Caltrops - Half-Life II ??? - Plan of Attack THOUGHTS

Forum Overview :: Half-Life II ???

by Fussbett 04/18/2005, 7:08am PDT

I understand why Plan of Attack was made. It was made by people very similar to me -- we love Counter-Strike but we're sick of it. We don't want to play an online game about DinoTerrorists, we'd really like to play Counter-Strike 2. A bunch of people who love Counter-Strike and would like to make a game for the zillion fans of Counter-Strike made Plan of Attack, or as I call it, Counter Team Fortress Strike. The major problem is that unlike me, these guys didn't know that simplification is a virtue in design. In fact I'm pretty sure they believe the exact opposite.

Classes, levels, an XP bar, speed/accuracy/ stats, weapon proficiency, a capture meter, multiple capture points, constantly changing team roles, and a tight maze-like map with almost no interconnections. Everything conspires to make the game as confusing as possible and lifts you farther away from getting to an awesome chokepoint firefight. When there is a chokepoint firefight, it's a lot of fun, pretty much like Counter-Strike (a game that almost guarantees a good firefight in every round).

The defence of Plan of Attack is that you must work together as a team for great results. People think this is a plus, but it's not, and worse is that it's not really totally true. I agree that teamwork will lead you to victory, and I'm sure I'll see more of that in the future as people get better at the game. But it's not even that simple. Teamwork will lead ONE TEAM to win over the other team, but probably won't produce good action. To get a truly great game going, you'd need two teams working together, which on a public server has nearly zero chance of occuring. It's roughly the same odds as Jhoh Cable meeting a hot slut on the internet who flies to Detroit to meet him. I said to Jhoh as we were playing that I think PoA would make a great pro-player mod, or a good LAN party game where you've got two cohesive and dedicated teams ready to navigate the strict rules.

The minute Half-Life mod #2 comes out, Plan of Attack and its zero new ideas will be totally forgotten.

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