Kevin Klemmick "Force on Force" Multiplayer Interview - By Glen "Sleepdoc" Kletzy
In this, the third part
of the Klemmick interview, we discuss the "Force on Force" multiplayer
option (term copyrighted by Jeff "Rhino" Babineau, 1999, patent pending)
of the TE mission builder. It is, as of yet, mostly undiscovered. I believe
this to be true for a couple of reasons. The main reason, I believe, is
because the ground war mission interface of TE is badly broken, and the
bugs relating to it are essentially insurmountable. I tinkered with it
for hours, and performed experiments with it, which clearly proved this
to me. And even if it were not broken, I believe that it is the natural
progression of a product such as this, that the users will discover these
deeper features later. Most guys are still learning the more basic elements
of the game. But, as with any game, time passes, we get better, and we
start delving deeper into these features.
Together with Jeff "Rhino" Babineau of the 209th Deltahawks, and our own
Eric "Snacko" Marlow of the 303rd Sidewinders (Remember him ? He's the
guy with the great articles on F-15 tactics), we spent hours screwing
around with the ground war element of the game. As a real tank battalion
staff officer, Tank Company XO, and tank platoon leader during his military
career, "Rhino" was greatly interested in this feature. As a guy who loves
competitive, multiplayer strategy games ( I was hooked on Battlezone for
longer than I should admit to the hardcore sim crowd), I too found this
element very exciting. We were hell bent together for a couple of nights
trying to understand how it really worked. What we discovered is that
the ground war element of TE is a mess. Don't even try it. You will be
essentially wasting your time. It isn't even documented correctly as it
stands now, and it will make you lose your mind as you try to add moving
ground war elements to your missions. Yes, you can do it, and yes, sometimes
they will go where they are told. But ultimately, the ground forces will
incorrectly start pulling from the Campaign AI engine (which they are
not supposed to do in TE, you are supposed to be the AI), and they will
start re-issuing themselves orders which you have no control over. Further
more, in the context of a TE mission you just designed, those new orders
will only confirm to you that the AI battalion commander is suffering
from a combination of severe Schizophrenia and late stage Alzheimer's.
Suffice it to say, it is as broken as broken can get.
But don't despair my ground war friends. Kevin Klemmick assures me that
the fixes will be forthcoming soon. He said we would probably see some
significant repairs in this next one or two patches, and those should
make the dream take form very nicely. He even went further to say that
the commitment to the TE mission builder was very high in the company,
because most people believe it is this module alone which will give the
series its greatest longevity and replayability.
So Kevin chose to reveal to me the actual way the ground war element will
work in the near future (and he was very confident that those bugs are
repairable). In order to better understand the function, we must place
it in the context of an example. The actual interface specifics of controlling
the ground war will be spelled out in detail in my next article. This
article, however, is designed to explain (as Kevin explained it to me),
how the concept of the "Force on Force" multiplayer option will play out.
In order to truly realize the full nature of the ground war feature, we
must choose an example, which uses all its features. Lucky for Mr. Babineau
and myself, that example is the arrangement which we find the most compelling.
The "Force on Force" multiplayer game. All that we discuss here also applies
to the more limited "one shot mission" types like the ones we have been
seeing a lot of lately on the net. My "Sleepdoc's situation" mission and
the one I work you through in my mission builder article all fall in the
"one shot mission" category.
In a "Force on Force" Multiplayer mission, a template is created rather
than an actual mission. Here is what I mean by that. In the "one shot"
type mission, the designer/editor of the mission sets up specific flights
and packages (and soon ground war movements complete with battalion objectives)
for both sides of the game. The player who downloads the "one shot" type
mission then plays it out. He jumps into the F-16 flight of his choice
(for either side, so long as that side has pre-designated flights which
include f-16s), and flies the missions that the designer created for him.
He gets jumped or intercepted by whatever defending flights the mission
designer built in. One way or the other, he flies the missions in the
allotted time in order to attempt to achieve the "victory conditions"
set forth by the original designer. Eventually, even if the mission had
many flight opportunities for the flyer, the allotted missions run out,
and the victory conditions are either achieved or not. Game over.
Granted, some "one shot" mission types include a few, simple packages
and are determined by a few, simple victory conditions, and other, more
complex "one shot" type missions include tons of flying opportunities
and a complex set of victory conditions which must be met as you fly flight
after flight. However, both these types of "one shot" missions have a
common element which allow me to group them both as the "one shot" type.
And that is that YOU did not design the missions, and that YOU did not
issue the orders to your ground troops. You had absolutely nothing to
do with the strategy for winning the mission. Much like in the Campaign
mode, you are nothing more than a grunt in this man's war, and you do
as your told. You don't determine the makeup of the packages or the movement
of the ground elements. You simply choose from the missions set forth
to you by the Brass, and do your duty as a soldier, all the time having
faith that the Big Brass have made the correct decisions for you. This
describes the essence of what I term the "one shot" mission type.
Not so in the "Force on Force" type multiplayer game. Remember I said
that these missions consist of a "template" and no actual missions? This
is what I mean. When you start a "Force on Force" type multiplayer mission,
you will NOT SEE A SINGLE FLIGHT for you to fly. What you will see, however,
are a series of resources for you to pull from, so that you (you are the
Brass and the flyboy here) can design your own flights, packages and battalion
moves. You tell the ground forces where to go and what to do when they
get there. In fact, you could sit at the game interface for the entire
time of the game, and never once fly. You could simply give orders to
ground units and design packages to fly, and let the AI do the rest. You
could play the entire war without once ever entering the actual 3d world.
That's kind of silly, because we are flight sim fanatics, but you could
do it. You could just sit there (knowing all along what the conditions
for victory are) and read all the news updates and watch the Intel reports
(which appear as enemy icons on the map) and move your pieces around like
chess pieces. And if your planes get shot down, or your tanks get destroyed,
you have lost that "resource" for the remainder of the match. PLANES AND
TANKS etc. ARE NOT RENEWABLE THROUGHOUT THE COURSE OF A TE MISSION !!!
You get what you get, and that is ALL you get. So one means of beating
your compadre could be through winning the war of attrition, but if in
the process of winning the war of attrition, you neglect to achieve the
victory conditions set forth by the designer of the mission, then you
have no bragging rights. It's a stalemate. (Where is Henry Kissinger when
you really need him ?!?!?!)
A typical "Force on Force" multiplayer game would progress as follows
(much like a game of chess, only with louder explosions). Each player
of a team (and you can have up 7 teams with their own starting territories)
will have a specific amount of starting resources. In order to keep our
example basic, this game will have 2 teams and each team will have 10
tank battalions, 10 mobile SAM battalions, 1 F-16 squadron, 1 F-15 squadron
(Mig-29 for the enemy side) and 1 F-14 squadron (SU-27 for the enemy side).
They will all be placed at starting locations around the map within their
respective friendly territories. Furthermore, a fairly complex set of
victory conditions have been set forth, and can be reviewed by all players
from within the game by simply going to the victory conditions window
to read them.
Again, in order to keep our example less complicated, we will make up
a simple set of victory conditions. In order for the commies to win, they
must occupy the city of Seoul with at least 3 Tank Battalions (ok…I'm
gonna spice it up a little now). However, for every 5 aircraft they lose,
they must add one more tank battalion to the capture of Seoul in order
to achieve the points necessary for victory. (hell, even my simple example
invokes images of complexity, but if you liked simple, you would be at
the arcade dropping quarters). Also, lets imagine that a reverse but comparable
set of victory conditions apply to the Good Ol' US of A, but of course
the capture of some Northern city is the basis for victory. Now we have
defined equal starting resources and winning objectives for each side.
Of course, our example mission was designed to be balanced, but nothing
says it has to be. You could just as easily define a starting point for
your chess game where one side has far greater resources but has a very
difficult task for victory, while the weaker side has far fewer starting
resources, but need only fend of your attack for 24 hours in order to
win (as if they were waiting for reinforcements). Only the imagination
of the initial mission designer limits the nature of the competition.
Cool, huh?
An aside is in order here. The last paragraph may have led you to wonder
just exactly what the limits of a victory condition entry is, and just
how complex and convoluted those entries can become. You may also be wondering
just how many separate victory conditions you can stack in a single mission.
Stay tuned. I am only beginning to discover new tricks in that section
of T.E. and once my investigation is over, I will be releasing an article
which hopefully teaches all these elements, and supplements my original
"TE Mission Builder Guide". I have already discovered more than a few
tricks (which are definitely not documented) concerning the ins and outs
of this very powerful subsystem of the T.E. Mission builder. Sorry to
leave you hanging, but I have ton of articles I want to write, and this
stuff is very time consuming. I will try to do that one as soon as I finish
this interview series I'm into right now.
Ok. Back to our example mission. So now we have our chessboard all setup
and ready to go. Each team has a limited set of resources with which to
play and a well-defined set of victory conditions defining their ultimate
goals. When you first start the game (you are playing for the USA and
your rebellious friend is playing for the DPRK) neither of you has any
flights set up or ground forces on the move. Just a bunch of ground forces
awaiting orders and a bunch of pilots sitting around drinking latte's
at their respective airbases waiting for the General (that's you bubba)
to start organizing and authorizing packages to get their butts up in
the air and fight. You know what you need to do to win. You know that
the other guy is trying to do the same to you. You know that you can never
replace a lost resource like a downed aircraft or a destroyed tank. Time
to rock !!!
Quickly, you tell a few of your SAM battalions to reposition near your
airbases to protect them from certain attack . You start telling your
tanks to move toward the objective city. You worry however about an all
out blitz. What if you get caught enroute, and the bridges are blown?
You won't know till you get there. Then you will be annihilated at the
bottleneck by enemy anti-tank flights !!
So you decide to feign a fake attack from the east, all the while intending
to sneak the mass of your forces to the west. You pay careful attention
to terrain, bridges and bottlenecks, so as not to get caught with your
pants down. 30 quick mouse clicks later you have put your ground forces
into motion and you start to generate packages and flights. You know that
any flight, which flies near an enemy battalion, will cause that flight
to appear on your map (This is how updated Intel is modeled in the game).
So you set up a series of alternating recon flights. You also know that
their appearance on your map is the "last seen position" and that info
gets old after 15 minutes, so you make sure you have a bunch of alternating
flights to keep the recon fresh and up-to-date.
You decide that the bridge north of Seoul needs to be cutoff to protect
Seoul, but you must first get your western most battalion across the bridge,
so you send them racing with a package designed to protect them until
they get across the bridge. You also send out a package to bomb the bridge
after they cross. Once you like the initial first moves you have made,
you realize it will take at least 20-30 minutes for those tanks to get
to their new locations. So you decide to be a flight leader in the flight
to bomb the bridge. This way you can see with your own eyes when your
boys are across, and also control the entire element through your "element
commands" section of the sim. You are satisfied with your initial moves,
and so you fly.
Your tanks get safely across, and you pound the bridge into steak tar-tar.
You are in business!! Or so you thought. You land that bird and return
to the interface only to find out that your enemy has moved his troops
across bridges far to the east, and managed to destroy the lone battalion
you sent as a diversion. Further more, the enemy tanks are now across
the DMZ and have no more bridges between Seoul and themselves. You can
only assume they are on an all out run for Seoul, but your last known
positions are getting stale. You quickly generate new recon flights and
new anti-tank missions along their suspected route. But what if they dipped
south in order to evade and be less predictable? What if they split into
3 groups? Maybe you can bring your remaining southerly tanks up in attempt
to slow them down in a protracted ground engagement until you get there.
You do just that, and boy! When you do finally find those sneaky bastards
you witness an amazing battle !! Tow missiles lighting across the terrain!
Shell fire blasting along the ground! But no time to watch the fireworks
son. You have work to do.
You lock the enemy tanks on GMT radar. Or so you think. The fog of war
has you confused. Are you about to commit fratricide (friendly fire)?
The radio calls are almost too much to follow. Finally, you confirm that
the targets are hostile, you issue the orders to your wing to attack,
and all hell breaks loose. The radio calls are insane. Explosions and
AAA aim to distract you. But you stay focused. So long as you still have
a maverick on your rails, no T-62 is safe. What's this? Holy Moses !!
They brought a mobile SAM battalion with them. Damn! You didn't think
about that possible strategy. Too late to add a SEAD escort to your package
now. Launch !!! JINK!
JINK! JINK! JINK ! KaBLAAAMM!! !!! Damn.
!! Eject-Eject !! (hmmm?…this parachute view wasn't exactly the view of
the battle you were hoping for). You end mission. Your back at the interface
now to check your current situation and Intel, generate new orders and
flights, and get up there again.!! Welcome to your first "Force on Force"
multiplayer game. Your buddy is smarter than you thought.
I don't know about you guys, but when I realized that this level of play
was gonna soon be possible, I got a chill up my spine. Sure, the term
"New Benchmark" is a marketing "hype" term, but hey. Sure sounds like
one to me.
In my fourth article coming soon, I will explain in detail the actual
ground forces interface that will soon be available for use so that you
too can live the mission I just described. Kevin Klemmick told me how
it is going to work, and related a little of his personal embarrassment
at the current state of that element of TE (He is a perfectionist, and
he is having to accept the same hard reality that all of us are growing
to accept : If you want the most complex, realistic flight sim ever built,
you have to have patience for it all to come together). He even suggested
(but did not state outright) that they were considering pulling TE from
the initial release until all these bugs were fixed. But in a wise decision
made by the team, they chose to give us what they had so that we could
enjoy it for what it was worth in its current state. They assumed (an
in my opinion, they assumed correctly) that due to the vast depth of the
TE mission builder, users would be better off learning to use those parts
that worked now. He was confident that once they did, they would gladly
stay tuned for the additional parts. From my perspective, they were spot
on. Despite all the bug hopping and craziness of the whole TE mission
building thing, I have flown some incredible custom built missions that
people have created, and all I can keep hearing myself say is "GIVE ME
MORE !". Don't worry folks. More is on the way.
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