Would it even be possible...

So I am setting at home, bored out of my mind. While looking at several FPS/war/RTS games I began thinking.

Would it be possible for someone to make a game were battles happened in real time wether you interacted with them or not. Such as say Nazi germany versus the Russian army. Suppose you had the option to join one of the armies as a specific class, officer, sniper, ground troop, tank commander, or even general and your choice would impact your experience in the game.

Lets say you choose to be a sniper and you go out and shoot an enemy commander effectivly shutting down his troops, but if you say choose to be an officer instead you may have to lead your troops into combat against the enemy officer and his troops instead of them simply being taken out by the snipers actions.

Basically what I want is a preprogrammed battle to be waging and my actions actually having an effect on the battle depending on what I am doing at the current time. But I dont want scripted missions as such. Perhaps strategic targets would be a good idea but if say as a sniper I am on my way to target A and I see a friendly squad pinned down by enemy I could choose to go around or I could attack the enemy and free the friendly squad without it having to be done game wise but then eneabling my side to do better in the overall battle.

Ugh, I know what I am wanting in my mind its just more difficult to explain than I thought. If there is anything out there like this could someone let me know.

I guess essentialy it would be a FPS/war sandbox game where basically the whole environment is interactive....

Lol it took me a couple of times to re-read what you said but I think i understand now lol. The whole idea sounds quite amazing with maybe some MMORPG element to it, hopefully an idea which will be plausible in the future.

I can imagine that....mmm...

Im not sure how large really. I recently watched Enemy at the Gates again and that helped propel me into this mind set I think. something in a city wide scale or perhaps a chokepoint in a warzone or something along that. I have also been playing tabula Rasa a bit so I know that some of the basic gameplay would be similar to that but the problem i could forsee is making an impact on the battle part...otherwise your just killing hordes of enemies with no sense of progression ... yeah progression without set missions ... Dakxter

Games have dabbled with what I think you're talking about.

Athough the gameplay is a bit off from your basic war games, Mechassualt 2, Chromehounds, and Steel Battalion have all had persistent online warfare. It's interesting to note they are all mech games, but there may be other examples that I haven't played.

In each game the depth of the battle were nothing close to what you were talking about (i.e. assasinating generals) but in the latest game on the list, Chromehounds, teams would battle in specific territories for control and eventually capture/defend the capitols. An individual team's power wasn't so great that they could run the war by themselves, but if a couple squads, directed by the elected commander in chief, concentrated on a single objective, they could make significant change to the whole game.

I really hope more games explore these types of online gameplay more. Saddly, I don't think Chromehounds sold enough to warrent a sequel.

A little basic of this type of gaming has started. Indigo Prophecy. I played a demo on the Xbox, and everything you do will affect the outcome. A new game called Heavy Rain has real human emotions and new types of ways to play. I'm sure someone would start to develop an FPS the way you described.ChicaQueenWarGa

No, you just jinxed it! The last third of the game will now have futuristic robots with no explination and lame Matrix-esque fights!