I'm back

[Joshua l.Chamberlain]

I'm back after I got sucked into Company of heros and Silent Hunter III so what happened.

[norb]

Nothing major, currently we are working on game performance and the new AI. No game released yet Obama is the new president, the world hasn't ended yet, and we're all getting older

[Joshua l.Chamberlain]

Well great.

[norb]

So what aspects of those games got you hooked?

I'm always interested in what game design things really suck people in.

To me it's developing a character. If you gain experience and can upgrade your avatar, then you want to keep doing that and becoming more powerful and gaining more stuff. I did something like that before I worked on these games and I have all that code in there. I just have to hook it all up. Sort of the rpg aspect of the game. I think that's why MMORPGs do so well.

If I ever get the time, I have plans to really expand this engine with all sorts of possibilities, but we've got to get this first version out first.

[dale]

My favorite wargame for sucking me in was Panzer General by SSI. The concept of having a core of units that you fought with through the campaigns of WW2 from the Spanish Civil War to the final conquest (Britain or America} was the essence of replayability. After each successful campaign experience points could be awarded to beef up units and replacement points purchased. When the grand campaign was finished you wanted to start all over with different core units--all this is obviously much like a RP game.

Playing a Civil War version of this game would be a hoot. Start as regimental commander and by good tactics and good fortune work your way up through the various campaigns. Deal with bad superior officers, supply uncertainties, political squabbles. A branching tree campaign can be developed depending on the options taken and of course fate. Whose star will you align yourself to for best chance of promotion? What theater will you choose? What branch of service? You can even be given a choice of which side to chose in 1861 and see how the offers are weighted. If you are wounded in battle of course this will set you back some months. Should you chose to have a wounded limb amputated? Will this affect your future command stats? If a Union general what party are you affiliated with? Who is your state governor and what pull can he have for your promotion? Should you take a leave to go recruiting for your unit? Will this affect the caliber of recruit that you receive? Are you wealthy enough to outfit your own unit? Will disease run through your unit between campaigns? All of these thoughts of course stem from the biographies of real generals in the Civil War. There are so many possibilities in this kind of Civil War game that I have yet to see anyone really put into play.

[norb]

That's a lot of where I've wanted to bring this for a while now. Some good new stuff to consider too. I always envisioned the game starting out with a brigade vs. brigade battle, you're a grunt in a regiment and your leader gets killed. Your brigade commander field promotes you and you start the game. Then you campaign through all the battles of the civil war until the end and see where you end up.

[JC Edwards]

I still want a WWI game.

[Little Powell]

norb wrote:

That's a lot of where I've wanted to bring this for a while now. Some good new stuff to consider too. I always envisioned the game starting out with a brigade vs. brigade battle, you're a grunt in a regiment and your leader gets killed. Your brigade commander field promotes you and you start the game. Then you campaign through all the battles of the civil war until the end and see where you end up.

The History Channel Civil War FPS game tried to do something like this, but it just seems like they tried to cram everything together in a short period of time, and the game turned out to be crap..

If you could combine RTS with RPG in this game, in would be AWESOME. All it takes is time..

[louie raider]

i used to be addicted to a WWII air simulation game that was on a college roomate's PC waaaaay back when 386s used to rule the world -- think 1989, 3.5" discs were just coming into vogue. anyhow the game was in the pacific theater and you could be either US or Japan, fly different types of planes (bombers, fighters, torpedo carriers, etc), go thru missions and earn medals and whatnot. i think it was the overall individual progress that atracted me, and the prospect of flying a successful mission in order to advance. character development, like Norb mentioned.

i'd love to know if anyone remembers the name of that game and whether it's still around... in all its 8-bit glory....

[Anthropicus]

Louie Raider wrote:

i used to be addicted to a WWII air simulation game that was on a college roomate's PC waaaaay back when 386s used to rule the world -- think 1989, 3.5" discs were just coming into vogue. anyhow the game was in the pacific theater and you could be either US or Japan, fly different types of planes (bombers, fighters, torpedo carriers, etc), go thru missions and earn medals and whatnot. i think it was the overall individual progress that atracted me, and the prospect of flying a successful mission in order to advance. character development, like Norb mentioned.

i'd love to know if anyone remembers the name of that game and whether it's still around... in all its 8-bit glory....

Perhaps it was Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe?