Lemme know if someone''s already beaten me to this, because I want to play it!!! Everything''s the same as you''d expect in your typical FPS: Levels, variety of weapons, different enemies requiring different strategies, storyline, armor, crouching, sniping, etc. Difference is: You are solely responsible for how you come to the table. You choose the levels in any order. You choose what weapons to bring. You choose your entry point. Basically, you''re in charge of the initial starting conditions. If there are time limits imposed on you, you have some control over what they will be. If you have to escort somebody, the game still carries on if you fail. If the odds are overwhelming, somewhere in the game there is something you can do or buy or whatever so that you either know this or can cope with this in advance. The game levels become environments you choose to fight in in order to impact environments elsewhere. Don''t like the odds at the enemy HQ level? Fight to sabotage the bridge level that leads to it. Don''t like how easy it is to fall off the bridge? Choose to raid the helicopter base first instead, a sneak into the armory just to steal that new high powered sniper rifle. By choosing what level to play and how to approach it, you as the player are more responsible and in control of what happens to you. If you get yourself into a pickle, it''s not designer sadism at fault, but your own poor planning. Comments? Think FPS players are ready for something like this? -------------------- Just waiting for the mothership...

Isn''t Deus Ex 2 going to be set up like this?

-This is where the world drops off
-ryan@lecherousjester.com

i like your idea.

its very cool, especially the logical sequencing.

like i have read you say before, and agree with, doing the obvious and having an unexpected result is sweet (the obvious trap not being a trap). i also have a taste for irony in games.

i had the quick idea of adding a twist in which choosing to take out a point bridge, is found much more difficult than implied and in fact, when executed adds difficulty to a players scenario. with no turning back, the easy short cut discovered more difficult than a safer hard path.

Sweet.

In other words, like Jagged Alliance 2, only as an FPS and not a top-down small task-force simulation.

If well executed, I''d love to play it....

I think it''s a very neat idea that would work very well in a game like GTA3, where the world is constant and ongoing, and the missions have a bit more to them than just "run and gun". I''m reminded of a mission in GTA3 where you had to assassinate a guy and that he always took the same route with his car. My friend recognized this and prior to starting up the mission, he took a bunch of cars and blocked in the guy''s getaway car. Well, when he started the mission, the cars he had carefully placed just magically disappeared. Imagine if they didn''t and the guy''s car was blocked in, and you assassinated him very easily because of your knowledge and clever wits.

I''d play it. The only problem that I can see is in the design of the whole thing :
- if you make the levels too easy, then people may well skip a whole bunch of levels (that took time and effort to create), thus making the campaign seem short.
- if you make the levels harder to prevent this, then people end up failing a lot of missions because they haven''t done them in an optimal or near-optimal order.

Any greater degree of persistence than the norm is good (in my books) though.