I have been working on a game design for a few days and I can't decide on one aspect. The game is generally based on a game I used to play on the Commodore Amiga called 'Hunter'. Basically there is a fairly large (but finite) game world which consists of mainly water, with randomly generated islands. This is an online mulitplayer FPS game, and each 'side' battles for control of land in various vehicles and on foot. The gameplay is played in matches, perhaps timed, or perhaps the first to get a certain percentage of the land. Anywho, for each match I considered having a 'Commander' who is randomly chosen, instead of the normal FPS view he is presented with an overhead battlefield map on which he can see what you might be able to see in a Command and Conquer type game. From this view the commmander can issue orders to the other players in the FPS mode which come up as text instructions and waypoints on their HUD. I am just looking for views and/or opinions on this idea. Thanks in advance. Mark

It sounds alot like the Commander screen of Battlefield 2. Mabye you would want to look at that to see how they have done it.

What impetus is there for players to listen to anything their commander says? Keep in mind that the commander player may be a stranger to the other players, and may not have demonstrated (or have) any actual command ability.

mengha, I will check out Battlefield 2.

Sneftel, the incentive is in the fact that players are not rewarded indivually, i.e. there is no concept of a frag. The maps are sufficiently large and combined with the fact that they are random means that the individual players will almost 'need' to be told in which way to head. Do you think that this is still too loose?

Mark

Quote:

Original post by mrmrcoleman Sneftel, the incentive is in the fact that players are not rewarded indivually, i.e. there is no concept of a frag. The maps are sufficiently large and combined with the fact that they are random means that the individual players will almost 'need' to be told in which way to head. Do you think that this is still too loose?

It's possible. Even if players aren't rewarded for hotdogging, they still might not see any benefit in listening to the commander rather than using their own strategy.

If you want to do this sort of thing, I'd suggest giving the commander a LOT of information that the players don't have. Ideally, the commander should have full information of the map, including the locations of powerups and enemies. And command&control should not be via "waypoints"... no player wants to follow waypoints set by some anonymous stranger. Voice communication would probably be better.

A couple of questions.

What happens if you get an idiot, or an ass as a commander? They send thier own team off to the middle of nowhere as a joke...

Since the game is so big, how do you keep the action going? Even with a top down view, what incentive is it (towards winning) is it to get in a fight?

Look into the game Savage. This was done and done well. It just didn't work as well as people wanted. I think there was also a Half-Life mod that did this.

I see what you are saying Robert, but in the same way, someone playing capture the flag and defending the base could let people in just for a laugh. You can always have idiots, I assume that's why private 'password' game exist.

Also, I think you are right about the amout of action if the game world is large. I was hoping to entertain the gamers with the vehicles that are available (helicopters/vans etc), perhaps this won't work.

Also, I think you are right about the amout of action if the game world is large. I was hoping to entertain the gamers with the vehicles that are available (helicopters/vans etc), perhaps this won't work.

Snoftel, you are absolutely right about keeping the information in the possesion of the commander. This is really starting to take shape in my mind now. Another thing I probably should have told you is that the players are far more vunerable than in your average FPS.

I don't like the way that you can get shot straight on with a minigun in unreal tournament for 2-3 seconds before you die, and I also don't like the 1 shot kill system in the Rainbow Six games.

Preferably the average 'health' would be somewhere between the two, meaning that players are less likely to want to want to go on mad rushes to the front, assuming they no where the front is.

Two issues seem to be raised from this.

1. Should players be infinitely respawned? Giving players a certain number of lives (1/3/5) would certainly make them think twice about running off into the wilderness without a clue.

2. Due to the size of the 'worlds', the game lengths would be longer than your usual FPS fragfest, this would make people more likely to be part of a plan.

Mark

Look into Half-Life mod Natural Selection for something very similar as well.

One pf the star wars games (i forget which) had a global respawn counter for each side, say 255 each, and you played with 25 or so troops at a time. Every time someone dies, the global respawn counter goes down a point, so working together to kill them more than you is a good thing.

Planetside is another game you may want to consider checking out if you haven't already, since its an MMOFPS with strategic elements.

[Edited by - Gyrthok on August 26, 2005 2:28:39 AM]