This is not a wishlist, or I would have posted it in the official wish list topic. The following is all ideas of my own or which I have read on these boards about how people think the online should be like for SocomIII. I have compiled a list of inovations and ideas for the new SocomIII online which I believe would prove to make online play more enjoyable for everyone. If you have something to argue or add something to the list, please feel free to do so. Again, this is just a bunch of ideas I had swimming around for the online play and what I've read from socom3.com members. Thanks in advance for your comments and additional contributions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Index - OMG IT'S SO LONG SORRY, heh 
---I. Maps
---II. Unlockable content
---III. Clans and such
---IV. Online events
---V. Online updates, maintenece
---VI. Paying to play
---VII. Weapons and Equipment
---VIII. Vehicles and potential for online use
---IX. A few things here and there
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------I. Maps-----------
First of all, let's begin with maps. Some of us believe a few maps are not well planned out or equal for either side. This may be true, but you have to realize not all situations are equally balanced in real life either. One of the most evident maps for equality is frost fire. Although I have been on many teams that have lost seals or won terrorists, the map gets handed to the seals on a 6-2 round average (personal test after playing 10 frost fires in a row in different rooms). I believe much can be added to maps like this to make it more enjoyable. Different rooms or buildings that are new for example. I am bored of the same old content. There is much that can be edited on maps. The option to have the battle in the day or at night would be great aswell.
Since we will probably get another 10 or 12 new maps (going from the transfer to socomII for my information), I think a few maps should be scrapped. A few ideas I had for which maps to keep are as follows. 8 of the 10 original socom maps, and 8 of the twelve socom two maps. The 3 new maps should be kept, but changes would be nice. Maps to keep - FrostFire, Ruins, Blood Lake, Desert Glory, Abandoned, Blizzard, Rats Nest, Night Stalker, Crossroads, Sujo, Vigilance, Foxhunt, Fish Hook, The Mixer, Chain Reaction, Guidance. This is just my personal opinion, again. It seems that Enowapi, Shadow Falls, Sandstorm, Requiem, Deathtrap, and Bitter Jungle are the least popular of all the maps. This would help make room for the new maps without created a cluster **** out of the servers with so many maps.
-----------II. Unlockable Content-----------
For us offline players who like the single player missions, this was a great addition from socomI to socomII. It was fun to unlock the suits, the other stuff wasn't as useful (or useful at all for that matter). I think for socomIII this should be left in. Maybe the ability to unlock much more suits, like a seperate suit for each level and side. This could be accomplished easily by making each completion of a mission on every difficulty unlock something new. It would give players more of an initiative to play even just one mission offline.
-----------III. Clans and such-----------
I posted this awhile back, and I would like to include some of my ideas for clan play on the sequel with some minor changes ofcourse.
First off, I see the age old problem of people overstocking their clan to the point of two or more divisions. I believe one clan should be able to have three divisions of 16 people. And it should all be within the same clan somewhat. Next to their clan tag there could be a small number (1) (2) or (3) if there were multiple divisions. To keep track of these divisions there would be pages for the clan. Players could scroll through to the different division pages. Now I understand people at Zipper or even here will think 16 is enough and I'm with you, but I'd much rather see this division plan than 3 forms of one clan. This will also help to have more wars going on at once, or even just one war if not many people play within the clan.
The next idea is somewhat more of a realistic one. Not that the division idea isn't realistic more so I doubt Zipper will allow it. Clan matches. We all know how difficult it is to find clan matches online and most people end up using a 3rd party to set it up such as gamebattles. I believe it is time Zipper included a Ranked ladder for Clan matches. This would allow for a record to be in game for official clan matches and for room specific to finding and hosting matches. This would be great since only teams with certain players could get in to specific rooms. Such as 8 clan members would need to be online to get into "Clan Matches: 8v8" or something along those lines. Instead of a Clan rank like we have now it would be a standings ladder. What would count would be your record and kills in each game, not your clanmembers personal rank. Basing a clan off of players personal ranks is wrong in my opinion.
Next part would be for more rooms to be added, which I somewhat already stated, for clan activities. Official Ladder rooms for clan matches such as, "Clan Matches: 8v8, 7v7, 6v6, 5v5, 4v4, 3v3, 2v2" which would be used only for official clan matches for the standings. Then there could be rooms such as "Clan Skirmishes" simply for practice with other available clans. The regular socom individual rank system would be in effect here. I believe this idea would minimize server lag and help players find matches easier. there could also be like tryout rooms just for tryouts and finding new clan members!
-----------IV. Online events!-----------
I believe what is really missing from our socom online play are special events. Other games have them, why can't we? Zipper could host special events such as tournaments for 4v4, 2v2, or 1v1. Or even Clan tournament events. The winner(s) would have a trouphy displayed in their information under "Awards" or something displaying what they won. This would be a pretty sick addition for the next game. The tournaments could be weapon or map specific, or just plain old gameplay tournaments. This will keep people comming back and playing to keep their skills up, and Zipper would be foolish not to think about such an idea.
-----------V. Online Updates, Maintenence-----------
We see now that updates or patches are few and far between. I believe that for socomIII they shoudl treat their customers and players with much more respect. Weekly, or even monthly for that matter, patches should be thrown our way. Daily maintenence (and I say this way too often) should be more then Zipper and sony picking their own arses. Not saying that they are lazy, but do you ever notice gameplay changes after a maintenence? Positive or negative besides getting booted once in awhile? I don't see any difference at all! I hope I'm not the only one.
-----------VI. Paying to play------------
Here is the age old dispute about socom. If we paid to play, would gameplay increase? I personally think it would. This would allow for sony and zipper to use more money towards maybe another sequel (to far away to think about), monthly patches, server maintenece that does something, and/or game moderation to watch in on suspicious players or games for cheating, glitching. Now, I know most of us would be pissed to pay for socom, including myself to be quite honest. However, would you rather the above be implemented to online play and you pay an estimated $5.00 a month, or would you like to see the same rankup/cheating/hacking/glitching in the next socom that is sweeping online play in socomII? I thought about this long and hard (hehehe) and came to the conclusion that $5.00 a month (or close to that estimation) would be worthy if it added to better online play.
------------VII. Weapons and Equipment------------
We all know that certain weapons will be added, and attatchments to go with those weapons. I would like to add my two cents on the situation if you don't mind. I believe these new weapons will be fantastic. Some are scared of the X-M8's overall power with its rate of fire and damaging hits with little recoil. I don't think there is anything to worry about since it is not the end result by any means. Also, have any of you taken into consideration that this would also mean (based off the released gameplay footage) socomI characteristics will be back? Fewer shots to take down an enemy, fewer shots to get killer yourself? This adds much more stealth and in-depth thinking to the game. The way zipper wanted it to be, I like to think so anyway. Less rushers (what seal would rush alone, honestly?), and more stealthy players and campers. That is fun to play, take it from me. A game full of smart players is much more fun then killing 5 rushers in the begining with a grenade each time.
The old weapons needs some adjustments, I'll give you that. I don't believe they need major changes (just look at the m14 from socomI and compare it to now), but a few wouldn't hurt.
---------------VIII. Vehicles and the potential for online use-------------
We must look at the good and bad of this situation. The good would be a whole new aspect to the game. Vehicles would add both new strategies and tactics to our online play. Seals and terrorists can adjust their play styles and personal techniques with these vehicles. Good counter measures, such as land mines and RPGs, would also be added into our tactics. However, with good there is always some bad. Players will exploit the vehicles online using them in a "Halo 2" type fashion. Mowing down enemies and rushing in vehicles is not what socom is about. Overall I believe vehicles offline would be great, but the online addition of vehicles would be a joke at best. Whether or not vehicles are online has not been released yet, but I'm sure many of you are thinking just the way I am. We will have to wait to see.
--------------IX. A few things here and there-------------
This is just a bunch of things I had on my mind that are in no particular group of ideas. I will put these into a list form, as any attempt to group these would make be want to kill myself without any shred of a doubt.
1. If you are idle on the servers for 45 minutes you will be ejected from that server and booted offline. So many idle users cluster up the rooms and add to server failures (extremely doubtful but no unprobable). -
c0mmand3r
2. If you are sitting in a room, for instance US East 5, and it Has 30 people in it and that number drops to 20 you should be ejected from that room and either sent to the menu or transfered to a new server. Let me explain, I am sick and tired of 45 servers each with 1 person in them. The servers should close after the amount of people drops to 20 and those people moved or ejected. -
c0mmand3r
3. The compliment of number 2. If you are in US East 5 and it has 240 people in it, the US East 6 should be created. If that room (US East 6) does not get more than 20 people in 1 hour it should be closed. This would help organize the servers and keep people together for the most part. This could be different for clan games, as it is easier to have a set number specific for these rather then need each one to fill before making a new one. -
c0mmand3r
4. Warnings - Warnings should be given out (this ofcourse going along with information I listed in "Paying to play" about moderation) to cheaters and glitchers exploiting map errors or cheating in any other way. It could be a 3 strike system with suspensions inbetween. Any person caught using a cheating device, i.e a gameshark or codebreaker, should be banned post hast without question or warning and their names deleted and IP adresses blocked from further play. -
c0mmand3r
5. Vehicles should be easily destructible, in my opinion. Like a gas tank shot from a sniper would blow it up. Or you could blow the tires/tracks. Maybe some sticky grenades. You should also have to unlock the ability to use vehicles online in single player. -
BigRed11
6. Oh, after Big Red's post I got a really good idea I have been thinking of for a long time back in my head. The ability to play offline missions online with a partner or even a team of 4. This would be such a sweet idea. I remember everyday I played Halo2 I would find myself wishing I could do online cooperative play with a friend. -
c0mmand3r
7. Also, one of my things to fix, is the controll system. I am talking about look sensitivity and whatnot. I think it should give you wayyy more options with it. Like I mostly use a sniper and a M-16, so I would make the buttons more sensitive, but make it move slightly slower than average. -
Breath of life
8. I think that it should block members from joining the room you're in if those members are on your ignore list. An example - my clan has some noobies who team-kill, smack-talk, and shut down our rooms. This would help to prevent violence against teammates and keep the game clean. -
=Roman-Legion=
9. The friends list should now let you send friend invites to people when they are logged off, and let the friend invites stay rather than disappear when you sign off or get booted off socom. -
=Roman-Legion=
10. I think they should have co-captains in clans. When your leader isn't available you can still send invite,s but only to a certain degree. Also with the friends list, I think that u should make it like halo. A list of recent people you played with, so if u forget the spelling you can just look it up. This would also make starting a new clan easier! I think well need larger levels if we are going to have vehicles! -
Falcon
11. This could be your idea! I will add any ideas I think of over time or your ideas I see in this thread. Please make thourough contributions for me to add them.
Thanks for reading all that! It was a lot to type out, but I believe a lot of this needed to be said. Again, any ideas or thoughts you would like to share, go right ahead. I am open to both positive and negative comments. I would also like to thank members or socom3.com if one of your ideas was used in here. To much stuff going through my head to remember names, so thanks to everyone. I do not feel any fo the information I listed is in anyway the BEST or ONLY way of doing things. These are just ideas I have thought of that could make SocomIII a better environment. If you disagree please state your reasons and rebuttle to my comment. Make sure to quote the specific detail so I know what you are talking about. Thanks to everyone!
It is already one of the greatest of our time in it's class, paying to play could make it one of the greatest of our time for a long while out of all games.
Linear Mode
