I remember the first time I was exposed to "realism" settings on AA it was by pure accident. One night I was pubbing and joined a server that was playing SF PCR and the teams were 3 on 3. I meandered down one of the littered side alleys and got into a firefight. I was certain I downed the opfor but I didn't see any message come up. It's been a long time habit for me to look at the messages to see if my bullets/grenades made their mark. I crept up to his last position and sure enough there was his corpse. Confused and startled I immediately typed in global commo "Is the server bugged? I just killed someone and it didn't pop up." One of the other players answered that death messages and ammo count were turned off on this server. I looked down to indeed see that my ammo HUD was only displaying how many clips I had left. Distressed over what I at first thought must have been a lame mistake on the part of the admins, I asked "Why?" to get the response that it is a "realism" server. Sure enough, when I looked at the server name it was [insert team name] Realism Server. As I played a couple rounds, at first I was upset that I couldn't do my usual routine of looking at the system messages for kill confirmation. But after a few rounds I was intrigued by the obvious questions that ensued; Did my shots get a kill? Did my 203 get that guy behind the corner? Did my frag get the guy behind the wall? My confusion went from a state of being upset to a state of "Hey this is kind of interesting. I feel immersed and I haven't felt this in a while." I started to wonder what this would be like in a non-pub setting because there was a lot I felt I needed to ask my teammates and really couldn't via the in-game text chat. That definately was the annoying limitting factor. Well, what about voice comms? Oooh, that would be interesting... Shortly after, I couldn't shut up when talking it over with Turbo.

Now, after a couple tries at it on the TG server, it still is in a baby state. Obviously we're still feeling things out and seeing if you guys enjoy it as well.

---------------------

The idea behind realism settings, just to be clearly definitive, is to play AA in a more immersive state and at the same time promote teamwork to as high a level as possibly achievable.

---------------------

I'd like to address some issues brought up by your posts as well as add my own feedback.

General:
I don't mean to criticize and the feedback is good but I felt that some of the responses were coming from a perspective that realism settings are being considered for becoming permanent settings and that regular settings are somehow at stake here. I think Turbo was asking about the specific settings and if we should even have realism nights at all. Not asking whether we should be considering having regular settings or not or doing away with regular play.

Pubbies:
The settings would get rid of pubbies. I agree with this. I can't imagine pubbies doing well in this mode and perhaps adding nothing but chaos into the mix. However, I think pubbies should be invited to join us on realism nights barring that they register and get on TeamSpeak.

Death messages:
Not knowing who killed you or who you killed: This is part of immersive realism. You're not really buddies with the opfor (although maybe you are out of game) so it makes sense to not know "who" is at the other end. I guess you could check their dog tags and see if Ahkbar Sahib was truly a great kill. The only reason I can see this as being an issue is for gloating/revenge/friendly banter out of the in-game context. Sure, I guess, if Turbo breaks you off 5 times in a row or vice-versa it may warrant a comment. But is it really that important? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good ribbing or two but as far as realism nights are concerned, is this something that would be so missed every now and then? Also, a suggestion: How about after we die we leave our respective subchannels and go into the main TS channel and try to figure out who killed who? Sounds like a good way to wait out the X minutes until the next round.

Not having kill messages is annoying/not fun: Sorry Perry, I'm confused!

As for the kill messages.. not having them is more annoying than anything else.. "Turbo, you alive?" Don't get a response.. "Guess Turbo is dead." "Who all's alive still?" No response... "Oh crap, last man left."

The lack of messages takes some fun away from it too.. Did someone just own our entire team? Did that nade really take out 3 guys, or did some gunfire get em too? There didn't seem to be too many times where we couldn't tell if an enemy went down.. and when you do throw a nade in a room and get a kill, you're still cautious because you don't know if someone else was in there that didn't go down.

Umm, isn't that the idea? Not to have certain knowledge provided by the game so we have to figure it out in-game? What seems to be annoying is not having any teamates left Did a nade get them or was it a nade and gunfire? Sounds like what the game is lacking is a 3D playback model and statistical analyzer to replay the scene from multiple angles and provide a detailed damage report. And what's wrong with being cautious? Does this take away the "fun" of charging into areas headfirst?

What made tonight's games good was the teamwork and communication.

Isn't that what is needed to use to confirm friendlies being alive or dead, to see if someone owned your entire team? Or to move with you to verify what you think might be a kill, to see if your grenade got them? So is what you are saying that the obstacles to overcome were annoying and not fun but the means to overcome the obstacles were?

Scoreboard:

Is there any way to make it unavailable to the players who are alive, but available to those who are dead?

There are 4 settings 1) always available 2) never available 3) available at the end of round only and 4) available at the end of the match only.

Keep the scoreboard on, please. That was super annoying. Like, I didn't know Tybalt was playing until I quit at the end and saw who all was in TS. I know it pops up between rounds, but during that time we're usually talking about a plan or whatever and I don't think to look at it. You can still tell who's dead by looking at the kit selection screen... But who are you playing against? Since most of the guys on the defense team stayed in their channel between rounds, I had no clue who all I was playing against.

Tybalt's AA player name was something other than Tybalt, so it was confusing to us on his team as well. I think to alleviate that, players should play AA under the names that they use in TS. Also, if players use TSO and switch to the main channel when dead you should be able to get a sense of who is playing. And if there is difficulty in checking the scoreboard at the end of the round due to planning as a distraction, what about when the game is on, certainly many distractions then, like opfor.

The idea behind not having the scoreboard available is to 1) prevent verifying kills by noticing your kill score increase and 2) prevent relying on the scoreboard to verify teammates alive/dead status. Yes you can look at the weapon selection screen to see who is alive on your team and I don't think there is a way to turn off just that aspect of it (worth looking into?). Again, the idea is to create a setting of realism; scores, points, etc, are not kept in a real setting (maybe scalps?). But if the main complaint is not knowing who you are up against, I guess just take a few seconds to glance at the opfor list when it's up, pay attention to who joins the server, or see who is in the main channel when dead.

Also about the scoreboard. On realism nights, and for that matter regular nights, it should not be about scores. Kind of like how Root took out "rank" in TG's CSS. It's not about how you are scoring, but how well your team is doing. I'd imagine scores are important in breaking that 15 honor threshold, but once we're clear of that, who cares? The focus should be on teamwork and team objectives.

Ammo count & HUD:
Not having the ammo count seemed reasonable to everyone. Restricting anything else seems to be not necessary for realism with the exception perhaps of the ECM meter. You should be able to look at your belt and know how many nades/magazines you have. You should know if you have binocs or not. The crosshairs... well, not so real, I'm personally having a tough time with this one. It'd be interesting to try without them and rely on sights like you would any gun in a real life. But maybe save this one for a rainy day, it's just TOO real it's creeping me out.

No TS death report:
On regular games, saying "I'm down" when you die is only a repetition of the server message so no new information is really given. With realism settings in place, this is not the case. Dead men don't talk, period, unless switching to main channel on TS to chat.

Comradery with the other team:

The issue of comradry with TG'ers comes into play here. In a realism setting, your not having fun with other team too. I personally like to have a fun time with comradry too and teasing other players or congratulating them on a nice tactic.

Not having fun with the other team? Realism setting or no, the only difference comes back to a previous point of not knowing who kills who. The trade-off is realism vs. the ability to tease or congratulate a particular player. Why not comment in global chat? Or switch to the main TS channel when dead to chat? Or posting in the forums? Sure the information is not immediate, but it's not hard to find out who did what and comment on it. Certain aspects of comradery are at the same time increased, especially amongst teammates, obviously, in having more reliance placed on them to do things in-game. And if you get sick of being their comrade, switch teams? I really don't think comradery is at any serious risk, quite the contrary.

---------------------------

I think Mirfee hit the nail on the head in his post.

I think this option has potential for enormous fun, but it will end up being measured on a different gauge. I personally have no greater fun in game than when I'm working tightly with my team; planning, communicating, responding to each other's contacts or trouble. And all for the purpose of completing objectives.

This to me is the fulcrum upon which the fun of AA is acheived, and is perhaps the most extreme and accurate example of TG principles of gameplay. The game itself is designed to reward players the *least* for getting kills, and more for succeeding at completing objectives as a team. Killing targets is simply the means of overcoming resistance to the completion of your objective(s).

It is a definite change. AA is certainly a change from other games. Realism setting are, imho, a greater stretch into sim vs. gamey. Yes communication needs are different and takes some adjustment, movement is generally slower, killing is generally slower. Last night on Courtyard, I was leading the assault team. I had to take the time to see who was in the squad and with what weapons, assign who was on point and six solely or in pairs, we practiced over and under at corners and bounded overwatches to make our way down straights. We had to gather our intel and cover each other when confronting opfor or even possible opfor threats. It was a blast, in a careful methodological teamwork kind of way. And we got ripped up anyways.

Yes, I like to see who kills me so I can congratulate (harrass) him. Yes I like to see that my 203 got some poor sucker on the stairs inside the TPC room of insurgent camp, and yes I like to see my score go through the roof. But I also like the aspects as Mirfee mentioned as well and am totally willing to put aside some fun aspects for other fun aspects.

I think that once a week is a good schedule for realism night for now and that AA should not go all realism or all plain. If there is more demand for either then we can make adjustments to the schedule or do a consensus on any given night.