We thought about this very seriously with botmeister a good couple months ago... The idea was, yes, take a good and free engine, preferrably open-source, hack and toy with it, get used to its internals so as to use it at best, and use it to build a REAL tactical FPS.
I mean, look! Today which is the FPS which can still boast of being something better than a Quake-style Team deathmatch ? TFC ? Too unrealistic. CS ? Two troops of kids rushing and collapsing into each other. One grenade takes away half the team ; another grenade finishes the round. DoD ? Yes, I reckon there are some ideas in it. But we'd thought of something better.
One thing first, NEVER describing one team "the good" and the other one "the evil". We were agreeing to take great care of that... for a good couple of reasons you can easily imagine, influence on young gamers and self-identification to the cause being one of them (I still remember the reactions of the many young CS gamers, on both sides of the planet, during the {invasion || liberation} of Iraq).
A second thing, was to put a strong emphasis on the penatly given to players when they lack teamplay, tactics or discipline ; like imposing some notion of "fair play" - counting NOT the player's frags AT ALL, but an overall player score, which would include the preservation of civilians, the fullfillment of the goal, the discipline, heroism, respect of the safety rules (e.g, not fire in a marketplace crowded with civilians). In such an environment, every means of war used by the guerilla/armed forces/terrorists/police ever used and in use now should be considered : human bombing against targets, civilian shields, gas, soporific bullets, drones, spy cams, bullet-proof shields, execution of hostages, etc.
I should really get a hand on those old emails... Rob at the rescue ?
