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The Crossing - A New Way to FPS?
1up has a look at Arkane Studios' extremely ambitious new project. Called The Crossing, the FPS title looks to combine single and multi-player modes in a new way. From the article: "In the simplest sense, story missions are single-player shooting with an exception: Naturally intelligent human opponents take the place of A.I. There are two types of players: Elites and skirmishers. Elites are gamers playing the game in story mode. They're beefed up, heavily armored, and heavily armed. They have to be able to hold their own against a swarm of skirmish players. Skirmishers are gamers who typically play on multiplayer maps: well-trained, rank-and-file soldiers playing primarily to have some quick fun and increase their rank through defeating the occasional Elite. Skirmish players can also invade story maps and 'possess' A.I.s ala Agent Smith in The Matrix." So even if you're playing through the story, you'll still be challenged by the 'NPCs', all of whom will be played by a real-life human. Sounds like it could either be awesome or a total flop. Which side are you leaning on?
I don't know what it's doing on a site called "unrealnation", but there is a mirror, I think.
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This idea is no different from the PVP quests in WOW (on a PVP server) rather than running in and killing a bunch of "stupid" creatures to capture a point, they leave it up to the other side to defend the point. Sometimes, it's rediculous (30 oppostion camping lower level areas), and sometimes there are no other players defending. I think that if this game is beta tested enough (make sure balance exists, safegaurds against griefing, etc.) it could be a great game. All depends on the publisher.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
You can already play an overmatched pitched FPS battle in America's Army. One of the Special Forces maps -- "Assault". Side A has 24 players armed with only a smoke grenade and an M4 with no scope, while side B is just 6 players, but they are given AR-249 "saw" machineguns and 6 boxes of ammo. Side A has to parachute into the battlefield, and side B gets a bunker to hide out in. Of course, AA is a more "realistic" FPS game where one shot to the noggin or two/three bullets anywhere kills you (or you can bleed to death from a single gut wound) so it still boils down to tactics and reflexes. This new game sounds like it's more suited to the HALO kids with the "heavily armored" quotes and the like. Off-topic, I've often wondered why the Army didn't make the soldiers more durable in their game. It's way too easy to die to be an effective recruiting tool. ;)
Militant Agnostic: "I don't know, and damn it, neither do you!"