BoB:SoW - Important gameplay features

[coldboot]

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