Game Environment & Infantry Optimization

Happy Friday WWII Onliner's! Today we'll talk about how we're placing greater emphasis on the game play environment, and also mention that we're likely to make some modifications to infantry key binds so that they are more consistent with the FPS market. Infantry is the basis of any military unit, and for WWII Online, it happens to be just as critical that we optimize their experience. As such, we'll also talk about maintaining situational awareness, and areas of improvement as an infantryman that are currently being discussed.

GAME PLAY ENVIRONMENT

We're pleased to report that we now have an assigned art team working on short term corrections to existing environment art issues. This team is also currently evaluating our options with SpeedTree. One of our first goals is to see how we can smooth the transition of how trees are populated (rendered) through the game, particularly as you're a pilot flying by at faster speeds. We also really want to resolve how the coloration seems to be off from close up trees to more distant trees, a very different green hue then it should be.

So a big thanks to Xl2Rippr and Mkw for their efforts so far, and to the Terrain team Merlin51 and Five who are helping them out greatly.

INFANTRY CONTROLS UPDATE IN PLANNING

While we don't have specific control updates to announce yet, we can tell you that there are some keys that come as quite a bit of a shock (un-natural) to players who are joining our game for the first time. It's safe to say that it would make sense to improve things for a new persons experience so they can more easily learn how to play and enjoy WWII Online.

We should also note we're taking a close look at making mouse sensitivity smoother and more natural, as somewhere along the line it got a little bit rougher. More to follow on this one.

FREE LOOK WHILE RIDING VEHICLES

For several of our new players who are riding on a vehicle, looking around is a welcome thing to do. As it stands right now you need to press the "N" key to activate free look, to use your mouse to move the infantry camera point of view. We're discussing the feasibility to make it auto-activate when you jump onto a vehicle's riding position as an infantryman, and auto-deactivate it once jumping off. We think this will help them more easily examine the game world and improve immersion / situational awareness.

HOLD FREE LOOK AS INFANTRY (NON-VEHICLE)

There's been discussion and a request for evaluation placed into the queue to see if it's possible for us to allow a user to press free look while on the run, so that you must hold it, then as you let go it would automatically snap back into the forward looking position. The key to activate free look will also change, very likely to be the LEFT-ALT key (to be determined). We think this would really improve a users experience in the field and help them check their surroundings with great accuracy and speed. The old Q+E keys have panned the head 90 degrees left and right for a good while, but it's snapping back and forth isn't smooth and you have an area where you can miss important items (11 o'clock and 1 o'clock can be missed).