How can you ask a player for almost $30 a month to play a game?

When you get to that point in the road you have failed to make a product that should be marketed any longer, pretty simple.

God I wish these guys who love the game now could see how it was played by those of us who where there from the start OJ.

Its hard to explain to them what it was like to know your AO and what squads you went up against. Hell as one of the 101st starting members I could tell you which squad was in our AO by looking at my kill list and in most cases after finding out who we where up against what tactics they would use. Yes for those who dont know this squads used to have a grudgeing respect for each other and the ability to admire the effort even in a loseing fight with regard to how much preperation and effort your foe put into ousting you out of a town.

Dang it I miss those 2 or 3 week long slugouts over cities like twerp. I miss seeing a sea of tags poping from a FB with a 100 plus tanks,supporting inf. FB defense, supply cuts, Cap you name it. I miss my brit gren of which i am sure I am still in the top 10 on kills even after all these years of not playing. I miss tracking the 94th and setting up ATG traps in the middle of no place to tear into those giant tank runs they did across country. I miss screwing up SGs simul caps by being in that one depot or AB they needed to finish the cap.But most of all I miss the squads mine and my foe's that made the game so interesting, enjoyable and personal to me as a player.

I really wish CRS would have taken note of all the warnings squads gave them about the HC/AO system and how it would effect the game, if they had we wouldnt be here today talking about the death throws of a dieing game. SAD SAD SAD

Originally posted by Deuce6
Oh the days of the K98 sight being off and who can forget "The Bertrix" (the most Panzers you've ever seen).  I guess not much has changed.

I worked my ass off to resupply as many as we could, the allies cried a damn river over that.

Granted it did help that the ABs were so close.

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Originally posted by Abyssuss Been on the server not so long ago and its almost dead, there's more players on a bf3 map, kind of interesting considering they have a f2p option that hardly anyone uses

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I resubscribed recently and unfortunately the server is very dull outside of a few select times. There's some variation depending on the campaign state but the most action is probably on Sunday and Wednesday afternoons(US eastern time) and depending on how things go the period extends late in to the evening.

The worst part is that if some people manage to get the map active and moving during off-hours then the next day the forums are usually filled with complaints about that time zone and how those players are killing the game and other nonsense. The game needs more activity, not less and you have a portion of the remaining subscribers still clamoring for more rules to slow the game down.

Well. I played for many years, starting from day 1.  Canada Corps, then we became 3CD.  I have had conversations on TS with all the RATS and private battles with DOC thru PM's.  He actually told me to take a break from the game.  I'm still on that break, going on 4 years now. (Remember DOC's years of insisting the 109 flight model was perfect?  Anyone remember the eventual discovery it had an invisible third wing that gave it super lift and performance?)

Motormouth begged me to come back, said I couold get a free t-shirt.

Back in the day, the game was awesome. Back before HC and forced AO's, when ya had to pay attention. Squads shaped the flow of the map.

It is a niche game, so why try and capture fast action players who have so much more, and better, fast action shooters out there?  You will NEVEF get them.  Go back a bunch of steps.

I personally don't like all the moble spawn-instant army mechanics.  But I could live with a compromise. Tone it down a bit.  Make it a sim again.

Draw back all the players who like stuff like coordinating the air to cover a 30 min. trek from town A to attack town B.  Draw attention with a feigned attack on town C.  Maybe an alpha-bravo attack to tie up enemy elements.

Send fighter cover to hunt bombers hunting your armor.  If only AO's are attackable, then there is not much hunting, just mindless fur balls by stat whores.  Stats (kills. K/D etc... ) are stupid in real time. It creates a game within the game. The sim part gets lost.  If ya want stats, release them after victory is decided.

The RATS fixed alot of gamy issues, with capping for example, but went too far trying to make the game more then it could be, more then a niche game.

Why is/are strat bombing gone, squads gone, AO's forced, mobile spawning too easy?

If players don't like taking the time and effort to plan and pull off an attack that takes 40 minutes to drive there, and stay alive while doing it, then a was sim is not there game. But the current game is a mix of ideas that hold no real numbers and attrack even less.

Get all the war sim fans back, stay true to your war sim roots and let the game be what it was meant to be. a niche game, a true war sim.

Brig. Gen. (Ret) Robhood, Third Canadian Division, Commanded RCAF

"Always on Target"

Robbhood is right.

I used to play for years till I was permabanned for organizing a walkout on the Axis side.   I am a proud member of the 1st Fallschirmjager or just 1FJ for short.   I remember when Dutchmon (FlyingDutchmon) was the 1FJ leader, and Raftrey was the XO.   I also remember the great debate with DOC over the 109.   And also the Spitfire, and P38, and the German SMG...   Oh that last one was my favorite.  

DOC was so set on saying the German SMG was fine, nothing was wrong with it.   But the players had posted videos of it firing backwards.   That was SOOO much fun.    Or when DOC insisted the Tiger was perfect, yet you could kill it with a 25mm Cmle AA gun from the front.  

But the game was a great concept, it is a shame that poor development decisions kill it for me.   I checked back in a few months ago when it went free to play, found I was still banned, I just went around that.   And seen what had changed in the 5 years since I left.   And I can say it hasnt improved any.   Which is sad, even though I no longer play I still wished for the game they advertised back in 2000.   I still have the original game manual. 

Well the game is dead for sure now.  They just gave the controls to marketing and pr to xoom the ugly troll.

I'm moving my virtual flag to half staff right now.  What a horrible decision.  That guy couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper sack and he's going to fight for the game survival?  Yeah, he's the biggest troll I know.

Loser.

da da daaaaaaa   da da daaaaaaa  (taps)

Well the Rapid Assault server seems to be permanently offline.  You know, the big kahuna that they said was going to save the company.   They could have at least made it a North Africa map or something to make it a little interesting.   

Im glad because DOC wanted to dumb down the vehicle operations and add 3rd person views and make it more arcade like. Seriously the vehicles and physics model is one of the absolute strong points of the product but I guess the ADHD crowd can't be bothered to put some time into learning how to drive a tank.  Pathetic

Check lagus.org/webmap: Low Population

Originally posted by depot12

Well the Rapid Assault server seems to be permanently offline.  You know, the big kahuna that they said was going to save the company.   They could have at least made it a North Africa map or something to make it a little interesting.   

Im glad because DOC wanted to dumb down the vehicle operations and add 3rd person views and make it more arcade like. Seriously the vehicles and physics model is one of the absolute strong points of the product but I guess the ADHD crowd can't be bothered to put some time into learning how to drive a tank.  Pathetic

Check lagus.org/webmap: Low Population

True the tank combat with its few flaws was the best in a MMO I have seen ever.

When has CRS ever accomplished a goal other than surviving?

Africa? Fail

TOE's? Fail

10 yr "announcement"? Fail

Kickstarter? Fail

New "subscription drive" with fancy title? Fail

The only people they're fooling with their catchy "new" ideas, word useage for promotions, are the same 10 people that come back every time. In a few months they'll all be gone again after realizing they've come back to even less than what there was before.

Congrats on 10 yrs though........

The game has seen better days, that is something which nobody, including CRS can and will not deny. However I disagree with the general consensus here that the game is dead. I and many other players still enjoy the game on a daily basis. We still enjoy the battles, I enjoy being in the HC, I just started to learn to fly a bit. And especially during weekends we have big battles again. Yes, I bolded the again.

When I resubscribed in August 2012I nearly got an heart attack. I thought my favorite game was about to die. It sometimes felt like playing on a 8 player CoD server. Luckily a week later the rats awoke and put in f2p which I think pulled the game through these months. Now from what I see things seem to be normalising. Usually the 3 and sometimes 4 AOs again during primetime is a sign that things are improving.

Now I agree that the rats made mistakes, and I think the most crucial one was/is their pricing sheme. Atleast they are fixing it now and I have good hopes that in a few months the game would be back on its track where it was supposed to go to.

Now there is one thing I cannot understand at all. Some people here have made it like a job, or a crusade, to badmouth this game on this forum. Saying the plug should be pulled. Do you ever consider the players who still have fun in the game? The new ones checking it out and liking it, despite its apperant flaws?  I think you are basing your opinion on outdated 'views' (can't find the right word) from when you last played the game. And if you really don't like it, why invest so much time in saying how bad it is, just based on your own experiences. I mean I do not like Heroes and Generals at ALL except its graphics, but I don't go around on forums badmouthing it at every oppertunity ;).

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Posted by Denizzje on 1/08/13 at 4:56:17 PM

Now there is one thing I cannot understand at all. Some people here have made it like a job, or a crusade, to badmouth this game on this forum. Saying the plug should be pulled. Do you ever consider the players who still have fun in the game? The new ones checking it out and liking it, despite its apperant flaws? I think you are basing your opinion on outdated 'views' (can't find the right word) from when you last played the game. And if you really don't like it, why invest so much time in saying how bad it is, just based on your own experiences. I mean I do not like Heroes and Generals at ALL except its graphics, but I don't go around on forums badmouthing it at every oppertunity ;).

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Cornered Rat Software played the "small developer, niche game, no one else would this" sympathy card for years. They had "builder" programs that ranged from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. Lots of people helped out.

What did they do? They spent a year on the China project, and then 18+ months on Rapid Assault. Were you in the forums when they made the RA announcement? Some of the builders who had dropped $2000 were completely surprised and they were furious. There are people out there now who gave a lot of money to help out the game, to help out the community and they got burned. They may never donate money like that again to anything because of their experience with CRS.

Look at some of the failed kickstarters out there, like Alpha Colony. It failed by $28. Sure it's a different genre and by an unknown developer but imagine if just a little bit of the money people have donated to CRS went somewhere else. What's better, giving $30 to support Rapid Assault(which CRS has shut down without any notice) or buying a game like Xenonauts? Maybe Evochron Mercenary if you're in to space-sims(another neglected genre)?

It's not some vendetta. A bunch of former subscribers are simply saying that they're a bad company with bad business practices, and there are other indie developers out there more deserving of patronage. I may recommend the game when it gets ownership that wants to advance WW2online instead of spending all it's effort on side projects.

But it is a vendetta David. Perhaps not for you personally but for depot12, axishatr, Hodo and all the others it really is personal. They hate Doc, they hate Xoom, they hate CRS and they actively want the game to fail because they feel slighted about past decisions and events. With 20/20 hindsight they may have been proved right on some things, but I was there in 05 and the game was in need of something - whether anyone cares to admit it or not - to funnel players towards a common objective. I was in 40comm and it was hard for a squad with 15-20 online to play because you were either subservient to the whims of another squad or you didn't have the numbers to win many fights. That wasn't a one-off, that was every night and we lost a bunch of guys through that.

I figure if you asked almost everyone back in 05 what they enjoyed most it would be when they as a squad could take part in a major battle with lots of bluetags and greentags while retaining some of their own independence. CRS made a decision to implement AO's and I still think the game's decline has centred around other things, rather than that one. AO's were necessary - in some form - because without them new players didn't even see 10% of the game's potential before walking away. Whether we like it or not, that was the case.

I think they should have prioritised certain other things during that period to support AO's, namely commander tools and an improved FB system, but the key thing is that they wanted to succeed and grow the company and the game, not kill it for old players. You can't realistically blame them for a decision made 7-8 years ago that still hasn't finished the game off yet can you? I agree it's different and needs some critical fixes to get out of the current mess, but it's still more playable than ever given credit for on here.

I also think it may have been you David who made the point about a natural decline in numbers playing? I think that's spot on. There's competition from hundreds of other sources now, and PC's realistically cost 3x the price of a console that can do the same job, is less intrusive and has no compatibility issues. I personally don't own one but I'm in the tiny minority there and realistically a gaming PC capable of handling top level graphics is beyond many casual players' budgets. With CRS needing a reasonably high spec (now that's definitely something they should have controlled a little better) for such outdated GFX, it's another reason why people just give up before they get started.

The price thing may be too little too late but it's good that they've acknowledged it was wrong. It's just a shame they didn't do that back in 08/09 when the game was at a crossroads.

Originally posted by argel

But it is a vendetta David. Perhaps not for you personally but for depot12, axishatr, Hodo and all the others it really is personal. They hate Doc, they hate Xoom, they hate CRS and they actively want the game to fail because they feel slighted about past decisions and events. With 20/20 hindsight they may have been proved right on some things, but I was there in 05 and the game was in need of something - whether anyone cares to admit it or not - to funnel players towards a common objective. I was in 40comm and it was hard for a squad with 15-20 online to play because you were either subservient to the whims of another squad or you didn't have the numbers to win many fights. That wasn't a one-off, that was every night and we lost a bunch of guys through that.

I figure if you asked almost everyone back in 05 what they enjoyed most it would be when they as a squad could take part in a major battle with lots of bluetags and greentags while retaining some of their own independence. CRS made a decision to implement AO's and I still think the game's decline has centred around other things, rather than that one. AO's were necessary - in some form - because without them new players didn't even see 10% of the game's potential before walking away. Whether we like it or not, that was the case.

I think they should have prioritised certain other things during that period to support AO's, namely commander tools and an improved FB system, but the key thing is that they wanted to succeed and grow the company and the game, not kill it for old players. You can't realistically blame them for a decision made 7-8 years ago that still hasn't finished the game off yet can you? I agree it's different and needs some critical fixes to get out of the current mess, but it's still more playable than ever given credit for on here.

I also think it may have been you David who made the point about a natural decline in numbers playing? I think that's spot on. There's competition from hundreds of other sources now, and PC's realistically cost 3x the price of a console that can do the same job, is less intrusive and has no compatibility issues. I personally don't own one but I'm in the tiny minority there and realistically a gaming PC capable of handling top level graphics is beyond many casual players' budgets. With CRS needing a reasonably high spec (now that's definitely something they should have controlled a little better) for such outdated GFX, it's another reason why people just give up before they get started.

The price thing may be too little too late but it's good that they've acknowledged it was wrong. It's just a shame they didn't do that back in 08/09 when the game was at a crossroads.

Let me set the record straight.

I dont hate DOC, or XOOM I barely had any encounters with XOOM so I have no real judgment on him.  DOC on the other hand I feel is a blooming ID-10T.   I remember being part of the hundreds of German players who said the German SMG fired backwards back in 02, and he said "I tested it myself and it works as intended."    I also remember him telling me that I dont know a thing about tanks or how they work yet I served as a M1 platoon leader and was the TC of a M1A1 Abrams.   I had sent him testing documentation on how HEAT rounds worked what the affects were, and how they would affect the crew inside an enclosed environment.    I remember another person who worked at Aberdene Proving Grounds sent him the SAME information, all declassified WWII test information.   He told us, his sources were more reliable and that he knew what he was doing and we didnt know what we were talking about.   Yet when asked to site his sources he listed a bunch of poorly written books from the 1960s.  

I would have been less critical of the man if he would have just came out and said he was wrong or that the game engine couldnt do those kind of calculations without serrious server load.   That would have been fine, but instead of admitting error he belittles the players.   I also remember when he was told by GOPHER to stay off the forums because of his attitude.

So here we are almost 12 years after the launch, and I was there, a DAY 1 player in WWIIOFFLINE as it was so lovingly called.    I remember the period when the server would crash every hour.    I remember joking with my squad mates (1st Fallschirmjager) "Oh the server stayed up for 45min this time, its getting better!"

CRS would have had a smash hit if they had done three things 6 years ago.

1-Free to play as Riflemen (later transition into what they have now)

2-Stuck to the May 1940 invasion of France timeline.

3-Never made the Opel/Beddy/Laffly mobile spawn (MS)

Of course there is a 4th.... Parachuting dogs!