By Craig Pearson on March 6th, 2012 at 4:50 pm.
Taking the free-to-play dogfight to the air is WoW, known globally as World of Warplanes. The skyborne sister to World of Tanks has finally decided to stop being shy and graced us with some in-game footage. I’m particularly taken with the mix of old and new flight beasts, and the notion of flying in formation with friends under bridges. I’m not one to ignore a massive, immobile, heavy structure when I’m falling through the sky in an unstable tube of thin metal.
The trailer was released to encourage you to hop into the alpha.
If you do manage to sign up, remember the rules. And the punishment for breaking them.
06/03/2012 at 16:57 Torgen says:
You can use a variety of control schemes with this, from mouse and keyboard to controller to joystick or HOTAS setup.
06/03/2012 at 16:59 Richie Shoemaker says:
Call me a sentimental son of an RAF officer, but the fact that there are no British aircraft in this game is a massive slap in the chocks. For the precise period that this game covers (mid-30s to mid-60s), British planes practically owned the skies.
Hurricanes and Venoms please!
06/03/2012 at 17:12 GenBanks says:
I’ll bet you anything that other nationalities’ planes will be added further down the line… They did that with World of Tanks.
06/03/2012 at 17:22 Richie Shoemaker says:
If we have to wait as long for British planes as we still are for British tanks, it’s going to be a good few years. I’m going to lobby Nick Griffin to do something about this affront to our glorious history.
06/03/2012 at 17:22 frenz0rz says:
But not British tanks, eh?
06/03/2012 at 17:59 ReV_VAdAUL says:
I know it is a joke but sections of the BNP actually consider Churchill a traitor for fighting Hitler rather than allying with him against non-white people. Even the ones that don’t think that are probably more than happy to be flying the Nazi planes anyway.
/politics
06/03/2012 at 19:37 exenter says:
@ReV_VAdAUL
Non-white people? I don’t think you know anything about WW2.
06/03/2012 at 19:56 Paradukes says:
They already stated before that they absolutely *will* add British planes down the line. As far as I can gather, they want to launch with the same trees they have in WoT.
06/03/2012 at 21:40 Hurion says:
@exenter
Actually I think the people he is talking are the ones who know nothing.
06/03/2012 at 22:30 Real Horrorshow says:
British planes should definitely have been in this game from the start, but to me America was and is the Germany of combat aircraft. F-86 Sabre is a god damn beauty, and I wish the game somehow went far enough ahead to include the F-15 (greatest fighter plane ever).
06/03/2012 at 22:47 Captchist says:
America is the Germany of Combat aircraft?
Surely Germany is the Germany of combat aircraft :E
06/03/2012 at 17:00 plugmonkey says:
They also permenantly block you from World of Tanks?!
But that’s…that’s INHUMAN! :x
I’m more excited about World of Battleships, for some reason, despite planes being a more obvious recipe for success than either tanks or boats.
Dogfighting in planes always seems to involve a lot of chasing after very distant specks, before whooshing past them without having time to twitch a twigger finger.
07/03/2012 at 17:51 Bishop says:
I’ll hold out for World of Dogs. I heard they’ll add British Bulldog after several years of playing as Germany Shepard.
06/03/2012 at 17:05 nimzy says:
I frowned when I saw the mix of old and new planes. Mostly because I know how it’s going to work in Wargaming.net’s infamous matchmaking system.
The Me 262 was and will be a rude, painful surprise.
06/03/2012 at 17:10 Torgen says:
Actually, it won’t be as bad as World of Tanks when you get a bad match, as airplanes don’t have armor like tanks so your shots won’t “bounce.” There will be a lot more player skill involved than in WoT because of that, and the fact there’s really not much terrain to hide behind in the middle of the sky.
06/03/2012 at 17:14 Kdansky says:
Sure, they will take out what makes them loads of money, the incredibly well designed pay2win system:
http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2012/02/microtransactions-pay-to-cheat.html
06/03/2012 at 17:31 AnonWarplaner says:
nimzy is underestimating just how much the devs like to introduce vehicles that are fictional, out-of-period, or both, but Torgen is pretty much right on. Combat between disparate tiers is enormously more viable (and fun!) than in WoT.
I was thinking about saying more, but this is probably too much as is.
06/03/2012 at 17:33 plugmonkey says:
@ Torgen
In a flight simulator, I would imagine speed will be the dominating factor that armour is (as in real life).
If you can’t catch it, you can’t shoot it.
@ Kdansky
In my 2,300 or so World of Tanks battles, I have used gold ammo precisely once, and I don’t feel like a hopeless NPC at all. I would estimate that virtually no-one uses gold ammo outside of clan matches, because it’s a colossal waste of money. This view is shared by a Russian colleague of mine who’s played some 30,000 battles.
The only time I got frustrated was with an overpowered premium tank called the Type 59, which has since been nerfed to death and removed from sale.
You have to pay to operate the higher tier tanks effectively. That’s where they’re quite cunning with the model.
That’s an interesting article, but it’s contrary to my own experience over many hours of highly enjoyable play. Did he really choose the Hetzer as a random low tier tank, or because it’s the tank that gets the highest buff with gold ammo? Methinks the latter.
06/03/2012 at 17:48 plugmonkey says:
Speaking of the operating the higher tier vehicles effectively:
http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2012/01/you-are-not-player-you-are-content.html
Yes, the ISU-152 is a tier 8 vehicle. That’s tier 8 out of 10.
How dare WarGaming set up their game so that you might need to start thinking about maybe giving them a bit of money if you want to keep playing after reaching tier 8 out of 10! That really is beyond the pale!
People really need to stop calling these games “Free to Play”. It sets the wrong expectation. They’re really “Pay As You Go”.
I think when you get to tier 8 out of 10 tiers, it’s reasonably fair to say you have used up your free component of the game. What will bite you harder than the xp you need to earn in tier 8 is that your repair bills wiill start to exceed your earnings, so you get a bit stuck if you’re not willing to put your hand in your pocket.
With any game that you’re enjoying playing, is it not right to give the devs a little bit of money eventually? The Greedy Goblin is well named. His sense of entitlement is overwhelming.
06/03/2012 at 18:15 Brun says:
“Free to play” may be a misnomer, but branding a game with that label carries with it a certain implication that you will never HAVE to pay unless you want to. In other words, the implication behind “free to play” is that any game with that label is “pay to accelerate” – that is, you can experience the entire game (unlock everything) without paying, but it will just take longer for you to do so than someone who pays. When you pay money in a free to play game, you are exchanging money for time.
I understand that the game has to make money, and developers are free to design their games to provide incentives to pay in any way they see fit. But designing the game so that you are essentially forced to pay to continue playing beyond a certain level is toeing a very fine line between “free to play game” and “game demo.”
In a flight simulator, I would imagine speed will be the dominating factor that armour is (as in real life).
Speed, turn rate, effective weapons range, climb rate. All of those things are important in a dogfight. In the Pacific Theater the majority of US aircraft prioritized speed and power over agility, whereas the Japanese aircraft were typically lighter and more maneuverable. At the start of the conflict the US forces were outmatched by the Japanese because of this disparity – it was only later when the US pilots devised tactics to defeat more maneuverable aircraft that the Americans started dominating the skies.
06/03/2012 at 18:32 plugmonkey says:
You CAN play the higher tiers for free, but you would most likely have to grind lower tier tanks to fund your higher tier playing.
I like the way WoT works. You pay to accelerate your progress (which is the entire complaint of Greedy Goblin in the article I just posted the link to), and paying to accelerate becomes more worthwhile the further you are into the game.
06/03/2012 at 19:07 Reapy says:
/Watched a bunch of WW2 pacific stuff last year.
I think really it was the US had very poor pilots and under performing technology, aka zero vs wildcat. Later, the Japanese really lost a lot of their ace pilots to attrition, while the US was gaining their own fair share of aces. Also the use was making huge strides in catching up technology wise. Once the hellcats started rolling out for example, it became a painful lesson for the japanese pilots who didn’t adapt to the fact that they could no longer continue out climbing fighters.
I tried a little while to get into IL2 online and did a ton of reading, just not a lot of time to actually learn…but it seems that arial battles kinda break down to either boom and zoom (fw109/me262 etc) where you dive in hot, fire on a target, and bounce back out and away… or turn and burn (zero, spitfire…) which is probably the way we all try to play the game at first, rolling scissors etc.
Lot of great reading to be found on sites like mission4today.com when they talk about aerial maneuvers. I found it really enlightening to see how much more there was to dogfighting than, turn in circle until you see the target and shoot.
06/03/2012 at 19:23 0positivo says:
I would love to say that WoT feels really balanced and paying doesn’t really give much power, but rather convenience, but…
Well, let’s say this. I played this game for a good year, not really regularly, so I only got into tier 4 or 5. Then I went to an event in my country, where Wargaming.net had a station to try the game for free, with infinite gold and silver to spend
Let’s just say this. It was outrageously easy. With a full gold-ed out tier 2, I was able to do things that I would have never been able to do without gold. Single handedly killing the vast majority of the enemy team without them even scratching the paintjob. It only got worse as I tried higher tiers, and premium tanks. When I got back, I propmtly uninstalled the game, and haven’t touched it since
I’m still kind of looking forward to World of Battleships, tho
06/03/2012 at 19:42 Koozer says:
You really based your opinions on a fully kitted out tier 2? That tier is still the tutorial; it’s so different to the higher tiers. Which tank were you in? That makes an absolutely huge difference at that tier too.
Oh, the only item you can buy to reduce damage is the spall liner (with credits not gold!), and that only effects HE, which you shouldn’t be facing at tier 2.
06/03/2012 at 23:42 battles_atlas says:
Its nonsense to suggest you can buy a huge advantage in WoT. Your only options for buying an edge are the gold ammo, which as above is insanely expensive (so almost certainly barely used) and adds a small (10-20%) penetration buff, or buy a premium tank, all of which are inferior to the best unlockable tanks. The Type 59 was a little OP perhaps and has now been removed from sale.
The only exception is a couple of guns which had huge gold ammo buffs – i bought some when it was on offer for a certain tier VI german tank and it was double pentration or something insane. I did win many games near single handed with that. They’ve nerfed that now too though.
I think the only unfairness in WoT is the matchmaking design which is an issue of XP (ie time invested) rather than money.
08/03/2012 at 00:58 Stromko says:
I really hope they learned from the T-59 and don’t add anything that overpowered again. It had the ultimate combination of armor, speed, and firepower. If the enemy team had 2 T-59′s and you had none, you would lose. The matchmaking system certainly exacerbated this, as they would routinely be rounding out the top of matches where 90% of the players could neither outrun, harm, or survive being hit by a T-59.
Honestly I just don’t trust wargaming.net to not implement pay-to-win. It’s odd, too, most of the premium tanks had a glaring weakness or two, the T-59 was an aberration. But, even though they’ve taken it off the market for now, I expect they’ll have it back on sales or special events, and vets will be bringing the T-59′s they already own out on the battlefield for years to come I’m sure.
06/03/2012 at 17:15 pegolius says:
Now the could merge World of Tanks with World of Warplanes and add infantry…Prettyplease?
06/03/2012 at 18:13 tigershuffle says:
see below for combined arms vid……….. looks promising ;)
06/03/2012 at 23:53 Hoaxfish says:
next stop, World of Civilians
06/03/2012 at 17:41 Dana says:
Their rival “World of Planes” gave me better first impression.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBIOrXAd4qc
06/03/2012 at 18:07 tigershuffle says:
agreed……… :)
though its now War Thunder : World of Planes (bit of a mouthful)
eat my awesomeness. … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7G9u0OwOaU
so long as it all works in the end :)
06/03/2012 at 19:06 Dana says:
Sweet, although theres too many tanks, not enough air.
06/03/2012 at 19:21 tigershuffle says:
think thats the first vid since Alpha started that ive seen so many ground units…..check the other vids for the air combat :) does look good.
I still play WOT but have more fun playing tiers 1-4
if anybody manages a shiny version of WW2Online with some sim dynamics theyve got me sold
06/03/2012 at 17:54 longbia says:
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06/03/2012 at 18:04 ReV_VAdAUL says:
The game looks good and the more arcadey approach to flight mechanics will allow me to go beyond finding innovative new ways to crash.
What I noticed most was what an exceptional ripoff of Fucking in the Bushes the soundtrack was. Tweaked just enough for deniability to be plausible but still retaining the song’s best qualities.
06/03/2012 at 18:39 Turbobutts says:
Oh boy, I sure can’t wait for more of Wargaming’s famous matchmaking and having to grind endlessly unless you want to step into the pay to win scheme.
06/03/2012 at 19:16 niubu says:
http://url7.me/c6i4
06/03/2012 at 20:30 Ushao says:
Now that I saw some open cockpit planes in action I’m excited to try this one. There just isn’t much love for WWI planes out there!
06/03/2012 at 20:58 Torgen says:
Technically, they’re interwar planes, starting in the late 1920s. Close enough though!
@plugmonkey: Even if they can outrun you, they have to come back to shoot at you. ;)
06/03/2012 at 22:09 buzzmong says:
Can anyone who’s been having a crack at this clarify some control questions for me?
If I use a joystick, will I have independent control of the 3 axis of flight (ala Crimson Skies) or will pressing left on my stick result in a computer calulated pitch, roll and yaw to make me go “left” (ala HAWX or any number of “arcade physics” flight games) ?
The latter frustrates me so much that I end up stopping playing and uninstalling the game.
06/03/2012 at 23:35 Matt says:
Still waiting for World of Velocipedes.
07/03/2012 at 00:51 Jayson82 says:
The secret to world of tanks and i suspect world of warplanes and world of battleships will also be is to pick a tier and a tank or group of tanks to play with for fun and play with them mainly.
For example my two favorate tanks I play with are the KV and SU-26 no other tanks has given me as much fun as these two. Both tanks are full equiped and have 100% crew so I dont have to worry or care about grinding for exp or credits anymore with these tanks I just set out to have fun. With the kv I get to play againest tanks from tiers 3 up to 9 and with my troll gun the 152mm with HE ammo I can take out a lot of the highest tier tanks or at least put a dent into them lol or switch to the 107mm and have fun as well but always end up going back to the 152 as its so much fun lol
Which is the point, find something about the game that is fun and enjoyable for you to play and do it.
Btw you can still level tanks on the side to get the higher tier tanks but don’t make it your focus, make having fun your focus, anything else is just a bonus.
07/03/2012 at 12:15 plugmonkey says:
Hear hear. I love my KV. It’s an excellent bit of balancing: simultaneously a dominant force and an absolute sitting duck.
My other favourite tank is the T-50-2, which exists on a cul-de-sac in the tech tree. Playing it will unlock precisely nothing, but playing it is just so much damn fun.
A lot of people seem to have some very odd approaches to WoT. Stopping playing because of something that can theoretically happen, but hasn’t actually been found to impact their enjoyment when playing the game itself.
07/03/2012 at 12:23 WatchGeek says:
What I love is “popping” KV’s in my ISU-152 or Obj. 704 when equipped with the BL-10. More often than not, a KV is destroyed with one, well placed, shot. :-)
07/03/2012 at 01:14 MFToast says:
I don’t like how there is no tier balancing, so if you’ve just started you’re likely to be going up against Sabers and German UFO’s in some sad russian biplane. Not the best game experience ever.
07/03/2012 at 03:09 Stevven says:
Looks like a fun and entertaining game.
07/03/2012 at 12:06 speedwaystar says:
is there any kind of first person view or virtual (or even non virtual) cockpit mode?
07/03/2012 at 12:24 WatchGeek says:
Sorry…no cockpit mode. They’re keeping it “3rd person view” like WoT.
08/03/2012 at 12:34 tigershuffle says:
and for that reason Im out….. *hands over to other dragons*
Wot works cos primarily to shoot a tank…the gunner looks down his optics….
for shooty planey things ….visibility and deflection shooting is king