Battlefield One: WW1

[ray245]

I'm surprised they actually went ahead and made a WW1 game for a AAA series. I'm interested to see how they will depict the warfare in this game, although I'm pretty sure it won't be realistic in any sense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7nRTF2SowQ

[Balrog]

I think it's about time, at least it's not another WW2 game BUT WITH MORE PIXELS!!!1 Other wars need loving too. Plus looks like we're getting both trench warfare action and heading out east to play not-Lawrence of Arabia.

[Purple]

My guess is this is just going to be a reskin of other BF games to fit the period visually. Sort of like that 1918 mod for BF 1942.

[Tribble]

Well, seeing as I haven't played a first-person shooter war game since Call of Duty, Metal of Honour Allied Assault and Battlefield 1942, perhaps I should give this one a try

[Eternal_Freedom]

I've never bothered with the Battlefield games, but I might take a look at this one a bit more closely, if only to see how they handle the trench warfare stuff rather than Call of Duty-style "small group of commandos" stuff.

[Simon_Jester]

I just hope they don't try and fill everything with ahistorical barrages of automatic weapons fire. A shooter with slow-firing weapons and circumstances that favor close combat could be interesting.

[Borgholio]

I just hope they don't try and fill everything with ahistorical barrages of automatic weapons fire. A shooter with slow-firing weapons and circumstances that favor close combat could be interesting.

You would actually have massed artillery barrages, which could require tactical thinking. Have a couple people act as artillery spotters, a couple man some of those old Vickers machine guns, and the rest try to storm the enemy trenches. Might require the players to actually coordinate, for once.

[GuppyShark]

Codename Eagle returns!

[Mr Bean]

If I'm reading DICE correctly this is Alternative WWI in that it starts a few years later so they have an excuse to have things like the MP18 and the BAR in there if limited. The mass emphasis (And they talked it a dozen times) on melee weapons indicates the vast majority of fights up close will be melee focused as Bayonets, weapon butts and clubs are mentioned all over the place.

[Kingmaker]

I just hope they don't try and fill everything with ahistorical barrages of automatic weapons fire. A shooter with slow-firing weapons and circumstances that favor close combat could be interesting.

You would actually have massed artillery barrages, which could require tactical thinking. Have a couple people act as artillery spotters, a couple man some of those old Vickers machine guns, and the rest try to storm the enemy trenches. Might require the players to actually coordinate, for once.

That level of spontaneous mass coordination is unlikely unless there are pretty good zerg-wrangling tools in the game (even then, you'd still probably be reliant on a smaller group of pre-organized players). More likely people on either side will run at each other semi-randomly.

[Lord Revan]

I just hope they don't try and fill everything with ahistorical barrages of automatic weapons fire. A shooter with slow-firing weapons and circumstances that favor close combat could be interesting.

You would actually have massed artillery barrages, which could require tactical thinking. Have a couple people act as artillery spotters, a couple man some of those old Vickers machine guns, and the rest try to storm the enemy trenches. Might require the players to actually coordinate, for once.

That level of spontaneous mass coordination is unlikely unless there are pretty good zerg-wrangling tools in the game (even then, you'd still probably be reliant on a smaller group of pre-organized players). More likely people on either side will run at each other semi-randomly.

if you make the machine guns leathal enough, they would limit zerging in and of themselves. Since zerging was tried in real life and we all know how well that went.

[ray245]

Players will simply complain about the MG being too OP and demand they be nerfed.

[Borgholio]

Players will simply complain about the MG being too OP and demand they be nerfed.

You think they'll bitch about that, just imagine if they introduce poison gas....

[Kingmaker]

They won't actually make machine guns that powerful. More to the point, in real life, dead soldiers didn't respawn a few hundred yards away several seconds later (which makes it a bit hard to suppress people or inflict enough casualties to actually break an attack). Zerging is a lot more viable when death is just an inconvenience.

just imagine if they introduce poison gas

Just imagine if they introduce malnutrion, trench foot, and spanish flu.

Though I would be surprised if there wasn't poison gas. It will probably just be in form of gas grenades or something similarly odd.

[Elheru Aran]

It occurs to me that they could use gas to make some hazardous environments, and gas mask *filters* would be an consumable. You have to equip the filter before you equip the gas mask, when you take the mask off you lose the filter. Masks were also pretty shit for vision, so that would be an additional factor to ratchet up the tension.

For example you could have a night-time mission where you have to sneak across the no-man's-land and cut the wire, but along the way there's remnants of a recent gas attack lying low in the shell craters, so you have to make a choice between wearing your mask and being safe or risking exposure in the open...

[Borgholio]

They won't actually make machine guns that powerful. More to the point, in real life, dead soldiers didn't respawn a few hundred yards away several seconds later (which makes it a bit hard to suppress people or inflict enough casualties to actually break an attack). Zerging is a lot more viable when death is just an inconvenience.

Well they could make it so that all respawns come out of a pool of reinforcements. Once that pool reaches zero, no more respawns. That would still allow people to try mass rushing attacks if they wanted, but there would be clear consequences, as if most of the regiment was wiped out during the charge leaving only a handful to make it into the enemy trenches.

Just imagine if they introduce malnutrion, trench foot, and spanish flu.

Though I would be surprised if there wasn't poison gas. It will probably just be in form of gas grenades or something similarly odd.

Well, disease and sickness wasn't as representative of the war as gas attacks, IMO. When you think of the weapons of WW1, you think of barbed wire, machine guns, trenches, artillery, primitive tanks, biplanes, and poison gas.

It occurs to me that they could use gas to make some hazardous environments, and gas mask *filters* would be an consumable. You have to equip the filter before you equip the gas mask, when you take the mask off you lose the filter. Masks were also pretty shit for vision, so that would be an additional factor to ratchet up the tension.

Yeah, various maps could have randomly spawning poison gas clouds that, as you said, means you'll have to choose between wearing the gas mask and accepting it's limitations, or going without and staying away from the gas (and consequently be in a nice kill zone for the enemy machine gunners).

[Elheru Aran]

You could also have artillery barrages, with a randomizer to permit the occasional barrage to actually be a gas barrage rather than just explosives. So not only do you have to hunker down, you'll have to equip your gas mask... and then man the trench because the other side is coming at you, with the drawback of doing so half-blind.

[LaCroix]

I hope it is a better version of Verdun....

[Sea Skimmer]

Normal battlefield game combat might as well be 1916 in the first place, utter hoards of people endlessly fighting over a combat zone about 1-2 miles wide with minor hills constantly changing hands. If they screw this up its only because they suck. Lack of helicopters will be the only thing that will really be missed, but made up for I think by the awesome that is a two seater biplane. I can only hope we get proper five-seven seater bombers.

[Purple]

Normal battlefield game combat might as well be 1916 in the first place, utter hoards of people endlessly fighting over a combat zone about 1-2 miles wide with minor hills constantly changing hands. If they screw this up its only because they suck. Lack of helicopters will be the only thing that will really be missed, but made up for I think by the awesome that is a two seater biplane. I can only hope we get proper five-seven seater bombers.

Well they had a B-17 back in 1942. So how hard can it be to do it again? Although frankly I'd want to see airships.

[Elheru Aran]

Normal battlefield game combat might as well be 1916 in the first place, utter hoards of people endlessly fighting over a combat zone about 1-2 miles wide with minor hills constantly changing hands. If they screw this up its only because they suck. Lack of helicopters will be the only thing that will really be missed, but made up for I think by the awesome that is a two seater biplane. I can only hope we get proper five-seven seater bombers.

Well they had a B-17 back in 1942. So how hard can it be to do it again? Although frankly I'd want to see airships.

B-17? Please (and it was around before then, just so you know...). Think more like a Gotha.

Airships would be an interesting addition, but I'm not sure how you could tie them into a game that's mostly people running about a bombed-out hellscape. A biplane is easier to explain, have a 'landing strip' at one end of the game that people can run into and commandeer planes. Zepplins require rather more infrastructure than that. You could rationalize some sort of barrage balloon for artillery observation, which could be shot down by the biplanes...

[Sea Skimmer]

Well they had a B-17 back in 1942. So how hard can it be to do it again? Although frankly I'd want to see airships.

Not hard, though the turrets on the B-17s always had really bad lag problems, its just a question of will and design. IIRC though you still only got three people in those planes. Been a long time since i played though.

B-17? Please (and it was around before then, just so you know...). Think more like a Gotha.

He was talking about an in game vehicle, not history. Learn your battlefield noob!

Airships would be an interesting addition, but I'm not sure how you could tie them into a game that's mostly people running about a bombed-out hellscape. A biplane is easier to explain, have a 'landing strip' at one end of the game that people can run into and commandeer planes. Zepplins require rather more infrastructure than that. You could rationalize some sort of barrage balloon for artillery observation, which could be shot down by the biplanes...

Well I see one in the trailer, so I'm sure that exists. Battlefield 2142 had big floating ships you could drive around the map with some player manned guns on them, I'd expect a Zepplin to either work like that, or be a moving, but non player controlled capture point. Either way I hope they'll be mobile spawn points. The rain of players from the sky is what keeps battlefield games interesting and avoids constant bottlenecking problems where you get... a fixed battle line on the map. But yeah I see plenty of ways to make a WW1 game awesome. I just really hope they don't blow it all on nerfing guns to try to make freaking melee work. A better melee I have actually long wanted in battlefield, I don't like one click knife kills in a game where you can't hit someone with your gun... but I do not want anything else made less deadly in reply. The guns are weak on purpose already so you have a chance at all, but they should not be made weaker.

[Purple]

B-17? Please (and it was around before then, just so you know...). Think more like a Gotha.

I was talking about Battlefield 1942. You know, the original Battlefield video game. It had a B-17 model with multiple seats where one guy would act as the pilots and the rest would be gunners.

Airships would be an interesting addition, but I'm not sure how you could tie them into a game that's mostly people running about a bombed-out hellscape. A biplane is easier to explain, have a 'landing strip' at one end of the game that people can run into and commandeer planes. Zepplins require rather more infrastructure than that. You could rationalize some sort of barrage balloon for artillery observation, which could be shot down by the biplanes...

An airship is effectively a bomber, only slower.

Also, Secret Weapons of WW2 added a Battle for Brattain map that essentially focused entirely on air combat. There was a factory on the British side and as the Germans you tried to fly bombers to destroy that factory where as the British you tried to shoot them down. Something like that but with a zeppelin air raid would be amazing.

Like literally there is a mod for Battlefield 1942 that does WW1 already. And it's basically exactly what I expect this thing to be.

[Mr Bean]

Also Battlefield 4 already has "planes that spawn midair" with an airfield on the battlefield to reload ammo and give you someplace to land to repair. It's easy to imagine an airship that spawns out of bounds and floats towards the battle. Or they could take a page from how they did commander assets in BF4 DLC and have the Airships as an AC-130 analog IE it's a platform that's AI controlled but you can spawn in to man weaponry on it.

[Purple]

Hell, since this is alt history WW1 they could go all out and have something like the USS. Akron.