Help us name our game modes

[SCandChives]

realism: [your local region's special forces here]
relaxed: [your local region's regular army here]
custom: [your local region's intelligence service here]

eg for a modern example, the russians get
realism:spetznaz
relaxed: army
custom: fsb etc

Or for New Zealand is would be;
realism: NZSAS
relaxed: NZDF
custom: SIS

I dunno though, to do that for every country that the game will de distrubuted i would be too time consuming and difficult imo.

So, here is what I suggest:

"Red Orchestra" (Normal, all realism options on)
"Pride of the Motherland" (Relaxed realism, more indicators and assists)
"Customized Warfare" (Modes with customized server-side settings)

The problem I see with those is that they require you to look at the description to understand what they are (for the first few times anyway). What we need is something that gives a good idea of what the game mode is as soon as you see the name. Although those are rather catchy.

I'm thinking something along the lines of;
Realism-The real war
Relaxed-Simulated war

but the more I think about those the less I like them.

 

[Atomskytten]

As I understand the different game modes are meant for players with different approaches to FPS so it would be counter productive to label one 'realism level' as better than the other?

My suggestion in order to prevent the RO:HOS community to become entrenched in "hardcore realism" and a "relaxed realism" camps who will fight over who is the ones who plays the game the "way it was meant to" is this:

Name the different approaches to realism in a neutral discriptive way so no camp will feel higher or lower status than the other.

Hardcore realism could be called "Operation: Blue"
Relaxed realism could be called "Operation: Stalingrad"
The differences in names will be easily to distinquish and the names are neutral and informative of what the game is about.

"Operation: Blue" was the assigned name(Translated from "Fall Blau") for the German campaign in southern Russia in the summer of 1942 which ultimate target was the city of Stalingrad and the oilfields in the Caucasus. The reference to the original operation name will be immediately known to the player group who favours playing the "hardcore realism" setting as most players there will (my assumption) have more bakground information about the campaign than the players of the "relaxed realism"
and will therefore be able to tell merely from the game mode name which version is the most "realistic".

"Operation: Stalingrad" immediately informs players that the goal of the game is the battle of Stalingrad and would be readily accessible for anyone with little to no background information of the real events while maintaining a serious game mode title without sounding campy or over the top.

 

[Nicholas]

Realism = Standard

Relazed realism = Training

Custom = Custom

 

[Pagro182]

I know increasing the foundation of players is important, both for the game and the business, at the same time keeping the solid cadre of current players happy is important for Tripwire. So how does one accomplish this at the same time?

When you are looking at a Realism Mode, would calling the Relaxed Realism mode "Standard" or "Default" and then the more realistic mode "Classic" make sense? This would not be confusing to the old school players and does not carry a negative connotation to the Relaxed mode.

From playing with a clan that is not centered on RO, part of the drawback is what we all love, the difficulty of the game. But I do hope that as more people play RO:HOS they will gravitate to the "Classic" version. But if they do not, then as long as they play I am fine.

Maybe some time in the future when the Standard or Default Servers are empty and everyone is in Classic, they could rename the modes. Or I could see is if there is level restrictions on the servers, as the levels get higher you would tend to see more Classic servers and fewer Standard. What's the point of being high level if you can't beat the best at the hardest settings, right?

 

[Fiskfan]

Calling less HUD "elite/hard/veteran/etc" and more HUD "easy/recruit/etc" is an awful idea, it just plays at people's emotions too much. Assuming this mode only pertains to the HUD, I'd say that a simple, neutral "Limited HUD/Full HUD/Custom HUD" would be the best route.

I like this suggestion. As Faw Down said, it isn't loaded with emotions and describes exactly (based on what we know at the moment) what the differences between the game settings are: the HUD. Why complicate it with names that require additional explanations and make the player feel "nerdy/noobish/bad/whatever" just because of the choice of gamestyle?

Make it neutral and simple.

 

[PRAPOR]

I will like:
Relaxed realism- Regular mode
Realism- Veteran (ost front ) mode
Custom- Custom mode

 

[LemoN]

"Operation: Blue"

Case Blue would be a better translation.

 

[Nimsky]

All these "Operation Blue" and "Motherland" names are waaaay to vague and non-intuitive. Will players really understand what that means if they see that in the server browser without having to think about it? Of course not.

The 'Veteran' and 'Conscript' approach are used in other games as well and are pretty intuitive. So + 1 for that.

On the other hand, I think '(Relaxed) realism' is pretty good already. Maybe it's because I'm used to it by now but I think it describes the game modes quite well.

An alternative could be:

Full realism
Casual realism

That way players immediately understand that the relaxed realism mode is still realistic, but a little bit more newb-friendly than full realism.

You really don't want to use the 'Hardcore' term. That just reminds me of arcade shooters like CoD and MoH, and it's overused. And 'Arcade' is a wrong term to use as well, because as Ramm once said, relaxed realism is still a hundred times more realistic as CoD. 'Classic' might be confusing for new players who haven't played RO:O.

So my suggestion would be Full realism and Casual realism, each mode having its own display icon. A small golden RO logo (the R within an O) for Full realism, and a silver or bronze icon for Casual.

Keeping it simple is key here.
Gotte love TWI's close connection with the fans. :IS2:

 

[Stormer]

Realism = Normal
Relaxed realism = Arcade
Custom = Custom

 

[Atomskytten]

Case Blue would be a better translation.

I know but I deliberately chose the word Operation because it is mostly us old folks who use such archaic words, also in context the word operation is better suited as the word 'case' sound too abstract and theoretical in contrast to 'operation' which sound dynamic and more tangible.
Case Stalingrad sounds horrible in my ears therefore the choice of the word 'operation' as the common phrase.

 

[[TW]Wilsonam]

As a pure aside (my opinion - others in the office may disagree), but I'm kinda likeing the idea of "Classic RO" or "Classic RO Realism" for the realism mode. It tells all the faithful exactly what they want to know, gives new people the general idea. But what would be the "lesser" variant? I'm certainly not going to call it "More like CoD non-realism"

 

[Nezzer]

As a pure aside (my opinion - others in the office may disagree), but I'm kinda likeing the idea of "Classic RO" or "Classic RO Realism" for the realism mode. It tells all the faithful exactly what they want to know, gives new people the general idea. But what would be the "lesser" variant? I'm certainly not going to call it "More like CoD non-realism"

Well, you could call it "Novice Mode". It's directed to new players anyway. Or perhaps "Soldier" for relaxed and "Hero" for realism.

 

[kllr101]

As a pure aside (my opinion - others in the office may disagree), but I'm kinda likeing the idea of "Classic RO" or "Classic RO Realism" for the realism mode. It tells all the faithful exactly what they want to know, gives new people the general idea. But what would be the "lesser" variant? I'm certainly not going to call it "More like CoD non-realism"

Classic
Casual
Custom

Howabout something like that?

I think the 'Relaxed' mode needs to convey the idea that it's still the classic mode, but just more casual or relaxed.

Calling it "Novice" and "Hero" or "Veteren" or whatever would convey the wrong idea to people of what to expect from the said modes.

 

[Grobut]

This is starting to seem like a sisyphean task, because it seems we've got two conflicting goals here.

On one hand, the idea is to find two names that are neutral or equal, so nobody is made to feel patronised for their prefrences in gameplay.

But on the other, the name of the relaxed mode should prefably tell newcomers to the game that this is where they should probably start, as it's the mode with the helpers.


What's a kind way of saying "Hey newbie, start here you dumbarse"?

 

[kllr101]

This is starting to seem like a sisyphean task, because it seems we've got two conflicting goals here.

On one hand, the idea is to find two names that are neutral or equal, so nobody is made to feel patronised for their prefrences in gameplay.

But on the other, the name of the relaxed mode should prefably tell newcomers to the game that this is where they should probably start, as it's the mode with the helpers.


What's a kind way of saying "Hey newbie, start here you dumbarse"?

True, I guess one could cleverly use something like "Classic RO", and if you click that one (before clicking the "Relaxed mode") a popup will come up saying "This mode is designed for a Classic RO experience - If you are new we recommend starting at Casual mode"

But otherwise, finding a name that doesn't give the player a wrong idea and help guide them would be a task.

 

[Capt.Cool]

Realism
Arcade
Custom

from all this suggestions this is the very best.
I would have said the same.

 

[tofupunk]

I think hardcore is a good name for the realism mode. People new to RO would understand what it's about, because a lot of the differences(not as much UI and so on) are in other games hardcore modes.

What to call the relaxed realism mode is a tougher nut though.

 

[jalex3]

I think hardcore is a good name for the realism mode. People new to RO would understand what it's about, because a lot of the differences(not as much UI and so on) are in other games hardcore modes.

What to call the relaxed realism mode is a tougher nut though.

gota agree I dont like the world, but I think it would work best.

 

[Others]

Personally I like:

Realism
Tactical (for relaxed)
Custom

If keeping the term 'realism' isn't desirable then you could use something along the lines of:

Classic or Classic RO
Tactical
Custom

 

[-[SiN]-bswearer]

But what would be the "lesser" variant?

simple.....there shouldn't be a significantly "lesser than Classic" variant game mode.

i appreciate that you liked my suggestion for Classic, but it seems as though we both might have different ideas of what "Classic" is......i would expect this to be as close to the original RO mode as possible, with maybe a few of the newer helpful "additions" added. i would imagine "Realism" to be more realistic than the traditional, Classic RO game mode. for years people said that the default RO game mode wasn't realistic enough due to things like death messages, stance indicator, compass, map, HUD items etc... so for this "Realism" mode, i was under the impression that it'd be more realistic than RO's original. but there's really no place for anything less "realistic" than RO's classic game mode....that can be what "Custom" is for