Conceptual RTS/FPS hybrid

[Mufujumon]

Picture your typical multiplayer RTS. Some kind of modern-day war game, with tanks and bases, etc. Now imagine that while you could play as the usual role of commander, micromanaging every aspect of your army from your imaginary bunker (as usual), you could instead opt to enter an in-progress game as a "mercenary" with no preexisting allegiance. You, and others like you, would be able to roam the map that others are fighting over in a first person shooter style. Then, say you and your gaggle of unaligned cronies get a call from the commander of Blue Team. He says that if you kill 15 Red infantrymen, Blue's gonna give you a shiny new tank. You like the idea, and 15 dudes later lo behold, a shiny tank! But Red, having seen your exploits, has mobilized a kill squad to deal with you. Now your headquarters is besieged, but luckily the distraction has bought Blue the opening needed to seize victory! The match ends, and the FPS and RTS players go their separate ways.

What do you think? The closest I've seen a game come to this is Meg, with its commander and large player-base, but I think shoving some real players into an RTS would be pretty sweet.

 

[Plurralbles]

it's actually been thought about by big players... Just they haven't gotten around to it yet. Hell it has a patent or some form of copyright on it.

 

[Judgement101]

There was a game with this exact concept. It was awful. Which was sad because it has a lot of potential.

 

[Ashtovo]

yahtzee already talked about this

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/7938-Extra-Punctuation-On-RTS-Games.2

 

[TailsRodrigez]

I have always wanted to play a game like this, but I always hoped that there would be one commander who would give orders to other players playing some of the infantry.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Is this not a shorter version of one of Yahtzee's extra punctuation articles?

EDIT: Too slow.

 

[xHipaboo420x]

Yeah I loved Warzone 2100 too.

 

[cgmetallica1981]

Raven Squad is one. It was awful though. Nuclear Dawn is coming out soon, and it doesn't look any better.

 

[Mufujumon]

yahtzee already talked about this

The fundamental difference between what he was saying and this idea here is that in his system, all of the commander's units are human controlled players who will invariable grief their commander. This system has the rts commander controlling his own AI units while human players exist on the same map, possibly coaxed into doing jobs for an in-game reward.

 

[Baralak]

There's a free online game called BattleSwarm. It's an online game. One team plays FPS (with over-the shoulder third person camera available) while they fight against another team, which bulds bases and units, controlling them like an RTS. It's like Horde mode in some games, but the horde is controlled by players. PRetty darn fun, too.

 

[The Madman]

Savage and Savage 2 are pretty much exactly what you just described; two 'commander' players playing the game from an rts perspective while the other players act as infantrymen and units to be given instructions by the commanders.

Alright game, but while it sounds fun in principle, doesn't really work out that well.

There are actually quite a few games which try to mix rts and fps, but most examples are either scrapped or just never turn out that well.

 

[IBlackKiteI]

I was kinda thinking on this the other day, but instead of the commanders having absolute control they moreso guide the guys on the ground, and also have access to support abilities. Something like this would only work in a big ass game though, Operation Flashpoint multiplayer anyone?

Like, say theres two sides hammering each other and the commander guy can do things like highlight points of interest to their guys and mark high value enemies, or they can call in air support, equipment drops, artillery strikes, give orders to particular squads, that kinda thing.
So there are the guys effectively playing an FPS, and the commander every now and then says, 'Hey guys, theres a f****** tank headed your way.' or 'You guys do this.' or one of the soldiers requests an air strike somewhere to which the commander can call in.

Having a couple guys completely boss around a bunch of guys would not be fun, but some sort of balance of it might work, but it would be very difficult and still hugely at the mercy of the players themselves.

 

[sidecord]

total annihilation: spring, its free, and you can control almost everything

 

[RSGstyle]

Didn"t the Command & Conquer series pull the plug on one of these projects because it wasn't working out? It was set in the C&C universe and was named "Tiberium"

 

[ultrachicken]

The problem with that system, is why would you want to give the mercenaries who could, at any time, decide to royally fuck you, a tank?

 

[Anarchemitis]

Work-in-progress. It's called Warsoup.

 

[SteewpidZombie]

Yeah, it isn't a good mix. GREAT idea, but terrible application unless everyone is a serious gamer who wants to play by the rules and help one another.

'BattleSwarm' tried to do this, but it fails. The RTS gamers are always overpowered compared to the limitations of the FPS players. And the FPS players usually go off and do their own thing, while the RTS gamer is left alone.

 

[Veldel]

ever played Battlezone 2 Combat Commander its a RTS/RPG hybird and quite fun

 

[Kiefer13]

I had a similar idea years ago. Had tons of concepts and ideas for mechanics written down and typed up. Still have them somewhere, I'm sure. I'll have to dig them up.