Time

But in Nam we'll be probably playing the conscripts, some spoiled rookies, who were kicked out of the cradle. Still, if a guy had to be carried away anyone would do it with adrenaline which floods the body during stressful situations like combat. People are capable to do incredible things when they're pumped with adrenaline.

As far as I remember Marek Spanel said once that if realism in the games isn't fun, then nothing is. He also said that they will be trying to make as far as realistic interaction with the enviroment and realistic behaviour models of AI. This includes also surrendering, doesn't it? One thing I don't like is scripted events. Let the AI do the whole thing because it's much more realistic.

True. But wounded must get carried off the field somehow (usually after the area is safe enough?). To be done by two men is more likely to happen, but it takes a lot more things to programm that in a game. Maybe we should take a look at some realistic movie like Platoon or video clips from documentaries, read stories from the real soldiers...

Soldiers should be sittin on tanks and be carried around. When the firefight begins they would jump off the vehicle.

Now, when the idea of carrying the wounded off the field was mentioned in another topic I see no point in bringing that up. But if you get heavily wounded, the game would end. Otherwise if the wound wasn't so serious, you may return into your unit (if the idea of "war theatre" mentioned in another topic was already included, if the missions are linear, it's no use then).

I don't like the way health concerns are done in almost every game. In most of them, there is only 0%-100% bar or another one for shield. This wasn't drastically improved from Wolfenstein3D in 1993. Then we got locational damage, but which is still usually reducing our amount of health just in different way. Then, in OFP1 you couldn't walk if you were hit in the legs or aimed worse if you were hit in the chest or hands (correct me if I'm wrong). First thing that must be improved in OFP2 is the locational damage of course. Make it at least Soldier Of Fortune II standard. But to make it even better I would make a direct hit and supeficial hit which would actually be calculated from a luck factor (there are lesser chances you'll get just a scratch). A direct hit would mean you are seriously hurt. And don't add up any health indicators (it would be a sin ;), let the player look with a special button where he's hurt or just a yell ("AAAAH, my leg!"). If he gets a direct hit in a knee he stumbles first and he can't walk anymore. The end. No slower walking. If the player gets a direct hit in his arms he can't raise his weapon to aim, unless he lies on the ground. Superficial hit would just degrade the maximum performance of the player. If a bomb explodes nearby, he is blown away by the pressure and he hears nothing but ringing in his head for some time while the rest of the sounds are in background. Or if the explosion was really close he gets stunned and looses consciensness for a period of time (the monitor goes black). While the player is stunned the time gets accelerated 8x (or more or less) until he awakes in a helicopter for example (his buddys have picked him up). He might still feel sick from the concussion and have a distorted and double vision thus he isn't able to fight optimally. Dying slowly. You're in shock, time goes faster (mind that), the view is blurred, the sounds are silenced, (you get morphine from the medic and everything is ok and there should be time that's left till you're really dead (the medic still might stop the fatal bleeding or bleeding). You might die also uncouscious. If you look at the casualties numbers of any war, you'll see that the most of them are the wounded not killed, so please at least make it look that way. People usually get incapacitated, stunned, maimed but they must be very unlucky to get killed. I might add something more about health concerns later. That's all for now, folks.

I was trying to tell about health concerns in the topic "Get killed in many nasty ways" but which obviously no one has read (please do  Medics in OFP1 are magicians, not medics and the damaging system could be improved much better. Wounded soldiers should have been carried off the battlefield it's normal, but it is easier for the programmer just to kill the fella in order to avoid some more job on the carrying peole and affecting the whole gameplay. It would be very good to be like Forrest Gump in Nam Â

If you played these two games, you know what I'm talking about. In TAW there is a war campaign in Sudan vs. Eritreia-Etiopia. The war goes real time and different types of missions are created in a mission pool while the war goes on. You can do only the missions which you have clearance to (enough points). In this way not even two mission are completely the same, what I find it much better than playing the same missions all over again. In Close Combat 4 & 5, there is a turn-based interface before you go fight a battle. The CC5 is happening on the Cherobourg pennisula (Omaha beach) which is divided into 40 maps where you can battle with your forces. In this "pre-battle" you move your battalions over this 40 tiles and if the German forces meet you on the same tile as your, you play a realtime battle then. What I would like to see in OFP2 is this. We are the Russians and we must occupy Everon for example. The (AI) general has limited forces and resources. Based on them, he decides, how to attack the island and to deploy his forces. And the war goes off. There would be a screen (like in TAW) of the whole island with all the forces running around and fighting all on symbolic level (win would be calculated on statistic info of factors which affect the units that are fighting). Depending on the current situation would the AI general make his decisions and give orders to the officers he commands, and these would deploy their squads as they know the best to fill out the orders they were given. And now the war would begin for the player, all what I've said till now wouldn't be viewed by player (he's a grunt, not the general). And now, a more vivid example of how would this work. The AI general has a company surrounded in a valley and he tells the nearest commander to do a relief attempt. The commander organises a group of two tank platoons and three mechanised infantry platoons to do the job. You're in a mechanised inf. unit which is ordered to cover the right flank. And then finally th game begins in 3-dimensional mode and the symbolic pauses. After the battle ends, you go to the symbolic mode. The rest of the world was paused until now. The battle you fought is makes changes to the symbolic map, the game then runs only the time you were fighting, and then again all the map is run simultaneously.

I think this "strategic campaign" system would be still better because they would get rid of the scripting but had to improve AI enormously if you want to make game run fluently (the things that were scripted before must now happen by the AI). So if you get captured with a couple of your buddys the next logical mission would be to try to escape. So there should be a kind of script or a procedure by which the AI would reckognise it is captured and tries to escape. I belive that one major advantage of "strategic campaign" is that, for example in OFP1 there were linear missions you had to do or you couldn't start the next one. Here, you can always pull out even if you didn't manage to fill out the orders, but the failure will have an effect on the whole war theatre because you screwed up, and the AI general might send you one more time to take over a hill, which you didn't a day before, for example. And the story is really written by the player, instead of those linear missions in OFP1 where the player just rewrites the story in another way. In the real world, there are different types of goals and other things important for the army to work (strategically important locations on the map, terrain and urban advantages/disadvantages <-could be premade by the mapper, logistic support, and other stuff...). The AI general would have kind of a list with these types of missions and use them according to the situation on the battlefield. The AI field commander would have a list of tactical situations (like recon, escort, patrol, assault, guard, checkpoint...). And the AI sqad leader would have his list of combat situations (I don't have any suggestions right now, think of some). Example: AIGen (AI General) has to take over a strategically important village on the crossroads in order to cut of an enemy supply route. He gives orders to take over the village to the nearest AIFC (AI Field Commander). AIFC tells the AIGen he doesn't have any more units left which could fill out the orders. AIGen calls another AIFC who is also quite near to the village. This AIFC arranges a group of some tank squads and assault infantry platoon makes a plan using the info about the terrain and the intelligence which a recon unit gathered before. After all is set, the mission begins in 3D and you start to fight with your platoon. And there would be AISL (AI Squad Leader) who would make his decisions by his experience and his "list of combat situations". As you can see, all the scripting (waypoints, time schedules, units in combat,...) would be actually be done by the AI.

Make 'em throw helmets like in Saving Private Ryan movie

I agree with you. Maybe the strategic campaign system would work better in multiplayer (with some modifications). The BI probably already has a system figured out, and all our ideas make no real difference (but I think some of them should be patented, coz they're really good, and could have a neat price)

All this emotional AI is already 7 years old in a strategy called Close Combat (already made part 5) which should you all wargame fans know. The AI works really satisfying and if the BI would do it at least at this level as it is in CC, things would become really alive. And no more radio voices (that's only for the radio man to contact other squads), people should be talkin' and yellin' and we should reckognize the amount stress they suffer from their voice. And I'd like to see expressions on their faces (like "scared", "calm", "panic", "happy", ond so on...) And there are also other factors of every combatant which affect his reactions in combat including experience (they hide and fight better, gets increased by the amount of firefight), strength (they run better, they don't get tired easily if they're in good physical condition), morale (to run or not to run, that is the question), intelligence (if they're more intelligent, usually the leaders, they won't just run to the enemy or get berserk or brave easily), and there are two more things which I've fotgotten. This is a must for every simulation of war. And if you haven't playd any part of the Close Combat series, shame on you, you don't know what you're missing. BI should at least copy (but improve would be even better, eh?) many ideas from there.

I belive that scoring system should be like in WWII for pilots. If someone of your commarades witnessed your kill, you were able to report it to the official records. Scoring points are useless, they work properly only in Tetris. And where are the merits and medals? And if there must be any reward at all, then your AI team-mates should pat you on your back, and say to you "you did a good job" or something like that. And all the players will very satisfied because all the squad says how good they are. Or even better, for example: you take out a tank and your team-mate has a camera. After the gunfire ends and the area is secured, you go take a picture at your trophy. Who gives a damn about the numbers I get at the end of the mission, it isn't even realistic. Do the soldiers get points for damage they do in real life?

I have played the games on my friends computer (I get a new one by the end of this summer, I hope), and I know how they work, enough to have the guts to talk about it  About simulating combat: I didn't say that things like tactics and methods are wrong, I'm sure they did some studies about that, but are these games capable of the same stress and fear as you feel it in a true war? I would agree with you that most of the gamers are playing the kamikaze way comparing to the real combat (if you get killed, you can still load the previous save until you finally make it right). There's no real fear of death. I read somewhere that in WWII only about 20% was shooting at the enemy (infantry) but in OFP everybody turn into gun nuts shooting at everything that moves (and the bushes ocasionally  ) And yes, I totally agree with you about simulated wars are fun because they're simulated. The keyboard reply: yes, it's true, there's still no better control system as you said, but it's quite frustrating to me to preform a balet with my fingers to tell a soldier to advance, while reloading the clip, looking for the boogies (I'm exaggerating, don't take it too literally). You can move your body parts (like head, legs, the body) much more independently in real life (and much more faster too). There was some progress achieved in OFP but not a satisfactory. In RL you use your whole body to interact with the world, in games only your fingers (and voice maybe). Hardware is trouble because it limits the things which could be included in the game. Lets face it, a true combat does not include two squads of infantry and four tanks on each side like in OFP (not to mention the logistic support). But as you increase the number of entities in the game, more detailed world, intelligent AI, realistic physics, etc. it is more likely that your computer is going to freeze. Just take a look at Doom3 leak, and try to cross it with OFP and the suggestions on this forum, mmmm, yummy, isn't it? But on what you'll run this thing, Earth Simulator? 180° : yes I tried the view in Quake2 and it's totally outlandish (actually a fish-eye view isn't it?) The problem about the sound issues I mentioned is that noone seems to notice these kind of things although they're quite obvious and easy to programme them. Oh, and one more thing: if simulation of war was totally realistic, most of the players would probably suffer psychic damage because of stress and other nonsense that happens in war, becouse war isn't just about how tossing a grenade into a bunker, but also waiting, smoking, cursing all the time, moral questions about stealing, pillaging, killing children and women. When they will implement things like that it will be very real, but no one won't like to play it. Combat is just one part of war and not the biggest.