Hello. I lack skills of any sorts to make this a reality, but would like to voice my idea to see how you guys like it, and maybe see if anyone would be willing to help possibly make this a reality. I was inspired after seeing the Frontline community update and the cool vehicles I saw in it's animation. I have a Idea for a new gamemode that seems crazy at first, but please stay with me and read it. It is a gamemode that would involve vehicles and huge maps. The first part of this post will talk about the features and the like, and the second part will address technical aspects. Thank you in advance for reading.
[B]The Gamemode Rundown[/B]
"War on Wheels" is gamemode made based around a special, gamemode specific vehicle class. It will ideally have 2 teams of 12-16 players fight it out for 3 separate objectives on a large map. The goal is to own 2 of the 3 objectives on the map, but the rules and map have plenty of twists to keep it interesting.
[B]The Vehicle Class[/B]
The main reason for and behind this gamemode. There would be a specific class exclusive to this gamemode, the Vehicle Class. The way this works is that there would be an exclusive class available to select in the gamemode via. the class select screen. The vehicles equipment and type is chosen through the loadout menu. Here, you can select the Primary and Secondary Weapons, but the Melee is replaced with the "Chassis" or "Type" select. There would be 3 "Chassis" to choose from. A fast, armored car variant. A slow, heavy tank variant. And a mid-way, support truck variant. Each one would have it's own selection of Primaries and Secondaries.
The Armored Car would have a fast speed (faster than a scout), but have relatively weak health, or "armor" (say about 350-400). It could have light machine guns or weak explosive cannon options for it's Primary, and a short ranged weapon to use for enemies under the car's sight lines, or even a small boosters that affect various stats when used, and recharge overtime. This would be used to initiate combat, and recon areas for the rest of the team before they move in.
The Tank would be slower (somewhere between a soldier and a heavy in speed), and have high health, or "armor" (about 700-850). The primaries would be heavy explosive weapons, either cannons that blow on impact, or timed artillery grenades that fire in an arc. It's secondary could be a short range flamethrower or machine gun to hit enemies that get to close to the tank. It would be used to provide cover for a team as they move toward a point, and cause damage to other vehicles.
The Truck/Support would be mid speed (just a little bit faster than a scout) and have a mid way of health, or "armor" (about 500-600). It's primaries would be short to medium range machine guns, and it's secondary would be a support module. Something that acts like a mobile dispenser to nearby teammates. This vehicle is special, in the sense it would have an open truck bed for teammates to sort of "stand" in, without sliding around too much. It would be used to get teammates across the map faster, at the expense of being exposed most of the way there.
The way the vehicles would function with the team ensures that you just don't have vehicle on vehicle combat. The points that need to be captured to win, would be un-capture-able by the vehicle class, meaning you have to find the right balance of human and vehicle teammates. The way the vehicle classes health works is also crucial to teamwork. Since it's a machine, an Engineer would be required to heal it with metal. And an Engineer alone is probably not enough, so the idea is you'd have Tanks pushing with about 5-6 teammates behind it, Engineers whacking it with wrenches, A couple damage classes like Soldiers and Demomen close behind, and a Medic to heal any wounds that they get. along the way.
The Vehicles Health Pool may seem high, but take into account Vehicles with heavy damaging weapons taking on other Vehicles. It may see OP, but taking into account everything else in this Gamemode, it will balance itself out.
When a vehicle is killed, or "destroyed", what would happen is it would go through 4-7 second animation of it exploding depending on the vehicle. After the animation, the model would exploding, either dealing no damage to teammates, or perhaps dealing some damage to nearby teammates. The explosion would leave behind various metal "gibs" that would not collide with players. This would prevent the inevitable "suicide blocking" that would come from vehicles sized carcasses left behind.
The Vehicle class itself will ideally have it's own voice lines, something along the lines of a classic WWII video game British tank driver, whose voice lines are heard through static, like they are coming out of a radio. The Vehicles could have optional customization, but should be kept minimal, considering they would only be used for one gamemode. The cosmetics would be limited to patterns on the vehicles, cause they should stay Team colored so it's easy to tell what Team they are on. But they could be Team colored camo patterns, like classic splotches camo, or splintered, or any other camo. And perhaps there can be little flag poles coming off of vehicles. They'd be the respective Team's logo and color by default, but could be changed to various flags, like Mann Co, or the TF logo, or even a decal tool.
[B]The Objectives[/B]
The Objectives would be 3 separate "King of the Hill"(KotH for short) points. Each would require a team to hold it for 3 minutes (standard time for king of the hill). They work like standard KotH points, where if a team caps it after the other already has, it begins the 3 minutes for the new team, but saves the time for the old team, so if it is recaptured, their time will continue off where it was stopped. When the time for a point reaches 0:00, and there is no enemy to force it into Overtime, the point will be locked, and count as a victory point for the team that captured it. The goal is to capture and own 2 out of the 3 points. The objectives require non-vehicle classes to capture and hold.
The objectives would ideally be in areas inaccessible to the vehicle in the first place, but some having sight lines so vehicles can participate by firing into the point. This would create the need to have a good composition of vehicles and people to effectively capture and hold points.
[B]The Map[/B]
The idea is to have one large map for this gamemode to start. If way down the line it proves popular, maybe making a second one. But one map would be enough for this mode alone. The map itself would be giant, perhaps the largest map in any TF2 gamemode. The map would be an Eastern-European countryside, and it would be separated into 3 different parts. The Fields, The Town, and the Woods.
The Fields would be an open area with minimal cover. This is where the vehicles would most shine, as moving across the open area without a vehicle to cover you would be suicide if there was a sniper or another vehicle on the enemy team. This area would allow for the most intense vehicular action. The point would be in a wrecked barn, that has multiple holes in it from combat, allowing for multiple sight lines and entries.
The Town would be a more enclosed area. It's a country town that is abandoned and in shambles. Buildings have holes blown in them, debris is in the streets, etc... Teams could use vehicles for cover and to get close, but would have to enter on foot. The streets and alleyways would be too small for vehicles to enter, and the town would be dense enough that the combat inside would have to be between the foot forces going in. There would be enough holes in buildings and wreckage that people could get on top of buildings, inside, and generally come out of any alleyway. The point would be in the center of town, sort of in a ruined market place, with openings on multiple sides.
The Woods would be the more wild area. It is a somewhat dense with trees, that have enough room for vehicles to travel in between the trees with some care. This would make for an interesting mix between foot and vehicle combat, as the tree spacing would allow for any sort of engagement to happen. The point would be near the middle of the woods, on a camp site, with a couple tents and maybe a campfire. The trees themselves would provide most of the cover for the engagement.
The map would just be one big map, with all these areas connected via land. The idea is that you can take a vehicle from one point to another anywhere in the map.
The spawns would be on either side of the map, with some no-mans land in between the the spawn and the rest of the map. The spawns would be large garages with enough room for vehicles and people to spawn. There would be a 1:00(minute) downtime before the doors open, giving people enough time to decide which point they'll go to. After the minute, the Teams will head out, crossing the no man's land, and into the map.
[B]Technical[/B]
So, there are some technical things that need to be covered. You see, the source engine has the ability to handle big maps, if some liberties are taken. Just look at community servers running huge Garry's Mod maps like gm_BigCity or gm_Flatgrass. And The source engine can handle driving mechanics, as demonstrated by Half Life 2 and it's episodes. I'm no programmer or builder or anything, so there are probably a lot more things that need to be addressed. This is simply an idea I had after watching the Frontline trailer, and seeing those cool battle vehicles. Please give me your thoughts and feedback on what you think, and maybe if you want to take a shot at it, help me make this a reality.
if you think this is possible without extreme modification to source engine (to the point where it's not even tf2 anymore), then you don't know source engine
[QUOTE=ShimTaco;50713158]if you think this is possible without extreme modification to source engine (to the point where it's not even tf2 anymore), then you don't know source engine[/QUOTE]
You see I don't know. And now that I do know, I'd like to understand what the limitations are, and how far it can be pushed and still be playable and recognizable as TF2.
This is surprisingly readable actually. TF2's code doesn't really do vehicles and vehicles that work (as demonstrated by TF2 Classic) are very choppy and buggy.
Gm_flatgrass works because there's nothing on the grass really, and bigcity works in a similar fashion- the buildings are squares and the ground is flat.
Your idea is fairly valuable, but it lacks every bit of execution- you are no programmer, modeler, sound designer, texturer nor concept artist. It's unlikely that this will be picked up, though it's so extensive it could almost be its own game.
I'd advise you also to sit on the idea and tinker with it in your mind, because judging by the Frontline! update's release time, this idea is only a few hours old. It could use more time to be developed more fully.
[QUOTE=Cufflux;50713216]This is surprisingly readable actually. TF2's code doesn't really do vehicles and vehicles that work (as demonstrated by TF2 Classic) are very choppy and buggy.
Gm_flatgrass works because there's nothing on the grass really, and bigcity works in a similar fashion- the buildings are squares and the ground is flat.
Your idea is fairly valuable, but it lacks every bit of execution- you are no programmer, modeler, sound designer, texturer nor concept artist. It's unlikely that this will be picked up, though it's so extensive it could almost be its own game.
I'd advise you also to sit on the idea and tinker with it in your mind, because judging by the Frontline! update's release time, this idea is only a few hours old. It could use more time to be developed more fully.[/QUOTE]
First off, thank you. When I have an idea, I make sure to get it across nicely using well structured writing. I can imagine you see a lot of "I have Idea, here is wall of text explaining it". Secondly, I will sit on this idea, because no one can tell when it might be useful
[QUOTE=ShimTaco;50713158]Snip-O[/QUOTE]
You wouldn't need to extremely modified the engine.
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