(12) We Were Snipers

What is We Were Snipers?
We Were Snipers is a map remotely related to the movie We Were Soldiers. While that movie was the original insiration for this map, as development progressed, and gameplay was developed, the relations between the two quickly disapeared.

Game Start
When the game begins, players have 15 seconds to vote for the point limit. The options are 5, 10, 15 and 20 points. If the timer expires then it counts your vote as 10. When everyone has voted it averages everyone's choice and that is the game limit. The first team to reach this score wins the game.

Once the point limit has been voted on, players vote to watch the intro cinematic. If everyone votes to skip the cinematic then it will be skipped. If one person chooses to watch then everyone will have to watch. If, however, during the cin any players no longer wish to watch the remainder, they may press esc and vote to stop the cin. If all remaining players vote to stop the cin, then it will stop and the game will begin.

Basic Gameplay Overview
Gameplay is similar to that of Snipers for those of you that have played it. You control a single hero - a sniper. Equiped with Night Vision Goggles and a sniper rifle you play out senarios, purchase additional equipment and work with your team to defeat the enemy.

Senarios
Currently, We Were Snipers only has one type of scenario. Each team takes turns attacking each others camp area. A timer window appears with a number of seconds based on the number players. The defending team has to prevent the attackers from entering their base. If an attacker does enter the base, the timer begins counting down. If the timer reaches 0 or they kill all of the defenders, they win. On the other hand, if the defenders kill all of the attackers, they win.

The attackers only have four minutes, if they run out of time then the defenders win. The time remaining is displayed next to your gold amount. With a timer looming over each team there can be no camping and action is kept high.

When a team wins, each player on the winning team recieves 20 gold while each player on the losing team only recieves 15 gold. 1 point is also awarded to the winning team. Then it's switched up, the defenders become the attackers and vice verca.

Features
We Were Snipers features unique gameplay found no where else. The chase cam is customizable and features a look around option to allow looking left and right without moving the hero. We Were Snipers is loaded with custom icons, abilities, items and filters.

We Were Snipers also boasts a smooth operating cover system. When out in the open, your hero will always have a 15% chance to avoid an attack. However, this chance can be increased by taking cover in bushes, around trees, behind logs and rocks, or ducking in trenches. The map is littered with doodads that provide your hero with:

• Poor Cover (25% chance to avoid attacks)
• Good Cover (35% chance to avoid attacks)
• Excellent Cover (45% chance to avoid attacks)

Finally, We Were Snipers offers a measure of realism by adding limited ammo and armour that requires maintaining. You must purchase ammo in order to fire upon your enemies, run out and you become a sitting duck. Your Kevlar can only take so many bullets before it's useless, but maintaining it will ensure it protects you all game long.

Screenshots


Download

WeWereSnipersv13.zip

Author's Notes
Due to the unique gamplay and features, We Were Snipers has a moderate learning curve. It may take some users half a game before they become familiar with everything the game has to offer. If it is your first time playing, don't vote to skip the tutorial cinematic. And follow along with players that have played before. Also please keep in mind this project is completed, I will not make any changes. If there are errors due to patches or otherwise, I apologize.

Have fun, and good luck!

- Mr.Safety

Ive played this quite alot a few months ago, i assume this is the same version.

As you say, the problem with this map is the time it takes to learn. I learned fast, and i think most other did too, but the fact is that most people leave if they dont have fun in the first 5 minutes. Thats why TDs and DOTAs are so popular; you dont need any brain activity, its more like a drug. You just sit there watching your towers kill the attackers and you have fun.

But after playing it a few games, i got a small group of people who were ready to join a remake. The map was alot more fun when playing with people who knew the basics.

The terrain is very nice. Its fun to sneak around in the bushes with your team, scouting for enemies. However (at least in the version i played, you have not disabled the ALT-key. I had to constantly hold the ALT-key or the enemy would easily detect me first. You can disable the ALT-key (shows enemy units health above their head, for those who doesnt know) by setting the units selection scale to -1.

What i really dislike about this map is the lack of skill. The % to miss is a waay too important factor when firing. The covers gave you a larger chance of winning a 1v1 firefight, yes. But a enemy on a field still wins like 1 out of 4 fights if im in a moderate cover.

The camera is quite nicely made, but a good camera is impossible to make in the WE. The lag allways ruins the camera and movement in games like this. I allways got frustrated over how little i could see, i had no overview of what was happening.

The way you "assault" the enemy base doesnt really work. Most of the games the attackers win by hiding inside the region. I think you should make a system similar to battlefield or world of warcraft arathi basin instead. In those games you must stand near a flag untill a timer expires. That means you cant just hide near the enemy base to win, but instead actually control the enemy area before winning. You should not have a free line of sight between the flag (or assault-area) and the spawn. The goal should be to control the enemies who spawn (also known as spawn-camp :D) while one player asaults the flag / base.

It is, of course, just a suggestion. Not forcing you to do anything :).

Overall its a quite good map, but it lacks gameplay. Its too much of a FPS-simulator; if i want this kind of gameplay i'll go play a FPS game instead. However, its still a very high quality map that suits the maps section very well. I approve it.

Thanks for the review, GaDDeN. Approved.

I like this.
PitzerMike does the Safety Dance.

What about we were kings?

I think it's a great map and his review is perfect. I think there is a TINY thing missing, I can't lay my finger on it. I think it has to do with the shooting, theres just someting missing...

For "shittier" computers like mine it's a little hard to run. Could you delete a few of the doodads? It would be better if you deleted most of those shrubbery bushes and just scaled them so you only place 1/4 as many but it covers the whole area.

Hmm... I thought dis has stuff to do with sniping...

This is somewhat close to some paintball games i played; well its better though

Heck its hard using the camera; maybe u have a solution to it? (i noe u sayed something about keeping the camera this way but i dont think its *dat* comfortable in bnet)

If you have problem with the camera, hopefully the maker hasn't disabled this feature. Press alt+c or ctrl+c (depends on computer).

This map needs more to it. For example, I was playing and there were attackers and defenders. I had no idea what I was protecting or attacking. Nice idea to ping it on map, also REMOVE THE CAMRA VIEW... seriously this is one big reason why I dont play it and wont recommend it to my friends. I think this could be a quite good game, but requires work, more guns, more items, and knowing what you are doing when its your first time.

Cause if you dont know what you are doing... what makes you try the second time?

Otherwise great game!

Ok I tested map on Battle.Net but there are major bugs.. I think it was the tutorial? It never went forward...

This map is bugged like hell .... it can't even be played in multy-player ... i found it stupid for you guys to be so rigorous with spells and then allow maps that get stuck every time you load the tutorial.... You should fix that ..

Probably broken by a patch. It wouldn't have been approved had it not been working at the time.

This map was made many years ago, the upload date neither really shows its real date, patch by patch it has probably become more broken by each time. It was really cool and fun back when it was new'ish though.