Necessary: Friendly Fire ON

 Recently it was acknowledged that some areas of space [high-sec and low-sec] may be 'friendly fire off' zones as far as Dust 514 is concerned. We can't imagine a worse decision for CCP to make. Throughout gaming, similar decisions have been made that have had horrible results on the hardcore fanbases of shooter titles. We take a look back at the long history of the debacles that friendly fire OFF has caused.



SOCOM I, 2002: Friendly Fire is defaulted to OFF. Legions of savvy soldiers throw grenades as their comrades rush objectives and chokepoints. Explosions rain terror and death on the enemy, but friendly soldiers in the killzone are miraculously unaffected for no other reason than the explosives belong to their teammates. Fans of the series and realism cried foul, Developers took heed and included Friendly Fire in every SOCOM game since. SOCOM was until recently, lauded as the first great tactical shooter on console.

Call Of Duty, 2006: The series designed specifically with solo play, total lack of tactics, "pwning noobz" and catering to kill-streak loving casuals has never entertained the thought of adding FF to their title. COD mostly caters to adolescents and those who abhor teamplay. Is this the kind of environment we'd like to emulate in New Eden? Imagine telling an EvE pilot about a friendly fire 'OFF' zone. We doubt that would go over very well...and rightfully so. This series is largely seen as horribly dated and everything that is wrong with FPS, Dust 514 should emulate as little of COD as possible.

MAG, 2009: Zipper got it. Friendly Fire is a necessary tactical aspect to any hardcore shooter. Although the game made FF do only half damage the message was clear. Spamming gunfire without any regard for verifying targets can be harmful to teammates. Gunfire, Knives and even Air-Strikes killed friendlies if players weren't careful. The dedication to principles of friendly fire prompts those in command to pay attention to details, requires our brothers in arms to watch their fire, and doesn't allow any of the loopholes and exploits present in today's shooters as a result of making soldiers immune to the weapon damage of their allies.

Battlefield 3, 2011: One look at the series' most influential site 'Don't Revive Me Bro' will show you that although Battlefield now enjoys a massive casual audience, that the long time hardcore audience frowns on the mere hint of excluding friendly fire damage. "No friggin way. We'd riot in the streets" one poster at the site exclaimed. As a matter of fact, hardcore settings were designed with the veteran BF3 player in mind. These are the loyal players that kept this series afloat before it was able to deliver COD-like sales numbers. DICE isn't about to take away their ability to enjoy a tactical shooter by dumbing down all the realistic aspects of the game.

In Dust we already see the game-breaking effects of lack of friendly fire. Orbital Strikes called on friendly forces without any hesitation because they magically have zero effect, players shooting through teammates, tanks that spam plasma into a crowd of friendly and enemy alike and only harm blues and yes; grenades that can be thrown into an area to protect advancing allies but that harm the opposition, even though both occupy the same space. Ask yourself: Does this represent new Eden? Clearly, we expect more from CCP. The Future Vision Trailer showed betrayal at it finest when a shady New Edener betrayed his planetbound mercenaries and called an airstrike in on their heads. How will this ever take place if there's a magical force-field protecting them from our plasma?

In the end, Dust 514 is a hardcore title unworthy of the exploits and poor gameplay lack of friendly fire will bring. We can't wait to see the first time a group of Dust Mercs opens fire on allies and then purposely changes their status from blues to reds during a match. Some fear massive griefing but won't friendly fire OFF destroy any traces of the backstabbing, betrayal and skullduggery that are a New Eden staple? And haven't mechanics like the now-famous Kick or Forgive? option many titles use, all but done away with players who enter our games with the sole purpose of ruining everyone else's experience? America's Army had the jail option for griefers and we can only imagine what surprises CONCORD will have in store for them. Please CCP, give players the ability to turn on each other, the ability to go from blues to reds and most importantly, hold us accountable for not verifying our targets first, we're big boys and girls and can certainly handle it.