Renumber / Rename the Campaigns

[aubergine]

I'd like to propose that Warzone "does a Star Wars" and numbers it's first official campaign IV (four).

I can see potential for at least 3 pre-campaigns as follows:

Campaign 1 - The Reed Foundation

We get an insight in to what turned Dr. Reed in to a cybernetic lunatic (eg. story could be based around Rman Virgil's stories).

Campaign 2 - NASDA

We're the person responsible shutting down NASDA systems to prevent spread of NEXUS during Collapse, but with the LasSats offline the base is nuked and we get killed in the process.

Campaign 3 - The Project

See: [Cam 0] 'Scavenger Wars' Ideas Thread.
The timeline of this campaign is basically from nuclear winter to the Project HQ being set-up as per the game's intro video.
The child of the person killed in Cam 2 helps John Hammond set up The Project?

Then the original 3 campaigns take place...

Campaign 4 - A New Paradigm

What is currently cam1 - Alpha.

Campaign 5 - The Collective

What is currently cam2 - Beta.

Campaign 6 - NEXUS

What is currently cam3 - Gamma.

7. (no name yet)

This is Goth's as yet un-named campaign.

8 & 9
From what I have heard there are already discussions about two further campaigns after that.

[aubergine]

Addendum:

In cam 1, player could start out as a body guard working for Reed Corp.

In cam 2, a soldier working for NASDA.

In cam 3, a mercenary teamed up with John Hammond (founder of The Project).

In Cam 4, promoted to The Commander, in charge of Team Alpha?

[Lord Apocalypse]

1 & 2 seem to imply the ability to play as a FPS

[aubergine]

I'm not sure what role the player will take in 1 & 2 - just bouncing around ideas. Needs to be something that results in the player moving from Reed Corp to NASDA to helping set up the project. I wouldn't want anything like an FPS.

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

Perhaps the player could be a commander in charge of protecting ReedCorp from sabotage, espionage, and terrorism in Campaign 1, and a commander working for NASDA that uncovers NEXUS's plot to start the Collapse all too late, and makes preparations for the Collapse in Campaign 2?

[aubergine]

Yup, something along those lines. I was pondering the idea of having the player be responsible for shutting down NASDA systems in Cam 2 but then getting killed in a nuclear strike on NASDA central. Before the player's death, they send their son off to safety in an underground bunker in Seattle. The son then meets John Hammond (founder of Project) and helps him set up The Project in cam 3, and then goes on to become The Commander in cam 4....?

Cam 3 has to cover a whopping 14 years (Collapse = 2086, Project HQ goes online in 2100) - so if the son was say 12 years old when the Collapse happened, he'll be 26 when he takes lead of Team Alpha in cam 4. This could explain why he doesn't know anything about Dr. Reed, NASDA, etc.

In cam26afm the Commander will actually be hearing how his dad shut down NASDA systems (to protect from NEXUS spreading) without realising it. At some point cam3abf is going to need re-voicing (to solve all the invalid dates mentioned in it) so we could perhaps announce that The Commander's dad was involved in the cybernetics research for Reed Corp in that video at some later date?

Just a ponderance, I'm open to any ideas as always.

EDIT: Son/Daughter. We should never reveal the gender of The Commander.

[Lord Apocalypse]

I think most games try to remain gender neutral as there are some female gamers while others pick one gender or another to create a story about the main character that the player will be abusing.

For an RTS not all back story is relevant. I still am not entirely sure how you can work cam 1& 2 into something other than an FPS or quasi FPS such as those missions in C&C using that annoying commando chick (or was that C&C RA?)

[aubergine]

Cam 1 and 2 would actually have much more tech going on than all the other cams, until perhaps cam 8 and 9 when project has amassed a much greater amount of pre-collapse tech.

Cam 1 would be ideal place to do some stuff with power suits (cyborgs)?

In the timeline stated on the original game box there's terrorist nuke attacks in 2075 so perhaps Cam 1 can kick off a few years before that?

In Rman's stories, there's also the attacks that leave Dr. Reed's son without legs, I assume there would be military retaliation for that attack.

So, there's lots of possibilities for avoiding an FPS scenario IMHO.

[Lord Apocalypse]

Even accounting for terror attacks and attacks such as those in Rmans story I'm still not convinced you could do this on an RTS scale. Tactical combat such as ground control or fps such as halo seems more likely and could actually be more beneficial to the overall franchise if we could get people to do the art.

Take Vega Strike. Its a single engine with a very detail story dealing with all timelines. The story itself has unfolded so that it would be easy to create an RPG, FPS, 4X, as well as an MMO (eve with joysticks but no rpg elements).

If you can work out 1&2 into a scenario that can be placed within the confines of an RTS style game great. Keep coming up with ideas.

Just remember, terrorists do not fight armies. Even in groups they have unique targets. Now, if the NP initiative goes rouge then you can do an FPS RTS easy or perhaps some type of civil war, perhaps even a rogue nation.

[aubergine]

Well, NATO breaks apart prior to all this happening so it could be that sections of US Military start breaking away and fighting each other?

[Lord Apocalypse]

I'm suprised NATO hasn't broken apart already in our timeline as it is a relic of the cold war. So, as far as history is concerned you would need to decide if NATO falls apart due to conflicts between members or does it fall apart due to obsolescence?

As for fracturing of the US military that would probably fall more along the lines of civil war and so far doesn't fit either rman's story or the Pumpkin canon. For that to work (and still keep its hardware) you would have to an entire military base defect or the fighting would be rather localized to that general area, especially if there was a terror attack involving a nuke. Security at military installations would be even tighter as would access to military hardware.

Remember, the US military is made up of: Active duty personnel, reserves (weekend warriors), and national guard units for each state. There is also the coast guard but I'm not sure if that is handled under the military or a separate federal service.

[Emdek]

Personally for greater flexibility and to avoid later need to changing it again I would go for not exposing numbers at all, instead use descriptive names. For sorting purposes we could use start / end date for scenario (which could be exposed in UI maybe) and maybe some kind of tagging system to for example mark main / official plot from possible alternate or third party campaigns etc.

Also for simplicity I would consider to let to start witch any of those campaigns (with sensible defaults for available units) or have some "dependencies" system.

[aubergine]

@Apocalypse - the only way to ensure job security in military industrial complex is to keep having wars, which is reason NATO hasn't broken yet.

@Emdek - good point! Maybe we could have some sort of data file (an .ini file?) that lists each campaigns and states their sequence?

I was pondering last night about having locked campaigns, eg. players could start at cam1 or cam4, but the other cams start locked (editing the ini file would allow easy cheating, which is fine).

It could be that there are side-campaigns so say someone gets part way through cam1 they unlock a side campaign. Side campaigns could even be hidden from list until they are unlocked.

Having some sort of ini file that defines campaigns, much like there are files to define challenge maps and ai bots, would make campaigns far easier to add to the game via mods. As I understand it, currently people have to overwrite the current campaign files to get a cam in to the game?

A campaigns.ini file might look like this:

Code: Select all

[NASDA]  // id of the campaign
name=North American Strategic Defence Agency (NASDA) // on-screen name of the cam
status=enabled // see notes later
prereqs=ReedCorp // would require ReedCorp to be completed before NASDA can be enabled

Valid "status" values:

* hidden = doesn't show up in UI, also infers "locked"
* locked = shows up in AI but can't be started until prereqs met
* enabled = player can play this cam, but hasn't yet started
* active = player has started this cam
* complete = player has completed this cam

That's just a rough initial idea, there are probably much better ways. Also, I imagine similar format of file could be used to define missions within a cam.

[Emdek]

aubergine, exactly more like make them more like mod files, with INI file with description for each one.
Then some algorithm would generate from them kind of dependency tree and using additional rules (like if we can start from that one or need to complete previous one first) would generate menu entries.
In case of alternate paths that aren't selected by some kind of decision then mission end screen could let to choose between possible continuations.

[Bryan See]

Campaign 8 - "United Federation of Eurasia"

Campaign 9 - "Mir Rossii" (English translation: Russian World)