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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?
Mostly because if a player wanted to play against another player, they'd play online. Personally, the last thing I'd want is to be playing the story mode and have TeHUb4R1337GuY show up. Maybe it's just me...
"I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability."-Oscar Wilde
Step 1: Allow PvP griefing in your game.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!
Sounds like someone is trying to invent step 2, there. Like any other PvP, whether it works will depend on how well the game is balanced. One player -- who probably is not a die-hard PvPer -- against a swarm of PvP-savvy opponents? That sounds very difficult to balance correctly. Best of luck to the designers, they're gonna need it.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
I see problem with this - skill gap between people that typically play single player FPS to enjoy storyline and people that play multiplayer competitively is so huge that no armor, health boosts or anything will help.
I can't wait. The Hobgoblin of story-based FPS is that predictability of the NPCs. Even when they're pretty smart, you can count on them to behave in certain critically flawed ways. Or, they're un-realisically fast and impossible to deal with.
Not to mention, re-play will be much more interesting.
I'm really looking forward to being spawn-camped in single player.
I've always wondered about a pokemon game in which you played the "random trainer"... You must stand entirely still, hoping to hell that after 20-40 hours the hero comes around. If he does, without avoiding your watchful gaze, you get a single battle against him. Oh joy. Afterwards, he might be desprete enough to talk with you...maybe even register your phone number... But seriously, this is basically DnD inversed (1 player vs. 90 GMs). Sounds like Splinter-Cell Multiplayer...or objective counterstrike maps on servers that don't kick you for rescuing hostages/pslnting the bomb. Doesn't matter though. In the end it'll go down to "get the most kills".
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
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!!
$_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
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.
Does a line appended to your comment give your post meaning in and of itself, or only in relation to those without?
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
Trusting software vendors is no smarter than trus
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..
Depends if your idea of fun is to have NPC players replaced with 12yr olds that would like nothing better then to ruin your single player game. IF you can can ensure that the NPC players are of a certain quality level and stay in character then yes it could be cool. Pay the NPC players a fair wage and have players rate them and maybe you'd have something.
I do see that some of this is addressed in the article but overall it appears you'd have to be very rigid in making sure your NPC player strictly follow a story line as opposed to just hoping on and treating this like UT, BF, or any other PvP online game.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Don't be an ass. There are plenty of subpar online players as well, and undoubtedly plenty of people who excel at FPS but would rather not be bothered by the hacks and cheats and immature behavior that flourishes in so many of the multiplayer venues, so confine most of their playtime to the single-player games and/or maps.
I'd also have concerns about my son playing a game where live human opponents might jump in and interact with him. We were playing soccer in Garry's Mod and within minutes a griefer jumped on, stole the ball, and wouldn't let go of it. I explained to my son what a griefer was, turned off the server, and turned it on again with a password. Fortunately Sam couldn't read at the time, so he couldn't see the stream of obscenities showing up in the game.
An entire game that involves folks like that is going to make me steer clear of it. I suspect other parents may feel the same. Kudos to the company for trying something different, though.
You do realize that there are many of us that play both, right? I always complete the single player campaigns in any FPS as well as participate in multiplayer.
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.
EQ tried this briefly on their test server maybe 5 years ago. On the character selection screen you were given a "Monster" option. It didn't work, and they took the option off there.
It's got several problems. None of them are insurmountable, but I would be surprised if any game company could successfully overcome all of them without several significant attempts.
1) Players will not fill the role they were designed for. 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. In EQ they had monsters from the level 10 area wander down to the level 1 area and grief the level 1's until someone bigger came along and wiped them out (only to start the cycle again 10 minutes later). You can design a game which prevents the monster from straying too far from their intended purpose, but then how fun is that?
2) Monster balance and player balance are very different things. Monsters are buffed in certain ways to make up for their lack of real AI. These same buffs are unbalanced when those abilities can be used intelligently. These different levels of buffing will make it challenging to make player controlled monsters balanced for all players. Also as a monster your intended role ultimately is to be defeated by the player. Why do you want to go into a situation you know is likely to defeat you as your primary purpose?
3) What do you do as a monster until the player arrives? Maybe you're switching around a lot between monsters so you are always near the player, but what if the player skips you (or you don't find the player)?
4) Especially in games that are approached as single player games, you really need to have a nice challenge gradient. It needs to be doable and the player needs to succeed more than they fail, but not have success be overly easy. Otherwise the player will get bored or frustrated.
5) If you successfully overcome all of these obstacles, how are you really any different from any other pvp game that has classes? Zomg my rogue can take out a priest before they even knew what hit them, or my hunter can two-shot a mage. What is the real distinction here other than one player vs many (and how do you make the many aspect interesting enough that it's not just a standard pve game all around, and how do you keep it from being so interesting that noone wants to be the single player?)
The only thing that's different about this from MMO PVP is that one side is the good guy (maybe) and the other side is evil (maybe).
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
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.
Complexity Happens
People usually complain that NPC sucks, the AI isn't advanced enough... so if they set traps, why bother? A single person rushing into a storm of baddies isn't supposed to be easy. Of course, FPS aren't remotely realistic in that aspect - Gordon Freeman beating a crapload of aliens, Doom Marine disposing of hordes of demons, Masterchief, pick your poison. Even the dummiest and underarmored grunts would eventually overwhelm a lonely player. Jedi Knights would probably make an interesting fight though (Clone Wars style, not the pussy they were in movies).
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
...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.
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
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.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
I think this would be a lot better if the simple players were controlled from just a few humans view overhead map controls like an RTS. Let the AI take care of the small details and let a human take care of the strategy. Would be a lot better than the CONSTANTLY dying that would occur in FPS mode.
NPC predictability gets even worse in another video game (albeit not first-person, not shooter) whose title includes "Crossing". The game Animal Crossing for Nintendo GameCube is intended to be played in at least 730 sessions spanning 365 days, but the NPCs run out of things to say after about seven.
One of the reasons I don't play multiplayer PvP type games anymore is because I don't have the time to play continuously, only now and then. So I don't have the skills that 14 year olds who do nothing but play all day (and who have all the lastest exploits and robot hacks running), who do nothing but trash talk and rnu around blasting everything that moved.
So to sum it up: I go there for enjoyment, not to listen to crap and get 'powned' by L33T uber hackers without a life. Probably the vast majority of FPS players feel the same way.
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.
Can I bum a sig?