Battlefront.com and TBG Software announce new game! DropTeam!

[Madmatt]

As to the backstory, let me try and sum up...

Huge humanity centric galaxy spanning authority once existed called the Mu Arae Entente... eventually it got corrupt and fractured and many people left the Entente controlled areas to colonize new worlds collectively called the "Rim".

In time, the Entente grew jealous of the Rim worlds and their new technologies and fought to bring them back into the fold. War ensued.... Eventually the Entente won but only by using near genocide style campaigns against many of the Rim worlds.

The savagery of the Rim War bred raw ambition and lust for glory in much of the military and this in turn lead to a generations long civil war. This civil war basically spelled the doom and the end of the Entente's existance as an coherent effective body of government.

Control decentralized and each planet and colony had to exist on its on. The technological advances of the earlier era were lost as humainty tried as best it could to rebuild from the raveges of war and scrape out a living.

During all of this time, industrial manufacture was conducted in vast spacecraft called "LiveShips" which contained the blueprints and manufactoring capacity for advanced technology and equipment. While not sentient in of themselves, they had the ability to pass on their technical knowledge and procreate newer LiveShips. The Rim wars and subsequent Civil Wars depleted the bulk of the LiveShips that once contained the awesome technoligcal knowledge of the Entente.

At the time of the Rim wars, vast fleets of Rim World LiveShips fled and ventured deep into uncharted space. Aboard these vast Liveships, a feudal, clan based society emerged. As the original Liveships aged and eventually broke down (died), newer, younger and less advanced Liveships were created and the technological knowledge, albeit deminished, was past on from generation to generation of Liveships.

At the time of the games setting, the feudal based clans that generations before had fled have now returned to the Rim aboard their Liveships and look lustfully at the planets and colonies which once made up the Entente. Some fight for glory, some for resources, some for power and others wish to restore the glory and control that the Mu Arae Entente once weilded.

It is a time of war once more.

[Andreas]

Claw to claw is what I am holding out for.

[Lars]

Originally posted by Grappler:

And finally infantry. Right now, the first version will not have infantry. We all really like the idea, but they would have to be something like the Mobile Infantry of Starship Troopers. Remember, lots of these worlds don't have a breathable atmosphere and the high/low gravity could really defeat someone on foot.

Also needs the Uber Gigantic Cyborg Controlled Tank that is in no way related to Ogre or any other trademarked name...

[Madmatt]

Funny you should mention Ogre... or the Keith Laumer Bolo books that they were based on...

Lets just say, that idea is not a new one to us...

Madmatt

[Lars]

Originally posted by Madmatt:

Funny you should mention Ogre... or the Keith Laumer Bolo books that they were based on...

Lets just say, that idea is not a new one to us...

Madmatt

Go ahead, make my day.

[YankeeDog]

Neato. I look forward to trying the final product.

The screenshots look pretty good, especially for Alpha-stage, and I like a lot of the features -- big battlefield, deformable terrain, etc.

What's conspicously missing from the current game info is details about player control of AI units, and the AI itself. I've always been exicited by the concept of a RTS/FPS hybrid. It's not a new idea, but everything I've tried out there thus far has been a bit disappointing. and usually what I find disppointing is the command and behavior of non-player "driven" units.

In most of the games I've tried thus far, command options for non-player units are very limited -- they tend to attack blindly no matter how severe the opposition, defend in place to the last bullet, etc. Winning games usually becomes about which player can hop around the battlefield and issue orders to his units more quickly, and/or keep moving his FPS control around to whatever unit is at the most critical point, etc. Basically, your typical clickfest.

To get me really juiced about a FPS/RTS, I want a decent AI unit control interface and AI "driver." For example, I really want to be able to order a scout-type vehicle to move forward, and trust that it will retreat on its own if it spots superior opposition.

Don't get me wrong, I *love* the idea of being to take control of a the lead tank in a critical assault, just so long as all my other units don't become complete chumps if I leave them alone for a few minutes. And the same goes for enemy units -- AI-driven units don't have to be amazing, just so long as they aren't only marginally more challenging opposition than target drones. . .

But BFC has a strong "anti-clickfest" record, so I'm cautiously optimistic about this one -- best of luck and I will definitely give it a serious look when the demo comes out!

Cheers,

YD

[Pzman]

Well YD, I think thats in the hands of the game designers more so than BFC.

[YankeeDog]

True, but I'm operating under the assumption that BFC is selective about their publishing projects. . .

[Madmatt]

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

True, but I'm operating under the assumption that BFC is selective about their publishing projects. . .

Huh, whazat? Sorry, I was just looking over the new contract for "Big Hootered Immoral Coeds Gone Wild With Bald Bouncers" which we are going to publish later this year. What did you guys ask again?

Madmatt

[Andreas]

Can I beta test?

Will it have armoured hummers?

[Berlichtingen]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Can I beta test?

Will it have armoured hummers?

Errr... wouldn't that hurt?

[BFCElvis]

Can I beta test?

Can I?

[ClaytoniousRex]

What are the minimum system requirements for the Mac?

Since there are still a few features remaining to be implemented and much optimization work to do, it would be premature to give a final answer to this question, but I can tell you what we've observed in testing so far. The lowest-end Mac we've tested on is a Mac Mini (a single G4 processor running at 1.4GHz) with 512MB RAM and that barely adequate Radeon 9200 that they ship with - this is your basic $500.00 low-end mac. This machine plays the game well, as long as some of the optional graphics are disabled (such as extra particle effects, slightly reduced view distance, etc.) On the other hand, G5's seem to eat it up without much trouble, and the big dual-CPU G5's even use both CPU's intelligently (with one CPU pretty much devoted to AI tasks.) So right now, it's looking like the minimum will be something close to the Mac Mini described above, but at the minimum spec you don't get as much eye candy. When we're feature complete and optimized, we will provide a final, specific answer.

...will there be different versions of MBTs, recon etc?

Yes, there are various configurations of the different basic platforms, representing different "generations" of evolved fighting units by the Liveships that manufacture them.

Where's the freaking hover tanks?

They're mostly in Mu Arae space (see the starmap on the site), where higher technology is still involved in the raging civil war there. Liveships have long since lost the ability to manufacture them, but there are probably still a few serviceable ones in The Rim.

No infantry . . . ?

We've laid the groundwork for infantry, including the basic design and initial artwork for squads of power armored infantry who can handle the game's various environments, but as Stan said they probably won't make it into the first release. The scenarios in the first release are built in such a way that the lack of infantry makes sense for the situations at hand. Since DropTeam is so extensible, it's a safe bet that infantry will become available in due time.

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by Madmatt:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by YankeeDog:

True, but I'm operating under the assumption that BFC is selective about their publishing projects. . .

Huh, whazat? Sorry, I was just looking over the new contract for "Big Hootered Immoral Coeds Gone Wild With Bald Bouncers" which we are going to publish later this year. What did you guys ask again?

Madmatt </font>

[General Bolt]

DropTeam, SC2, CMX2. I think I'll just get direct deposit to BFC on my payroll check.

[Bonxa]

Ah, finally we can try out that lovely foolish mechwarrior thingy in a more or less proper tactical environment.

I always thought staying low was the number one rule in warfare where firearms rule but hey, maybe a tall walking machine with lots of fancy weapons is the way to go. I certainly hope they include the possibility to model them someway down the road.

Looks like a good concept anyhow, I get the same kind of feeling that I got when I first heard of CM.

[kaiserf]

One thing I'm not quite clear on, is the predominant mode of play.

Is this going to be CM style, just giving units orders, etc. + the ability to drive them?

or is driving an individual vehicle going to be the main mode of play?

[ClaytoniousRex]

Is this going to be CM style, just giving units orders, etc. + the ability to drive them? ... or is driving an individual vehicle going to be the main mode of play?

This decision is up to you as the player. If you want to go entirely "hands-off", you can even serve as your team's commander, spending your time issuing orders and deploying defenses instead of directly fighting. This involves giving direct orders to the AI players on your team, who are very obedient, and also trying to coordinate the efforts of human players if you are playing online (or a mixture of both.) There are also some other features relevant to this that are being finalized right now, so hopefully we will be able to update the website with a clearer description of this style of play soon. I don't say that to be evasive, but I want to make sure these features are actually going into the release before promising them to you.

[Gpig]

So would we be able to set up attack/defend type scenarios?

Dig in and wait for the enemy to come at you?

Or is it mostly a Meeting Engagement type of warfare? Seek out and destroy each other.

Or is it a wide open combination of all of those things. Defend in some areas and attack through to others. I imagine with the larger scope than CM, this would make more sense.

Thanks!

Gpig

EDIT: I see. I got my answers on your excellent webpage. THANKS!

[ May 12, 2005, 04:40 PM: Message edited by: Gpig ]

[Michael Dorosh]

I kind of figured that if Madmatt was pervading the boards like he has been the last day or so, it meant a big announcement was in the offing...

[Nestor]

This sounds interesting.

All the blurb brought back memories of a game called Herzog Zwei that I used to have for the Sega Megadrive. Anybody remember that?

I think it was the first game I ever played where you issued orders to units, rather than controlling them directly and you carried them onto the battlefield via some kind of transport ship. Not sure realistic physics was high on the games list of features though

Happy memories - apart from the fact that it used to crash the whole time.

[Shadow 1st Hussars]

Originally posted by Andreas:

What are the minimum system requirements for the Mac?

60GHz G9 with 3TB RAM and a 6GB Video Card.

[Creepy Gnome]

Originally posted by Nestor:

All the blurb brought back memories of a game called Herzog Zwei that I used to have for the Sega Megadrive. Anybody remember that?

I think it was the first game I ever played where you issued orders to units, rather than controlling them directly and you carried them onto the battlefield via some kind of transport ship.

Yeah I used to play that all the time on my Sega Genesis (I never heard of a megadrive). Yeah the game was great you controlled a fighter jet that can pick up units and move them to other parts of the map. You give the units orders and try to destroy the enemys main base to win. You accumulated money based the number of bases you controled on the map, the more money you get the more units you could build. The unique thing about that RTS was that your fighter jet could land and transform in to a robot and he could take part in the action, making holes in the enemy defenses when needed. That was a nice twist.

Originally posted by Nestor:

Happy memories - apart from the fact that it used to crash the whole time.

Hmm I do not remember it ever crashing.

Drop Team is so much better, and if you liked Herzog Zwei then you just might like Drop Team.

-Creepy

[Creepy Gnome]

Originally posted by Shadow 1st Hussars:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Andreas:

What are the minimum system requirements for the Mac?

60GHz G9 with 3TB RAM and a 6GB Video Card. </font>

[Patrocles]

Sounds like it could be a fun game!

real-time!!??

Will there be an option to speedup/slowdown gameplay? I suck at Real-time games because my Twitch-factor rating is somewhere in the neighborhood of -2.3x10^3.