To date, the recent previews for Redstorm's upcoming Rogue Spear (RS) have examined the single-player game, the co-op side of multiplayer, and the game's graphics and terrorist AI. This preview will assess RS's new features with respect to the oft overlooked Adversarial multiplayer environment. Most of my time with the RS beta2.0 has been spent experimenting with the tactics used by RainbowSix (R6) clan players, and I will try to give everyone an idea of how these tactics will translate to RS.

Are You Being Served?

The heart and soul of an online adversarial multiplayer match is the server host. The server host is the person who everyone else connects to. RS includes several new server host options that will vastly improve gameplay. First, hosts may now lock the teams so players are unable to switch back and forth between teams. This team locking feature will greatly improve fairness in non-tournament pick-up matches.

Multiplayer Setup Interface

Second, the server host can force fog and other weather effects on all client-side players. On maps such as R6's Hacienda, this feature would ensure that every player experienced the same vision problems since a majority of players disable fog effects as a way to improve situational awareness and reduce lag. The third new feature is the ping panel.

In R6, you can only see your pings to the server host, but not the pings of the other players to the server host. Now all players should be able to not only see their pings to the server, but those of the other players' as well. This feature will undoubtedly increase the fairness of current clan competitions. Fourth, the host can also issue kit restrictions on every piece of gear in the game to all players on the server via a check box without having to go and modify any files in the game directory. Kiss those heartbeat sensor jammers goodbye!

General Gameplay

Players in RS will now be able to wear customizable arm patches to help target identification. This option may prove to cut down on friendly-fire incidents, but it could just as likely help to give away your position if the patch is a bright color.

One of the best new features is the player ID function on the head-down display's mini-map. Now players will be able to determine exactly who their target is with a quick glance down at the map. It should be noted that the more you zoom-out on your mini-map the fewer letters are displayed on each player's ID tag. I normally play R6 with my map zoomed out four keystrokes. On this setting only the first initial of the ID tag is visible. Clans such as mine with three people with the same first initial may want to have their players alter their names in order to avoid confusion.

Movement

Movement in RS is quite different from R6. Players now have several new movement options. Walking, running, running while crouched, squatting, moving while squatting, and of course the new "peek" move are the primary movement options. Unlike R6, any wounds inflicted on you now affect movement. If you take a round in the leg, you will limp badly and your movement speed will suffer. Shooting accuracy seems to be affected by wounds in the same fashion as R6. It is quite common to see a player in R6 take three hits and then kill all his opponents and win the game.

In RS this will be extremely difficult due to the new damage model. I have experimented playing against another player with a single wound to the leg, and I have found it extremely difficult to fight wounded against a healthy opponent. While wounded you strafe much more slowly and shoot far less accurately than when healthy---in fact, it becomes nearly impossible to do much of anything. You can also forget about chasing an opponent down while wounded as you'll never catch him.

This feature will make RS more realistic, but I think it will initially frustrate many players. Getting the first shots in will now be more important than ever, and high ping players may be at an even greater disadvantage in RS than they are in R6. On the plus side, Redstorm has now included an "always run" check box in the options menu. No longer will you need to keep a mouse button depressed in order to run. This feature should help to increase shooting accuracy since less dynamic pressure on the mouse will make movements faster and more precise.

Peek-a-boo!

The peek is probably the most important and talked about new movement. The player can now peek around corners by moving only from the waist up. Any of my fellow paintball players out there will be familiar with this move, as it presents the smallest target to your opponent while giving you the ability to see and fire upon anything around the corner. You can peek while standing or crouching, and this is done by pressing a key set to "peek" (I use mouse3) and holding down "strafe left/strafe right".

Click for 1600x1200

Peeking gives the player an option other than the classic strafing out maneuver when fighting at a corner. In my opinion the jury is still out on which method is better for taking out a target around a corner, and time will tell if peeking is better than strafing. At least the player can now switch things up a bit and possibly surprise an opponent with a crouching peek when he was expecting you to execute a standing strafing out maneuver.

Crouching has changed slightly from R6 with the new ability to move while crouched. This probably won't be used very much since the player moves extremely slowly while crouched. Strafing out while crouched would mean instant death. One exception to moving while crouched is if you are using a sniper rifle.

When you hit crouch you sit down on the ground and take aim with your weapon, and you won't be able to move until you stand up. Crouching is now also much easier in RS than in R6. In R6 you have to hold your crouch key down to stay crouched. In RS, the key is a toggle switch that will keep you in a crouch until you hit it again.

Weapons

Weapons in RS function more realistically than in R6. The selection of weapons given to the player is similar to a NATO mod. The M4 (Car-15) now has no three-shot burst capability, while the M-16 is not capable of fully-automatic fire. This is how both rifles actually operate. Zooming is more realistic, with the Mp5 series of weapons having a similar zoom to the pistols in R6. Sniper rifles have three levels of zoom now, so you can reach out and torch someone. The G3 and M-14 are the two 7.62 assault rifles included.

These rifles have a much stronger punch than the 5.56 or 9mm weapons, and I'd expect most players would choose one of the two for their primary weapon in order to blast through their target's body armor. Each weapon has an ammo selection panel, with full metal jacket or jacketed hollow point rounds available. Again, I'd expect most players to use FMJ in order to defeat body armor. The rate the weapons reload is now more realistic, and this is most noticeable with the shotguns---these take twice as long to reload in RS than they did in R6.

The rate of fire of the new weapons is the only real problem I've found with RS. I suspect that the following problems are being fixed (after all this is just a beta), as they severely hamper the shooting aspects of the game. In R6 using a Car-15 on three shot burst, I can empty the magazine in around one second. This is a realistic representation of the actual rate of fire of the Car-15. You can fire faster on burst than full-auto.

For some reason in RS, there is a half- to three-quarter second delay between bursts on all weapons. I have taken every burst capable weapon and fired it as fast as I possibly can. In every case I get one burst fired for every five clicks on my mouse button. Since most R6 players use the burst setting because of its accuracy and speed, this is something that absolutely must be fixed before the release of RS. The AR-15's I've owned all fired as fast as I could pull the trigger, so I hope it is just a beta thing because it is totally unrealistic.

Grenades and flashbangs are more effective in RS. Flashbangs have a more startling visual effect as well as an annoying buzz sound that lasts a few seconds, and grenades have a beefed-up damage model. One of the biggest differences from R6 is the ability to throw frags and flashes on the run. The player no longer needs to stop moving to release the grenade. This will alter the tactics of grenade battles enormously.

In R6, if you strafed out to throw a grenade, you had to stop for a second once you cleared cover to release the weapon. Many a fragger has been shot in this split-second of vulnerability. Now the same move can be performed in one motion without pausing. Here is a scenario familiar to all R6 clan players: the player is at a corner of a hallway, with a target about thirty feet away down the hall. In RS the player now simply gets a grenade ready to throw, charges it up to the desired level of throwing strength, strafes out from the corner around which the target is, releases the grenade just as he breaks cover, then immediately strafes back into cover.

Using this technique, the player is now a target for only instant, and the target down the hall is a shrapnel-filled mess. Another option---in the same scenario---would be to use the peek move instead of strafing out around the corner. Another thing I noticed is that when I throw a frag while crouched it doesn't fly far enough to keep from wounding or killing me. Again, I suspect this is a beta issue that will be corrected by the time the game is released.

The C4 demolition charge is new and operates nearly identically to the demo charge in Half Life or the claymores in Spec Ops. It is a stationary bomb that takes a laughable amount of time to place. Once it is planted, however, any opponent who wanders nearby is in for a rude shock. Think of C4 as a door charge that doesn't need a door to be placed on.

New Equipment

The heartbeat sensor (HBS) is the R6 player's American Express card---you don't leave home without it (unless you're a tard). RS answers back with the HBS jammer and, yes, it does actually work. In a one-versus-one scenario, with one player using an HBS, and the other using the HBS jammer, neither player will see the other on their map displays. The contest will be won by the player who visually acquires the opponent first, or in the case of simultaneous acquisition, the quickest on the draw.

The jammer and the HBS seem to cancel each other's usefulness out. Only if a player uses an HBS and operates with a teammate equipped with a jammer in a two-person formation will the jammer be an effective tool, and then only against a single opponent (2v2 is the same situation as 1v1).

To add insult to injury, in RS there is now stationary HBS and jammer units that can be placed on the ground. To combat these devices, as well as the hand-held HBS, RS introduces false heartbeat pucks. Once these pucks are dropped, they give off false readings that will show up as signals on an opponent's HBS. Before you get too excited, however, you still only have 4 slots for weapons in RS, so unless you assign a tard to carry jamers, pucks, and stationary HBS's, you'll be going into battle with a primary weapon and a pistol only---Not gonna happen!

Obviously, some keyboard-challenged person at Redstorm hated the HBS because it will be next to useless with all of these new devices in RS. Who knows, maybe after a month of playing RS, clan players may possibly learn to like these new devices and incorporate the new tactics and strategies needed to use them, although I doubt it. These new devices will give the ability to turn a map into a camper's paradise.

I'm also not convinced that the new peek move or the ability to throw grenades on the run will be enough to counter an intelligently set-up defense using the stationary HBS, stationary jammer, and C4 charges. Even with these possible problems I am convinced Rouge Spear will top Rainbow6. The game is simply amazing. All I can say is "thank god for the kit restrictions option on the server" and I'll see you on the Zone in September where we can all find out for ourselves how these new elements in Rogue Spear will work out.