Stickler

I'll begin with this: I am an American and I am very proud of my country but we are quickly digging a hole for ourselves that we may not be able to climb out of after many generations. Now after saying that I would like to see the Americans as the enemy. We always assume that the Russians and the ever present Communist countries as the bad guy. We even assume that Islamic nations are the enemy. Under whose circumstances are they the enemy? Cold War revisited? Anyway my idea is this: While Americans and the Democratic nations of the world are always considered the good guys... why not give a scenario where America screwed up... bad. And because of this it will see a unified invasion of America. While this may not seem practical now I believe that just changing the scenery can change the gameplay. Plus this will open up even more options for maps or islands. Each island can be essentially modelled after each state, if not the major states, of the U.S. This itself will cause controversy among Americans but it can be turned around for them because we may see even more intense fights from those who live in the state the map is representing. Imagine getting caught up in the fighting and then you turn around and see that you've been pushed back to your old neighborhood? If I were to be forced back, be it on a game or otherwise, to a neighborhood that was personal to me then I for one would fight for my life to hold that point and I believe others will too. Also I think it would be kick ass to see a D-Day invasion style amphibious assault of the west or east coast, or possibly a great spearhead through Mexico and Canada. I am basing much of this off of Red Alert 2 and its background. While Red Alert still maintained the Americans as the good guy why not change the roles. What if America turned into the new Evil Empire? Another thing, not so much enemy but a sort of resource you can use against an enemy or vice versa, is that while most games portray soldiers and "Points of Interest" as the main point of combat, we must also consider the civilian. While they may not play a practical combat role in war sims can they not though provide a sort of insulation or supportive resource. Instead of capturing points why not capture the support of the people you're fighting for in the first place. In Armed Assault I was hoping to see more implementation of the civilian and I was disappointed because are they not the reason to have an army there in the first place? Are they not the idea around which most wars are based off of? Wars are not just created for the sake of fighting it is often the result of someone suffering when they cannot defend themselves. This will also give the player a sort of guardian like feeling. Almost as if these seemingly random people are actually depending on you to survive and defend them and their way of life. This sort of disposition system can also be a sort of backfire mechanism in that if you go into a city guns blazing, blowing every building you see only to find no one is home except the people who used to live in that house you just ran over with your tank, the civilians will hate you and may even decide to fight back. Then you have civilians as a legitimate enemy as well as the army you are here to fight. This can be reminiscent of the Vietcong, you never know where the enemy sleeps. Therefore I believe this is a crucial part of any war sim.

While large cities are great why not implement a part of every modern city today: Suburbia. I'm not aware of the suburbia structure of Europe or else where but I love the idea of an American invasion. In games you see a lot of cities but when the city streets end the city just stops abruptly. Imagine capturing a city, which in and of itself would be a while, and then having to chase the enemy into a suburban setting. I have always imagined what it's like to fight in my hometown or somewhere similar to where I grew up. I believe that CQB in suburban areas can create an even greater risk for soliders as the streets never run in straight lines, greatly reducing line of sight, and many times suburbs are not as geometrically built meaning that there is no repetitive pattern in its layout. If you take a look at satellite photos of let's say pittsburgh and its outlying suburbs you can see that suburbs in a game can create many problems for soldiers if the operation were not carefully planned.

Imagine siege game modes for this game invovling sieging bases defended by those artillery guns and heavy defenses. The game could be a sort of turned base thing where you challenge a fortress of players and then you have time to set up defenses and then you attack or defned each city or point of interest. That would provide some intense firefights comparable to saving private ryan like destruction on Armed Asault scale. This type of gameplay could be like a military scale turnbased game consisting of large combined arms operations controlled by two arm chair generals that would order the human players to attack or defend those points of interest. (I realize this is nothing realistic but would be a fun RTS/FPS type open warfare.) The units during each fight could be ordered much like the units of a tactical RTS game, eg. Company of Heroes, and the victor will get the point of interest or have destroyed all the unitsof the enemy army. (Sorry for being a little off topic but those artillery guns sitting on that hill reminded me of Saving Private ryan and a typical map for CTF games with forts.)

I had an idea that was a sort of RPG versio of this type of gameplay. I'm sure most of you have seen or even played Company of Heroes and you've seen how the squads are set up. Why not when joining a game select which type of squad you wish to be a part of. For example if you like to drive vehicles be it tanks or choppers decide to be in a class or "race" that will allow you and and only your class to drive vehicles. At the same time if you enjoy being a medic or support gunner join an assault squad whose sole purpose is to attack and defend points. While engineers in an engineers type squad are supposed to defend and construst defensive measures for a siege or to repair certain things when there is a lull in attacks. I understand the need to create structure in a game like this, especially due to the sheer size of maps and armies, but instead of punishment why not reward them for performing operation sor completing mission sthat are designed for their unit class. I also think that a ranking system should be in place. This may allow you to increase certain stats (Sprinting, aiming ability) as well as allow those who have never been in charge learn slowly through small squad mission sthat forces the sergeant to command a squad of grunts to take a point or to hold somewhere. Inlike battlefield however there should never be "unlocks" or you should never have to research units unless it was a progressive game because chances are the military you are fighting for already possses the necessary materials to produce most of what you need. This type of unit and ranking can be used when created squads like mechanized or armor squads.

I am in no way a modder nor have I ever made or began to make a mod. Though recently I have found the urge to mod ArmA into a game I have been thinking about for quite some time. The mod incorporates a growing trend in other games to fuse together several genres into a sort of hybrid genre. These include FPS, RTS, as well as RPG elements of gameplay. As many know there are several games coming out now with these included so this is nothing new or spectacular. Because I have never modded before and I know that the OFP and ArmA community are fanatics about realism and not BS in games I figured I would throw this idea out into the communtiy and hopefully get some feedback about it. Possible solutions as well as constructive criticism. These are ideas and concepts nothing more but I would like some feedback from the community on these ideas so that I know whether they are plausible as well as interesting in a gameplay sense. I will explain as simply as I can this first post and update with more of my plans later as I progress. Background: This is a sci fi mod and therefore will incorporate a big sci fi aspect: Space and our involvement in it. The game is set in a time hundreds of years from now when the Humans have finally mastered interstellar travel and now control much of the local galaxy. They have annexed hundreds of planets and with them thousands of races and species. But like many large and powerful empires, they have now found themselves struggling to stand under their own weight. Because of draining resources and support from the people much of the glory and power that was once the Human race is now struggling to stay alive. A planet just inside an imaginary border set up to control expansion has seen a great uprising in the native races inhabiting it. In a span of two years more than half the planet has been taken from Human control. The player is a soldier aboard the nearest carrier available to assist the planet after losing contact with it two years ago. The ultimate objective is to slow and stop then eventually push back the rebellion. This is the basic premise but there are many more aspects which I wish to share with anyone willing to listen.

Thanks for everyone's replies. I aknowledged that this is going to be a hefty project early on. I just want some feedback for it and maybe a major developer can even use ideas from it if they find anything useful. Though I know that this is going to or would be, I'm still weary myself of attempting such a feat, but I just wanted to get feedback for it because I've been thinking about it and it quite possibly be my personal "Perfect Game." I am still going to post ideas if anyone is interested in the ideas and possibly be inspired to create it as a community mod if it's accepted enough. Here are some more ideas I had pertaining to the map itself as well as the server ideas. Again I understand the size and scale of a project this big, none the less, I want to say it. Map Layout: This mod is not going to consist of any space maps. In fact the reason why I think ArmA is a well suitable game because the maps are described as the size of large counties. The player will always remain on the planet no matter what. The future look will come from the technology as well as the alien race that the human team fights. In this mod there are two different kinds of maps. One is comprised of many maps that essentially represent puzzle pieces to the other type of map. These two types are called Region (The one large map,) and Battlefield Maps are the maps that create the region. In the center of the Region map is a small Battlefield map that is the metropolitan area of this Region. Spanning from the City Map the economical and geographical qualities of the maps change depending on the location around the City Map. For example close to the City Map will be dense residential apartments and it would be a different style of gameplay than the heavy commercial environment in the City Map. The change continues through suburbs into small towns and then rural areas and villages. The path of gameplay would follow the maps as such: The Human military team would begin in a city in the center of the region map. This City Map must be captured and held in order for the human military to advance to another map. Once held the Human Army can choose it's path out and begin taking back territory from the aliens. Outisde the City Map the fighting environment changes drastically from heavy commercial to heavy residential, and the Intergalactic version of Suburbia into the outlying farms and ranches. Hoping ArmA is fully destructible, urban wise at least, then you can save the outcome of the map and then if you have to retreat to the same map then it will still remain as destroyed as you left it. This could possibly open up for a different strategy each time you play. Destroying one objective the first time only to make yourself capture three for one. Server wise I was wondering if there was a away to create seperate servers for each map in the Region. This way you can have like five servers running each a separate map being fought for over the same Region sort of like a huge front line based on won and lost maps.