Yes they rolled out a patch yesterday but had to put out another patch to roll back one fix. I think it was the sound fix.

It's a lot of things..

A huge chunk of RO's fanbase are not the least bit happy with what we've been given here, and have either refused to buy it like myself, or has stopped playing after trying it. This is not the game we where promised, this is not what we where told it would be, and i don't mean the bugs, which most of the RO community could probably have ignored aslong as patches where rolling out, i mean this game doesen't even feel like it belongs to the same genre of shooter that RO:Ost and the mod did, and has lost what drew us to RO in the first place.
And that's just the regular players, if we look at the realism guys, ohhh boy, there are a ton of things that must be changed before thouse guys would even considder giving it a second glance.


And all of this was done to attract a new and more mainstream audience, which has utterly failed, if you look even here on this forum, people's reception of the game is lukewarm at best. They made it mainstream enough to chase away a big chunk of their fanbase, aswell all the ARMA and WWIIOL players who where interested in the game, but it's not mainstream enough to keep the mainstream interested for long, and it most certainly cannot compete with the visuals and polish that this audience is used to getting from AAA titles.

And ontop of that, the game was nowhere near ready to be released, it needed atleast another 6 months of development to be ready, if not infact a whole year just to become feature complete..
It's a buggy mess, and it is short on content, a lot of features had to be cut from the game to release it, and even if that had been included, it would still be in dire need of more maps and vehicals.
I don't know if TWI was so desperate to get the game out before BF3 and MW3 that they felt it was worth taking the risk, or if they simply ran out of money and had to release it now, but either way, this was not the way to do it..


What they have made here is an extremely niche title, even more niche than Ost was, it does not appeal to the realism market, and it's not viable for the mainstream either, it's OfP Dragon Rising all over again..

Case in point, Ost also had a terrible and very buggy release, there where tons of problems that needed patching just like there is with HoS now, but Ost never fell below 5000 active players at peak the whole first year of it's release, and was infact played by atleast 10.000 for months. HoS though? It's been out for around 14 days, and at peak it's not even got 3500 players now, and the last few days it has lost around 800 players a day, so hell knows how many it will have tomorrow, less than 2000? Well if the trends continue, yes.


Ost was a unique title on the market, that focused on brutal yet slow paced and very tactical combat and immersion like i've never seen before, where the bulk of the fighting were carried out by Rifleman exchanging fire in varried terrains, from open fields to appartment buildings, it rewarded a carefull and planned approach to combat and punished mindless Rambo'ing. It had a heavy emphasis on historical accuracy and realism, but unlike ARMA, it could be played and enjoyed in Pub-matches because it never lost sight of game balance, and indeed most of the community did play it like this. And it was one of the most skill based shooters around, even the simple act of aiming was a skill that you had to learn, but once you did, you would find that it was allways fair and usually well balanced, if you just invested the time to learn how to use the mechanics, the game would reward you. Ost also had amazing team-play, because to stay alive and win, you had to use teamplay, it was required. The game was not for everybody, certainly not, but it was a standout title, it was filling a niche that nothing else did, and it had an audience (it just needed some more polish and some marketing to get to that audience in full).

HoS is a fast paced run'n'gun spamfest, it revolves around tight and cramped maps with maybe an open section or two, that funnels the action into small sections, it is dominated by full-auto spam guns and rewards twitch-shooting and overwhelming the enemy with speed, it takes no skill at all to aim, and aiming is allmost instantanious which makes every enemy encounter a blitz, but also robs every encounter and kill of feeling like a victory like it did in Ost.
The action is allways just a short sprint away, so you have no reason to value your virtual life, and as a result people play it recklessly and totally devoid of the planning and tactics that went into Ost play, and rambo'ing is no problem in this game, robbing it of the teamplay element.
It has cast aside any pretenses of historical accuracy by adding a ton of silly stuff, and with it a large portion of the fanbase who loved the immersion they got from playing something that actually resembled WWII, which they nolonger get from HoS.
It is also not skillbased anymore due to the unlock system, in Ost everyone was on equal footing and skill decided the victor, either by beeing the better shot, or by employing the better tactics, but in HoS you are undeniably at a loss if your stats aren't as buffed as the other guy, even CoD and Battlefield, as stat driven as thouse games have become, understands that unlocks are best handled as side-grades, as giving the player options and variety, and aside from the "streaks" they mostly do, but in HoS you get balls to the wall upgrades, and they are forced, so there is no variety, and they are badly balanced between the teams aswell (the Krauts get all the good stuff, the Ivans get nothing of value).

And the irony of all of this is.. as much as an old RO player like me laments how fast paced and easy this game has become, the mainstream players whom all of this was aimed at, are lamenting that it is to slow paced and punishing compared to what they are used to and want from a game.

And ultimately, this is not what we were promised, and there is no payoff to playing this game, Ost was tough as nails, yes, but when you did good at the game, you felt awesome, and when you where getting your arse handed to you, then even that felt good, because you knew you where beaten fair and square, and the brutality and immersion of the game had it's own charm.
HoS just feels like a mindless shooting gallery by comparison, killing someone in this game is so easy, it leaves no impact on you at all, but dying in this game is equally easy, and it just feels frustrating and like a grind.


There where good ideas in this game, and you can see the potential there, but ultimately, it doesen't deliver it, and is in dire need of either figuring out who it wants to be aimed at and sticking to that, or becomming two games in one, where the "Standard" mode is aimed at the mainstream and the "Realism" mode is aimed at the realism crowd, this not-fish-nor-fowl slurry that it has become is not going to go anywhere, and fails to please anything but a very tiny niche of fanboys.

Thanks for the reply and giving us that view Grobut.

I did wonder if getting away from their fanbase for sake of growing their game would work out. It kinda reminds me of MOH. I thought the biggest issues MOH was facing is the crowd they were trying to appeal too, like RO2. If you want a twitch shooter with no vehicles you play COD. If you want vehicles you play a BF game. MOH was just left in the middle. Biggest question I had with MOH was, what community is going to support this game? Because honestly, most of the MOH community has left or merged into other games.

I guess the same question applies here, what community is going to support RO2?

Growing their fanbase could have worked, if it had been handled correctly..

TWI had an oppertunity to do 2 things with this title, thanks to the fact that the game had two modes of play, Arcade and Realism, with a better polished and better looking Realism mode, they could not only have hung on to the RO community, but they could have attracted new blood to that community, people from the IL2, ARMA, Forgotten Hope, Combat-mission, and WWIIOL communities, and so on, there is a lot of people out there who likes realism, and a RO2 that could offer a more polished game along with actual marketing, that could have payed off, and there was a lot of interest in Ro2 from thease communities untill TWI started marketing the game with stuff like "WOW see this german über nazi with his experimental Assault-rifle prototype! Guffaw! isen't it awesome and doesen't it look totally like CoD:WaW? Hell yeeeah!", and then that interest died..

And the Arcade mode, if it had been allowed to be more mainstream, it could have introduced a whole new audience to the game, it would never have been able to compete with the likes of CoD or BF, hell no, but it could have become a strong little community of it's own, probably attracting players who longed for the days of CoD:UO, BF1942 and DoD v1.3, infact a lot of the gamers from this very community, people who were looking for a return of a PC shooter along thouse lines.

It would have been a split community, yes, but they could have been 2 viable communities, and the fact that they would both have been buying the same title could have given the game enough sales by the two groups combined, that it would have been a financial success offering more than most niche titles can.

And indeed, this is what the RO community thought the game would be initially, it's what we were promised and what i thought it would be, and what we have been begging TWI to do with the game for a very long time now, ever since the Prague-event happened, and we realized the game woulden't be anything like that.

You will also notice that the Prague-event marked an end to me posting on this forum to recommend the game, because after what we saw there, i knew i could nolonger recommend it to people in good conscience..


But obviously it didn't turn out that way, what we've got here is an awkward inbetween of arcade and realism, and the two modes of play are identical save for a few HUD options beeing turned OFF or ON, it's just another R6:Vegas, OFP:DR or DoD:S, a realism game dumbed down in the attempt to ape the success of CoD or CS, and paying the ultimate price for it, as it is neither fish nor fowl, doesen't fully appeal to either audience and comes off as a compromise to both, and in the end will be played only by a small niche of new players who never knew or liked the origional and a few diehards who thinks it's still better than the alternative.

Need i really explain why that approach is a bad idea? Need i really point out that any franchise in the history of gaming who has tried this has also failed horribly as a resullt?

Well apparently i do, because TWI didn't seem to get the memo..

Contrary to what some mike... er, uhm.. might have you believe, THAT is telling it like it IS!

Well put Grobut as per usual, I agree with everything you say m8 and it's a big shame, Is it too late to change though?

Change? Considdering the Dev's won't even listen to what their community is saying, i'm not optimistic about the game's future..

I just don't get what the expectations are for FPS games anymore. I can get wanting a more realistic game. I can get TW wanting to crossover and make some money. I can get that's gonna piss off a lot of RO players. I can get arcade players not liking "realism". But it's not just this game. It's all of them. None of them live up to what was promised. None of them meet some expectation. None of them deliver what gamers want. That's where I get hung up. What the hell do gamers want? It just sounds to me there's this expectation for the ultimate FPS experience that no one can really define. Something that caters to everyone and specializes in your exact gaming preference at the same time.

I'm very much a "to each his own" kind of person. I won't bag on a person for what they like. I'm not one of those guys who doesn't buy or play a game and craps all over it sight unseen. I'm not a fanboy either, mindlessly defending what is clearly blank. Could more time have made a difference in RO2? Of course. Is TW trying to sell out? Wouldn't you?

But look at what we have here. A PC exclusive title, with modtools, dedicated server files and a dev that has already confirmed free DLC and paid total conversions. When was the last time an FPS game came out with even some of that? W@W? Add this to I like the game and woo hoo!

I guess I fit into the RO2 niche. I guess I'll be with the other 12 or so players left when the next CoD comes out. Or is it BF3 now? Whichever or both, I sincerely hope it meets whatever expectations there are.

GROBUT :

I cant say much about the subject, mainly because I never played OSt Front or ARMA.

But I read your post and you say : HoS is a fast paced run'n'gun spamfest, it revolves around tight and cramped maps with maybe an open section or two, that funnels the action into small sections, it is dominated by full-auto spam guns and rewards twitch-shooting and overwhelming the enemy with speed,


I dont know if your aware that this is taken place in stalingrad. Or maybe your not aware what was Fighting in Stalingrad back in ww2. I obviously cant claim to have been there and you might suggest I dont know what Im talking about, But fighting in the city of stalingrad was basically what the game offers. Room to room carnage, fast paced action to try to overwhelm the enemy as quick as possible. Trigger happy soldier ( when supply was still getting to the soldiers ) were more than welcome, Especially for covering fire. And when you know the enemy is coming, you tend to sometime shoot out of fear at whatever is in front of you hiding. Its called suppression fire.

Now I understand you say there is a lack of teamplay, but that is not the game fault. All the tools necessary are there. Its really up to the players to use them.

Maybe you think this game is as bad as they come because they promised you something they didnt make. But dont bash on the whole game, especially when the titles is about stalingrad, it doesnt take an historian to know that you will be fighting in fast pace close combat.

Also about that teamplay, in stalingrad, most of the men were confused, lost theyr commanders and platoon leaders, They were a bunch of people group together because all the rest of their platoon/company/Battalion died. Stalingrad was not a theater like any other. It was more like.... HoS present it.

I got a good impression of this game, ( Like I say : I never play Ost front before But I will make sure to go try ) And you got to think also all the doors its going to open to other game producers that will each time, make a better version of it. ( like in any other game )

You really coulden't be more wrong NeoGodHobo, and i must assume the only reason you would argue such a thing is because in FPS games, CQC usually translates into fast paced gameplay (because most FPS games make no attempt to be truely realistic), and that you think this is somehow realistic just because it works that way in videogames.

It is not, Urban combat is where advances go to die, it is a quagmire that will slow any military opperation to a crawl, it's a deathtrap with fluid frontlines where soldiers must carefully clear every room, check every corner, and where death could come from any direction. It requires a slow and methodical approach, it is anything but fast paced.


And Stalingrad is history's most extreme example of a battle fought inch by inch, it was a massacre of mindboggeling proportions unfolding in slowmotion. Stalingrad was a place where soldiers could be fighting over the same appartment building for several days on end, where the Russians could have their stronghold on the 3'rd floor and the Germans the 4'th, and neither of them could safely assault the other. It was houer long fights just to cross a street, it was slow and methodical room to room clearing, it was squads isolated and pinned down for days on end in small pockets of fighting, it was seemingly endless stalemates fought by soldiers usually on the brink of starvation and frostbite, it was not even a quagmire, it was a tarpit.

What it was not, is whatever this nonsense is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEBHsQBQT1Q

There is nothing even remotely realistic about that, and it most certainly does not resemble the fighting for Stalingrad. What it does resemble is your average military themed FPS game, but i'm sorry, RO used to be something differen't, it was not "just another FPS", it was something unique in a market oversaturated by "just another FPS" titles, and that is why we loved it.