I'd love to see a single campaign map focused around a Hive City, I don't think I'd ever get bored of it if it was designed well. Obviously it would need to be only the hive city because of the work that would have to go into the development of the map but I really think it's an amazing thing to try out especially if it's a special campaign (Which they can and should do) based on the progress of the previous campaigns.
That would kill the point of urban warfare then. If you can access like only 30% of the actual city whilst the rest is just there for the sake of scenery.
You don't need to have a large amount of interiors to make urban combat work and they certainly don't need to be highly detailed. You want the majority of the city to be accessible but you don't want it to be so detailed that it chugs at 10 fps.
Yes, yes you do. This isnt CS or Unreal where we have 30 players. We will have thousands, meaning you need large amount of interiors to avoid having 500 people cramped in 2 houses. The details could suffer for the tech to run smoothly but the size of the battlefield, especially in a MMOTPS should never suffer. Just how much they can skip on detail is also debatable, cause at a certain point if you leave barren rooms without anything but a staircase you kill the point of even having a city cause the immersion is lacking.
With so much detail going into buildings and battle fields and all the fighting around the would with so many people, it feels like this game will never be done.
Would still be nice to stay in cover in an urban jungle and pop out to rip some SM tin cans open with my power claw, muhahahaha
You misunderstand me, You design the city to feature large open broadways, landmarks with open squares that have cover or walls. You don't need a lot of small interiors to make Urban Combat work, true you need some interiors but certainly not thousands of them. Helsreach is a good example of how to do urban combat I think in a Hive City. See : http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121215213136/warhammer40k/images/b/b6/Helsreach.jpg You have the main highway which connects to other major sectors of the city, lots of open terrain that can be populated with cover, smaller side passages that can contain interiors or access tunnels with major landmarks having open terrain around it. Major locations like the command spire would be rendered interiors because it's going to be awesome fighting through something like that, The docks on the other hand doesn't need interiors to work. You can obviously include some kind of interior design but it doesn't need to be large amounts of clutter or high texture rendering objects.
In all fairness Arma runs large scale battles in urban environments with very little interior/enterable buildings, granted it's not on the same scale EC plans to be but it is a similar situation. Now on to how performance will run in something like that I have no idea, I don't pretend to, but I don't think the idea of urban combat is too far fetched.
So the colored buildings there are the only accessible ones? I havent seen that map in any IRL presentation (if it even exists) yet that map basically has too little interiors which in turn starts making hotspots for combat and herding the players into them, if the places between your colored interiors were accessible then the players will dictate how the battle plays out allot more by being able to make their own little base of operations where they please (imagine a Homing Beacon for placement). Im not saying the whole hive city should be open for players, but that map you gave basically gives access to what, 20-30% of the actual buildings? I personally find that a small percentage for the numbers of players they are shooting for being in one place and duking it out. If i had to poke in the dark id say anything below 50-60% accessibility to the given structures will make the available interiors cramped with bodes and the streets looking like its one of those military parades the countries like Russia like to make. This again sucking strategy wise cause it will be a grenade/Devastators paradise while being a hellhole for melee classes who crave for multiple flanking options. You answered you own question, its not on even a comparable scale to what EC is shooting for. If you bring thousands into a city with very little access what i explained above will happen and the actual urban combat will in most cases be relegated to peeking over corners in the streets rather than actual interior combat. Also i dont pretend to know, im going by it logically and also recalling what the devs themselves noted on the urban warfare as a part of the game. Each company has its ambitions and while i believe in Behavior greatly im still sure that performance issues will exist. So when it comes to urban warfare they will need to find a fine line to tread when designing it.
