Poll: A WW1 Game - "The Whys, the Why nots, the whens, and the how not too do it's"

[Abokasee]

1914 - 1918... what a miserable 4 years for Europe and much of the world.

Similar can be said for 1939(OR 41 for some people)-45, and the prospect of the Coldwar jumping into the Oven to be served for christmas dinner, along with many other "shit got real bad btw" situations for games. However WW1... possibly the Mother of all these things, has had a very little time to go about and paddle in the pool.

There has been only one game I can recall straight away is "The Entente" - I've only played the Demo... but it seemed to play very similarly to the Cossacks series, I personally didn't like it that much so how could it be done better... how about a different format..

FPS:
Fed up of CoD6:Modern Warfare 2? how about CoD7:Trench Warfare!? well probably no, let's take a look why:
Weapon Variety: Truth be told... each nations weapon during "The Great War" wasn't spectacularly different, the Springfield was largely agreed to be very accurate (Most rifles had long range), the Enfield was the quickest ("Mad Minute").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_infantry_weapons_of_World_War_I <-- You'll see what I mean, each nation has equivilant weapons or the nation has another weapon comparable to it in the same catergory (with the Exception of the MP18 - Beretta Model 1918 and Fedorov Avtomat)

Also many would complain there would be a deal of slow paced combat due to the mainly-bolt action weapons avalible - Bayonett is the answer, but perhaps it should be the typical "Melee-is-instant kill" sort, but should be capable of doing considerable damage, and will seriously screw with anyone stupid enough to keep their rifle out - players of Mount and Blade will have a good idea what I'm talking about; oh thats another thing to add: Horses.

Other things to spice up the combat: Artillery/Mortar Shelling (Deformable terrain would also be cool when pair with this), Gasing - Wind Direction will drastically effect this, and it will be race to either find some sort of of cover from the Gas and put your Mask on, or gain a few cheap kills during the panic (I'm aware it was a weapon use mainly before an attack if an attack was coming at all)

I think a Pistol-Sword/Baton/etc weapon combo should be acceptable, oh and don't forget "Trench Clubs" and other Trench Raiding weapons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_raiding

RTS:
To Non-RTS players WW1 would seem like a good choice for an RTS setting: It has big armies and lots of big guns. But RTS players (particularly those of CoH) will see it for a total Turtle-Heaven.

But it all depends what year you set it in, 1914-16 would be particular bad years imo, 1917 being Ideal, with technologies from 1918 being made avalible as "upgrades"
Why 1917 you may ask? It's the year the United States enters the war (Perhaps the more "Mario" of the factions in the game) Aqaba is taken by Lawrence of Arabia (perhaps other fronts of WW1 could be used both in the RTS and FPS!) Tanks are avalible to Central Powers and the Entente (although the German Tank force was far cry from those of the Blitzkrieg... but they made alot of work into Anti-Tank weapons), Russian Civil War begins (possibly room for an Expansion Pack should the developers/publishers in question want to work on that)

The factions main orientated tactics would be along these lines:
USA: 'Mario' - although no tanks of there own, they can use French tanks mainly, at start they are likely to struggle somewhat, but they can over come this.
British: 'Sledgehammer' - Will need to be mainly doing defense and claiming resource areas (theres a point how would those be done...) before building up a large enough force to attack the enemy - raiding against the British is key to slowing them down
French: 'Turtle' - Mainly reliant on numbers, but they are capable
Germany: 'Assault' - Stormtroopers are particularly useful to them, especially when upgraded with MP18's
Austria: Unsure how I'd fit them in tactics wise... can't really see a niche here...
-That was just a very quick thaught-

I'm unsure how resources would be done... you certainly wouldn't being gathering resources with peasant anywhere near a first WW1 Battlefield (although Villages and Towns were frequently faught over, perhaps they could offer some sort of resource)

Those are just some quick ideas I've thaught up. What do people think?

 

[almostgold]

I posted this ages ago on a way I think a WW1 shooter could be done:

So as an earlier post pointed out, whenever someone mentions making a game about WW1, every jumps on him pointing out unduck and shoot gameplay in a trench wouldnt be fun. Others point out the lack of 'good' weapons. There are other complaints as well. So just post alternatives you think could be used for a WW1 game instead of trench warfare, or ways trench warfare could be made to work.
To get things rolling, heres a idea I posted in the aforementioned thread (before I realized the point of the thread was completely different):

WW1 is ripe for gameplay. For one, read up about the pilots during the war. Its facinating stuff. Originally, before they perfected machine guns that could shoot through the propellers, air to air combat was done- no joke- with the pilots holding pistols or rifles and trying to shoot other pilots. If you wanted to drop a bomb, you wingman had a bomb in his lap and literally just dropped it out the side of the plane. Later the interrupter gear was developed, allowing the planes to have forward firing machine guns. Of course, the main point of planes were reconnaissance. Pilots lived an almost nomad-like life, landing in the country side, hiding the plane, finding the nearest friendlies, and refuelling before returning to base.

Now tell me that wouldn't be an awesome game. Part Beyond Good and Evil (photography), part flight simulator, part first person shooter, part stealth (landing behind enemy lines and avoiding capture).

Additionally, there was some fighting done outside trenches obviuosly. Most soldiers participated in a raid at least once, but some commanders did nothing but raid the enemy trenches at night, which would be fun. To give you an idea of what that gameplay would be like, consider: if you party met an enemy party in no man's land, you couldnt use guns. The noise and flash would send every machine gunner on both sides of the line to light your area up. You had to kill the entire enemy party with you bare hands.

Personally, I'm not big on RTS's, so I'm gonna take the shooter route.

 

[AvsJoe]

Both sound great to me. As a Canuck, WWI was one of our greatest military moments in our country's short history. In that war we were referred to as STORMTROOPERS by the German army! So long as you can play in Canadian campaigns like Passchendaele and Ypres, I'd definitely be excited for it!

 

[Cherry Cola]

I posted this ages ago on a way I think a WW1 shooter could be done:

So as an earlier post pointed out, whenever someone mentions making a game about WW1, every jumps on him pointing out unduck and shoot gameplay in a trench wouldnt be fun. Others point out the lack of 'good' weapons. There are other complaints as well. So just post alternatives you think could be used for a WW1 game instead of trench warfare, or ways trench warfare could be made to work.
To get things rolling, heres a idea I posted in the aforementioned thread (before I realized the point of the thread was completely different):

WW1 is ripe for gameplay. For one, read up about the pilots during the war. Its facinating stuff. Originally, before they perfected machine guns that could shoot through the propellers, air to air combat was done- no joke- with the pilots holding pistols or rifles and trying to shoot other pilots. If you wanted to drop a bomb, you wingman had a bomb in his lap and literally just dropped it out the side of the plane. Later the interrupter gear was developed, allowing the planes to have forward firing machine guns. Of course, the main point of planes were reconnaissance. Pilots lived an almost nomad-like life, landing in the country side, hiding the plane, finding the nearest friendlies, and refuelling before returning to base.

Now tell me that wouldn't be an awesome game. Part Beyond Good and Evil (photography), part flight simulator, part first person shooter, part stealth (landing behind enemy lines and avoiding capture).

Additionally, there was some fighting done outside trenches obviuosly. Most soldiers participated in a raid at least once, but some commanders did nothing but raid the enemy trenches at night, which would be fun. To give you an idea of what that gameplay would be like, consider: if you party met an enemy party in no man's land, you couldnt use guns. The noise and flash would send every machine gunner on both sides of the line to light your area up. You had to kill the entire enemy party with you bare hands.

Personally, I'm not big on RTS's, so I'm gonna take the shooter route.

I'm pretty sure you used that quote in my WW1 thread as well...

OT: I said it before, I'll say it again: WW1 Football.

 

[sephiroth1991]

I'm not a fan of RTS, why not third person shooter

 

[Sephychu]

I think FPS and RTS would both work. FPS could be fun for psychological stuff, like never seeing your family again, and going over the top, and the war not being over by Christmas, and RTS could be really good bare-bones fun.

 

[Cinder Block of Oppression]

There's a lot of untapped potential for gaming in World War I, but it would have to be pulled off really well. Otherwise, it would probably just looked like a re-skinned WWII game.

 

[The Heik]

1914 - 1918... what a miserable 4 years for Europe and much of the world.

Similar can be said for 1939(OR 41 for some people)-45, and the prospect of the Coldwar jumping into the Oven to be served for christmas dinner, along with many other "shit got real bad btw" situations for games. However WW1... possibly the Mother of all these things, has had a very little time to go about and paddle in the pool.

There has been only one game I can recall straight away is "The Entente" - I've only played the Demo... but it seemed to play very similarly to the Cossacks series, I personally didn't like it that much so how could it be done better... how about a different format..

FPS:
Fed up of CoD6:Modern Warfare 2? how about CoD7:Trench Warfare!? well probably no, let's take a look why:
Weapon Variety: Truth be told... each nations weapon during "The Great War" wasn't spectacularly different, the Springfield was largely agreed to be very accurate (Most rifles had long range), the Enfield was the quickest ("Mad Minute").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_infantry_weapons_of_World_War_I <-- You'll see what I mean, each nation has equivilant weapons or the nation has another weapon comparable to it in the same catergory (with the Exception of the MP18 - Beretta Model 1918 and Fedorov Avtomat)

Also many would complain there would be a deal of slow paced combat due to the mainly-bolt action weapons avalible - Bayonett is the answer, but perhaps it should be the typical "Melee-is-instant kill" sort, but should be capable of doing considerable damage, and will seriously screw with anyone stupid enough to keep their rifle out - players of Mount and Blade will have a good idea what I'm talking about; oh thats another thing to add: Horses.

Other things to spice up the combat: Artillery/Mortar Shelling (Deformable terrain would also be cool when pair with this), Gasing - Wind Direction will drastically effect this, and it will be race to either find some sort of of cover from the Gas and put your Mask on, or gain a few cheap kills during the panic (I'm aware it was a weapon use mainly before an attack if an attack was coming at all)

I think a Pistol-Sword/Baton/etc weapon combo should be acceptable, oh and don't forget "Trench Clubs" and other Trench Raiding weapons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_raiding

RTS:
To Non-RTS players WW1 would seem like a good choice for an RTS setting: It has big armies and lots of big guns. But RTS players (particularly those of CoH) will see it for a total Turtle-Heaven.

But it all depends what year you set it in, 1914-16 would be particular bad years imo, 1917 being Ideal, with technologies from 1918 being made avalible as "upgrades"
Why 1917 you may ask? It's the year the United States enters the war (Perhaps the more "Mario" of the factions in the game) Aqaba is taken by Lawrence of Arabia (perhaps other fronts of WW1 could be used both in the RTS and FPS!) Tanks are avalible to Central Powers and the Entente (although the German Tank force was far cry from those of the Blitzkrieg... but they made alot of work into Anti-Tank weapons), Russian Civil War begins (possibly room for an Expansion Pack should the developers/publishers in question want to work on that)

The factions main orientated tactics would be along these lines:
USA: 'Mario' - although no tanks of there own, they can use French tanks mainly, at start they are likely to struggle somewhat, but they can over come this.
British: 'Sledgehammer' - Will need to be mainly doing defense and claiming resource areas (theres a point how would those be done...) before building up a large enough force to attack the enemy - raiding against the British is key to slowing them down
French: 'Turtle' - Mainly reliant on numbers, but they are capable
Germany: 'Assault' - Stormtroopers are particularly useful to them, especially when upgraded with MP18's
Austria: Unsure how I'd fit them in tactics wise... can't really see a niche here...
-That was just a very quick thaught-

I'm unsure how resources would be done... you certainly wouldn't being gathering resources with peasant anywhere near a first WW1 Battlefield (although Villages and Towns were frequently faught over, perhaps they could offer some sort of resource)

Those are just some quick ideas I've thaught up. What do people think?

Generally speaking, both games wouldn't work.

FPS: WW1 wasn't about elite troops or a lucky guy getting behind enemy lines. It was about tens of thousands of men charging towards the enemy lines in hopes that enough would make it to the other side. Doesn't leave much for FPS to work with

RTS: Trench warfare is very bloody and very basic, which doesn't leave much in the way tactics. The most you would get is blasting the enemy lines with artillery, then rushing forward with everything, like Warfare 1917, which you can play at the link below.

http://www.addictinggames.com/warfare1917.html

(very nice game though)

Generally speaking, WW1 doesn't have any unique traits (aside from above) that would make it a good game. FPS require either a character made unique by tech, magic, training, or luck, which WW1 lacks in spades. RTS require the capability of using more high end tactics than mobbing.

 

[Boxpopper]

I think that one way WWI would work would be in a Total War esque game- you could spend money to dig trenches on borders on the campaign map, so that if an enemy attacks that army, during the battle they already have defenses. And I can just visualize myself giddily ordering a line of artillery to fire.

 

[almostgold]

I posted this ages ago on a way I think a WW1 shooter could be done:

So as an earlier post pointed out, whenever *snip

Personally, I'm not big on RTS's, so I'm gonna take the shooter route.

I'm pretty sure you used that quote in my WW1 thread as well...

OT: I said it before, I'll say it again: WW1 Football.

Haha i think I actually went to your thread to find that. I actually have huge document written out on my complete idea for a WW1 game, with controls and characters and everything. Just one of those geeky things you find yourself making for no explainable reason. Its quite impressive, if I do say so myself. Basically hinged on the fact of having three different characters: a rookie, for standard, trench and over the top fighting; a arguably sociopathic veteran/officer character who leads night raids and special objective missions, for stealthy/claustrophobic/bursts of intense action gameplay, and a pilot. Like I said, one of those geeky things...

 

[Cherry Cola]

I posted this ages ago on a way I think a WW1 shooter could be done:

So as an earlier post pointed out, whenever *snip

Personally, I'm not big on RTS's, so I'm gonna take the shooter route.

I'm pretty sure you used that quote in my WW1 thread as well...

OT: I said it before, I'll say it again: WW1 Football.

Haha i think I actually went to your thread to find that. I actually have huge document written out on my complete idea for a WW1 game, with controls and characters and everything. Just one of those geeky things you find yourself making for no explainable reason. Its quite impressive, if I do say so myself. Basically hinged on the fact of having three different characters: a rookie, for standard, trench and over the top fighting; a arguably sociopathic veteran/officer character who leads night raids and special objective missions, for stealthy/claustrophobic/bursts of intense action gameplay, and a pilot. Like I said, one of those geeky things...

What would the world be without geeky things anyway?

 

[SpireOfFire]

theres a reason why more attention is focused on WW2 than WW1: not a lot happend in WW1 in terms of "action". trench warfare is literally a battle of attrition and are typically long, drawn out, boring, and uneventful with neither side gaining much. you just sit in a trench while the artillery does the work and some officer will eventually blow a whistle and you and ur army jump out of the trench and charge across no man's land only to be met with enemy barbed wire and machine gun fire.

but hey, some developer might come along and shock the world with a ground-breaking WW1 game.

 

[Abokasee]

For the FPS idea the Trench Raiding, and the other theatres of war (Eastern although that was 'closed' by 1917, Africa -Germans did very well there in comparison to the British, The Italian-Austrian would be interesting fighting in the Alps (perhaps throw in a bit of survival with the cold as well... and landslides (those blasted artillery), Gallipoli may risk being the Western front with just a Sea view, Lawrence of Arabia's campaigns could prove VERY interesting and different from other theatres (ambushing trains, taking part in guerilla warfare etc)... maybe the Pacific Theatre with the Japanese taking over German Colonies in Micronesia, the Balkans could also be interesting. These could all be used to spice up the games settings, avoiding the typical "wait until whilstle blows" feel of it.

This seems to be the main problem with a WW1 Game - most people only remember the Western Front, and forget everything else.

As to how add variety to the RTS varient? Well aside from the earlier mentioned theatres of war, it was also the Dawn of Aerial warfare - perhaps a well experienced aircrew should be worth FAR more than simply having more than your enemies, especially when the average life expectancy (according to Blackadder goes Forth... which is darkingly True) was 20 minutes for a new pilot. Gas could also prove useful (having to take into a account wind direction... as would outdated Aeroplane fighters) and risky if you havn't done the research.

*Edit*
Fans of "alternate history" may be interseted in this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram

 

[clutch-monkey]

imagine being on the receiving end of big bertha. fuck.

early stages of the war; could fight around the belgian forts.

don't forget arabian and african campaigns.

 

[51gunner]

I posted this ages ago on a way I think a WW1 shooter could be done:

So as an earlier post pointed out, whenever someone mentions making a game about WW1, every jumps on him pointing out unduck and shoot gameplay in a trench wouldnt be fun. Others point out the lack of 'good' weapons. There are other complaints as well. So just post alternatives you think could be used for a WW1 game instead of trench warfare, or ways trench warfare could be made to work.
To get things rolling, heres a idea I posted in the aforementioned thread (before I realized the point of the thread was completely different):

WW1 is ripe for gameplay. For one, read up about the pilots during the war. Its facinating stuff. Originally, before they perfected machine guns that could shoot through the propellers, air to air combat was done- no joke- with the pilots holding pistols or rifles and trying to shoot other pilots. If you wanted to drop a bomb, you wingman had a bomb in his lap and literally just dropped it out the side of the plane. Later the interrupter gear was developed, allowing the planes to have forward firing machine guns. Of course, the main point of planes were reconnaissance. Pilots lived an almost nomad-like life, landing in the country side, hiding the plane, finding the nearest friendlies, and refuelling before returning to base.

Now tell me that wouldn't be an awesome game. Part Beyond Good and Evil (photography), part flight simulator, part first person shooter, part stealth (landing behind enemy lines and avoiding capture).

Additionally, there was some fighting done outside trenches obviuosly. Most soldiers participated in a raid at least once, but some commanders did nothing but raid the enemy trenches at night, which would be fun. To give you an idea of what that gameplay would be like, consider: if you party met an enemy party in no man's land, you couldnt use guns. The noise and flash would send every machine gunner on both sides of the line to light your area up. You had to kill the entire enemy party with you bare hands.

Personally, I'm not big on RTS's, so I'm gonna take the shooter route.

This is the best suggestion I've seen for a WW1 game to date. A good game studio could get a lot of good missions out of the pilot aspect.

 

[Liberaliter]

I think the British should be more aggressive, with their use of artillery and early tanks. Whereas Germans were more defensive in the land they had gained.

 

[srm79]

The trouble, I think, with WWI games (or lack thereof) is that people tend to assume the entire thing involved two sides sitting in their trenches, occasionally going over the top and getting butchered en-masse.

In fact, this is not the case at all. The opening weeks of the campaign in France and the Low Countries was a fairly mobile affair. There were plenty of other theatres that didn't descend into trench-based stalemate too. Africa and the Middle East spring to mind.

Even on the Western Front, post-1916 changes were made to the way the war was being fought. The tank was beginning to appear in numbers, aircraft were beginning to be used for roles other than recconaisance, and the allied (or entente) forces were beginning to realise that new tactics were required. Look up what the Canadians did at Verdun (and how they trained for it) - it was one of the earliest examples of "fire & manouver" and completely took the German defenders by surprise.

I reckon with a bit of research and a decent developer, a WWI FPS would be not only doable, but bloody fantastic!