The more realistic a WW2 games becomes, the less fun it is.
Imagine a map scaled to the size of Europe, and you need to spend an IRL week traveling to the front lines. That's assuming they don't start you in some Kansas boot camp doing basic. Then half your job is doing break-fix work on your janky hardware - jammed guns, busted engine blocks, shoes you've basically walked into the ground - until you finally arrived at the front lines only to discover the battle was finished a week ago and your job is to just help clearing rubble and processing POWs.
Imagine getting put on a literal milk run, where your mission is to move foodstuffs to the front lines through territory that maybe might have a few partisans in it, but probably doesn't.
Imagine finally getting somewhere in the neighborhood of combat, but its literally just a pill box on a ridge and your job is to charge it. Then you need to claw your way through trenches and razor wire in the dead of night, hoping you don't step on a land mine the whole way, and finally get close enough for some guy with a Mauser to blow your face off.
Sure there's always the balance of realism and convience, but I'm not talking about simulating logistics; I'm just expecting the mechanics of the combat to be more realistic. Mainstream FPS games just refuse to simulate the deadliness of war.
In all my time of playing COD and BF franchises I've never experienced what I had in RO2. In RO2 you might have to push up against a pillbox atop a hill as the enemy MG mows down your friends. After being held back for a good few minutes, skirmishing with the enemies at range, you find a weak point on a flank. As you close in on the concrete monolith from the side, armed with a captured grenade, you pull the cord, count to three, then toss it through the loophole. A second later, the dreaded machinegunner is turned into a fine mist, your comrades surge forward, take control of the position and brace for an enemy counter attack.
This sort of stuff you would expect to see in a historical game rarely happens where everyone runs around like Rambo. After getting into the Red Orchestra / Rising Storm brand of 'soft' mil-sim games I can no longer bring myself to play a historical-themed game where machine guns take a billion shots to kill you, enemies have labels on them, and artillery either has the power of firecrackers or just isn't in the game at all.
I’m just expecting the mechanics of the combat to be more realistic. Mainstream FPS games just refuse to simulate the deadliness of war.
No, no. I understand. That rant was mostly for comic effect.
But it does still boil down to fun, particularly for younger and newer players. The HP model gives players more play time once the guns start blasting. You see this in Team Fortress, Overwatch, and Fortnite games in particular, where fleeing from a salvo is still viable and pursing objectives other than just murdering people outright is only really possible if you can survive getting winged by a guy blasting away with a mini-gun.
This sort of stuff you would expect to see in a historical game rarely happens where everyone runs around like Rambo
No. But historical accuracy hinges a lot more on teamwork. And random-drop-in games rarely have that. So you get HP to prevent one side from getting immediately blown away and keeping people in it longer.
Yeah the requiring teamwork part is why I've only been playing buggy old games. You play the Squad clones which have flooded the market and you basically have to use a mic ingame. Games that try to go between BF and Arma and pull it off are pretty few. Dealing with g*mers can ruin the immersion as much as Rambo so I'm always glad when a game comes out where you can blow away nazis in MP that isn't so tactical it forces you to turn on voice chat and deal with toxic scrubs.
ngl would play a "Supporting Cast" FPS game, set into a war, for sure. Would probably have to be like a cinematic roleplaying type of game with a lot of conversations with the people around you to go along with the busy work, but yeah.
But I can’t imagine doing Florence Nightingale shit for hours on end.
What? Doing nurse stuff and talking to a whole wide cast of soldiers with blown off limbs and shit? Goddamn that sounds like so much fun actually. Love me some dialogue.
Then again if it's just nursing minigames and nothing else then what's the point, you can play a cookie clicker if you're into that.
But yeah, I wasnt talking about a "realistic" experience, like I said before, some cinematic roleplaying experience type thing about the little things and not the world saving shooty bits and all. So I agree realistic video games would suck.
Criminally underrated books. Been like 14 years since I last read them, out of order, because I had to loan them from a library and they were always gone.
Alfred was always my favourite because the whole "I'm myself when I'm actually doing magic and after I'm done it's like putting on an ill-fitting suit." and that spoke heavily to my dysphoric-in-denial-self.
The more realistic a WW2 games becomes, the less fun it is.
Imagine a map scaled to the size of Europe, and you need to spend an IRL week traveling to the front lines. That's assuming they don't start you in some Kansas boot camp doing basic. Then half your job is doing break-fix work on your janky hardware - jammed guns, busted engine blocks, shoes you've basically walked into the ground - until you finally arrived at the front lines only to discover the battle was finished a week ago and your job is to just help clearing rubble and processing POWs.
Imagine getting put on a literal milk run, where your mission is to move foodstuffs to the front lines through territory that maybe might have a few partisans in it, but probably doesn't.
Imagine finally getting somewhere in the neighborhood of combat, but its literally just a pill box on a ridge and your job is to charge it. Then you need to claw your way through trenches and razor wire in the dead of night, hoping you don't step on a land mine the whole way, and finally get close enough for some guy with a Mauser to blow your face off.
Oh, hey. Look. You respawned in Kansas.
Who the fuck would play that game?
Sure there's always the balance of realism and convience, but I'm not talking about simulating logistics; I'm just expecting the mechanics of the combat to be more realistic. Mainstream FPS games just refuse to simulate the deadliness of war.
In all my time of playing COD and BF franchises I've never experienced what I had in RO2. In RO2 you might have to push up against a pillbox atop a hill as the enemy MG mows down your friends. After being held back for a good few minutes, skirmishing with the enemies at range, you find a weak point on a flank. As you close in on the concrete monolith from the side, armed with a captured grenade, you pull the cord, count to three, then toss it through the loophole. A second later, the dreaded machinegunner is turned into a fine mist, your comrades surge forward, take control of the position and brace for an enemy counter attack.
This sort of stuff you would expect to see in a historical game rarely happens where everyone runs around like Rambo. After getting into the Red Orchestra / Rising Storm brand of 'soft' mil-sim games I can no longer bring myself to play a historical-themed game where machine guns take a billion shots to kill you, enemies have labels on them, and artillery either has the power of firecrackers or just isn't in the game at all.
No, no. I understand. That rant was mostly for comic effect.
But it does still boil down to fun, particularly for younger and newer players. The HP model gives players more play time once the guns start blasting. You see this in Team Fortress, Overwatch, and Fortnite games in particular, where fleeing from a salvo is still viable and pursing objectives other than just murdering people outright is only really possible if you can survive getting winged by a guy blasting away with a mini-gun.
No. But historical accuracy hinges a lot more on teamwork. And random-drop-in games rarely have that. So you get HP to prevent one side from getting immediately blown away and keeping people in it longer.
Yeah the requiring teamwork part is why I've only been playing buggy old games. You play the Squad clones which have flooded the market and you basically have to use a mic ingame. Games that try to go between BF and Arma and pull it off are pretty few. Dealing with g*mers can ruin the immersion as much as Rambo so I'm always glad when a game comes out where you can blow away nazis in MP that isn't so tactical it forces you to turn on voice chat and deal with toxic scrubs.
ngl would play a "Supporting Cast" FPS game, set into a war, for sure. Would probably have to be like a cinematic roleplaying type of game with a lot of conversations with the people around you to go along with the busy work, but yeah.
Train Simulator, but you're transporting Union troops during the Civil War might actually kinda be fun.
But I can't imagine doing Florence Nightingale shit for hours on end.
What? Doing nurse stuff and talking to a whole wide cast of soldiers with blown off limbs and shit? Goddamn that sounds like so much fun actually. Love me some dialogue.
Then again if it's just nursing minigames and nothing else then what's the point, you can play a cookie clicker if you're into that.
I mean, a kind of story based "Stories From the Front Lines" game in the Telltale format could be good.
But it would probably need cutscenes to the actual action spliced in with doing nurse stuff to try and save people.
If it was "authentic", you're talking about a game where its just these grueling 14 hour shifts of changing bandages and cleaning up after corpses.
That's just playing WoW Classic innit?
But yeah, I wasnt talking about a "realistic" experience, like I said before, some cinematic roleplaying experience type thing about the little things and not the world saving shooty bits and all. So I agree realistic video games would suck.
Love the username btw, real deep cut.
:yes-sicko:
Always nice to see another Deathgate Cycle fan.
Criminally underrated books. Been like 14 years since I last read them, out of order, because I had to loan them from a library and they were always gone.
Alfred was always my favourite because the whole "I'm myself when I'm actually doing magic and after I'm done it's like putting on an ill-fitting suit." and that spoke heavily to my dysphoric-in-denial-self.
Good times, the teenage years. :bugs-no:
And the world building was top notch.
I enjoyed the introduction to each new setting, the culture that got built up around it, and the perspectives of the locals relative to the outsiders.
Weis & Hickman are easily some of my favorite authors.