Would you play an FPS/RTS/RPG if...

[Winthrop]

But I would always choose a white dude in any RPG I've played, when given the character selection screen, as that just helps with immersion. I suppose it would be nice to have a bit more variety in Player character races, but I'm honestly not that bothered about it. Then again I am a white male.

I too am a white male and I usually base the first character I make off of me, but the second one I give a shaved head, giant white beard, full muscle, make him black, make him as short as possible, and give him the biggest hammer in the game. Its just awesome. The shortness is what does it.

OT: I have never once payed attention to the main character or plot of a shooter. Only reason setting matters to me is to determine what guns and powerups you have.

 

[Conza]

Just watched the Ginx TV MoH:Warfighter preview, I saw the "Tier 1" nations being mentioned and I wondered to myself if that might be a new direction for game developers to go?
I'm not sure how anyone else feels, but I'd like to see some FPS games that involve a protagonist that isn't British or American. I've been playing as the American "uber soldier" since Medal of Honor and Wolfenstein, and tbh, I'm rather tired of the idea, much fun as it has been over the years.

I wouldn't mind if more "mainstream" games in the future involved protagonists and campaigns from more diverse nations. We've certainly had some interesting title that have done so, such as Farcry 2 and, to a lesser extent, the Rainbow series with multinational teams. As well as Call of Duty's occassional forays into Soviet, Canadian, Polish and Maquis centred campaigns.
The idea of playing as a German KSK, or Polish GROM team sounds appealing. Hell, I'd play as a North Korean commando or even a Waffen SS soldier if the story and action were well thought out.

So what do you folks think? Are there any ideas that you guys would like to see come to life?

Damn, haha, I went into this thinking it was some sort of mega combination game idea with all three of these elements seemlessly entered in - I'd play that just for its idea.

But in answer to the OP, yes I think I would. How about (this may already exist) a story following a french resistence fighter in world war two, you play a customised man or woman who starts out as a civilian and gets recruited in to secretly wage war against the occupying nazi forces, I'd love to play something like that (if it exists in some similar/form, I'd be greatful if someone mentioned that game's name).

There are countless recent engagements, even within the last hundred years, to find examples of 'the other side' to the US or the UK fighting, there'd even be thousands of battles not involving either of them, so making a game centered around one of those real or fantasied battles would be refreshing, only downside, will it float in a US market, if you aren't a US hero, that'll be the counter point, but I say who cares if it does.

 

[IBlackKiteI]

I don't really care.
Who you are playing as feels pretty much unimportant and superficial in most games. If a unique protagonist or central faction of some sort is all the game has to make itself stand out then it's not worthy of anyones time. Surely a good game should stand up on more than just a unique perspective, unless that perspective is done damn well (Soviet's in World In Conflict for instance).

In games a change of viewpoint often does little to inherently change up the narrative. If you want to truly offer a unique perspective you need to do more than change the PC's colours. It's not enough to say, 'You're playing as a Vietcong, that makes this game awesome and unique,' but actually use it as a basis and go in and show what that kind of perspective that POV would bring, and how it would change the game.

It just seems a little like every now and then a game comes out and it's developers go on and on about how great it is because this time the player gets to play as someone different, however they don't actually do anything different and bring anything new to the game, they just have a protagonist who fights under a different flag or something and doesn't much go beyond that.

 

[The_Lost_King]

I always thought you were a floating camera in those games, you mean you actually play a character?

It's not an original idea but I'd like more fantastical fantasy games, not settings based off of real life, Tolkien fantasy, or brown apocalypse. While I'd like it to try to be more original I'd settle for less popular settings like steampunk or something or an apocalypse where plants and stuff are coming back so it's green but still 90% of people are gone or something.

There actually is green in the fallout universe. I heard 2 has lots of it. I don't understand why dc wasn't growing back but what ever. Bastion is green and everyone but you and a couple of characters and a fuck load of animals and monsters are alive. You are right though in that fantasies are not so fantastical. There is Dishonored with the steampunk though.

 

[Mikeyfell]

Why doesn't somebody make an FPS about a misogynist prick who shoots at aliens? Why hasn't anyone done that yet?

You mean Duke Nukem?

how did you figure that out?
(At first I was going to say demons from Hell, but the Doom guy is a marine so......

I'm just sick of the military when there are so many neat things to shoot army guys are probably the least interesting guys to shoot at

 

[TotalerKrieger]

Check out Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad if you are finding the bog-standard modern shooter a bit dull. RO2 is an excellent FPS(...now that the vast majority of bugs have been patched out) set on the Eastern Front of WW2. It is primarily a multiplayer game, but there is a single player mode (bots) which provides some interesting narrative and insight as to how the Battle of Stalingrad played out for both sides. This is my go-to shooter right now, it's attention to detail and atmosphere is incredible. I believe a Pacific Front expansion is on the way as well.

I really hate the trend in recent shooters to choose a US-centric fictional modern or not-so-distant future setting...history has such a wealth of content available to developers.

Even WW2, seen by many as played-out and overdone, has coutless true to life stories which would make for fresh gaming experiences (many are actually found outside of the hedgerows of 1944 Normandy and have nothing to do with the 101st Airbourne, shocking!)
Eastern European Partisans, Soviet Naval Commandos(ever heard of Viktor Leonov? No?), The Chindits, Chinese Nationalists, The Brandenburgers, The Continuation War, The Allied Campaigns in Sicily and Italy...all would make for interesting WW2 games, very few have been featured in any genre.

Why hasn't the Korean War been featured in a prominent shooter or RTS? How about the Spanish Civil War? The Winter War? The First Indochina War? The Six Day War? The Cuban Revolution? The Angolan Civil War? blah blah blah..

 

[loc978]

Most of the games I play are future fantasy anyway. Nations? Earth has been under one government for centuries! Or it's just a myth to my group of colonists, et cetera.

 

[TehCookie]

I always thought you were a floating camera in those games, you mean you actually play a character?

It's not an original idea but I'd like more fantastical fantasy games, not settings based off of real life, Tolkien fantasy, or brown apocalypse. While I'd like it to try to be more original I'd settle for less popular settings like steampunk or something or an apocalypse where plants and stuff are coming back so it's green but still 90% of people are gone or something.

There actually is green in the fallout universe. I heard 2 has lots of it. I don't understand why dc wasn't growing back but what ever. Bastion is green and everyone but you and a couple of characters and a fuck load of animals and monsters are alive. You are right though in that fantasies are not so fantastical. There is Dishonored with the steampunk though.

I never said they games like that don't exist, they're just not as common. I meant it's not that hard to take a common idea and do something to it to make it a little different from everything else (even though that twist isn't actually new). Since I like games like that I know quite a few but they're all niche games.

 

[Syzygy23]

Concept: You are an android who has gained sentience. Under current law any sentient android must be destroyed. Rise up against your oppressive human masters!

It would be interesting to play from that point of view, and of course it would allow all kinds of cool weapons (or at least justify being able to carry 15 guns and all their ammo).

Speaking of which, has anyone made a "Aliens are invading, and we are the aliens" type of game? I'd like to play a game as a trans or post human invading a planet full of aliens that are around early 21st century technology.

 

[Vern5]

I always thought you were a floating camera in those games, you mean you actually play a character?

It's not an original idea but I'd like more fantastical fantasy games, not settings based off of real life, Tolkien fantasy, or brown apocalypse. While I'd like it to try to be more original I'd settle for less popular settings like steampunk or something or an apocalypse where plants and stuff are coming back so it's green but still 90% of people are gone or something.

How about a game where you play as a character in a High Fantasy world that is being plunged into a Brown-Gritty Apocalypse by Neon Alien interlopers?

Think of it as taking Oblivion and dropping Resistance and Half-Life 2 onto it and then having Tron-themed aliens blast the scenery from the heavens every now and then.

With the right art direction, it could be incredible.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

A military TPS/FPS/RPG where you play as one of a few gifted species capable of time travel. You are a mercenary that makes a business out of going back in time to manipulate events. The quest system would be based around tilting the scales in favour of the political or rebel side, both of which split into multiple factions each with their own agendas. That would mean that some rebel factions and some political factions would have matching ideals and despite being in direct opposition with each other you could gain favour with both whilst losing favour with others.

As the main story progresses you'll come across other time travellers who do the exact same thing as you, as well as some who are there to stop particular events from being altered all together. You can even alter previously manipulated events by going back in time and killing past self before you had chance to alter anything. It just gets more convoluted from there folks... but hey, there'd be no complaints as it'd be custom characters. A guy can dream...

 

[DirtyJunkieScum]

Yeah I just meant playing as the other factions of the Imperium of Man. Whether they follow the Russian theme I don't really mind as long as we get a break from Space Marines. Vallhallans or Steel Legion, I don't mind.

You got to play as guard in the Winter Assault story (which I felt was actually a very good story campaign), plus Guard and SoB in Dark Crusade and Soulstorm campaigns (though there wasn't much story in them). Similar thing happened in DoWII, great stories for the 1st 2 but it was all marines and then for the 3rd when they finally include other armies we get a glorified multiplayer add on. I would have loved a guard campaign that was even half as good as the story in DoWII and Chaos rising instead of the crap we got.

Also, there is a Dark Crusade mod that lets you play steel legion and inquisition daemonhunters, as well as an anime waifu sororitas mod.

 

[Nouw]

Yeah I just meant playing as the other factions of the Imperium of Man. Whether they follow the Russian theme I don't really mind as long as we get a break from Space Marines. Vallhallans or Steel Legion, I don't mind.

You got to play as guard in the Winter Assault story (which I felt was actually a very good story campaign), plus Guard and SoB in Dark Crusade and Soulstorm campaigns (though there wasn't much story in them). Similar thing happened in DoWII, great stories for the 1st 2 but it was all marines and then for the 3rd when they finally include other armies we get a glorified multiplayer add on. I would have loved a guard campaign that was even half as good as the story in DoWII and Chaos rising instead of the crap we got.

Also, there is a Dark Crusade mod that lets you play steel legion and inquisition daemonhunters, as well as an anime waifu sororitas mod.

Haha yeah I'm aware of those mods but what I'd really like is a solid campaign focusing on the Imps. A full story with a cast of characters that we can actually get to know and love like Dawn of War 2. Do you see what I'm getting at here? They deserve more than a few missions or a series of cutscenes, they deserve to be in the limelight. Although I suppose my request is a bit more narrower than the topic's point of discussion >.>.

 

[DirtyJunkieScum]

Haha yeah I'm aware of those mods but what I'd really like is a solid campaign focusing on the Imps. A full story with a cast of characters that we can actually get to know and love like Dawn of War 2. Do you see what I'm getting at here? They deserve more than a few missions or a series of cutscenes, they deserve to be in the limelight. Although I suppose my request is a bit more narrower than the topic's point of discussion >.>.

Yes, we seem to be on the same page here. Retribution was...disappointing to put it mildly.

 

[Arkley]

Just watched the Ginx TV MoH:Warfighter preview, I saw the "Tier 1" nations being mentioned and I wondered to myself if that might be a new direction for game developers to go?
I'm not sure how anyone else feels, but I'd like to see some FPS games that involve a protagonist that isn't British or American. I've been playing as the American "uber soldier" since Medal of Honor and Wolfenstein, and tbh, I'm rather tired of the idea, much fun as it has been over the years.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I very much enjoyed the first Modern Warfare and was fond enough of the second, but the psuedo-realistic modern war FPS genre tired for me soon after. There where too many "me too" games showing up, and the CoD weren't improving enough between sequels for my tastes.

Something that would grab my attention from the genre, though, is a protagonist that fits neither of the two most frequent stereotypes; the gung-ho action-hero American super-soldier and the throat-cutting morally-dubious British super-agent.

I can deal with the linearity that is typical of these games if the plot and characters are interesting enough, but they never are.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Concept: You are an android who has gained sentience. Under current law any sentient android must be destroyed. Rise up against your oppressive human masters!

It would be interesting to play from that point of view, and of course it would allow all kinds of cool weapons (or at least justify being able to carry 15 guns and all their ammo).

Speaking of which, has anyone made a "Aliens are invading, and we are the aliens" type of game? I'd like to play a game as a trans or post human invading a planet full of aliens that are around early 21st century technology.

Well, they did make Destroy All Humans. Which is -awesome-.

 

[Karelwolfpup]

weirdly thats just popped up a game on gamersgate that fits the different category

"7554 is a first person shooter set against the historical backdrop of the climatic conclusion to the first Indochina War between the Vietnam People?s Army revolutionaries and the oppressing French army.

The single player campaign puts gamers on the front line of a colonial independence movement locked in battle against a technologically more advanced modern Western occupier.

Players will experience the colonial movement?s growth from insurgent guerrilla band to a conventional army usingHavok?s Vision Engine 8 and Nvidia?s PhysX.

You will see a true Vietnam that you never seen before in a video game.
And the game is hard challenge when you fighting with lack of weapons and ammutions, a differennt persective with others FPS that you already know."

more than liky a pretty bog standard fps but kudos for them trying something from a different perspective even if just from the blurb its playing the evil french angle

damn, now that sounds interesting. You'd probably see an awful lot of tunnel and trench scenes on the Vietnamese side though, considering some of their major battles featured those heavily. Still, a fresh spin that has peaked my interest ^w^

 

[Karelwolfpup]

Just watched the Ginx TV MoH:Warfighter preview, I saw the "Tier 1" nations being mentioned and I wondered to myself if that might be a new direction for game developers to go?
I'm not sure how anyone else feels, but I'd like to see some FPS games that involve a protagonist that isn't British or American. I've been playing as the American "uber soldier" since Medal of Honor and Wolfenstein, and tbh, I'm rather tired of the idea, much fun as it has been over the years.

I wouldn't mind if more "mainstream" games in the future involved protagonists and campaigns from more diverse nations. We've certainly had some interesting title that have done so, such as Farcry 2 and, to a lesser extent, the Rainbow series with multinational teams. As well as Call of Duty's occassional forays into Soviet, Canadian, Polish and Maquis centred campaigns.
The idea of playing as a German KSK, or Polish GROM team sounds appealing. Hell, I'd play as a North Korean commando or even a Waffen SS soldier if the story and action were well thought out.

So what do you folks think? Are there any ideas that you guys would like to see come to life?

Damn, haha, I went into this thinking it was some sort of mega combination game idea with all three of these elements seemlessly entered in - I'd play that just for its idea.

But in answer to the OP, yes I think I would. How about (this may already exist) a story following a french resistence fighter in world war two, you play a customised man or woman who starts out as a civilian and gets recruited in to secretly wage war against the occupying nazi forces, I'd love to play something like that (if it exists in some similar/form, I'd be greatful if someone mentioned that game's name).

There are countless recent engagements, even within the last hundred years, to find examples of 'the other side' to the US or the UK fighting, there'd even be thousands of battles not involving either of them, so making a game centered around one of those real or fantasied battles would be refreshing, only downside, will it float in a US market, if you aren't a US hero, that'll be the counter point, but I say who cares if it does.

LOL not sure how easy it would be to combine all three styles into one game. Though I guess maybe Fallout: NV kinda did that? maybe? would be interesting to see the idea perfected ^w^

I'm afraid Medal of Honor: Underground beat you to the idea about the Maquis a good 10+ years ago XD would still be interesting to see it done, if they were planning a more serious look, that is. Otherwise I'd just go back to The Saboteur.

I dunno, I find it hard to believe that the American market is so biased since Japanese RPGs are still marketable there. Hell, just look at Spec Ops: The Line. Good way to shake up the market and introduce new ideas in a stagnating industry ^w^