The Ability To Do Anything And Everything.

I don't know about you guys, but in order for a game to have replayability, I like it to have options. Things to change. Even something as simple as, say, the difficulty level. Or different ways of doing something rather than just holding down the trigger. I can remember playing through even the most linear games numerous times just to see what the different outcomes would be.

Now, as we all know, the Enigma series has all of those options.

I would like more options. I know it's simply put, and may sound kind of stupid. But missions, patrols, and difficulty levels (nice job with those, by the way :oD ) are, in fact, very linear to me. Now, not 100% linear, mind you, but linear all the same. Anyone who has played Artifact will have a better idea of what I'm about to say (not trying to promote the game, just giving an example). What happens is they say "Capture the artifacts." Nothing more, nothing less. No present factions, alliances, mobility limits. The only limits on you are the other players. This is something I would really like to see in Enigma.

Granted it's still fun to play through as the LFN, Americans, or Germans, many a time with different difficulties, I think once multiplayer comes out, it would be better if this restriction were removed. Not entirely, mind you, perhaps you could still limit the vehicles a person could pilot to a certain, pre-chosen faction. HOWEVER, I would still like less linear gameplay.

To use Artifact as a base, everyone starts out with their own boat*. It's theirs. They get to maintain it, watch over it, control everything about it, try and get an income, and try and make it a superpower. As you progress and have more surplus, you can upgrade and add to your ship, buy more ships, upgrade and add to those, hire crew. The more powerful you become, the better you can oppose other players to, say, capture their islands, steal their riches, and, obviously, sink their ships. You can go where ever you want and do whatever you want, society providing. Obviously, you're not going to dingy to shore in broad daylight and "borrow" one of the enemies guns without getting killed (unless of course the element of surprise somehow prevails). But, say you find a profitable island that produces oil or provides a defensible shipyard. Steal it, buy it, whatever. You'd have to be able to move about on land, buying and manning guns... etc....

Spy on enemies, bomb them, the whole deal.

*Or, as I think is happening, you have to get hired to a smaller task and work your way towards Captain.

Now comes the fun part. Interaction. I know we've already been fighting with other players, but that's not the limit. Let's say (branching off from Artifact, now...) each player can only really own one ship. The "buying other ships" and "hiring crew" part would consist of rallying other players to your cause, having them man your guns or buy them a ship to join your fleet. Then, ally with other players, and form your own factions, alliances, whatever. Make or break treaties, trading agreements, anything you can think of. Or, instead of trade, steal it.

The point here is non-linear interactivity with other players. Do whatever you want, everything that war involves (with and without shells), but with no limitation to allegiance. Just let the players do it themselves.

Well, that's all I can think of for now. Comments, suggestions, improvement, and detrimental comments all welcome. Just make my fingers feel like they're tired for a reason ;oD . Or maybe you just want to yell at me for posting a previously discussed topic ) (sry if it is, by the way... couldn't find nething) or something that's already happening.

EDIT: Ah, yes. Forgot the goal part. Just like Artifact, Tesseraction gives you a goal (world dominance, anyone? Perhaps capture the flag or capture the island..) and a time limit within which the game will reset (otherwise you just get dominant alliances and it's no fun for the unaccepted newcomers). There are many ways to do this, say three hour deathmatches (although you'd have to have plenty of warning to fill all the guns on your ship with crew), two week or two month wars (for those of us who have that much spare time *looks in a mirror*... (

Would not the outcome of MP be an answer to this? Where technically you could play a three year war in each of the factions and not play the same situation again in a 9 year period?

Aye, the outcome of multiplayer would answer a few of these requests. Hiring crew amongst the players and manning land batteries, and some of the interaction features. I guess I repeated some of the things we're going to be able to do anyways, sorry (not limited to those above).

Although, the game would still have to answer for the player-run faction system. The limitations of the three factions would still provide a lot of maneuverability within the gameplay, but aside from that, nothing more. Again, the biggest thing I'm eventually hoping for is a player-run alliance system: creation of our own treaties, trade routes, alliances, etc.

Also, from what I've heard, there's going to be certain "missions" within the MP, ie escort oilers. But what is the point of this if you don't know what it's for? If we could control all the activities within our factions, there would actually be a purpose to this, and same with the ship-to-ship purpose. Sure, we'd still do it (escort the oilers) and have fun, but I think there's a better sense of purpose about it if it was going to save a crucial island or was the last intact shipment of fuel for our fleet.... The same with the open sea combat, more purpose if you know it's the enemies last island, or perhaps your last island you're protecting. Just two examples.

I also don't like the more repetitive "here are your ships and here's an island, get to it." I know I mentioned this (three-hour death matches), but... well... okay, I was being stupid. The longer battles would solve this issue, multiple self-laid missions actually for a reason, with an outcome that would affect the next few hours/months. I'm not sure the battles should be three years, because although it would be more realistic, I'm not a lot of people will play for that long. I mean, I would certainly do my best as it's a great game, but sometimes life gets in the way. Although that aside, the longer, the better, most of the time.

Another issue, I think, with the computer-laid missions is if you need, say, oil, and you fail the mission - well, you still need oil, and there could very well still only be one way to get it, according to the computer. So, you may end up just doing again until you succeed. Whereas self-laid missions would allow you to try a different method or perhaps even just a different approach to the same mission.

EDIT: East (or anyone else), feel free to correct me on any errors or incorrect assumptions I may have made.

Well, for player run factions. I think taking the approach of having more then the three main factions is not a great idea. Otherwise we would have a million factions of three-four people only in them.

To be a faction you would need land. Not just a island but a nation. All the factions are the world itself. Where they have massive amounts of resources to pull from. A small island in the middle of the ocean would not have the supplies to defend from an attack of a nation that has a mass body of land. They would have 10 fold the resources and power to literally level the island.

However, what if the faction?s leadership itself were controlled by the players? (IE: Sectary of the Navy -United States) and so forth were they hand down and dictate what missions are given. No, not every one but a general idea. If there is a need for oil they can make it so the computer AI has more oil escort missions or so forth then other kinds. Or if the enemy has to much oil, there would be a lot of missions to sink that factions supply ships.

Enigma to me is not a game that is well balanced to be like SWG, or BF1942. As it is a game of naval combat. If we put the ground elements into it. Might as well just start making it like all the other games out there. Having a good, and detailed way for players to be the factions and still take over the world would be good.

The USN is about pride, and honor. So those players? maybe a little cockier, and not worry so much when getting into conflict. LFN to me is about survival and getting your homeland back, they will try to the bitter end to get the mission done because they want to go home. Germany is about power; do as much as you can to move up the ladder of command. Blunt and forceful. (No offence is meant this is just a comment how I would see a Germen naval commander perceive his/her command)

A branch: As you stated, it would be a terrible idea to have the hundreds of factions with only a few players. Also, you can't have a faction without land. How about when you start, there is one base faction run by moderators (or just a computer) to help the new people and just to give everyone a faction to be in, no other factions. However, because of the numbers in this faction, the selection of ships would be limited (thus making them not... invulnerable). Also, this faction would be based on a larger continent and have an infinite amount of fuel, ammo, etc. available, thus ensuring the fluctuation with new players does not cause its downfall. This would also mean that if a faction is killed, the other players would always have somewhere to go back to.

And, perhaps the mod-run faction could have only pre-set battles to train the new people (or people who are just to lazy to join another faction anyways), and these battles cannot gain or lose land for them, so that faction would always be there.

Then, as newer players become more experienced, or an experienced player signs up for MP, they can either create their own faction or join another one. ALTHOUGH, the restriction for this would be some kind of petition to the mods stating where you would build your base - so there would have to be land - and it would have to give the signatures of, say, ten other people who would be in your faction. Thus, we prevent the mini-factions. And of course, there would be a minimum and a maximum amount of land to request. Once all of the land is taken, the players either have to wait for the next game, or join an existing faction. The existing factions then could do advanced training and use all the ships according to the pre-chosen faction.

If you choose not to select a large amount of land to petition for and protect, then you're screwed anyways: why does it matter if you are given the grant if the land is just going to get taken away anyways?

I understand what you're saying about player-influenced, computer organized missions. However, some of it still wouldn't make sense. For example, if you had a surplues of oil, why would you bother to send out your oilers for a good reason? The computer wouldn't acknowledge this and would instead simply give more "attack oiler missions" to the opponent.

Also, relating to the above paragraph, I'm still not sure I like the idea of "turn-based real-time," something like Rome: Total War, where the choice of mission is taken by turn, and then the actual battles are be real-time. I think perhaps the whole game should be real-time, from the beggining of the war to the end. Recieve intelligence, go do it. Plot courses for ships, etc, rather than just going from port to sea to port, as would happen with computer-organized missions (you can A) attack in port attack at sea, etc). Real-time. The whole thing. I guess, though, the example I used wasn't the best.

I want a girl in every port....East, howaboutit?

There's an incentive to hold fire!