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World War II Online: Battleground Europe
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World War II Online: Battleground Europe
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===Initial release=== After a lengthy [[Development stage#Beta|closed beta]] stage, ''World War II Online'' went live on June 6, 2001 under the campaign title ''[[Blitzkrieg]]''. The release was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the [[D-Day|''D-Day:'']] ''[[Operation Overlord]]'' invasion of [[Normandy]]. Like most online games, WWIIOL is a continual work in progress, and so has a history of updates that are frequently released to add new features, fix problems and improve existing features. Updates, or [[Patch (computing)|patches]] to the game code, were released every 6 weeks, on average; but recently have moved to a less frequent but larger content format of 3 or 4 times a year. These patches generally include a wide range of features and problem fixes. Everything from new weapons and vehicles to audits of the performances of existing weapons and vehicles are part of the patching process as well as terrain, structure, gameplay and performance improvements. The initial launch had a number of technical difficulties. The game required a 70 [[Megabyte|MB]] update to be [[Uploading and downloading|downloaded]] before they could play online. At the time, the majority of users had [[56K modem|56k modems]], requiring around 3 hours to update the game. As the developers worked feverishly behind the scenes to complete other promised features and fix the [[software bug]]s on the [[Development stage#Gold/general availability release|gold CD]], even more updates became necessary. Three days prior to release, the [[Colocation centre|colocation]] [[Wide area network|network]] facility had a bad [[Optical fiber|fiber optic]] cable. This failure reduced the player capacity of the [[Server (computing)|server]] [[Computer cluster|cluster]], from 10,000 players down to only 1200 players. As a temporary workaround, Playnet set up multiple copies of the game-world on different servers, distributing the network load, but at some cost in gameplay. This solution lasted for several months while the developers resolved the server-side issues, after which all servers were merged into a single game-world. Some features advertised on the game box were partially implemented or missing, such as rank and high-command strategic features. The combination of the above problems resulted in game returns, complaints from customers, and a drop-off in sales as word spread of the game's state. Subscription fees for the first several months were waived until the major problems with the game were resolved. This helped to retain many of the players, especially the long-term fans of the project, but it was not long before Playnet had financial problems. They filed for [[Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code|Chapter 11]] bankruptcy protection in late 2001, and cut costs, resulting in a number of layoffs within the company. Statements from both the developer (CRS), and publisher ([[Strategy First]]), indicated that CRS wanted a longer open beta, but the game was launched anyway, due to financial reasons.<ref>[http://www.gamespot.com/pc/sim/worldwar2onlineblitzkrieg/news.html?sid=2771708 World War II Online free trial period extended] - Gamespot.com, June 8, 2001.</ref> ====Accolades==== ''World War II Online'' has received numerous industry press awards including [[GameSpy]]'s 2001 Gamers' Choice Sim of the Year and IGN's 2001 Persistent World Game of the Year.
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