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Week 3 Introduction

This three part series started by looking at suggestions by fans on how to improve Ghost Recon. If you missed it, previous parts are linked above. Last week continued with suggestions by fans in the areas of vehicles, team concepts, and clothing. This week the series will conclude by looking at suggestions for weapons/kits, maps, and mission/locations.

Weapons/Kits

There doesn’t seem to be much consensus on what is wanted for weapons, but here's a list of some of the suggestions. More weapons! Less weapons/kits to choose from! More zoom on sniper rifles! Less zoom on assault rifles! First person weapon view! No first person weapon view! An obvious complaint that has been regularly aired is the method of kit selection that involves clicking through endless kits until one that appeals is stumbled upon - a total re-think of that system is high on the list of recommendations from the fans.

“Soldiers” love their weapons and it appears they want anything ever made to be available to them. The shear amount of quality, fan made weapon modifications stands testament to the weight fans put on the importance of the representation of weapons in the game. From handguns to machine guns, they are all included in the wish list: glocks, MK23, UMP .45, Walther WA2000, Steyr AUG H-Bar, Valmet M82, SIG 552 Commando carbine, VSS Vintorez, IMI Tavor, M14, M21, M40A1, M16A3, OCSW, M1911, M60E3, M4/M203 combo, to name a few.

What weapon would be complete if accessories weren’t attached? A few that were requested are: iron sights, laser sights, flashlight, M203 for the M4, suppressor, bayonets, masterkey, thermal vision that sees through walls, and high cap magazine.

Then there are the requests for additional secondary weapons like smoke grenades for stealth, heat sensors, knives, tactical beacons to radio for air support, timed charges or radio det charges, proximity mines, flash bangs, sensor controlled explosives, flamethrower, bugging, tear gas, battering rams, trip wire mines, and timed C4. Although they are not weapons, it was requested to have handcuffs for arrests as a choice for kits. The question remains, though, how realistic would GR2 be if all these weapons and accessories were included? As wonderful as it would be to have all these choices available, just think of all the kit choices you would have to scroll through to get to your favorite - unless the Dev team come up with a more user friendly kit selection process.

It would be cool to have customizable kits with the ability to choose primary and secondary weapons separately, as well as an accessory option (i.e. MP5-SD+Frags+Sensors) and choice of attachments (i.e. scope/silencer/gl). Some would like to see every soldier already loaded with binoculars that has an integrated compass, grenades and/or pistol then still choose a primary and secondary weapon. With an interactive engine weapon loadout could have a weight limit; the less weight you are carrying the faster you go vs. more weight the slower you go. Some think that all weapons should be made available to all classes, but others think that in order to decrease the number of kits one would need to scroll through to find your weapon, it was suggested that kits be limited: only sniper rifles for snipers, LMGs and MMGs for support specialists, while the soldiers and demo experts should have their choice of assault rifles or submachine guns.

The following were suggested to make the game more realistic. Include a shooting range where you would need to qualify with a weapon before being able to carry it. Be able to pick up weapons of fallen comrades and enemies; a mission wouldn’t fail then if the carrier of the needed item was killed. Take that suggestion a step further and include ammo sharing for the times when you run out of ammunition and have no other option but to run out in the open and get yourself killed. However, if the ability to riflebutt, pistol whip, or knife someone was included, the ammo sharing option wouldn’t be as vital. Have the ability to throw grenades around a corner by leaning and tossing, not bouncing them off walls. Include more realistic bullet penetration through certain doors and walls. The SD weapons should be more powerful, also. The most controversial suggestion is the ability to have first person weapon view. Some will say that it is absolutely necessary to have it to make the game realistic while many others will say that having the gun in front of you will only block your view. It would be okay, though, if there was an option to choose the ability to see your gun or not to see it.

Maps

The overwhelming request is for larger maps both indoor and outdoor with a variety of climates (arctic), weather (snow/blizzards/driving rain/less fog), more places to hide (deeper grass/shadows) and be more interactive (booby traps/bombs to disarm/arrests/trip wires/timed bombs).

It is very discouraging to go through the actions of planting demo charges that aren’t actually used in-game, but are only used to get a check mark on the objective list. There is also a desire for more urban maps and the ability to access rooftops more often, which are often countered with the desire for more open area or bigger forest maps. A jungle map with very thick and lush undergrowth and dense vegetation (“so dense that you feel like you are truly lost in the wilderness”) with the ability to hide in bushes, instead of behind them, was requested.

Scenario/Missions

The general consensus is that the next scenario should be based around Tom Clancy’s book “The Bear and the Dragon”. Even without making up missions, just following the book, would create some great gameplay.

Fans would like to see more immersive, movie like missions with a degree of interactivity that has to date only been available through the excellent fan made missions from modders such as Jack 57 and Apollo. Even if the next scenario is not based around a Tom Clancy book, fans had many other ideas for missions and what the ghosts should do next. Here are a few ideas that have been posted by fans on our forums.

• Missions where you are the enemy playing against the Ghosts like the massively popular mods by Jack57, Band of Brothers and Brothers in Arms.
• Missions where you could laser designate a target, then call for an airstrike. This would probably only work in Single player, but multiplayer would be extremely cool!
• Missions where the troops wear civilian clothing and walk in a loose formation along busy streets. The objective would be to assassinate a certain individual and make it to the extraction point (i.e. getaway car) before the cops show up.
• A mission where your objective is to meet with a member of the resistance to get the next piece of information to complete the mission or perhaps a new mission or bonus objective.
• Missions where you interact with civilians just like special forces train to do in reality, similar to Robin Sage training. There could be a variety of civilians: innocent civilians, civilians who hate us and will expose our positions, or civilian guerrilla forces that we can lead and direct in combat.
• Missions where you can call in for air support or artillery strikes.
• A mission where the ghosts are fighting in full NBC as a result of a nuclear of chemical detonation. There would need to be decreased peripheral vision and drop accuracy on all weapons, as well as slower and more clumsy movements.
• Missions where you need to follow footprints or blood trails.
• Missions that had you parachuting in - the insertion points could be random depending on wind and weather; you could end up landing together or being scattered across the map.
• A mission in Alaska where you will be stopping Russians from advancing into Canada.
• A mission in the Siberian arctic where you fight to liberate South Korea.
• Recon missions in the volcanic wasteland of Iceland against Russian invasion forces.
• Missions in the dense forests of East Germany taking out tank columns and assasinating Russian leaders.
• A mission in Canada, centered around the 2010 winter olympics in Whistler, where a bunch of angered protestors have taken hostages. The landscape in Canada makes it ripe for gaming environments; from harsh to beautiful, vast city scapes to baron wildernesses, and bald plains to rocky mountains.
  

Fans would like to see more MP games types. A suggestions was to have a “Bomb the Base” game type where a team has to protect their base while the other team is trying to blow it. While the list of missions continues, it was quite clear that tank babysitting missions had to end.

A random mission generator would be a cool option. The engine would randomly choose maps, objectives, weather, time (day/night) and enemy locations. Playability would increase if you aren’t playing the same mission with the same objectives on the same map with enemy locations predictable.

Conclusion

This report barely scratches the surface of requests from the many Ghost Recon fans. There are a lot more ideas, some are really outside the genre, but there are really good ones, too. The report itself has generated further debate and even the attention of the game developers and designers. If there is something you agree, or disagree with, let us know and we might include it in a further piece based on the feedback the report has generated. You can either mail zzj here or make a post in our Ghost Recon 2 forum right here.

Tactical Shooter popularity has grown massively over the past couple of years, and will continue to take a huge slice of the gaming community in coming years. If Ghost Recon 2 is to shine bright amongst the emerging competition, the developers are going to have to get it right on all fronts, not least satisfying the staunch Ghost Recon hardcore that visit Ghost Recon.net in their thousands every day. Make your thoughts known, they do listen! However, the question that everyone wants answered is: “When will Ghost Recon 2 be released?”, when that news does surface - you'll read it here first!

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