2004 “WWII Online” Development Roadmap

Pruitt

2004 “WWII Online” Development Roadmap

In June 2004 WWII Online will have marked its third anniversary since being launched as “the first/only virtual battlefield” into the MMOG market. 2004 is flying by and we felt it was time to lift our heads up and share our development plans for the remainder of this year and also give you a glimpse of our longer-term development goals.

The development and production team will continue with the ongoing addition of new vehicles, weapons and game features that our players have come to expect. Our production plan will continue to target new content and updates for release approximately every 6 weeks. Some changes to our development and production processes are beginning to pay off, resulting in higher confidence for frequent updates to help keep our rabid fans excited about the game. In addition, we strive to identify and squash bugs and seek out solutions for performance issues.

The roadmap for 2004 includes new features, which are expected to be delivered in this calendar year. These are the short term deliverables to our players and in many cases are already in some form of testing. In addition, we will be working deep inside the game’s core systems to mature, and in some cases create, the foundation for future game features that are simply not possible without the proper building blocks.

GAME PLAY CHANGES & FEATURES SLATED FOR 2004

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Deployment: Brigade spawning, also known as Deployment, offers the biggest change to gameplay since the release of WWIIOL. Deployment is a system with two main goals. The primary goal for deployment is to increase the user experience by placing groups of equipment and players in the field. This allows new and seasoned soldiers to more easily come together for a common objective, offensive or defensive. The second goal of Deployment is to further enhance the strategic aspect of the game; adding lines of supply, maneuver warfare, research and production planning and tools to improve communication and intelligence on the battlefield. With the building blocks of RDP, such as factories, deployed units and objectives in place with the release of v1.14, we are now poised to begin delivering the next set of high level features for Deployment.

(Deployment) RDP: We plan to bring deployment to fruition this year by giving control of all vehicle research, production, and deployment to the High Commands. This will be done under the close supervision and with the co-operation of our staff and will translate into units being placed at facilities instead of the pseudo-static spawn lists we generate now. New bundles of equipment called “TOE” (table of equipment) will now be assigned to brigades who operate in specific areas of the theater. Brigades will have the ability to be re-assigned and thus move their TOE’s to different areas much as bomber and naval groups are currently. A player’s brigade affiliation will dictate where, and to a higher degree with what, he spawns into the world.

(Deployment) High Command HQ Structure: Deployment will bring the High Command function directly into the game world and provides new integrated tactical and strategic planning tools. Each level of command will be located at different headquarter facilities on the map. These connected levels of command flow from the office of the Commander in Chief through the branches and associated factories all the way down to the Brigades on the front where players and equipment come together in order to achieve tactical and strategic objectives.

(Deployment) New Rank System: As part of the new deployment system there are four main types of game play and players will have the opportunity to explore them all including moving up and down through the different rank levels as their play style changes. The majority of players will be in the enlisted and NCO ranks. Enlisted players gain access to new vehicles as they move up in rank. When players reach NCO ranks they will open up opportunities to move into the Officer Corps and have greater access to higher-level equipment and load out options. At any time an NCO may opt for a Commission. The player will then be moved to the lowest officer rank where his role will drastically change. Officers, unlike non-commissioned players, focus their effort on posting and leading missions towards objectives posted by superior officers (Commanders). While all players are scored on the effectiveness of their group in completing the mission, officers are solely concerned with this aspect of play. They are beholden to Command for the loss of life and material who are gauging effectiveness at completing the assigned objectives. Officers may also have the opportunity to lead their Brigade in the absence of a higher-ranking officer. This will offer them limited command abilities and help prepare them for the ultimate step to the Command Ranks. Command players will form the structural framework for the fighting force. Their responsibilities will be to move men and equipment in the most effective manner to wage war. They will be responsible for researching new equipment, producing it in factories and deploying it to their units. No matter your play style, Deployment will offer you opportunities to get even more from the WWII Online experience.

(Deployment) Objectives: Command Objectives represent the plans of the Command Staff. They are passed down through the chain of command until they reach the front where Brigades become responsible for carrying them out. In order to do that, Brigade Commanders will post Tactical Objectives including “Attack”, “Capture”, “Defend”, “Fallback”, “Hold at All Costs”, “Recon” and “Supply”. Using these Tactical Objectives successfully to achieve the Command Objectives, such as capturing an enemy HQ, is the goal of the Brigade. This is accomplished through the posting of missions.

(Deployment) New Mission System: We will be dramatically altering and enhancing the current mission system. In the new system, an officer will be responsible for posting and leading a mission to achieve and objective. Our new mission system will allow us to raise the fidelity of mission scoring to include buildings damaged and destroyed as well as set new and different goals for players on a hierarchical tree. Scoring will be group based with bonuses for individual achievement. Enlisted and NCOs will get bonuses for enemy force destruction, captures, and other on-the ground goal achievements, while officers will be scored on the effectiveness of their leadership through the overall success of mission goals attained by the group.

(Deployment) Personal Spawn Limits (Rank Points): The score from your missions will be used in two ways. One, to increase your rank as they do now, but also to purchase new equipment from your Brigade's available TOE. The higher rank you attain the more advanced (expensive) equipment you will be able to afford. Conversely, loosing equipment in combat will reduce your pool of Rank Points and could eventually leave you unable to afford your preferred unit. Details are still being finalized on this feature with more to follow.

(Deployment) New UI: Tying all of this together will be a new UI that is designed to get the player into his Brigade, join a mission and deploy with others as quickly as possible. We’ll be enhancing the in-game chat and map features to give players the maximum amount of situational awareness possible in game. We’ll be adding “friends” lists, contact reports, supply controls, command interfaces and a host of other features. Our new XML based interface (debuting partly in v1.14) allows us to quickly insert new features into the game and we’ll be looking to our player base for ideas about what tools and features will best enhance their game play.
We know that you may have many questions about Deployment and how it will affect game play. Upcoming features including TOEs, Command and Brigade Objectives, New Mission and Rank scoring systems, and enhanced RDP features will add to the Deployment features already in-game to round out the player experience.

What we have planned amounts to a more cohesive grouping structure for players, enhanced tactical and strategic game play and more intuitive UI, map and communication features. Starting the week of May 23rd we will begin focusing our weekly updates to giving you a complete over view of Deployment and what specific features are planned and a timeframe to outline the order in which we expect to implement these features. Combining our massively multiplayer, PvP environment with these enhancements to game play will provide you with an incredibly immersive experience found nowhere else.

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Graphics Engine: Graphics and effects are a high priority for us in attracting new players as well as bumping up the immersion for our current players. We have many graphic enhancements planned for 2004 some of which you have already seen delivered in v1.13 and v1.14. Our “Unity 3D” engine that runs WWII Online was designed and built in the summer of ‘99 and is overdue for a facelift. Some of our new graphics enhancements are already featured in game, but many more are on the way this year.

RELATED FEATURES AND SYSTEMS:

Multi-layer, Multi-Textures- Additional layers of multi-texturing on the terrain will give aircraft a better view of ground textures, and troops/tanks even more detail close in.

Water Movement & Reflection- Water will move and show reflective properties.

Environment Mapping- Allowing proper metal and glass surfaces to display better and higher detailed reflective properties; these effects will change by time of day and season or weather.

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3D Buildings: Our plan for 2004 includes replacing many of the buildings in the current theater with new 3D versions. They will be “think-walled”, enterable objects with higher resolution textures for a more immersive experience. New theaters will be introduced with these 3D buildings exclusively.

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CORE TECHNOLOGY UPDATES AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES (FOR 2004 AND BEYOND)

There are a few major development priorities that we are pursuing that are not necessarily related to short-term, deliverable game features coming from CRS’s production team. These are core technologies that, more than anything, move our business goals forward to help expand our subscriber base and more successfully market WWII Online and other projects to new customers. Our work on these core systems may or may not result in deliverable features in the 2004 calendar year but the list below sheds light on our development team’s in-progress and on-going efforts.

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TE II: We are developing a powerful new terrain creation toolset that will allow us to design, implement and deliver new terrains much faster than we can now. This new terrain editing system is called “TE II” and will feature higher resolution DEM data that translates into more tessellated hills and valleys and, overall, a more detailed environment for WWIIOL and/or any other 3d virtual world we choose to design As well, new environment and “use” maps will all but eliminate the tiling effects of a limited texture library (like farm fields, etc).

RELATED FEATURES AND SYSTEMS:

New Countries and New Combatants/Weapons - With the completion of TE II new theaters will bring new countries into the WWII Online conflict. American, Italian, Japanese, Commonwealth, and Russian forces are all planned. The initial delivery of the North African Theater will see Germans and Italians fighting the English, American, and perhaps French forces as well.

Weather - It is unlikely that a full weather system will be deliverable without TE II. We are planning to deliver new weather systems with new theaters. The system will include wind to affect flight dynamics and smoke/dust F/X. It will be variable in strength and direction. Ultimate control of this system would be given to the host for both static sets (scenarios) and dynamically generated wind sets for main game play. Turbulence levels should be included in each wind layer also.

Fog/Mist - The ability to display fog/mist in localized areas and ultimately have dynamic control over thickness and fade rate. Perhaps mist/fog generates in “low” spots in the terrain at night and fades as the sun rises, for example

Rain, Snow & Seasonal/Weather Based Textures - Particle-based rain and snow, along with their effects on windows, (blocking view from snow, wet glass, windshield wipers, etc.) will be supported. The seasons will also change by showing new texture maps, and foliage effects for each season. Friction on the ground will change as dirt, mud, and snow accumulate, and the effects of debris thrown from wheels and tracks will match those changes.

TE II will allow us to deliver a new theater to WWII Online, which will in turn allow us a more likely avenue for a revised and expanded retail publishing effort. This will translate into more players, and that will allow us to grow our development team and accelerate development for WWII Online and other projects.

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Voice-Over IP: We are committed to delivering an embedded system that delivers high quality voice over IP technology. This will be tied to our chat system (also receiving an overhaul) and allow players ultimate flexibility in combat communication. New features like “area chat” will allow both friendly and enemy players standing near enough in proximity to each other to hear each other’s chat. “Radio silence” will take on a whole new meaning , and not just in city fighting!

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New Update System: Our groundbreaking update system has served us well for 3 years but it is due for replacement.

RELATED FEATURES AND SYSTEMS:

Increased Visible Player Limit - A new method of handling the up and down-flow of our update data (the updates to and from players) will allow us to re-manage our visible player limits to show more players and reduce bandwidth resources. This means you’ll be seeing more players and less warping.

Ordinance Server - Advancing our update system also allows us to also add new server-side elements and systems such as an ordnance tracker (for high altitude bombing, artillery fire, and “bouncing” grenades) as well as burning hulks and “poly” crew ability (more than 2 players per vehicle). This will also provide for player-defined objects to be placed into the world such as foxholes or other emplacements that may be available as part of TE II.

Loadouts - One of the goals of the new update system is to provide players the ability to choose what they take into combat as a trooper, tank commander, pilot, etc. This will translate into altering fuel loads and ammo types for planes and tanks. Also altering combat loads for troopers as well as supply loadouts for trucks, ships, etc. This will bring new variety to game play and finally allow us to turn on bridge damage and crate repair missions, for example Loadouts will also be affected by the in-game strategic supply systems introduced with Deployment.

Bailing/Entering - By far one of the more popular requests for new features is the ability to get in and out of vehicles. We plan to integrate a system that allows players to enter vehicles as either crew or riders depending on selected persona and then exit vehicles to continue playing as a first person avatar (read “trooper”). The system will have fairly strict limits on who can do what. For example, a downed fighter pilot will not default to a machinegun-toting infantryman. Instead he would land with a flight suit, a pistol and no ability to capture facilities.

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Game/Graphics Engine (Unity II): In 2004 we began work on the next generation of our Unity 3D game/graphics engine. The results of this development introduced many new graphical features to our current theater including all-new 3D trees/foliage, multi-level multi-texturing, higher resolution texture maps and more. Unity Engine development will continue this year and into next to advance support for the many new systems outlined above and Unity needs to support the rendering of higher poly scenes and new technologies that will come as a result of TE II, increased visible player limits, 3D buildings and more. Some of the new graphic features that are expected to come from continued Unity Engine development include:

Enhanced Sky Colors and Light Values - Much more dramatic sky display will allow for deeper colors and directional lighting. This, along with new volumetric clouds, will bring a new dramatic look and feel of the sky as well as give the air forces an environmental overhaul.
Shadows - All objects will draw shadows that move according to the position of the light source. Objects will be self-shadowing as well, meaning the barrel of a tank’s main gun will draw a shadow on that tank’s hull, as an example.

3-D Volumetric Clouds - New 3D volumetric clouds will grow, move and evaporate randomly throughout the terrain. This system will also be tied to environmental weather effects delivered with the help of TE II.
Short-Range Immersion Clutter - New high resolution foliage like grass, rocks, debris, plants, etc will be displayed and have a specific relationship to the type of ground you are on; IE: grass and rocks in open country, crops and tall grass on farms, and sand and scrubs on the beaches, etc.
Sun Glare - The Sun will get a new treatment as well, and display glare effects when “looked at” directly. This will again increase the dramatic effect of the environment, but will also block out icons and have a real tactical impact on the visible “position” of attackers or defenders in relation to whether you’re looking into or not the Sun’s position.

Some of these features may be introduced into our current theater but the focus of Unity II Engine development will support the delivery of other core systems such as TEII, update and ordinance systems. These are critical systems required for the delivery of a new theater or even the total revamping/overhaul of the Blitz/BOF Theater

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CONCLUSION
In previous roadmap documents we have not made such a clear distinction between game features, which are deliverable in near-term production cycles and development work on core systems leading to advanced technology and next-generation features to be delivered as/when ready into our longer-term production cycles.

The balance of 2004 will see the development team very much “heads-down” while the work on core systems and new technologies is done and at the same time trying to satisfy the need for ongoing delivery of fresh content and new/enhanced game features. While we have a very ambitious schedule ahead of us, we count on the on-going support of our players to help see us through the longer-term initiatives. It’s all necessary and the results will be worth the effort.

After growing our community and supporting three years of live gameplay involving thousands of subscribers from dozens of countries around the world who have collectively performed millions of combat sorties and who spend countless hours helping our team support the growth of this community and advancement of this great game, we are more committed and enthusiastic than ever about taking this game to a new level. Work continues to seek new business partners and advance opportunities to bring the game to a wider audience, but ultimately we’re making the game for ourselves - and you. Our sincere thanks for your support whether you are a first-month subscriber, a day-one player or one of the many WWII Online Builders’. We appreciate your ongoing support.

-The Rats