The World War II MMO

DrDread74

So imagine an MMO that is kind of like world of Tanks/Warplanes/Warships + Infantry.

You start off as a Grunt and you can do missions in squads or be part of "raids" which involve 30-40 ppl against Normandy style invasions etc.

As you level up as a grunt you can, very early, choose to continue going down the Infantry path that will eventually make you a sergeant or general with abilities that affect nearby troops and/or call in artillery etc. OR start leveling up into Vehicles which eventually gets into bigger vehicles and tanks. Again very early into that you can start leveling up  into Warplanes if you choose, getting into scout planes and eventually into bigger planes and bombers. Again you can early on veer off and go into Navy and level up your ships.

The thing is, there would missions that require everyone to be in tanks (maybe all light tanks maybe mostly heavy tanks) , or everyone be infantry, or a mix of X infantry and 4 tanks or a mix with a couple of airplanes or a huge Normandy invasion that requires 30 infantry players, 6 planes and two ships of a certain size. You would have access to different tanks, different ships, different planes and just like the "World of.." games The missions are balanced where if everyone's in heavy tanks then the opposition will be in heavy tanks so you can play any of your tiers and its just as fun, just different.

Just like in normal MMOs there are (or should be) missions that require a different mix of "roles", this game has different missions that generally require different branches of forces of different sizes. You can event ake your 8 man group and do a series of missions where evceryone is in different branches for different fights.

I think a game like that would work great and would offer a lot of diversity since you're arent stuck in a certain class with you character but you can specialize into a certain branch to play with the bigger vehicles or abilities 

nerovergil

go play battlefield

Saxx0n

http://www.battlegroundeurope.net/

cameltosis

I think a WW2 MMO would work best with a Planetside style setup. 

Dakeru

There is a WW2 MMO but they asked MMORPG to take them off the list years ago.

They didn't like their players speaking their minds freely here.

Forgrimm

I remember when WWII online came out in 2001, mainly because it had one of the worst launches ever.

DrDread74

I think one of the problems with MMOs is that they are almost entirely Medieval Fantasy which makes for some magical stories and fun character abilities and items but to be honest most of the MMO games are all about fighting. A WW2 Theme would make a lot of sense.

Axehilt

Heroes & Generals is vaguely like that, but only its strategy component is MMO.

• You start as a basic grunt with just a rifle, advancing in skirmish play.
• Eventually you unlock jeeps and SMGs, and you advance to War play.
• In War, General players request tanks/planes/infantry from their nation's factories, which produce at a fixed rate.  They then use these units in a MMORTS, moving them across the map. When you encounter enemy units, a battle occurs where FPS players can queue into a (non-MMO) FPS match.  In that match your infantry/plane/tank/jeep/etc spawn counts are determined by how many units were participating out on the strategic map.  (And things can late-join; so you might start as an infantry vs. infantry battle but then one side's tanks arrive and tank players begin spawning in)  I believe there are typically over 100 generals playing this part of the game at any given time (although you can't really just be a full-time general, since things happen very slowly at the strategic level and then your units get engaged in a fight that lasts 15-45 minutes).
• In War, Hero players (FPS players) then fight those battles a bit like a Battlefield match, and continue their soldier careers by unlocking even more things.
• As FPSes go, it's fairly low-fidelity and distinctly lower quality than the best FPSes out there.  But it's good enough to be reasonably enjoyable for a while, especially if you like the idea of your contributions mattering in the broader strategic war.
• Eventually Hero players can graduate to generals.
• When one of the three factions (Allies, Soviets, Axis) gets enough starred cities, it wins the war and things reset back to even footing.

I don't strongly recommend it, since the strategic aspect actually makes a lot of FPS matches super one-sided and kind boring as a result.  But it's not bad and I enjoyed it for a few months, and there's enough depth to it to keep things interesting for a little while.  Plus it's free to play, so it costs you nothing to try it.

Archlyte

Planetside 1 did that very well and if there were a WWII version of of PS1, I would open the wallet and allow my PC to hold me hostage. 

One of the key things they would need to do would be to have the build system like PS1. You could not man a vehicle and still have heavy weapons on you, and you had a finite amount of active build points so you had to have a vehicle build (that you could switch back and forth between at the terminal). 

The problem with the rank system is that over time everyone is a general. I would rather they have a system where rank is about the current job you are doing. You would need to level up your rank, but it also needs to be viable for experienced players to be a loader or a medic. 

Command level abilities and a way to access that billet could have things like supply and indirect fire capabilities. 

Would be very cool if it were real.