Reports & Announcements

WWII Online has had several iterations since its 2001 release. Some remember only 2 towns to battle in, climbing up trees, sniping from rooftops, no mobile spawns, even destroying forward bases from the air (to name a few). The game has come a long ways and CRS is working to incorporate some refined elements of the past and present. Currently we have some big discussions about 1.36 Hybrid Supply which are revealing what's happening behind the scenes and what's to expect as a player in detail as CRS is actively developing the initial implementation, which is now in Alpha testing.

A new Forum has been created for the sole purpose of Hybrid Supply discussions (LINK HERE). Some topics include:

• Town/Airfield Supply and Nationality
• Garrison Overstocking-Working and Easy
• Garrison vs. Flag Role Suggestion
• 1.36 Vital Questions
• ...and more

However, a new topic emerged yesterday from the Allied CinC, Hateract that has spurred a large amount of discussions, "HC and 1.36". 

XOOM responded:

"Here is what I expect things to look like for a High Command officer:

1. Management of AO placements (upon implementation of 1.36)
   1. Includes town and bridge objectives
   2. We do want to go to a player driven AO system.
2. Management of move-able (supplemental) supply
   1. 2 Army Divisions per side
   2. 1 Air Force Division per side
   3. 1 Naval Division per side
3. Supporting players and squads, side global communication of priorities
4. Creating operations and coordinating squad cohesion
5. Field leadership / Troop Rallying 
   1. Attack / Defense OIC
   2. Resupply / Interdiction Operations
   3. Mission / Mobile Spawn Deployment / ZOC establishment
   4. Setting up waypoints and mission orders to direct mission participants
6. HC structure management / on boarding / training
   1. Redefining HC participation requirements
   2. This also includes associating Squads with the chain of command again
   3. Community recognition: Awarding officers, squads and players 

The bottom line is there's a lot of freedom and breathing room being awarded to HC officers by comparison to the current standards of today. HC participation should be FUN and part of game play instead of primarily being its own highly burdened beast. We are looking at incentivizing HC participation more so by providing the following access:

• Access to the NCO class
• Access to the Ammunition Bearer
• Access to the "Officer" class
  • This will be an infantryman who can deploy a "Rifleman only" mobile spawn
• Access to .allied / .axis at any rank in the ORBAT

We are looking at incentivizing Squad participation in High Command by:

• Aggregating Squads to be part of a Brigade in the HC command structure
• Having that Brigade leadership be associated with that Squad
• Providing in-game Squad recognition to that Brigade
  • For example, the name of a Brigade would look like: Special Air Service (7th AST)
• Squads who participate as part of HC will be rewarded with a premium Squad account

By doing all of these things we're hoping to see interest go up by all and for High Command to be entertaining and fulfilling without the major consequences of map management. There is intentional effort being made to realign HC into cultivating outstanding community relations and restore large scale, high participation battles and operations that are the hallmark of the "WWII Online Moment" (experience)."

PLAYER FEEDBACK RECEIVED (FROM FORUMS)

There has been many follow up comments/suggestions to his response such as:

BMW

We need a healthier population because when this game was populated there was nothing like it in this genre on the market..........NOTHING.  Before CRS 2.0 it seemed the game was on its last legs.......it was sucking wind due to apathy and bad direction.  Ever since XOOM has taken over the game and it's development as moved forward more in 1-2 yrs that it did the previous 5.  Thanks to people who care about the game, a lot of which are made up of volunteers and thru the donations and crowdfunding.

People complain because they care, they care about a game they are passionate about. It can be frustrating at times but its been like what 17 yrs ?? We still complain because we love the game and what it is and what it can be and what it will become."

LaFleur (Axis CinC) 

"I have to agree with @XOOM that we will need some time recruit, rebuild and reorganize AHC and GHC a fashion that will suit the new 1.36 environment. We won’t be there on Day 1 - we can plan and prepare for it in advance all we like, but we will have to have a shake down period to see what we really need in HC.  Starting off with two ground divisions will be fine - we can make adjustments after we get a Campaign under our belt.  

In all honesty, right now both HCs are so understaffed that it will still be a challenge just to keep the movable divisions we will have effectively deployed during the first 1.36 campaign anyway.  The Navy and Air commands in particular just have a handful of officers, and in the 1.36 environment these must be built back up to provide the ingame leadership these branches will need.  

The key to making 1.36 a success is to build up the squads so they again have critical mass to run ops - either on their own or working together with other squads on agreed objectives.  Healthy squads will give us a pool of active players and leaders  that we can incorporate into a more robust, fun and effective HC for both sides.  

The unique factor that makes this game what it is working together as team to achieve tactical and strategic objectives against equally matched REAL opponents that are worthy of the effort.  WW2OL is not a lone wolf eye candy tits and gore first person shooter; it’s not a test of how fast you can manipulate a game console.  This game has depth, endless replay interest, quality historical accuracy and physics, multiple layers to appeal to different interests, and a real sense of  community. THAT’s why so many of us are still here after 15 years and passionate enough to spend our time arguing about how to improve it.  Let’s not forget that.  

For now, we all need to put our shoulders behind 1.36 and take advantage of this opportunity to keep growing the game.  THEN we can figure out how to make it even better. "

Augetout

"The current state of HC is the unfortunate result of giving the HCs enough power to be relevant-----remember, back in the day, the discussion was how to make the HCs more relevant-----AOs were the eventual solution, and as (some) predicted, it hurt ingame numbers as squads became less important.  Now, the game suffers from a lack of HC presence ingame, which has been gone over already in this thread.

I sincerely hope 1.36 is a happy medium.  I was in AHC when there were no AOs, and it took decent leaders to get anything resembling a coherent effort, although that was sometimes offset by the bigger squads attracting non-members to them for a given evening.  Players, as has already been mentioned in this thread, weren't dependent on the HC in order to have a battle.  I worry that the lack of HC powers in the early days was somewhat offset by the large squads----and that lessening HC powers now, with the lack of large squads, will have negative consequences."

Discussions are continuing as we speak, so let your voice be heard  SALUTE!