Comments on: World in Conflict Beta Impressions

by: Cyrris

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 02:14:03 +0000

I tried the demo over the weekend. The singleplayer I found to be pretty good. Decent pace, reasonable characters and events. Hard to say from just one demo mission of course, but it’s definitely the sort of thing I could play right through.

by: Droniac

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 23:00:49 +0000

I don’t know about the singleplayer - yet - because I have yet to try the recently released demo. You might want to give that a spin, because it includes a singleplayer mission too. Regardless, given the nature of this game I doubt it’s singleplayer offerings could compare to the multiplayer experience.

As for terrain destructibility: it’s not like you can reduce the map to a mere grid, but otherwise it’s very destructible. Buildings and forests can be completely wiped off the map by things like artillery bombardments and napalm strikes - and nuclear explosions even knock down trees and buildings outside the blast radius. After just the first few minutes of the game you’ll already start to see craters form in the most contested areas - and by the end of a 15 minute session you’ll frequently be looking at a hole-riddled battlefield. Just like in the trailers your units have to react to the height differences in the terrain, caused by craters, which limits their line-of-sight and ability to fire. So yes, it’s not a mere Red Faction when it comes to destructibility

As for reaching the top 100: it’s still a largely activity based system, so if you just put in enough time and know what you’re doing then you’re bound to hit the top 100 eventually!

by: Jumbi

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 12:53:04 +0000

I hope the single player is solid. Games like BF2 that are primarily online always seem to suffer in that department. Sure its fun to get your online stats up, killing and being killed by people around the world. Sometimes though its nice to just sit back and pound the computer into the ground, not having to worry about getting flamed if you make a single strategic error.
Looks good though.

Is much/any of the terrain destructible?

I always was a fan of the assault concept… as long as its somewhat balanced.
The leader board thing sounds like a good concept in theory. Maybe even I can make the top 100! one day… in a few years when there are only 100 people still playing…

by: Cyrris

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 03:31:54 +0000

OK so it turns out that your points (and hence position in the leaderboards) are based not on your total score, but rather your score from just the last 7 days. However, your rank is based on your total score, ever. I was wondering how a lieutenant colonel was at the top of the leaderboard ahead of major generals and the like.

I guess that’ll keep the top guys playing if they want to keep their names up in the top 100.

by: Droniac

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 10:30:55 +0000

Vermouth - total newbies generally won’t be put against top players… the game takes your rank and experience into account when finding servers (although you can join manually too). As for clans being formed: there are already many clans in the beta test - and I’ve seen a lot of them lose out against entirely random teams. It’s fairly easy to coordinate attacks in World in Conflict with the build in voice-option (or ‘request’) menu as long as most of your teammates know what they’re doing. Once you start ranking higher on the ladder it becomes even harder for clans to win out against random teams, because most everyone is good and they all know what to do - although most top players are already in clans.

World in Conflict certainly isn’t a simple game, but if you’re decent at these kinds of games then you should pick it up fairly quickly and be able to outpace most everyone online. It helps if you’ve played Ground Control 2, because it’s essentially WiC’s spiritual predecessor and thus will help you adjust to this kind of gameplay a lot faster - it certainly helped me. A multiplayer demo should arrive before the game’s launch too, so if you didn’t make it into the beta you can (and really should, because it’s awesome) check it out then!