Wolfenstein TEST Impressions

I really like the game and I think that once they wittle out some of the bugs (it is the test and all) the game'll be perfect.

I see alot of potential, and the beach level is actually pretty fun.

They have a looong way to go with the art in order to bring it up to MoH levels, no matter what Ominous says.

I understand it's a test rather than a demo, but my advice is to release an update for this test prior to releasing the game. The nay-sayers here would probably try it again if the graphics and netcode performance were improved.

It's fun for a while - the servers available right now are pretty shaky however and may lead people to think the netcode is 100% responsible for the lag.
I have to re-iterate the Art point - there is alot that is good here, but the animations and textures(even at sv_fps 100 and r_picmip 0) are looking dated and less fluid than q3.

Interesting teamplay.
Gameplay is this game's strongpoint so far, rather than atmosphere.

I'm going to refrain from making qualitative judgements for now. I'm starting a thread for SPECIFIC wishes and adjustments and stuff, hopefully to be of some use to Nerve/id.

Feel free to add your own, or post your support for other people's ideas.

My specific wishes:

1. Friendly Fire default to off. I know it makes for a "better game" in a testing environment, but in the wilds of the Internet it means that grief players and team killers have a powerful tool to ruin the game for everyone.

2. The game browser is wacky. It frequently shows me games that seem quite un-full only for the game to tell me it's full when I try to join.

3. Don't show me games on the game browser if I can't join them. If a game is for pings over 300 and I have a 120, don't even show it to me. Or at least put a filter there for me to turn that kind of thing off (ie... "hide games outside ping range" and "hide passworded games" would be nice).

4. When a game is full or passworded or something and I can't join, and I hit ESC to get rid of the message, why does it go back to the main menu instead of the multiplayer server list?

5. Please let it remember my sort order. (ie, ascending by ping, descending by player count, whatever) I'm tired of not being able to join a game, hitting esc to go back to the main menu (see #4), and then having to re-sort the list by ping every damn time. =)

6. A bit TOO MUCH kick on the mauser. Other than that sniping is pretty balanced...powerful, but not more powerful than other classes (as sniping often ends up). Maybe let you move a bit more before kicking you out of the scope view.

7. On this map, I think it would be fair and appropriate to give the Axis a 10-second head start or something, to get in position. It seems like they should be ready when the Allies arrive.

8. The spawn points for Axis need to be staggered a bit more. A spawn-camper with a flamethrower is too powerful.

9. I know it's just a test, but in the final, how about a "favorites list" in the MP list menu? When I find a great server, I want to be able to play on it again easily.

Anyone have any others? Specific suggestions and bugs and stuff, now, not overall qualitative judgements...

I've been looking at the development of RtCW for quite a while, and some of the screenshots have had me totally in awe (everyone's seen that one with the skeleton and the cobweb, as well as the one with the cable-car outside at night going up a mountain).

But this is vastly disapointing - even when i acknowledge full well this is a test.

I am getting very poor graphical performance at 800x600x32 (detail levels all to medium) on a 1ghz Athlon/256MbRAM/GF2. And I reckon that that's unacceptable. When using the fixed guns on the level, My frame rate inexplicably drops from around 25fps (est) to less than 5! I don't understand why though.

The guns are incredibly uninspired with about 5 different machine guns, the only thing that stands out is the flamethrower simply for its eyecandy. The lietenant's airstikes etc are crippled by the fact that apparently in 1940 people could only throw grenades 5 feet.

Graphically I am vastly unimpressed (the flamethrower is nice though) the textures and models are of much lower quality than i expected, for comparison, they look very poor compared to max payne, and the outdoor sections not only look pretty bland and uninspiring but incur a heavy frame-rate penalty even on my system.

I can't make up my mind yet if the 30-second respawn delay is clever and contributing to gameplay, or irritatingly stupid.... i'm beginning to lean toward the latter but my opinion is not yet made up.

The map design seems ok for this beach level, but it's strictly standard - and impossible to call inspiringly original.

Effects such as bullets hitting sand seem pixelated and low res.

The game seems to add nothing graphically to what we have seen 2 years ago in quake 3, except for running at 1/2 the frame rate. The flamethrower is the only exception to this, but the flame effect of people who are on fire is woefully poor.

I am in total agreement with those who have described the test as mod-like and amateurish - it IS for all the world looking like a Mod. Hopefully before release they can sort out the thing performance wise, and also enhance is graphically somehow (although this is unlikely at this late stage). The only saving grace for this game is if the single-player turns out to be extroadinarily compelling, which hopefully it will be, considering this is supposedly the focus of the game. I'm not expecting the game to do well as a multiplayer offering.
Advice to those who haven't downloaded - 56k'ers don't bother with it, DSL/Cable+ download if you're curious but you're not missing much.

It's an okay mod that I won't play or pay for.

i give the game an A+

Time for a fact-finding mission:

Those who have maintained the powers of critical thought and who have critized this demo turn out to be right. This is nothing more than an amueturish mod to Q3. Virtually everything about this mod is of low quality, from the model animations, to the weapons to the pitiful recycled Q3 sounds. The weapon models are only vaguely famaliar to the original guns. Finally not only does it look like Q3, it PLAYS like it too.

What I'm really looking forward to is modding this thing. I'm hoping the code has enough similarities to Q3 (in terms of the vector system, object, and physics state code) in it so that I could feasibly transfer my weapons and stuff over to this and make DemonWars for this instead of Q3...this has more features that I'm going to need for DemonWars (albeit I'll change the physics a little to make it more along the lines of what I need). Even if not, I'll probably do a mod for this in some form. I'm not to worried about the game...I mean HL had some really awful multiplayer out of the box (IMHO), but it had some great single player and really good mods...so even if this isn't the best MP around (and I haven't played the Test yet...have to wait till tommorow), with mods it could still be damn cool.

One question; how fast do you run in this...are you Q1 speed, Q2 speed, slower?

the way to describe this is test is simply to say the potential for a damn good game is definetly there. However i have to question why they would even think about releasing a test in such an unfinished state. Of course the purpose of a test is not to give the user an impression of what to expect from the final game, but im positive many will walk away underwhelmed and dissapointed regardles. Theres so many things that need to be improved, fixed, reworked and in some cases completley redesigned that really make you wonder how this game will be released before christmas. I really hope Id, grey matter and nerve realise the importance of getting this game perfect and not simply rushing it out the door.

Overall impression : Im positive and hopeful that they developers realise they have loads of work to do, in order to make this game standout. With MOH not too far off in the horizon they can take any chances.

Where the hell is the Nazi symbolism?
I thought it as supposed to be authentic?

wolfenstein logos instead of Swaztika

Sniping is awesome! since my previous post i have become awesome at sniping in wolf. the key is, you don't have to wait for the swaying to stop, hit zoom and shoot. its accurate. it takes 1 shot for head shots, 2 for body shots most times and 3 once in a great while. i'm routinely getting 15-20 sniper kills on 20 player + servers. Eat your heart out Ghost! =)

you know what, after playing this 'mod' for a while ive come to the conclusion that it just sucks absolute shit....

the one thing that kills it is the giant ass 40 second fucking respawn time which always happens when its at the most critical part of the match
and you cant do nothing to help
fuck that
fuck this

WTF is up with all those american flags in the game. The allies consisted not just of americans. If u make a game about WW2 than do some research about the suject.

Theyve been testing this thing hard core at work. I'm not on the team but I helped a little today, crunch time and all. It was neat being there, watching it all happen. We took home copies =)

If I leased an engine from id I would do everything in my power to seperate my product from the engine. I would change the font in the console. I would change the color of the start up console. I would change the extensions of the pak files (pk3). I would want my product to be unique. TOTALLY unique. Half life did it with some elses engine.

RE the test I havent played it that much but team work is obviously crucial. Its all about having a good medic around. The UI is pretty different and will take some getting used to but I think all in all Wolf looks promising. As long as everybody thinks TEAM TEAM TEAM.

This felt like a mod. I have no interest in this kind of gameplay and can only hope that the single player game is significantly different and more graphically engaging. I was very unimpressed compared to what I have seen from the screenshots.

It seems like everything id touches turns to shit. These guys are the incompetant baffoons of the gaming industry.

Well, i played from 7 pm till 1am so i think i can share a bit more info:

LAG: Do not listen to all these people carping about lag. There seemed to be an even mix of high quality servers (good luck getting on one labeled [Id]) and servers that made goatse.cx man look good (whoooaaah). For all you newbies, this is how you determine if its the netcode or the server. You get on and if the pings change when 1-2 people join ITS THE FRICKING SERVER. They are either bandwidth limited (cablemodem) or processor limited (pulling that tandy 1000EX out of the garage). I was dissapointed with lag till i got on some high quality servers. I'm use to 50 ping normally, but i played from 9 till 1am with 150 ping and you know what? I topped my side consistently. (more on this later).

Sounds: Now really, how much different can you make a submachine gun sound from another sub machine gun? not a whole lot of variety in sound on those in this game, but, ummmm, i wasn't really expecting there to be? the landing sound seemed a bit loud. the panzer (RL) was so totally awesome for sound (especially the splut at the end when you mushed up 3-4 allies). the installation MG were a bit low on sound. the volume on them should be cranked up a bit. the ingame voice communication is great, just need get your team to FRICKING listen when you yell for ammo or medic.

Video: Who the freak cares if its based on the Q3 engine. that means at least it runs good on NVIDIA cards. Ever download the red fraction demo and get less than 30 fps? with less than 10 players i can run at 1024 32bit trilinear high detail (athlon 900 256 mb ram geforce 2 ) but when i got on the 32 player games i had to go down to 800x600 to average >40 fps (at times it was 100, but out in the open with lots of airstrikes it would slow down some). Visually very impressive, much better than anything else out there right now. Check out the faces on the models... VERY detailed. For those complaing its too dark, use powerstrip and turn up your gamma real time duh!!!!
If anyone has seen Enemy at the Gates (war movie/sniper) just released, the video they released of rtcw reminds me alot of that.

Gameplay:
1)Soldier: panzerfaust is simply hilarious, powerful and awesome. Notice overpowered is not in there. Sure you can track a group of three coming, and blast them to smithereens, but the reload time keeps it from being overpowered, because you'll be killed by their medic with his piddly submachine gun as your gun gets ready.
Gatling gun:: fun, but no range on it, and the spin up seems to overbalance it so its not effective enough. if you get spun up, nothing will stop you besides the panzer before you chew them up (close to mid range) but by the time you get spun up, you're dead half the time. Even shooting from one catwalks to the other where the stairs come up, it doesnt have enough concentration to kill. Oh, BTW, you can fire with it while moving. i didn't realize this for at least the first 15 min trying to use it.
Sniper rifle: I have been an excellent, rail/awp/scout user and i must say that the sniper rifle is frustating. ya i can get 8-10 kills per round, but the ammount that you miss with it makes the ones you get less savory. major gripe: you should be able to shoot point blank with it unzoomed and have some semblence of accuracy. I mean if they are 10 foot away and i aim at their chest it SHOULDN'T hit UNDER their feet. You cannot reasonably expect to move zoomed in before it kicks you out of zoom. Thus, any sniper already in position and steadied will win every shot (if they can aim) because of the time it takes to get steadied. you can still hit people with a red bar on your left, but you kill less often. I love sniping, and so this is a major dissapointment for me that sniping isn't more effective.

cont next post

whoa did anyone else notice that if u look straight down you can see the shadow of your feet walking. cool

Can anyone tell me if JOYSTICKS are supported (i.e., please check the configuration options for me?)

MANY THANKS

If you're getting the -1 servers thing, you need to open up port 27960.. I think it's 27960, if it's not, it's 27000-28000.

i like it so far...
it has some issues, but come on, it's just a test!

I had some fun with sniping, but the scope really sucks hard (the graphic and the fact that it's unstable). They really need to change that. It was hard enough coping with the brutal lag (poor servers); I would appreciate it if the scope didn't shake all over the place. >:(

This looks and feels more like a mod for Quake3:Team Arena... and regardless of what you guys are saying, the netcode blows. I dunno what they did to it, but I've gotten more 'connection inturrupted' (countless) playing Wolf than any Quake3 and Quake3 TA games (0).

What can I say? I just played this thing for 2 hours.

I played over the network with some buds, and it worked flawlessly. It ran BEAUTIFULLY at 1024x768 with all the details set to max (on a Athlon 1 gig machine, 256 meg of ram, and a GeForce 2 pro 64 Meg DDR).

I snapped some screenshots while I was playing. All I can say is: BEST. FLAMETHROWER. EVER.

http://www-ec.njit.edu/~ajc7719/wolf1.jpg
http://www-ec.njit.edu/~ajc7719/wolf2.jpg
http://www-ec.njit.edu/~ajc7719/wolf3.jpg
http://www-ec.njit.edu/~ajc7719/wolf4.jpg
http://www-ec.njit.edu/~ajc7719/wolf5.jpg
http://www-ec.njit.edu/~ajc7719/wolf6.jpg
http://www-ec.njit.edu/~ajc7719/wolf7.jpg

Fuck, I want to play it really bad. When I try to start a game it crashes me to desktop and gives me error:

q_strncpyz NULL SRC ... and then I can't start it again until I reboot. There is no way for me to get in and i'm about to cry, can someone please help me?

I'm sure this is a driver issue.i run win 98 with a voodoo 5500 i have tried a half a dozen different drivers and still get the same problem...every time i get into a game everything runs and look great but all the lettering...like the chat box and words that pop up on the screen , i dont know what they say because everything is all pixilated and non redable..weird , is there a setting i should adjust or is this smthing i cant fix im totally stumped..it seems i had this problem in quake 3 at some point but not anymore ...hmm..anybody have this problem?...thnks

The game has tons of potential and is tons of fun... they really need to do more work on the netcode mos def

I need help.
I have a Voodoo 5 5500
Im running Win Xp
Im using the Microsoft Certified Drivers

I can run Q3A really shitty. At like 25.5 FPS on these drivers.
But cannot run RtCW. It gives me a no OpenGL Subsystem error or something
and looks for 3dfxOGL.DLL I think it is.

When I install the Win2k 3dfx drivers, the whole screen gets messed, and I have to restart.
I'm looking for the best drivers that work with XP for the v5500.

Thanks.

People complaining about sounds:

Do you not remember Q3test? It didn't have all original sounds, either. It gradually had its sounds updated to new stuff.

Id is damned if they do, damned if they don't. They want to get a test out before the game is released and official demos are produced, to make sure there are no glaring issues, but people still want to treat it like a demo that is exactly like the final product. If they don't release a test, there is a possibility for something major to be missed in gameplay or technical issues, and they will have to change it post release, causing tons of people to whine they are changing gameplay after they learned to exploit whatever it is that is wrong.

Wolf is f___ing fun. The flame thrower and machine guns kick ass. And of course the game is derivative--all FPS games are! I played Wolf over a LAN and had a blast. Many of the critics, with their asinine carping, sound like burned out, jaded gamers. They should take a break from gaming,get a life and then come back to gaming. Perhaps then they would be able to appreciate a kick ass game when they play one. Wolf, based on this test, will be immersive and fun. At least that's one unsophisticated gamer's opinion.

Just out of interest, why does every bullet have a tracer?

I'm trying to figure out what all the critics were expecting for a WWII based multiplayer one-level test. I mean, nerve software can't just come give you all blowjobs while you play . . .

Disappointed. I have an even greater appreciation for Urban Terror after playing this game.

okay guys did some fucking around open up

C:\Program Files\Wolf MP Test\demomain\maps\mp_beachtest.script

and change the respawn times to at least 2(make it lower and the game will crash) and then you can do other shit like make the map last 20 mins

also you can deactivate the objectives if you just want pure DM...well sorta...i guess

"Breach the goatse.cx!"

The exe also does a crc check on the pk3 file :-( no half ass map hacking today i guess...

Haven't downloaded this yet... is it anything more than a Q3 total conversion like Elite Force multiplay was?