Poll: RTS/FPS hybrids - will they work out as a commercial/mainstream game?

[TerranReaper]

The FPS genre, in terms of multiplayer anyways are leaning towards RPG-like aspects into their games to give it more lasting power. The most popular would be the Call of Duty series (From 4 to BLOPs) by allowing you to unlock weapons and to customize your classes according to how you see fit. But I always wondered about a possible RTS/FPS hybrid games, where you combine the gameplay that you would see in a RTS game and incorporate it into a shooter, such as research and placing down buildings. As far as I know, there aren't really any actual games that embraces this mix of the two genres, there have been games that somewhat has elements from the other, but it is very minimalistic (Example: Battlefield 2).

There have been two mods that I know that does this however, both being mods for Half Life or Half Life 2 and those being Natural Selection and the Empires Mod (Respectively). If you haven't played either of those mods, they both use what I was talking about earlier. They both involve two teams battling it, but there is also a player that is a commander that can place down buildings, give orders, conduct research for better weapons, and has to gather resources to do so, just like a RTS game.


In Natural Selection's case, only one team has a commander while the other team has to cooperate, the two teams have different objectives, so the team without the commander aren't really at a disadvantage. In the Empire Mod's case, there are large maps, two commanders that are elected by each team, place down buildings that have individual functions, research for better vehicles/weapons/armor, just imagine Command and Conquer (Before 4) for the RTS view.


So to sum it up and for those that are basically saying "TL;DR", do you think a RTS/FPS hybrid, which uses incorporates elements from both genres equal, will work out?

And for those that care:

Spoiler

Spoiler

http://www.xfire.com/video/229f75/

Edit: Apparently I was too stupid to mention Savage 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agJa_0Tq4-0

 

[Katherine Kerensky]

Another example of an RTS (Tower defence) and FPS hybrid is this [http://store.steampowered.com/app/31700/].
That game worked out quite well.
So I thing other ones can, if done well, like this one.

 

[brodie21]

brothers in arms was sort of a rts/fps and it did moderately well, i think that if you have a mold of the two it should focus on small unit tactics and not the big battles that rts games usually have

 

[Pielikey]

Battlefield 2 had an RTS bit if you were commander, even if ordering your troops around was less of an "Order" and more of a "hey you know what it would be a pretty good idea if you guys stopped camping the enemy spawn and started capturing bases"

Other than that I can't see it working out that well

EDIT: yeah okay I read the actual post instead of the tl;dr and noticed you mentioned this already

 

[Worgen]

look up a game called savage 2, its a mix of fps with 3rd person and rts and it works pretty well all around and its free

 

[Irridium]

The Battlefield games(NOT the Bad Company games or Battlefield 1943) kind of touch on this.

In the games a player is assigned as a "battlefield commander". They tell squads where to go, what to attack/defend, ect. They can call in radar drones, air strikes, supplies, and more for troops on the front line. This also helps the 64-player games from being disorganized messes with people running every which-way. Kind of like certain games I've played in Bad Company/1943.

They do all this by using a map of the whole battlefield that displays everyone on their team.

So its essentially a quasi-RTS mode. And it works really well.

Again, the Bad Company games and 1943 do not have this. Which is why I say they're worse then the core Battlefield games.

 

[Sparten0515]

The Rainbow 6 series was pretty good, and it is basically a shooter that you have to think about things before you act, so i think it might work out.

 

[omicron1]

You're missing quite a few games in your list, notably the following:
* Maelstrom - a mediocre-poor FPS/RTS hybrid with, basically, Harbinger-style "assuming direct control" available at will.
* Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War - a third-person action game/RTS that was received poorly (partly due to Midway Games' machinations)
* Battlestations: Midway (flight sim/ship sim/RTS combo)
* Pacific Storm (see Battlestations: Midway - they even came out at the same time)
* Savage: Battle for Newerth (and Savage 2) - a concept where one person gets to be the RTS commander and everybody else are units.
* Allegiance: RTS/space shooter
* And the granddaddy of them all: Command and Conquer: Renegade. Much more limited, but the same general concepts held true.

Generally speaking, the concept hasn't taken because nobody's done it very well. But there's always room for improvement...

 

[TerranReaper]

look up a game called savage 2, its a mix of fps with 3rd person and rts and it works pretty well all around and its free

I really wondered how I missed that, considering I used to play it quite a bit.

 

[DazZ.]

Not really on topic but is Empires worth the download?

I haven't played much to really know if this would work, but I love the aspect of BF2 and Ghost Recon that have this in, where there is a commander. But that's all I've played.

So from that I'd say it works, and I love it, but that's not full on RTS so I can't really form an opinion until I've tried it.

 

[TerranReaper]

Not really on topic but is Empires worth the download?

I haven't played much to really know if this would work, but I love the aspect of BF2 and Ghost Recon that have this in, where there is a commander. But that's all I've played.

So from that I'd say it works, and I love it, but that's not full on RTS so I can't really form an opinion until I've tried it.

At the expense of sounding like someone that's advertising his own videos, here are some links that I've recorded of the mod itself, they're unedited and generally aren't great quality but it does show some of the gameplay.

Spoiler

http://www.xfire.com/profile/darkreaper10/videos/hl2mods/

In my personal opinion, it feels different from your typical FPS game, there are a few problems that people usually experience that turns people off from the game, such as following orders from the commander, gameplay revolving around how well you capture and maintain the resource nods and how well your commander operates. It certainly is very different, but I find it quite fun if you can get into it

 

[GCPsychonaut]

I haven't played it, but MAG for the PS3 sounded like it had some RTS-like elements, with a single player organising players who were in turn in charge of smaller groups. As I said, I haven't actually had a chance to play this so maybe someone who has might be able to comment on this.

 

[antidonkey]

I thought Battlezone 1 and 2 did a great job of mixing RTS and FPS. It certainly was unique at the time.

 

[WanderingFool]

Won't/would not work.

Reason: people are douchebags.

gnite

This would be the reason I would use. You would need to have a team of people which would actually fallow orders, so it could be done, but it wouldnt be a big mainstream kind of game.

 

[s0m3th1ng]

I remember Natural Selection with mostly fondness. You either got rolled or were rolled, however. Once the other team got the third tech tree you were pretty much fucked. But it was an insanely fun game IF, big IF, you had a competent commander or you yourself knew how to do it right.
How is the second iteration?
-edit: Aw damnit, it's not free anymore.

 

[TerranReaper]

I remember Natural Selection with mostly fondness. You either got rolled or were rolled, however. Once the other team got the third tech tree you were pretty much fucked. But it was an insanely fun game IF, big IF, you had a competent commander or you yourself knew how to do it right.
How is the second iteration?
-edit: Aw damnit, it's not free anymore.

I don't remember the second one ever being free in its development, nonetheless, it's been looking quite good from videos.

 

[bificommander]

I'd like to ditto the Battlezone games. I hope they make a new sequel someday.

There was also a pretty fun mod for Operation Flashpoint, that added base building and RTS elements in a multiplayer game. It wasn't terribly polished (helicopters could spot the bases from halfway across the huge map, thanks to the sensors that were copied from the regular game) but it was quite entertaining. I haven't played any of the OF sequels (I've been playing laptop only for a year), so I don't know if it's still possible in the new games. But a refined version of that, yeah, I'd play it.

I admit, a title one player has an RTS view and commands nothing but FPS players is probably doomed, since most players treat orders as guidelines at best. But there are other ways to make an FPS/RTS hybrid, which would work.