2. Game Concept

DGA — Distant Ground Attack.

https://distantgroundattack.org

For those who game…​

DGA aims to turn a player into a commander taking control over a selected historical weapon unit, single or combined, which, as in the art of war, rigorously goes into a battle on a historic map of choice.

The player manages the unit’s position, movement, firing, and communications with allied players from the third/first-person view. Different types of weaponry can simultaneously participate in a single battle session, which may have limitations on time and amount of players. The first types of weapons being realised are mechanised/motorised land combat vehicles and guns, dating from the time of World War I up to the Cold War, with giving preference to World War II.

The player chooses a weapon unit between different types of weaponry. The choice is bound to the type’s limitations and player’s experience only. The player goes into battle with the chosen weapon in a team that can be composed randomly as well as by agreement. The goal is to put out of action all the units of the opposite team or to accomplish some victorious condition (capture the flag, maintain a position against enemies, make the opposite team surrender, etc.). The player’s progression depends only on how well he/she can utilise potential of the chosen weapon unit and coordinate his/her actions with other players in the team.

DGA’s gameplay has the following One Question: (AGDS, p. 196)

Does it intelligent, sincere, humane, fair, and just?

Intelligent as in wisdom.

Sincere as in trustworthiness.

Humane as in humaneness.

Fair as in fair play.

Just as in authenticity and accuracy.

DGA’s gameplay proposes to its players the following game mood:

Imperil yourself!

DGA is a sophisticated, visually stunning, free/libre-to-game, cross-platform by design, massively multiplayer online role-playing game, which combines:

DGA is addressed to casual and core gamers. The game strives to provide players with a transparent, fair-to-play balance between historic authenticity and fast-paced shooter gameplay.

DGA aims to address casual and core gamers of all genders and ages who are already interested in the history of weapons, military history, and mechanics, but also those whose interest in these fields of knowledge could be piqued as well.

DGA is intended to meet all the gamers' areas of motivation and incentives as follows:

DGA promises to avoid any depiction of blood, bodies, and other signs of war related to humans. However, the game contains depictions of non-realistic, non-detailed violence.

The desired ratings DGA aims to achieve are "PEGI’s 7 with the descriptor Violence" and "ESRB’s Everyone".

DGA pursues the Cross-Platform by Design approach, which seeks bridging the gap between different devices and platforms. This approach is based on the idea to implement technologies designed to adapt and respond to different operating systems and screen sizes, ensuring that the user’s experience is consistent but also engaging and efficient, no matter the device in use. (Medium)

DGA is designed and developed on and for the Java Platform — the complete and full-scaled cross-platform technology implemented on a wide variety of computing platforms from embedded devices and mobile phones to enterprise servers and supercomputers.

DGA targets all platforms where Java is working on:

While playing the DGA Game, a player becomes a commander taking control over a selected historical weapon unit and goes into a battle on a historic map of choice.

DGA implements the fair-to-play principle in the field of computer games modeling historical weapons and asserts that such a weapon must be modeled in the game authentically, correctly, and without being changed for any reason other than adjustments in favor of historical accuracy.

DGA treats as unfair and inappropriate the practice of some modern warfare-themed games in which weapon units are presented as modeled to closely resemble their real-life counterparts, but several their parameters can be simplified or modified to fit game mechanics and better gameplay. This practice leads to everlasting uppings and nerfings of the weapon units, which historical accuracy afterwards players can’t even estimate. Moreover, the owners of some games systematically exploit historical accuracy and authenticity to compensate game bugs, misinformation, bad balance, and declining revenues from users. Finally, it ends in disrespect and injustice to players.

The closed-source proprietary nature of computer games is the real cause of this regrettable situation in gaming. The games' owners are in the position of power over their players and once too often do not hesitate this power to misuse. For this reason, DGA is free/libre-to-game.

DGA additionally affirms that parameters of historical weapons must be hard-coded in the game. Eventually, the modeled weapons are historical and their parameters usually are well-known, described in multiple sources, and can’t be changed due to their historical nature. The only reason why the weapons in the game can be remodeled is to improve their historical accuracy.

Striving to find a fair-to-play balance between historical accuracy, authenticity, and fast-paced shooter gameplay, DGA addresses distinct categories of players and implements the following three battle modes, which establish different proportions between accuracy/authenticity and shooting gameplay:

DGA is conceived to feature players with an open-ended, unlimited experience in modification and customisation of the game’s weapons and characters strictly according to their historical authenticity and accuracy. DGA aims to support not only production modifications and customisations but also field ones made by soldiers and service crews on the front line.

DGA is a third-person shooter with a facility to switch the camera perspective to a first-person view of the weapon unit’s commander and other crew members.

Consequently, DGA features the following camera perspectives:

DGA’s pacing, visuals, and level of action aim to be at the same level with the best of action warfare-themed shooters.

DGA has a complex game balance. It is arisen out of the following factors:

Considering the factors above, DGA combines transitive and intransitive approaches to its balance.

DGA is free/libre-to-game for its players whose security and confidentiality is assured by the game. However, there is an open discourse whether it is possible to secure a free/libre/open-source MMORPG, which source code is accessible to cheating and bullying players.

DGA relies on Kerckhoffs’s principle, which states that a free/libre/open-source program is not inherently less secure than a proprietary or commercial one, but it is no more secure either.

DGA is fully committed to anti-cheating policies and measures to ensure fairness, equality, justice, honesty, and integrity to all its players. Cheating by the players not only threaten other players but also violates the fair-to-play principle.

At the same time, the DGA Game and The FLEISS Software Foundation do not consider cheating as the immanent nature of MMO games and their players. Inherently unfair players constitute an insignificant part of gaming community consisting of people who sincerely and honestly share their love for playing video games.

While building on the tried-and-true third/first-person action warfare-themed shooter gameplay, DGA innovates in a number of key areas: