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Your perfect MMOFPS
otomage
Member Posts: 32
Note: This post is extremely long. A shortened version of my ideas is located at the end in a Tl;DR section in the order that they appear.
After writing about what I’d like in Planetside 2, I was hit by a question. What would be a perfect MMOFPS? Recently, most of these So-called MMOFPSs are merely lobby-based shooters in disguise. WWII Online and Planetside are two of the only true MMOFPSs, in my opinion, because they have a real-time war, are not instanced, and have persistence. That excludes games like Fallen Earth, because it’s not a big war game like WWIIoL and PS.
My perfect MMOFPS is based on the influences of Planetside (in its prime), WWIIoL, BF2/Warrock, and Global Agenda. Each of these games have some serious pros, and serious cons that can be debated for a long time, but bear in mind that my objective was to sift through these games to find their excellent design ideas, not start a debate over the account system of Warrock. I'm also not here to talk about politics, and if anyone would take offence by this 'lore,' I apologize.
So without further a-due, here is my vision of the perfect MMOFPS.
The lore: This game takes place in the semi-near future. The modern world is at an arms race for the second time since the 20th century, but the lines have been blurred. After the collapse of the Euro, America, Canada, and Asia sever diplomatic and economic ties with EU. The Europeans loose the natural resources of Russia and the aid of America, leaving it with only one choice. The African and Middle Eastern nations have been developmentally challenged because of the wars fought in their borders, despite having isolated natural resources, and most lack a modern military. They decide to merge with the European Union, despite historical and religious issues, forming the Euro-African League. America and Canada see a danger in this, and agree to form the North American Coalition, combining the natural resources of Canada and the production power of America. The NAC cut ties with Asia, not requiring their industrial strength. Russia and China react to the new, threatening shape of the world by joining forces to form the Pan-Asian Nation. Most of Asia joins this entity. Australia is neutral, but all three factions lay claim to it. The PAN say it is geographically closest, the EAL claim the historical Anglo heritage, and the NAC claim diplomatic ties. When the PAN invade Australia to take it by force, the entire world erupts into its Third World War.
Again, Note: this gameplay section is extremely long. A shortened version is at the end, in the order that I wrote about them.
The world could consist of three factions based off of real-world communities- the North-American Coalition, The Euro-African League, and the Pan-Asia Nation. This could cause some population imbalancing due to ‘geographic favorability,’ but Planetside’s idea of providing statistical bonuses to factions lower in population would assist in the balance of that. Each faction would have its own lore/background, player models, weapons, and vehicles based off of real-world technology, either currently in the field, or under development. Example- the NAC would have the M-16 or M-4 carbine, AT-4, and Scar-L/H for infantry weapons, versus the PAN having the AK-47, Queen Bee, and Type 88.
I would really want to see as many differences in equipment as possible. Strengths and weaknesses need to be different per piece of equipment. For example, an F-15 should have significantly different capabilities then a Eurofighter, and a Chinook Transport helicopter should have significantly different capabilities then a Mi-8 Hip.
Developed naval combat has been on players’ wish lists for a while now, and could be an excellent new feature. Ships could be used to bombard the coastal areas, zodiac boats could be used for tactical/stealth insertion, and major ships (Carriers, Cruisers, so on and so forth) could also be used to spawn players and their transport vehicles, both air and sea-based. To balance out the power of naval combat, thirty days after the war starts, there would be a level requirement and number cap on the amount of powerful ships field-able by a faction at one time, in one ‘hemisphere’ of the world.
Air combat was something that some MMOs have done quite well, and needs to be added to my perfect MMOFPS. That being said, I would love to see further exploration into this area. Each faction should have their own distinguishable air vehicles. Some serious focus should be put on variation of Close Air Support and transportation. I’d love to see an A-10 come swooping down to clear a path for the grunts, and I’d love to fly in a Cobra Attack Helicopter, protecting a Blackhawk loaded with special ops troops. Having different options for the same job would allow players pick vehicles that would fit their game play types better. A Little bird is extremely fast and agile, it can carry some troops, and can come with twin Hellfire missiles and a chaingun, but is relatively unarmored.
Areas that could be captured could be various forms of Forward Operating Bases (replacing towers). Artillery emplacements, AA batteries, Converted Civilian Airports, and Vehicle Depots are possibilities for these, which would provide the defender and attacker some serious bonuses when either defending or attacking territories. Military Forts, which have destroyable machine gun/AA nests and vehicular obstacles, and also have a vehicle depot, basic runways and Helicopter pads with hangers, and a barracks/armory would be in the land as well. Finally, Cities would be used as major battlegrounds. Cities could provide regional bonuses, and could have multiple zones that need to be taken to completely own the city.
Respawns could be handled via a waved parachute deployment to supply sites set up by other players. A supply DLS/DZ/zone could be set up in the field by players, where players can parachute in with their chosen loadout, and perhaps light vehicles. There would be a limit to cost-per-drop and unit count/type per drop, unless you are being transported from the sanctuary (more on that below), but all primary and secondary weapons and equipment would be costless, along with basic ballistic armor. Players could of course respawn in Barracks’, located in Forward Operating Bases and those other objectives, but protecting and fortifying this site would be imperative to providing a steady stream of troops and light assets.
Terrain would be one major item to focus on. Shapes, colors, and features would vary per geographic area, obviously, but there should be some different man-made features between objectives. Having suburbs between a city and a military base, having highways, having a monastery on top of a mountain overlooking a major mountain passage, having a shanty town or a New England town, all of these would provide some excellent changes in pace along with providing strategic opportunities. Placing snipers and AT in the monastery suddenly causes a battle over nothing but a geographic feature. Players would be able to orchestrate ambushes on the highway or set up roadblocks in the suburbs.
I would also like to see leaders of a certain rank being able to build/place destructible assets, from sandbag walls to bunkers with heavy weaponry in them, along with having those being auto-built over time near objectives. This allows players to set up ambushes, prevent enemy forces from landing on their shores or getting through tough geographic areas, and create some epic moments where it would not have been possible due to lack of assets in that area. The higher the player’s stats/level, the more/better options the player has.
Something that I have been toying with would be an instanced general Ceasefire zone rather then a sanctuary system like Planetside. This could be located anywhere from Antarctica to a lore-based area (Where the first nuke hit, etc). This Ceasefire zone could have certification stations (the certification system should absolutely be brought over). There could be sections to this zone, a general area where players could meet, and faction-specific area where trespassing is not allowed and players can get their outfit grouped together and organized before heading out to the battlefield. The benefits to having this style of sanctuary is the ability to have the entire world able to be a streaming, real-time combat zone, with no loading zones. As long as your faction has an operable respawn site, the entire faction population can respawn.
Finally, I would LOVE to see an implementation of a news feature. If a major event happens, such as a major push to land and take over Greenland, or London/NYC/Beijing/Moscow is taken, there would be a romanticized article about it on the website or forums. Possibly, if a player/organization had a major effect on the battle, their exploits could be mentioned/quoted in the reports.
TL;DR: Definite variation between faction equipment and multiple choices of equipment for each job, Naval Combat, Extensive Air Combat, Various FOB’s/Military bases as objectives, along with cities which are cappable in zones, Parachute respawn or objective respawn, Cool/tactical/man-made terrain in between objectives, destructible assets (From sandbags to bunkers with heavy weapons) being auto/player built, Social/staging area, News feature.
Feel free to post any comments, suggestions, criticisms, or your own ideas for your perfect MMOFPS!
Comments
MY perfect MMOFPS?
Everything you just said but it'd basically be Battlefield: Bad Company 2's graphics, guns, and sounds, with Modern Warfare 2's ability to make your own banners, a REALLY good character customization system like city of heroes, vehicle seating like Planetside has and unlimited vehicles based on if you own a base that can make them so everyone can have one, vehicle paint jobs, and also I posted this thread over at the planetside forums as for what they could do to planetside 2.
So yeah... heh. That would be the most awesomest thing evar. :P
Call of Duty,
Why would I need more players to kill, or kill me, than that?
There are already so many players I can't kill them all, and I already get killed a bazillion times.
It's a good point and many of my RL friends and people say that.
Call of Duty doesn't have a character creation that you can make a guy look like you or how you want in multiplayer. You can't decide if you want to play as a VS, CS, or Terran Republic like in Planetside. However, FPS like COD and Battlefield are starting to take from MMORPGs with weapon speccing and trait speccing. It's only a matter of time before they have all these things I guess.
Red Dead Redemption.
I don't have an Xbox or PS3.
You're missing out. The game is amazing and even "feels" like an MMO.
I could care less about the lore and such. I rarely play shooters for the story (Bioshock being an exception, and Fallout + Mass Effect if you count those...). I don't care what the setting is, I'm looking mostly at the gameplay:
1. Since we are playing a MMO and not a lobby-based shooter it needs an open world where you can build customizable bases and lots of vechiles. Open world environments don't lend themselves to shooters well (everyone will just pick sniper classes), but if you could build raidable bases then you can create some pretty nifty play fields. Making a trading hub and instancing the rest of the game isn't a MMO! Stop calling it that! It needs to be an open world. Let the players build within that world.
2. Customization needs to be a high priority since it's one of those things you don't see too often in traditional lobby based shooters. Vehicles, bases, characters, banners/decals/etc. all should be fully customizable.
3. Guns shouldn't scale as you progress, instead you should unlock more and more weapon types/vechiles and unique stuff (more customization options for instance). Think Modern Warfare 2 in this regard. I really hate these new shooters that claim to be a MMOFPS, but are simply RPG gear checks with a skin of a MMO. I'm not playing a RPG, I want to be on equal level of my opponent even as a newbie. Starting weapons need to give me basic options for each gun type (long range, machine gun, launchers to fight vehicles, etc.). From there I can unlock more unique weapons as I progress, but I never want to feel like the other player defeated me because his weapon and armor was better than mine.
It's pretty disappointing that after Planetside and World War II online the games that claim to be MMOFPS(es) are taking a step backwards. I'd consider all of them FPS with RPG content, not massive multiplayer in the slightest.
Planetside, before the expansion.
I couldn't have said it better than you.
Also, does anyone think Metroid helmet HUDs would be awesome in Planetside 2? or just in a futuristic FPS?
Planetside action & setting with World War II Online vehicle simulator depth. BFR's were nice though, at least before they were nerfed into paper bags. Maybe add player base construction to that? Like in SWG GCW pre-NGE. But with only a number of major bases being set up by Generals, and smaller temp outposts by lower ranks.
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
Seconded. Fantastic game. Free Roam MP needs bugfixes and more features though.
I'm finding myself agreeing with the customization ideas that are popping up, I should have thought about that in my original idea/post. By having a bit of character shape customization (which prevents major hitbox issues but allows for player choice), but a lot of character detail customization, you can have some really nice models that players can be happy about and say "that's mine."
Having attachments to weapons traditionally causes lowbie/vet balance problems. However, those dissapear if we throw out the traditional model and allow any level total access to all attachments for a gun as soon as they cert for the gun. Some attachments that I would add would be Red Dot/reflex, silencer, flash suppresser, ACOG, drum barrel, extended mag, dual mag (two magazines taped together, so one can reload very fast once, then have a much longer animation to grab the next dual mag), and shortened barrel, just to name a few. Vehicle customization is a lot tougher to balance when dealing with multiple designs. EX: Tank A can fire from a very far distance and is slow, Tank B fires from much shorter distances, but is fast. by playing strengths, it makes it a closer matchup, but still in A's favor. Even If Tank B enhances his engine, because Tank A either enhanced each shot's splash damage or speed, or enhanced his range, or his accuracy at range. So vehicle customization is a tough thing to tackle, but maybe by making customization values unique per tank could solve that problem.
Furthermore, apperance customization is important, but so is target identification. I wouldn't want to give up that important aspect of gameplay for the sake of looking different. So instead of full uniform customization, I'd say that having a somewhat limited spectrum of colors to choose from per faction would work, which is easer to recognize then you may think. All you have to remember is that you don't shoot, say, reddish or greenish players. Players can access different patterns of clothing that have more universal colors on them (so a player on a different faction could have a muted blue with black or white matte uniform) for both customization and camoflauge. Also, players could add some non-regulation 'flair' to their uniform or change the apperance of that uniform (rolled up shirt, un-zippered body armor, bandana, etc.). Vehcial customization is a lot tougher, but again, a color identifier over a more general exterior color will work.
1) STALKER
2) Red Dead Redemtion
Hype train -> Reality