why are there no WW1 games?

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The Tommy

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Timelord91 said:
Dunno if this would work (or be historically accurate) but you could be a lone British spy/infiltrator within germany trying to get to whoever-the-hell was the bad guy (apologies, again, for lack of historical knowledge) trying to kill him, long walks through war-torn lands etc and set it in the fallout 3 style.

Actually after writing that it seems stupid, im still gonna post it though
No that could be interesting. Its not exactly trench combat but you could take some creative liberties to do something like that. I would guess that a spy game would have more emphasis on gathering intel and pursuing someone like a scientist or engineer who is working on a way to effectively dispense a new type of gas into the trenches by way of twin engined Gotha bombers or Zeppelin. You could do it Hitman style with WWI era setting.
 

The Tommy

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Captain Pancake said:
The Tommy said:
Captain Pancake said:
To be honest, running back and forth between the same handful of trenches wouldn't make for a fun gameplay mechanic...
You wouldn't always be in that map. Time would progress. You'd need to learn new sectors. And I'm sure people would enjoy exploiting enemy A.I. over terrain they have the advantage of being familiar with.

Try again. You could also have set pieces in the game for bits of semi cinematic quality while fighting in open ground and villages too. It wasn't ALL just trenches.
Time would progress? you do realise the the negligible survival rate in the trenches, right? chances are your officer would very well be dead as time progresses. For that mechanic to be authentic, you would have to shift characters, and it would be hard to endear the constantly shifting main characters to the gamers. So the only viable option would be to sacrifice realism, in which case where would you stop? why not give the germans super soldiers and the allies an armada of space beetles?
Well that realism has been sacrificed by Necrovision which is WWI Wolfenstein. Life expectancy was short at times, but there were people who survived for long periods of the war. NCO's in particular. Here's the other thing, the time when the map is large and explorable like an RPG style, it would be set during quiet periods in which you could explore the world and do the trench raids, artillery observation, counter sniping etc. The big set piece battles would be like the Arras Offensive of April 1917, Third Ypres July 1917, Cambrai Nov 1917, be on the defensive in March 1918, and the final Hundred Days Offensive which was very mobile and reminiscent of WWII combat with airbattles, tanks and fire and maneuver tactics. The 'stalemate aspect would be set in between those battles.

Granted as you said not all chracters would survive but if the AI was designed well and voice acting excellent, you could grow attached to a variety of people in the game. Or you can have the focus on a very tight group of say 4-5 people within the 12 man squad or 40 man platoon.




Captain Pancake said:
Jon Etheridge said:
Where are the Civil War games, thats what I want to know. I want to stand in formation with all my comrades, fire a shot and reload for 5 minutes.
touche, Jon, touche.
You can in Darkest of Days. But that game doesn't do much for the experence since they copped out and made it a time travel story. I heard in another topic people would do Napoleonic and Medieval combat.
 

The Tommy

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Captain Pancake said:
The Tommy said:
Captain Pancake said:
To be honest, running back and forth between the same handful of trenches wouldn't make for a fun gameplay mechanic...
You wouldn't always be in that map. Time would progress. You'd need to learn new sectors. And I'm sure people would enjoy exploiting enemy A.I. over terrain they have the advantage of being familiar with.

Try again. You could also have set pieces in the game for bits of semi cinematic quality while fighting in open ground and villages too. It wasn't ALL just trenches.
Time would progress? you do realise the the negligible survival rate in the trenches, right? chances are your officer would very well be dead as time progresses. For that mechanic to be authentic, you would have to shift characters, and it would be hard to endear the constantly shifting main characters to the gamers. So the only viable option would be to sacrifice realism, in which case where would you stop? why not give the germans super soldiers and the allies an armada of space beetles?

You also realize that soldiers weren't in constant combat? about 2/3rd of their time was spent on the frontline. Only one week in the highly dangerous fire trench. You also could keep the game confined to a shorter period of say 1918 or the second half of 1917.

Many soldiers that entered the trenches in 1916 survived only to be killed or wounded in 1918. It could work, just open your mind a bit.
 

whaleswiththumbs

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suhlEap said:
we all know there are many (many) games set in world war 2, and yet there aren't any set in world war 1, and i wonder why this is!
The idea of trench warfare doesn't strike me as fun for my money, just saying. There are a few battles no involving it,but 2 battles a game doesn't make.
 

The Tommy

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whaleswiththumbs said:
suhlEap said:
we all know there are many (many) games set in world war 2, and yet there aren't any set in world war 1, and i wonder why this is!
The idea of trench warfare doesn't strike me as fun for my money, just saying. There are a few battles no involving it,but 2 battles a game doesn't make.
That's fine. Not everyone will like it as no game has found unanimous appeal. We are just discussing how it could possibly be done well and that many of the one sentence comments whether for or against aren't helpful. But couldn't quite make out the last bit. What do you mean?
 

The Tommy

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TheCaptain1701 said:
There is a game coming out soon called Darkest of Days for the 360 and PC and it has a few WWI levels in it...
Yeah I heard about it. Not sure if it will really capture the Great War feel. It only focuses on Tannenberg in 1914.
 

TheCaptain1701

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The Tommy said:
TheCaptain1701 said:
There is a game coming out soon called Darkest of Days for the 360 and PC and it has a few WWI levels in it...
Yeah I heard about it. Not sure if it will really capture the Great War feel. It only focuses on Tannenberg in 1914.
Oh well, it's nice to have an attempt though...


plus who doesn't wanna take a fully automatic machine gun back to the Civil War Days and just have fun?
 

The Tommy

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TheCaptain1701 said:
The Tommy said:
TheCaptain1701 said:
There is a game coming out soon called Darkest of Days for the 360 and PC and it has a few WWI levels in it...
Yeah I heard about it. Not sure if it will really capture the Great War feel. It only focuses on Tannenberg in 1914.
Oh well, it's nice to have an attempt though...


plus who doesn't wanna take a fully automatic machine gun back to the Civil War Days and just have fun?
Seems absurdly funny actually. I take it that was the demo?
 

TheCaptain1701

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The Tommy said:
TheCaptain1701 said:
The Tommy said:
TheCaptain1701 said:
There is a game coming out soon called Darkest of Days for the 360 and PC and it has a few WWI levels in it...
Yeah I heard about it. Not sure if it will really capture the Great War feel. It only focuses on Tannenberg in 1914.
Oh well, it's nice to have an attempt though...


plus who doesn't wanna take a fully automatic machine gun back to the Civil War Days and just have fun?
Seems absurdly funny actually. I take it that was the demo?
No...that's the actual game.

The premise is that you play a "MIA" soldier from Custards last stand who was recruited into a timetraveling military operation that have been intrusted with protecting the timeline of history since the success of Time Travel. So you have to go back to cirtain places in history to help someone win an important battle or sabotage something...

And if the need to destroy a large amount of opposers arises...then you might be allowed to pull out some heavy duty modern warfare guns and stuff...hell of a time
 

The Tommy

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TheCaptain1701 said:
The Tommy said:
TheCaptain1701 said:
The Tommy said:
TheCaptain1701 said:
There is a game coming out soon called Darkest of Days for the 360 and PC and it has a few WWI levels in it...
Yeah I heard about it. Not sure if it will really capture the Great War feel. It only focuses on Tannenberg in 1914.
Oh well, it's nice to have an attempt though...


plus who doesn't wanna take a fully automatic machine gun back to the Civil War Days and just have fun?
Seems absurdly funny actually. I take it that was the demo?
No...that's the actual game.

The premise is that you play a "MIA" soldier from Custards last stand who was recruited into a timetraveling military operation that have been intrusted with protecting the timeline of history since the success of Time Travel. So you have to go back to cirtain places in history to help someone win an important battle or sabotage something...

And if the need to destroy a large amount of opposers arises...then you might be allowed to pull out some heavy duty modern warfare guns and stuff...hell of a time
I've seen the trailers for. It looks interesting and almost like an experiment to see which era prior to WWII seems fit for a new history genre.
 

Wadders

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The Tommy said:
I've only just come to this thread, so forgive me if I'm repeating points, as I didn't wish to trawl through 16 pages of text at this time of night.

Anyways. I like your suggestion for a mission, and it goes to show that someone with a knowledge of WW1 such as yourself could well think of several decent missions for a WW1 game. The melee/ close quarters aspect in the trenches would be an interesting balance for ranged combat. The game could expand beyond an FPS and take in other aspects such as dogfighting in the old bi-planes, or tank combat, or maybe even a cavalry action, maybe the ones at the Battle of Mons. Again, apologies if any of this has already been mentioned.

Also, I like that photo of the trench raiders you have. The 2 chaps wearing the Pickelhaube helmets must have had an interesting story to tell about how they got them.

EDIT: OK I had a look back over the thread and I've missed a hell of a lot, probably a bit late to come in now :p But I do love the idea of weapon upgrades. Not because it's an original idea (far from it in fact) but because of the unconventional nature of the upgrades - like that massive grenade bundle that was shown a few pages ago :D
 

The Tommy

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Wadders said:
The Tommy said:
I've only just come to this thread, so forgive me if I'm repeating points, as I didn't wish to trawl through 16 pages of text at this time of night.

Anyways. I like your suggestion for a mission, and it goes to show that someone with a knowledge of WW1 such as yourself could well think of several decent missions for a WW1 game. The melee/ close quarters aspect in the trenches would be an interesting balance for ranged combat. The game could expand beyond an FPS and take in other aspects such as dogfighting in the old bi-planes, or tank combat, or maybe even a cavalry action, maybe the ones at the Battle of Mons. Again, apologies if any of this has already been mentioned.

Also, I like that photo of the trench raiders you have. The 2 chaps wearing the Pickelhaube helmets must have had an interesting story to tell about how they got them.

EDIT: OK I had a look back over the thread and I've missed a hell of a lot, probably a bit late to come in now :p But I do love the idea of weapon upgrades. Not because it's an original idea (far from it in fact) but because of the unconventional nature of the upgrades - like that massive grenade bundle that was shown a few pages ago :D
Thank you for the kind comments. The grenade bundle as said was a modification that soon became standard practice among Assault units facing tanks and other fortified targets.
 

The Tommy

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RedMenace said:
1 shot, 10 seconds of reload, 1 shot, 10 seconds of reload, rinse, repeat. Unless you get your hands on a machine gun that is, in which case you can not move (or turn it while shooting) and have to spend several minutes draining and re-feeling coolant in case MG overheats (and it will, about every 20-30 seconds).
Maybe that's how fast you can work a bolt action rifle in real life, but the average soldier could take less than a second to re-chamber a round. As I said before, the British were trained prior to the war to fire 30 AIMED shots per minute including the two five round stripper clips in the Lee Enfield.

See here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2ERkGd-Crg
 

Wadders

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The Tommy said:
Wadders said:
The Tommy said:
I've only just come to this thread, so forgive me if I'm repeating points, as I didn't wish to trawl through 16 pages of text at this time of night.

Anyways. I like your suggestion for a mission, and it goes to show that someone with a knowledge of WW1 such as yourself could well think of several decent missions for a WW1 game. The melee/ close quarters aspect in the trenches would be an interesting balance for ranged combat. The game could expand beyond an FPS and take in other aspects such as dogfighting in the old bi-planes, or tank combat, or maybe even a cavalry action, maybe the ones at the Battle of Mons. Again, apologies if any of this has already been mentioned.

Also, I like that photo of the trench raiders you have. The 2 chaps wearing the Pickelhaube helmets must have had an interesting story to tell about how they got them.

EDIT: OK I had a look back over the thread and I've missed a hell of a lot, probably a bit late to come in now :p But I do love the idea of weapon upgrades. Not because it's an original idea (far from it in fact) but because of the unconventional nature of the upgrades - like that massive grenade bundle that was shown a few pages ago :D
Thank you for the kind comments. The grenade bundle as said was a modification that soon became standard practice among Assault units facing tanks and other fortified targets.
I see, interesting stuff :D Must have taken a good throwing arm to get that sucker where you wanted it.
 

The Tommy

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I was just thinking... Maybe in a moment of adrenaline you could increase you firing rate like shown in the vid for about afew seconds until out of danger.

Over time you get faster and faster at the re-chambering of rounds as an upgrade.
 

Wadders

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The Tommy said:
RedMenace said:
1 shot, 10 seconds of reload, 1 shot, 10 seconds of reload, rinse, repeat. Unless you get your hands on a machine gun that is, in which case you can not move (or turn it while shooting) and have to spend several minutes draining and re-feeling coolant in case MG overheats (and it will, about every 20-30 seconds).
Maybe that's how fast you can work a bolt action rifle in real life, but the average soldier could take less than a second to re-chamber a round. As I said before, the British were trained prior to the war to fire 30 AIMED shots per minute including the two five round stripper clips in the Lee Enfield.

See here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2ERkGd-Crg
Dont wanna be a killjoy, but I cant help but wonder how accurate the bloke in that vid is going to be. If your firing at that speed, then I wouldn't have said the shots were aimed really :S
 

The Tommy

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Wadders said:
The Tommy said:
RedMenace said:
1 shot, 10 seconds of reload, 1 shot, 10 seconds of reload, rinse, repeat. Unless you get your hands on a machine gun that is, in which case you can not move (or turn it while shooting) and have to spend several minutes draining and re-feeling coolant in case MG overheats (and it will, about every 20-30 seconds).
Maybe that's how fast you can work a bolt action rifle in real life, but the average soldier could take less than a second to re-chamber a round. As I said before, the British were trained prior to the war to fire 30 AIMED shots per minute including the two five round stripper clips in the Lee Enfield.

See here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2ERkGd-Crg
Dont wanna be a killjoy, but I cant help but wonder how accurate the bloke in that vid is going to be. If your firing at that speed, then I wouldn't have said the shots were aimed really :S
He sure can be accurate. The proper shouldering for recoil allowed, he fires with the middle finger and then pulls the bolt with the pointer and thumb. The SMLE rifle was the best for this because it cocks the firing hammer on pushing the bolt forward which overall makes for a smoother action and faster reload then any other bolt action rifle.

Not a killjoy at all. Good observation and question.