S.T.A.L.K.E.R./Oblivion style gameplay?

[madrussian 347]

The Mod Should be like Mount and Blade, Where you can be a mercenary aswell, but you can also become a general and have an army, You would need to have your own city inorder to provide revenue for your military,

Agreed on the M&B idea! Except this ArmA2 mission/mod should end. As in you should be able to win and lose, unlike in M&B, which just goes on endlessly and eventually gets tedious. (Taking over the entire world doesn't count.)

Plus ours needs some type of respawn other than unlimited (yawn) or perma-death (which is frusterating in a long missions). Something in between the two. The dying way to lose should be in addition to the other ways of losing.

[loki 1]

it seems to me that oblivion and mount are 2 different game styles.

first and foremost as dr. strangelove said.. the amount of work.. just to make a SP core is tremendous. to make it MP.... N.A.S.A. type stuff...lol.. j/k.. but alot of work.. just for a core.

to make a full blown MP MMOFPS... as big or bigger than A.C.E. crew would be needed..

imo

[Mavrocket 10]

It sounds like a good team of ARMA Crackheads could be able to make a profit off of this idea if they could convince Bohemia to allow them to develop a commercial "addon" similar to the many addons for MS Flight Simulator.

Think about it, Counterstrike for Half-Life and Team Fortress for Quake were both mods before they were made into complete games, and Valve hired both mod teams to make actual games based on their mods... I think there is something brewin' here...

[madrussian 347]

I for one do not think it should be like a join-any-time-you-want MMORPG.

IMO, give it a beginning and an end... rather multiple endings, and make it highly replayable. Build it wide with content in terms of things you can do and things that can happen, vs long, narrow, and linear. Instead of a twenty hour linear experience that is identical every time, what's wrong with saga that takes a maximum six hour to complete (shorter if you lose earlier) that plays out completely differently every time?

Also, make it hard enough that you don't generally win on the first go-around. Because it's such a different experience with each playthrough, players will not mind losing, and will instead actually look forward to starting over.

Above all, aim for Civilization-style replayability! (OK, that's a bit pie in the sky but you get my point. ) :)

edit:

(Six hours is just an arbirtary number, but definately make the max length short enough that the game is designed to have no-saving. Multiple characters per player would be an interesting way to make the no-saving thing work. As you accomplish major tasks, maybe you get more characters. Once you lose them all, well... game over. But then you get to start over with a fresh new playthrough.)

Edited July 1, 2009 by MadRussian

[Helmut_AUT 0]

Having a real, dynamic "background war" would certainly be nice, but probably very hard to implement in a believable fashion. Maybe one could simulate a war by defining a frontline in the middle of the map, and ramp up the ambient combat module intensity when the player gets close to it. Then, through special missions, it could be possible to move parts of the front in a pre-defined way.

Use the Warfare functions for that - define a frontline and have only the towns on either side as goals. If a majority of towns is captured left, right or center, move that part of the front line over to the next few towns.

You'd likely get away with 5 to 6 steps for each side, so maybe 20 different "front line states". Might also be good if Warfare can be "paused" occasionally, so there isn't ALWAYS firefights going on.

Not sure you need multiplayer. Oblivion and Stalker do well without it, and the hours required to put into it make it prohibitive anyway (how often can anyone find a buddy or two to play the same character in an ongoing mission for hours?)

JIP Multiplayer is right out anyway, since you'd need to store stats and character for each player until he comes back, and each new player would have to create a new character - indeed NASA stuff.

Warfare as core module to simulate a fight between two sides, and the player able to fight independently for cash, or later join a side is a good start. SecOps works well as a random mission generator, it just needs some more templates. Guarding can also be done without writing your own module.

Edited July 2, 2009 by Helmut_AUT

[karstux 10]

I'm currently learning the ArmA scripting system, and I'm beginning to think that this idea is really feasible. A lot of work, but feasible. I'll try to cook up a prototype, though I don't know how long this will take...

I'm definitely not considering multiplayer. I think the single player experience is what makes Oblivion and STALKER great, and it does simplify things considerably. It's good that Spetz brought up Mount & Blade, I love that game. One aspect that I hope to be able to achieve is the mercenary band management. Keeping your troops salaried, fed, supplied and medic'd should be an interesting challenge.

Ah, now where to find time to create all that and not neglect the gf? :)