2 New Concepts. Part 1: Storyline

[Artnez]

Please take these into consideration because I've realliy thought them through.

Part 1: Storyline
A battlefield game really can't have a storyline. There isn't a true single player campaign that you can play, so a "story" isn't really a plausible idea. Not to mention, most multipayer games wouldn't benefit from a story anyway.

A good storyline means cutscenes, good dialogue, etc... which doesn't really make sense here.

My proposition is to drop the "storyline" idea completely.. throw it out the window.

Instead, do what Battlefield1942 did (the most successful of the series in my opinion), focus on different battles in history (particularly, the 20th/21st century of course). Battlefield1942 focused on World War 2, but I consider that a bunch of different wars mingled in one. They had battles all over the world for a 6 year period. Here, you just make it a 10-14 year period.

For example, you can call one map Somalia, 1993. Another map you can call Fallujah, 2004. Another one you can call Kosovo, 1997. And of course, Chechnya, 1999.

The advantages here are many:

1) You get to have many armed forces, including the UN, UK, USA, Serbs, Albianians, Russians, Germans, French, Koreans, Chinese, etc.

2) You don't have to model/skin/code all weaponry for these armies.. just the ones used in a particular battle.

This type of development cycle would be more exciting for the players as well.

Instead of breaking things up into maps, vehicles, sides, you could package it all up into one word: Scenario

Every release could include a new scenario + bugfixes for old ones.

I guess the largest argument here could be that this is alot more work. In my opinon, this is less work, but more variety.

You don't have to give each new side a huge arsenal of weapons... just the ones used in a particular battle.

To extend gameplay even more, you can have multiple versions of the same battle, including night scenarios (they're coming with the expansion) and Day2/Day3 versions of these scenarios.

Another big plus here is you have alot of material to work with. All major battles of the 20th/21st century are very well documented. I have hours of war footage sitting on my hard drive from all of the battles stated above (except for Somalia, I just have the official satellite recordings of battles going on).