WWII Simulator/MMO Concept (Work in Progress)

[ETEl2NAL407]

The following is a concept, no...It's actually more of a dream. Yes. This is my dream shooter game and I'm sure it would also be a dream come true for many of you as well. It's a very long concept and I'm planning on writing it little by little and formatting as I go along. Feel free to read and discuss, I'll update it as I can.

 

I reserve the right to this idea. It is not my plan to ever design this into an actual game, but if someone else would like to, they must receive my permission in writing.

 

Thanks to @Slade for making this legible again so I can rewrite now.

 

I've always dreamed of a FPS shooter that functioned like an RPG. The closest any game has brought me is Elder Scrolls, but those are lacking in a big thing: Guns. Games not lacking such, like Call of Duty, have been progressively adding more emphasis on profile building, e.g. Prestige levels and XP. My concept aims to marry these two perfectly with a bit of a gimmick: Minigames.

 

Apart from the extremley mathematical and complex impact the character stats have on the actual gameplay, the immersion aspect will be delivered via minigame. So, with a one-two punch we can marry the two genres. Instead of just gaining XP and levels to unlock equipment and abilities, character stats will have real, in-game, impact on the way classic FPS functions perform. These functions could be as simple as pulling the trigger, or as complex as performing surgery to remove a bullet. All in-game actions will be affected by character stats at every level. 

 

Also, players will be presented with a large amount of minigames, during, before, and after traditional FPS combat. Modern CoD games have scratched the surface here by using context sensitive timed button hits during certain major storyline elements, but this concept seeks to refine and streamline minigames more like the lockpick minigame from Elder Scrolls. For the player, these minigames become habit, but replayability exists in class and level specific minigames. 

 

Using stats to build a character and minigames to immerse them, a player will be able to enjoy the best of both worlds. FPS action in an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) format, that rewards players with stat increases, and minigames that boost the realism and fully immerse players into their characters' roles.

 

The following sections may see additions and changes frequently, thus they are being presented as spoilers.

 

Character Stats & Experience

Much has been touched on about how important stats and skill points will be for players, but now they'll be explained fully. All players will have a total of 5 stats. These stats dictate how much in-game mechanics are adjusted when the player is performing actions. For example: If a base stat for a certain action in game is zero, the player may still perform that action, but will receive no buff in how they're capable of performing it. So, if reloading a specific weapon at base stat took the player 15 seconds, if the player received a point in a skill corresponding to that action, the player would then be able to reload the weapon in 13 seconds.

So, increases in stats just increase the efficiency of an action in-game that correlates to the stat. 

These are the 5 stats:

• Accuracy
• Speed
• Stamina
• Awareness
• Intelligence

​Accuracy

This stat modifies all existing weapon accuracy stats, including accuracy inhibitors (meaning it lessens the inhibitor stats - more on this soon). At base level, or <1, no adjustment is made, thus how accurate a player is at base level depends entirely on the weapon they're using. With each increase in this stat a permanent modifier will now exist so that when a player wields a specific weapon, the weapon because X times more accurate, where X is equal to the player's current stat level, i.e. a player with 5 Accuracy vs. a player with 0 accuracy will hit the same target at the same distance using the same weapon 5 more times with the same amount of shots.

 

As this is FPS, most players would expect any weapon to shoot exactly where they aim it, but this is not the case. Small fractions of degrees are altered in the trajectory line of the shot. How many, or how severe the trajectory is altered depends on first the weapon's stat, and then the player modifications are figured in. With certain weapons at high levels, the alteration would be non-existant. In those situations, where the math simplifies to a negative number or 0, the result will be that a small alteration will occur every X amount of shots, where X would be determined based on how far the statistic reaches out of "normal" limits. So, instead of always having trajectories modified with every shot, the smallest possible alteration of trajectory will begin to occur after, say, 10 shots, but the next level increase for the same player might have their trajectory only being altered every 12 shots with the same weapon.

Speed

This stat modifies timed actions and movement. Where movement speed will be the most notably affected in-game action, other in-game actions can include: vaulting, jumping, diving, crouching, climbing, swimming, reloading, cleaning weapons, throwing grenades, digging, building, and role specific actions stitching. All such activities have a base time they take to complete. At 0 no adjustment is made, but with each new level increase a small fractional adjustment to timed actions is made in a negative way.

 

Eventually timed actions will max out at a high enough level and higher levels will no longer affect a certain action, but movement speed will continue to increase. Hand-to-hand combat attacks will also increase in speed, as well as the character's ability to dodge.

Stamina

This stat is responsible for health, hand-to-hand combat damage, carrying capacity, and sprint duration. Health and hand-to-hand damage will continue to increase with each new level, but carrying capacity and sprint duration will max out at higher levels.

 

Awareness

This stat is directly responsible for in-game alerts that aid players. Players at higher levels will receive more alerts and unlock new alerts that become increasingly beneficial. Some examples of alerts players may receive are: Highlighted enemies, ability to track footprints and other evidence of movement, friendly fire inhibitors (works like enemy highlighting), highlighted safe areas (bunkers, fox holes, natural cover), ability to discern weaponry by sound (this would allow players to identify which weapons were being fired around them, a great aid when determining enemy presence, and at higher levels will be able to pinpoint artillery locations as well as snipers). 

 

This is also an important stat for Medics and Engineers, as Medics will need high levels to negotiate the battlefield without taking too much fire and also for detecting injuries and their severity (unique to Medics). Engineers will need Awareness to identify traps or mines.

Intelligence

This stat is crucial for players wishing to build a character long-term and also useful in the short-term. Intelligence affects the rate at which experience is gained. Experience that leads to gaining skill points. Intelligence also directly relates to weaponry's failure rate, whereas a higher intelligence means the failure rate is lessened. 

Experience

Experience is gained when actions are performed, enemies are killed, or for completing missions and/or winning battles. At base level, players will earn .005 increase for every successful action and every time an enemy is killed. This rate will increase at higher Intelligence levels, but will max out at the rate of .05 increases. Players may still add points to Intelligence once their experience gain has maxed and players may trade these additional Intelligence points to change class.

 

Changing classes will require 4 points of Intelligence and players must also meet the class prerequisites in other stats. Technically this could be done before a player maxes Intelligence, but more than likely players will not assign precious skill points to Intelligence at first, making it easier to change classes after other stats are at or near maximum.

 

Weapon Stats

Weapons will also have their own stats and these will never be able to improve except for the adjustments that a character's stats give them while using the weapon. However, these stats will decrease over time as weapons become dirty or otherwise experience failure. When this happens a player may launch a weapon cleaning minigame or discard the weapon and search for another.

Here are the stats that any given weapon will have:

• Accuracy
• Movement Inhibitor
• Movement Accuracy Inhibitor
• Reload Speed
• Failure Rate

Accuracy

This stat is representative of how skewed a round's trajectory will be when fired. This stat decreases gradually at a rate set by the Failure Rate.

 

Movement Inhibitor

This stat is a measurement of how much movement speed a character loses when wielding the weapon. Heavier weapons will have a higher stat here.

 

Movement Accuracy Inhibitor

This stat increases the degrees that a bullet is skewed on trajectory depending on whether or not the character is moving and also how much to skew it depending on the type of movement that is being performed. Heavier or unwieldy weapons will have a higher stat here, whereas lighter weapons won't.

Failure Rate

This stat represents how likely a weapon is to fail. This stat will increase depending on environment and the amount of work the weapon has done. For example, a long battle in which several magazines are fired will greatly increase the failure rate along with crawling through mud or swimming with your weapon in hand. 

 

 

Players can launch the weapon cleaning minigame to reset this stat back to it's natural point.

 

 

 

For a more in depth look, let's try to follow a character example (for the purposes of keeping this already enormous thread brief, we will only follow an American, but the game will try to remain historically accurate in regards to available weapons, locations, language, etc..).

 

Boot Camp - Character Creation

 

You begin the game standing at attention in your barracks as your drill instructor paces the line. The Drill Instructor will approach you and menus will come on screen. In these menus you will input the following information:

•  
• Character Name
•  
• Facial Editor (perhaps with the ability to use Kinect and capture your face, then transpose into 3d model)
•  
• Base Stats (more on this later)
•  
• History Quiz
•  

Character Name

Self-explanatory. I'd like to add the option to use an actual soldier's name that fought during WWII. This would require some form of legalese be negotiated either with the families of the fallen or with the military. If this happened, it could also work as a DLC or micro transaction and a percentage of the revenue would be paid to charitable organizations. The benefit for the player would be a pre-made character with an additional skill point that would mirror the real-life achievements of the soldier in question. A leg up before the battle and even before boot camp.

 

Facial Editor

Again, self-explanatory. Much like any other 3D rendering software in games, players will have presets and can adjust levels/positions of various facial features. Since this is a simulation for the military, the only options for hair will be color and no options will be available for the body. 

 

Base Stats

Although statistics will be covered in totality later, I'll briefly explain how base stats are worked. There will be 5 stats for every character and each new character (unless a special character) begins boot camp with 3 points to assign any way they like.

 

History Quiz

This will be the first mini-game players participate in. It will be presented after the player submits their character creation by the Drill Instructor "grilling" you. Answers will be multiple choice and will be random for each game. They will vary in difficulty, but for the most part only true Historians will be sure of the correct answers. 3 questions will be asked and for each correct response the player will receive an additional skill point that is automatically assigned to a certain skill, based on the questions. The same 3 stats will always be affected by this (Awareness, Intelligence, and Accuracy). These "free" stat increases are bonuses and will not count towards deployment prerequisites (explained later).

 

Boot Camp - Training

 

After character creation, the Drill Insructor will have some good or bad words for you, depending on how well you did with the quiz. He may also make a few cracks about your name choice or some facial feature. The goal is to make you feel like you're really in boot camp being degraded. Full Metal Jacket scene, anyone?

 

You will then be instructed by the Drill Instructor to do PT (Physical Training) and you are launched into one of many mini games...

 

PT Minigame

This will be a timing/pace minigame and will require the player to hit buttons in a specific order and in time to the DI's cadance. A progress bar will come up to give them a visual progess and this bar will fill up slowly as they exercise. The more "in sync" their actions are with the DI's cadance, the faster it will go. However, if the player starts to lose rhythm or fails to press the correct button at the right time, the bar will decrease and the DI will yell at them.

 

For completing this minigame without any reprimands, player's will receive 0.25 of a skill point to add into Stamina. There will be a limited number of these minigames that players go through during Boot Camp, so try to win them all.

 

Next, the DI will order the recruits to make their beds and another mini-game begins...

 

Military Tuck Minigame

This minigame is much like a balance mini game. Marker lines will show up on the un-made cot and be different colors to indicate a different sheet/blanket. The lines are manipulated by holding a color-coded button and then moving the analog sticks. The sensitivity for these stick movements will be very high and the lines will have to be moved into a matching position (this is to simulate the perfect folds that military cots have). When the button is released, the line will snap to whatever position it was last in and the fold will be made. Players will 30 seconds to complete all folds in the correct order and make sure they're lined up correctly. After initially setting a line/fold, they can be gone back over and the sensitivity will be lessened, so players can try to make the folds as perfect as possible.

 

If the player completes this successfully, they will gain 0.25 of a skill point to add into Speed. If they run out of time and/or the folds are not "neat" enough, they will lose and the DI will yell at them. Again, these minigames will be in limited supply.

 

After this, the next minigame comes as the recruits are marched out to the Firing Range...

 

Firing Range Minigame

This minigame is when players will first use a weapon. They will be using the standard military issue rifle of the WWII era, the M14. The minigame will allow players 3 different targets to fire at and 3 magazines to use. Targets will increase in distance. It's pretty straight forward. You shoot your target until your magazine is empty, then a new target appears further away and you repeat firing, etc..

 

In order to win this minigame, the recruit must achieve 70% accuracy or better. Winning means 2 things here: 1) 0.25 skill point increase to Accuracy and 2) the option to use a different rifle in the next minigame. All the Rifles available will be explained later.

 

Unlike the other minigames, this one can be repeated as often as the player chooses, but players will stop receiving skill points in this minigame once they achieve 1 full point.

 

After this minigame ends for the first time, players will have their first taste of freedom and can visit a few locations within Boot Camp, as well as interact with other online players. PvP (Player vs. Player) will be disabled at this point. The following places will be available for the recruit to explore and interact with:

 

Barracks

Here is where players can sleep and move the progress of Boot Camp forward.

 

Firing Range

This will launch the minigame.

 

Personnel Building

This will allow a player to end their Boot Camp early and immediately be deployed. By doing this, players will be sacrificing the chance to earn more skill points in character safe areas (no risk of character death), but it is still an option.

 

The Forest

This launches the War Games minigame. Very simple concept here, Team Deathmatch. Players will be using non-lethal paintball rounds, but will not receive any skill points for completing. The map will be a wilderness forest with simulated bunkers and fox holes, it's ultimately just an introduction to the battlefield gameplay all players will face once out of Boot Camp and also a fun way to meet other Online players. This "lobby" will be restricted to new characters and once a character leaves Boot Camp, that character may never return to this minigame.

 

Obstacle Course

This is the final minigame available and players will be able to perform this minigame as many times as they choose for the entirety of their stay at Boot Camp. It's just a standard obstacle course with walls, rope swings, monkey bars, balance beams, etc.. No skill points will be awarded for this, but there will be a leaderboard. 

 

*Med School

This is a special minigame that only becomes available after a player chooses to be a Medic. Players will be launched into this minigame prior to deployment. The minigame with have players stitch a wound closed, using a repetetive button/stick combination to weave and poke the needle. It will also have the more common bandaging (a much simpler game requiring less button combos) minigame, and finally administering a syrette (an action with a simple button combo) minigame. All 3 games will occur in sequence and after they're done, the player can restart the minigame with a new random set of injuries in different locations. The goal here is to give players a chance to get good at these minigames, as this is what they will be doing lots of in battle. 2-3 attempts at this minigame will show the Medic the most common injuries they'll face, but only 1 mandatory play through is required before actually deploying.

 

If the player lets Boot Camp run it's natural course, they will wind up seeing 6 PT minigames, 6 Military Tuck minigames, 1 mandatory Obstacle Course run, as well as 1 mandatory War Game match. Following the mandatory War Game, players will lose access to all other mini games and may continually play only the War Game minigame or visit either the Barracks and sleep or the Personnel Building. At that point, either location will lead to deployment.

 

 

Deployment

 

Deployment will present the player with another menu screen that will dynamically change depending on how well they performed during Boot Camp. The main difference will be the role the character receives. Each role will demand a certain skill point prerequisite and if chosen with an Impeccable Record (meaning all boot camp minigames were completed successfully) players will receive a skill point bonus. The following roles that will be potentially available are:

 

•  
• Infantry - Basic ground unit. Anyone may choose.
•  

With impeccable record, all skill points receive +1. Players will first enter combat during the D-Day beach invasion.

 

•  
• Paratrooper - Advanced ground unit. Must have Stamina at or above 2.
•  

With impeccable record: Speed +1, Stamina +2, Awareness +2. Players will be air dropped over Europe to begin combat.

 

•  
• Recon - Snipers and solo artists will fit here. Must have Awareness at 3 or better (can only be accomplished by assigning all 3 initial skill points to Awareness).
•  

With impeccable record: Speed +2, Awareness +2, Accuracy +2. Players may choose to enter Combat either via Airdrop

or Beach Invasion.

 

•  
• Medic - Players that wish to be a Medic will not immediately be deployed. First they will experience a Med School minigame (1 will be mandatory, but it can be repeated). Must have Speed at 3 or better (can only be accomplished by assigning all 3 initial skill points to Speed).
•  

With impeccable record: Speed +2, Awareness +2, Stamina +2. After the minigame they will choose to be deployed either via Airdrop or Beach Invasion.

 

•  
• Engineer - Minesweepers, radio operators, craftsmen (more on craftsmen later), and special weapon units will fit here. Must have Intelligence at 3 or better (can only be accomplished by assigning all 3 initial skill points to Intelligence).
•  

With impeccable record: Accuracy +2, Awareness +1, Intelligence +3. Players enter combat at the rear lines.

 

•  
• Armored - Tank operators will fit here. This is a special unit that follows the Engineer unit closely. If a player has an impeccable record and assigns the first 3 points to intelligence, they may opt for the Armored unit. They will not receive any skill point bonuses, but they will get a tank to command and will enter combat at the rear lines.
•  

Depending on where the recruit is deployed, will depend on how they receive their first mission. During the pre-battle cutscene, the brief mission summary will be delivered through NPC speech. The Beach Invasion will occur during transport to the beach. The Airdrop beginning will have the speech delivered just before everyone starts jumping. However, players that start in the rear lines will have to seek out their first mission by reporting to their CO. All missions will be delivered through NPC interaction and then added to a soldier's journal entry that can be accessed via in-game menus.

 

More on missions later...

 

 

 

More later...tired for now

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 1, 2014 by ETEl2NAL407
Fixed OP