After reading the Wolfenstein Community site and other fan posts, I have gotten a pretty good understanding of what the Wolfenstein community is looking for in the upcoming Wolfenstein game. The following is a list of concerns and suggestions that I feel that the community shares as a whole. As with any controversial topic, there will be those who disagree so feel free to comment and tell me if you disagree, that is partly why I write this articles is to see your input. Consider this an open letter to the developers of Wolfenstein.
note: This is a LONG read so it is not for the faint of heart.
Concerns stemming from the trailer:
Ironsights - this is probably the single most worrisome part of the new game for many fans. To many, the main issue about ironsights is that it feels as if Id is simply copying the CoD franchise in order to appeal to a mainstream audience, and in turn giving up the Wolfenstein game play that we all know and love. Ironsights act as a deterrent to fast game play, and act to slow the game down. This contrasts with the wish for quick fast-paced game play that Id expressed. The community understands that it is probably too late to remove ironsights from single player, but multiplayer still has hope. The general plea is for Id to either allow ironsights to be toggled on and off via Cvar, or tighten the spread and make it quake-wars-esque where ironsights served only as a FoV toggle. Wolf MP will run on the QW engine so who knows. It is important to note that we still don't know exact details on weapon spread yet. One recent video I looked at gave me hope (thanks Hornet88 for showing this to me).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGXIab6Hbnw
This video shows that the spread might not be as bad as we thought without sights up, or it is easy to get lucky headshots. Either way I think it is worth a look. Tighter bullet spread requires more aiming skill and makes for an overall more competitive game. Another part of the no ironsights request is for a small customizable crosshair such as in rtcw/et. We don't want to have to deal with huge CoD expanding crosshairs.
edit: Another well-liked part of rtcw/ET gameplay was the three headshot/eight body shot to kill. In the same vein as skilled aiming, this is by far the best formula for player health I have seen. A very skilled player can easily 3 headshot someone in a short amount of time, but it takes skill to do it. This is much better then like in CoD, or even in CSS sometimes, when someone can just get a lucky headshot and kill you because it only takes one headshot. Keep the 3 headshot to kill formula for Wolf MP.
No Shooting while Sprinting - If you watch the demo carefully, you will see that when the sprint button is pushed, the character lowers his gun, and holds it in front of him when he runs just like in CoD. This seems extremely hypocritical of Id and their desire for "fast game play." Sprinting while shooting was one of the things that made both Rtcw and ET such excellent fast paced games. Once again, either disabling this or allowing it to be changed by Cvar would make people happy.
Veil - Little is known about the Veil and how it will play out in multiplayer, so it is hard to criticize anything about it yet. The biggest issue here is that it should not serve as a gimmick. Someone who pops veil should not be able to take down 3 other people who don't have it. Veil should not be on a cooldown timer, and a competitive match should never be won or lost because someone did not have the veil power available to use it. I believe that it is possible for veil to be implemented in a way that adds to game play, but since nothing is known yet I will not go in depth. The biggest thing is that veil should not be a gimmick and it should not be game-breaking. Oh, and add a Cvar to disable it.
No Health Bars in Single Player - Once again this is speculation, but looking at single player there are no visible health bars. This brings up the possibility that health will regenerate in multiplayer much like CoD, Halo, or Gears of War. The addition of the medic class discourages this idea, but who knows. Reliance on your team to replenish health and ammo is part of what makes this such a good competitive game.
Weapons - I don't expect this to be a concern, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Keep any of the gimmicky single player weapons out of the multiplayer, such as the gun using veil power that evaporates enemies. I know that Rtcw had something similar to this, and they did not put that in the multiplayer so I trust that Id/Raven have this idea already.
Concerns stemming from other games (such as Quake Wars):
note: before reading this section it is important to understand that Splash Damage was not involved in the MP of Wolfenstein, and so many of these points might not seem like a huge issue. That being said, QW was still a game in the spirit of Wolfenstein, and there always the possibility that issues in QW will plague Wolfenstein as well.
Spam factor - One of the advertising points for Wolf MP mentioned mines. Mines were something added in ET that actually made the game less competitive. Sure, it added another factor into the game that made it fun sometimes, but in the end they were more annoying than beneficial. This includes other things also. I know of many people who did not like the Rifle Grenades. I personally did not have a problem with the rnade, but it is important to makes sure that they do not overdo the spam. I expect the Panzerfaust and grenades to stay, that's fine, but don't do what Quake Wars did. Part of the reason that QW failed so badly was because the spam was so over the top that it was ridiculous. Let player skill determine who gets killed, not whether they get unlucky and run over a mine. As always, we ask to include cvars that offer all sorts of spam protection such as limiting panzers per team and number of mines.
The Quake Wars Engine - From what I have read so far, the QW engine is a controversial topic among gamers. Some people claim that it runs fine, but many people also claim that it hiccups and lags. From my experience, I can definitely say that I have had a few problems with it. The smaller indoor environments should help it, but it still needs some polish to ensure that it is up to the task of handling smooth game play. Most people in the community also want to be able to bunny hop and strafe jump such as in the Q3 engine. Make the movement as smooth and skilled as possible.
Ridiculously Long Objectives - One of the things that decides a good competitive game is how easy (or hard) it is to watch. Quake Wars made some of its objectives so unbelievably drawn out that it was a drag to watch, and some matches dragged on for 30+ minutes. One of the good aspects of Rtcw and most ET maps was the short objectives of around 15 minutes and under, with almost all maps winnable in under 5. If a team gets held for 10 minutes on the first stage of a map, they should still have a chance (however slight) of finishing the map. The unpredictability and fast-paced action was one thing that made ET and Rtcw games so fun to watch. However, there is no fun in watching a QW map that goes on for 30 minutes on a fullhold.
NO RANKED SERVERS - Ranked servers absolutely killed the modding community in QW. Ranked servers were locked, making it impossible to run custom maps, or customize game settings to anything beyond what was default. Having persistent stats is okay, but do not create ranked servers as this absolutely kills the modding community. The modding community is one of the things that helps keep a game alive. Think of all the competitive maps for ET and think how many of them are default. Even the few default maps are heavily modded, and the time limits are changed (think SW Goldrush, and dynamitable back door battery. Radar was the only one that did not require a complete overhaul). Non-ranked servers let the game evolve and grow to fit the fanbase.
This topic leads us to...
Make it modder friendly - Making maps for QW was hell because of Megatextures. The megatexture concept was a slap in the face for map-makers because SD basically said that they didn't care. Make the game easily moddable, and make it fairly simple to design and distribute maps. Fan-made maps have been vital to competitive play in previous Wolf games.
Further Competitive and Community Concerns:
Make it Competition Friendly Out of the Box - Although I am almost 100% sure that the community will have to make a competition mod for Wolfenstein, at least make sure that we do not have to work too hard. Include things like team lock, pause, speclock, readyteam, and autorecord. Including support for an ETTV like server would be even better. The less work that the community has to do to adapt the game, the more successful competitive play will be. This means including server-side cvars for EVERYTHING. Ideally, a competition config would be all that is needed for competitive play.
Intelligent Class Interaction - The neutering of ET's classes (from 5 down to 3) could either be a very good thing or a bad thing. Classes like Covert Ops were extremely under-used, and a change like this could ensure that the classes are more balanced. The elimination of the Field Ops class worries me though. Wolfenstein should stick to the principle that no class should be extremely successful by itself. A Field Ops has infinite ammo, but cannot heal. A medic can heal, but goes out of ammo very quickly. An engineer needs to rely on his team to cover him while he exposes himself in order to complete objectives. As long as classes stay balanced this will be okay. Medics handing out ammo AND health is a big NO.
I have faith that Wolfenstein will not turn out as badly as many people are saying. The most hopeful sign I have seen so far is the community manager Sokal who has been closely watching the community and relaying out opinions.
Those are all of the points that I could come up with at the moment, and there is no doubt some more I missed. If I missed something big, please include it in a comment and I will go back and edit it in. I am looking forward to hearing the community's further opinion on this issue.
Final Point:
As Sokal, the Community Manager for Wolfenstein has told us, the multiplayer is still being worked on. This gives me hope that it is not too late for many of these changes to go through.
Quote Source: http://www.wolfenstein-zone.com/viewtopic.php?p=2357#p2357
edit: One thing that I encourage the Wolfenstein team to do is release an open beta similar to Quake Wars beta. A beta is very valuable when gaining community input, and it could provide the Wolf team with very valuable information because most of the ET community wants to see the game succeed.
I posted this at the Wolfenstein.com community site under the thread http://www.wolfenstein.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=104. Please bump if you can.
