We have a release date! news - First Strike mod for Battlefield 2142

Yes, it's time for the news you've all been waiting for. The endless speculation can now come to an end as we the First Strike Mod Team can finally reveal to you the date on which you the public will be able to get a taste of the First Strike experience with Version 1.0.

And yes, it will be released this month, and yes, this year.

The official release date is Friday the 28th of September.

Mark that date in your datapads people, not long to go now.

So to celebrate this announcement and get you in the mood for a little hot blaster action, allow me to reveal to you the final chapter in Woody's Withering Fire gameplay articles.

Withering Fire

Part 3:
Combat

Ok, so the standard game of battlefield 2 or 2142. You jump in the game. Your next few moments are most likely spent sprinting to a flag, killing one or two people on the way, then capturing the flag. You then get up to another person, die, spawn, and repeat. Each combat involves no more than a few people at a time, and the end objective is usually best met by sneaking in to the places that have the least defence.

This is all very well and good to win conquest games, but all it results in is a bunch of tiny skirmishes across the map. We are aiming to change that in FirstStrike. Part of the whole concept of our mod is for the players to take part in an actual battlefield. That is, we want to encourage actual battles. You know, large scale affairs with intense firefights, squads pushing against one another, walkers stomping through the middle, ground being fought over and defended, and blaster fire coming through the mist or clouds. Lots of blaster fire.

To that end we've embraced gameplay that encourages actual combat and engagement. the first step was withering fire. By having multiple people needed to take down a target that automatically centres battles on large obvious targets like vehicles. The focus on support classes and defensive gear also makes group-centric combat more of a reality. The team that keeps itself protected and alive stands a far better chance than individuals who just run around rambo'ing it up.

Another area in which we have focused is the radar. We've taken the UAV ability from the commander and instead have distributed it amongst the players. Various different infantry now have the power to deploy different UAV devices (droids, beacons, portable scanners). This has had the effect of bringing players more directly into combat. Instead of capping the flag by sneaking around, the players are now more encouraged to seek out and kill the enemy before moving on a position. It also makes it important to scout out an area rather than running blindly into it, because chances are the defenders will have planted sensor beacons and thus will see you before you see them.

And, finally, the maps themselves are also being constructed to encourage areas of focus for the players. Objectivemode maps are the basis of most of our designs, where players need to defend or destroy (or both) objectives on the map in order to win. Objectives traditionally provide for more interesting gameplay as they give a clear goal for the players to go for and a sense of achievement when they are destroyed. They also make more sense to defend than flag points and thus you'll find people playing defense more than in conquest mode.

Of course, the large-scale battles are only part of the end goal. The other half is to provide a large array of challenges to the player. We want everything to be diverse so they have many different areas to branch off into. Each kit has its own uses and usefulness, and it'll take quite a while for players to explore them all and figure out the best use for the gear.

The same goes with the weapons. Each weapon handles differently and has varying levels of usefulness based on the differing situations. Figuring out where to use a certain weapon and/or gear gives players a chance to become specialists in multitude of ways. This is compared to the standard 5-6 single "one-shot use" classes that are easily mastered; as they have only one or two roles and that's it. Indeed, here's a list of the current "jobs" we have within our kit setup:

1) recon
2) shock assault
3) sniper
4) standard infantry
5) fire support
6) bunker buster
7) anti-vehicle expert
8.) defence specialist
9) support/resupply
10) Objective destroyer
11) demolitions expert
12) medic
13) biological warfare expert
14) heavy weapon deployer
15) sensor support
16) squad leader
17) Force commander

And this doesn't include our vehicles at all, which also play a part in this:

18) repulsorlift pilot
19) turret controller
20) droid operator
21) fighter pilot
22) Bomber pilot
23) starship captain
24) walker commander
25) Deathstar Operator (just kidding!)

With ours, just because you choose one class doesn't mean you only do one thing. You could say that each class can be used multiple different ways. But it is important to note that the cumulative effect of those various skills are focused so no person can do everything. Thus we are able to create an interdependency between the classes, yet at the same time give a much wider gameplay experience to the player regardless of the class they choose.

But in case this seems overwhelming, fear not. Our underlying design is for everything to be "simple to use, challenging to master." If you just want to get in to the fight then picking a standard rifle and assault kit will let you get right in to the action. From there you can start exploring all the different aspects of the mod. The transition from apprentice to master takes a little time, and with any luck it'll make the mod more interesting as there are plenty of different ways to play it.