Battlefield 2

[Firemeboy]

I'm pretty new here, but just heard about Battlefield 2, made by the same folks as Battlefield 1942, vietnam, etc.  Anyway, there is a new twist to the game.  After you move up rank sufficiently, you can take on the role of a general who doesn't actually play in the first-person shooter role, rather they have a 'god view'.  They watch where their team is (up to 32 players), can send in more ammo, call in air strike, etc.

I'm interested to see how it all plays out.  In Counter-Strike, I've seen people try to get folks to work together.  And it seems when you have folks with a plan, things go much better for all involved.  But almost without exception, everybody ignores the person trying to take on the leadership role.  It will be interesting to see if by having this role that allows a player to see the whole picture, other players will actually follow orders and work together as a team.

Anyway, comes out in June.  Looks to be pretty fun.  There is an article in Wired magazine on it, and the article may even be online by now.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

welcome to the boards, Firemeboy! Be sure to read the FAQ and to introduce yourself!

[Entsuropi]

That role has been around plenty o times before. Check out Savage, Natural Selection, C&C Renegade.

But yes, BF2 looks interesting. I like the way that the commander gives orders to squad leaders who interpret them as way points for his men. Makes a lot more sense and more fun

[Firemeboy]

Are those online games, though?  Does the person control AI, or actual people.  

I'm thinking about trying to do some official research on this.  That way I can get credit for school, and play Battlefield 2.  Oh, and it's a tax write-off...  

[Spriggan]

they were online.  I know with savage you sort of controlled both, though I never played it.  There's never been a game that's pulled it off well before though, so I wouldn't get my hopes up too much.

[Fellfrosch]

Savage sounds very similar to what you're talking about, and I hated it--good idea, though. The thing that might make it work with BF2 is the way you haev to earn the right to be the leader. That would mean that you wouldn't get morons jumping in and out of the HQ all the time, you'd be more likely to get experienced players who know what they're doing.

That still doesn't mean that people would listen to him, as you say.

[Firemeboy]

Yeah, the thing I wonder is will the 'general' have some way to punish those that don't follow orders.  If so, that would, in my mind, lead to some very interesting questions...  I know at least, if you don't 'obey', the general might not call in an air-strike, or send you more ammo, but if there was some other way a general could punish, or reward obedience, then that may change things a bit...

[Spriggan]

If they had any way of forceing player to do something then you'd see the game bomb.  No one, especially FPS players, want to have someone else be able to control your unit.

[Entsuropi]

In Savage everyone played the combat infantry units you usually get in fantasy RTS's, and were given waypoints, upgrades like speed, and new weapon options by the commander. They could also do the things like speed up building construction, do mining to get more cash in, kill animals for cash to get personal upgrades etc. The commander also controlled peon NPC's who did the basic building and mining stuff.

Great game, especially when you had 40 people a side with massive firefights and running melee battles. Felt like you were really in a wierd fantasy battle. It never did that well though, which is a shame.

[Skar]

I've been agitating for some time for a game like BF2 sounds.  Having given it a bit of thought, there has to be a feedback system where the "generals" and squad leaders get to give simple judgement on the quality of the FPSers, and a way for FPSers to judge "generals".  Essentially, if a general/squadleader gets a player who is messing things up, he should be able to boot him and put a call out online for another player to replace him mid-battle.

So, generals can judge FPSers by how many times they've been booted with malice (more than one kind of booting: malice for stupid guys who mess things up, benign for guys who are just inexperienced?) and FPSers can judge generals on their win-loss ratio.

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

Will players be able to choose if they want to be the general/squad leader?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I think a better system, rather than punishing people who don't follow orders, is some sort of reward for following orders.

[Entsuropi]

Well as i understand it there will be honour ratings in the game, and the more kills you get, objectives done etc your honour goes up. Teamkilling etc makes it go down, and you can put server limits on amount of honour needed...

What that means is you'll get high honour servers full of elitiests, and low honour ones full of idiots with a hard time trying to jump between them. Your system would be open to abuse with players spitefully knocking down each others ratings and stuff.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

If they're smart then, they'll also be able to mark servers as mid-level honor locations, so you can move through.

[Fellfrosch]

What any of these systems would exacerbate is the steep learning curve--there's no single player portion, so the only way to hone your skills is to play online, which would require you to play with jerks and potentially never get good at it. A good LAN party with friends might be the only way to play without getting roasted by morons or booted for inexperience.