anyway - ever since i saw these style of games, it occurred to me that an absolutely great idea would be to allow dozens or more of multiplayer users to "get involved" by controlling *individual* vehicles or cyborgs. how to teach someone the boredom of war, by making them stand idle for most of the game - i realise this is a slight down-side! but leaving that aside, the possibility for controlling individual pieces, especially when an entire army is involved, would bring a really interesting dimension to the game.
the individual piece-control would of course be first-person viewpoint (like all the shoot-em-up games) and i believe that the _combination_ of "overview" and "first person" in a single game would be _particularly_ exciting. no _additional_ special coding should be needed: the game's 3D rendering of perspective should be perfectly adequate for the job.
an extra twist would be to make individual pieces "commanders", allowing them to give orders to a particular group of units. but, from their own limited perspective and range.
a _third_ twist could be to have _two_ people controlling e.g. a tank - one with a mobile turret: they'd pair up. one controls movement; the other controls firing.
keep it coming, folks
l.
