Time to make some decisions?

[FrostyCoolSlug]

The 'Engine' Thread has been going on for a long time now, however, very little progress has been made on it, mainly because we dont yet know exactly what is planned for creation (Its like trying to use a computer without a power cable :p)

So i've created this thread to ask.. 'What do we want in a First Person shooter?'

Please limit discussion here to the question, remember not to take into concideration graphics, sounds or any 'spangly' things, just the pure gameplay part of it

I'll give my answer as an example:

--
I like first person shooters to have a 'Go anywhere, Do Anything' attitude, with things like vehicals to make this possible, the game must involk teamplay for people to achieve their goals. The pace of the game should be determined based on how people play it (if a fast paced game is wanted, people can rush and 'get it over with' or can use a more tactical approach). Maybe a weapons system based on points rather than money, everyone starts off with X points (same for all players thruout the game) and they can decide what weaponary they want with that (obviously bigger guns require more points, so they wouldnt be able to get so much of the other important things, such as armour). Player 'waiting' should be limited, so that everyone can respawn (maybe, reinforcement style), i hate waiting around in CS :p

Other ideas welcome

[sPlOrYgOn]

yes i like the idea of "go anywhere do anything" makes me feel free and most of the time people will do fun things in the game and the game would be great because everyone is doing what they want

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

Isn't it precisely the *frustration* of waiting in CS that makes the game so addictive ?

I believe the game should be tactical for the most. I'm not against "outdoors" engines like BF1942 provided the level is designed cleverly enough to always allow sneaking behind the enemy wherever I am and to provide several easy retreats whenever it is needed. The two teams must be attacking altogether, but they must be given a hard time at this. It should be very difficult to attack, less difficult to defend but easy to retreat and regroup into safety. Such a gameplay will enhance tactics because offensive and defensive players will meet in groups more often, like for example when falling back to a more secure position, and this will enable them to prepare team planned offensives more often. Grenades and explosives are the great forgotten of nowadays' FPS. I would fancy evolve in an environment where their use is facilitated and encouraged by design.

I'm not against the "go everywhere, do everything" feel either, but I believe it's rather pointless in a first person SHOOTER. If I want to drive cars and run into stuff, I play Carmageddon instead. If I want to drive planes, I play Red Baron or Flight Simulator. And while I'll be happily flying around bombing stuff when and where I can, what will my team be up to ? The vehicles and all these "exotic" features should be included only if we are CERTAIN they always enhance the tactical gameplay, and not if they distract from it. The problem with BF1942 is that while it's fun to drive miles inside my jeep up to the battlefield, the gigantism of the playground makes the terrain WAY to smooth : there's nowhere to prone, nowhere to hide but in a building, I can everywhere be seen from 500 meters ahead, and I'm prolly unable to outflank the enemy unless I take a 15 km runaround which enables me not to be seen, but also half the time makes me arrive after the battle.

The player controls should be intuitive, and there should not be too much of them. CS is a perfect example for this. The same keys may have different purpose given the situation the player is in (for example, crouch or prone). Any animation should be cancellable. For example, a player going prone must be able to jump on his feet without waiting for the "go prone" animation to finish. This is mandatory, else it's the bullet between the eyes which is warranted.

Realistic ballistics, immersive sound ambience, good quality weapon models, well-licked physics (may I quote The Specialists for all this ?) and *tactical* _teamplay_. This is the key.

[SoUlFaThEr]

whatever you make........id like to be mapping for it.
cuz you guys just rule.
my 2 cents:

shooters are a dime a dozen and 2% of them are GOOD.

not many BF1942-like games.......we could go that route and fix what pmb said about the OPEN terrain using more topographic quality......its too flat anyway imho.

im for a better set-up on a 1942 concept......with a desert iraq/afgahnistan type of scenario......i was there.....why not re-live it
just need an engine that can handle LOD.
this is good......there are Mountain Units in armed forces all over the world...model this after thier type of mountain trail tactics for afgahnistan (jugoslavia even)

a slow TACTICAL shooter will be seriously boring(see Americas Army, damn well done......just boring to play after the first week of waiting 7 minutes to start the next round. theres no 7 minute wait in CS......i think it goes fast enough. UT is really fast, Quake is wicked.
but those deathmatch shooters are not my thing either,

[botmeister]

I posted some of my ideas in the engine thread. It seems to me that the engine thread should now be broken up to separate out the different concepts.

Here's some of the posts on the topic of what the game should be like (hope I got most of them):

http://forums.bots-united.com/showpo...08&postcount=2
http://forums.bots-united.com/showpo...58&postcount=5
http://forums.bots-united.com/showpo...9&postcount=44
http://forums.bots-united.com/showpo...5&postcount=47

Ultimately, I'd like to see something similar to what SoUlFaThEr talks about - Iraq and/or Afghanistan conflicts. There's a lot of interest in these parts of the world due to the on-going conflicts. There are people who would love to fight it out on one side or the other. People could play the game just for for fun or to beat up on the people who disagree with their opinions about the legality, the ethics, the truth and the lies surrounding these wars.

[SoUlFaThEr]

post #44 is a really kick ass idea!
only problem may be the time it takes to switch servers.....

[FrostyCoolSlug]

I dont like the idea of 'Switching Servers' mainly due to the large number of servers all over the world, the idea of multiple teams with the ability to 'form alliances' is a good idea, but could make the game VERY unfair (5 people per team, 4 teams, 3 teams ally, its then 15vs5.. so it has its downsides :p

[botmeister]

Originally Posted by FrostyCoolSlug

I dont like the idea of 'Switching Servers' mainly due to the large number of servers all over the world, the idea of multiple teams with the ability to 'form alliances' is a good idea, but could make the game VERY unfair (5 people per team, 4 teams, 3 teams ally, its then 15vs5.. so it has its downsides :p

Real life warfare is never fair!

Team stacking is a problem even on isolated servers. There's various methods available to help even the teams up, and the same methods could apply to a server grouping.

The idea of grouping servers together would be much more controlled than you may think. The formation of linked servers can be done based on a stable and similar ping (between all linked servers) to keep the game play performance similar across servers. That way when you go from server A to server B your ping will stay about the same. Also, server ops would have to authorise the links as a means to create a bigger game, otherwise there would be no way to keep meaningfull team scores, stats and so on. Effectively, you'd be playing on a coordinated and grouping of servers, who's server ops all agreed to the hook up. Of course ad-hoc links of servers can also be allowed between server ops who allow for it. The ping level tolerance, chosen maps, and so on would be left up to the individual server oporator. A server admin could simply choose to remain isolated (as we see now with games such as HL) or decide to join a group of servers, specifying the linking criteria.

[FrostyCoolSlug]

some interesting ideas, Personally, i'm not a fan of turning a FPS into a FPSRPG, cause essencially, that is what you are proposing. Potentially, this is an interesting and possibly enjoyable idea. btw, cant we have 1 server serving multiple maps at once? :p

I can picture it now.. one team retreating to another map, being chased by their opponants :p

[SoUlFaThEr]

im trying to imagine these TEAMS made up of single players.....from all over the place......not literally connected with each other, like in BF1942, where everyone is doing their thing on the same missions. go out, die...spawn somewhere...go out, die...spawn somewhere...die. its going to need rushed popularity to get some "clans" built.........who then fight against each other in organized ladders/leagues as we have all over the planet for a number of games.

hmmmmmm i think the server switching is a neat idea that will be hard to implement.....if somethings hard to figure out(for the end user)......many wont do it.....gamers are pretty lazy by nature (meant about Joe Smith making a server work properly for this scenario)

we need a :
a BF 1990 Rescue Kuwait (multi teamed(Brits, Germs, French etc.))
a BF 1995 Jugoslavian Mountain/City Fronts.
a BF 2002 Afgahnistan Mountain/City Raids.
a BF 2003 Iraq Attack (even sounds good, like the movie Araq Attack!).