Alliance: The Silent War

Good afternoon everyone!

I thought id create a thread to let people come up with different scenarios that would be possible with Alliance. Including, but not limited to, number of combatants, map size, setting, terrain, weapons used, and maybe technology handicaps. Also feel free to discuss tactics for your scenario, create a backstory or talk about a potential game mode. try and keep things on the plausible side though



That being said, go crazy

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

Love this thread

-AA

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

For one, very few First World War games exist, and of those (most being mods like BF 1918 or The Trenches) none of them really has captured the awesome scale of the more famous battles.

A scenario playing as a member of the British Expeditionary Force in the first Battle of Mons would be amazing. Although it's slightly outside the scope of Alliance (assuming it's still starting in 1916), all the firearms are there. It'd be fairly easy to do, just a line of riflemen and maybe a few fixed Vickers gun emplacements here and there. The objective would just be to hold off as many advancing German soldiers and eventually engage in a retreat. Or the Battle of the Somme would be quite interesting, experiencing the first tanks creeping across no man's land and German troops fleeing in terror.

Also, some commando raids in the Second World War would be cool too.

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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.

1. Asassination missions like for example where you have to take out a double agent

2. A sniping mission where you have to provide covering fire.

3. An intelligence retrieval mission where you have to go deep into enemy territory and pick up some intelligence.

4. Stealth missions that emphasize silent weapons.

5. A mission where you are attached to a convoy and have to defend it against ambushes

6. A non combat scenerio where you are maybe introduced to the character you are playing and maybe even get a glimpse of his life before he took up arms.

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Go pioneers!

While most of those sound alright, if but a bit bland (reminds me a lot of the first CoD MW campaign), your fifth suggestion sort of irks me.

Think all the way back to Goldeneye where you had to protect Natalya as you went through the Severnya bunker. Remember how infuriating it was when she'd purposefully die by running in front of your chattering guns, get stuck somewhere, or not complete an objective and glitch out?

Missions where you have to protect some sort of NPC just turn out to be frustrating and there's almost always the token NPC protecting mission in most games, regardless of genre from FPS's to RPG's.

That's one aspect that I would definitely not want to see in Alliance. I don't know, maybe I'm just overly bitter and jaded. Prove me wrong.

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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.

Me too. Go wild!

Bonus points for multiplayer scenarios that could be simulated using WarStudio loadouts and/or character models only.

Ahh, GoldenEye... I loved you to death. The only fault that bothered me was that their best multiplayer map (temple) had only 1 bulletproof vest in it. Many matches were swung simply by who spawned closest to the vest.

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

Perhaps a little reminiscent of MW, but I was mostly thinking of recent action flicks when I thought of those fortunately. The treatment of each scenario will probably make a pretty big difference in as far as the experience goes. I hope alliance is more tom clancy (or atleast part of it is.) The assassination mission in cod (when you take out that guy with a barret) was a little too much like a c movie. It didn't really require you to engage your mind that much. Your spotter (well if you can call him that, really doesn't do any spotting at all. He mentions the coralis effect, but pulling off the shot is well.. a piece of cake. The game practically hands it to you on a silver platter.

Something where you have to use your wits more would be better. For example, if you have to choose which building you want to take the shot from. Then, to get there, you have overcome a whole bunch of obstacles like guards and security cameras. You might have to use a grappling hook to create alternate routes that take you around patrolling enemies. Or, you might have infrared, where you could strategically take out guards through walls. Infiltrating some sort of a walled compound to take out valuable targets would be fun too.


Another thing that would be neat is something that cast you as a part of a civilian resistance force, staging night time attacks on an occupying force during WW2 (eg taking out nazi communications.)

Or maybe carrying out a raid on an illegal shipment of arms in the present day?

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Go pioneers!

Yeah, I guess I was just thinking of a poor example instead of thinking of an ideal scenario.

A scenario where you're playing as a Finnish sniper against the invading Soviets during the Second World War would be quite different. Russian, British, American, etc... snipers have been done almost to excess, but one of the most influential uses of marksmen, concealed positions, and hit and run tactics hasn't really been done yet. The thing about realistic sniping is that in the level of realism that Alliance is boasting, it's not going to be much fun. Perhaps a more informal marksman defending a position (I like the idea of holding off waves of Chinese at the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean Conflict) would be more entertaining than crawling through brush for several hours, avoiding detection, only to take out a single target (or maybe SF training in America's Army just left me bitter lol, Bigdaddy knows what I'm talking about).

Partisan type missions would be great. I remember the fantastic British campaign in Call of Duty: United Offensive, where after you shoot down the entire Luftwaffe from the various gun positions on your Lancaster, you parachute in occupied Holland and do some shenanigans with the Dutch Underground and eventually get inducted into the Commandos (Major Ingram's second appearance). It'd be interesting to do something along these lines. I'd like to see a scenario with the Russian Partisans who were displaced from their formal military units or their towns were captured in Hitler's initial drive into the Soviet Union. These guys lived in woods and would conduct much of the same activities as the Dutch and the French resistances did (blowing up bridges, rail lines, ammo/fuel dumps, etc...).

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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.

Thanks for the support guys I got to thinkin the possibilities had to be almost limitless and figured itd be great to let the community come up with a buncha ideas and concepts.
And yes, bonus points!! Thank you for clarifying what I was trying to say Eric I was thinking about narrowing the range of the discussion but wasnt sure which direction to take it...




I think some kind of scenario generator would be neat so that in single player you could opt to play a wide range of random mission types (from defense, attack, sniping, stealth, epic, or based on some other variables). Soldier of Fortune 2 had one and I liked it because there was some replay value to the sp aspect of it. [one neat feature iirc was a random hexadecimal string you could type randomness into and it could change things up quite a bit, a la everyone with a machine gun, random but unique]

That way if you wanted to do a sniping mission for instance you could opt to go either a True stealth mission or a more action oriented one like NeoStyles had said, providing cover fire for troops or some other large scale operation like covering an entire city or village. The intro scene from Shooter comes to mind . Even from there theres room for the games AI to throw in curve balls and such like helicopters in the movie or the player might be forced to use a captured weapon.


DerMann i think your idea about including the Battle of the Somme and the Chosin Valley is excellent, two of the biggest battles no one knows about imo. Partisan missions would be a great addition as well, in single player it could present alot of chances for characters to appear imo.


One multiplayer scenario I can think of is to have an attacking team break into a compund (im thinking a bank for grins, modeled after the matrix scene lobby haha) armed with high powered rifles and handguns with the goal of retrieving some important item (maybe an easter egg gun or something shiny? idk) and making it to the roof for extraction via helicopter. Once at the roof they would have to use their high powered rifles to fend off sharpshooters from nearby neighboring buildings and such, taller than the compound. (the roof being exposed) The defending team would be armed with shotguns and carbines and would have to fight the attackers floor by floor until the roof is captured. Then their spawn points would shift to the external firing positions. At that point respawning attackers would come from a few floors lower than the roof and have to dodge fire coming in from the outside as they get back to the roof. If kevlar is an option I think it should only be available to the attackers to give them an edge and compensate for the lack of cqb firepower.

Might be a bit outlandish but I wanted to center around the two polar opposites fighting, long range vs close then mid range w/o optics vs high powered deployed snipers.

_________________

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

One scenario which I would love to see would be the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising . I just finished reading a bunch of books on the subject and the battle itself just seemed so bleak and horrible that it would be mind blowing to experience it in a game. I know that there have been more infamous battles during the second world war but this one interested me because from the beginning, mostly everyone knew that the rebels did not have much chance in surviving.

Imagine having to sneak inside the ghetto right before the battle begins, then having to evade German pursuit as houses are burnt down and scorched earth policies are enforced. Then having to travel through the sewers while SS squads try to use gas to flush you out. After that, it could culminate into you being captured and trying to escape from a prisoner's transport. I know this sounds a tad bit too grim for a game but I feel that war games never really gave the player this sense of hopelessness and dread .

Now for War Studio scenarios.

If the American Civil war was used in the game, then how about a scenario where you play as a soldier for the Union at Antietam, who has to defend a house from wave after wave of Confederates armed with AK-47s ( if anyone catches the reference)




Have you ever played Operation Flashpoint: Resistance ??
That game simulated the partisan aspect of war so damn well. Too bad a proper sequel to it has never been made.

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When the going gets weird, the weird turns pro. -Hunter S. Thompson
Встань, Страх Преодолей

Now THAT was a book! Jolly good show dear chap
Perhaps for Alliances purposes the weapons were switched, putting our hero alone with the ak against the waves of rifle-musket armed troops


I think itd be neat to possible re-create Custers last stand (either exactly or in spirit) with one team armed with single shot trapdoor springfields and the other with lever actions. The team with the .45-70s would have a distinct advantage at a range so the other team would have to close the gap quickly.

_________________

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

I just had an idea.


Everyone should equip the biggest machine guns possible and try and spray the other team to death through walls and objects, assuming theres a suitable map.

You know, for science

_________________

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

Wait, is this singleplayer or multiplayer. Because I think I "protect the vip" scenerio would be fun. Maybe like an informant or a defector.

When it comes to mp, I want to see some huge maps.. I want to see something epic.. Something that just makes you go "wow" when you see it. Im talking things that will make cod look like a playground.. So that we can really use the engage targets from long range Stuff like..
1. A vietnam era battlfield complete, with rolling hills and everything


2. A dam


Maybe even complete with a sinkhole for people to ride?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBH4takFrT0

A map with fully traversible buildings would be super awesome.. something that recreates the tension of scanning windows for snipers.. Like something in an action flick

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Go pioneers!

An absolutely huge map is pointless unless aircraft and other vehicles can be used. Just look at battlefield. Their entire game is based around the vehicles you can use hence why some maps are just ridiculous in size.

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-Leader of the DAP
-Head of Transportation
-Guinea Pig for the Entire NZG

That why we'll be having those prototype jetpacks that the military's been playing around with. Sure, the flight time is measured in single minutes, but that's more than enough to traverse the larger maps.

Another thing to keep in mind, is that the preceding two sentences are in no way factual or an accurate representation of the features that Alliance will have. That's what we have tribes for.

Fantastic suggestions guys!

How about crazy weapon disparities that balance out in other ways (like our 6 man seal team vs a WWI Czech rifle platoon)? Or interesting arguments that can be settled once and for all, like M14's/FAL's vs M4's for the old versus new 7.62/5.56 holy war?

We want to make sure we have a wide variety of these, so ideas will always be fun to hear.

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

Not necessarily. In many games big maps, can make for somewhat uneventful game play as weapons can't be used from very far. In alliance, the weapons will be much more true to the real thing. As a result, we will have to be much more engaged in what is going on around, us (as opposed to spending 5 minutes walking to the firefight.) In alliance, the firefight can come to us from 300 meters away.


In battlefield, you would spend a lot of time walking around without vehicles, but thats mostly because the weapons had such short range that two people had to be almost right next to each other before the action can begin. Hence, you had to walk spend a lot of time walking to get to action.

A great examples of this is the recent medal of honor game. The objective based maps were enormous, but the rifles let you hit targets out to about 200 meters, so you could start firing off rounds down range even if you were far away.

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Go pioneers!

300 meters isn't far at all. I can shoot a pencil out of your hand at 300 meters. My point was that regardless that you can effectively hit someone from 7-1000 meters effectively you're still going to spend 75% of your time walking around this huge map squinting your eyes trying to find anyone. (Look up the conversion rate for meters and yards FYI)

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-Leader of the DAP
-Head of Transportation
-Guinea Pig for the Entire NZG

The magic is in the fact that you never know if someone else spotted you. AKA, you might be squinting around (hopefully not in the open) but for all you know, someone may be looking at you from the top of a building for the last 5 minutes, waiting for the opportune moment to squeeze off a round. When they do, the sounds of gunfire gunfire will draw more people to the areas. Plus, having a high player count (64 players or more just increases the chance that people will get the drop on each other.) Ive played several games with huge maps, and it's not very hard to spot people as long as they aren't at extrema ranges. There will also be scopes as well which will make things even easier.

Plus, when you add sniper into things, you will have to always be on your guard and as soon as someone is sniped, things will are guaranteed to heat up pretty fast. People till take cover, start suppressing the area where they think the sniper is, other team will move up to flush you out, etc.

Maybe the game can even feature something along the lines of binoculars.

That's one of the great things about staying true to the real thing and dropping players into big environments. There's the tension of never knowing where the enemy is.. just like in real life.

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Go pioneers!

We plan on having both small, up-close-and-personal levels and levels where long range ballistics can factor in more. Gameplay will always be a huge factor in level design though, so a big open map where you'd spend all your time running around in the open (just waiting to be picked off) wouldn't be very fun. That doesn't mean that you can't have very long yardage shots in a map with a balanced flow through it, especially if they are end to end shots.

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

Yeah a good mix of maps should keep everyone happy and having to choose their ideal loadout to suit each level.

_________________

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