For those of you who haven’t heard of Battleground Europe, it is widely regarded as the first MMOFPS in history, released in 2001 and is still running to this day. As someone who played Battleground Europe back when it was still just WWII Online, I have to say the quality of the title was unmatched, both in the implementation and the sheer force that the allies and axis threw upon one another in massive fields, towns, and cities, experiencing everything from raids to enormous bombing runs.
And as any MMO goes, Battleground Europe peaked, and began its dip into the game that exists today: A game that is even more barren and lifeless than its successor in the field, Planetside. I guess you could say the main difference between Planetside and Battleground Europe at the moment is that Planetside at least was successful enough to spawn a sequel.
But this article isn’t about making fun of Cornered Rat Software, or their near-comatose game. Unbeknownst to me, and 99% of the gaming community, the guys at CRS have been upping the funding lately, with the Builder’s Program (private investment) and through the increase in the base subscription price to $17.99 a month. Sure you can subscribe for three months and bring that price down, but we’re talking about the base entrance price for a monthly fee.
There is nothing to be worried about, like the game tanking, however. If the posts on the related threads are anything to go off of, Cornered Rats has quite a number of players willing to pay for subscriptions, often on multiple accounts, as a “donation,” despite not even playing the game. That must be nice for the folks at CRS, having people who expect literally nothing out of you, and are willing to pay you for just that. I also witnessed posters claiming that they hated the change in subscription, but would continue paying the price just to stop any snowballing of people leaving.
Whether or not World War II Online is a good shooter is irrelevant to the fact that not only will free trial players be walking into a dearth of population, but then they’ll be enticed with a cost higher than any triple-a MMO on the market. And the drones on the Battleground Europe forums can throw inflation and costs of development as much as they want. $15 is less funding than $17.99, but $0 and a disgruntled customer who isn’t coming back is far, far worse.
If you’re going to ask for higher prices, you’d better have something to offer that meets that increase. Games far more successful and independent companies far smaller than Cornered Rats have gone more years without raising their subscription price, or putting payment plans into effect with termination fees. So please, don’t try to play this off as a special case. It isn’t, and you aren’t.
MMO Fallout 
What kind of post is this?
Just slamming and trying to discourage people to play a game?
Who pays for only 1 month when playing a mmo?
WWII Online had a good run back in its time, but those days are over and the title has been on its final phase for the past few years: slow death. For the record, I still have my original Battleground Europe box.
WWII Online will be remember as the game that brought massive scale warfare, and accomplished really what only one developer has been able to do since. That being said, the mantra of MMO Fallout has always been: Everybody dies. All titles shut down eventually, but that we play (and pay for) MMOs for the present, not for years down the road.
That being said, the players who pay for WWII Online in one or more accounts, as a “donation,” but don’t play are mindless drones. I said the same thing regarding A Tale in the Desert and the players who did the same thing there, and I stand by it here as well.
Cheers,
Omali
Also rifleman/smg is free to play.
hmm.
mindless drones eh?
Off Topic forum are far from mindless drones, it is one of the best forums on the net, in spite of CRS doing their level best to keep it down to a dull roar.
if 4chan is the arsehole of the internet, WWIIOL-OT is the oversized walrus panis, looking to violate those whom displease it.
But yes, the game is going through a quiet spell. Happens every northern summer.
Certainly the game population is down a bit from a few months ago. 5 AO’s on peak time weekends used to be norm, sometimes 6 but only about 4 at best these days.
That being siad the game is still extremly rewarding and big battles still happen.
The introduction of FRU’s have harmed it, and it looks like there not going back on that (*curse*) but you can still get some awesome, balls to the walls battles where your own actions can literally change the course of a battle involving 100-150 people.
While typical popular FPS’s are a ‘run and gun’ for 10 minutes and the only reward for winning is braggin rights on battleground europe your sides victories, or losses, or just your individual actions can have a BIG impact on your sides campaign.
CRS might be fools half the time but the game they’ve made is unparralled to any over game on the market and no game will likely ever parallel it considering the route modern MMO’s are going down. So long live battleground europe, i’ll have fun camping your AB inf spawn tonight! =)
They are introducing the US to the game, and AT weapons such as the PZfaust and bazooka and PIAT. This is sure to give the game more legs.
Nothing can save BE.It finished.
Prior to November 18, 2011 I would have not bet on the previous commenter’s posting coming true. Now… somewhat more likely it is right.
The Welcome Back Soldier promotion (started November 18) was a disaster. Game server and client crashed multiple times *daily* and has continued to do so through (at least) December 22.
Patch to fix all this was released late in the day on December 22 and was BROKEN. Patch to fix the patch released on the December 23 but still some issues being reported.
On top of that the player population has dropped to the point that it’s becoming almost impossible to make the game work at it requires more population to make it work as intended. People in previous postings talked about 5 or 6 AOs available. It’s an “event” when 4 come up now.
Stick a fork in it — it’s almost done. They can’t/won’t reduce the price or do away with cell phone like contract to get a lower price. They can’t/won’t offer the *PAYING* subscribers who have suffered through OVER a month of an unplayable game any discount on another month or extend their current subscription in compensation.
Shame. There’s nothing else quite like it, but it’s either unplayable due to bugs or unplayable due to no players.
Highest priced mmo out there with little return.
Worst customer support you’ll ever come across. Reason unknown but appears they are severely understaffed.
Promise and advertised new equipment that has not been added to the game world as of yet.
Falling numbers of players forcing a smaller game world and limited combat areas.
Bugs, clitches, and crashes that they cannot fix and appear to have simply grown use to having. The even launched a new event with the issues persisting.
It’s a sad deal.
At least the “reviewer” coudl get his facts right before posting.
They are trying some sort of new game play. It’s basically a shoebox game now and the end of whole map play is near the end.
Bad thing is they decided to go with this new style of play but their game still doesn’t run right.
Servers are down as I type this.
What a waste of money.
Servers Down? Game Bad? Hell no!
Thats why there +7 ea in the air in front of me last night?
It seems some people would rather spend time dissing a game than actually playing it.
What a shame for them.
I am a current subscriber and played last night. I am going to keep my name out so the over zealous mods and GM’s do not ban me forever. This game might return to some sort of glory again someday after the mess they have now.
The reason for the 7+ enemies in your sights was because they have crammed us all into a small area of a huge map. 1 attack town with the only options of fighting for it against it or fly over it will leave the impression there are lots of people playing when the truth is there isn’t. There are stil more playing Star Wars Battefront then WWIIOL.
Its a great game but there is so much illusion going on right now to try to fool people into a smaller game world it is no fun to play.
Like was said above in a post. There are so many issues with lag and invisible enemies plus floating tanks, blinking aircraft, and capture issues that the worse thing they could have done is shove everyone in the same town. The lag last night was horrible. Painful actually. I bought a package deal to lessen the costs of playing but really for the horrible play it still was like getting a tooth pulled without any pain killer or being knocked out.
I have unsubed since my package was up. I will resub for another year only when these things are fixed and the map returns to the whole scenario as it was when I first signed on and paid for this game. Until then it is a slap in the MMO players face.
By all means join up and play but it’s expensive and compact now. Slow play. No new equipment yet. Just a bunch of misleading info on the website and a shoebox to play in now.
Signed,
Unhappy current/old customer
Sorry your unhappy – but the game is still there.
False advertising.
“Monday, 06 June 2011 00:00
Today marks the 10th anniversary of continuous operation of WWII Online and we are excited and proud to announce the addition of U.S. Forces and a new scenario-based game play option called, “Rapid Assault” (R.A.). U.S. Forces will first be featured in the “D-Day” Rapid Assault scenario pack and as part of a campaign special event.”
All the lag, decades old bugs, terrible damage models all still there. Nothing the developers advertised on their main page in June has been introduced,at all.
I played for years, and quit recently. The game has seen its best day and is slowly dying….Its a sad thing to see. For me, not worth more than 4 or 5 bucks a month….Major problems with how the game runs and now, its just a shoebox game. Sometimes I was playing with maybe 20 or 30 total players…Off prime hours were abysmally slow…
Sad, but “Its dead Jim”