So, there's weather. What about VIOLENT weather?

[Lumberchuk]

Originally Posted by Pinkie Pie

i actually think that it SHOULD prevent certain vehicles. for example, if there's a sandstorm, you wouldn't be able to fly an aircraft.
because that's to a large part how it works today and right now. the sand more or less f*ck up the engines and stuff. or.. well, you COULD, but you'd get about ten feet and then crash from a clogged engine/turbine.

They did say sandstorms might remove the minimap but not effect flying directly.

[Phisionary]

I'm very much in support of as much weather as the physics and graphics can gracefully handle. And I definitely think it should affect vehicles or maybe even infantry in real ways. If a major offensive is in the planning, a weather report should be a necessity (though in particular areas most especially). If your faction doesn't possess a weather station, you'd have a potential tactical disadvantage, arriving to inclement weather you aren't prepared for.

Snow storms: Low visibility, decreased range thermal imaging (if there is such a thing?). Aircraft would ice up if flying into a storm front: performance slowly decreases and if there gets to be too much buildup, the plane can't fly anymore and will crash. You can fly above the storm on the edges but the center would be full area denial. Perhaps infantry will start to freeze up, and will take damage if they are outside in the storm for long, say a couple minutes. I can imagine tense battles in near whiteout conditions, fighting from wind-break to wind-break, and you know the chances or reinforcements making through are slim. I hope that snow and ice has reasonably dramatic effects on the handling of vehicles. Skis would also be an interesting addition, and screw anyone who says 'leave the skiing up to "tribes" series', they don't need a monopoly on skiing in fighting games, it could still be hella fun. If real snow was attempted, you could cert. a plow for your sunderer too.

Sand storms: Lowered visibility. Damages aircraft if they try to fly in it. Vehicles could have their filters clog and engines overheat, slowing movement while it cooled. I remember pictures of some incredible red sand storms from Australia from a few years ago, the skies the color of blood or tomato soup or something. That might be impressive.

Rain: If the engine can plaster all the vehicles and characters with a nice coating of mud, they should add some rain to the world. Plus I'd like to see something clean up those dusty skies for a while. A real cloud-burst downpour in the jungles would be cool too. Or a dense layer of fog covering an early morning battleground, the sound of boots crunching and tank engines roaring from enemies hidden beneath the veil.

A similar environmental effect that I was thinking about: wild-fires. The ability to light up the grasses on the prairies added an interesting flair to 'Far Cry 2.' If their are any grassy areas on ps2 continents, that would be kinda cool. Use the fire to direct the enemy, hide under the smoke to avoid air-support. Once the next good rain arrives, the whole place regrows anew.

Weather is good. +Support.

[Morphic]

Its a real shame more games dont have these kinds of things. Weather and dangerous weather are very cool in games.

[Notsononymous]

this has to be done

+support

[Lanka]

Do want.

Also I don't see how lightning strikes would be major issue. Planes can take them without problem and most of the high hills have bases/towers so they'd have lightning rods to take the jolts. So only way footsoldier would get hit by lightning is if s/he'd go stand on tower's roof, on top of the antenna/rod. If you do that, get hit and die - well, you deserve it.

Thunderstorm at night at some huge base area? I'd go there just to enjoy the weather. I imagine even cloud to cloud lightning would look amazing (based on how the nightfights look even in alpha)..


Didn't PS1 global map use to show cloud coverage? Or I've been dreaming again.. Still, showing weather patterns moving in the map would be sweet. Maybe somekind warning 15-30 minutes before massive storm hits a continent with expected duration so if you really don't like to fight in rainstorm, you can plan on being on another continent.

[Program]

This sounds like a great idea and surely would add a level of immersion seen in no other game!

[Gugabalog]

A sandstorm would make CAS missions supremely ineffective even if aircraft flew above them. Shooting blindly through a wall of sand at possible friendlies is extremely ineffective and risky.

[Dropshockmedic]

I support this too!
And I support it... with a clip on YouTube!
But im not one of this trolls that wants to compare this with Halo, ok?
It just happens that this scene suits the topic very good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzTnx1h09sA#t=3m52s

and with this
- Maybe the drop starts in the orbit, you have to manually drive the droppot through potencial meteors and such,
and if this is to much, there should be a meteor-rain from time to time hitting down to the planets surface.

- The droppot can have problems opening when it lands unfavorable or get stuck in a swamp.
An Engineer could carry a highpower magnet but has to use the spot the mobil turret would normally be carried, to rescue the Pots Passenger from such a misfortune.

- With that he can even slow down moving vehicles as a last annoying resort and many Engineers can use it to even pull a Vehicle with it. With good timing and many of them, they could hinder the Pilots control of an Aircraft as well and make them crash in a wall or even the ground.

[Gugabalog]

^ I suggest rewriting that post using edit. Kind of a messy read.

Though the spelling error "drop pot" tickles my fancy :d

[wormywyrm]

It is cool I suppose but I would rather see features that players can control so it plays more into the games strategy. I couldn't really imagine making tactical decisions differently due to weather in PS2.

[DarkMesa]

If they add these kinds of details than maybe they could also add terminals in-game that you could use to view the upcoming weather, say an hour or two ahead. It could also have a small chance of not being accurate, imagine clearing out of your base for fear of a tornado or the like, only to have nothing happen.

[Wandering Mania]

Originally Posted by DarkMesa

If they add these kinds of details than maybe they could also add terminals in-game that you could use to view the upcoming weather, say an hour or two ahead. It could also have a small chance of not being accurate, imagine clearing out of your base for fear of a tornado or the like, only to have nothing happen.

I can just see it now an F5 tornato riping through the middle of a huge battle and personel from all 3 factions get sucked up by it. Then the defenders of the base under attack see a nice rain of bodys 10 mins later.

[Baneblade]

It's Auraxis, no reason to stop at F5 Tornadoes or Category 5 Hurricanes.

[GLaDOS]

Originally Posted by Baneblade

It's Auraxis, no reason to stop at F5 Tornadoes or Category 5 Hurricanes.

Exactly! We need Category 10 Hurricanes!!!

[Toppopia]

We need random wormholes or time travelling mysterious foggy cloud thingys. (This has happened in real life) and a Bermuda Triangle but maybe make it a Bermuda Parallelopiped instead.

But being serious, we need lots of cool weather effects. Adds more diversity into the game.