Idea Info Name: Depth Filled Online Combat Game Index: Primary Category: Online Submitted: 1/15/2003 3:37:01 PM Written By: GasMask Game Architecture and Design: A New Edition Book Highly Recommended !

When you join a server online you must choose from two main types of roles, either Air, or Land.  If you choose Land you must then decide which job you will have.  These are tank crewman, mobile anti aircraft crewman; a foot soldier armed with a wide assortment of anti personnel guns, as well as anti tank guns, and anti aircraft guns.  If you choose Air, you must choose to fight in a single crewperson jet, or fight as a gunner/bomber in a larger aircraft.  Then you must choose a team to fight with.  It could be one side against another, or a bunch of small factions, or it could even everyone for them selves.  However that’s not all.  If your vehicle has seats for more than just you, say you need a tail gunner in your bomber; you can wait until someone decides to join your vehicle.  You’ll have complete control over this, and you can take off whenever you want.  Now, you’re vehicle won’t be sitting on the ground waiting to get destroyed while you wait for men to jump in, you’ll be in a sort of limbo, and when players come into the game, they can take a look at all the waiting vehicles before they go to battle, and choose to jump in or not.   

That’s all well and good, but what about the real depth?  Well, the better you fight and the more efficient a killer you are, the more points you earn.  These points can then be used to customize your aircraft, or tank.  However, if you want to be the baddest troop out there and you don’t need a vehicle, you can choose to buy armor, and awesome weaponry, such as a stun gun used to stall vehicles, which for a plane is very bad.

Customization is the biggest part of this game.  You can create anything you desire.  Need another gun on your tank so that it’s a double barrel killer?  No problem, go to the shop and buy one, then if you have the space on your frame, add it in, then decide if this new gun should be controlled by another player or by the main turret gunner, if you want them to fire at the same time then that’s the way to go; or how about that napalm load you’ve always wanted on your bomber craft.  Get some!

Now that you’ve got your custom made fully loaded awesome flying death fortress with guns all over it and a crew of ten brave souls you finally jumped in, you take off guiding your plan through the air with arcade like control.  Your craft is slow and can’t go very high, but you don’t care, you’re the flying grim reaper, and your men know it.  You see the enemy, a shiny tank firing at your armies ground troops.  They lack anti tank weaponry, so they are running for cover, you radio to your men in the plane (using your real life headset of course and) telling them the enemy tank is at 12 O’clock and you’re turning right so that the gunner on left side can kill it with his armor piercing Vulcan cannon.  Slowly you turn, your gunners heart is pounding, then you hear it, the sweet sound of your Vulcan cannon letting loose hell on the tank, you look to your left and see the rounds impact.  The rounds go into the tank and some even go through it.  The tank, once moving a fast pace now stops.  It is dead.  Apparently whoever made that tank didn’t do a very good job on beefing up the armor.

This idea is a simple one, but I feel it’s one that deserves a look at.

The sum up: 

Multiplayer only. 

Start out with pre-made, not very good weapons and vehicles. 

Choose to be a foot soldier using guns to kill people, and to kill airborne and ground vehicles. 

Roles can be changed in game.

Choose what side to fight on. 

Earn kill points by taking enemies out and use them to buy and customize weapons, armor, and vehicles.  Make them anyway you like.

Have multiple buddies in your vehicle with you, taking control of piloting, gunning, or scouting. 

Use real life headsets for communications, enabling you to switch between different players/teams at the push of a button.

Take control of your aircraft with real life yokes/sticks.

Arcade like, simplified control so that you can pay more attention to killing.

Armor up as much as possible to survive attacks instead of dying in one shot.

Players can get indepth information about vehicles before they decide to jump in.