Poll: Your opinion on the upcoming brand of massive first-person shooters games?

[InfectingTheCrypts]

You know the sort of game I'm talking about: a massive map, loads of players, guns, helicopters, jeeps and tanks. Mayhem ensues. Battlefield practically invented it, many games have copied it (Frontlines is the main culprit here), and now some games are coming out to multiply the mayhem.

We've all heard of MAG, the 256-player "slaughter-fest" that's been hyped up to almost the same degree as games like God of War 3 and Final Fantasy and all those other PS3 exclusives: it has now pretty much become a staple of any PS3 fanboy's argument. Other games, like Global Agenda and Huxley and so on are similar, PC-based massive shooters.

I'm still very sceptical about the idea. I loved Battlefield, and I played it endlessly, but even I thought that with 64 players, the lag significantly increased, and it was practically impossible to last over a minute without being picked off by one of those pesky snipers. Most 64-player games were filled with stupid pubbies that would totally give away your location when you're waiting to pounce on someone with a knife, not communicate and co-operate or just generally act like dicks. And in a "team-based game", co-operation is essential. So I really can't imagine a game that's FOUR TIMES bigger that actually works.

But what do you escapists think of it? Do you play massive online shooters? Are you going to be interested in such a thing? Can 256 players on one map really work? Can they somehow manage to avoid it being one being one massive lag-filled buttfuck?

Let me know what you guys think.

 

[PinkDragon]

I would like to think it would work since I'd pick CoD4 online over WoW or Guild Wars any day. but just like any other experiment its going to have teething problems and i can understand developers not being the ones with those problems.
Now days Australia is the only first world country that has words like Latency, Download Limit and sharding so as the tech develops so will the options for users. what made EvE online great was its single nexus for users, and at that time of its release the internet tech available did limit the amount if information that could be transferred as reoccurring packages. But again, this is simply a technological issue that will be resolved with the greatest of all healers: time.

 

[Banhaze]

Out of all the 'Massive' FPS I've played to date, the one that did it best was Frontlines. Even with only 30 people playing it still felt huge... You have to be careful with sizing on games like that.

Chances that there's gonna be 256 players on the same map at the same time? Slim to none... If you dont, and you have a map built for 256 players, it'll take people 2 hours to find each other...

 

[Shuvy]

I'm sure some way is possible. I know little about the technology- But it seems games are making more of the same internet connections. Imagine if something like that worked- you'd have enough people to have fun simulating something like trench warfare, or heck something more epic than the endless 4-8 man individual skirmishes you get on battle field. (even with 64 players, it always seems like less...)

 

[InfectingTheCrypts]

Chances that there's gonna be 256 players on the same map at the same time? Slim to none... If you dont, and you have a map built for 256 players, it'll take people 2 hours to find each other...

^This^. My big concern is either you make the maps too small in which case it's just a massive clusterfuck, or too big in which case you can't find anyone and it just becomes boring. The creators of games like MAG and Huxley need to be really skilled at make just the right sized maps.

And of course, there will be the inevitable consumer demand for DLC - in particular maps - which requires even more careful thought.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

Meh, the only FPS I'm going to be getting is ODST. None of the others really interest me.

 

[JRCB]

It could work, but lag would be a huge issue with that many people. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, the PS3 doesn't come with a mike, so for many people the co-operation aspect would be less probable.

 

[RogueGenesis]

I felt I needed to reg here just to reply to this post, to tell you have a Massive Mult Player online FPS was done 6 years ago called Planetside.

Planetside at its core, I would say, was the Battlefield series with RPG elements thrown in, a command system, (which never really worked all that well) and a space theme.

It was somewhat successful, and is still up and running today. The problem the game suffered was not lag, or map problems, but repetition. No real new content was added for the game except in the first 6 months, and after that the players, including me, just got bored.

As for the amount of players on one map, yeah it worked. BUT you have a massive map and planetside had RPG elements in it that allowed you to certify in vehicles and guns and skills and such.

the devil is in the details with games like MAG, I cannot remember if that game allows access to vehicles, so in that cause the maps could be smaller, but game design has come a long way since 2003, the view distance is much farther and maps in general are much more detailed.

If I remember correctly, Planetside had a player cap of about 250 people per each side on a continent (the game world included 7) at a time. Lag was an issue, but only sometimes. mostly it ran smooth, and I played it on 2 different PCs from 2 different locations.

 

[InfectingTheCrypts]

I felt I needed to reg here just to reply to this post, to tell you have a Massive Mult Player online FPS was done 6 years ago called Planetside.

Planetside at its core, I would say, was the Battlefield series with RPG elements through in, a command system, (which never really worked all that well) and a space theme.

It was somewhat successful, and is still up and running today. The problem the game suffered was not lag, or map problems, but repetition. No real new content was added for the game except in the first 6 months, and after that the players, including me, just got bored.

As for the amount of players on one map, yeah it worked. BUT you have a massive map and planetside had RPG elements in it that allowed you to certify in vehicles and guns and skills and such.

the devil is in the details with games like MAG, I cannot remember if that game allows access to vehicles, so in that cause the maps could be smaller, but game design has come a long way since 2003, the view distance is much farther and maps in general are much more detailed.

If I remember correctly, Planetside had a player cap of about 250 people per each side on a continent (the game world included 7) at a time. Lag was an issue, but only sometimes. mostly it ran smooth, and I played it on 2 different PCs from 2 different locations.

That's actually quite useful to be fair. Well at least now we know that such a game is capable of being made without being totally screwed up, since you say that lag is not really an issue, and map problems aren't an issue either.

If MAG manages to keep chucking out DLC and does get the maps right, this may well be a winner. Cheers mate.