Create a hostile faction in a modern fps

[Xanadu84]

Maybe this is the Rum and Coke I just drank talking but you know what? Screw it. Lets kick the offensive shock value into high gear.

An extremist, Right Wing survivalist, anti government militia.

We all think about it, particularly us liberal leaning Americans. Imagine the catharsis of playing a soldier and fighting against some right wing extremists militia that's trying to overthrow the guv'ment with delusions of big brother and a war on Christians. Its not all that hard to imagine. And while it would be TERRIBLE for the state of political discourse, it would be pretty damn fun to play.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

I think you kinda go the Cobra Commander or Ultimate Dr. Doom route...or to a lesser extent the "ten rings" from Iron Man.

Essentially create a faction not defined by national or racial boundaries controlled by a leader who actively seeks out the disenfranchised of the general populace while keeping a public persona of a legitimate multinational businessman.

Set the game several years after the enemy faction has come public, they're recognized as a threat but the extent to which their leadership has swithin the governments and businesses of the world is unknown or unconfirmed. Game starts within hours of the leader finally playing his hand, most if not all of his sleeper agents go live and start creating mass anarchy.

blah blah blah, grab some guns and make everyone who isn't you die.

 

[Sack of Cheese]

Halflings! Half-demons, half-human.
Or, I dunno, elves? Dwarves? Orcs? I can do this all day!!

 

[The Towel Boy]

The Infiltraitors: A very secretive orginization exclusive to descendants of an ancient order of warriors. Known for their hacking and stealth abilities, they are also very handy in regular gunfights. True-blooded members are able to disperse their entire bodies into the shadows around so they can envelop their foes quickly and quietly. They are not afriad to use brutality to interrogate captives. Completely random, made-up, and interesting...

 

[Tiger Sora]

Year 2241. Mars and Earth are in a war brought on by Earths smug sense of superiority. They think they are better than the men and women of Mars and they resent that to the point of invasion. Who would of thought that within 100 short years a simple colony would grow to rival the might of Earth. But that does not matter now soldier. Gear up, earth needs us.

Man fighting man. A hatred and a discriminatory view of the other just because of the dirt ball they live on. How human.

 

[HannesPascal]

Why is it so bad for folks who happen to be brown skinned to be the enemies in games? If you are trying to base your game in a modern military setting, and you need a lot of enemies to fill up your levels, there are really not too many places to look. Africa, Asia, South America, and the Middle East are sort of the only places that a modern military could realistically be conceived to need to fight. Maybe Mexico, but you'd still just be fighting brown skinned people, which is bad for some reason, right? There just aren't any European terrorist states.

I mean, you can make it right wing nutjobs or a PMC or something, but the scope of the story would have to be pretty small.

All of this is assuming, of course, that the protagonist would be from the United States or some other western nation.

That was actually my point with this thread; since I've noticed a lot of people have complained about brown skinned enemies but I couldn't really make up a semi-realistic scenario outside of the locations you mentioned.

As for PMC:s I don't think that would really work because having a PMC as the main enemy runs the risk of creating a new ridiculous Umbrella Corporation.

So this is my crossroads: is the question tailored to the western world as a whole just the United States who anybody is a minority if they aren't pure, white bred American?

Mostly the US since that's the country most fps are based upon.

 

[Treblaine]

I would love to see a game where Europe is being invaded by America and we have to fight back.

Done aaaand,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_of_Heroes

done.

But you have to play as the Nazis *tear*.

And the Americans were pretty crap at invading, they only won through quantity, they had neither the best equipment nor best tactics. If they had fought as many of the Wehrmacht for as long as the Russians did on the Eastern Front, they'd have lost almost as many personnel.

 

[Treblaine]

Well several games have done US-military forces, actually one of the earliest FPS games, Half Life had the USMC as principal antagonists aaaand, didn't really do much to be honest. It might as well have been contrived circumstances that the Spetznaz had occupied the facility.

Really it was just hard to understand the motivation, USMC like to see they can take on anything and be the heroes, gunning down twee old scientists just seems implausible. It's just like... why?

It always just seemed like they were being manipulated or brainwashed by G-man. I think one way it could make sense is if it combined it with the plot of The Thing, how super dangerous aliens can perfectly mimic humans and a few get into the marines' trust then attack and kill a load of them. This then makes the Marines super suspicious of all the staff at Black Mesa and it only takes a nudge from G-Man to convince them all the staff are shape-shifters and must be contained and killed if necessary.

But Half Life 1 never explores that angle, it just takes the X-Files route of "herp a derp, guberment ordered me to round up and kill unarmed civilians, I don't care if I risk court martial for following what's clearly an illegal order".

Really, that's what I want, a plausible antagonist. Where it makes sense why they are trying to kill me, and an INTERESTING reason. The current situation:

>Enemy is interesting
>Enemy's antagonism makes sense

Pick one.

At the moment, any attempts to make interesting enemies have made ones that don't make sense. You can have the very boring and predictable Taliban forces or contrived circumstances why you're fighting the whole US army.

Or Americans, a game where they are the enemy that actually has good gameplay.

Not singling you out in particular (okay, I am) but that's hardly original.

Here's a list where the combat opponents in shooters are Americans (not including zombies or criminal gangs):
-Half Life 1
-Half Life Blue Shift
-Every GTA game
-Every Saints Row game
-Half the games in COD multiplayer (one team is American, the other OpFor)
-The final act of Modern Warfare 2 in particular
-Spec Ops the Line
-Prototype 1 & 2
-Kane and Lynch
-Mirror's Edge (clearly in America, and way more shooting in this game than there should be)
-Red Faction: Guerilla (the EDF all have distinct American Dialect)
-One third of the classes in Team Fortress 2
-Bioshock (not technically part of the United States, but founded by Americans)
-Crysis 2
-Metal Gear Solid 4
-Half the Tomb Raider games (Lara shoots her way into Area 51, killing scores of US servicemen for no other reason than to steal their stuff)

These aren't obscure games. There is no shortage at all of games where Americans are the opponents.

I think it's simply the case where people DON'T NOTICE when the opponents are American, it just doesn't register even when gunning down even American cops and US servicemen. it's like watching Wile E Coyote get hit by an anvil.

I remember, way back in 1990's there was a brief slight controversy over Lara Croft being quite so gung ho killing US servicemen. But then everyone told them to sit-down-and-shut-up, it's just a game, it's not even trying to be real-to-life. I'm sorry there isn't a steady supply of Nazis throughout history that can always be there as the "ideal bad guy" as the Indiana Jones movies showed they were so good for.

 

[DarklordKyo]

An entire nation of Manbearpigs.

 

[verdant monkai]

Liberal Zombies

They are just like the Nazi ones but their uniforms aren't as swish.

 

[Darren716]

In 2020 a group of angered 18-20 year olds feel that they can topple the government due to training they received from playing Call of Duty since they were 7. You are a part of the military force who is tasked with taking down these rebels. The game is extremely easy because your opponents have no clue on how to operate a gun or how to aim since they used CoD as a training manual so they try to kill you by doing "leet 420 no scope sniper kills", running up to try and knife you, and ***** and moan that all their team mates are dying because of lag and hackers.

 

[Starik20X6]

Why does it have to be a military shooter? An FPS where you play as an idealistic rookie cop, who gets dragged in way over her head into a world full of corruption, gang violence, serial killers and organised crime.

 

[unindexedsearchengine]

A militia composed of former inmates. Through unspecified circumstances, all the biggest prisons in the world riot, successfully, due to some over-powering influence, band together, and wage a guerrilla war against the very concept of unified government and law enforcement

 

[Kayos]

An army of 10ft demon cockroaches, that have extra plated husks, breath fire, and shoot lazers from their eyes

 

[StashAugustine]

Americans, a game where they are the enemy that actually has good gameplay.

See, I think that if you had a developer that actually cared about making an interesting game as opposed to techonoporn, you could have a really good game (speaking from a pure gameplay perspective) as an American force fighing insurgents. Look at Black Hawk Down or We Were Soldiers. Both deal with American forces fighting under-equipped natives, and they're both incredibly tense. You'd have a game where you're under fire from all sides, not sure when or if you're getting help, you can call down artillery and helicopters but it's not enough, every man you lose is one that you'll never get back and every man you kill is replaced in seconds. It wouldn't have to be jingoistic- We Were Soldiers is very respectful of its enemy and rather cynical about Vietnam. It's just that "modern military shooter" means "kill hundreds of people for slim justifications effortlessly with big explosions and robots."

 

[ComradeJim270]

For a modern, "realistic" FPS, I'd like to see terrorists who are actually portrayed as having sincere motives that a rational mind can comprehend. Now, that's not to say their methods are portrayed positively (because they're terrorists, you can't do that), but you can go "I see why they hold these beliefs even if they are using reprehensible methods in the name of them." Especially if they're contrasted with protagonists who are are portrayed as being flawed in their own way.

I'm sick of Manichean struggles, how about some genuine moral ambiguity?

Or let's go with a game that doesn't have that, but a more cartoonish one where the hostile faction is the good guys trying to stop you? Sort of like Dungeon Keeper, but an FPS.

On that lighter note, I'd like to see a lighter-hearted game with opponents who are painfully aware that they're antagonists in an FPS, and comment on this as best they can without breaking the fourth wall, and do things like run in terror when they're actually screwed, or when you're in a difficult situation they go "Holy shit, we can actually do this! CHARGE!"

 

[Treblaine]

For a modern, "realistic" FPS, I'd like to see terrorists who are actually portrayed as having sincere motives that a rational mind can comprehend. Now, that's not to say their methods are portrayed positively (because they're terrorists, you can't do that), but you can go "I see why they hold these beliefs even if they are using reprehensible methods in the name of them." Especially if they're contrasted with protagonists who are are portrayed as being flawed in their own way.

I'm sick of Manichean struggles, how about some genuine moral ambiguity?

Or let's go with a game that doesn't have that, but a more cartoonish one where the hostile faction is the good guys trying to stop you? Sort of like Dungeon Keeper, but an FPS.

On that lighter note, I'd like to see a lighter-hearted game with opponents who are painfully aware that they're antagonists in an FPS, and comment on this as best they can without breaking the fourth wall, and do things like run in terror when they're actually screwed, or when you're in a difficult situation they go "Holy shit, we can actually do this! CHARGE!"

Whether it actually is or isn't, people will SEE moral dualism or they simply won't fight. People aren't going to risk their lives and fight so hard and kill if they don't think it's the right thing to do. They'll desert, or for a game they'll switch off. See people don't like being made to feel bad about their decisions or in future they just won't make their decisions.

War - where people suffer and die - can only exist with Manichean struggle, or at least the perception of one.

Avoiding a Manichean struggle just for the sake of it will come across as a "what a twist" kind of bullshit ending, and you just feel like a sucker, and idiot.

The thing is the zombies need to be insane cannibals beyond reasoning, not misunderstood, otherwise you are having a Shyamalan style twist at the cost of gameplay motivation, you can do that shit on film as you are just observing a character and like Macbeth you can see the protagonist do wrong. But tricking the player into doing wrong or telling them to do wrong and telling them off for it, the classic "you should kill them" then "you shouldn't have killed them... but the game wouldn't let you continue if you didn't" which makes them not want to play your game, or play it an not care.

The only way there can be Motivated conflict without moral dualism is taking out the negative consequences.

Team Fortress 2 is a pretty good Cartoonish approach to conflict, it doesn't clearly show one side as the bad guy, in fact it makes very clear through the lore that the divisions are extremely arbitrary of two brothers hiring mercs to secure inheritance of their father's fortune. Frankly, there is more likely to be a Team Fortress 2 movie than a Half Life movie, it's lore is almost as fleshed out as Portal or Half Life.

I think you'd like TF2.

It's strongly hinted that the Mercs are all subject to cloning technology, which is how multiples of the same individual can appear and live again after death, so death doesn't matter. Hence it's not a manichean struggle as the consequences of death are very clearly, brief comical discomfort of Wile E Coyote style death, then appear back at the spawn. In fact it's very much like a Tom and Jerry cartoon, huge explosions and dismemberment, they just look at the camera and go:

 

[Arfonious]

America would make for a great enemy

Like a capitalist Nazi-Germany sort of thing