Failed Concepts

[Doug]

DRM - a poor, poor concept from the start - like beating your customers with sticks for buying your products.

Battles between capital spaceships. Battlefront 2 was the only game that did this moderately well, but it could be much improved.

You must play sins of a solar empire my friend. I had a 50 capital ship battle with cruiser exploding left and right.

Spore was a great concept yet it failed because it wasnt hardcore enough.

I feel that alot of B games had great ideas like Lair and Legendary and Turning point fall of liberty. They just dont have the money or talent.

I'd like to see an FPS cap-ship game - either as boarding marines or ship captains. To date, I have NEVER seen this done well. A Half-life 2 mod did it ok, but wasn't great. Add to that there was never anyone to play against and with, it didn't work.

 

[Mr. Moose]

Time Control. I have yet to see a game pull it off well.

Ouch, you just brought Timeshift into my head.

I really enjoyed Timeshift, the weapons felt really meaty and satifying to use.

Support characters that you have to interact with, never implemented well enough for me to not want to murder them myself;
Emma Emmerich, die *****
Ashley whats her face from RE4, luckily you can put her in a corner and she'll stay there
Navi, shut up!
Slippy "do a barrel roll" frog, firstly you can tell me what to do providing you can go for 2 seconds without getting shot and secondly its called an aileron roll, you douche.

and as much as Half Life 2 pulled them off so well I still want to murderize the rebels half way through their
"reload doctor free" <<< BANG! DIE!

Uh.
Peppy said 'Do a Barrel Roll'

And seriously, what sounds better?
"DO A BARREL ROLL"
or "DO AN AILERON ROLL"

 

[infernovolver]

A free mmo.

 

[sirdanrhodes]

weapon degeneration. its just annoying no matter what game its in.

it doesnt feel right when it breaks before it kills any enemy (RE outbreak)

and it always costes about three kidneys worth of cash to repair it in RPGs.

Guess you hated Far Cry 2 then!

 

[Graustein]

weapon degeneration. its just annoying no matter what game its in.

it doesnt feel right when it breaks before it kills any enemy (RE outbreak)

and it always costes about three kidneys worth of cash to repair it in RPGs.

Fire Emblem. The implementation may not have been realistic, but it made no attempt to seem so, and was pretty damn integral to game balance. Fire Emblem wouldn't have been Fire Emblem if weapons like Ragnell weren't unique in their indestructability.

 

[Valgarent]

Wasn't there a thread like this earlier?

Oh well. Badly implemented game ideas: Adding a storyline to an MMO unless you can actually pull it off, which to this day I have not seen.

Guild Wars, anyone?

When I say you can actually pull it off, I mean actually make you feel like the character you made is important, regardless of how good the story itself is. As Yahtzee said, gameplay and storyline should go hand in hand.

Bear in mind, I have not played Guild Wars and if Guild Wars does indeed do this I'll put it on my list of games to check out, but somehow, I really doubt it, it's just in the nature of an MMO to make your character feel like a nobody.

The character you make is pretty much the center of the entire plot. You're in almost every cutscene, and the story revolves almost solely around your actions.

I'd recommend the game, but read up on it further before you go buying it.

No monthly fees, though.

They also added(Be it generic) dialog for the players characters. They all sound exactly the same based on Gender but it added more to the story. It's the only MMO, That really makes your character feel like a hero.

Back on topic.
I think the 'Random Chance' people put into some games are epic failures. It can be good in theory but most people are going to be plagued by getting it when it's useless... Happens to me all the time.

 

[Iron Mal]

1. Reward the skilled. Give them items after a set threshold of kills, points, etc. Encourages the elite and makes entry into the game difficult.
2. Help the disadvantaged. This gives them a chance to counterattack and turn the game around. Greatly reduces the apparent need for skill to win.

The first point is more or less what goes on a lot of the time, I already gave the example of Call of Duty but it is also apparant in Team Fortress 2 since the winning team will recieve faster respawns and better spawning locations than the losing team.

These small bonuses aren't actually much but would be enough to help give newer/inexperienced players a fighting chance against skilled players (since a player who is not so good is going to die more often in game than a skilled player they should probably be allowed to spawn faster and the same is opposite), this may sound like something that punishes the elite but then again, if they are so skilled then they should be able to work around these little perks and should be able to score points without having to unleash superweapons/special abilities.
(As long as common sense is used in deciding what these advantages are then I don't see how it would detract from the skill needed to win, faster respawns or slightly faster movement speed/mild protection doesn't severely overpower anyone).

 

[Vortigar]

How come Hellgate: London hasn't been mentioned yet? Same goes for Tabula Rasa. Theoretically sound idea that never worked. (Someone mentioned large scale shooters though.)

There are no failed concepts, merely poor implementations.

I'd say a failed concept would be something that's doomed from the start and then is proven to not work when somebody makes it real.

 

[nathan-dts]

Time Control. I have yet to see a game pull it off well.

Ouch, you just brought Timeshift into my head.

I really enjoyed Timeshift, the weapons felt really meaty and satifying to use.

WHAT?! Are you and I thinking of the same game? You might be thinking of a good game, Timesplitters.

 

[DigitalSushi]

WHAT?! Are you and I thinking of the same game? You might be thinking of a good game, Timesplitters.

LOL Yeah i'm thinking of timeshift, no monkeys in it whatsoever, dont know why I enjoyed it it just felt homely (like watching aliens), you know cosy
and the guns felt like they did damage while you used them, once again, dont know how that is... right you know in Halo? the assault rifle feels disjointed?, I had the opposite with Timeshift.

 

[Typhusoid]

Wasn't there a thread like this earlier?

Not that I have seen, nor the search feature uncovered

Yes but the search feature is a failure.

True, but I have not seen a thread like this

 

[nathan-dts]

Wasn't there a thread like this earlier?

Not that I have seen, nor the search feature uncovered

Yes but the search feature is a failure.

True, but I have not seen a thread like this

Neither have I although the search button still is a epic fail.

 

[Damien the Pigeon]

The Virtual Boy was a big failure, but I remember that when it came out, it was so cool! 3D has taken off in other ways, so its entire concept isn't that useful anymore. The only way I could see someone doing something like it in the future is if they make something like the Wii 2 that has goggles for total virtual reality. That would be pretty tight.

 

[Zersy]

Time Control. I have yet to see a game pull it off well.

prince of persia sands of time bro

I already said, all it had was a rewind function and a "slow everything down" button

timeshift ? that used time as a remote control

 

[SneakyBawls]

I can remember the alien language feature in Star Wars Galaxies. I thought it was cool that only certain players could understand what a wookiee was saying and the like....until you realized all anyone did was sit and train anyone in all the languages as soon as you spawned anyway. I did like the secret lekku language of the Twi'Lek though.

 

[fedpayne]

Anyone that has said time control or time travel failure - Day of the Tentacle.

 

[O maestre]

Star Trek Games, Armada was pretty good and I enjoyed star trek legacy but no one was online to fight

try bridge commander possibly one of the best space combat simulators out there and a great star trek experience especially after adding a couple of mods

on topic; i have yet to see good first person melee condemned came close though. like wise third person shooters have always felt rather odd