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(Note: An understanding of WWI is suggested if you plan on participating in this topic. Trench warfare, the Western Front, the Triple Entente, the Central Powers, and weapons employed by each side.)

I thought it would be interesting to speculate about what a successful WWI title would entail. Assume it will be released on all major platforms. Xbox 360, PS3, PC, and possibly Wii and DS. You decide what company would make the game, as well as what kind of game it would be. Let's leave RTS out though. First Person Shooter or Third Person Shooter.

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I'll throw onto the table some of my ideas.

Title: Call of Duty: The War to End All Wars
Company: Infinity Ward
Type: First Person Shooter
Game modes: Single player campaign, split-screen campaign, online campaign, split-screen multiplayer, LAN, and 64-player online. (128 feasible for PC?)

Online game modes: Team Deathmatch, Trench Raid, 2-flag and 1-flag CTF, all with their hardcore counterparts.

Concept: The game would function very similarly to Call of Duty 4 and World at War, but with the technology and tactics of World War I. I realize that this game would be a camp fest online, but to offset that, perhaps every five minutes or so, an alarm is raised, and players MUST rush the other trench, or they will be killed. Say, you have ten seconds to leave the trench and rush the other side. When that time is up, you will die if you are still in your trench. Of course, you could still crawl into a crater, but that is designed to offset camping, not eliminate it altogether.

This game would have set classes. A sniper, infantryman, machinegunner(the stationary ones), artillery battery operator, battlefield medic, and flamethrower infantry. Despite the set classes, perks can still be chosen as they are unlocked.

There would be several unique aspects. For example, if the trench rats go unattended in your trench, your team will start to lose health. So teamwork is encouraged in that you have to delegate the task of keeping the trench tidy to someone.

As for the kill streaks, a three kill streak will get you airplane recon, five kills will get you an off map artillery barrage (much stronger than the on-map manned artillery), and seven will get you a gas attack. Gas attacks will render anyone unlucky enough to be near it dead, unless they manage to put their gasmask on. They would have about two seconds after the "gas attack imminent" announcement to put on their gasmask, otherwise they will die. The trench that the gas hit (if it was actually aimed at the trench, and not at the middle of the battlefield) will be rendered unusable by the other team for a few minutes.

I also imagine that there would be many AI forces as well.

The Trench Raid game mode would work like this:

l = Trench line
x = No Man's Land



l l xxxxxxxxxx l l
l l xxxxxxxxxx l l
l l xxxxxxxxxx l l
l l xxxxxxxxxx l l
l l xxxxxxxxxx l l
l l xxxxxxxxxx l l
l l xxxxxxxxxx l l

It would work similar to Domination as far as points go, except once a trench is taken, the guns can be turned against the last remaining one. As a help to the team that is being dominated, they will receive a bolstered amount of AI units assisting them, helping them to take back their original trench. However, if the attacking team uses coordination, even they can negate the effectiveness of the AI units.

The rest of the games are self-explanatory, however I will point out that 1-Flag CTF might work astoundingly well for the nature of the war. (Flag would be located in No Man's Land.)

Trentch Rats Game mod HL1 Engine.

'Nough said.


The World War 1 as a game wouldn't work as well as World War 2 Style of games. Take example from Company of Heroes.
Since majority of The Great war took place in long lines of trentches and spamming artillery and whatsoever to destroy the enemy positions. How can someone muster up a game from that?

First Person Shooter.

Well Alright. Trentch Rats mod did manage to do some kind of a nice realistic game (surprisingly for HL1 engine!) but the mod ended up boring. Sure the idea is beautiful and gentle but- lacks a lot of things (A LOT OF players needed to make it effective). The thing is- 1 or 2 players charging up enemy positions defended by 1 or two players- eh didn't work. When there's more than 1 player up to 30 players it might turn interesting but again- only in Clan Matches where Squads actually coordinate and not just basic FPS 'Who Frags The most wins'. I can imaginate the game idea you created in theory its nice but in reality won't really work that well. I mean, just grab a sniper rifle and lay down by your trentch. That'd be what everyone would do. Why Choose Infantry class? You get basic Rifle, bayonet, gasmask and 1 hand grenade? Doesn't sound very attractive kit to me if someone sits with a KAR98 Converted to Sniper Rifle. Then Machinegunner. LMGs were rather different in those times. LEWIS, BAR1918...few others too but can't remember them only know LEWIS and BAR. The Machinegun's must be stationary since they need 2 crew men to operate it.

Tactics of World War 1. Simple, Rush in, Kill them all, Win the day. It didn't work due to machineguns. Each Faction Caculated their own Manpower and compared it to the enemy's then they counted how long will it take until the other faction loses all their manpower! W00t! Adding that to a gameplay- no one wants to die rushing when they have to do it alone when all the others are in a camp fest. Limit classes like in Day of Defeat would work- but still no one wants to attack unless their forced to.
To add up to the tactics, later in the war there were special assault infantry designed by Italians, armed with light submachineguns (one was dual barreled but had to be deployed can't remember the name) and MP18s. Sure this might be the only I WIN button in a game ruled by basic rifles...

Overall: World War 1 as a First Person Shooter would work, but it'd be boring as heck unless there were some AI infantry units involved. Adding in tanks would basically be idiotic idea, a big steel box that could run over defences but would get stuck in every hole- none would want to drive such a thing especially once germans found ways to counter them. Like in BF1941, stand next to ammo box and spam nades on it it'll eventually blow up. Weaponry and idea sounds awsome but still wouldn't work too well.


RTS:

It would only work if it is A ready defence line for you.AI infantry in trentches shooting at enemy, and you can call in troops from Offmap like in Men of War. Etc...Any sort of Basebuilding...not a chance. Offmap call ins would work but no base building or tier advacing like in Company of Heroes.

Simulation: Works, no tank simulations but Aircraft Simulations. There's been several well made air combat simulations around there.

In my opinnion Games based on World War 1:

FPS: Poor
RTS: Poor
Simulation: Great

That's only my opinnion though