Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

PracticalMac

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jan 22, 2009
2,857
5,244
Houston, TX
"Battleground Europe" Releases Major Update for Mac and PC Gamers! Download file here

3 months free subscription to the BEST screen shot posted here!
(note, I am NOT an employee or work for the company, I am just a player informing others. My game name is Frantishek, you can put my name in during sign up.)

Cornered Rat Software released a major update to Battleground Europe, making it once again the leading World War 2 genre simulation-game.

Mac 10.5 / 10.6 (Intel only) native!

WWIIOL:BE is one of very few MMO’s that run native on OS X; No more switching to BootCamp! Runs on Intel Mac (with dedicated GPU with 256mb minimum).

Battleground Europe is an industry leading simulation-game boasting the largest persistent world environment of any game allowing players to move and engage opponents they way the player wants to, not dictated by invisible walls or impenetrable terrain.

Game play focuses more on combat and cooperation than resource gathering (dump those screen cluttering windows of inventory and guild info!), earning points via leadership and teamwork. Individuals can also go solo, score kills, and still benefit from the overall mission goal.

Combined arms, not just ground, or air, or sea, but ALL of the above!.
In most MMO’s, players have little worry about death from above, because there is nothing above them! If they do, it is often a predictable AI.
In BE, that bomber circling you is another player, looking to drop that nice, fat, bomb down the hatch of your tank or ship! Of course, the ship has powerful AA guns, and you can trade that tank for a beefy AA gun.

International Player base!
What's better than playing on the Axis or Allied side, and suddenly hear French or German speakers blaring though your head set?
WWIIOL:BE boasts a huge worldwide presence, a large percentage of players from Europe, with notable participation from Australia, New Zealand and many Scandinavian countries.

Major changes included in the latest updates:
* Thousands of new trees using Speedtree technology
* All major cities redone, dozens of new buildings fill the world.
* Dynamic weather, include dark clouds and rain.
* “Ragdoll” physics engine for infantry.
* New explosion, hit and smoke effects.
* New, more fluid town and city capture mechanism
* Realistic bailout of damaged aircraft
* Player placed objects, that is make your own strong points!
* Numerous updates to older functions and features.

CRS is constantly working to improve and enhance the current game. A third person infantry overhaul is currently in the works, and new are features in planning for 2011. Right now, players can choose from nearly 100 era-accurate weapons and vehicles in the fight for domination in WWII Western Europe. Log on today!

Links:
Version 1.32 Features:

Version 1.31 Features:

Third Person Update:

Player Placed Objects Primer now in current version:

New foliage and weather effects
rain4tn.jpg


Explosions send hapless soldiers flying! ("ragdoll" effect)
ragdoll7.jpg


New foliage and buildings
capture_castle3.jpg


English troops observe bombing of town before going in to “liberate” it.
alliedairstrike1.jpg


German assault meets resistance, but drives the allies out.
axiscolumn8.jpg



Competition ends Jan 2, 2011

To past players:
Check out the updates and let others see this game for themselves.
It may not have the eye candy of shooter only games, but it excels in play variety.

Cheers!
 
No one posting??
Maybe I will win the extra months? :D

Here is one where I joined a para drop with about 15 others, 2 of which are seen below me.

The boat in the river is an enemy unit, and it is shooting at one of the other paras (missed him, hehe).

We went on to almost capture the town.
 

Attachments

  • Para_drop_to action.jpg
    Para_drop_to action.jpg
    304.8 KB · Views: 248
Sorry to highjack but I had a quick questions. This game looks awesome so I want to try it but the system requirements look a little steep. How would this game run on a 13" macbook pro 2.4Ghz, 4GB of Ram and the nVidia 320m(preferably natively in OS X)?

Anyone have an experience?
 
Sorry to highjack but I had a quick questions. This game looks awesome so I want to try it but the system requirements look a little steep. How would this game run on a 13" macbook pro 2.4Ghz, 4GB of Ram and the nVidia 320m(preferably natively in OS X)?

Anyone have an experience?

I expect about 25~45 FPS average on ground, with >60 fps in air and remote areas.

It will work pretty good.

Go D/L the game and try offline mode.
 
Last edited:
It looks fun, but it must be a pretty bad port/badly optimised to have such high requirements when the graphics don't really look all that good.
 
(more about this game here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/641699/)

It looks fun, but it must be a pretty bad port/badly optimised to have such high requirements when the graphics don't really look all that good.

It's the vast size of terrain.
Game map has NO walls, you can fly across in real time, but will take you about 2 hours to do it (of course does not render entire map, just area you are in).
And you have dozens, maybe hundred, of players.

It is best for you do D/L and try it our before you judge it. :)

Some more screen shots...
 

Attachments

  • Squad_photo2010.jpg
    Squad_photo2010.jpg
    393.9 KB · Views: 143
  • Panzer_attack.jpg
    Panzer_attack.jpg
    296.9 KB · Views: 131
  • He111_over_Mont.jpg
    He111_over_Mont.jpg
    112.7 KB · Views: 174
  • Tight formation of 111.jpg
    Tight formation of 111.jpg
    134.1 KB · Views: 141
Last edited:
But what about WoW? It has probably a bigger map, more played, and much lower requirements. And this iMac could play Crysis perfectly on low/medium, but apparently isn't good enough to play this game :\
 
I did try it on a 13' Macbook pro 2.4ghz with 4GB of ram and the nVidia 320m. . .


Pros:
Great concept
Large Map
Lots of Co-op play

Cons:
Ran slower than molasses on low settings (20fps which for a shooter is garbage)
Looks VERY outdated(think medal of honor in the G4 days)
Horribly GUI


Great concept and potential, executed HORRIBLY. . . I dont recommend this game, such a shame, I love the concept.
 
See, I don't care about the graphics, but if it looks that bad, I expect to be able to run it pretty good. But it doesn't seem that way, especially if your 320m only runs it at 20FPS.
 
See, I don't care about the graphics, but if it looks that bad, I expect to be able to run it pretty good. But it doesn't seem that way, especially if your 320m only runs it at 20FPS.

I am not too hung up on graphics either, but I find it pretty unacceptable for a game that has such modest graphics to run so slow. . . I only did the training and I averaged around 20FPS at native res and everything else turned to low. . . I cant imagine what it would have been like during a semi-crowded map. . .

The GUI also looked like something out of dos. . .I have been wanting to play this game for a couple of years and I can say I was thoroughly disappointed, albeit I only tried it for half an hour, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
 
I'm not even gonna bother wasting quota downloading it, my 2400HD probably wouldn't even open it, maybe if it actually ran like a game that looked that bad should, but no.
 
But what about WoW? It has probably a bigger map, more played, and much lower requirements. And this iMac could play Crysis perfectly on low/medium, but apparently isn't good enough to play this game :\

WoW does not have a bigger map.
It has many smaller maps you transport in to.

more on performance below.

I am not too hung up on graphics either, but I find it pretty unacceptable for a game that has such modest graphics to run so slow. . . I only did the training and I averaged around 20FPS at native res and everything else turned to low. . . I cant imagine what it would have been like during a semi-crowded map. . .

The GUI also looked like something out of dos. . .I have been wanting to play this game for a couple of years and I can say I was thoroughly disappointed, albeit I only tried it for half an hour, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

WoW and in particular Crysis both use small very small maps that allow fantastic looking environment, but poor on re-play. Play the same 'arena' a couple of times, and it gets boring.

BGE is a MASSIVE, SINGLE map, and even though the towns are the same, you have unlimited ways to attack or defend.

Unfortunately, to be able to render such a huge terrain (no boarders), all the objects, and dozens of players is a massive challenge and even the best computer is taxed.

Ever see a WoW mission with at least 50 players attacking some NPC dragons? BGE does not look that bad then.

I did try it on a 13' Macbook pro 2.4ghz with 4GB of ram and the nVidia 320m. . .


Pros:
Great concept
Large Map
Lots of Co-op play

Cons:
Ran slower than molasses on low settings (20fps which for a shooter is garbage)
Looks VERY outdated(think medal of honor in the G4 days)
Horribly GUI


Great concept and potential, executed HORRIBLY. . . I dont recommend this game, such a shame, I love the concept.

This game is on its 10 years old, the last UI update was about 4~5 years ago, so yes, parts of it look G4 level.

I too wish the company have the resources to improve its looks, but they do not have the enormous budget of the big companies.

Patmian212, I appreciate your comments, but best is have the player test it out. These days a 600MB download is nothing, so its a small price to see if a player thinks this game is for them.

Sambo110, we have a LOT of Australians (and NZ) playing.


Don't forget, it is a MAC NATIVE game that is updated concurrently with its Windows version. How many other games can claim that? (I know, WoW can, but that is if you like to play with Dragons)
 
WoW isn't heaps of smaller areas, it is one huge world, and you teleport between 4 or so different lands. But each land is massive and no loading or anything. And I have seen more than 50 people attacking one place, hell, I've seen 100-200 people attacking one city. There really is no excuse for this games lousy performance.
 
you teleport between 4 or so different lands.

Right there.

in BGE someone once decided to have his avatar walk across the (then smaller) map of BGE.
over 168 REAL TIME hours later, he had passed about 2/3 of the way when something happened and game quit (he periodlically looked, BGE has far more open territory then WoW).

Another comparison:
A WoW 4 min speeded up cross country run:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7058943051246219592#

In BGE, using the FASTEST aircraft in the game (FW-190 or Spit IX), it will take OVER 90 min to fly from Frankfurt to London (Biggin Hill).
A 190 will move a heck of a lot faster then that horse in WoW, even if it is on speed and accelerated.
 
Last edited:
Right there.

in BGE someone once decided to have his avatar walk across the (then smaller) map of BGE.
over 168 REAL TIME hours later, he had passed about 2/3 of the way when something happened and game quit (he periodlically looked, BGE has far more open territory then WoW).

Another comparison:
A WoW 4 min speeded up cross country run:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7058943051246219592#

In BGE, using the FASTEST aircraft in the game (FW-190 or Spit IX), it will take OVER 90 min to fly from Frankfurt to London (Biggin Hill).
A 190 will move a heck of a lot faster then that horse in WoW, even if it is on speed and accelerated.

If the entire map is loaded into your RAM, then no wonder the game laggs, hell, it should slow any card down to a crawl if the map is really that big. I never tried the game, but if there are no "Loading - please wait..." sort of things while going through the map, then more than likely, the entire map is loaded into the RAM, so it doesn't leave much space for actual graphics processing, which is a HORRIBLE technical design.
 
I don't think a game from 2002 should run that badly on modern computers... But then again, I've had trouble with frame rates for KOTOR on my 2008 aluminum macbook.
 
If the entire map is loaded into your RAM, then no wonder the game laggs, hell, it should slow any card down to a crawl if the map is really that big. I never tried the game, but if there are no "Loading - please wait..." sort of things while going through the map, then more than likely, the entire map is loaded into the RAM, so it doesn't leave much space for actual graphics processing, which is a HORRIBLE technical design.

If they were logical, they would do the same thing as Asheron's Call did. It would dynamically load land as you moved through the environment. They knew the maximum clip distance and would cache a bit further and that's it. Worked GREAT. Their entire world was one large area, no zones, nothing. Best design of the world of any MMO I have ever played. You could run from top to bottom of the world without stutter, or a loading screen (although it would take you HOURS to do so).

And this was back 10 years ago. So it CAN be done, and it does work. BUT there are some game issues that does need to be "resolved". Example is that the world was divided up into large grids (each grid run by an individual server) and thus creatures would not traverse from one grid to another. If you're being chased by XYZ and you knew where the server boundary was, all you had to do was step across it. Also if you killed a large creature on the boundary it could cause odd clipping issues.

I think with the servers of today, they could fix many of these minor annoyances and really make the world dynamic. No reason servers couldn't mirror boundary activity.
 
If they were logical, they would do the same thing as Asheron's Call did. It would dynamically load land as you moved through the environment. They knew the maximum clip distance and would cache a bit further and that's it. Worked GREAT. Their entire world was one large area, no zones, nothing. Best design of the world of any MMO I have ever played. You could run from top to bottom of the world without stutter, or a loading screen (although it would take you HOURS to do so).

And this was back 10 years ago. So it CAN be done, and it does work. BUT there are some game issues that does need to be "resolved". Example is that the world was divided up into large grids (each grid run by an individual server) and thus creatures would not traverse from one grid to another. If you're being chased by XYZ and you knew where the server boundary was, all you had to do was step across it. Also if you killed a large creature on the boundary it could cause odd clipping issues.

I think with the servers of today, they could fix many of these minor annoyances and really make the world dynamic. No reason servers couldn't mirror boundary activity.

That is exactly how BGE does it, dynamically load or remove terrain as you move across the map, about a 6~8km circle.
Units are also loaded as you get close with ships rendering about 6k away, and aircraft about 4k away. Inf is up to 700~800m (they are very small, even with binocular).

The only boundary is fall off the map, after a weeks walk (or a most of the day drive)
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.