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GDC 2010 starts today!

Wow amazing preview.

Both the countdown mode and the meta campaign mode sound great. I'm even glad they added a classic TDM, it'll help draw in new players.

And the screens are amazing.

I think I might just have to go buy a few extra copies of RO right now to throw some more money into this project!

My excitment just shot through the roof. I will definitely be upgrading my computer in a *serious* way for this.
 
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The new game types and such seem promising.

The screenshots look pretty good except there is still something about them that I don't like. Usually it's the ground.

For example: http://ve3d.ign.com/images/64105/PC...-Stalingrad/Screenshots/March-16th-Screenshot


Look at the ground right there. It's so strange looking. It kind of hurts my eyes.

It's like some things in the pictures have some strange coating over them that makes them very bright or look like plastic.
 
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Most everything in the article looked great. That Multiplayer Campaign mode sounds like something I've been wishing for in an online FPS for YEARS.

Countdown is interesting, it seems like it's kind of a mish-mash of RO's objective-oriented combat and KF's wave system.

The info on Heros and character progression is interesting. However I still hope that your character is randomly generated each time. You just happen to get more "grizzled" or fresh looking avatars depending on your experience level.

The ONE point that dissapointed me though, was this:

The Voodoo Extreme Article said:
The other being the demand that levels needed to be smaller, so that there wouldn't be long gaps in the action, with one player being the holdout and keeping everyone from playing.

I really hope this is restricted to maps designed around the Countdown game mode, and not all maps in general. Some of RO's medium to large maps were the best. Berezina, Paiser Platz, etc. Danzig and the like became tedious very quickly with repeated play, but the larger ones always had me coming back for more.

RO's larger maps could definitely be more focused (I'm looking at you Arad), but the feeling of a long, running battle was always amazing. Perhaps that's what they're going for with the Multiplayer Campaign, but I'm not sure it'll be quite the same.
 
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Most everything in the article looked great. That Multiplayer Campaign mode sounds like something I've been wishing for in an online FPS for YEARS.

Countdown is interesting, it seems like it's kind of a mish-mash of RO's objective-oriented combat and KF's wave system.

The info on Heros and character progression is interesting. However I still hope that your character is randomly generated each time. You just happen to get more "grizzled" or fresh looking avatars depending on your experience level.

The ONE point that dissapointed me though, was this:



I really hope this is restricted to maps designed around the Countdown game mode, and not all maps in general. Some of RO's medium to large maps were the best. Berezina, Paiser Platz, etc. Danzig and the like became tedious very quickly with repeated play, but the larger ones always had me coming back for more.

RO's larger maps could definitely be more focused (I'm looking at you Arad), but the feeling of a long, running battle was always amazing. Perhaps that's what they're going for with the Multiplayer Campaign, but I'm not sure it'll be quite the same.

I personally like smaller maps, like in the days of the mod. Jucha, Moscow Highway, Kopalnia (Komplainia =P), Berlin, etc...
 
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The ONE point that dissapointed me though, was this:



I really hope this is restricted to maps designed around the Countdown game mode, and not all maps in general. Some of RO's medium to large maps were the best. Berezina, Paiser Platz, etc. Danzig and the like became tedious very quickly with repeated play, but the larger ones always had me coming back for more.

RO's larger maps could definitely be more focused (I'm looking at you Arad), but the feeling of a long, running battle was always amazing. Perhaps that's what they're going for with the Multiplayer Campaign, but I'm not sure it'll be quite the same.

If you read carefully, you see they were talking about a flaw in gameplay design.

" They immediately began looking for ways to "not be Counterstrike." This meant identifying two key flaws in that type of multiplayer, in which everyone gets a single life and must wait for the round to be over to respawn. First was the idea that one must "hurry up and die, so others can play again." The other being the demand that levels needed to be smaller, so that there wouldn't be long gaps in the action, with one player being the holdout and keeping everyone from playing."

Much better now that the paragraph is complete :D
 
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If you want to add a single life gameplay mode. There are 2 negative sides

1) You need to have small levels as fewer people are playing when at some point loads are dead.
2) You need to make sure the game ends quickly, so people don't get bored and leave.

These 2 issues are in conflict with the basic game type of territory, making it that in the traditional sense of territory game play the maps could not be reused.

However by making people respawn at the capture of a point, makes it act as if every individual cap is actually one of those smaller maps, and basically tied together in a sort of mini campaign without loading screens. And allowing them to use the same maps for multiple game modes effectively.

I believe that TWI tried to tell that in their story, that basically going with a single life per objective, removes a lot of the biggest issues with regular single life game play. Allowing mappers to make bigger maps, and creating games that last longer than 5 minutes.
 
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Yep Zets has it. We were saying that with countdown we can have larger maps and still retain the intensity of the single life gametype.

Ahhh, so the "one life per cap zone" was a way to address the player demands for smaller maps, without actually having to to actually make smaller maps.

Nice work, this is in fact, good news then. :)

So, if I understand this right, you may have a map like Berezina that plays like classic RO in Territory mode, but has it's objectives arranged in such a way that it also works in the on-life-at-a-time Countdown mode?
 
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ok, so this is starting to sound like the longtime idea geared more towards the "1 life" realism style......i remember people suggesting for realism scrims to use a normal stock map, but teams would agree to and fight over one of the objectives on the map. that way no need to make completely different maps for the style of gameplay. so almost like a mutator in that aspect. i wonder if it would be allowed for server admins to choose which "sector" of the map they'd want to have played. so example, say a map like Berezina, the teams want to battle in the countdown mode over the "Village C.P." obejective. create quicker, but intense one-life tactical situations....depending on the overall map size, 8v8 may be too small, so i'm thinking this might work the best with 16v16 battles.
 
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I really hope this is restricted to maps designed around the Countdown game mode, and not all maps in general. Some of RO's medium to large maps were the best.

I personally hope that aswell.

Nothing wrong with smaller maps if they are really well designed, just that some of the best personal experiences I've had has been in large maps - especially if they involve tanks. Nothing is more hilarious (in reverse logic) than get fired upon by some enemy AFV you can't even see and then panic around and be omgwtfbbq and retreat like crazy behind some cover and start scanning the enviroment for potential locations :p
 
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Holy crap ... if it's evil possible my already huge excitement level just doubled after this preview. I would die if we got some footage from GDC! Seriously all this sounds really awesome.

There's only one minor quip I have about the screenshots here and in other updates. I'm starting to see a Brothers in Arms-esque method of placing objects in the level where it looks like clutter is being placed for the sole functional use of providing cover for the new cover system. The issue with this is that it looks really artificial.

This screenshot shows it best ... it's mainly the spots with perfecly angled cover (wood planks, barrels, etc):

http://ve3d.ign.com/images/fullsize...-Stalingrad/Screenshots/March-16th-Screenshot
 
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