World War II Online launch Q&A

Strategy First's World War II Online launched last week, and though sales of the game were extremely promising, many players reported problems registering and playing the game. Many of the game's problems were due to a hardware compatibility problem with the game servers. The developer of the game, Cornered Rat Software, has been working to correct these problems. We spoke with Rodney Hodge of Playnet about the game's current status, the sorts of issues that the development team has addressed since the launch of the game, and the most pressing issues that the team still faces.

GameSpot: When the game launched last week, a hardware compatibility problem prevented most of the servers from working. Has this problem been addressed?

Rodney Hodge: Yes, there was an intermittent hardware problem and a couple of code problems. Unfortunately, until we got the hardware problem fixed, we couldn't diagnose the code problems. To do this, we disconnected the different cells from each other and temporarily made individual "shards" to make it easier to diagnose the servers and get people in at the earliest possible time. But yes, these problems have been addressed, and now, we are just working on client performance and stability issues. Once that is done, we will begin working toward holding bigger numbers in a gameworld.

GS: At this point, how many players are able to get into the game at one time?

RH: We have up to seven worlds available at any given time, with each holding in excess of a thousand players.

GS: The status update mentions that the team is working on a new patch. What sorts of issues will this upcoming patch address?

RH: In the first patch, we are fixing quite a few glitches that were causing the majority of our client and performance problems. The client fixes included a joystick bug that quit reading JS input if too many errors were encountered, a change in the order between loading and the connection order so that you can now check for a connection and get feedback on that connection before the loading process begins, a startup issue for Win95 users so that they can now experience identical functionality to other operating systems, and finally, a list error in the settings app that allowed a player to select invalid resolutions and experience severe UI anomalies that were destructive to basic functionality.

On the performance side, we nuked a shadow-calculating bug that was drawing shadows for vehicles that were not within your visible range, which was eating up more CPU cycles than needed, changed the info and range at which that update info was sent to planes from all ground vehicles to improve performance while in the flight mode, and made several other small adjustments here and there that should help as well.

GS: The free trial period will be extended indefinitely until most of the game's problems have been fixed. Can you give us a rough estimate as to when this will be?

RH: The development team is putting a lot of effort into dealing with these issues and is putting the majority of the performance tasks at the top of the list. After those have been addressed, the focus goes toward getting the strat, ranks, and more mature mission systems in place and the multicell shared servers reconfigured and back online in place of the "shards" that are currently running. I am not exactly sure when that date will be, as it will depend on the development team and how much time it will take to work out these different issues, but we will be keeping everyone abreast of our efforts on the World War II Online Web site at www.wwiionline.com.

GS: Can you tell us how many different players have been able to register and access the game since its launch?

RH: Although we are not ready to release the total number of registrations, we can say that registrations have been staying fairly close to the sales figures released by Strategy First earlier in the week and so far are exceeding 1,000 new registrations per day.

GS: For players who are having trouble getting into the game, is there a specific time of day that is less impacted?

RH: It appears that the servers are extremely busy 24/7, but the addition of other gameworlds has helped to address the loads.

GS: The servers until now have been running separate worlds. How soon do you expect to combine them into one big world?

RH: As soon as possible. Keep an eye on the WWII Online Web site to keep up on information regarding these efforts.

GS: Is there anything else you'd like to add?

RH: Just a big thank you to the people who have been patient and supportive working with us through the roughest parts of this launch. As in any new step into uncharted territory, there are always new and unique problems to overcome.

The World War II Online community is really turning into something special in their relationships with us and with each other as the game stabilizes and becomes the catalyst for the community to build around. This is something awesome to see, and I just want to thank them for being such a big part of the game's success.

GS: Thanks for your time.

For more information about World War II Online, take a look at our previous coverage of the game. We'll post a full review of the game next week.