Bruupo

I think the problem of making the game appealing to casual gamers/action gamers is a serious marketting concern. Which is why making a fully dynamic campaign could easily devolve into micromanagement and minimized cinematic rewards for those types of gamers. Perhaps a dynamic campaign mode could be unlocked after finishing 20 well scripted, cinematic, semi-dynamic missions. This would get casual gamers used to the game before they attempted tackling a dynamic campaign, and would lower the cinematic expectations for the dynamic mode. The dynamic campaign mode would be seen as a bonus, would not have to be "perfected" to launch the game, and the mod community would have a great opportunity to help the devs flush out the dynamic mode. There could still be lots of dynamic elements to the scripted missions, some might directly affect further missions- but too much of that would make the game very difficult for anyone who didn't want to stomp around the map looking for every easter egg each mission. Still, the easter eggs are important. I would really like to see a camera item become important, perhaps the screenshots a player took with their "camera" could be loaded into an intelligence folder. It would be nearly impossible, I imagine, for the game to correlate anything to those screenshots other than where the player was standing at the time they took it, but even a sector based organization of those images could be important to experienced, tactically minded players who want to take a quick picture of an enemy position or installation which they feel they will have to tackle in a future mission. There are probably also ways of rewarding non-combat exploration by experienced players by giving them additional info in their next mission briefing. In short, I think intel objectives make great easter eggs, which have tactical effect, but still don't prevent casual players from succeeding if they only have access to the default mission briefing. The strengths and types of enemies scripted into a future mission don't have to be changed in response to intel side-objectives, but they could in certain circumstances. Within a Vietnam setting, however, I personally feel that the best balance could be acheived between dynamic and scripted elements by essentially modeling two enemy forces for the player to confront. Regular army forces, such as the NVA, and guerrilla elements, such as the Vietcong. The NVA aspects of the campaign would be the more heavily scripted, and less affected by player success and attention, while the attitude and actions of various guerrilla forces (which could include "allied" Hmong tribesman, etc. in addition to Vietcong) could be much more responsive to player decisions. This could go as far as allowing the player to decide between accepting a "main" campaign mission and a side mission meant to stave off a future Vietcong attack, by pacifying a village, assisting and cementing a friendly relation with a guerilla group, etc. One aspect I really liked about Vietcong was the way it preloaded the character into the base before the mission was loaded, allowing the player to use the firing range to determine load-out, walk to the HQ to get their briefing, etc. I believe this model could be extended to allow the player to pick his squad right from the barracks of whatever base they were stationed at, but also would allow an excellent opportunity for a dynamic attack by guerrilla forces, when the player least expected it. Particularly if the player has been neglecting guerrilla force objectives in that region. The key to having a semidynamic campaign of that type would seem to be having default load-outs and "recommended" missions to give casual players a rewarding and successful campaign, while allowing players who want to customize their missions and seek out all the easter eggs to not remove all difficulty from said campaign. More thoughts later...sorry for the length.

Let's keep in mind that in terms of Single Player, wanting all the inter-squad commands to be voiced by specific characters would end up like Vietcong. An actor has to be hired to record all those commands, and the squad would be limited to how many actors could be hired to record all those commands, and the game would most likely have no flexibility in letting players choose squadmates. In Vietcong, any squad-member death is a mission ending event. If we only want one or two voices recording ALL the commands, they will sound rather unconvincing when the squad inter-communicates, and those voices would become grating in no time. I would rather hear banter in cut-scenes than not be able to choose my squadmates. And I would like to have a menu of squadmates ala Ghost Recon, as many have suggested, with varying skills that can improve during missions, but can still end up KIA and not be a mission ending event. I believe having a squadmate pick up a special weapon should require a player order in most cases, especially under fire. Much like having a medic treat a wounded soldier should require an order if that soldier is still in an enemy field of fire. If the immediate firefight is over, it would be nice to have a script- even if it causes a load-hang, that would have the medic treat all wounds while all the soldiers resupplied and cleaned up their inventory. At that point, soldiers assigned as "riflemen" without special weapons could automatically be re-equipped with a fallen comrades LMG, AA-unit, AT unit, etc. Priority for the re-equip list could be mission-specific. That is, if you need those satchel charges for the mission, someone will grab them, and the player isn't forced to stand around for half an hour managing inventory one order at a time. IMO, picking up enemy equipment should not be a part of an auto-script, particularly in a Vietnam setting, where the audible difference between weapon reports is so noticable and combat relevant. I believe setting up a means of resupply of original ammo is vital, be it helo-resupply, or a specified map location. Squadmates should not be forced to use enemy equipment, even if the player character decides to do so in an attempt to confuse any AI scripting relating to weapon report (hearing an m16 report within a certain range should trigger the enemy AI to react, while a player character using an AK might not be specifically detected and responded to until LOS was breached or an enemy hit was scored). Using stolen enemy equipment should really only be advantageous in covert ops, IMO. Many people have covered these things to some degree, as well as suppresive fire- which I can only imagine is very difficult to implement, but is essential to immersion and tactics. Suppressive fire of various kinds could be attached to a fairly simple "emotional" model. If an enemy AI is pinned down by suppressive fire, and makes x number of attempts to move or return fire- but x number of rounds is sent at them within their area and they remain "suppressed", then they should break down and drop their weapon, not surrender in terms of giving your squad a prisoner they have to tote around, but they are no longer considered an effective enemy unit. There should be a similar way of dealing with enemies that run away- if they panic run a certain distance, have the game forget them completely, please. If the squad moves past "surrendered" soldiers, maybe a script could change them into bound soldiers, who lie where they are as if they were dead. If you're squad is retreating, or bypassing emotionally "surrendered" soldiers, then you shouldn't have to see or deal with them, or kill them to accomplish an objective. The only exception might be expert enemy AI, which could pretend to be "shellshocked" as a way to sucker you into forgetting about their positition- but there are only so many times that that experience would be fun for the player, particularly if it cost them squadmates. More thoughts later, sorry, I'm longwinded.