Soldner: Secret Wars

[Crowbar]

Team-based shooters with vehicles are among the most popular games on the PC. Each day, thousands of players log on to the Internet to play games like Battlefield 1942 and Operation Flashpoint. Encore and developer Wings Simulations hope to break into this market with their upcoming PC game, Soldner: Secret Wars. We recently had the opportunity to take an up-close look at the game.

 

 

The first thing we noticed about Soldner is its grand sense of scale--specifically, the game features maps that encompass over 24 square miles of terrain (modeled after real satellite data of Eastern Europe). With so much area to run around in, the game will support 32 players on standard servers, but a much more high-end server running on the Linux operating system will be able to handle up to 128 players. The game's modes will range from standard team deathmatch and capture the flag to hostage rescue, assassination, bombing run, and king of the hill. Soldner will also feature a day/night cycle and weather effects like rain and snow. In the dark of night or in extreme weather, you can make use of low-light night-vision goggles or infrared goggles that show warm bodies and warm vehicle engines.

 

Soldner will also have plenty of different weapons and vehicles. The game currently includes more than 70 modern-era weapons, ranging from the Heckler & Koch Mark 23 handgun to the infamous Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifle, on up to heavy weapons like the LAW 80 antitank rocket launcher. Standard assault rifles like the M4 carbine and AK-47 are also on Soldner's extensive list of weapons, as are experimental guns such as the US Army's high-tech OICW. Soldner's vehicle list is just as impressive, including Humvees, armored personnel carriers, and tanks like the M1-Abrams and Russian T-80. You'll also be able to fly aircraft, including HIND helicopter gunships, UH-60 transport helicopters, and fixed-wing planes like the F/A-18 Hornet and F-16 Falcon.

 

Aside from huge lists of weapons and vehicles, Soldner has other interesting features, like destructible terrain and buildings. Bombs or tank shots can create craters in the ground, and any structure you see on the map can be destroyed if you hit it with enough firepower, be it a shot from a rocket launcher, a blast from a tank cannon, or ordnance fired from a fighter or gunship. It's worth noting, however, that this level of interaction isn't done with a true physics engine; buildings seem to have specific states of destruction, so hitting a house in the corner with a rocket won't necessarily blow a hole in that corner of the house. Aside from structures, trees can also be knocked down, as can concentrations of brush. The game also takes material properties and weapon power into account when calculating collisions. An assault rifle won't penetrate the armor of a main battle tank, but it will easily penetrate the side of a regular jeep or the walls of a wooden house.

 

 

Several other features are designed to reduce the dreaded act of camping--hiding in one place and taking potshots at your opponents. With so much area in the game for players to hide in, the developers felt a specific need to minimize the impact of snipers. Aside from having destructible buildings, the game attempts to model the effect of cover fire on snipers. If you attempt to aim through your scope as bullets whiz over your head and around you, you'll see the crosshair shake violently, and you won't be able to control your aim very well. This fear effect basically forces snipers to move positions once they're discovered and find a new hiding place. Furthermore, there will be no one-shot kills in Soldner; not even a sniper shot to the head will take all the health from an enemy. Though this will make the game less realistic, there are other aspects of Soldner that imply that the game was never meant to be very realistic (such as the ability of a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter to airlift a main battle tank).

 

The game will feature a number of different character classes you can play as, including scouts, medics, soldiers, snipers, and engineers. Each team will also elect a commander, who has the ability to see an overhead view of the entire map and direct team members to different areas and designate targets. The classes will vary slightly in ability; for instance, the medic can drop health packs for teammates, soldiers are more accurate with weapons, and the engineer can set traps with explosives.

 

Soldner will likely appeal to fans of modern wargames and shooters, thanks to its huge variety of weapons and vehicles. The destructible buildings and covering fire should also keep multiplayer matches from degenerating into sniper contests. Although team-based shooters with vehicles are not exactly in short supply, Encore is confident that Soldner can win over a sizable following when the game ships next February.

 

By Bob Colayco, GameSpot [postED: 11/05/03 03:11 PM]

[CowboyFromHell`X]

Any screenshots yet?

[dwEEziL]

http://soldner.jowood.com/

[rackish]

So many new games... so little time... no money...

[Crowbar]

From the Official SOLDNER site

 

Wings Simulations has proven their knowledge in Military Games with their title Panzer Elite. Now they lead us into the military world of the year 2010:

 

After half a century of military interventions major countries like the United States of America or Russia are weary of their role as "World Police". The consequences of their military actions for their economy, national security, and internal ethnic conflicts let to the conclusion to tune down their military campaigns.

 

Due to that more and more countries choose unconventional warfare by using secret Special Forces. Military success is no longer made by major countries but by small and highly specialized mercenary forces.

 

In "SÖLDNER - Secret Wars" the player takes over the command of such a Special Forces team. As the Commander he leads a small high tech army consisting of soldiers, light armored vehicles, helicopters and VTOLS (Vertical Take Off and Landing Airplanes) to fulfill a wide variety of mission types .

 

The players units are stationed on a multi purpose ship which is camouflaged as a merchantman to allow unrestrained travel of the seas to get their forces to the area of operation.

 

The complete simulation of a complex political world system allows creating a dynamic campaign: each decision of the player, each success or failure has direct effect on the game flow. In addition the player has the ability to gain access to the latest weapon systems and technology, which currently exist in the research centers of the weapon industry only.

 

Short Feature Summary

Simulation of a highly complex diplomatic system which creates the dynamic campaign and missions

 

Dynamic World Generation on the basis of digital satellite data with day/night cycle, weather and seasons

 

Realistic virtual battlefield: the advanced terrain engine with the new destruction system (ADS - Advanced Destruction System), which even allows for simulated damage by tactical nuclear warheads

Designed for Teamplay in Multiplayer: multitude team mission types and game elements for coordinated team action

 

Dedicated Server support up to 32 players, up to 128 players on special servers of game providers

 

Dynamic single player campaign with mission generator

 

Realistic weapon systems from the research laboratories of the weapon industry

 

 

Söldner - Secret Wars is a Military Tactical Multiplayer Shooter which will be released in Europe, May 27th 2004 and in North America, May 4th, 2004.

 

 

 

 

 

[Crowbar]

Also, SOLDNER looks like it will be the most complete multiplayer game to date.

 

Standard multiplayer game types:

 

Deathmatch/Team Deathmatch

Capture the Flag

VIP Assassination

Conquest

Hostage Rescue

Bomb Run

Assassination

 

 

In addition to the standard modes, the game offers a custom multiplayer setup. Using an html page to log into your server, you can set the parameters for the game. The interface looks like this:

 

 

Let us walk through one example. We go into the MP mode setup screen and pick Capture the Flag. We also pick an area on our huge map where you can play this mode. Areas supporting the mode are highlighted. You can either pick an area we preset with those modes or create your own area to support this MP mode. When chosen you can modify the MP mode: you click on "Flag" and replace it with a vehicle, a Jeep to be specific.

 

What does this mean? Instead going to another base and steal their flag you have to capture a jeep and drive it home. Quite a different MP experience, only one click away.

 

Expert users can go one step further and use our scripting language Python to create totally new MP experiences. You want to learn more how you can customize MP modes in Söldner? Read on in the section detailing the MP modes.

 

 

Besides the standard and custom modes we offer Cooperative MP modes. Those allow playing the single player scenarios or campaign with online buddies and also support some new MP modes like survival. As this mode is still in development as of this writing this, Co-Op modes are still subject to change. We update this section when things finalize.

 

Read here to learn a little more about the many multiplayer modes and their customizability options.

 

This game is going to be Unreal Tournament and Counterstrike mixed together and played with Desert Combat vehicles. There is your basic deathmatch and TDM. Capture the Flag and Assault. Hostage rescue, bomb/defuse and escort the VIP.

 

 

This game will replace CS, DC and UT

 

...if the do it right, that is. open beta starts early April.

[Crowbar]

You may have missed it, but somewhere up there it said that the game's single player will have dynamic campaigns. DYNAMIC! That means that if you fail a mission, you don't repeat it over and over like an arcade game, you move on, deal with your loses, and the outcome of your campaign may not be so good. In other words, unlimited replayability.

[JackieChan]

Wow... that game looks sweet. I'm going to check it out.

[TheBugs]

[Crowbar]

btw, if you missed it up there, a full FOUR WEEKS before this game hits shelves there will be the final stage of beta where the game will be open to EVERYONE.

[Crowbar]

The Soldner multiplayer demo is out. Get a list of mirrors here. Also on that page are downloads for a few trailers, if you feel like watching some in-game footage before downloading a demo.

[Playaa]

OOH OOH!

this game really does look sweet...if my computer doesn't overheat too often I'm up for playing it Crow

[[Mmmm]Homer]

Those sceenshots say "At Lacation:"

 

Sweet looking game!

[[Mmmm]Homer]

I'm gettinga great transfer rate from Urbanservers. 160KB/sec.

[[Mmmm]Homer]

Played this a bit tonight, it has some serious issues before it's released. It didn't really look like the screenshots. I was hoping for BF1942 speed of play but it's kinda slow actually.