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?

Comments

Its been done before

[simm1701]

Everquest (the original) did an experiment for a while on their PvP servers - you could log in and become one of the low level NPCs randomly in any of the newbie dungeons.

Its was great fun to do and added another dimension to the game - my only regret was that they didn't take it to higher levels!!

Re:Its been done before

[Chris Burke]

Its was great fun to do and added another dimension to the game - my only regret was that they didn't take it to higher levels!!

I imagine that part of the reason was that at higher levels the stakes are higher and thus you'd be more likely to get a friend to throw the match, making it easier. Or it was just a chapter from the Standard MMORPG Designers Manual, where you torture your players in part by designing really cool features that you never expand enough to be anything other than a minor sideshow.

Can you say...

[PieSquared]

Can you say ambush? As in all the human "bad guys" find a place the "good guy" needs to go that also has lots of "bad" NPC, and all point their strongest weapons at the door...

That's just one example of a very simple tactic the "bad guys" are sure to develop in time, even if they can't communicate. The first will probably be "herding" where they stick together, all the better to take down a better armed foe.

Then there's those people who are so bad at FPS that they just won't be able to beat the game if having "real" opponents isn't just an option.

You'll also have to find a "swarm" of people playing the bad side in this odd multiplayer for every "good" player.

Duel-Coop

[IMarvinTPA]

I tried making a mod for Quake that did something like this. I called it Duel-Coop. I'm not sure where my page on it has gotten off to, but I have a broken link on my homepage for it.

IMarv

I had an idea for this type of game

[Some_Llama]

My version would be set in a zombie universe ala dead rising or such, but with a mmorpg feel. Single players would start out as normal players aaginst AI controlled zombies, but if they died they could choose to become one of the undead, with infinite respawns (random area respawns).

The goal would be try to live long enough to escape to a shelter or remote island.

Ever game would be an instance which would reset if goals are accomplished (everyone zombified, or people escape, etc..) that's the basics but the more I think about it the more possibilities for fun gameplay have seemed apparent..

Re:I had an idea for this type of game

[CAIMLAS]

It exists already as a counter-strike: source mod. It's not very fun, whether because they made the game wrong, or because it doesn't scale well to a FPS game.

Think about it: zombies need to be shot once, in the head, to die. A person needs to be bitten once anywhere to turn into a zombie. That seems pretty one-sided, when you consider that zombies 'in real life' don't coordinate, whereas the players will coordinate as zombies. It'd get pretty monotonous: you'd either be trying to avoid zombies, or you'd be trying to hide, sneak, or race up to get someone.

Here's the only way I can see it working: zombies are slow shamblers, except when they get near 'meat' they have a burst of speed/energy due to their desire. Say, just as fast as a human's 'walk' speed, but they don't have a 'run' speed like the humans. They can also become faster by eating meat. Humans would have stamina, so they could only outrun for a short distance; they'd have to rely on other tactics, like shooting and hiding. All of this would require a fairly complex game world, with lots of rooms, buildings, cabinets, and various other places where both humans and zombies could hide.

Zombies could bite the humans, but the humans wouldn't turn right away; it would depend on how much damage was caused. They might be able to get an antidote, or at least prevent themselves from turning (suicide), if they're fast enough and respawn as a human. This respawning could obviously be prevented by injuring them enough, fast enough, to kill and turn them quickly (group tactics, coming from behind, etc.). Zombies, if shot in the head, would die, but then they would respawn at another location.

The flip side

[Sefert]

I play a ton of single player FPS - but after I whip it on hard, then I drop the game. Mostly, I stick to the multiplayer. However, I would probably quite enjoy doing the FPS thing as the hero against a ton of other people - my big worry is that it would be the 12 year old's playing the weak nerfed out opposition. I chew through them with all things being equal now - I can't imagine how easy it would be if they were nerfed. This is a cool concept - but I honestly don't think they'll get the balance right. Too hard to acheive. This is a game where if the hero is exceptionally good or except crappy, it's gonna suck. What if all the opposition are competent guys who want to have a good game, but the hero is some 12 year old that just turns in circles, stuck in the next room cause he can't figure out the controls? It'll feel pretty weak pretty quickly.

Don't hate the PKs, give them what they want

[Squiggle]

I've been waiting for a game to do this for ages. In theory it makes great sense, players enjoy different aspects of a game but usually have identical game experiences. For example, some players enjoy having every advantage over their opponents (and become known as "griefers" who prey upon those that are unlikely to beat them). It seems better to create a game mechanic that turns that style of play into something enjoyable for both sides rather than artificial rules that prevent player interaction.

I just wonder how many players will be interested being an expendable minion. The article/company claims that the PKs will be drawn to this role, but the griefer PKs will likely prefer the "elite" role that is closer to a PvE experience (griefing has always been closer to a PvE experience, but with realistic suffering/domination). The real PvP people usually prefer "fair" fights which might not make them that interested in fights against "elites". I suppose it depends on how it is balanced. If the fight is fair, but just asymmetric so that one side has few troops with great power and the other has many troops with little power, most PvPers shouldn't have an issue with that. I suspect though that the "elite" experience is supposed to be more like a PvE experience, i.e. you almost always win. In that case the minions can only strive for stats: to be the best of the chumps which may have limited appeal.

Regardless of the success of the mechanic, it is a great experiment. I can't wait to play.

Re:Don't hate the PKs, give them what they want

[Kelbear]

You may or may not(probably not) have heard of Natural Selection. A HL1 mod. This pitted teams of Marines against teams of Aliens. The marines begin with rifles, while Aliens begin with teeth and the ability to walk on walls and ceilings. When playing in the RTS/FPS hybrid mode where a commander builds a base and commands players like units in an RTS, the players received all upgrades, armor, ammo, and weaponry from the commander, or would otherwise begin equipped with just the basic equipment. Aliens have no commander, but receive points for killing marines and structures in order to evolve to higher lifeforms.

What would happen is that Aliens spend most of the game as the fragile but damaging Skulk, but then they may encounter a marine that the commander stacked resources on, and is now decked out in Heavy Armor, and a Heavy Machine gun. And it would take the entire team zerging that one marine only to get blown away countless times before finally whittling him down.

And who gets the credit? The one who killed the marine. That's not very satisfying for the other 7 or so aliens who helped you bring the super-powered marine down. And it wasn't all that fun to run into inevitable doom, knowing that you'll die, but just hoping to wound the enemy just enough to get them several ambushes down the line. It involved a lot of waiting to respawn and a lot of just running. A chore to get strangers to work with you on ambushes instead of just charging in and giving away everyone's position.

This is just one rare situation in that game, and is NOT representative of Natural Selection as a whole. But when this occurs, I think it parallels the idea of a single uber-player up against a horde of weak "NPC" players. It's not very fun for the "NPC" players who get reamed by such odds, and kill credit is only given to one NPC.

Re:Everquest tried it briefly

[LoudMusic]

Or more accurately they will deliberately choose to disengage from their intended role since that's tedious. You'll end up with all the monsters from a given level grouping up together for a single assault, or camping and taking pot shots. Sounds like improvement to me, and exactly what they're looking for. They want the traditional AI characters to be more realistic, do things out of the ordinary.

The best AI I've played against (the list is short) were the levels in Half-Life where the Marines in the warehouses. They would alert each other and lock down the target, hailing the player with grenades and machine gun fire. If the same units were human controlled and locked into only playing that one particular room, or building, while main character players were streaming through there one after another, it could be lots of fun. The game for the marine players would be to see how many main characters you can kill off. It'd be like goal tending in soccer.

I had this idea a few years ago...

[Samurai Cat!]

...back when I was tinkering with an MMOG design (yeah, like half the world out there, I know).

The idea was, whenever a player reached a certain repeatable milestone - X hours played or whatever - they would get a chance to "jump into" a boss-level mob out in the world somewhere. So when a party of players encountered that boss mob, it would be another player controlling it and not just an AI. The critter-playing player wouldn't be given any indications as to who the players were - depending on the intelligence level of the mob in question, the critter player would just see X number of pieces of meat walking around, or perhaps basic shapes (say a mob can pick out a magic using enemy vs. a melee-oriented enemy), that sort of thing, to help prevent griefing of certain other players.

The critter-playing mob would have a certain amount of time they could control boss mobs - say a few hours, total - and could use their time as they saw fit, piecemeal or all at once. I figure I would have also built in some sort of alert system - i.e. when a player had some critter time available, they could turn these alerts on - so that when normal players were getting close to a boss mob encounter, alerts would go out to the players with critter time letting them know, so if one wanted to hop in, it wouldn't be too much of a wait until the party arrived and the fun began, and they would get the most out of their critter time.

Re:that is why...

[Buzz_Litebeer]

To put this mildly, when I was in college I would watch my room mate play through medal of honor allied assault, and he was extremely poor at it. If I had been one of the enemy soldiers with as little hitpoints as they have and all the modifiers against them in easy mode, I would have taken him down.

Thats the issue I see with this game as it comes out. Even if the single player character is "awesome" if they weaken the little henchman characters to the point were skill no longer matters, then the game will be fun for neither party. The stronger player character will simply mow through them regardless of how much they suck. If the better player on the NPC side is truly a lot better, say me vs my room mate or maybe my Dad or something, then the person playing the single player part of the game will not enjoy themselves.

My original post was not flame bait either.

Re:I'm going with Flop...

[Jerdie]

Perfect Dark for the N64 had a mode where one player could take over NPCs and fight against the player trying to play through the story.

Having a human NPC made it almost impossible to get through certain points cause it was so easy to make a choke point and destroy the other player.

Re:Single Player... Vs Multi

[aplusjimages]

I love Splinter Cell, but the problem with it and video games in general has been that the NPCs are always the same. I would like to see the NPCs change each time you play it. In Splinter Cell if I wanted to see how a level was laid out I would run through it really quick keeping note of where each enemy was, then I would die with the knowledge that there are 2 guards around this one corner and a guard inside the shack. I would like to see it change with each death and each time I play a new game. Next time have 3-4 guards around the corner and no guard in the shack. I think this new game play will allow this in a way. Each time I pick up the game it will have a semi fresh feel to it. I hope more games adopt this.