Picking sides.

[Snotnarok]

A game called Americas Army came out ages ago and it did something very unique, no matter what team you were on you always saw the enemy as terrorists (I believe it's been ages). And I liked that for one really good reason, it made it easy to tell what team you're on!

Now in these modern games that have random maps and bounce you between random teams it's sometimes hard to remember who you're supposed to be shooting. Now you look for red names over their heads.

So tell me, do you like the idea of perhaps picking what you prefer what "side" to be on and you always SEE that while the enemy team would see you as an enemy?

Ex: You pick US Army and you SEE this along with your US Army teamates. But the enemy would see you as terrorists or nazis whatever.

Edit: Okay a better explanation that doesn't take sides with race religion or ...food preferences. Say you like Blue Team so you pick that as preferred, now you're on Team 1 and you see everyone AS blue team, but your friend ...Jeff on the other team will see you as Red as he has picked blue as well. So the colors are merely a perspective thing, you get to pick your team color basically, but the enemy will see you as what they picked as the opposite.

 

[Mookie_Magnus]

I actually like the way games like Call of Duty set the teams as different opposing factions. Because it instills in you a sense that there really isn't a good guy or bad guy in war.

 

[Omikron009]

I do like that idea. For example, I like how people are just red and blue in halo team deathmatch, but I think you should perhaps always see enemies as red. Make things even less confusing.

 

[Snotnarok]

I do like that idea. For example, I like how people are just red and blue in halo team deathmatch, but I think you should perhaps always see enemies as red. Make things even less confusing.

Yes you've explained it far better than I did. This is exactly what I mean. In MW2 it's kinda hard to tell sometimes. You just run out and you're like "Oh shit, what am I?"*

 

[Snotnarok]

I actually like the way games like Call of Duty set the teams as different opposing factions. Because it instills in you a sense that there really isn't a good guy or bad guy in war.

This is true.

There is no right and wrong in war - just death.

I changed what I basically meant, I don't mean you pick what side of the war, just how you want to look or...well basically what you want the enemy team to look like. So I pick blue and you pick blue, we see eachother as red. Get it?

 

[Dr. Whiggs]

There is no right and wrong in war - just death.

Of course there's right and wrong. For example, the massacre of innocents is wrong.

War isn't that clean cut, sweetie.

Oh Jesus, that's one battle-hardened high school sophomore.

 

[Bravo 21]

A game called Americas Army came out ages ago and it did something very unique, no matter what team you were on you always saw the enemy as terrorists (I believe it's been ages). And I liked that for one really good reason, it made it easy to tell what team you're on!

I actually foud that difficult, largely because I had a policy of shoot first, apologize later, and regularly got booted for accidentally teamkilling, curse you realistic style shooters!

 

[Snotnarok]

Well this turned into a fight between the wrong things, I wanted to talk about a game mechanic not a fight about who's right in war.

 

[Gigaguy64]

War isn't that clean cut, sweetie.

No, I'd say it is. You really can't justify the genocide of innocents. It's always going to be wrong. There is no moral ambiguity.

This is war, hun. Rolling in with guns blazing will only lead to more death.

No matter how you go about it, innocent people will be killed, livelihoods will be destroyed, and families will left without homes.

But that's just the facts of it.
War will lead to death yes, but there are times where War is the the best option.
Saying there is no Right or Wrong in a War is not true.

EDIT: OT i do like your idea as well OP.
I like Halo because it keeps things simple with Red, Blue, Gold, Purple, ETC teams in team multi.

 

[Angerwing]

War isn't that clean cut, sweetie.

No, I'd say it is. You really can't justify the genocide of innocents. It's always going to be wrong. There is no moral ambiguity.

This is war, hun. Rolling in with guns blazing will only lead to more death.

No matter how you go about it, innocent people will be killed, livelihoods will be destroyed, and families will left without homes.

Stop it with the patronising 'hun' and 'sweetie'. There are definitely wrong actions in war, and there are definitely right actions. That's why war crimes exist. Because sometimes, no matter what perspective you look at things from, something is fucking wrong.

It's definitely wrong to kill civilians with no reasonable justification. Look at the My Lai Massacre. These kids had to fight 'civilians' so often they didn't know who were actually civilians or who were Viet Cong. Yet the My Lai Massacre was considered as abhorrent and wrong, even by their fellow soldiers.

 

[Bravo 21]

well the game mechanic was nice, I just had difficulty with the whole, friendly fire is on, and blindfire is a very bad thing when your firing in the general direction of a person whose alignment is somewhat ambiguous

 

[Angerwing]

Well this turned into a fight between the wrong things, I wanted to talk about a game mechanic not a fight about who's right in war.

Oh, yeah. Sorry.

Ahem.

I like your suggestion. Just tagging yourself in settings as "Blue" will ensure that on your screen, all your enemies would be red. Very clever.

 

[Nouw]

I believe we should all raise our flameshields.

Ahem, I'd rather see them as an actual enemies instead of just a blue or red name.

 

[Snotnarok]

Well this turned into a fight between the wrong things, I wanted to talk about a game mechanic not a fight about who's right in war.

Oh, yeah. Sorry.

Ahem.

I like your suggestion. Just tagging yourself in settings as "Blue" will ensure that on your screen, all your enemies would be red. Very clever.

I know this will sound stupid but when randomly hopping in a server of Bad Company 2 or whatever I often miss the russian yelling in my ear and forget that I should be shooting at the marines. Or vice versa. It wouldn't be picking sides persay it would just simplify what you deal with.

 

[Angerwing]

SNIP

I just refuse to accept an eye-for-an-eye rationalization for murder.

Uh, when did I say that I did? I don't understand what point you're trying to make, other than standing on your online soapbox and ranting about the horror of war.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well some games really need better visual ques to distinguish the opposing faction, in MW you can only really tell the guy is on your team when he's got a name. Death to names-less people!!

I do like the idea of opposing sides seeing each other as the same color, avoids confusion and on certain maps it is easier to spot a certain color, eliminates that sort of advantage.

 

[Angerwing]

Well this turned into a fight between the wrong things, I wanted to talk about a game mechanic not a fight about who's right in war.

Oh, yeah. Sorry.

Ahem.

I like your suggestion. Just tagging yourself in settings as "Blue" will ensure that on your screen, all your enemies would be red. Very clever.

I know this will sound stupid but when randomly hopping in a server of Bad Company 2 or whatever I often miss the russian yelling in my ear and forget that I should be shooting at the marines. Or vice versa. It wouldn't be picking sides persay it would just simplify what you deal with.

Yeah, that's what I meant. If you tagged yourself as blue, and your enemy also did, you'd see him as red, and shoot at him, and he'd see you as red as well.

 

[Valiance]

This is already done. At least by competitive players.

It's called forcing models and skins.

For example, in Unreal Tournament 2004, this player has every enemy forced to a large space-marine model in bright pink so they're easy to see and differentiate from his blue teammates:

Skip to 0:38 or so.


Below, in Quake Live, this player has all of his enemies force-model'd to green Keel robots.


Most games allow you to force enemy models and force team models. I know CS at least let you use brightskins, so you could make the enemy the same color every round.

Generally, console commands allow you to do this, while other games have it built into the game menus. I'd gladly help if you were looking to set it up in some game you play.

 

[Bravo 21]

Well this turned into a fight between the wrong things, I wanted to talk about a game mechanic not a fight about who's right in war.

Oh, yeah. Sorry.

Ahem.

I like your suggestion. Just tagging yourself in settings as "Blue" will ensure that on your screen, all your enemies would be red. Very clever.

I know this will sound stupid but when randomly hopping in a server of Bad Company 2 or whatever I often miss the russian yelling in my ear and forget that I should be shooting at the marines. Or vice versa. It wouldn't be picking sides persay it would just simplify what you deal with.

Yeah, that's what I meant. If you tagged yourself as blue, and your enemy also did, you'd see him as red, and shoot at him, and he'd see you as red as well.

Actually thats also one of the game mechanics in starwars Battlefront 2, your always blue, and they are always red

 

[iLikeHippos]

Yeah, it's quite the annoyance when you can't tell much difference from others.

But what annoys me the MORE, is when dickish noobs can't tell the difference, so when me and some ally (Let's call him Noobie McNub) suddenly clash into each other by a corner, my thought instantly springs to mind if it's an ally or not. So, after a reaction time, I notice that it's an ally, I aim my gun away and trigger the gun just out of reflexes, while Noobie McNub knifes me when I am looking away, thinking he's won a point...

Not all that fun when it happens again and again as well in realism games.

Halo's system isn't flawless but at least I know usually which side I am on - the one losing.
Lol.