Wow what a thought, The 80's NATO and the Russian Hordes storming thru the gap into West Germany. Wall to Wall BMP,s and Tanks.

Oh yes I would buy that game.

And replace it with what?

Whatever we want.

If they're dynamically loaded table data we can replace the values in the table.

"Sandbox style" moddability is always > canned or hardcoded
(provided you don't take a performance hit at runtime)

Ah, understood...replace one fairytale with another one ;-)

This style of modding some disatvantages in my p.o.v.=> makes multiplayer a #%&*$#.
For single player it may be usefull...depending on what you want to do.

I disagree with this in many respects.

Total realism = niche product that a handful of people will be playing 3 months after you release it. Are you gonna make players wait 45 minutes if they throw a track? That's realistic. Hell, make it more realistic by forcing the player's avatars actually fix the track in that 45 minutes.

You need to make it accessible and fun, even if it costs you some realism.

World of tanks, for example, is hugely popular. I'm willing to bet that even with it being free to play, they make money hand over fist. Thousands of people play it because it is so easy to play. You don't have to go as 'accessible' as they are (and in fact, I really wouldn't want that) but if you go totally opposite and make people do this 100% realistically.

Also, 3D interiors seem like a massive waste of resources in my opinion. For all the effort you put into making an interior, which you're not looking at if you're trying to fight in your tank, your modellers could be making other things, like scenery, targets, damage models, etc.

For me?

I'm interested in game play. Specifically single-player.

I think the Third Wire series could be a good guide for a tank game. Realistic enough, but doesn't require you to learn an entire manual to play.

Extremely moddable, with a dynamic campaign (not Falcon 4 detail, but something with replayability) and crew management. Panzer Elite was an excellent blend of realism and gameplay (though the missions were canned - my biggest beef with the game) and would be a good model for any tank sim.

If you're doing WWII, I'd like someone to develop a good method for tank-infantry cooperation. So many tank sims/games focus on tank-on-tank combat. The vast majority of tank combat in WWII and, hell even today, was in support of infantry. I think a good tank game would make an effort to improve on this.

This.

IMO if one took the BF3 tank control and married that to a Third Wire-fidelity firecontrol simulation and tactical map like in the old Sherman M4 game you'd end up with a pretty decent and fun tank sim. Total realism doesn't necessarily equal better.

Not really. Plenty of games handle moddable content for multiplayer just fine. Arma is a good example (and some of the fps's out there). The server would control whatever mods are enabled, and the clients would run whats enforced by the server. In a server browser you would easily see who is running modified content (it would have to be made clearly visible in the window).

And for those who prefer the single player (and there are a ton - I tend to think they are in fact the silent majority) having moddable content makes scenario designs much MUCH easier to tailor. I can think of some prime WWII action between german and russian tanks I'd love to model.

Which leads me to the next wishlist item I guess: a fully featured editor. Ala ARMA level ease and power.

Oh - and full replays with extensive camera controls!

I think the key to successful game design is the ability to make the player have the game experience he/she wants. Everyone has a different idea of what their ideal tank game is. A game that has options (everything from controls to difficulty to visual quality) and modability (so players can create the content they want) is key. Look at how successful the Third Wire flight combat games are, in spite of no marketing and strictly word-of-mouth advertising. People have been playing those games for years - I've been playing one variation or another since 2001 (IIRC)!! We need a game like that for tanks, that allows enormous flexibility of play options and is exceedingly moddable. You guys may want to play with Shermans and Panthers in Normandy, I prefer M60A1s and T-55s in Egypt, others probably like M1s and T80s in Vladivostok. A good, flexible game would allow for all of that, even if the content only included M60A2s and T-64s in Germany.

Well, the guy who are making world of tanks show what succesful tank GAME lokks like.
Easy to hop in, quick to learn, quick to play. Helps people that are short on time.

A tank/mech. warfare SIMULATION need time to learn and master. For the individual tank, for platoon and maybe later for playing at squadron/company level. And that is one of the biggest problem of any simulation, be it land air or sea.

I prefer a game that helps you to get as close to RL as possible. Well full modability can help that if you find the right gaming community/"clan". So it can be a way. They must be skilled though...making a tank model with fully funktional FCS is not a piece of cake(if you want to add vehicles not included in the original package)
From my experience in the wargamers community there a tons of myths about which tank can do what and what not and what they think mech.-warfare should look like. It'd be interesting to see what the consensus would look like :-P

Most of the above implies that a good tank game should allways be multi player. Unless one can make AI tanks behave correctly and react on voice commands :-)