as gain scores on their sortie which together will rank the brigade and the individual.
The Persona Select Screen
The game currently moves you through the UI as a player; only really identifying you as a persona (say German Air) once, you have actually selected a facility. In a persona based UI you will choose your persona first and that will then limit what you are presented with until you return here and select a new persona. At this point in the process, there is no
chat, as you are not anyone yet so we cannot filter to whom you can talk. If this is the first time, you have played this persona or he is newly created (more on that in later releases) then you will need to select a brigade. On to the Brigade selection screen.
The Brigade Selector
Once your persona is chosen you will need to select a Brigade to join. This screen will show you a list of all the currently active brigades that your persona has access to, say all French Army Brigades. You will be able to see which brigades are currently active, meaning that there is an officer posted mission available for you to join. Of course, if you are an officer you can pick any brigade you like really, since you will be posting the mission and being scored on the results of the men whom you lead.
The Brigade Selector will also show you some default information about the brigade to help you make your selection easier. One nice touch we would like to have done for release is showing you the top languages that have been selected by players that are currently online in that brigade (based on settings preferences).
There are two views planned for the Brigade selector. The list view is a sort able list that shows only the brigades you have access to and some minimal information about them. The Tree view shows a SET-style tree menu of the entire force structure for your side, while still limiting you to selecting the brigades to which your persona has access.
No matter what rank you are you will have to have a brigade to call home. This brigade is your access points to missions in the field. You will also be able to freely transfer between brigades to help you find the right group of people to play with, at first anyway.
Later we will add things like loyalty, which will drive you to stay with not only your side but also your brigade.
Once you have selected your brigade its time to move to the Brigade Home. You can always transfer out and return here though as you progress in ranks there may be associated penalties with that transfer.
The Brigade Home
This is the central area of the UI. Personas who already have a brigade will move here as soon as they select there persona. From here, you can access many sub sets of information that will be available either specifically in the brigade home or globally throughout the rest of the UI.
The brigade home at this time is not a set place in the world. It is a UI room where brigade mates can come together. Chat begins here with access to your brigade and other channels.
The first pane in the Brigade home is your brigade info screen. Here you can see the MotDs from command as well as any specifics about your brigade. Think of this as the daily news.
The second major part of the brigade page is the Mission pane. Here you will see a list of current missions being run by the officers in your brigade and will be able to select and join one in much the same manner as you do now.
We will get deeper into missions as we get closer to the box release but a few things to note are:
Missions no longer time out, they are complete when the poster stops leading them.
Missions can still be placed from anywhere, as the brigade is not yet tied to a strategic objective. These will be added as we progress to ToEs.
Mission origins designate where the brigade is currently deployed and like current brigade, structures will have areas that they prefer to work in as part of the overall structure of their sides force.
Other tools accessible from the Brigade Home include Settings and Command pages as well as a Who page that is not yet implemented that will allow players to seek other players who are online and in their brigade, side, friends or squad lists.
From the Brigade Home, you will go to the mission pane and select your mission, get your equipment and spawn in to the mission origin headed to the mission objective. From this point, the process is similar in function to the current play style since, in the live game, once you get to a facility you are a persona.
Now that we have the background, let us return to the question at hand. Geography for brigades.
Once we have Brigades in and functioning as groups it will be time to start placing them on the map, as outlined in the Deployment Primer, with a few modifications. A brigade will exist along with the other brigades in its division to fill the front line gap between the Divisional supply point and the strategic objective (currently referred to as an AO). A brigade will also receive its own table of equipment from which it can draw forces.
This starts to open the door to such things as personal vehicles. The idea that if you RTB it, as now, you keep it. However, when you are tied to a Brigade and you have a supply point to draw more equipment from and your ToE belongs to your brigade, and you are always moving with your brigade even when you are logged off, we can allow you to keep that vehicle to use at your own time.
So tying Brigades to a geographical point is still going to happen though there will be some changes in how they operate in conjunction with strategic objectives. That geographical placement is not necessary for the primary objective of brigade implementation, which is forming a group of player together for unit cohesion, teamwork and structure.
---
the next thing the rats redone is the rank structure and mission scoring system.
there will be a seperation between soldiers, officers and commanders. they also want to be able to have a king of the hill system within each brigade that promotes and demotes within a few prestige ranks the soldiers and officers in the brigade.
mission success goes bye bye as they focus individual grunts and NCOs on their primary tasks and score them for such. RTB status is still a huge part of our score. Kills will be awarded based on the RDP value of
the Killer and Killee with a cap. 100-point tanks will not get many points for killing a 10-point truck. they are also adding Mission Highlights, which getting any one of will add a bonus to our score. These include things like despawning at the right place on a Resupply mission or capping a flag. Dropping bombs or destroying the right kind of target will also earn us the bonus. the rats will tally up our last several sorties to come up with our score and rank we based on where that places we in our brigade. Grunts will advance to Sergeant and have the option to go NCO or Officer both of which will be a king of the hill ranking structure within a brigade. NCOs will primarily be ranked on their ability to kill and not be killed while the NCO will be responsible for posting and leading missions and will be ranked based on how well the men under his command achieved success. If the kill well, capture well, bomb well or deliver supply well, he will do well. Officers and NCOs will continue to get features added that separates their gameplay style and focuses their responsibilities. Players who want to lead, place waypoints and work the tactical game plan in hopes of advancing to command will want to be officers. Players who want to have the biggest Tiger K/D ratio will want to be NCOs.
---
yes! they want to add new icons to the enemy warn system (EWS) to tell us if a EWS warning represents a few or a lot of the offending type. there will be soon no eDD which is not triggering EWS.
---
there are optical changes too. they redesigned the GUI, HUD, infantry models, map, terrain and some buildings. i wont lose a word bout it, cause there are screens and vids everywhere.
An extract of the planned new vehicles with 1.19:
"Pz Mk VI: The Tiger. What more needs to be said. This tank is the most well known Axis tank of the war and makes its appearance in late 42. The Tiger brings us to the end of the first stage of the war and like the other tanks in this set preps the way for North Africa. These tanks will mark a turning point in our focus for vehicles as we focus on broadening the set
in all directions. Not to fear though, once this tank is done, when we return to tanks, the Panther will be a welcome addition.
Churchill: The next tank for the British is planned to be the iconic Churchill. Big on armor this tank is a replacement for the Matilda giving the British late model cruiser and heavy tanks. By any estimation the Firefly and Achilles should be in the future after these tanks in the coming months.
M10: The French will get a variant for the Sherman that will bring them the 76mm gun. This tank hunter should lead to a nice upgrade later to the Sherman 76.
C47: The allied transport is in the works though the tanks are likely to be delivered first.
omg i forgot the new water ;). the rats are very proud of it. well we will see soon.
---
HE stat:
"What will HE stat do for the game?
Stat HE is about the worst tag line we have ever had for a feature since it primarily has nothing to do with the HE component of the shell. Stat HE is more correctly a statistical shrapnel model that allows us to model only the pieces of shrapnel that are going to strike a target. This saves a huge amount of processing power while at the same time allowing us to overall generate more shrapnel than was possible before. The result is an explosion with the same concussive force that we have now, and that is well modeled I think, but with more shrapnel, though not necessarily bigger shrapnel. The net result is that we can use real world data about how many pieces of shrapnel are generated from a given weapon at any given distance in a 1-meter square and work to replicate that functionality in game."
---
there are a lot of more features and bugfixes. follow these links below to read more.
attention: you have to be logged in (playschool) to read the threads.
http://discussions.playnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=153938
http://discussions.playnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=161123
http://discussions.playnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=167878
http://discussions.playnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=173625
http://discussions.playnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=175816
http://discussions.playnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=179542
http://discussions.playnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=184726
thx londo for this horrible job and thx god for copy and paste!
bierbaer