Well, as for me, I've been really thinking about this. Particulary on the subject of multiplayer vs single player.
I want to make a great outdoor or open indoor area tactical fps (the enemies are very good, like Rainbow Six). You have a squad. You can issue commands to your squad. You have flashbangs and real grenades as well, and you can plan ahead and equip weapons from the start. No need to worry about ammo, and health damage is permanent (for the mission). Maybe even a mode where you health recharges. Once you reach critical health (after a couple bullet hits) you can no longer play. It might take place on a ship, or a war camp, and the weather would be cloudy and ominous (or at night or early morning). I would include a lot of cut scenes so that there is a back end story (something about terrorism) with all these disjoint missions. And I would definitely not skimp on the soundtrack. Among the objectives include defusing a bomb, rescuing hostages, gathering intel (using lockpicks, security system hacking devices, and avoiding cameras) so that the game will reward planned stealthy play. It would be open ended in that teams can enter the objective from different entrances, and rendezvous later, or work on different parts of the objective. There would be *no* vehicles, as I do not think they belong in single player campaigns for any purpose but to navigate around the map (which would be unnecessary in this game).
Now, here's where my dilemma comes in. Single player is fun and all - but I would like to incorporate multiplayer gaming into this. Games are infinitely more fun when you're playing with real AI, but you lose out on a whole bunch of things, such as atmosphere/story, and such. So I think I would institute a co-op mode with support for up to 16 players on the counter terrorism team (adjusting the AI to make sure that the game still is challenging). But if you don't have internet access, you can still play the game single player. If it were possible, I'd make both the terrorism and counter terrorism teams real people in a multiplayer mode, but that would just lead to camping and random firefights (like in counterstrike). The problem with this game is longevity...the co-op mode would be done as soon as the game is over. In that regard, making the game solely single player might be the best idea.
My objective with this game is to make a game that's:
a) Not brainless. You don't just shoot with no real purpose and you have to think before you act.
b) Not necesarily twitch based. This could use some work in terms of game dynamics.
c) Fun. Multiplayer usually has the edge in this category, but it fails in many other aspects.
d) Immersive and an interesting story. Atmosphere is key. Not totally depressing, but mysterious...
e) Realistic. I don't want to be shooting some large insect from Planet X.
f) Easy to start and stop. The missions being disjoint, you're not really obligated (as I feel in many other games) to continue playing until you finish (although you'd might like to).
If the technology ever becomes good enough to make a good single player campaign work as multiplayer, that would be my ideal game.
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