Being someone who has played plenty of FPS's and MMO's here are the essentials to a great MMOFPS:
1. No Guns! (or the option to play without vs those who choose the same option) - guns mean aimbots, you need some swordplay like the Jedi Knight series, Rune, etc. to prevent cheating. - gameplay > all. sometimes complicating a game by allowing you to have super leet grenades only makes it less fun. Think of a chessboard double it's regular size with twice as many pieces. Anyone can aim a gun, it's not fun anymore and it's not competitive unless you decide to stick to one gun game for the next two years to avoid having to relearn aim in other games -- an absolute nightmare if you own multiple gun games.
2. Clans! - FPS's main method of keeping a steady population years after their release is by allowing anyone to make a clan, screw MMO's and their factions, I want to choose from factions real people create.
3. Make organized clan matches result in territory wars a la risk, but make them scheduled like real FPS clans schedule matches. - That means whenever they want as long as all parties agree, but no set period where they must protect their territory because even though all those stories about some kindergartner being god at Quake sound appealing, most of the really good FPS'ers are young adults with lives, too. The clan matches should revolve around my clan's schedule, not the game's schedule. You can make the control a clan has over a certain area gradually disappear with time so clans can't sit forever on a piece of land and refuse to fight for it.
4. Balancing an MMO's duels between different classes is easy. A FPS is much harder, in fact I would say nearly impossible unless they're restricted to the same weapons vs each other in a symmetrical world or something ridiculous @_@. Either, spend a lot of time ensuring this is balanced, or force players to use the same weapons vs each other to make it fun -- or even make the stats/experience system allow for a higher gain if duplicate weapons are used.
5. Fair fights are fun because the other person can't claim a handicap if you win!
6. Tie "virtual material possessions" to the land a clan fights other ACTUAL PEOPLE to retain. Basically, make it more like life.
Some other ideas:
-Use the Instancing model to support low ping duels. -Crafting has a place in a FPSMMO, think about clothing, it shouldn't hook into your gear, though, because that just leads to unfair fights which, as said, I believe to be the cornerstone of a FPS. -So what's there to do? Kill people to earn stats, higher stats go to new areas opening up and allowing you certain privileges in your clan such as the ability to arrange a clan match, or the ability to induct a new member.
To be honest, I would be satisified with current FPS's having some kind of "teleport to another server" portal, but if you're going to go all the way please do it right.
Uh first off, what parent poster described sounds a lot like what ID is doing. Maybe a superficial version of what you describe, but if you consider the sheer number of Quake 3 engine based games from different publishers and their many differences its not a a stretch.
and to this:
"2) Developers generally want their own engines because they want to add their own features to make their game more unique."
Do they really? I doubt many game developers are very excited about their work. Maybe in the creation of say.. Half Life 2 they were, but not Madden 2030. If anything they probably prefer a third party engine so they can spend more time polishing additional features rather than writing an engine from scratch.
True but Diablo 1 was still popular. The only reason the multiplayer wasn't popular was because BINGO you guessed it: cheating. Ah, Diablo..good times.
Welcome to the big leagues firefox! Instead of pages of slashdot comments saying wow I wonder if we're there yet, people are saying, "You know I've used this forever but I have a problem with this bug/feature."
- note I have personally stopped buying the razors and have used the same one for the past 6 months with very little difference to my 5 o'clock shadow. It's a rougher shave but who gives a damn when it saves me 12$ a month. - ink jet printers almost always suck - free mobile phones always suck - curiousity killed the cat, or got them hooked on smack..
I would have to agree that competitive play is really where PC games are headed, and this shouldn't be suprising looking at the current state of popular competitive sports.
Competitive play vs other sentient beings just happens to be long term self-sustainable gameplay. hehe.
When it comes to accessorizing, and your name for a multiplayer game is just that: an accessory.. it's your first impression so even though it's just a silly name it still can matter for the social benefit. It's the same reason people wear gel in their hair and others don't, we have choice so we express ourselves however we like.
I never had the problem with new account registrations already being taken because I picked I liked but was very original and obscure.
BUT, on the topic of variations... they're just going to mock the beauty of the original, am I right?
Your next best bet is to simply go with Taco, or something entirely different but equally inspiring to you.
I was going to mod this insightful, but then I decided to do some research about the facts.
"The climate-aerosol debacle: The U.N. science advisory group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has a big credibility problem. Its 1996 report, the basis for Kyoto, had to admit that the rapid warming predicted by computer models was not occurring. So they hit on an explanation to account for the discrepancy: Sulfate aerosols, particles created from the burning of coal and other sulfur-containing substances, were supposed to reflect incident sunlight and create an offsetting cooling--forcing an agreement with the observations that show no warming trend. Unfortunately for the IPCC, the details don't match. The Southern Hemisphere, containing fewer aerosols, should be warming more rapidly-but it isn't."
by S. Fred Singer Washington Times, January 10, 1999
I wish I had time to follow the trail further.. I leave you to your own conclusions. Maybe someone already knows, but with agendas flamebait is inevitable.. I look to someone with a very reliable source to clear this up.
Methodical analysis is all well and good but some things beyond human analysis are better handled organically.
His conclusion is organic. Despite/.'s dreamworld, one doesn't have to react analytically to every stimuli.
In true/. form I wrote the above before reading TFA. It's sad because the FIRST paragraph is this:
"Nobody can completely understand the entire field of game design. There are too many interacting elements, too much information, for the human mind to perceive and consider simultaneously. Thus nobody can hope to think about all of game design at once. The only solution available to the designer is to conceptually split the field up into manageable chunks, each of which can then be considered separately."..which basically drives my point home. Don't blame the author for a confusing dyanmic that exists in video games. He's not making it up, he's describing it. So what if the subject is boring, say that, don't say the article is style-less and devoid of mechanics. You're disappointed because this wasn't the article you expected, critique the article based on it's merits please!!
Any game or construct whose complexity is beyond complete human understanding which involves competition person vs person (rather than person vs cpu) deserves coaching. People tend to care about winning versus other people. The rationale is if you beat another person it's proof you're unique out of the billions of humans on earth, so you feel better with each win. The best part about this kind of reward is you automagically have an audience to confirm your godlike skills (hint: your victim.) The fact that the game is beyond human's complete understanding means no person can truly master it, but they CAN master other people.
I've mastered Jedi Knight Academy (aka JKA, JK3, JK2: JA) as well as it can be, and most of the reason I played was so I could train all my clanmates. It's cool you can have a version of turf wars online with clan matches and such. Instead of virtual turf, you fight over clan name and personal name recognition. It sounds immature, but man competing versus his peers I feel is somewhat of an elemental necessity, too.
Morihei Ueshiba, the creator of Akido is stirring in his grave right now, but the way I see it is there will always be a bully regardless of the steps we take to prevent it, so learning to defeat our peers shouldn't be considered immature or necessarily immoral... it should be considered ambitious, and noble in the right context. But yea... about this soapbox..
Slashdot Mirror
Being someone who has played plenty of FPS's and MMO's here are the essentials to a great MMOFPS:
1. No Guns! (or the option to play without vs those who choose the same option)
- guns mean aimbots, you need some swordplay like the Jedi Knight series, Rune, etc. to prevent cheating.
- gameplay > all. sometimes complicating a game by allowing you to have super leet grenades only makes it less fun. Think of a chessboard double it's regular size with twice as many pieces. Anyone can aim a gun, it's not fun anymore and it's not competitive unless you decide to stick to one gun game for the next two years to avoid having to relearn aim in other games -- an absolute nightmare if you own multiple gun games.
2. Clans!
- FPS's main method of keeping a steady population years after their release is by allowing anyone to make a clan, screw MMO's and their factions, I want to choose from factions real people create.
3. Make organized clan matches result in territory wars a la risk, but make them scheduled like real FPS clans schedule matches.
- That means whenever they want as long as all parties agree, but no set period where they must protect their territory because even though all those stories about some kindergartner being god at Quake sound appealing, most of the really good FPS'ers are young adults with lives, too. The clan matches should revolve around my clan's schedule, not the game's schedule. You can make the control a clan has over a certain area gradually disappear with time so clans can't sit forever on a piece of land and refuse to fight for it.
4. Balancing an MMO's duels between different classes is easy. A FPS is much harder, in fact I would say nearly impossible unless they're restricted to the same weapons vs each other in a symmetrical world or something ridiculous @_@. Either, spend a lot of time ensuring this is balanced, or force players to use the same weapons vs each other to make it fun -- or even make the stats/experience system allow for a higher gain if duplicate weapons are used.
5. Fair fights are fun because the other person can't claim a handicap if you win!
6. Tie "virtual material possessions" to the land a clan fights other ACTUAL PEOPLE to retain. Basically, make it more like life.
Some other ideas:
-Use the Instancing model to support low ping duels.
-Crafting has a place in a FPSMMO, think about clothing, it shouldn't hook into your gear, though, because that just leads to unfair fights which, as said, I believe to be the cornerstone of a FPS.
-So what's there to do? Kill people to earn stats, higher stats go to new areas opening up and allowing you certain privileges in your clan such as the ability to arrange a clan match, or the ability to induct a new member.
To be honest, I would be satisified with current FPS's having some kind of "teleport to another server" portal, but if you're going to go all the way please do it right.
yeah but its not good for longevity of a game if everyone can cheat
:)
its fun as hell when you first get on though
The PUNS, though.
They drive me insane, I just can't read Pier's work.
Uh first off, what parent poster described sounds a lot like what ID is doing. Maybe a superficial version of what you describe, but if you consider the sheer number of Quake 3 engine based games from different publishers and their many differences its not a a stretch.
and to this:
"2) Developers generally want their own engines because they want to add their own features to make their game more unique."
Do they really? I doubt many game developers are very excited about their work. Maybe in the creation of say.. Half Life 2 they were, but not Madden 2030. If anything they probably prefer a third party engine so they can spend more time polishing additional features rather than writing an engine from scratch.
True but Diablo 1 was still popular. The only reason the multiplayer wasn't popular was because BINGO you guessed it: cheating. Ah, Diablo..good times.
Welcome to the big leagues firefox! Instead of pages of slashdot comments saying wow I wonder if we're there yet, people are saying, "You know I've used this forever but I have a problem with this bug/feature."
:)
From one nightmare, to the next.
manifox destiny
- note I have personally stopped buying the razors and have used the same one for the past 6 months with very little difference to my 5 o'clock shadow. It's a rougher shave but who gives a damn when it saves me 12$ a month.
- ink jet printers almost always suck
- free mobile phones always suck
- curiousity killed the cat, or got them hooked on smack..
no
you've given me absolutely no compelling reason to..
Yea that sounds like a lot of fun.
I'm really an enabler when it comes to FPS vs other styles of games.
FPS type games rely on organic 'short-game' skills which are mostly reflex based (e.g. finger memory) but they also have intelligent strategies too.
Countering, distractions, luring, etc.
aimbotting kills most of the fair play unfortunately, but that's why I play jedi academy saber-only. impossible to aimbot that game!
it's called sarcasm -- that's what they blamed for the original release.
Good article Zonk, you could have added COD2 to the list and made it a threesome, though. (New graphics, mostly the same old gameplay and old maps)
:)
I assume your post was referring to JK2 single player, but I'll ask anyway. I'm curious Zonk, are you involved with the online Jedi Academy community?
Online play is still fairly popular. I go by variations of the onomatopoeic word, "Grr", who knows we might already know each other.
I would have to agree that competitive play is really where PC games are headed, and this shouldn't be suprising looking at the current state of popular competitive sports.
Competitive play vs other sentient beings just happens to be long term self-sustainable gameplay. hehe.
rofl
yea it was a good show. HEART!!!
'news for nerds'
:)
most nerds don't have aids and aren't starving.
Unless you live in China. :)
When it comes to accessorizing, and your name for a multiplayer game is just that: an accessory.. it's your first impression so even though it's just a silly name it still can matter for the social benefit. It's the same reason people wear gel in their hair and others don't, we have choice so we express ourselves however we like.
I never had the problem with new account registrations already being taken because I picked I liked but was very original and obscure.
BUT, on the topic of variations... they're just going to mock the beauty of the original, am I right?
Your next best bet is to simply go with Taco, or something entirely different but equally inspiring to you.
I was going to mod this insightful, but then I decided to do some research about the facts.
"The climate-aerosol debacle: The U.N. science advisory group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has a big credibility problem. Its 1996 report, the basis for Kyoto, had to admit that the rapid warming predicted by computer models was not occurring. So they hit on an explanation to account for the discrepancy: Sulfate aerosols, particles created from the burning of coal and other sulfur-containing substances, were supposed to reflect incident sunlight and create an offsetting cooling--forcing an agreement with the observations that show no warming trend. Unfortunately for the IPCC, the details don't match. The Southern Hemisphere, containing fewer aerosols, should be warming more rapidly-but it isn't."
by S. Fred Singer
Washington Times, January 10, 1999
http://www.sepp.org/glwarm/partinggreen.html
http://www.sepp.org/bios/singer/biosfs.html
But then again, lets take a look at what a certain third party has to say about his character:
http://www.ecosyn.us/adti/Singer-Nightline.html
I wish I had time to follow the trail further.. I leave you to your own conclusions. Maybe someone already knows, but with agendas flamebait is inevitable.. I look to someone with a very reliable source to clear this up.
All you need is a C or D to pass.
In my experiences cheating is rampant within U.S. universities.
Moving the zillion atoms that make up the human body seems like a longshot at best.
Does it matter which atoms and molecules you use as long as they construct the same end result?
mod up plz thx. :D
hit the nail on the head with "expectations"
Actually, the way the bullet flies in the air can mean a CRAPLOAD about substance and style.
:)
Multiplayer games and online competitions. I forgive you for thinking entirely in the context of a single player game, though.
"Nobody can analytically examine all of the game design at once."
That's the primary difference between organic and methodical analysis.
Organic analysis is used for subjects too complex for human's to completely understand methodically.
Methodical analysis is all well and good but some things beyond human analysis are better handled organically.
/.'s dreamworld, one doesn't have to react analytically to every stimuli.
/. form I wrote the above before reading TFA. It's sad because the FIRST paragraph is this:
..which basically drives my point home. Don't blame the author for a confusing dyanmic that exists in video games. He's not making it up, he's describing it. So what if the subject is boring, say that, don't say the article is style-less and devoid of mechanics. You're disappointed because this wasn't the article you expected, critique the article based on it's merits please!!
His conclusion is organic. Despite
In true
"Nobody can completely understand the entire field of game design. There are too many interacting elements, too much information, for the human mind to perceive and consider simultaneously. Thus nobody can hope to think about all of game design at once. The only solution available to the designer is to conceptually split the field up into manageable chunks, each of which can then be considered separately."
nice one about the mac'n'cheese :P
Any game or construct whose complexity is beyond complete human understanding which involves competition person vs person (rather than person vs cpu) deserves coaching. People tend to care about winning versus other people. The rationale is if you beat another person it's proof you're unique out of the billions of humans on earth, so you feel better with each win. The best part about this kind of reward is you automagically have an audience to confirm your godlike skills (hint: your victim.) The fact that the game is beyond human's complete understanding means no person can truly master it, but they CAN master other people.
I've mastered Jedi Knight Academy (aka JKA, JK3, JK2: JA) as well as it can be, and most of the reason I played was so I could train all my clanmates. It's cool you can have a version of turf wars online with clan matches and such. Instead of virtual turf, you fight over clan name and personal name recognition. It sounds immature, but man competing versus his peers I feel is somewhat of an elemental necessity, too.
Morihei Ueshiba, the creator of Akido is stirring in his grave right now, but the way I see it is there will always be a bully regardless of the steps we take to prevent it, so learning to defeat our peers shouldn't be considered immature or necessarily immoral... it should be considered ambitious, and noble in the right context. But yea... about this soapbox..