Next Generation game design. Or, "Your awesome graphics do not impress me."

[Cheomesh]

I've been playing video games for a long time. I've played all sorts of Genres, from games like zero g to break out to "Classic Concentration" on floppy disks off of DOS as a young kid.

Played tons of shooters, from Doom to HL2. Played golden classics like "Lord of the Realms 2" and "Soldiers of Anarchy".

So I played Crysis too. While the gameplay is something for a different thread, I'd like to put forward the idea that improving graphics on the "next generation of games" would be a faux pas.

I say this because they're great.

With so many friggin games out there, and the fact that it's an industry with people making a living off of it means that you're pretty much stuck trying to market to multiple people.

That being said, let's pick apart the FPS.

In a shooter of any choice, barring the few and far between "tactical" shooters, rarely does an enemy force ever make "sense".

By this, they never represent a believable force more than half the time, instead just unsupported grunts randomly shooting at you with no overall "purpose" to their existence. What would be an improvement would be having us fight an actual organized force. In Crysis 2 for example, I want to see USMC squads actually backed up with support weaponry! Or KPA forces seeing me and laying down a hail of gunfire with their SAW.

Another thing would be animations. While animations look good, they never seem to react good. When someone sits down, they rarely convey the feeling of mass in that person. They sort of just float down to their chair.

Model skinning -- in practically every game I see these days, the model skins seem to "stretch" around a lot. I'm not a skinner but there has to be some way around it. Just check out the Combine Overwatch units in HL2 and its episodes for example.

In game Heroics are great and all, but can we see ourselves in a support role for once? Lets say in Call of Duty 6, when we're assaulting Normandy (again) beach heads, instead of being the sole hero who can run over and blow something up, maybe let us be one of the guys covering the AI guy who has to go and blow up whatever it is we're after. Or how about more games where when we die, we can "take over" as a different unit? I brought this up in my "Non MC Halo game" thread.

I think I'm getting something across but it's late and I should have been in bed 4 hours ago.

Talk amongst yourselves.

 

[Acepilotf14]

Or how about more games where when we die, we can "take over" as a different unit? I brought this up in my "Non MC Halo game" thread.

Battlefield 2 for the 360. A great system, too.

 

[Viperidae]

Coop is the way to go for gameplay, if you ask me. Your CoD6 example might be fun, yes, but it would be even better with a friend.

 

[Acepilotf14]

Coop is the way to go for gameplay, if you ask me. Your CoD6 example might be fun, yes, but it would be even better with a friend.

Oh shi-
One of you as the hero and the other as support.
AMAZING

 

[Sparta]

In a shooter of any choice, barring the few and far between "tactical" shooters, rarely does an enemy force ever make "sense".

By this, they never represent a believable force more than half the time, instead just unsupported grunts randomly shooting at you with no overall "purpose" to their existence. What would be an improvement would be having us fight an actual organized force. In Crysis 2 for example, I want to see USMC squads actually backed up with support weaponry! Or KPA forces seeing me and laying down a hail of gunfire with their SAW.

The game your looking for is called "Operation Flashpoint" and it came out in 2001.

 

[Jintor]

These days, awesome graphics impress me purely because I don't see them very much.

 

[AciD]

These days, awesome graphics impress me purely because I don't see them very much.

Me too that is why I think Crysis suck without uber-leet-super-mega-giga-tera-peta-hyper-high graphics that game is boring No plot. No good AI. and you have some Prey-themed levels. Destroying hoses like in tech previews? No! You need Q6600 to calculate collapse of 4 walls.Thanks that is not for my processor. 3D water? Not working without double-core. Ultra uber clouds? DX 10 only? That engine have a big problem. Some engines have some cool feature called optimalisation. That on don't have it cause it was too big to fit it on one DVD9. Ah next cool feature: sunbeams I got it running very well in gmod. I don't need DX10 card to have 'em. Thats all for now

 

[Cheomesh]

The game your looking for is called "Operation Flashpoint" and it came out in 2001.

Reread the first sentence of your quote.

 

[Sparta]

I read that, but what you're asking for can only be given to you in a tactical shooter.

 

[Kadayi]

The problem with pushing the graphics envelope alone is that it seriously impinges upon a games ability to render volume in terms of AI entities. Personally I'm tired of great looking near or semi-deserted environments with a few friendly or enemy AI scattered around. I want an FPS experience set in bustling City streets full of life & activity.

 

[Cheomesh]

I read that, but what you're asking for can only be given to you in a tactical shooter.

Not true. The USMC squads in that game where already containing designated marksmen in the form of gauss-riflemen.

 

[Asknoone]

The term next generation needs to be booted into a black hole, because there's really no such thing.

Coop is the way to go for gameplay, if you ask me. Your CoD6 example might be fun, yes, but it would be even better with a friend.

No.

 

[Shift]

The game your looking for is called "Operation Flashpoint" and it came out in 2001.

Agreed, Operation Flashpoint is the only game I can think of that even comes close to your specs.

 

[-Psy-]

The term next generation needs to be booted into a black hole, because there's really no such thing.

Aye. Indeed. Yes. ****ing 5char.

 

[Rapstah]

No.

Moar liek you have no friends to play with.

 

[Kadayi]

Moar liek you have no friends to play with.

He's got a point though. Sure Co-op is great, but it does rely upon you having someone who you want to play with in attendance. Not as easy as it one might think to arrange, especially if you have a life going on.

 

[Narvi]

Most of your graphics questions are due to performance reasons, really. Physically simulating things take up a lot of processing power. Same with ragdolls. I'd prefer they used that power for AI instead.

 

[Cheomesh]

Co-op is sexy.

 

[Ennui]

Or how about more games where when we die, we can "take over" as a different unit?

I tried very hard to convince my friends on the Zombie Master team to allow dead humans to respawn as Zombie Hamsters for the duration of the round but they refused.

 

[clarky003]

What would of made games like Crysis better would definitely be a squad based co-op and improved AI animation blending, everything else was loads of fun and brilliantly immersive. I found for some reason the alien ship kindof reminded me of star trek the motion picture in terms of environment and sound.

What I really liked is the heavy contrast in game locations, it develops a memorable split in the game world. At the same time I found myself yurning to be back at the start fighting koreans because it's what I was familiar with, even though it was still fun kicking evil alien ass. It's like when you first leave Ravenholm in HL2, and that for me makes a memorable and overally enjoyable fps game in terms of environmental story, and Crysis hit the nail on the head with that one.

 

[Iced_Eagle]

Most of the industry is realizing that pushing more and more into the graphics isn't giving too big of pay-offs.

One thing that you can definitely expect more from in the next few years is from AI. In all games, it's completely lacking and everyone knows it. We are getting a lot more CPU power to dedicate to AI (and also physics which is going to continue getting better).

Co-Op is also going to once again be huge within the next few years. It really does make games so much more fun to play, but the biggest problem is in the crappy internet design of today. If only Internet2 would get to consumers sooner rather than later!

Also, never use "Next Generation" again. It's become one of the most over-used marketing terms ever.

 

[Warbie]

He's got a point though. Sure Co-op is great, but it does rely upon you having someone who you want to play with in attendance. Not as easy as it one might think to arrange, especially if you have a life going on.

That's the main probem. Nevertheless, i'd love 4 player co-op shooter/rpg set in a huge open ended gameworld that could only be played when everyone's together. It would be a bugger arranging sessions, but so worth the hassle.

I've played very few single player fps that haven't bored me in recent years - co-op is the way forward \o/

 

[Kadayi]

That's the main probem. Nevertheless, i'd love 4 player co-op shooter/rpg set in a huge open ended gameworld that could only be played when everyone's together. It would be a bugger arranging sessions, but so worth the hassle.

I've played very few single player fps that haven't bored me in recent years - co-op is the way forward \o/

Although it's economically not viable at present I've often pondered the idea of player limited MMORPG games. IE you and 10 - 20 friends pay for a dedicated server which possesses a fully fleshed out persistent game world that you can play on as you wish. I think MMOs and Co-op are interesting game spaces but the current options are too restrictive. With MMOs the majority (though not all) are at best themeparks full of rides, which require you as a player to have certain levels for you to get on board. There is no real sense of consequence to a players actions; you and your friends fight your way through the catacombs of Bludvar for a few hours then vanquish the necromancer and share out his booty, and yet lo and behold, the next day Bludvar is back in the land of the living and you can go vanquish him again. The lack of persistence (that something was achieved/decided) is what I find disconcerting. Admittedly there are a few MMOs that are persistent (Eve for example), however they are pretty much player driven in terms of dynamics (effectively large scale sandboxes), rather than possessing any strong developer lead storyline (If you know of one let me know).

With Co-op gaming the weakness is in the fact that as participants you are bound to the same game space/map and that limits the options that are available to you in terms of scenarios & map restrictions. I welcome the day that I can play a game with some friends where I'm in Las Vegas questioning a suspect, whilst they are in LA waiting to go to the address and free the hostage. That kind of freedom of opportunity would really make for great gaming.

I do agree that AI should be the big push and that with increasing processor power we should eventually see that shift, however the main problem lies in the very slow rate with which people are upgrading their hardware. I suspect that pretty much anyone reading this post has a 64 bit processor of one kind or another in their PC now, but how many are running 64 bit OS or have any 64 Bit software? Very few I'd hazard. Dual core processors have been out for a while now, but the vast majority of Steam users are still running single core machines. Unless there is a strong market for software, it just doesn't get written. The dismal sales of upgrade demander Crysis won't be encouraging a lot of developers to risk making that jump either unfortunately.

 

[Kyorisu]

but how many are running 64 bit OS or have any 64 Bit software? Very few I'd hazard

This is not the users fault. We cannot do shit until software vendors get their arse into gear. The market for such software may not be busting at the seams but it is there, and as always there's a gradual shift of people slipping over to more and more modern tech.

 

[Kadayi]

This is not the users fault. We cannot do shit until software vendors get their arse into gear.

64 bit will run pretty much all 32 bit, it just won't run 16 bit (goodbye 'Return to monkey Island'), but adoption rates are low for sure, of all the Vista users I know I'm the only one running the 64 bit edition. I don't think matters were helped much by Microsofts bizarre policy of selling the 32 bit in the box and making you send off for the 64 bit edition though.

 

[Kyorisu]

I run 32 bit windows and 64 bit Gentoo/Ubuntu. That says a lot. Although even Ubuntu has it's own variety of issues and conflicts with some software (Java/Flash for example).

 

[Cavalry]

The term next generation needs to be booted into a black hole, because there's really no such thing.



No.

deathmatch is fun,but coop is better,just look at mercs 2
there are even certain 360 games that don't impress me(graphic-wise)like Dead Rising,it's fun,but its no CoD4

 

[hungryduck]

The game your looking for is called "Operation Flashpoint" and it came out in 2001.

QFT......there hasn't been a game that seems to have matched opflashpoint yet.

 

[Rapstah]

OPF2 better be good.

 

[Steel.Inferno]

If Stalker 2 has 4+ player CoOp, my gaming world will be complete.