Supporting collaborative real-time strategic planning in multi-player games

Many current team-based first-person-shooters(FPS) have limited communication between players. Voice chat and text are the two primary methods of communicating however, in fast paced games, this is insufficient for making sophisticated plans. Giving players more non-verbal forms of communication could reduce the time necessary to develop plans which will likely increase the number of strategic plans used in first-person-shooters. By using information visualization techniques in games, we can provide players a faster method to communicate with their teammates, allowing teams to develop more complex plans quickly. We present ways in which player communication can be improved, reducing the necessary time to make effective strategic plans and increasing the amount of cooperative play amongst teammates. Using Source, a 3D game engine developed by Valve Corporation, we plan on developing a 'mod' to incorporate changes to further enable cooperative play. Once finished, we will determine the effectiveness of each tool by gathering and analyzing data from players.