Skin said:
The setting has been so overdone that its not even worth investing time in even thinking on how we can improve it. Honestly, would much rather see some WW2 games make a comeback or something.
Fuck. No.
End of discussion.
I think from a technological standpoint, there isnt really anything left to add. Its just a matter of taking everything that is currently in the genre, and mixing and matching to get the winning combination.
Personally, I would, in the simplest terms, Take COD and set it in a ArmA map, and make it play out like something from Just Cause or Far Cry 2 or something.
The story for the game has a country in the middle of a civil war, between a progressive movement and the old government (both sides would be grey, neither better or worse). The US picks its own side, with maybe China picking the other (it would get shoehorned in there somehow, so might as well through it in now.) Instead of choosing either the Pro-Gov (US) side or the Pro-Movement (China) side, you would instead play as a mercenary thats part of one of 3 different PMCs. They each have their own reason for being there:
PMC A[footnote] For lack of actual names...[/footnote]: "A anonymous group" hires your PMC to stabilize the country quickly, as they have "investments" in that country that this civil war is jeopardizing.
PMC B: Another "Anonymous group" that hired your PMC to
Destabilize the country further, hinting at wanting to actually take control of the remains for their own profit.
PMC C: You guessed it... "Another Anonymous group" that wants the same as the B group, but instead simply want to be the guys to "help rebuild" the country.
Instead of having actual story missions, the story would instead be dispersed in the form of News Broadcasts, and would be determined by a number of factors. By this, you basically have a massive number of news broadcasts that give off events that happened in game, and based on certain variables (like which side has the greater control and such) at given times, these broadcasts would play, detailing all that has happened (the idea is something like the
procedural stories Shamus Young talked about. Hot the most detailed or griping of story, but a worthy sacrifice for this particular game.) This would result in a game whos story would basically depend completely any and most all choices you made in game.
The game world itself would be huge, being the size of a small (but still decently large) country. Your PMC would have numerous bases to which you could fast travel to (with helos and such) and receive missions to accomplish. These missions would be anything from basic "go here and kill stuff" to "blow this bridge up" or "go here and take over this location". There would also be a number of stats kept track of, like how many Government/Progressive forces you killed/destroyed, how many US/Chinese forces you killed/destroyed, civilian kills and property damage and the like. These stats would also affect the game world (like with the missions mentioned above) that would either help you or come back to bite you in the ass.
The game would also have a "Private" and "Public" game modes instead of single-player and multi-player. Private game mode will be the same game, but only you (or anyone that you allow in) are in the world. Public mode would basically be like a MMO with hundreds of players in the world, fight with or against each other.
Thats all I have for now... Come to think of this, it would probably be a decent ArmA mod, wouldnt it?
)
