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Level Design "Historical'ness" & Revenge of the Uber-Tank Scenarios, Part XII

jeffduquette

Grizzled Veteran
Feb 19, 2008
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Mikhail Bartyatinskiy has been writing books about Russian Tanks for a number of years now. Most of these have been written in Russian and tend to be a bit more difficult for the average arm-chair military historian to get their hands on. However, he has recently started a series of booklets on Soviet\Russian Armor that are being translated into English and published by Ian Allan Publishing. The books are sort of an Osprey type format -- affordable and lotz of interesting bits of information.

Anyway -- I'm not trying to plug his books, the point of this little thread regards designing Historical Scenarios & RO Map making. One of RO's claim to fame is supposed to be that it is more realistic than the average WWII first person shooter. And in my opinion it does a very good job of living up to this tag. I think some of the folks that are currently putting together the monster Tank Maps for RO have sort of lost the thread between RO as a realistic (and fun) computer game, and that the game is actually set within Historical Time Frame. Many of the uber-tank maps\scenarios being cranked out seemingly lack any sort of historical context. It is a constant repetition of IS-2s vs. Tiger Tanks. Which brings me back to Mikhail Bartyatinskiy.

Bartyatinskiy in his book "IS Tanks" indicates that there were only about 10 recorded engagements\battles during the entire war in which an IS2 tank Unit and Tiger Tank Unit went head-to-head (to include both Tiger-1s and Tiger-2s). This shouldn’t be much of a surprise given the rarity of operational Tiger Tanks at any given point in time and the immensity of the Eastern Front.


I am guessing there are perhaps 20 to 25 large RO tank maps that have been put together and played regularly (not to include the 30+ different versions of Orel that are currently floating about). Of these 20 or so tank maps currently in circulation, perhaps 95% highlight combat between IS2's and Tiger Tanks.

Obviously the current map market is over saturated with IS2 vs. Tiger tank maps. Yet this is what RO players crave and even demand. It's sort of become expected by folks that play these sortz of monster tank maps that IS2s and Tiger tanks will always make up a significant portion of the scenarios vehicle population.

The question: Is it possible to break this uber tank vs. uber tank chain and get scenario design back onto a more even "historical keel". Or is this type of thinking gone by the wayside in favor of fantasy land scenarios in which Tiger Tanks and IS2s prowl the Shire.
 
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Hi Jeff,
You make a couple of really god points!
I agree whit you.
Unfortunately I must say that the average RO community player today has become so used to the TIGER vsIS2 type of Scenarios that most players believe that this sort of scenario happened all the time on the Ostfront.
The same second any Map/Scenario designer puts a new map without the depicted heavy tank scenario, is greeted whit a big outcry
 
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