The NDA for World of Warplanes closed beta has expired.
Currently there are four tech trees, US, Germany, Japan, and USSR. Aircraft are rated tier I-X similar to World of Tanks.
http://worldofwarplanes.com/media/?tag=10
Each nation starts with a biplane fighter, then the tech tree branches into fighters and heavy fighters. Players have the option to upgrade engines, weapons, and equipment on each plane. You can for example remove an engine from one plane, and move it to another that shares the same equipment.
There are also premium aircraft available with significantly lower repair costs. However the equipment is fixed and cannot be changed.
Certain aircraft have different upgrade options depending on your play style. The US P-36 fighter can either be a fast interceptor armed with a large number of 7.62mm MG, or configured with a pair of 23mm Madsen cannons at the expense of speed and maneuverability.
When you go up a tier, the new aircraft will be underarmed until advanced weapons are researched. The German Ar80 tier III fighter starts with 7.92mm MGs. It's a significant grind to get the 20mm cannon installed in the propellor hub. As in World of Tanks you can use gold to convert experience to free experience to speed advancement.
War Thunder looks prettier in my opinion.
Screenshots from World of Warplanes
World of Warplanes is easier to play and more accesible to new players. The controls are basic, and the planes are easy to fly. Easy for the casual gamer to pick up.
War Thunder is geared for the hard core flight sim enthusiast. More planes available, greater degree of customization, larger tech tree. However with increased complexity there is a much larger learning curve. You must play the tutorials to learn to fly the aircraft properly.
In flight screen shots with all graphic settings on lowest settings
If a joystick weren't required to fly a plane well, I might give World of Warplanes a try.
Quote from: Greybriar on April 04, 2013, 12:05:06 PM
If a joystick weren't required to fly a plane well, I might give World of Warplanes a try.
It isn't.
You can fly with a joystick, keyboard and mouse, just a keyboard, or a gamepad.
My recommendation is a joystick, but it's not required.
Mouse and keyboard is fine.
Plenty of keys available
http://www.mmorpg.com/giveaways.cfm/offer/427/World-of-Warplanes-Beta-Key-Giveaway.html
World of Warplanes isn't a big draw for me, especially with the availability of War Thunder. World of Warships on the other hand....I can hardly stand the waiting!
Quote from: LongBlade on April 04, 2013, 12:50:56 PM
....You can fly with a joystick, keyboard and mouse, just a keyboard, or a gamepad.
My recommendation is a joystick, but it's not required.
Quote from: eyebiter on April 04, 2013, 02:16:47 PM
Mouse and keyboard is fine....
Every flight sim I've ever played in the past (except the most basic ones that used the arrow keys) were very lacking without a joystick. But anyway--
Quote from: Shelldrake on April 04, 2013, 02:18:40 PM
World of Warplanes isn't a big draw for me, especially with the availability of War Thunder. World of Warships on the other hand....I can hardly stand the waiting!
+1 That's about how I feel, too!
Quote from: Greybriar on April 04, 2013, 02:29:17 PM
Every flight sim I've ever played in the past (except the most basic ones that used the arrow keys) were very lacking without a joystick. But anyway--
I agree. While you can fly with a keyboard and mouse, the ability to use different viewing angles, use different weapons (bomb versus MG) make the joystick a strong recommendation IMHO.
Quote from: jomni on April 04, 2013, 09:36:18 AM
War Thunder looks prettier in my opinion.
Pretty much all of it's game mechanics play better too.
I've tried getting into WoWP many times and it just pales in comparison to War Thunder in nearly every way.
Quote from: Greybriar on April 04, 2013, 12:05:06 PM
If a joystick weren't required to fly a plane well, I might give World of Warplanes a try.
The Arcade Mode in
War Thunder works just fine with a Mouse & Keyboard. You pretty much just aim your intended heading indicator with your mouse and the 'pilot assistant' uses the flight controls to get you there. You still have to use keyboard sometimes when attempting to go straight up or down in a loop, otherwise it tends to angle it to one side a bit. Still.. it's pretty forgiving once you get it set to how you like it (may have to invert the up/down axis & such) and makes aiming easier.
I don't see how anyone would pick WoWP over WT once they've put plenty of time into both for a good comparison. The only thing WoWP has going for it is a stable game economy whereas WT still seems to be juggling rewards & repair costs every update, to find a happy medium. Hell.. once WT went open beta, most of the WoWP testers stopped playing and went to the other side. The WoWP server populations have been crap ever since.
I was in the early beta where you had to wait 15-20 mins for a game, then you just got killed in the first 90 seconds by two or three people with the top planes. Don't know what's changed sense then, I'll give it another go once released but, I don't see this as big as World of Tanks, flying & dog fighting takes a lot more skill then driving a tank, which will be beyond the skill level of a lot of WOT players.
Quote from: SgtRock on April 05, 2013, 02:51:51 PM
I was in the early beta where you had to wait 15-20 mins for a game, then you just got killed in the first 90 seconds by two or three people with the top planes. Don't know what's changed sense then, I'll give it another go once released but, I don't see this as big as World of Tanks, flying & dog fighting takes a lot more skill then driving a tank, which will be beyond the skill level of a lot of WOT players.
Yet you still get the dumbass kids firing their weapons off near friendlies in the spawn, after the match starts. Just like WOT.
This didn't used to be a problem in WT until it went open beta, of course. Now I see it fairly regularly, and there's occasionally some douchebag who actually shoots you in the back right after the match starts. Expect it to be an issue in WoWP too. These dev teams need to implement an auto-kick for any friendly fire within the first few seconds of match start.
Quote from: Nefaro on April 04, 2013, 08:18:19 PM
Quote from: Greybriar on April 04, 2013, 12:05:06 PM
If a joystick weren't required to fly a plane well, I might give World of Warplanes a try.
I don't see how anyone would pick WoWP over WT once they've put plenty of time into both for a good comparison. The only thing WoWP has going for it is a stable game economy whereas WT still seems to be juggling rewards & repair costs every update, to find a happy medium. Hell.. once WT went open beta, most of the WoWP testers stopped playing and went to the other side. The WoWP server populations have been crap ever since.
I am having much more fun with WT as well.... Almost everything is better in WT. Sorry WoWP.... WT is also the first game I've played where the TrackIR implementation feels natural. I highly recommend TrackIR for WT.
Too bad that WT doesn't have those Boeing Golden Age Biplane fighters and those classic Grummans (F2F,F3F). IIRC Robert Scott mentions in his book 'God is my Copilot' that he was leader of a pursuit squadron flying P-12s in Panama.
Quote from: Staggerwing on April 10, 2013, 06:03:00 PM
Too bad that WT doesn't have those Boeing Golden Age Biplane fighters and those classic Grummans (F2F,F3F). IIRC Robert Scott mentions in his book 'God is my Copilot' that he was leader of a pursuit squadron flying P-12s in Panama.
WoWP doesn't even have Fw-190s. Nor even a British line yet. The sheer variety of aircraft available is in WT's favor, although both can always use more.
I'm quite happy with just the freebie starter planes being bi-planes in WT. Being able to quickly get into single-wing aircraft relatively quickly may be a plus for some of the more late WW2 focused players. I wouldn't mind having a separate WWI setting, however, and maybe we'll eventually see that sometime.
I'm still curious whether WT's two other client-integrated games will have matches featuring all three 'arms' (Air force, Tanks, Navy). It would be pretty awesome if they have integrated matches with more than one in them but the flyers would likely hold a noticeable advantage over the other two so it may be best to keep them separate. I've not heard how such things will be handled yet.
WT is adding tanks and ships? When is that supposed to kick off?
Quote from: Nefaro on April 11, 2013, 07:09:17 AM
I'm still curious whether WT's two other client-integrated games will have matches featuring all three 'arms' (Air force, Tanks, Navy). It would be pretty awesome if they have integrated matches with more than one in them but the flyers would likely hold a noticeable advantage over the other two so it may be best to keep them separate. I've not heard how such things will be handled yet.
That might be the death of WWII online. Oh well...
Quote from: eyebiter on April 04, 2013, 10:14:50 AM
War Thunder is geared for the hard core flight sim enthusiast. More planes available, greater degree of customization, larger tech tree. However with increased complexity there is a much larger learning curve. You must play the tutorials to learn to fly the aircraft properly.
ooh no I have to train before I can fly. my my
Quote from: jejo68 on April 12, 2013, 02:04:10 AM
Quote from: eyebiter on April 04, 2013, 10:14:50 AM
War Thunder is geared for the hard core flight sim enthusiast. More planes available, greater degree of customization, larger tech tree. However with increased complexity there is a much larger learning curve. You must play the tutorials to learn to fly the aircraft properly.
ooh no I have to train before I can fly. my my
No worries.. there is 4 different difficulty settings regarding the control, and most people play in the "Arcade Mode" too. While I've always enjoyed some deep sims, for some reason I've gravitated to the Arcade Mode in WT and it's quite easy once you get acquainted with the controls. There is no hardcore sim stuff unless you
want it. Quite flexible.
Some people enjoy playing "Historical Mode" which (IIRC) requires one of the two highest control scheme difficulty settings to play, since it requires proper stalling & such modelled along with forcing you to land & rearm every time you run out of ammo (etc etc). The Arcade Mode is more about the action. For example, you can hit the 'Y' key to reload your guns in the air, although it takes awhile to do so, and you spawn in the air instead of being forced to take off. Sure.. you still have to land if you want your damaged aircraft fixed but Arcade still feels a bit more like a thinking man's shooter to me, since many of the dogfighting tactics still work well here.
Didn't realize, but evidentally World of Warplanes just had it's official release recently.
Despite War Thunder having many advantages over WoWP (my opinion), it does have some semblance of balance. I think WoWP can be fun in short doses, so hopefully they make some big improvements in the future. WT still has some issues and the Wargaming people could capitalize.
I just wish the graphics in WoWP didn't look so damn terrible. The nearly non-existant Anti-aliasing and terrible post-processing effects that they added to the engine last year (or thereabouts) just makes it look BAD. :-\
Gotta admit.. WoWP has improved since it went into Beta.
Some of the Pros in comparison to War Thunder:
1) Mouse & Keyboard controls are great. Not only do they have more customization options, shooting someone down also isn't a cakewalk. War Thunder's M&K controls are ridiculously easy to keep the pipper on-target (a Con) and it's flight control 'assistant' just plain can't do inverted maneuvers worth a damn. WoWP's handles rolling & inverted maneuver far better. I'd say it's just about perfect on the default, too.
2) While I was apprehensive about the artificial altitude adjustments, the flight models work far better than WT's arcade mode FMs. It's more like physics in miniature. You can actually Boom & Zoom in WoWP and you can actually stall out. Although the stalling in both are pretty relaxed, I find WoWP's handling of speed more representative of energy management in dogfights. In WT it's way too easy to keep/get your speed up and there isn't really any notable stalling so planes can go dirt slow and still be somewhat maneuverable. That has always bugged me about WT.
3) WoWP's mechanics and controls have actually improved over the course of the past year, while WT has taken a step back in a couple areas. The latest WT screw-up was the adjustment of the damage model which has resulted in increased rates of one-shotting pilots and insta-crippling control surfaces. One-shotting sucks, and while it was okay on occasion, it has become very commonplace since the last big WT update. Looks like WoWP's official release came along at the perfect time!
4) Cost. I'm pretty sure WoWP's cash shop can probably get you more bang for the buck regarding a few things, if/when you decide to do so.
5) Single-death matches. At first I kinda like being able to respawn up to six times in a battle, in War Thunder, but some of those matches get way too long & drawn out. Not to mention that downing a single enemy fighter makes almost no difference since the guy will just be back in the fight five seconds later with a new one. I've found that I much prefer WoWP's one battle=one plane. I could say that WoWP is just more balanced in most respects. To be fair, WT's Historical Battle mode only allows you to fly one aircraft per match but you generally take off from the ground (long matches) and it takes forever to get into a match because the WT matchmaker is relatively slow (and most people play Arcade anyway).
Cons:
1) The graphics blow. It looks okay in the hangar. But in-game the aircraft are jaggy and blurry. I feel like I'm half-blind with all the excessive post-processing. While you can turn it off, the game uses a terrible anti-aliasing scheme that ensures the jaggies are even more massive. The textures aren't anywhere near as good. Even some of the aircraft models look weird; check out the odd looking Spitfire for instance.. something just doesn't look quite right. I can get past this stuff, to an extent, if I'm having fun. The customizable skins also seem rather generic.
2) There aren't many aircraft in WoWP. This will hopefully be remedied after a time, and there is enough to get started with, but there are some glaring holes in their line-up right now. There also aren't any big bombers. I suppose that may be due to balancing issues, in a game focused on dogfighting, because it has certainly been an issue in WT and probably always will be (one way or another).
3) Variety. In general. I'll point to map variety as a biggie here. There isn't very many in WoWP yet. You could also lump #2 in with this one, but I tend to think of these separately.
Still, I've been enjoying World of Warplanes since release. Primarily because the flight physics, while miniaturized, give a better representation of a dogfight. Mostly regarding maneuvering in the vertical and the speed/altitude trade-off that entails. Also.. no rampant one-shotting.
Now that it is released, I'll give it another try.
Just downloaded the client and started playing today. Add me if you want to try and play (endfire79)
Just in time for the holidays
The artificial climbing/altitude aspect seems to be scaled okay but the big overall reduction just feels really weird when you fly in WoWP.
I can understand their reasoning for doing so - to keep people from just climbing to 30kft every match and so much time, but I think they overdid it. It can be fun for short periods but way too arcadish for me to stick with it very long at a stretch.
They also desperately need more variety in everything. I'm not sure if that will happen since War Thunder probably stole most of WoWP's thunder (and target customer base). Wargaming's best bet is to get their World of Warships out before the WT guys finish theirs.
I'll be playing all of them. I'm not really into looking for a real simulation (too much like work), more for fun.
if I was looking for realism in WoT I would have quit years ago. its a fun shooter, no more, no less.
It's not a question of needing absolutely full realism in these things. Just a matter of how much arcade you want. I still find WoWP enjoyable for short stretches, although I like how they did most of the stuff in War Thunder's arcade mode more.
I agree with Nef about WoWP about the dogfights - it's no cakewalk, which is a good thing. Flight model is pretty good, i.e. your plane will stall with low airspeed etc.
Right now I'm on the Bf109-B bandwagon since I prefer to do a high climb and then dive to attack. An I-15 can out turn me, so I stay out of the turn-fights. I'm kinda torn about which tech ladder to work on though, they've all got planes I'd love to try. I've been sticking with fighters for now.
They split the a/c types into three classes:
-fighters (Ar-65, I-5, P-12's & biplanes, bf109, spitfire, p51, wildcat etc). The US has a split between Army & Navy fighters. The Germans have a split that forks either to the Bf109, or the FW-190 series. The Russkies have a similar layout, between LAGG & Yak.
-heavy fighters (bf110's, blenheim's, mosquitos, only UK & Germany seem to have this type)
-attack fighters (the Russians have these, i.e. IL-2's etc)
I concentrated mostly on the Soviet Lavochkin line. I believe I'm only at the LaGG-3 right now, though.