Alliance: The Silent War

I was wondering what new multiplayer modes and features the devs have thought up recently, im anxious to know what ideas yall have been brainstorming

Id also like to discuss ideas for some unique or epic game modes beyond s&d, ctf, and all that

One thing that comes to mind would be to have a cooperative "horde" mode a la gears of war where by you and your squad defend some objective against better and better armed attackers, could be fun. Anyone else got any ideas?

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"Dream a little bit
This is the kush to your lighter"
The NZG Specialist, Stick Wielder, Shotgun Extraordinaire

Even though it's completely against most of the aspects of the game, I'd like to preserve the classic deathmatch (i.e. free-for-all). It's such a classic game mode that is sometimes left out. By no means is it superior, it's just nice to have access to such a great game mode.

I also like the idea of a human team fending off a substantially larger and dumber AI team. Even certain maps could be made specifically for it, in an Omaha Beach type situation.

Lastly, there's one game mode that I haven't seen done well in a while. For those of you who didn't play Call of Duty United Offensive, there was a game mode called 'Base Assault' in which you both defended a series of fortifications and assaulted the opposing team's fortifications. This required the use of, largely, tanks and bazookas or panzerschreks here and there. But it'd be easy to do a Day of Defeat 1.3 S&D system where players pick up a satchel charge or something along those lines from an ever-replenishing supply box.

Just a thought.

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Head of Zombie Suit Manufacturing, Supplying Guns to the Mentally Stable, Lead Researcher for Weapons, Grand Requisitioner, and Master Keeper of the NZG Armoury.
Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim gun, and they have not.

Even though I also personally dislike free-for-all deathmatch, the classics will all be represented in some fashion (DM, TDM, CTF, KotH, etc). A large focus of ours is on objective based gametypes, which tend to encourage more teamwork & camaraderie. We're also very interested to see what organic gameplay ends up evolving out of the WarStudio itself.

For all gametypes, we want to create rules that reward playing together like a cohesive unit. We're also exploring ways to better capture the unpredictable chaos of combat without sacrificing teamwork, the goal oriented nature of warfare, or the sensation of opposing lines attempting to push each other back. Somewhat vague I know.

AI horde type gametypes are also interesting, but the enemy AI would need to feel extremely smart and realistic before we'd include something like that in Alliance.

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Alliance Developer, Sox34's not-so-secret identity, & NZG Central Command
"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur." — Unknown Philosopher

Great idea with the Base Assault DerMann that mode really made United Offensive. If Alliance has RPGs, AT4s, those shoulder fired recoiless rifles, etc. then this game mode could definitely shine i think. what with the massive variety of weapons and all an attacker could potential face deadlier and more lethal weapons as they push further into the defenders territory. thats just an example, im sure theres even better things possible

As for the AI yeah youre right, waves of peons wouldnt be suitable lol

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"Dream a little bit
This is the kush to your lighter"
The NZG Specialist, Stick Wielder, Shotgun Extraordinaire

But waves of sf units might be a tad difficult lol.

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-Leader of the DAP
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True that holmes, but thats what the changeable settings would be for

Perhaps the waves could go through a wide variety, small units of sf, then large units of conscrips, then a moderate amount of dudes with another class, I think the possibilities are endless. May be better suited for a mod one day, who knows?

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"Dream a little bit
This is the kush to your lighter"
The NZG Specialist, Stick Wielder, Shotgun Extraordinaire

One thing we intend on doing is not necessarily limiting you to 2 teams for multiplayer games (you can consider it almost the opposite of a "horde" mode). This would fit in naturally for team deathmatch (you could even think of DM as simply being TDM with a team limit of 1). Other multiplayer gametypes (both classic and new ones) can be made quite interesting if you don't force this restriction. Obviously not all gametypes or maps would naturally fit this type of play, but many could, especially if designed with it in mind.

Figuring out both the requirements and possibilities of having this type of multiplayer gameplay has been a very entertaining thought process.

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Alliance Developer, Sox34's not-so-secret identity, & NZG Central Command
"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur." — Unknown Philosopher

The funnest and most intense game mode I have every played was called "Recon vs. Assault" from GRAW2. It goes something like this....

You have 3 targets (something to set an explosive and blow up).

The assaulters have conditional respawns but they have better equipment (silenced, optics, grenade launchers, etc.).
Assaulters can only respawn when an objective is blown up (they respawn at the completed objective site). So at times you can have your entire team counting on you to destroy an objective so they can respawn.
You win when/if all 3 locations are blown up.

The Recon (defenders) have unlimited respawns but can only respawn at objective sites that have not been blown up.
They only have basic weapons.

This sounds an awful lot like Rush in BFBC2 (?)

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http://www.alliancethegame.com/update.php

I second dermann's idea. Something like UTs assault mode would be really nice.

I know it's kind of used a lot, but how about a zombie mode (as an easter egg or something)? Think about it. With all those great weapons, wouldn't it be awesome? Imagine sniping zombies from 500 yards with an m14. For the first time, thinning out the legions of undead would be as close to an authentic experience as possible!

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Go pioneers!

THAT..... is a good idea.

I hope to be able to thin out zombie hordes with a quad .50 like in tremors 3 with the critters

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"Dream a little bit
This is the kush to your lighter"
The NZG Specialist, Stick Wielder, Shotgun Extraordinaire

That sounds like it would be tailor made for a mod. We simply don't have plans right now to prioritize a zombie mode over any important missing feature of our core gameplay. We'd need to be done with almost everything important on our long list before we'd consider that type of mode. Mod tools should be ready long before that point arrives, so there's no reason Alliance's ballistics couldn't be combined with zombie hordes by some enterprising members of the community.

To be honest, I actually expect that will happen very quickly.

Our #1 priority is giving you a phenomenal Alliance experience, for us everything else is secondary.

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Alliance Developer, Sox34's not-so-secret identity, & NZG Central Command
"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur." — Unknown Philosopher

Can we expect any sneak peeeks sometimmee sooon?

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Go pioneers!

When we have something sexy to show off, yeah. Since we haven't released media in so long, we don't want to release anything that looks like a work in progress. All the games that create bullshots don't have this issue, but we don't want to give the incorrect impression that the work-in-progress screenshots would even remotely represent the final product. Unfortunately a lot of gamers would have that misconception (or that the game will look worse at release) due to the unfortunate prevalence of bullshots in this industry.

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Alliance Developer, Sox34's not-so-secret identity, & NZG Central Command
"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur." — Unknown Philosopher

This brings up a good point I don't think we adequately covered during our initial release. We so absolutely avoided pre-renders and "to-spec" screenshots it wasn't even funny. Not out of any deliberate intent, merely because it never occurred to us as a proper thing to do. After the fact (we were pretty sleep deprived at the time of production ) we looked back and went "huh, we could have made friggin photographs had we gone the standard route." But we would never do such a thing. We never even did the much-employed trick of rendering at super high res (2536 x something else ridiculous) and downsampling to get that pixel-sharp look. Every single screen is from the engine, just running along all dandy on our own machines.

We're absolutely going to continue this. Maybe turn on some AA, but nothing more.

And it is for that reason that my cohort, AllianceEric, is spot on- the stuff has to be good enough to warrant your praise, hacks be damned.

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http://www.alliancethegame.com/update.php

Nowhere near what Rush is in BC2. All 3 of the sites are "live" from the beginning of the round. For the assaulters, once you die you do not respawn until/if your team blows up one of the objectives. So it can come down to 1 guy alive on your team taking on the entire defending team who has unlimited respawns. The assaulters can attack any of the 3 sites at any time, so the defenders can't just focus on one location. The 3 sites would be spread out over the entire map.

I think I got it. The closest comparison then would probably be a single stage rush, but with 3 objectives instead of 2 and "tickets"/respawns resetting after every objective is destroyed.

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Alliance Developer, Sox34's not-so-secret identity, & NZG Central Command
"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur." — Unknown Philosopher

To be honest, I was very surprised how much larger combat ranges breathed new life into the tried and true game modes (such as TDM or CTF). I had a lot of fun playing dm in the latest medal of honor game. It's not the most die hard simulation ever, but atleast you are taking on objectives from 400 meters, and not just something that takes you 5 seconds to walk through. For the first time, sniping the opposition was of value to your team since snipers and ARs weren't interchangeable. Engaging enemies from afar makes you feel a lot more like you are in a real combat zone. One thing that I really dont like about some of the newer shooters is that you can shoot all the way across the map with literally any assault rifle (sometimes a pistol.)

I would love to see some giant maps in alliance. Something on the order of 2-3 square kms.

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Go pioneers!

I would say that is pretty close, except the defending team can't "defuse" a bomb. Once an attacker places a "charge" it's up to him when he hits the button to blow it up. Though if he waits too long and a defender kills him, then the "charge" he just set disappears. Not blowing it up right away can be part of the strategy though. For one you want to fortify that location some because all of your dead teammates will be respawning there (the defenders know this as well) so you'll need to protect the "new" guys as much as possible. Secondly you can time one objective completion with another to keep the defenders guessing as to which location everyone just respawned. Also if you really want to rub the defenders faces in it, you coordinate detonation of all 3 sites at the same time, leaving the defenders scratching their balls and wondering WTF just happened.

A bomb defuse mode would be nice, except with something like multiple bomb sites.. possibly one after the other.

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Go pioneers!