Aside from WW2, I'm somewhat skeptical about how much mass market appeal a semi-historical armor simulation would have. I suppose, nobody wants to touch the Israeli-Arab wars with a nine foot pole, simply because of the PR disaster minefield that surrounds these conflicts (although the potential for epic battles is obviously there). The US aside, who cares about Cuba? Who cares about Korea?

For great entertainment and a sim lite, historical accuracy in the equipment isn't necessary. In fact, striving for details like this could easily lead into exactly the direction that you do NOT want with a sim lite. Science fiction offers a relatively easy way out. You can implement pretty much anything that's within the limits of how far you want to bend the laws of nature. At the same time you can very well be quite consistent. It doesn't even have to be a totally hokey, hackneyed story as long as you're willing to think of the constellation of, let's say, interstellar Conquistadores. Forget "Independence Day" and other Hollywood drivel. I'm thinking more about books like Anathem (Stephenson), or Footfall (Niven/Pournelle), heck, maybe even something like Battlestar Galactica (to name a more popular example). Say, the fleet escapes the Cylons and does find fabled Earth, but it's actually occupied by someone, and the fleet is running out of everything (except that the people on the target planet aren't aware of their predicament, and #%&*$# their pants (I mean, the fleet can travel the stars, it just have to be superior, right? right? I for one welcome out new overlords...)

Let's say they occupy Australia because it's relatively isolated and relatively sparsely populated except for the coastal region. So you drop a comet into the South Pacific and eliminate the Gold Coast by Tsunami. That leaves Perth and Darwin as the only serious staging points for a counter-offensive while the invaders have enough time to defeat whatever is left at the coast, and then turn on Brisbane and Melbourne. The rest of the world will be relatively slow to react. Who can actually deploy and sustain a force that either has to be sent from Perth across one of the most hostile deserts of this planet, or to be sent from Darwin to drive all the way down the Gold Coast (because sure as hell you can't send them straight south through the desert).
Then you get all kinds of political trouble because China and Indonesia think that now is a good opportunity to take over the continent, so the Aliens can actually play a bit of Divide and Conquer. At the same time, by controlling the space around Earth and the Solar System, they can interdict pretty much any surface fleet that might try to send troops to Australia. The more I think about the scenario, the more I like it.

Antarctica would be the alternative, if the Aliens don't like it hot. Either way, by denying space to mankind and throwing rocks from orbit, they control the seas, and can therefore successfully isolate either one of these continents. Australia has plenty of easily accessible natural resources (not so Antarctica), the only drawback is that the industrial capacity is limited (even more so further south).

I respectfully disagree. I've seen so many scifi games, especially scifi sims, flop. Poorly. I was involved in one of them, even if only tangentially. It's exceedingly difficult to make a scifi world believable and enjoyable for anything set beyond 10-20 years in the future unless you skip hundreds of years ahead and start essentially from scratch.

In my limited experience, Americans represent the largest game market. Therefore, the game should probably include Americans. Russians also really seem to be keen on tank sims - especially if you don't stereotype/handicap the Russians and make them look evil.

Has anyone ever done an Arab-Israeli ground forces sim? Strike Fighters has an Israeli Wars module for them. Didn't seem to cause too much outrage, but you're also not shooting at stone-throwing kids. Tank fans like tanks. I think it is as simple as that, and as long as you do justice to what you're portraying, you'll get people to buy it.

...but you'll only get those who are already sold on tanks, mentally. Isn't a sim lite supposed to cater to a wider audience?

Well, the entrepreneur's blessing and curse is right there: The freedom, and the necessity to make a decision, and bet substantial money on your choice. Historical, or sci-fi - there's apparently good reason for both, but you can do only one, and you will know whether you made the right choice only after it is too late to change your mind. :o

I love this thread. We need more tank sims, be it 'lite' or hardcore.

World of Tanks is a fine casual sim, and I am assuming that it is popular. I only played it for a few days a little time back. Is it too casual to be considered 'lite'? That would depend on the definition of 'lite'. But, I think its popular enough to show that a new WW2 armour sim/game could do fairly well and thats the era that needs a new sim/game the most.

As for future era, I remember playing Planetside with a buddy over TeamSpeak, in a vanguard tank. Me driving, and him gunning. It was a blast learning to co-ordinate with each other. I wish I had video of us playing. I hope the next Planetside has a 2-man tank too!

So my ideal sim would be set in WW2, with scalable difficulty/realism -- from 'lite' to hardcore. And Id want to have a crew and/or platoon that gains experience, that I want to care if they lived or died. And a decent campaign instead of canned missions. The campaign doesnt have to be fully dynamic, but would like the missions to be generated. I wont buy a game if it only had canned missions or a set of 12 scripted missions as a "campaign".

Yeah, I really don't like a handful of canned missions for a campaign. Replayability is a big thing for me.

What about tank interiors? Personally, I think they're totally superfluous, especially if they don't have functionality. If you're not looking through your optics or sticking your head out of the hatch, you're not playing the game/sim. Seems like a waste of artistic effort (and to a lesser extent, programming effort). But I've seen people pretty adamant about including them for immersion.

Also, define "Set in WWII." Are we talking France '44? Western Desert? Tunisia? Italy? Poland '39? Russia? France '40?

For me, Id take anything that adds to immersion, so interiors would be great. A lite sim could probably skip interiors, and only have views for gunsights and external camera.

Id prefer France 44, but would play anything really. I cant see how a WW2 lite sim would succeed without this setting included in the game.

The first claim from the company should be the old 1980s and 1990s marquee headline: "Any more real, and it would be classified." That would at least set up expectations that it's not a World of Tanks MMO or sells you Sci-Fi tanks or other tired formulas like Panzer Elite Action or Tiger Hunt. It often failed to live up to its own claim, but it's a sim-lite.

Graphics should be a priority- there seems little point in doing it if more serious simulations have similar graphics standards.

Reward or point system for the player. This can feel contrived, but I guess it's a matter of taste: for example, the player winning 3 or 4 Congressional Medals of Honor or promoted from E-3 to 0-5 after enough engagements under his belt before the game forces him into retirement. So cliche.

Standard formula that the entire war hinges on the player's actions or that all events are focused on what the player accomplishes. Although this is often contrary to historical events or absurd, for entertainment reasons it sets up theatre and drama. It also defines the contrast between sim-lite and sandbox type wargame.

Personally I would like to see more variation in communications over the radio net. When everything is dead silent except "Enemy, front," from time to time; it lends to the artificial feel when similar reports are used to make known a single RPG threat and a whole tank battalion moving into position. It adds to the flavor that there is a wider conflict going on with other units involved.

Yeah, radio comms are something I've noticed lacking in games. In combat, you're constantly talking to everyone. Unfortunately, very little about what you're saying is relevant to a game and, indeed, it'd be difficult to create proper syntax for much of it anyway. Plus, it'd be difficult to differentiate your crew, your platoon and other unit chatter if you aren't familiar with their voices in person.

Have you all played BF3? I do, on occasion, all though I'm mostly a flight simmer. But, Ill tell you, I think that the tank combat is a blast in that game. I grab a tank or LAV whenever I can.
I would love a tank game that would be similar to the tank episode in BF-3's single player. I'd buy that in a hearbeat.
Huge maps, and wild and wooly tank combat, like World Of Tanks, but one in first person. I have to be in the tank to feel really immersed in the game. Use the Frostbite 2 graphics engine and you have a hit.