I have some ideas for the next BiA. I know you get tons of posts like this every day, but I mean this seriously. In the future, I plan to apply for the job of 3D graphic in our, Czech developer company (2K Czech, earlier Illusion Softworks)
About one year ago, I prepared some points and later I added a lot of schemes, charts, pictures and notes to it, so now I have quiet cemplete scenario of the game. I can't wait to get employed. I'm 18 this month, and there is many years oh school ahead. So I'll try to share my ideas and I'll hope you will read it at least.

It's related to SP. I'm the player as anyone else, but I think I could have some good hints. I'm very interested in WWII and so I design WWII game. You have evidently good connection with historians and army experts, and you know to make wonderful, armirable maps. These facts make you the great developer of WWII games. So I beg you to read this and maybe take some inpiration.

Let's talk about the campaign in Sahara.
(in Cronological order, there was the first frontline of WWII, others could follow in datadiscs)
By the most of PC games so far, war is only about shooting, destroying tanks, waiting for counterattack, going from spot A to spot B, using fist-aid kits and planting bombs in glowing place on Flak88 cannon...
Real war is about propaganda posters, radio broadcasted Churchill's and Roosevelt's or some high officer's speeches, shortage of ammunition, food and water, frying sun or killing frost, letters from home about bombarding and death of some relatives, fear of enemy, fear of death, gladness of victory, gladness of friend's recovering...You started well with showing the relationships between soldiers, but the way leads further...

Sahara
There was the first frontline of war. Other ones can follow chronologically (Next campaigns could be Stalingrad, bash from Stalingrad to the west, Normandy, American way to Germany, battle of the Berlin and the last: Pacific...)
At first, player gets identity of one unigue British person, with its own face, name, history, abilities and other properties. This person can be from London, Dover, or countryside, doesn't matter from where, it will only influence the british part of campaign, he will actually never go to work, so his job isn't important. (But in war, doctors will become medics, electricians => radio staff, chefs will prepare food for soldiers, drivers of doubledeckers will then drive a supply trucks for the fighting troops etc.). The only thing is to map multiple locations: London center, villages, little towns... The identity of player is different in every started champaign, so player can have opportunity to play as London doctor, mechanic in factory or countryman from british inland...
In first part, he learns to move, interact with Ai and civil objects (because it will be very sofisticated, as I explain later)
Then he receive a draft notice and he has to pack up, say goodbye to his family and go to the recruitung center. (This place is common for all the people, so there is no need to make multiple versions of this place) He experiences a 4-weeks-long army training in Britain, he is offered the task according to his civil job, but he can decline it. There are these "war jobs": Assault gunner, support gunner, engineer, sniper, medic, heavy weapon staff, armoured vehicle driver, chef, radio operator and some more...Every task has its own training in addition to common training (how to shoot, how to throw grenade, how to cover, how to behave in freaky situations...)
After the training, soldier gets first "honor points", which represent, how "good soldier" the player is. It will influnce the will of officers to send him to the first wave of the assault, for exemple.
Then, brand-new royal soldiers get on a ship and push off the coast of Motherland...for a very long time...a lot of them forever...here could be the documentary intro, made of autentic shots from war. There should be more intros, during this part of game... The rise of the Third Reich, The conquered Europe, the war declaration from Britain, the Churchill's promis of "tears and blood, toil and sweat"...those intro won't hurt, but it will support the impression of that era...

After the intro, the player appears still on the ship, but the coast of Africa is already visible. When the soldiers depart and debark, they are reorganised, they are given exact name of formation and exact command. Then they wait for the vehicles and equipment, which are shipped in large amounts (dozens of ships) later. Then they are finally given the task and they launch out, to the open, endless desert...

Now begins the epoque of battles, the "interesting" one.

There are primary missions, historically autentic, if possible.
Before large offensive, there is always an artillery preparation and than the tanks, brencarriers or infantry on foot gets across the no man's land, to the enemy position. Player and his AI mates can be commended by the command, promoted or even awarded a medal. This rapidly increases the "Good Soldier" points.
The secondary missions: enemy camp's night raid (with possibility of stealth, of course), mine field defusal, own mine field assembly , attacking the enemy supply convoy, building the defense perimeter etc. Some of these tasks increase the GS points too, but not so much as the primary ones.
Voluntary missions: searching for a well (if the camp water tank is empty), night stealth raid to enemy camp (for secret documents, which are unaccesible by ordinary assault, for diversion tasks like destroying the radio, heavy weapons or vehicles , discharging the enemy water supplies...there is a lot of possibilities). The only two specialities of this type of attack is that they are voluntary and the don't have to be succesful. They are better marked by GS points than the Secondary missions. Some tasks can be either Secondary or Voluntary missions, it depends on necessity, importancy or dangerousness of the task...
Semi-tasks: It's something like "Try to find some mines in that destroyed halftracks" "Find some ammunition on MG, we're almost out of it" etc. These tasks have no "star on the compass", so the player have to find it really alone...these tasks have no effect on GS points.

The object of the game is simple: survive and return home with at least two limbs. The further goal is to have as much GS points and medals, as possible.

The technical abilities of game:
1) Vast, open world with some important places (El Almein, El Agheila, Bir Hakeim etc). This places should be mapped autentically. The battles and other event should happen accordingly to the facts and in matching time. There is few more towns, a lot of villages, oases and wells. In the rest of desert is only a couple of palms, lost camel, Arabian caravana, abandoned vehicle or group of deserted ally or enemy soldiers, who died on thirst, or who is dying slowly. There is partialy free move for player. It means he can approach the target anyway he wants, but if he decides to take a truck and go away from the camp, he will be shot immediately for deserting, or he will travel across the desert until he dies, because in case of deserting, the map will change a little, the wells and oases will dissapear, so the player can meet only ally soldiers, who will arrest him and suspect of deserting, or enemy troops, who will try to kill him, of course. For the case of losing (or for example if only the player survives the attack on the supply convoy in the middle of desert), he will be given the chance to return his unit or finding new one: He can find well, oasis, tyre marks, leading him to the remaining people (but he must decide, if those marks are from allied or enemy vehicle), or he simply come across the enemy or friendly unit.

2)The changing of daytime and weather
one hour of real time will be 6 minutes in gametime (except the sleep, during which the time will run much faster) Days changes for the night, calm weather for sand storm.

3) Changing of map itself
The foot and tyre marks will dissapear after few hours, the items, lying on the surface will drown in sand ,but some items can be revealed, as the wind reforms the dunes. the textures of bullet hits on surface will stay as long as possible.

4) High interactivity of items
Every item, every part of weapon or vehicle can be used multiple ways: player can use it, throw it, explore it or offer it to mate. All this by regular 5-button mouse. Some buttons can have multiple uses: if I look on a friend, hold the item and press Middle mouse for meelee attack, I will offer him the item instead of hitting him by it. If I hold mine, go to crouch or prone, look on ground and press MMB, I will put the mine just under the surface instead of hitting to the ground, Right click on weapon means aiming down, Right click on field bottle means looking inside to find out, how much water is left...do you understand? And make all the items interactive physically: enough shooting to objects with no effect" Furniture and wooden crates will break on smaller (pick-up-able) pieces, rounds, shell, grenade or mine will explode, tin can, field bottle, helmet etc. will jump away at least...is it so hard with present abilities of computers and modellers themselves?

5)Good 3D effects
When I saw trailer for Stalker: Clear Sky, I was impressed by abilities of DX10 . For the game, 3D dust clouds or flames, sand, penetrating to vehicle interior by small spaces between the parts, explosions of mines mixing the sand and smoke together, lighter flame, oil flame, flame on the burning palm... Smoke going as a grey tongue from under the cowling of damaged truck...it can't be so hard to do, it will be few small steps for you, but one giant leap for mankind...or at least for gamers.

6) Good system of dialogs with AI and monologs of AI itself
Co-fighters shouting the three sentences in a circle, not according the happening on scene, and asking for cover because of reloading, when they crouch behind the kicked table doing nothing ...no thank you. AI is one of the most slovenly components of present games.

7) interacting with terain
Allowing digging trenches by a field spade in the sand, craters after explosions and deep marks after tank passaging, this all influenced by wind, tranporting sand from spot to spot and deleting the proofs of human presence. Delightful, not?

This is in general everything. I have a lot of further ideas and those ones above are said simplified. I hope you will read it at least to point 4) and if you don't understand something, I can explain it better. If you consider some point to be faint, let me to explain it once more, in more detail...
I admire you and I wish you to sell 1 000 000 000 copies of your next game. Good luck! Bloody well done so far.

Please excuse my English, one third of the words I used here, are from dictionary, not from my head, so I'm not able to use them correctly. But I hope you will understand, what that peasant somewhere from the central Europe has in mind.

There are some really good ideas here, i really like how you have tried to capture the work of a soldier so its not just fighting or killing 50 enemies in one mission, You just better hope a bigger gun game doesnt steal this from you!
If you succeed WELL DONE AND MAKE SURE YOU TELL US!

if IW or Ubisoft steals my ideas, I'll be satisfied...but even better it is when they ask me for some more info...I have 3 inch high pile of papers with notes, so I think it's pretty possible to begin the work on it...

I have a question for gamers: For exemple in Far Cry 2, there is a lot af actions, greatly animated, but repairing the engine means only to press E and wait. I want my game to go further: If some part of your engine is damaged, you can find another one from other vehicle or wreck, and you can replace the damaged one to make your vehicle working again. This will be a lot of actions (Take the spanner, lift the cover, loose the bolts, take a part, open the cover of your vehicle, take the damaged part away and replace it) I figured out how to do this with use of 5-button mouse and keyboard, but it is quiet difficult to learn the key combinations (This is why you have few weaks in Britain to learn it). Are you willing to learn this and have great abilities or you rather want to watch still the same animation. This sophisticated controlling has its uses: Then you have a bottle, for exemple, and you can do 8 different actions with it:

1) Left Mouse button - laying on the surface
2) Left mouse button + looking on a friend - you offer him a bottle
3) Left Mouse Button + looking on an enemy - hitting him. However, when the enemy is captured and interrogated, you can offer him a bottle too...
4) Right mouse button - You look inside to explore the volume of the liquid contents (And additional F makes your soldier to sniff and to find out, if it is water or petrol inside)
5) F - you drink from the bottle (When you're sure it's water inside. If you haven't checked it before (by RMB+F), your player will sniff the bottle himself, before putting the bottle on his lips - as a human would do it in real.
6) T - you throw the bottle in the direction of you crosshairs

7) If you have a bottle with petrol in one hand and a cloth in the other, By pressing E you put the cloth in the bottleneck and you have a Molotov cocktail

(you prepare some of your weapons yourself, you also have to put the rounds to the cartridges yourself before a battle)

8) If you hold two bottles (Or a bottle and a can, or two cans), by pressing E you pour the content from one to another. The direction of pouring you set by pressing right or left mouse button (RMB to pour from the right bottle to the left and LMB for the opposite direction)

This is difficult to understand, but imagine the ammount of available actions with almost every item you come across - for the cartridges I mentioned :
1) At first you take the cartridge - you look on it and press RMB + LMB to put it to the left hand ( If you press only RMB, it will stay in your right hand, which is good, because you are probably right-handed, so you take all the items to your right hand first. But if you're left handed in real and you are used to pick the thing by a left hand, you can set it in options, the settings will change accordingly and the animation will flip horizontaly, from the right hand to the left one...)

2) You pick up the single round by RMB and by E you insert it in the cartridge. By E+RMB you change the direction, so you eject the rounds from the cartridge... understand?

Do you agree with this or you want to keep the Far Cry 2 version? It means you press E for preparing Molotov and your player will play the animation of his hands.
I wait for your responses. It is only a kind of my private research to find out if making of this system was a waste of time or not...but I think filling an MG round belt round by round could be a kind of relaxation :-)

Yes another good idea, just as long as it doesn't mean that you weren't spending 15 minutes just trying to fix a car or whatever, but yh, i think things like respawning a teamate need a players skill, for example, placing morphine in the right places rather than watching it.
Would it work on a console-- Would you still have the ability to have all those points you have made? You said a keyboard, but would this be done on a console aswell?

I also love the idea of putting your own weapons together. Even just making a bomb or something!

It would be really good if you made some of these actions work on a wireless controller- To load a gun you should use the side of the controller and hit it onto your hand.(Thats an idea)

1) No, car repair will last much shorter than in real. However, if you have to repair it under fire, it means still a few very long
minutes. Sometimes the bolt can jam or the spanner drops off your hand because of your nervosity, but **** happens :-)
(I thought about a stress effect, If you're out of ammo, you're surrounded or the bullets zip slightly around your head, your hands will start to shake and you will be less manually skillful, so for exemple you won't be able to reload so fast as in relaxed time).
2)Recovering yourself or your mate will be a bit tricky, too. Forget about simple hotkey to use a medkit, you have actual first aid kit with a couple of bandages, morphine syrettes and sulfonamid syrettes. If you are shot, you take sulfonamid to desinfect it, then you take the bandage and put it on the injured place. It only stop the bleeding (if made well), but you would need to use the morphine to deal with pain and you will be disabled on that part (if you're shot to the leg, you can't run so quickly and so long, if you get hit in your arm, you won't be able to lift heavy items (you will drop it because of pain) and so on. So you will really have to look after yourself and don't risk in the battle.
3) I have never played on a console, so I don't have an experience with abilities of controlling...but I suppose it can be fine-tuned as well as for PC. And I don't think you will have to hit yourself to your head :-D
4) Yes, prepairing charges will be one of necessary work before going to battle. You will have 3 ways of detonating: old good safety-fuse, stopwatch or electrical detonator with a button. I have prepared the combinations of keys for preparing each of them, but it's for another post :-)

And I don't know how to design the game saving... if there are quicksaves, the player can save before every showing to an enemy and reload the position as long as he doesn't get through, agin and again. It destroys the atmosphere of the fight, when you have to plan every your move and avoid being killed. I'm for system of checkpoints, where the game saves automatically, and automatic saving in the morning, after waking up, before a battle, after the end of battle etc. It will force you to be careful, because if you're killed, you will have to start again. The problem is, that from BiA, I know the anger when I play the same part of mission 10 times... but if the enemy moves different ways and does different action on every reloading, it could keep the player enjoying the game, because every situation after reloading will be different from the previous ones...What do you think?
Which method of savig game would you prefer? Or do you have some other ideas?

Sorry, i may have understood wrong, but do you want to have game saves done everytime you get into a small shoot out or just a large scale battle.
I do however agree that with BIA i played "Black Friday" a lot because i couldn't get past one bit.

no, I only said that with hotkey for quicksaving you can abuse the saving and you have nothing to risk. In this case, your game will save when you wake up, when you get a task, before you attack enemy camp or enemy line, after the end of battle, after arriving into position (you will also have a task to deliver supplies or message to distant friendly camp and it can be dozens of kilometers, so you will like to get it saved (yes, you read well, dozens of kilometers...I think it could be delightful to drive truck or a jeep full speed through the desert with terrible dust cloud behind you)

Thanks for clearing that up.

thanks for your interest...I hope you're not the last who is interested in my project (If you are)...but I'm worried it's the end...on the IW forum there was only one responding user, too...what should I do?

Maybe its time to send your ideas off to a big gaming industry? Im not really sure i dont know so much.

I'm worried of being refused...but right today I have 18th birthday and I am adult now, so this could be the "adulthood exam"...cross your fingers, I'll try it...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: RamidusCZ,