Where do FPS games go from here?

[Panzeh]

I didn't like Deus Ex because you were supposed to be some super-awesome agent but you couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with your handgun unless you trained it up. Most RPG elements seem rather arbitrary and crude in the FPS environment. A lot of DE's little 'choices' are lost on joe Q. gamer because the game is too long and the choices are too insignificant in the scheme of things. If you want to demonstrate that your game has a lot of different and divergent choices make it short and let the average player go through it more than one time, even encourage that type of play.

Doom 1 became a smash hit because the first episode was probably the best official set of doom levels except maybe Doom 64. The first episode of Doom 1 was well-balanced and interesting in the way that the later episodes of 1 and much of 2 were not. Doom 3 was an attempt to try and be a doom game and make it much more of a narrative. It's kind of important to note that Doom 1 was originally meant to be much more narrative and story-based than it was but these elements were cut to focus on the 'real game'. Doom 3 is a bit more interesting than Doom 1 in the narrative aspect, but did not have very good level design. Shame, too, because there were a lot of interesting ideas there.

On an interesting note you guys say there have been no sandbox FPSs but Boiling Point was a sandbox FPS with a gigantic map and vehicles. It was a buggy mess but it was rather interesting in that regard. The real problem with wide open sandboxes is making them have stuff to do. Developing interesting content that isn't repetitive in these types of games is a difficult challenge.

 

[PurpleRain]

2. Character customizability. This is one of my biggest issues with the Half Life series - there is none.

I agree with all your points, but it's not like you can really see your character in HL anyway. And you'll be still wearing the armour so it's not like it matters. So games need characters for it to build a story around, but it is always fun to spend a while making your own little guy for you to control. I'm just saying it's not that nessessary for a FPS as is an RPG.

 

[p1ne]

2. Character customizability. This is one of my biggest issues with the Half Life series - there is none.

I agree with all your points, but it's not like you can really see your character in HL anyway. And you'll be still wearing the armour so it's not like it matters. So games need characters for it to build a story around, but it is always fun to spend a while making your own little guy for you to control. I'm just saying it's not that nessessary for a FPS as is an RPG.

Really, the lack of being able to do anything to your character in Half-Life is only part of a larger problem that I have with the game - it's on rails from beginning to end. 99% of the time there's only one way to progress through the game and it's always totally obvious what you're "supposed" to do next. The game world is so constrained that after playing it for awhile it lost all sense of immersion for me and became a series of annoying puzzles and arcade shooting that were only there to kill time while trying to advance the plot. The other characters might be interesting if there were any way to interact with them besides listening to them talk, but since your player is an invisible presence who never says anything it's hard to feel any kind of real connection. The way the NPCs constantly heap praises on Gordon Freeman for his achievements always made me feel vaguely uneasy. Who is this guy? Am I supposed to be him in the game, and if so, why isn't there any real connection to the character?

So I guess that went off on a tangent, but FPS games can and damn well should incorporate RPG elements, there's no reason why not. Many shooters have started down this path and been very much the better for it.

 

[NeoSpriggan]

I think the problem is that the mould has pretty much been set for a good fps. The examples are there, well fleshed out and refined. Where do they go from here? To try something new is risky but potentially groundbreaking. Sadly, they think nowadays that any new feature has to fit into the mould thats already there.

I miss the time when everything was being constantly redone and improved, leaps and bounds of different and exciting titles. Ever since the early to mid 90's, it just never stopped. Now here we are, its all been said and done, not much left to do.

 

[Hellfire72]

I'd like to see FPS go to a half sandbox style, as mentioned previously. Linearity needs to be done away with. Given that there will always be a certain amount of linearity, otherwise the game would be pointless, I think a first person version of a game like mercenaries would be good. Needing to buy your own equipment and do the missions however you want to do them should be the next step for FPSes.

Ghost Recon does it to some extent but you are still limited, with the choice of a sniper rifle in a urban environment being completely nullified by the insane stupidity of it. where are the large hills outside the town that you can climb to kill a target or big buildings with open rooftops? And just an added point about Ghost Recon, which is something i love about crysis. The AI seem to have superhuman powers of sight, with any line of sight being taken advantage of, no matter if there's a soft little bush in front of you or not. Thankyou Crysis for giving AI some normal, human vision.

 

[righthanded]

When people talk physics in an fps, I always hear about rag-dolls or destructive environments but never about bullets. For the most part, bullets haven't changed at all since Wolfenstein3D. You point your gun at the enemy and fire. Sure, the gun might recoil or might be inherently a little inaccurate, but once the gun is fired, the bullet has arrived at it's final stop-- instantly.

I think for FPS games next step should be the implementation of bullet physics. Muzzle velocity, wind, air density, gravity-- they all affect the speed and trajectory of a bullet in flight. Imagine a game where you actually had to take these things into account with every shot. FPS games wouldn't seem so mindless. Sure at close ranges, flight time and gravity wouldn't come into play too much more than they do now. But even at 50 yards, you'd have to start leading a moving target. Gone would be the days of the campers that can point and shoot from across a map with ease. Now they have to judge where you'd be in a half second, which way the wind is blowing, how far below the cross-hairs the bullet will land.

Having smart characters and smart environments doesn't change the fact that the primary mechanic of the FPS hasn't changed a bit. The technology is there to make a smarter FPS. A smarter FPS is long overdue.

 

[PurpleRain]

2. Character customizability. This is one of my biggest issues with the Half Life series - there is none.

I agree with all your points, but it's not like you can really see your character in HL anyway. And you'll be still wearing the armour so it's not like it matters. So games need characters for it to build a story around, but it is always fun to spend a while making your own little guy for you to control. I'm just saying it's not that nessessary for a FPS as is an RPG.

Really, the lack of being able to do anything to your character in Half-Life is only part of a larger problem that I have with the game - it's on rails from beginning to end. 99% of the time there's only one way to progress through the game and it's always totally obvious what you're "supposed" to do next. The game world is so constrained that after playing it for awhile it lost all sense of immersion for me and became a series of annoying puzzles and arcade shooting that were only there to kill time while trying to advance the plot. The other characters might be interesting if there were any way to interact with them besides listening to them talk, but since your player is an invisible presence who never says anything it's hard to feel any kind of real connection. The way the NPCs constantly heap praises on Gordon Freeman for his achievements always made me feel vaguely uneasy. Who is this guy? Am I supposed to be him in the game, and if so, why isn't there any real connection to the character?

So I guess that went off on a tangent, but FPS games can and damn well should incorporate RPG elements, there's no reason why not. Many shooters have started down this path and been very much the better for it.

It's probably just me, but I always like to think that you have to fill the blank slate all by yourself. I usually talk while I'm playing games... not like conversation talk (cause that's just screwwed up talking to a screen), but in my head I like to fill the gaps with what I'd say in the situation. It makes me feel even more apart of the game.

And yeah, you're right. I hate how all FPS's are so linear. I'm usually shocked that by some coincidence, by following the only path that you can actually choose, it takes you exactly where you need to be such as an enemy boss or base, a friendly character, etc. Games like Bioshock and The Darkness are starting to do their job by expanding the path. While it's still there, it's a bit bigger for you to explore.

 

[p1ne]

When people talk physics in an fps, I always hear about rag-dolls or destructive environments but never about bullets. For the most part, bullets haven't changed at all since Wolfenstein3D. You point your gun at the enemy and fire. Sure, the gun might recoil or might be inherently a little inaccurate, but once the gun is fired, the bullet has arrived at it's final stop-- instantly.

I think for FPS games next step should be the implementation of bullet physics. Muzzle velocity, wind, air density, gravity-- they all affect the speed and trajectory of a bullet in flight. Imagine a game where you actually had to take these things into account with every shot. FPS games wouldn't seem so mindless. Sure at close ranges, flight time and gravity wouldn't come into play too much more than they do now. But even at 50 yards, you'd have to start leading a moving target. Gone would be the days of the campers that can point and shoot from across a map with ease. Now they have to judge where you'd be in a half second, which way the wind is blowing, how far below the cross-hairs the bullet will land.

Having smart characters and smart environments doesn't change the fact that the primary mechanic of the FPS hasn't changed a bit. The technology is there to make a smarter FPS. A smarter FPS is long overdue.

While I think this is a really cool idea, I also suspect that it's the kind of thing that wouldn't make the game a lot more fun for most people if it were present. Though there ARE no doubt some hardcore reality fanatics out there who want a game to have all that and more.

 

[p1ne]

It's probably just me, but I always like to think that you have to fill the blank slate all by yourself. I usually talk while I'm playing games... not like conversation talk (cause that's just screwwed up talking to a screen), but in my head I like to fill the gaps with what I'd say in the situation. It makes me feel even more apart of the game.

That's funny, because I actually do talk to the NPCs in Half-Life 2. By that I mean that every time I have to hit my stupid quickload key again I curse them out for being such retards.

Sorry for the double post.

 

[Sylocat]

The problem with FPS games is that in real life, you have such a thing as peripheral vision, in that you can quickly look to your left and right without turning your gun in another direction. In an FPS, there's no easy way to glance left or right without turning your entire body to the left or right, which not only takes more time but also turns the gun along with it. I've never played an FPS where the controls didn't feel so incredibly sluggish I thought the main character was drunk out of his head.

Anyway, FPS games happen to be the flavor of the month during the inevitable cycle where game companies start falling victim to the sequel-factory mentality perpetuated by movie studios these days, so we're seeing a glut of clones. No story because the suits in charge don't think a game needs one, no new elements because the marketing hacks don't want to try anything new.

But the main thing that makes FPS games so repetitive is that it's so hard to introduce any new elements to the gameplay mechanics without screwing the controls up. There's just not a lot you can do with a system that is so stagnant, so the only hope for a unique game is the story, and since the developers are too lazy to do that, they just go for broke on the graphics and turn it into a beauty contest.

 

[shadow skill]

And you end up with Crysis that won't be playable for another year and a half by normal people unless they do a console port.

 

[Hellfire72]

And you end up with Crysis that won't be playable for another year and a half by normal people unless they do a console port.

if they do then they will have to make it a two disc game. or even three. the memory capabilities are not high enough to cope with the game. the graphics capabilities are more than enough but not the memory. so they will halve it or something. which will suck.

 

[Kieran210]

Alright, well, allow me to post a real example of solving the control problem, a new-ish control system which I have been thinking about for a while now.

Taking a leaf from context specific controls (Assassins Creed I'm looking at you), and the relatively innovative method of control from Homeworld, I think you could do something like this.

Left mouse button - left arm. Right mouse button - right arm. Click one to extend/activate them and then, use the mouse to move them around. To move both arms together, use both mouse buttons held down. The hands are context specific and would react to whatever it was you were doing (opening a door, pushing a window, catching a ball, etc).

The mouse controls your head and your vision - the gun is not nailed to the side of your skull anymore. It also does not move automatically. When you move the mouse to the limits of your vision, you turn automatically.

Okay, so far, so trespasser. However, when carrying a weapon in your hands, the control method changes, so if you use the middle mouse button/mouse wheel, you can aim down the sights, like a normal FPS. Right hand button to fire. Otherwise it's left button to move the weapon with your arms - meaning you can shoot without crosshairs in your HUD, and there is no central fixed aiming point.

Direction keys WSAD control your legs as normal, but taking real steps and working up to running pace.

Workable? Unworkable? An idea to be developed? What do you think? It's an idea I'm not sure I've seen anywhere else though.

K

 

[Kieran210]

Oh, and qudos to the guy who talks the the NPC's on HL2...I'm glad I'm not the only one...

 

[GloatingSwine]

Left mouse button - left arm. Right mouse button - right arm. Click one to extend/activate them and then, use the mouse to move them around. To move both arms together, use both mouse buttons held down. The hands are context specific and would react to whatever it was you were doing (opening a door, pushing a window, catching a ball, etc).

Sounds like a hideous bastard offspring of Trespasser and Die by the Sword to me.

It may sound clever, but I've a feeling it would be counterintuitive and hideous to actually use.

 

[Jennacide]

Any time something good is done to the FPS genre, it's usually in a game that is either lackluster or ignored. For instance, the bullet penetration effects of BLACK should of been a new standard, but they clearly never caught on.

And who says no FPS has an interesting story? Halo's story was interesting to enough people to get them hooked, plus Bioshock and Call of Duty 4 have spectacular stories. CoD4 especially amazed me with a story I cared about in a warfare shooter.

 

[big daddy]

it really depends on the type of FPS because whereas the likes of far cry,bioshock and dues ex where innovative the market seems to be overflowed with wwii and sci fi shooters which can sometimes put you off altogether.But i definetly can see publishers going in more innovative directions when there making a new FPS which is a good sighn of things to come

 

[hobartuk]

i personally think that fps's are going to have to become more deep and exceptionally more complex and varied. blending fps, rpg and freeform, with an incredible insight. theres been the trend of becoming increasingly cinematic through games such as crysis and halo, but only the face values of cinematic advantages, game design should take on new dimensions were symbolism and unique plot structures are actually considered instead of the stereotypical use gun on many people kill a boss through a linear story then watch the credits

after the widespread feeling of the unsatisfying story of crysis when it was meant to be in reference to yahtzee in the bioshock review "as if it was going to come down from heaven and lead us to the promised land'

ironically with crysis having been seen as such a huge landmark before release and after, it has caused more room for the fps to evolve

i love how the escapist is a far more intelligent forum