demoman_chaos said:
Graphics, not really. Environmental interaction, yes. When Voliton put RF:G destruction into a Saints Row game, then I will renounce everything else and decalre Voliton the winners. I don't care if the people and cars look like they were taken from a PS1 game, as long as it is still Saints Row mindless fun with RF:G mindless destruction. A few walking mechs would be a nice edition too, but not 100% needed.
Sweet Jesus, yes. That would be amazing beyond belief.
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However, Games HAVE SO FAR TO GO. Graphics do not look photo realistic. Aliasing is still a large graphical problem with many games (Consoles at least). Shadows can use work.
Aside from that, Creating realistic persistent systems. Where, if say, You blow up a building, 6 months (Of in game time) later. they have just finished rebuilding it. Obviously, this would suck in a confined area, but in a very large open-world city, this would be nice.
Larger open worlds are a want. Ones with comparable scale to real cities. Done right it could be very very nice.
More people playing at the same time. FPS's with more people on bigger maps.
Many games opt for flash instead of story, story is very important.
Length. I understand that MW2 was about the Multi-player. But Once you have the mechanics in place for multi-player, all thats left is good Multi-player level design. It should have had a much larger Solo-campaign. 5 hours is ridiculous.
AI. Game AI has come a LONG way. But it's also still got a VERY long way to go. I'll take an example from fallout 3. At one point i came out of a subway station, met up with a BOS paladin. And some regular guys. I did all the heavy lifting, and the Paladin just sat at the first cover point. Then i had to wait as he went to the next pre-determined cover points, waited for a few seconds, then passed to the next. This was pretty ridiculous.
I've only seen about 3-4 games where AI used grenades to flush you out of cover effectively. One of these is Uncharted 2, but in that respect they were almost to over-zealous with them.
In one game which was released about 2 years ago (Can't think of the name). I actually had an enemy use cover, on my side of the doorway, as in, he was back to the wall on my side of the door way looking out. That was BAD.
Stealth mechanics in games with regards to AI also need some serious improvement. Instead of having things like "Zones of suspiciousness" where if you get too close to an enemy while in disguise, they start to see through it. You have recognizability by rank. If i am disguised as a soldier, i should never have anyone look at me twice unless i'm visibly doing something suspicious, or in an area where i am not authorized to go. If i am however, disguised as a general, i should come under SERIOUS scrutiny. to the point where i can't really get near anyone for more than a few seconds before they really think somethings up. However, even then, they shouldn't immediately sound the alarm. They should get my attention, and then do a through check of me. If i took the uniform, and have no other items to increase my credibility, THEN they sound the alarm. However, if i have some convincing forged paper-work, and can speak my place, they should let me pass.
AI is really where progress needs to be made. However, Graphics will (Except for developers that make AI their focal point) always be a larger priority.
Games have nowhere to go but up.
The end point is essentially the Holo-deck. With AI that is indistinguishable from human.
tl;dr - There is so much more left to do.