Wolverine on Tue Apr 21, 2015 1:30 pm

I should note that part of the reason I'm making this new map is that we've come up against the limitations of the game with Warfront. There's simply too much territory on the map to cover each town. Warfront could certainly be redesigned to remove a number of the smaller towns and villages to reduce the overall number of targets on the map, and in time that may happen, but that work isn't interesting to do or challenging and, to be completely honest, it's hard to get excited about doing it.



With the persistent elements scripting I've learned throughout the Warfront development process, I feel that I can finally make a Battle of Britain scenario that is highly complex, historically accurate tactically and geographically, and provide a compelling experience. At any rate, that is what I'm going to attempt to do.



I've posted in the past about the difference between factual accuracy vs. experiential accuracy. The 1941 campaign map hit a very high mark for me in terms of reaching that goal of providing an experience that felt historically 'real'. Warfront was an effort to create a 'war' map that players could fight over and possibly bring new players to our server who wanted the kind of experience where what they did on Monday mattered on Tuesday; where a long term objective was visible and achievable. In some ways, Warfront sacrificed experiential accuracy to achieve that goal. Additionally, Warfront did not succeed in gaining traction with the community in general and has been largely ignored or abandoned. That's not to say that Warfront has been a failure. We've enjoyed it considerably and learned a lot about ground attack tactics in the process. There's still very much a great feeling when you see the yellow text come up to say that a town has been successfully captured and watching that front line move to encircle it.



With this new Battle of Britain scenario I'm working on, I'm hoping to combine what made the 1941 map a compelling historical experience with what makes Warfront a compelling game play experience. With luck, I'm hoping to provide that custom managed campaign experience, like in the early Storm of War campaigns, but automated, more in depth, and hands-free in server management. The game will handle everything.



Mostly, when you play this new scenario I want you to feel all those documentaries and books you've read about the Battle of Britain. When the Blue team has bombed Manston, Hawkinge, Tangmere and other coastal airfields out of action, I want the Red players to feel how desperate the situation was and how much of a relief it was for the Luftwaffe to switch their objectives to other targets. I want the Blue players to feel how frustrating it was for the Luftwaffe fighter pilots to have to protect bombers instead of flying more effectively up high and in the sun or flying free hunts to bleed the RAF. I want to simulate the tactical errors of Goering and Hitler - at one stage in the scenario, Blue will start to incur the wrath of high command if they don't satisfy enough of Hitler's and Goering's reprisal attack demands - but the Blue team can ignore this and continue to attack however they choose if they feel that they can get the job done in spite of the penalties. I want Red players to be elated and Blue players to be livid when a target is attacked and gets away with only light damage. I want to make the best dynamic persistent Battle of Britain scenario that the game has yet seen.



I'm being ambitious with this one, fellas, but I think all the puzzle pieces are now available to me - just got to put 'em together.