WWI Anyone?

#1 If you plan on making it somewhat realistic then it would be a fairly boring game.
As the germans and the allied where duck down in 200-500 km long trenches a few 100 meters from each other.

Here they spend most of the war trying to flush each other out with mortar shellig and mustard gas, interupted by very stupid attempts to overrun the enemy trenches.

They did not try to use any real form a strategy that ever a 12 yeah old kid have today.

So unless you can find someway to prevent the players to think and maybe even force them to run in a straight line towards enemy machineguns it will never be anything like WWI.

But if you just want to make a FPS based on a WWI setting then it could be cool.

BUt if I were you I would not try to make it realistic or even remotely realistic, apart from the weaponry and uniforms.

// Clocks out - the maker of a WWII game

www.flashthunder.com

#2 Well, I was thinking more on the lines of figuring out a way to get it realistic and fun at the same time, I already have some ideas about it, I just need to think about it more.

#3 Thats would be cool if you could, but my poinjt was that even a 12 year old kid playing your game today wont act as stupid as they did during WWI.

Imagine someone blow a whistle and one team runs out over a flat terrain towards dug down enemies with machineguns.

This is what they did in WWI 90% of the time.
And no player would ever do that today.

// Clocks out

#4 Karsten,

Don't go giving us too much credit. The waves of attackers you speak of do still exist in the modern world. The Chinese used massed wave formations in the Korean conflict in the early 1950's, and as recently as the Iran/Iraq conflict massed waves were used by the Iranians to try and overwhelm Iraqi positions - with predictable results.

Also remember that you had the introduction of the tank in WW1 - troops fled the field just on seeing the first ones - until one got stuck and hit with an artillery shell. If the initial attackers had entered the field with about three dozen instead of two or three the war would have ended within a couple of days.

You also had slow moving aircraft with people hand dropping bombs on the lines.

Just imaging what whould have happened if those two attacks had ever been coordinated in the initial assaults!

Finally, there were some really nasty fights in those trenches. People would secretly dig below ground to within fifty yards of an enemy position. Then they would pack explosives in the end of the tunnel and detonate it along with a series of charges to "pop the top" on the secret tunnel. The resultant explosions would connect the enemy trenches with yours and your troops would pour into the enemy trenches with pistols, knives and bayonets to try and rout the enemy out of their trenches and into a fallback set. The enemy would defend their trenches by making them in zigzag patterns so you had to come around a corner and down a straightaway to get to the next position.

Trench warfare was a nasty, dirty business and was not nearly as stupid as modern historians make it seem. The rules of trench warfare date back to castle seiges. To get a better idea of how nasty it was take a look at the most recent version of "Last of the Mohicans" The French used it on Fort William Henry with devastating results. The English didn't give up the fort because they were surrounded - they were dead - outmanuvered by the French soldiers who got their giant mortars into position to lob shells into the enemy (English) emplacements.

World War I was a lot less "civilized" than World War II on the front lines. Which made some of their actions (such as a cessation of hostilities on Christmas while both sides sang carols across the lines) even more strange.

#5 David, my point was simple that most avarage 14 yo kid could outsmart Napoleon today in terms of strategy.

Dont get me wrong I would love to play a game set in WWI, with nice pointy helmets and vast clouds of mustard gas. Could make a cool gashelmet HUD where you saw out through to holes for a very limited view.

And yes the tanks and planes could add a lot of fun to a game like this, but......

Making it realistic will be very hard and kinda pointless, as it would only make for a very boring gameplay.

// Clocks out

#6 I think you are incorrect with that.... Personally, WW1 is one of the most action packed conflicts i have ever studied. Trech warfare was tedious and long, but what about trench raids? What about the marches? The british were the only ones that employed that tactic, the americans were excellent, mobile soldiers - Like those seen in WWII.

What about the Argonne forest? Did you see the movie on TLC about the troops stuck in the Argonne forest, with low supplies and surrounded by germans?

I think that a WWI idea has tons of potential. Like you said, make it realistic but also fun - so possibly leave out the trench sitting, and all of that. Include the more exciting parts, and I think you will have a great game if it is well executed.

And maybe for a change, make it seen from the enemies point of view. I think I can speak for a lot of people who get tired of playing as the Americans point of view. The germans were superior through out most of that war, so I think you could add to the fun factor by allowing the player to take advantage of the germans power and let them crush the americans for a while!



(I am not American Hater, I just think that playing as the germans for once would be fun.)

#7 I totally agee with you, but I have a hard time seeing it as a game (read a game worth playing).

Yeah it would be nice to play as German for once.

But as you know you can paly as germans in all multiplayer games, and I only talked about the WWI aspect in Multiplayer.

As a singleplyer game, hmmm then anything could be possible even WWI.

I Doom you were alone against a few thousand enemies, so why not in WWI.

// Clocks out

#8 a WW1 game would prolly be no fun... There are already some of them out they kinda suck'd But like a Futureistic Game liek Starsiege(from 1996) was fun and cool would still be popular if Sierra fixed the bugs. Right now im working on a game based in 3225 with Mechs Infantry men and more :o

#9 I think a WWI idea would be original and different, as well as well worth anyone's time. I personally think people are sick of hearing and playing WWII games, and WWI was so much different it could be refreshing. WWI battles were not, in fact, stable trench sieges. For instance, the Battle of Verdun, which killed over 1,000,000 people (more than any WWII battle, in fact, more than Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and D-Day all combined into one, with room left over). In Verdun, there were hundreds of chaotic clashes which leveled the town of Verdun (the battlefield literally looks like the moon now it has so many craters--all the forests that had been there before the battle are gone, and the only plant life that grows there is yellowish grass [I've been to Verdun]). The scene of Verdun in the latter part of the battle, would have been dead bodies everywhere, some rotting and some 'fresh'. The battle lasted about 8 months, I believe.

However, if you are looking for an intense, utterly devestating conflict, look at the Battle of the Somme. It lasted 2 weeks and killed about 2,000,000 soldiers. Trench warfare obviously does not last that short, nor kill so many in such a short time. WWI battles dwarf the biggest WWII battles in casualties, such as Stalingrad and Berlin, making them almost "superbattles."

I firmly believe a WWI game could have great potential.

#10 The high number of casualties dont nessacary make good gameplay. Actually ti might just make bad gameplay as there most have been a reason that so many people died in such short time.

And being shot 10 sec after you spawn is not funny.

And there has been many WWI games they just never made it big (for obvious reasons).

// Clocks out (of this pointless discussion).

#11 Anything is possible. It'll just take a little ingenuity, patience and time. That doesn't necessarily mean you'd have to follow the cut and dried mold of current war based FPS' (RtCW, Day of Defeat, Ghost Recon, Tribes, UT, etc etc).

There's always a way around the stiffling effect of 'realism', while maintaining the base event and putting a 'fun' spin on it. But that all depends on the crowd you're trying to appeal to. People who love to play sims aren't going to jump from Janes WW2 Fighters or USAF to something like Crimson Skies. Just like diehard deathmatch players more than likely wouldn't jump into a game like Operation Flashpoint. Just look for a different approach for multiplay. Maybe take a team deathmatch or defend/hold approach to the trench raids? Or add an rts element where you command a whole slew of AI troops into the trenches.

I think any slightly competent designer would be able to pull off a good WW1 based FPS with both singleplayer and multiplayer. You won't know until you try. :)

#12 I think it is a great idea. Cool models of WWI soldiers, cannons, and those wierd old tanks. Trench warfare in FPS done realistically, whether you agree it was a great strategic way to fight or not, would be interesting and frightening. Giving people some idea of the utter fear those foot soldiers went through is a worth while endeavor.

While you are at it, have old WWI planes cruising the sky for effect.

Go for it.

Jeff Tunnell GG

#13 Hah - Good point by all of you "pro" WW1'ers. I think that too many people are biased towards WWII combat, and not enough towards other large conflicts.

I say go for it.

#14

Quote:have old WWI planes cruising the sky for effect.

lol *cough*Red Baron*cough* :)

#15 I've actually have my own idea for a WWI game, but with a few changes from the the actual war. And I'm not sure if I actually want to do it, but someone told me my idea was pretty good.

#16 When I was talking about the hig WWI casualties, I was saying that WWI had just as much 'action' as WWII, not saying that lots of death and desctruction makes a good game.

BTW, if you need a designer or a writer for the game (that is, if you make it), I'll help you out until my project gets an engine.

#17 I had plans to make a WWI game off the Torque engine,
strictly muliplayer of course.

I know that there are many "features" needed in the gameplay to make it more than a

*spawn* run 5 metres *die* *spawn* *repeat*


a few things i had in mind to make it playable

* Differing accuracy - ( by the end of 1914 the amount of professional soldiers fighting was extremely low, most of the war was fought by the volunteer army.) therefore i feel that accuracy should vary dramatically by positions, eg. standing 25% accuracy, crouching 70%, prone(possibly parapet mount, haven't decided) 90% and for running 1% ( im sick of Quake style games)

* Heavy Fog - Most raids were made at dawn. and a thick fog cover would provide a resonable protection against spawn campers, or particularly lame snipers.

* Tanks - The first WWI tanks were really poor pieces of machinery, 16kph speed, easily bogged, hot and small interior. But the make sensational cover for crater hopping towards the enemy trench.

* Trench Foot - in such moist environment trench foot was a common disease causing the feet to swell and become num, then deflat and cause intense agony.
My suggestion, to prevent camping, have a timer (server set) on how long a player can remain in one particular place. it would have to be refined so it could not being easily beaten by simply moving left and right a few steps.


just a few ideas i have, and will later put into code... if i could only find the time :(

#18 I'll help out as well if you want.

Remember that between the trenches there were craters for the shells, bodies, etc to cover behind.

#19 World War I was far from boring (the American Revolution, now that was boring!). Although Clocks has a point in that there were many standoffs and many stupid breaks across no-man's land, by the end of the war the tactics used were the same ones in early WWII (just as late Civil War tactics were similar to trench warfare in early WWI).
I have a few suggestions that I think might move the game away from "hide in trench, shoot from trench, hide in trench, shoot from trench, get cut down by enemy machine gun". And I will detail them, but I have to go to Calculus in 10 minutes. So it will be left for another post!

#20 I dunno if it's been brought up yet, but the dog fighting in WW1 was great. A combo of ground fighting and air combat would be amazing if it could be pulled off. I mean my idea may be insane and totally not what you had in mind..but..I'm just a crazy guy!

Maybe even throw in a little Alvin C. York :)

Benji