Author Topic: Hell Let Loose- a worthy competitor to FH2?  (Read 1584 times)

Offline Great Khan

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Hell Let Loose- a worthy competitor to FH2?
« on: 11-01-2019, 12:01:45 »
I've been keeping an eye on that game for some time, and it seems to be the first game to be any close to FH2 in terms of game play. Of course, I doubt it will ever replicate all the fronts we see in this game, so I'll still stick around FH2 for as long as it exists.

Offline Flippy Warbear

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Re: Hell Let Loose- a worthy competitor to FH2?
« Reply #1 on: 11-01-2019, 17:01:19 »
Just like Heroes & Generals or Post-Scriptum or Festung Europe or or or...

Offline Seth_Soldier

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Re: Hell Let Loose- a worthy competitor to FH2?
« Reply #2 on: 11-01-2019, 20:01:49 »
Just like PS, ... 
We are all in the ww2 community/community  ;)
So you don't need to choose. Play them all if you like
We will loose players when it releases but we will also win new one.

Offline Pavel_[RUS74]

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Re: Hell Let Loose- a worthy competitor to FH2?
« Reply #3 on: 16-06-2019, 20:06:09 »
For a person who is unfamiliar with your community, both "Hell Let Loose" and "Post Scriptum" look like they were made by people who previously also worked on "FH".
And, anyway, HLL and PS and FH2 look more interesting than "Battlefield 5".  ::)

Offline LuckyOne

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Re: Hell Let Loose- a worthy competitor to FH2?
« Reply #4 on: 16-06-2019, 22:06:05 »
I think the issue is... FH2's fate was sealed when it stopped "evolving". When a mod is "done" (talking in terms of gameplay, not actual content) it will only ever attract players already familiar with the games that offer similar gameplay (usually older games, as players will naturally try to find the next-gen game that offers the same / similar gameplay they are already familiar with).

That's how mods actually became popular in the first place, as previously new sequels of games from the same franchise did not come out almost every year and the only way to get "the game you love, but better" was to install a few mods to make it better).

Now in FH2's case that pool of potential newcomers has shrinked to a minimum. BF1942 / FH1 / BF 1943 / RO1 and its mods are all effectively dead and there will seldom be anyone new coming from there.

Unfortunately I have recently realized the "window" where FH2 can experiment with new gameplay options (introduce new game modes / refocus on different mechanics / try to attract a different audience) has closed.

Any changes now could potentially be devastating to the existing playerbase because "old fans" will not agree with them, and besides that the potential dev pool has also shrinked to nothing, which means there is effectively no manpower that could bring FH2 into the "next decade".

I believe the last chance was about 4 years ago when PR went standalone. That was the "last blaze of glory" of the good old BF2 engine. The devs missed that opportunity because they didn't want to risk having legal issues with EA. And somehow the cross-promotion with PR was also not very successful (or taken advantage of), although it did provide a small boost to player numbers.

So FH2 is destined to become the next FH1, eventually the community will take over and focus just on adding new fronts / maps and rehashing old content in previously rarely seen / unseen combinations.

Of course, it will still be religiously played (eventually only on weekends) just like FH1 / FHSW by a small contigent of die-hards and nostalgia seekers.

The only way out would be for someone to start working on FH3 and eventually attract new devs and new audience... That way the old community could move on, the old fans would come back and potentially new players would flock to the "next iteration" of the gameplay they all know and love.

:-\

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Offline jan_kurator

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Re: Hell Let Loose- a worthy competitor to FH2?
« Reply #5 on: 17-06-2019, 20:06:55 »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNcJpbPHwdM

Wow, why so negative? We all gonna die one day but does it make you feel blue all the time? It looks like some of our forum member are in desperate need of anti-depressants. Why don't you guys join us on Discord and/or on the servers and have fun instead of writing sad prediction walls of texts about what may happen in x-years from now on a half dead forum? Thanks to discord, we more active in social media than ever, and we keep in touch with the community in real time. If anything is going to die anytime soon, those are the forums  ;)

Our playerbase is quite stable for about a decade now, but at the moment we are in the usual summer low we experience each year. In average, I would say our playerbase actually grew a bit larger (and in contrary, PR's playerbase shrunk, devided between PR and Squad). We hit 140 players on European servers last Friday (70 people on a public server, and another 70 participated in the CMP campaign). Then we have our new Asian community growing stronger every day (they do hit 50+ players on weekends and that number seem to increase every week). Did it get harder to get new players? Probably, but WW2 theme seems to be popular again, and every now and then we have people who, being highly disappointed by new games like BFV, or just find titles like PS and HLL too hardcore, discover us and are truly amazed by the uniqueness of FH2.

Devs are still developing new content (that will bring some gameplay changes due to nature of that content), we are still improving existing stuff, we are open for changes and experiments, but we are an unique mix of hardcore and arcade gameplay with a historical accuracy flavor for true WW2 nerds, and that's what makes this mod beautiful.

Saying that FH2 stopped evolving is not true, but there was never room for massive gameplay changes. The unforgiving gunplay of FH2 is one of the things that makes this mod so addictive. Forgotten Hope 2 is a well balanced, amazingly well researched piece of art, you either appreciate that and love it or you don't and you hate it. I doubt anyone here ever aimed to take FH2 out of this niche (apart from one of the developers back in 2012, don't you remember how did that end?)  ;)

The only way out would be for someone to start working on FH3 and eventually attract new devs and new audience... That way the old community could move on, the old fans would come back and potentially new players would flock to the "next iteration" of the gameplay they all know and love.
I don't agree with that, FH2 is still doing well, and how do you know that no one is doing that already?
« Last Edit: 17-06-2019, 20:06:39 by jan_kurator »

Offline LuckyOne

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Re: Hell Let Loose- a worthy competitor to FH2?
« Reply #6 on: 17-06-2019, 21:06:44 »
Sorry if I came out as too negative. I just wanted to state the fact that human communities die, with the passing of time. Both the physical, as well as the "virtual" like this one. It's inevitable but natural.

That's nothing to be sad about. In fact it should be a call to cherish what we still have, a more than 10 year old mod still being actively enjoyed by a decent number of people, while many others have perished (this includes both the mods and sadly, the people behind them).

But while there are still us, who hop on from time to time and enjoy the splendid work they've made they will never be truly forgotten.

So, keep playing, keep creating and keep remembering!  :D
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