BoB:SoW - Important gameplay features [Archive] - Official Fulqrum Publishing forum

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coldboot

08-12-2010, 04:33 AM

I've been thinking about some features that have nothing to do with simulation, but would make "Battle of Britain, Storm of War" much more playable. You can think of them as features that improve the social dynamic of the game by fostering cooperation, and trying to close the gap between real-life and respawning computer game players.

Have you considered including integrated voice chat?
Anyone can get TeamSpeak and set it up, but to have this all handled automatically in game, especially assigning players to the correct voice channel based on team, and being able to identify who's talking with displayed names, will drastically improve gameplay and cooperation for those looking to communicate. It's not going to guarantee communication, but it will reduce the barrier to entry. This has been standard in Half-Life 1, 2 and all of their mod descendants for about 10 years now.

Have you considered improving upon the spawning model for the game?
Currently the continuous respawning in IL-2 causes a lot of players to be split up and lost in different areas as the game progresses, with little furballs forming where fresh players who have just died entering with high energy and taking out other players in the fight. I think some of these spawn mode ideas could help the situation:

Everyone spawns when the round is over:
The advantage is that the fight doesn't persist with a bunch of players sitting at perch diving on anyone who has just spawned. Players also start at the same time, increasing the chance they will work together. This mode runs the risk of players getting bored between rounds, but it could easily be remedied by having multiple games that players automatically rotate through as they die, dividing the wait time by the number of alternate games there are. I'm pretty sure nobody has ever implemented that specific feature with this spawn mode in a computer game.

Players spawn in waves:
Waves of dead/new players will spawn either on a time delay, or when a certain number of dead players accumulate. This also solves the perching problem, and will get players to naturally coordinate attacks together, rather than having everyone impatiently take off and encounter the enemy one-by-one. You could have the best leader, most experienced or highest-scoring player choose the spawn point for the wave.

Dead players spawn and take over AI planes, until all planes are gone:
This would be a great continuous spawn mode that keeps people playing, but doesn't disrupt the fight with a continuous stream of fresh planes as the default spawn mode does. You could even dynamically change the skill of the AI based on some measure of the ability of a team's pilots to keep it balanced.

Are you going to make it easier for players to communicate with radio commands?
Some obvious things come to mind like sector markings such as A4, G6, etc, directly on the map squares, instead of just on the axis. Also buttons such as "ping" that will automatically radio your location, heading and altitude to the rest of the team, and an "enemy sighted" feature that automatically radios how many enemy you've recently seen, their altitude and type. Even including orders for your wingmen in multiplayer would be helpful. These features would greatly reduce the dependence on voice communication, which not everyone feels like using.

Will players be able to switch between different AI aircraft and ground units?
Being able to dynamically switch between a fighter, bomber, AA gun or gunner in a bomber would make it more interesting for the player, while not disrupting the natural chain of events in a game. It would sort of like be "Battlefield: 1942", except more serious of a simulation. You could even make the game free if you just want to play multiplayer AA gunner, which would be like "the first bag of cocaine is free!", getting players hooked. ;)

I really think BoB:SoW has an incredible opportunity to break some real ground as the most immersive flight simulator ever made. It's important that simple features like these ones are able to supplement the incredible simulation that's sure to come.

I can't wait to see what you guys come up with.

Thanks,

- coldboot

steppie

08-12-2010, 04:41 AM

swiss

08-12-2010, 11:51 AM

[B]Have you considered including integrated voice chat?

No need we have TS3. It's also impracticable. On events you need to be connected to three or more radio nets(Fighter Group 1, Group 2 & Bombers(1 to X).
Leave that up to the squadrons and their TS3 servers.

Have you considered improving upon the spawning model for the game?

This should be up to the map builders. Some servers already have delays or deathkicks.
In a furball won't survive much longer than 5min anyway. :cool:

Are you going to make it easier for players to communicate with radio commands?
Some obvious things come to mind like sector markings such as A4, G6, etc, directly on the map squares, instead of just on the axis

???
They are described like that, i.e. A6.3.
Read the briefing - or enter
<obj<"color of your team"
<targets

Also buttons such as "ping" that will automatically radio your location, heading and altitude to the rest of the team, and an "enemy sighted" feature that automatically radios how many enemy you've recently seen, their altitude and type. Even including orders for your wingmen in multiplayer would be helpful. These features would greatly reduce the dependence on voice communication, which not everyone feels like using.

So the game takes over the whole Situational Awarness part? Or do you want just a menu to pick from? That would be a multi stage menu. (RRR already is almost too much)

I really don't think ppl would use it. Sorry, radio com is a MUST.

Will players be able to switch between different AI aircraft and ground units?
Being able to dynamically switch between a fighter, bomber, AA gun or gunner in a bomber would make it more interesting for the player, while not disrupting the natural chain of events in a game. It would sort of like be "Battlefield: 1942", except more serious of a simulation. You could even make the game free if you just want to play multiplayer AA gunner, which would be like "the first bag of cocaine is free!", getting players hooked. ;)

Right now, it's still a FLIGHT SIM, bro. ;)

Blackdog_kt

08-13-2010, 04:40 AM

These would be great ideas for small maps, or furball oriented scenarios. On the other hand, if we see something like persistent online dynamic campaigns they would need some tweaking to fit in, especially if we want the people who like flying at full difficulty options to use them. For example, i doubt anyone would like using the ping function in a full real server, it's too much like playing an FPS or a top-down RTS game.

However, you're on to some solid foundations and with some "sim-oriented" fine-tuning i think they would be exciting and useful game mechanics to have.
For example, two things that could work for all game modes are the revised spawning ideas and reworked radio system.

If flying on a persistent campaign over a 1:1 sized map, how long before we have 2-3 hour bomber sorties in a future add-on for SoW? Few people have that much time, but if they could set-up a flight of AI bombers from the previous day and schedule it, they could possibly spawn into an already flying AI bomber before crossing into hostile airspace.
Say, an integrated navigation/mission planner that you can run while on the server, you draw up the waypoints, set altitudes and speeds and tell the planner that you want to be at this waypoing on 21:00. It then calculates the appropriate time for mission start, launches the AI bombers while you're at work and when you come home you can have some lunch and then spawn in an already flying bomber. Of course, other people could spawn into it first, so maybe an option to password protect the bombers or the raid as a whole would be useful. Or maybe your bomber could be shot down while it's still under AI control and you have nothing to spawn into, but such is war :grin:

Waves would be cool as well to have people cooperate more, but i also think that free-form spawning like it is now is good enough...if people want to join up they will regardless of spawn method. Similarly enough, if people are not team oriented fliers then they won't cooperate well, even if they are forced to spawn together.

The spawn-into-prescheduled-AI idea however is something i like a lot, mainly because it would give us the option of flying the most interesting parts of long distance sorties, without having to take a day off from work to do it. Imagine that you could jump into a B-17 that you "reserved" on the raid and fend off fighters over Holland, leave it to the AI crew, jump back out into the lobby and do a couple of rhubards with a typhoon across the channel, then spawn back into your B-17 as you reach the initial point to the target, and so on. We could be flying the most important and action filled parts of a 6-hour mission over a 1:1 scale map, without actually having to be flying for 6 hours...well, the option to do so would still be there of course :grin:

Before people start crying that it's unrealistic let me say that it's better than flying on scaled down maps, simply because of the imbalances scaled maps create on fuel consumption. Heavily scaled down maps=25% fuel loads that lead to unrealistic flight profiles and tactics. It's also not a battlefield 1942 style of respawn, where people capture areas on the map to spawn in, since in order for a player to take benefit ot it, he would have to actually schedule a sortie for his AI alter-ego well ahead of time.

It's like playing stratego on the map and saying "tomorrow we'll hit the V1 sites around Calais", coming back to the game 2 hours later and jumping into the mission right before the hectic part starts. Couple this with a variable range trigger to suit different tastes and difficulty levels and we would be golden.
For example, Calais is too close to warrant using it, if it's a mid-to-high difficulty server the admins would probably want the players to actually cross the channel themselves.
So, setting mission parameters like "spawn-into-AI unavailable for flights less than X miles long", "not permitted for players spawning in bases A,B,C" or "only permitted for players spawning in bases X,Y,Z" would do the trick quite nicely.

That's all in line with my other crazy ideas about collaborative editing of briefings and flight plan sharing in another thread, all of it is geared towards making it possible to fly a DCG style campaign in an online environment. People would plan missions, request help from others, have to do photo-recon work and share resources, back each other up and so on to win a campaign, the map would be huge and the campaign running 24/7. And since we can't coordinate 64-128 people in the use of time compression, this would be the next best alternative.

As for the radios, i would like to at some point have an integrated voice chat that would work like that, wartime radios. For example, if you take a look at the right side of a P-51's or P-47's cockpit, you'll see some red buttons. These were used to select one out of 4-5 pre-set frequencies, usually 3-4 voice channels and 1-2 navigation radios (like the ones we'll get in the 4.10 patch by TD), which were pre-set by the ground crews according to mission orders.

Pilots couldn't really tune into stuff manually, at least on single-seaters. Multi-crewed aircraft with a dedicated radioman could often even tune into AM radio stations, even small ones like the Bf-110. So, if flying a twin-engined bird or even bigger, you would be able to tune into the right frequencies to talk to your team-mates. If you were in a single seater, you'd select them on mission start and switch only between those presets during fight. Of course, using teamspeak on top of that would be entirely possible, but it would be a nice touch to have some structured comms between different groups, along with a common "team" frequency for all, not to mention the possibility of modelling radio range and reception (i think ArmA also does this, but for voices among characters walking in the field) in accordance with terrain. So, i could be crying like a baby for someone to get that Spitfire off my six, but nobody would be close enough to hear my radio transmissions or i would be breaking up as i was flying low across a valley/between hills. Lot's of interesting possibilities there.

T}{OR

08-13-2010, 06:30 AM

Have you considered including integrated voice chat?
Anyone can get TeamSpeak and set it up, but to have this all handled automatically in game, especially assigning players to the correct voice channel based on team, and being able to identify who's talking with displayed names, will drastically improve gameplay and cooperation for those looking to communicate. It's not going to guarantee communication, but it will reduce the barrier to entry. This has been standard in Half-Life 1, 2 and all of their mod descendants for about 10 years now.

I was wondering when someone will bring this up. Excellent idea.

No need we have TS3. It's also impracticable. On events you need to be connected to three or more radio nets(Fighter Group 1, Group 2 & Bombers(1 to X).
Leave that up to the squadrons and their TS3 servers.

On the contrary, it is IMO a must. People today use different VIOP software - from TS to Ventrilo. Why even bother if sou got integrated voice chat. It is a tremendous advantage.

If I meet someone online and I want to have a chat - he gives me his server TS adress, and I then have to exit or alt tab out of the game to connect. Not needed IMO.

TS comes as an advantage in dedicated missions, where you can set up different channels and whispers. For every day use, on online dogfight servers - integrated VOIP sets the bar way higher.

PE_Tigar

08-13-2010, 07:24 AM

You guys do know that Il-2 has an integrated voice chat system? It's been buggy at the beginning, and then it kinda just fell back on the priorities list so it wasn't developed further, but it does exist...

Xilon_x

08-13-2010, 09:25 AM

Why if IL-2 sturmovik have RADIO integrated you use VENTRILLO or TEAMSPEAK?

what is the difference?
what is the problems?
the real RADIO of ww2 airplane is fac simile to TEAM SPEAK?
AND WHY you use Hyperlobby for online connection or use X-fire? IL-2 dedicated and integrated server not good?

in the SoW we use Hyperlobby and TEAM SPEAK? or the situation chanche?
ONLINE PLAY sistem is very complicated?
why not find a solution simple and standart in all world for SoW?

TheGrunch

08-13-2010, 10:22 AM

We use Ventrilo and Teamspeak because (nowadays at least) they have lower latency and better voice quality. Hyperlobby and Xfire are just server browsers with chat functions. Unless you're suggesting that Il-2 has a good server browser or a chat lobby? Hopefully SoW will have better multiplayer functionality to begin with.

Xilon_x

08-13-2010, 11:14 AM

WW2 AIRPLANE RADIO-------WHAT TYPE OF RADIO use ITALIAN what type of radio use GERMAN OR AMERICAN OR ENGLISH?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z_4Mva-YsQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMk-GjzdP64

BadAim

08-13-2010, 12:25 PM

My $.02. I don't mind integrated voip, and it would certainly be cool to be able to model radio failures and such. The problem is what do you do before you start the game? TS is (at least with my squadron) our meeting place, where we coordinate and get ready for missions before we fire up the game at all (some times we just bullshit while we do other things). So while I'm not against the Idea, I doubt in game voip will ever be as flexible as a separate app.

What I'd really like to see is integrated voice recognition for the AI, which would allow for much more complex "menus" for commands, I think at this point (I should think) it could be almost like having real time conversations with teammates.

swiss

08-13-2010, 02:19 PM

If I meet someone online and I want to have a chat - he gives me his server TS adress, and I then have to exit or alt tab out of the game to connect. Not needed IMO.

EVERY server I know has it's own TS.
Some still used TS2, but as far I know all of them have upgraded by now.
No problem.

Plus, if a squad shows up, they don't want to be in the public channel(radio chaos).

Honestly I think it'd be very complicated to integrate that in the game - unless you want more confusion

TS comes as an advantage in dedicated missions, where you can set up different channels and whispers. For every day use, on online dogfight servers - integrated VOIP sets the bar way higher.

Chaos, my friend, pure chaos. ;)

swiss

08-13-2010, 02:35 PM

TS is (at least with my squadron) our meeting place

Keyword.

Same here, Sturmovik.de is the TS home for pretty much all German speaking freelancers as well as 3 squadrons.

when you go there, you can either go your own squads subchannel and fly with them, or find ppl in the lounge and build an ad hoc team.

TheGrunch

08-13-2010, 03:18 PM

When it comes down to it I don't see the point of Maddox Games integrating voice chat into the game if other people have already done it better than they could already. There's so many free, high-quality voice-comm programs (Ventrilo, TS3, Mumble, etc., etc.) already that the kind of voice-chat system that MG would integrate would be fairly pointless unless it was significantly better in some way. Unless it was done in a cool way where it acts like an genuine aircraft's radio and it can get damaged and stop functioning and suchlike for those people like the real fun (Dwarf Fortress players will know what I mean). I agree on the spawn-counter, though.

MikkOwl

08-13-2010, 04:30 PM

An enormous flaw with the way we see most voice communication these days is that people without radios, without an airplane (perhaps bailed out) or even without being alive can speak. I don't like that.

If a more realistic radio simulation appears, either through integration with Teamspeak 3 or a native radio, there's no way to enforce that no one is cheating by using any other voice method.

A native radio solution that is so well made, realistic and cool that people would openly rush to embrace it is the most effective solution for preventing people to be tempted to cheat.

swiss

08-13-2010, 04:45 PM

It's not cheating, it's Parachute Reconnaissance. ;)

Blackdog_kt

08-13-2010, 07:16 PM

I wouldn't outright call it cheating. Having the means to hang out with your group is the social aspect of gaming and is very important regardless of genre.

Would i like it if SoW could simulate wartime radios and everyone used this when flying? Absolutely.
Would i mind if people used teasmpeak in parallel, or to meet up before the actual game session? Not at all :grin:

T}{OR

08-13-2010, 08:04 PM

EVERY server I know has it's own TS.
Some still used TS2, but as far I know all of them have upgraded by now.
No problem.

Plus, if a squad shows up, they don't want to be in the public channel(radio chaos).

Honestly I think it'd be very complicated to integrate that in the game - unless you want more confusion

How long have you played IL2? Did you as a novice player have a squadron?

I have been playing IL2 online exclusively for 4 years. Last 2 I am inactive (take a wild guess why...), and I can't count how many times it would have been more useful to tell someone what to do than type it. Not to mention what impact it would have on "instant ad-hoc teamwork".

I am fully aware what benefits lie behind squad based TS / Ventrilo communication. But - people that are a part of the squadrons make for less than 10% of online players. I would bet even less than that. And those people generally stick to their TS servers, even when not playing (flying in this case) on their own server. Integrated VOIP would also enable you to communicate on different areas - with people on your TS server and with someone you need to communicate with. "Clear my six" takes mere seconds to shout compared to typing. ;)

I could go on with benefits of integrated VIOP if you'd like. :)

Chaos, my friend, pure chaos. ;)

Nothing that can't be avoided by server settings and good administrator interface. Or simply an option to turn the thing off.

swiss

08-13-2010, 08:59 PM

and I can't count how many times it would have been more useful to tell someone what to do than type it. Not to mention what impact it would have on "instant ad-hoc teamwork".

Again - every server I know has it's own TS - you have to join it though. ;)

What is the difference to integrated voip?

More expensive to develop, royalties and stuff like that. I suggest they save that money and use it where it's more needed.

Blackdog_kt

08-14-2010, 01:42 AM

I think Thor means that not everyone takes the time to join the same TS server, but if a second voice comms interface was integrated into the game and joined automatically when you join the server, you would still be able to talk to everyone regardless of whether they had joined different TS servers in the background.

Now that i think of it, a combination of both would also help a lot to filter unwanted information. So for example, i could be flying with my regular group/squad and talk to them via our TS server, but i wouldn't have to alt+tab, join a different one and alt+tab back in the game to request a "clear my six" to someone who was on a different TS server. If it was modelled like a real radio i wouldn't have to worry about adding to the confusion so much either, as the only people who would hear me would be the ones close to my part of the map :grin:

T}{OR

08-14-2010, 08:56 AM