So, there I was, right in the middle of a fire fight and I thought how useful would it be if I could send in a few dogs to give me some breathing space?
A Weapon?
Think of them as another weapon, but with perhaps a little more flexibility. They could be used as guard dogs while you rest, or perhaps placed in strategic places and used as early warning systems.Depending on the game and its objectives they could be used to search for something or someone. Although the primary use would be as a simple weapon.You send them into battle first while perhaps looking for a easy escape. After a while if they are still alive they follow you, unfortunately you may have lost one or two.
Controls?
My first thought is that they would be control via a menu system – select a dog and choose an order – Stay, kill etc. Almost exactly the same as a CTF game. If you had different “Classes” then you would need a different list of possible instructions for each class.
A Price to Pay?
They would also have a cost. You would need to decide if and when to feed them. As with yourself you need “health”, well so do they. Perhaps with good coding you could kill a dog for it to become food for the others. It would also be interesting if when their health level runs very low whether they attack you! There could be different “classes” of dog, some bred from wolves (more likely to attack you) others from the domesticated dogs, less likely to attack but perhaps slightly less vicious?
Other types of animals
Of course you wouldn’t only have to be dogs that you could use. Wasps are the first things that spring to mind and there may be others.
7th May 2004
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22nd March 2006
Get attacked by dogs in Riot in Progress mod!
http://www.migandi.org.uk/images/rottweilerlow.jpg
In Neverwinter Nights you get to have a Wolf and a Puma in your party as Familiars!
19th April 2007
That’s a really good idea mate, I like it a lot. Makes me wonder why it hasn’t been done before.
25th May 2007
An idea like this actually has been realised in a Quake1 mod long time ago, just on a more simple level. You could assign a key to spawn your dog (who was called Cujo). The dog accompanied you, attacked your enemies and it could restore it´s health by devouring gibs!
I forgot how this mod was called (it was called a “patch” also), and as far as I remember it was a compiliation of a number of popular Quake mods, with a load of different weapons and tools.
23rd October 2008
considering dogs as a weapon is completely wrong. After all they are living creatures.
9th March 2010
oh come on man…the topics about implementing the idea into a video game.
Seriously….
23rd October 2008
Killing people is wrong but we are talking about a computer game.
24th October 2008
I wonder if someone might remodel the Snarks as dogs……preferably without their delayed explosions though….A pack of Dog-Snarks tearing into the soldiers would be quite a gruesome scene though I suspect…..
As for “considering dogs as weapons is wrong” don’t Police forces all over the world do just that already? Just a thought….
24th October 2008
Fear Of Evil (HL1) has dogs instead of Houndeyes. Maybe that model could be used to make it a friend, or a sidekick.
30th October 2008
I agree with tom that dogs should not be taken as a weapon.
9th March 2010
I’m with Gypsy Jim’s statement. Do you boycott your local K9 unit ?
16th December 2009
I don’t think that would work in reality. You are assuming that dogs are robots.
They would quickly realise what was really going on and dessert you – and they would be right!
16th December 2009
But it does work in reality. Many dogs are used in attacks. Dogs love their master and would do anything to protect them, that’s why they defend their master.
31st May 2010
I wonder if someone might remodel the Snarks as dogs……preferably without their delayed explosions though….A pack of Dog-Snarks tearing into the soldiers would be quite a gruesome scene though I suspect…