Firstly, to those who have supported me, regardless of whether you agree with my particular views, thank you.
After second thought, I have removed the "join the army" statement. It was a bit too much of a generalization and it was unfair and it distracted from my other, much better points. I'm sorry for that.
Cyper, I didn't mean to say I had zero expectations coming into this game, certainly for the past year or so I've watched trailers, read the latest updates, and kept up as much as I could with it, I just mean that I didn't have the same kind of expectations as past RO players had. I knew pretty much as much as there was to know about the game before it was available to play, so yes, I did have expectations and they were quite high relative to my expectations to other games.
Let me make it clear,
I do like realism. What I don't like is a simulation. That's why I never got into ARMA or other similar games. What I like about RO2 is that it bridges the gap between arcade and simulation.
I
do think it's important for a WWII FPS to be historically accurate as far as weapons available at the time, the strength and weaknesses of those weapons, and that all the technology and references are accurate to the best of our knowledge today. What isn't important to me is 100% absolute strict adherence to historic information, there is, and there should always be, considerations and compromises made for the fun and playability and replayability of a game. It's not about doing it exactly by the book, it's about doing it close enough to the book to provide suspension of disbelief.
Suspension of disbelief means I get lost in the moment because it feels real enough that I'm not sitting here questioning the practicality of the situation. This is indeed subjective and different for each person, so there HAS to be some sort of middle ground that we can all meet at. Sure, they can do Relaxed Realism, Realism, Hardcore ...perhaps they need to do Extreme Realism mode too to please their most ardent of veterans... but at the core of it all it's got to be a game that appeals to a larger crowd than just RO1 players.
The MkB is a prime example, I don't care that there are "X" amount of those guns in any given match... afterall, I come from Cod:UO where if everybody in a full 64 slot server wanted to equip one they could! ... but for the hardcore realists nothing gets up you guys' skin like this weapon does, but I'm going to use my bolt-action unscoped rifle regardless, because that's the way I've played for years, and I find it extremely satisfying to kill somebody with an MG or assault rifle with a single well placed rifle round. Knowing that there is some historical info supporting the fact that there were at least a few MkB's present in Stalingrad for the time period that this game covers, that's enough for me. Now, if there were irrefutable evidence that there were absolute zero MkB's anywhere near Stalingrad for the time frame of this game, alright then I might agree with you guys that it shouldn't be in this game. Of course, they'd have to change the cover art
Now, don't twist my words around to think that I'm saying, "I wish that everybody in a match could have an Mkb because that's how CoD did it," I'm not, and I do like the way RO2 only allows so much of each class/weapon per team.... just a few more or less isn't going to make or break my day.
As a compromise, it would be nice if a server admin who wanted less or zero of any particular weapon, could change that setting without unranking his server. I'd personally love to see some rifles only servers.
Now, some of you have also pointed out the contradiction of my hatred of the way CoD changed, and criticizing you guys for hating the way RO changed. The point I was trying to make with that, is that's the way it goes in the gaming industry (and just about every other industry) and I had already learned that with BF and CoD, but it's just striking you guys now because this is the first full sequel of the RO series. I'm not saying don't complain to TWI for changing your beloved past time, I'm just saying that's something I've come to expect.
And finally, somebody asked me to be more specific about the things in RO2 I enjoy. Aside from a couple things I've already mentioned in this reply, I like the fact that even though this game has a leveling system, it's no where near as dramatic as BF or CoD type leveling. I also like how weapons aren't restricted to levels, only the upgrades for those weapons are acquired by leveling up. And the depth of leveling is quite complex when you spread it all out, which is pretty impressive for an FPS. All that said about the positives of the RO2 leveling system, I do prefer a more traditional FPS that doesn't include leveling up at all, but if I had to have one, I'd take RO2's over any other.
Other things I enjoy, little things like: bullet penetration, bleeding, no healing only bandaging to stop you from dying, sprinting melee charges, SOME of the auto taunts like the battle cry when doing the sprinting melee charge, guns & tanks with realistic advantages and weaknesses, the way a weapon will steady itself automatically if I just get close enough to something to "prop" the gun against it, classic server browser, classic dedicated server control, diving to prone, sprinting while standing or while crouched, the way you hold a pistol like a bada$$, full modding and customization support (soon), up to date graphics & physics, player movement feels as natural as any other good FPS, the importance of quick & intelligent team play to win matches.
Things I don't like: forced suicide if I try to change weapons/classes while alive, no "auto ready" function for respawning, no Capture the Flag and a general lack of variety in gameplay types, as a server admin not being able to mute players from their typed messages, no ability to sort server ad messages from public chat messages (text color would be nice), no kill or death log in the console (this helps a lot when trying to control TK'ing for example....yes I know server kicks automatically once it's done too much but admins should be able to take control as well whenever they are present), bugs that have been widely known about since the beta but that have not yet been fixed like the "can't melee proned players" or the constant screaming heard in the fields of Barracks, the defensive spawn points that are a mile away from the objectives and the inability to spawn on the squad leaders, not being able to choose which earned weapon upgrades are applied, the lack of scope in the game in general...meaning...it's just the battle of stalingrad, it's just Rusky versus Jerry, no other allied forces versus any other axis forces, no weapons/vehicles/equipment outside of the time frame of the battle of stalingrad (and before you rip me apart, yes, I'm aware the title is Heroes of Stalingrad and I was well aware of this before I ever got the game that it would only focus on this time period and these two countries, but that doesn't change the fact that I'd still
like to see RO2's version of western front and all the other classic WWII battles).
But for all it's faults, it has more than enough pro's to make this game thoroughly enjoyable. And most of the faults are things that the developers can & will fix in time. Other things will be better once the SDK is finalized.
