WWII Online News

From our President XOOM:

As announced at our most recent Rat Chat, the time has come for all WWII Online players to rise to the occasion and ensure that the game will continue to be player-driven. In accordance with that goal, we are planning to issue all premium players with the maximum player rank of Lt. Colonel a special subscription enabling the in-game High Command toolset. This will inject many veteran players and squads directly into the strategic component of WWII Online after many years and ensure we have players with operational tools online during all time zones. We also have plans to add Squad AOs. Please continue reading to fully understand how this came to be and the implementation plan.



The rank of Lieutenant Colonel (Rank #13) represents the top rank of our veteran non-HC players. Every player at this rank will be eligible for an Allied or Axis High Command subscription, which will be automatically applied (with no OCS requirements) to your account. By doing this, we issue HC tools to hundreds of players on both sides and bring squads back into the fold relating to strategy, and ensure as best as possible - no dead periods where HC players are not online.

HC numbers will therefore be buffered like we have not seen in years and we're certain many players are going to learn and participate in the strategy of the game. These new LTC's will have access to all HC tools, one exception being the .Allied / .Axis command and other higher level ranks and responsibilities available by signing up to the regular HC program (which will continue to coexist alongside this initiative).

Akin to the "mission leader" as being part of routine game play, we're looking at this as a way for us to cultivate newer and better game design and ensuring we maintain a player driven WWII Online.

Benefits for new Lt. Colonels receiving HC Subscription:

• Eligible to earn "Colonel" Rank #14
  
• [C] Command symbol in-game
  
• HC channel for side-wide comms
  
• All essential in-game HC tools (Excludes .allied/.axis which is eligible for full HC officers only)
  

All current High Command officers listed on the official Allied or Axis orbat(s) will be considered "Ranking Officers" while online and they're requested to help support the new players learning these tools as gracefully as possible. The HC structure(s) that we have will continue to be operational and its primary mission is to execute the overall strategic component of the theater in and out of the game, manage and recruit new personnel into its orbat (order of battle / roster) and of course to help educate these new Lt. Colonel's learning the ropes of their new tools.


In an effort to support both HC officers and Squads, we are adding +1 extra AO for any AO threshold above 2. Each extra AO is to be 100% designated to Squads online to do what ever they wish with. The original AO availability is to remain at the discretion with the HC officers. Of course working together may result into quick - strategically significant - decisions which help everyone.

Current AOs > New AOs
1 -> 1
2 -> 3
3 -> 4

MODERATION
At the outset of this initiative, we expect a level of controlled chaos of new officers joining, wondering what to do with their tools and "who is in charge." In the event of a player abusing their tools (which can be defined as not allowing squads to have an AO, or being disruptive / not a team player) all officers / players are advised to take a screen shot (F9 key) and type .report to inform the GM team of the issue.

Our game moderation team has been briefed in advance and is prepared for handling these sort of issues, and the Community Managers will also be supporting for any issues like this.

Please note that this initiative does not qualify as a right of service. The regular Terms of Service will be in effect. Losing your toolset will be based on TOS violations accrued.

IMPLEMENTATION TIMELINE
At the conclusion of Campaign 184 (the beginning of this next coming intermission), we will be issuing HC Tools to all Lt. Colonel's. You will start Campaign 185 with full tool capabilities. Each HC program should be preparing for this influx accordingly.


We will have an extended intermission lasting from 5 to 7 days where we will ask as many players to show up and train on these new tools as much as possible. CRS will also be conducting two all-inclusive HC tools training events on Discord during intermission. We are also working on a cheat sheet guide for basic tool usage, though all of that will be available by typing .help and then .help command.


We have great confidence that the player base will rise together to this occasion and work towards the health of the game and their respective side. It's important to proceed with a general understanding that more hands make for less work and stress. This is a perfect opportunity for you and your squad to get done the work on the frontlines that for along time, too few have shouldered. To all of those HC officers, thank you for your efforts and we hope you look forward to the extra assistance.

Campaign 185 isn't too far away, and it's sure to be unlike any we've seen in awhile. GET READY!

Thanks for your support on this everyone, Salute!


Join our our social network channels for more information and community interaction!


Discord: https://discord.com/invite/wwiionline
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WWIIOnline Twitter: @corneredrats
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOQ90QTMviaKRqIMlUthW2A Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/corneredrats

Wishlist our game Chokepoint, our prelude to WWIIOnline 2.0! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1576780

The M3 Halftrack is receiving its final touches from the Production team and today we wanted to share with you some additional screenshots, mainly from the internal (crew member) perspective. Continue reading for some more information how armored personnel carriers will be introduced, their affect on game play and see the current work in progress views. Thanks for your continued subscriptions making efforts like these possible. S!

This armored troop carrier is well equipped with an M2 .50 Caliber machine-gun mounted on top, and 10 seats for troops to sit in. It is also capable of towing light-medium anti-tank / anti-aircraft gun, much like how the 251 Halftrack for the Germans do today.

We have been thinking (though not confirmed) of eventually making the APC's of WWII Online (M3 HT for the US and French, Universal Carrier for the British, and 251 for the Germans) be the primary vehicle deploying mobile spawns. Respond with a comment to let us know what you think about this idea.







How do you think having Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) will affect the WWII Online game experience? Which APC are you most looking forward to?
Please comment below and let us know your thoughts!




The chance for YOU to rewrite history will be the next World War II Online Special Event: OPERATION DYNAMO. Join the Axis in an attempt to rout the British Expeditionary Forces at Dunkirk before they can evacuate. Join the Allies and hold out as long as possible to allow your countrymen passage back to the British Isles to fight another day. Better yet, flip the script completely and launch a massive counterattack to breakout of Dunkirk! The special event will be held on September 19th at 11:00 a.m. server time/U.S. Pacific Time.

EVENT BACKGROUND
Looking back at history there are many moments when a single decision by a person altered the course of history. The Battle of France had such a moment. The German Forces relentlessly pushed the Allied Forces to the brink of annihilation almost dooming Britain's ability to hold out and possibly ending the war in Western Europe. With a majority of the British Expeditionary Forces trapped around Dunkirk and their backs to the English Channel. On May 21, 1940, poorly coordinated and ultimately failed counterattack by British and French troops near Arras would have major ramifications. To prevent disaster, German General Erwin Rommel's last-ditch effort had any large caliber begin firing, including the 8.8cm Flak 36 on the British Matilda tanks. It would not be enough to allay fears of German leadership and Colonel-General Günther Von Kluge ordered a 24 hour halt.



This order was to consolidate the front line and allow supply lines to catch up. To the British the break in fighting opened the door to OPERATION DYNAMO, the incredible and daring evacuation of the British Expeditionary Forces. General Von Kluge's decision to delay the advance, unbeknownst at the time, would ultimately doom Germany's chances of winning the war in the West. The cascading affect contributed to the inability to invade Britain, rebuilding of forces, and a in 1944 staging ground for the largest seaborne invasion in history. Had the Germans pushed onward, could they have routed the British Forces at Dunkirk ending the war right then? Can the Allies successfully launch a counterattack and breakout from Dunkirk? Join the fight on September 19th to be a part of writing your history in World War II Online!

EVENT RULES

• Event Start: 19 Sep, 2021 at 11:00a.m. Server Time/U.S. Pacific Time
  
• Starting Position: Allied Forces will start the event encircled around the areas of Calais and Dunkirk
  
• Allied Victory Conditions: Evacuate Allied Forces to England by holding Dunkirk; Continue the fight for France, hold Calais and Dunkirk; or Counterattack, holding Calais and Dunkirk and taking Boulogne Oostende
  
• Axis Victory Conditions: Take Dunkirk
  
• Supply Rules: Standard
  
• Equipment: Tier Two (1940-1942)
  

This is your opportunity to relive one of the most pivotal moments. What decisions will you and your squad make to change history?





As of this writing on my Underwood Model 5 typewriter, the map currently rests at 23% Allies & 77% Axis (Day 26). The Axis rapid push westward has slowed as some very tough and dedicated Allied warriors have dug in with the recent reinforcements from the Americans as Tier 3 entered the campaign. Such sharp clashes bring forth strong emotions as each side competes. You know you are playing WWIIOL right when you get so fired up after being killed that you are tempted to spike your headset (I said TEMPTED!) and you know the needle is deep into you as you drive to work and you duck lower behind the steering wheel as you see a low flying aircraft instantly thinking that it's a Stuka or DB-7. The pure joy, anger, and fatigue of our game.


ONGOING COMMUNITY INITIATIVES:

Return of The Mailbag

The Community Management Team is exploring different ways for US to hear from YOU. We want it to be easy and efficient for our gamers to provide feedback or ask questions through the Forums, Social Media, and Discord. There will be future updates on this important topic. NOTE - The Mailbag is a great portal to discuss Community Topics but it is NOT a system designed to address, replace or augment the .report or .bug feature.

How to be Successful in WWIIOL

Our game is a difficult game to learn and master; however, at present and over the years some great content has been developed to show you how to be more effective in the game world AND to showcase how to enjoy yourself, too. Check out these links!

• WWIIOL Interactive Training Videos
• Know Your Streamers
  
• WWIIOL Wikipedia

Your CRS Team is hard at work and as a recent new member to the team shared, "I had no idea so much was going on". We cannot always show what is being developed but I will strive as the Community Manager to share as much as possible. The team is working toward a daunting multi-year goal which will have its own share of triumphs and disappointments as do all projects. Remember the distance we have covered together these past few years when previous development was technologically stagnant. I cannot share what I know but I believe in our course, I see the effort and progress being made but as the wise man once said "Rome wasn't built in a day".

I am honored to be a part of the Community Management Team (CMT) and I look forward to seeing you on the battlefield and if I show up on your kill list . . . I was looking at my map!!

!S,
tex

Released September 6th, 2021), version 1.36.13.0 focuses on several production related fixes ranging from vehicles, ammunition and terrain, and it also includes a couple of small fixes for Mac users. CRS remains hard at work behind the scenes preparing big updates for the fall and winter seasons, with a strong emphasis on roadmap deliveries.


World War II Online
Version 1.36.13.0 - September 2021

This release incorporates multiple terrain related fixes and features and also includes bug fixes for some 20mm rounds.

• Wildhund and Wittmann added to the Fallen Soldiers
  
• Updated the game’s Credits
  
• Underwater beaches have been added to the coast line
  
• Some river banks have had their textures updated
  
• Airforce 20mm round penetrations have been updated to align with historical numbers
  
• The Church and Chapel have been updated
  

• Corrected some armor errors within the M4 Sherman Series tanks
  
• Fixed a broken bush LOD
  
• Replaced the Dusseldorf Airfield Bunker
  
• Corrected a bug that caused an over penetration of 20mm rounds against some tanks
  
• Fixed a few floating and mismatched terrain tiles
  
• Radial engines should now show the proper smoke colors for their current damaged state
  
• The GMC Truck’s weird shaking should now be fixed
  
• The invisible collider around some trees has been reduced to fit within the trunks of those trees
  
• Fixed the cause of the Mac minimap sometimes coming up as black
  
• Mac players should now be able to utilize the numpad enter key to effect the chat bar
  

WWII Online has recently reduced its subscription from $17.99/mo to $9.99/mo. This was done to open the doors to a lot more players, new and returning. Please get the word out about this and how it continues to help push game development forward. As we are 100% community funded this is a critical reminder to boost efforts here.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/667291/WWII_Online__Premium_Pass/

S!
Cornered Rat Software

From our President XOOM:

Since we announced our intention to move WWII Online over to the Unreal Engine (aka: WWII Online 2.0) in the "Future of WWII Online" article, CRS has been working behind the scenes to address our initial milestones to help make that possible. Today we wanted to focus on Vehicle Conversions, which is one of our first major objectives to accomplish. Continue reading for a work in progress screenshot and some additional commentary.


One of our primary goals is to bring over existing assets that we currently have into the Unreal Engine and include all of the fidelity that comes with it - you know, those deeply detailed things that make WWII Online's physics and damage models so compelling, not to mention all of that historical data associated with them. Thousands of man hours over the course of 20 years have gone into developing all of these data points and the path of least resistance for getting into Unreal is to bring them over. Once we've brough them into the engine, that is the point we can then start to improve the assets themselves over time and leverage the engines amazing graphics capabilities.

But even then, as you saw in our brief demo what our existing assets look like by comparison is quite an improvement with a 1:1 conversion alone (lighting engine, shadows, etc). So again once we get the assets ported in, updating them is much more tangible. However unlike our demo (which used static objects alone), now we're talking about vehicle assets which of course having moving components and a whole lot more under the hood going on with them.


We knew that this was going to be a difficult task in general, because no conversion kit is on the market (not even from Presagis - the company that owns Creator and the FLT file format). So we've had to build one in-house and work through the difficulties of just getting to the point we're sharing today. The thing is, WWII Online's vehicle files contain lots of proprietary comments and DOF (degrees of freedom) data. All of which have to be categorized, accounted for, and ported over. Then we have to get Unreal's engine to work with our code.

But for now, just getting the assets into the Unreal Engine and retaining that data is our current focus.


We're pleased to let you know that tremendous progress is being made here. The screen shot below is evidence of the "Opel Blitz - SPAA" within the Unreal Engine with its materials attached to it (LOD1) and several data points retained (as seen on the hierarchy to the right side of the shot). This task is no doubt a heavy work in progress and will take some time to complete.




We said we would keep you in the loop as progress comes along, and we know it's been a little bit since we've reported much on WWII Online 2.0 progress. We'd like to kindly remind you that this is going to take a long time to achieve, and the above screenshot does not mean that this task is complete or will be done very shortly. What we're doing has never been done before (we seem to have a knack for doing things like that), and we'll need your ongoing support to get the job done.

Everything that you see happening with WWII Online: Chokepoint is a supplement to WWII Online 2.0 as we have announced several times - and will continue to so that it sticks. All assets being created there will be transferrable and we are unlocking new knowledge and opportunities with our all-new "Wing 2" section of CRS. Emphasis there is intentional because Chokepoint is not taking away from WWII Online 1.0 or 2.0's conversion in any way.

SUPPORT FOR DEVELOPMENT

On that note we should identify that WWII Online's premium subscription price was reduced to $9.99/mo. This was done to encourage all of those folks who were concerned about the price point to step up and become part of our community once again (or for the first time) and back the RATS to fulfill "The Future of WWII Online."

To help make these things possible now and ongoing, we need everyone to subscribe.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/667291/World_War_II_Online__PREMIUM/

S!

Congratulations to the Axis side who has won campaign 183 after almost a full month continuous battle, and a total of 374 567 sorties.

Campaign 184 has started so we are back to Tier 0 equipment. The only changes to this campaign are to the supply numbers for Air units. We found errors to when some units enter the war. We made these fixes and lowered the amount of supply to make them more valuable.

the new list is HERE .

Remember, WWII Online is now $9.99/mo for premium access, take this time to subscribe!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/667291/World_War_II_Online__PREMIUM/



Now is the time to experience the command side to WWIIOL. Can you rally boots to achieve field objectives? Can you direct a bombing raid to raze the factories? Can you lead a patrol to clear the air of the enemy and give our boys air supremacy below? Sign up, now. Do it!

If you are interested in joining the High Command please submit this form

There are now two types of HC roles:

[h2]1) High Command[/h2]

The High Command is our standard entry level program that puts you in an active position to grow in rank, command position, and take priority as an active officer.

• Full time officer
  
• May become Branch Commander or Commander in Chief
  
• No rank limitation
  
• Powerful .allied / .axis communication tools
  

[h2]2) Reserve Program[/h2]

The reserve program is for squad leadership and members who want to help support the High Command program without the full-time requirement. This is beneficial to help improve game operations, but there are limitations.

• Limited to rank of Colonel
  
• Any active officer has command
  

A long time ago, in a WWII Online client far - far away... a Chapel building was introduced and is quite heavily placed throughout our game world. However around 2010 (when a new character model was introduced) the ability to climb the ladder was broken. For sometime that has been the case, but now we're very close to releasing a game update that adds in a new staircase that will once again return the former glory of fighting in this building back. Shout out to TR6AL for taking the initiative here! Screen shots of the building inside.

You see the Chapel throughout WWII Online, but you probably don't use it much anymore because well... you haven't been able to go up to the roof top for a bit. With our upcoming version 1.36.13.0 you will be able to. Pictured here is a US rifleman at the top of the tower. And yes you can jump out the back and get on the main building roof as well. So if you see this building, watch out!





We'd like to let you know that there are many continuing developments taking place here at WWII Online. You've seen progress updates on WWII Online: Chokepoint quite a bit as of late, but we wanted to show our flagship game some love and let you know that there's a lot more than this happening behind the scenes and we look forward to sharing some more news on those items shortly. This particular building will expand the footprint of play space options available and we wanted to give a shout out to everyone who really used to enjoy playing here, and let you know, it'll be valuable once again.

Thanks for your continuing subscriptions - they are helping make WWII Online development carry on with forward momentum.

Thank you, and SALUTE!