Hello everyone!
I am a Community manager with Gaijin Entertainment and I'm glad to represent the developer of up-coming World of Planes MMO and Birds of Steel projects here, on SimHQ forums.

World of Planes is a new MMO set during history’s most critical air battles and particularly dedicated to World War II military aviation.
The game will feature PvP and PvE modes, both with numerous specific variations and endless options for virtual pilots. World of Planes offers a wide range of control and realism settings and should be equally interesting to aviasim newbies and experienced players as well.
Closed Alpha-test is currently running however we are showing screenshots and even fan-videos since the game already looks cool.

If interested, you can find more about the game on our forums at http://forum.gaijinent.com/

Of course, I know there've been some discussion about World of Planes already, but I promise that starting today you'll be provided with only true info and obviously interesting news about it from the Devs.

By the way yesterday we've published a press-release, so if you haven't read it somewhere on the web already - check it out now because I'm going to post it right here:

The official community portal has changed massively since the Closed Alpha test started. How does developer / publisher Gaijin Entertainment manage to attract so many new fans and keep them entertained, when the game’s not even out yet? Find out in this comprehensive newsletter that highlights World of Planes’ most interesting and important recent updates.

Interviews
Gaijin started a series of interviews with real pilots who participated in World of Planes’ Alpha-test program. The latest interview was a fascinating conversation with a US Military Test Maintenance Pilot who has flown helicopters during all major military conflicts over the last 10 to 15 years. As an experienced virtual pilot, he is now helping the developers to bring maximum realism to the sensation of flying – one of World of Planes’ best features.

Read the interview here:
http://forum.gaijinent.com/index.php?/topic/4813-special-interview-with-a-pilot-hawkdriver9

Tips for Beginners
Another community-oriented initiative that Gaijin is now implementing is the “Aces of World of Planes – Tips for Beginners” series, which offers advice and instructions for those who anyone who may encounter problems in the game’s virtual skies. The “Tips for Beginners” series contains the most essential information for newbies, presented simply and intelligibly by the game’s most skilled and experienced players.

Read the Tips for Beginners:
http://forum.gaijinent.com/index.php?/topic/4957-aces-of-world-of-planes-tips-for-beginners
http://forum.gaijinent.com/index.php?/topic/5008-aces-of-world-of-planes-tips-for-beginners-2

Screenshots

Two different sets of screenshots have been revealed over the last two weeks. The first one presents pictures depicting the Battle of Britain, as RAF and Luftwaffe aircrafts clash in the skies above Dover. The second set of screens is completely devoted to the Pacific theatre of war, where US and Japanese aces met each other in the crosshairs of their Wildcats and Zeroes…

View the screenshots on Facebook or on the official website:
http://www.facebook.com/WorldofPlanes
http://worldofplanesgame.com/en/media/screenshots

Fan Video
Now, testers have created fan videos that the developer has agreed to publish! The first one was filmed, directed, and edited by VerTun, a World of Planes Alpha-test virtual pilot and Russian forum moderator at http://forum.gaijin.ru.

Watch the fan-video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Kzrt_-o5IA

Zakzak when open beta starts ?

What do you propose to offer the abandoned Wings of Prey users, to whom many promises were made and few delivered?

Move to the new game instead since it look 1000x more like what everybody wanted Wings of Prey to be and then some?

Once bitten, twice shy.

Lol entitlement issues ftw. Just because you pay $45 for a game doesn't mean you are entitled to endless patches with new and better features and content. Patches are for fixing bugs and that's it.

Open Beta test is to be announced. Although Closed Alpha has been running very effectively so we are really close to the Beta test at this moment.
Be sure we'll announce Beta testing of World of Planes at SimHQ forums too.


We never refused to keep our promises. So, when the Beta starts invitations will be sent out

Thank you, sir. I also think World of Planes is a giant leap for mankind Gaijin. I'm participating in the Alpha test either and I sincerely love it already. Yes, it's my personal point of view however I try to speak objectively

I enjoyed WoPrey and look forward to WoPlanes. I hope I can see the planes better than I could in Prey. And that the AI are not dumb or super sharp shooters. It was a bummer being shot at way more than I mile out and being killed. Then I figured I could just dive down close enough to the water and all the AI would just dive right in. Or when defending a British air field it seemed the AI would never attack me.

All that said, I did like fighting human pilots in the online games.

Well said! More than got my money's worth with Wings of Prey and we just had a great patch with fantastic new paint-schemes and much improved online code. We don't pay extra for support but it is still there and far from over.

Glo

Oh you mean a realistic simulator with ME, big maps, DC, no timer and actually able to takeoff/land?

I hardly call a game an MMO if it only has 32 player slots. No, that is DOD:S, but in the air.

I see I am being accused of being a tightwad and a miser. Well, I have bought almost every WWII flight game available in the last fifteen years, and liked most of them. Also there is an unspoken expectation that modern games seem to be released incomplete, with the expectation of improvement and ROF and COD are examples of this. WOP still needs vast improvement, and I bought the WOL add-on in the expectation that this would carry on to completion, but seems to have stalled. Maybe I am naive and gullible, but my understanding was that WOP was to be succeeded by WOPII, in which WOP-owners would be able to integrate their WOP planes and maps into the new game thus giving WOP a new lease of life, being able to utilise the mission-builder, improved AI, DM and so on. It was even hinted by the developers that a small discount on WOPII might be considered for WOPI owners. I don't see any of that coming with World of Planes, and as a strict off-liner (I'd be too embarrassed to appear on-line, not much of an ace, I'm afraid)the new game seems particularly useless for me, although I will be looking out to see if it comes with off-line content.

Because it is written in the 10 commandments that any MMO must have a huge 3d gameworld where millions of players can coexist in realtime at the same time. So Navy Field is not an MMO according to you? Right.

You know, I hope it doesn't turn out playing just like IL-2 or IL-2 COD in which case they'll definitely lose this customer and lots more who actually, you know, enjoyed WoP.

Thanks ZakZak, and good luck with the project! Any addition to the sim world is welcome and Gaijin did a great job on certain elements of Wings of Prey, so I look forward to this one. I was particularly impressed with how beautifully the landscape and terrain in WIngs of Prey were rendered on even my older gaming PC. The ugly bits about Wings of Prey gameplay will always continue to irk people, but hopefully they won't be relevant for World of Warplanes.

I had a look at the Red Skies over Dover video though, and without having played the alpha release, I have to say, it looks identical to Wings of Prey...same landscape, same visual effects, same aircraft types...or what am I missing?

Clod was a piece of #%&*$# when first released and still isn't running well. After almost a year since release nothing substantial has been done to fix the game other than the sound, which I'll admit was done well for the 109. But what has that got to do with my post?

So I guess if you enjoyed simplified FM, small maps, mission timers that automatically end, no ME, no takeoff/landings, sure I reckon I would have enjoyed WoP. If WoP had them they'd definitely would have gotten more customers you know. Now you're saying that WoPlanes has that and 1000x more and then some... riiight.

WTF Is Navy Field? Sounds like some cheap [admin edit] game that only people with low end PCs play.

Well MMO stands for MASSIVELY Multiplayer Online [Game]. So yeah, it kind of is written in the "rules". Not to take anything away from WOP, I am absolutely looking forward to this game. Anything that can take me back to the Fighter Ace days.

Massively multiplayer only means there is a persistant global world. You know a lot of MMO's use lobby systems with smaller maps for actual combat and noone ever #%&*$# about that.

not always

Ever play World of Tanks? I guess that isn't an MMO either since battles don't have tens of thousands of players simultaneously.

Todays 'mmo' games are the ones that are made mainly for multiplayer without single-player content and can support big number of people by either

1) having a official server (or servers) that hold to hundreds or thousand players at once in the same 'world'
2) have multiple user created gaming rooms that hold to 20-80 people at once (most korean mmos)


From the information presented about World of Planes so far i deduct that WoP will have second option but there is also info about an 'online war that can last a few months' which can tell us that there will be also 1st option

or i can be totaly wrong and we will see something different

Yeah, and I want back my weekend.

Massively multiplayer is based on numbers, not on a persistent world. Try as you might to get 32 players to be massive, but it's not.

64 players is pretty much the cut off for massive. Red Baron 3D started calling itself MMO when it produced a dedicated server capable of holding 64 players. For it's time, 64 players was a massive amount. Aces High supports more than 300 players on the same sever - and it too is a MMO. It doesn't need several hundreds, or thousands or millions to be a MMO - but definitely more than 32 people on a small map.

Dude, the entire MMO business model revolves around persistent leveling to hook people into subscriptions. Even in WoW, while there are millions of players inhabiting the same game world, the actual battles are usually smaller affairs with <64 players involved. If it was all about numbers, then a 128 player CS server would be an MMO, but it isn't, because it lacks the persistent world structure. Conversely it is fully possible to make an MMO football game with millions of players but individual matches would still be based around 11-man teams.

and WoP will be an mmo because it will have an persistent online war that goes 24/7 even when you log off. There will be tanks, ships, vehicles, infantry etc

Nope. It's not the persistent world structure, it's the ability to interact with users across maps/servers. You won't be flying from one end of the map and fly to another map where another 32 players exist. You will be stuck with the same 32 players on the same map.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_game

So in other words since your claim about playercount was debunked you now just move the goalposts?

Please show us where having a 24/7 ongoing global war doesn't give the "ability to interact with users across maps/servers"? Hint: What you just took a whole sentence to say, others just say "persistent world". Even your own link clearly states:



I suppose a 24/7 global ongoing air/land/sea war qualifies as a persistent universe, no?

It wasn't debunked, 32 players is not massive in any sense of the word. It even says so in the Wikipedia. CS:S can support 128 players, if the server can handle it. I don't see how that isn't massively multiplayer if the server stability were achievable. It's certainly massively multiplayer.

The first graphical MMOG, and a major milestone in the creation of the genre, was the multiplayer flight combat simulation game Air Warrior by Kesmai on the GEnie online service, which first appeared in 1986.

If you think 32 players can compare to Air Warrior, Aces High or Warbirds to bring it into the MMOG market - you are very mistaken.

In addition, you have several 32 player maps. There won't be a persistent universe, the servers won't be interlinked like WoW which you keep using as an example. It won't be like WWIIOl where hundreds of players are involved in a persistent war on a single map.

WoP will have several individual servers running a map with 32 players.

All of which where the battle outcome affects the global war as a whole. This isn't the same as isolated servers ala CS or BF3. Persistent world = MMO - Why is this so hard for some people to understand?

Because having a persistent world that only allows 4 people to connect wouldn't be a MMO. There is a number of players involved there to get the massively multiplayer aspect. It's right there in the name.

32 player cap is only the individual battles. The actual persistent world has an infinite number of players, hence it is an MMO.

Those examples above has a persistent world, one individual world where all players play and can interact.

This is several individual worlds where players can only interact by leaving one server and joining another... if there's room.

Calling this a MMO is a marketing gimmick to get more people interested in it.

No it isn't. It is one global world war with individual battles in it. How is that not a persistent world? It's like saying Stalker isn't an open world game because you only play in one map at a time.

You can't go from one battle to another on the same map. You have to change servers. It's not a global war, it's a centrally maintained stats database that updates the conflict on each server to make it seem interlinked.

The day you can go from fighting in one area and fly to another to make an impact on that battle is the day it will cross to MMO.

And no, Stalker wasn't an open world. It tried it's best, but it still had boundaries for both the player and the NPCs. You could always expect one group of critters to be at the same spot every time and they were restricted on movement.

Go on moving those goalposts, boy.

Even if it indeed only is a centrally updated stats database that decides which battles get played when with what equipment that's still a persistent world and qualifies as an MMO because the actions of all players across all maps affect the global situation. Meanwhile even a 256-player BF or IL-2 COD server can never qualify as an MMO because none of the necessary systems needed for persistent world gameplay is present in either game.


Funny how all 3 Stalker games I have played from start to finish have had dynamically generated NPC's and critters engaging in impromptu battles, or how a corpse on one map is still there when I return to that map. Saying an open world game cannot have player boundaries is plain dishonest. In that case GTA isn't an open world game either. Oh look, 99% of gamers say it is one.

I'm not moving any goal posts son, I'm making sure you understand it's not a persistent world - its just stats updated on a server from multiple smaller 32 player - non-massive - servers.

It doesn't compare to Air Warrior, WWIIOl, Aces High, or WarBirds - the very definition of MMO air combat games.

Since when does it have to? Even if it plays IDENTICALLY to World of Tanks it's still going to be an MMO regardless of what you decide to compare it to.

Just because you want it to be MMO, doesn't make it so. You keep insisting a persistent world makes a MMO.

So a persistent online world that only allows 4 players is a MMO? It's so massively multiplayer!

And your whole argument is one big strawman because the persistent online world in this case isn't just a 4v4 (or 32v32 or whatever) player map. The game is billed as an MMO, ergo it most probably is designed as an MMO. Or you think a professional AAA studio has no idea what makes an MMO? Your posts are up there with the guys who try to "prove" WoP isn't going to be a simulator because the easy-level HUD looks gamey. Seriously. Get real.

32 players on one map seems pretty straightforward to me. Numbers are the whole basis to multiplayer, and if something is going to be billed as a massively multiplayer, it implies interaction with more than just 32 players.

Also, nice dodge on answering the question.

Except in this case it is obvious that "Game world" is not the same as "32p battle map". The whole MMO bit kind of implies that the battlemaps are micro-levels of the global map. Like in Silent Service or Red Storm Rising where patrolling and detection would take place on a global map but put you into a smaller map for the actual battle.

You are wrong and misleading others. You did not distinguish between the MMO and MMORPGs.
WoT is MMO
WoP is MMO
Lineage 2 is MMORPG with open-world
Star Wars : The Old Republic is MMORPG with open-world

A true persistent game world exists in MMOs like Aces High, WWIIOl, WarBirds and back when Air Warrior was around where hundreds to thousands of individuals exist in the same real world where their actions actually influence the progression of the fight.

32 people fighting each other on one server is not the same. WoP just has a paper world. On paper, thousands of people might be playing the game. In reality, only 32 people could be playing each other.

What the hell does MMORPG have to do with anything? There's no difference between an MMORPG and an MMOFPS other than the RPG is implied to be based on stat-driven dicethrows rather than realtime combat. And besides, it is funny how people can claim WoP is not an MMO despite being billed as such when nobody other than the devs and alpha testers know how the game really plays and those are under NDA.

Again, go check out Navy Field which is a widely known naval MMO, and then come back and prove how limited PvP battles somehow preclude the game being an MMO.

MASSIVE multiplayer = hundreds on one server.

32 players = standard multiplayer.

If 32 was MMO, wow, let's fire up BC2, MW3, BF3 for some MMO goodness.

I remember, back in the day, when the ability for 32 players to play the same game all at one time was massively multiplayer. Quakeworld, for one. Guess I'm just an old salt now - that's "standard".

I'm still confused why all the hubbub over the nomenclature, though. The game will be what the game will be. If it will have 32 players playing on the same map at one time, then it will be a 32 player game. Call that MMO, call it just MO, or call it a rose - it will all smell the same in the end. Which is, to say, it will smell not entirely unlike a real rose. So calling it a rose is probably the worse of the three examples I gave, but I hope you get the Bard's gist: the point is what it smells like, not what you call it.

I wonder...if the only real conversation about a game is whether or not it should be titled an MMO or not, is that a good sign, or a bad sign?

I believe there should be something else
Closed Beta-test announcement for example. Gaijin announced it three days ago. It will start somewhere in Q1 2012 and candidates' applications for beta will be reviewed in January 2012
Sign-up page remains on its plance: http://worldofplanesgame.com/en/

In that case my first shipped game Golf Battle 3D for IOS qualifies as an MMO since we only had one central server hosting about ~500k players at once yet pvp matches are always 1 on 1 duels. It isn't billed as such but technically it qualifies as one because it has the necessary player persistence systems in place and players compete for supremacy on a global leaderboard. Navy Field on the other hand, is billed as one as it has stat-driven global map which is faction-locked and where battles/coop quests are generated yet these are always constrained to ~16v16 or something like that. Note that this is 32p per battle, not 32p for the entire game. You are making the flawed assumption that the entire game in WoP is that one 32p furball which it obviously isn't because of the billed global war system.
So far I haven't seen any indication that WoP will be 32p on one server, just that individual battles/missions will be locked to 32p. To state this is one and the same is clearly dishonest.

Reality - you can only ever play against/with 31 players.

Don't care about stats, persistence, factions. They're all nice but the reality is I'll only ever see 31 players in the air with me.

Oh some dude on another server just added to the war effort? Well and dandy, was he in my foxhole taking my hits with me?

You'll only ever see 31 other players. That's not massive, that's standard multiplayer these days.

You could wait until it's released...

...in the meantime.

LMFAO WoP fanboys trying to redefine what an MMO is.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_game



No way. I'm too busy playing my MMO BF3.

So is all you can do to grab isolated sentences out of context and attack them? That's called strawmanning.

Magic The Gathering: Online is an MMO, but do you honestly think it features 100's on 100's battles being a turn based card game? Don't think so. It's still an MMO. In fact, since you're all trying to class WoP as not being an MMO over number of players in simultaneous combat, go find ANY MMO outside of Aces High/Warbirds that has thousands of players engaged in simultaneous combat. They may have thousands of players all walking around following their own quests, but rarely do you interact with more than a few dozen at best at any one time. And some of them even stream you into smaller maps for indoors environments etc so you de facto do not exist on the same map as the players outside.

I wonder what the gameplay would be like.
32players per grid of the huge map? or 32 players per dogfight session with random map rotation like WOT?

...and trolling here when time allows. At least you're consistent

That's true. SO is there a central hub/hyperlobby type thing where you can sit and chat with hundreds of others then move onto your instanced battle? Or is it just you and 31 other players that you can see/chat with?
If you can meet and chat with hundreds others I'd agree, yes, that's got some mmo elements. You could then treat each 32 player battle like a zone/instance in a mmorpg.

But if you only ever see and can only interact with 31 other players, please, that's definitely not mmo, that's just multiplayer. BF3 PC would be massive-massive multiplayer online with its 64 players.

That's the impression I got from what the devs themselves have said and I always took the 32p comment as regarding the battlezone the way it works in other military-themed MMO's.


Of course not. That's not what I've been arguing, either. Like I said, I always read WoP as being very Navy Field/World of Tanks-inspired.

Eve Online and Planetside and WWIIONLINE.

World of Planes Expands Its Borders

This project is expanding its horizons, along with its name. The action MMO is now called War Thunder: World of Planes. This name change is significant because the online multiplayer universe Gaijin is developing has evolved beyond pure aerial combat. The massive historical battles featured in War Thunder cannot be fought with aviation alone—World of Planes is only the beginning.

Today Gaijin has relaunched the official game website at WorldofPlanesGame.com. It is now a convenient and informative web portal that will also be tightly integrated with up-to-date game stats in the near future. The game’s official website features the first edition of aircrafts and locations available in World of Planes, which will be consistently updated with new content as the game progresses.

To be the first to reach the frontlines of the War Thunder: World of Planes MMO action, you can apply for the beta test that will start in Q1 2012. To do so, simply fill out the application form on the relaunched website at WorldofPlanesGame.com. There, you can also explore new game content, watch all of the official trailers and new fan videos, learn about combat aircraft from the World of Planes encyclopedia, and of course communicate with fans of the project on the Gaijin forums and social networks.
worldofplanesgame.com

I'm glad they changed the name. Sounds less like World of Warplanes now and more like its own thing. This sounds like it has potential to be pretty cool.

I'm visioning people controlling battleships, carriers, tanks, planes, ect.

Good news, though hopefully it will be not to much arcady like the Battlefield series. You know it`s the simulation gamer dream to have the same simulation depth on the ground like in the air and both fighting each other. To good to be true?

Hi, I've been simming for almost two decades and I'm stumped as to what PvP, PvE and MMO mean!! Why not use terms the existing sim community understand? Thanks.....

http://lmgtfy.com The answer to all your questions.

A new fan-video has been allowed to go public. This is third work of Vertun, official forum moderator and creator of 2 more in-game footage based films about World of Planes.
And as I see the video has already appeared on the boards here:
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3533638/War_Thunder_World_of_Planes_Th.html#Post3533638