effin_GITS

er, . . . i'm extremely happy to hear that. I'm not really a fan of tropical scenery. So i'ts nice to know that there can be a variation of vegitation. I'm interested to read more about the technical side of what can be accomplished with the FC engine to re produce the GR type game experience. If you moders out there can weigh in i'd be grateful. One thing i do know is that the good thing about focusing on MP is that AI is not that important, nor is mission scripting. I guess once the maps have been made and the mission parameters have been scripted then all that remains to be done is create the actual 'look and fee' (and gameplay) that we love. I guess it's just a handful of guys at the moment but it would be good if a project/idea like this could pool all the GR talent together and make a concerted effort. Some of the inovations i've seen in GR mods shows that the modders have more imagination and even in some cases 'talent' than the original developers. I'm very excited about this. Can the tank map be played dm online yet?

Embassy for sure. Vilnius is very atmospheric but too dark and drab. I'ts also a bit of a roundabout wheras embassy draw everyone to the center. Is it even possible to do the more subdued colours of European forests like Village or Stronghold? FC colours seem to be too bright for that. It seems we are all excited about this. Why don't you start a poll and list all the GR maps and see which get requested the most?

I don't think anyone has to be apologetic for wanting the GR experience on a different game engine. Most of us gave 2 or more years to GR and we still arn't tired of it. RSE didn't create the GR experience, in one sense they 'tapped' into the elements of it that we all collectivly yearned for while still playing games like R6, CS, Delta Force etc. If we have to go the mod route and get our GR fix via FC then so be it. I've always had a soft spot for Tank and the screen shots certainly got my heart racing. I'm just sorry I don't have any particular skill to help you guys with development but you certainly have my appreciation. Keep up the good work. There is one thing i've been longing for in GR for years though, smoke grenades. I hope FC/GR can have em. Oh and pleeeeease mod Village but with the addition of a rope bridge conecting the back of the village to the other bank of the river (to foil bridge campers). Effin.

Apart from the map layout in what other ways would this be a GR experience? If modded right and with the kind of love and attention that we've seen in some of the GR mods the FC GR expereince could actually be better than the GR GR experience. Not that all would appreciate it but you could, jump, see your gun, go in water (no more "amnatgoininthere"), see for miles, drive stuff, er, it's been a while since i had at them rocketlauncherforarm mothers so i'm sure there is a few improvements i'm mising. I just wanted to ask about gameplay wise how it could be made to be GR like. I'm an oppinionated GR gamer but am not tech savvy at all. I'd hoped 'Joint ops' might give me an up to date GR like fix but it's very arcady so i'm still looking for a game that's action yet with such a tactical edge. I haven't yet found another game where memorizing the intimate details of the contours of a mound of earth or the shadows on a bush or juxtaposition of buildings can mean the difference between life and death. If a FC mod could re create what was great about GR and add too it That would be great. I guess the question i'm asking is a little intangible but if you talented modders out there could weigh in i'd be very interested to read what you've go to say.

We are all concerned with the influence that the console developement of GR2 has had on the expected PC version. Well, what it really comes down to is this. Either RSE will be lazy and pretty much give PC gamers an Xbox-ized GR2 (i.e. very few changes) or they will take the time to modify it (gameplay wise) for the PC. If they give us an Xbox-ezed version we'll all probably still play it, ###### and moan while we do then move on when something more fitting comes along. Fact is, it will still be a good game, just not the type we are desperate to play. So what are the factors that will determine whether or not RSE will put in the extra time and effort to give PC gamers the GR2 they want? Simply put . . .MONEY. RSE and their parent company UBI are a bussiness. They want profits and naturally the kind of profits they want are the ones that take the least effort and investment for the maximum return. RSE and UBI will look at the potential PC customer base and ask themselves this question: How many 'more' PC sales can we make if we put in an extra 3 to 6 months dev time in altering the Xbox GR2 and tailoring it to the PC crowd??? They will then weigh that time and expense against the 'extra' sales they think they may get. If that number is quite high they may be tempted to go for it. If it is minimal they will decide it's not a valuable use of time and resources. In fact, they may even conclude that the Xbox-ized version for the PC would be more popular than a GR1 style GR2. In which case we are screwed. I'd like to think that if we make a loud enough noise they might pay attention and give it some thought. It would be interesting if all the GR websites could make a concerted effort to corale us all together into some form of expression. (pettitions seem a little lame to me though.) Maybe a cross website poll. Another point i'd like to make is this. Two factors have worked against us. One is piracy. It is rampant on the PC. A 'friend' of mine played GR1 with a pirate version for the first 6 months till he realised what an ace game it was then he bought it retail. Many sales will have been lost to piracy. Though the consoles also have piracy it's not as rampant as on the PC so that world is more attractive to developers not to mention easier to code for with it's unity of componants. Another factor is that the three major consoles have tempted developers to spread their resources wide (and therefore thin) in an effort to make use of the 'platform leaping hype'. Which if not taken advantage of is seen as wasted free publicity. Even though they often farm out the conversion jobs it seems to me that this process still slows down development on sequels. I wouldn't be surprised if 'Hidden & Dangerious' and ''Half life' had been affected by this as far as the long wait for sequels was concerned. On a related note I'd like to finish this post with a warning. Recently it was announced that Microsoft have developed some (i forget the name) unifying development software kit to make creating games on the Xbox and PC more easy. Most websites and magazines seemed to be excited by this. That's because they weren't looking at Microsofts true strategy. Microsoft want all the pc game bussines. Eventually if PC games and Xbox games all look the same and the pc and xbox graphics arn't so different then they hope people will stop buying graphics cards that cost twice as much as an xbox and just buy the xbox. For this reason they are content to sell the xbox at a rediculously low price. They are even willing to forgoe profits on the entire first generation of their console in order to sew up the market on PC games. I have to admire their forward thinking but I think it's a big threat to the independance (and subsequently 'creativity') of the PC game scene. Sorry for the digression but it's pertinent i think.

I think we are focusing a little too much on the single player side of GR2. If we are honest how many of us spend most of our time in single player mode? I do play single player missions but find the ai to be too crap. GR1 has kept me happy for years in mp though so ask yourself this question: Is all the negative impressions we have from the previews and E3 info actually relevant when it comes to team dm in multi play? probably not i think. Maybe some things but on the whole it will still be two teams trying to knack each other. It will be interesting to read the forums after the first (if) multiplay demo is released for the pc.

For the record El OSO I hate the TI too. I've tried to convince everyone that sensors ruin the game too to some degree. I just remember from my CS days how many good kills i got from paying close atention to sound and suning it to prepare a good bushwhacking for approaching T's/CT's. There are footfall sounds in GR but i've never heard my character make a noise when sidling aganst a bush or an enemy near by in a bush. I can hear it when prone and crawling bu not general bushery. I use 5.1 speakers but still don't notice it. Effin.

Sorry for the spam earlier. Im not a vet when it comes to forums so i'm a bit of anoob on forum etticut. One passion of mine that didn't make my 'Top ten list' is FF mirror damage. You can pretty much trust your team mates not to tk you in a clan match but when having fun on open team dm games ff is a constant hassle. Some people hate mirror damage (i shoot a team mate and i am the one who gets wounded/killed) cause it just feels so un natural to them. If you think of it from the point of view of 'impact on the team' though the negative result of the mistake/disruptive act is the same. Some games had it so that both the shooter and the victim are hurt but tk'ers dont seem to care as long as they can cause trouble. Again a scaleable system would be good. Maybe most clan players dont care but open servers have their value and bring a lot of new players into clan games. On open servers a system where the tk'er shoots a teammate and only he gets damaged/killed would weaken the team he is on yet not bother anybody else. effin.

Hmmm, if i type something here i get my post back onto the first page.

Another thing that i dont like in over the shoulder views is blockage. Max Payne was a real pain as he's bonce got in the way all the time. Some games make the character transparent when you zoom to 3rd person though. I find this works quite well. Anyway i just read in another forum that GR2 will have smoke nades so thats good news. Now what about my other 8 points? Effin.

I waited an age for my last fave game sequel, devoured any scraps of info for a couple of years, finally gave up on it as it looked like it would never show then when it did out of the blue (after being held up no doubt by countless console iterations) it pretty much sucked. . . . that game was 'Hidden & Dangerous 2. Lucky for me by then i'd found Ghost Recon and to date in my gaming life (now age 39) it's been the most enduring (if not edearing) game by a mile. After i'd gotten over GR1's bells and whistles it was the tactical multi play that kept it alive for years and unfortunatly it's that element that it seems is being slowly drained away from GR2 as they tailor it for the thumb bandit crowd and knock a pc port out to pick up a few extra bucks (oh the shame, i remember the day that consoles got ports 'from' the pc). The moral of the story is; don't rely solely on sequels (or my spelling) to experience the type of play you love. There is just as much chance that some new game will give you that. In that sense we have to be nomadic when it comes to our online game life. I really want GR2 to be great but i'm also keeping my eye out for greener pastures and am willing to re locate if need be. Battlefield 2, [Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising], Joint ops, Full spectrum warrior, or even Counter strike 2/source (or whatever they are gonna call it) with it's bigger maps and better physics could give us what we want if GR2 ###### on its (and our) chips. Effin. P.S. er. . . . i've played the 'Soldner' demo and ye gods it's awful so thats why that one didn't make the list.

I'm not against picking up some dead sneckers weapon. After all you slotted him so you have a right, spoils of war and all that. It should take a little while to do the transfer so there would be a certain amount of risk involved in order to get a different weapon. Woulnd't that be realistic enough for you? Effin.

It may be a little clumbsy but one sollution to allowing a 3rd person view without letting people see around corners or over ridges would be to implement a kind of RTS principle. For example in overhead RTS games you can only see the landscape that your characters have been on or have a line of sight of. It wouldn't be hard for the game to factor in what your eye-view was able to see and only show that despite still showing you what was in your imediate surrounds. As i said though this would be too clumbsy. The real sullution lies in the whole industry converting to a wide screen format for monitors and programs. The TV industry has been trying this vor about 15 years now and is still struggling despite the fact that everybody knows its better and agrees we'd all prefer it. I can't see the billion dollar industry rushing to change that just so we can get a better view in GR2 though. Anyway what do you think about my other 9 points? Effin.

Here are my 10 questions/requests for GR2 (if it's not too late.) I have played GR1 since the initial demo and still play it almost every day. As I play it my thoughts are divided between appreciation for agreat game and lamentation for a few tweaks/changes that would make it a perfect game. I am at the stage where graphics are a distant concern for a new game and things like AI, anti cheats, net code and atmosphere are the things I want devs to focus on. i just wanna ad, damn microsheeit. they hijacked Halo from the PC and Munch's odessy. They probably tried to convince valve to releast HL2 on Xbox a year before pc too I bet. The Xbox has distracted, delayed, diallouted and dumbed down pc game developement. (1.) IRON SIGHTS should be optional. That way no one is dissapointed. When the character stops moving his gun could automatically go into the ready position rather than by acitve control (as your reticule settles in GR1). Some just need that aesthetic part of the fps experience. (2.) SENSORS should be scaleable. By that I mean their radius could be a host setting as some consider their GR1 setting to be too wide. Also it would be more fair if only the player with sensors could get a reading and have to communicate the real time battlefield info to his team mates . . . also, it would be nice to have an audio warning when a sensor is tripped; maybe a blip to warn you to check the map. (3.) THE CHARACTERS we play are 'specialists' so why not let each player choose his kit exactly? We all have the same limits (weight/ammount) but why can't a sniper takes sensors for example? Also on a related note characters (we) should be able to decide if they want tracers in our mags or not. (4.) SMOKE GRENADES would have giving an amazing tactiacal boost to GR1. Please include them in GR2. (5.) BALLISTIC drop off. I may be wrong but I think there is none in GR1. When sniping in 'certain' games it's exciting to have to know or check the range and adapt for the needed trajectory of your round. (6.) NOISE. There is some in GR1 but it's either random or arbitrary. I rarely had to spin on an enemy cause i heard him rustle in a nearby bush. No amount of stealth can prevent at least a little noise. That kind of thing ads great excitement and suspense not to mention a deeper need for stealth skils. (7.) 3rd PERSON VIEW. It's true that it would give an unfair advantage in multiplay and I hope that can be solved but it's not 'actually' unrealisitc as some would have it because it in fact simulates perhipheral vision. The degree of vew we have through a monitor actually simulates a high degree of restriction. (8.) ROLLING/DIVING for cover. In GR1 when laying on a mound of earth and getting starffed by the enemy the bullets hit the ground near your face and the instinct is to quickly roll away but instead you have to slowly pull back, the delay is often fatal. I realise that heavey equipment would slow you down some but personally i'd haul ***. A double tap on the left or right lean keys would be a good command to take rapid cover. (9.) JUMPING. Very controversial i know but there are more than gameplay needs to be considered. Most of us got used to not being able to jump and having no gun view but it didn't mean we liked it. Aesthetics are a factor in creating an imersive environment and being able to detatch yourself from the ground even if it's only for ten inches and has no tactical benefit can give an added sense of freedom in the world you are in. Sometimes purely cosmetic things are nice. Also, it would be a good command for being able to hoist yourself over a low wall. A related point also being that in GR1 a tiny amount of rubble in your path meant taking a 30 meter detour. Very frustrating. (10.) LOCATION SENSITIVE SPAWNS. In multi spawn dm/team dm it's very frustrating to have people spawn right up yer jaxie. The program could sense the position of all the players and triangulate a spawn spot or collection of spots to choose from so thee newly inserted player and the current players get a fair shake at 'kill by skill' rather than 'death by spawny spawn'.