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News & General Discussion
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Normally I hate on FPS games because I don’t really like the whole deathmatch aspect, which seems to be what a lot of them advertise as the main pull. But, just taking a step back and looking at the mechanics… FPS is the most successful genre ever.

Minecraft, arguably one of the most successful games ever, certainly one of the most successful games not targeted at core gamers… uses FPS controls to navigate the world space.

And oddly, some of my fondest gaming memories were FPS games. GoldenEye, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter spring to mind as two games that I obsessed over to no end.

If you take out the ruthless, glitch/hack no-holds-barred rage fest that is competitive FPS gaming… there’s a lot to love, there.

What y’all think?

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I talk down on fps games quite regularly do to

however - there are some entertaining - great single player fps games.
Bioshock
Dishonored
Skyrim - Oblivion (fps or tps)
Fallout (fps or tps)
Borderlands
Far Cry

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FPS mechanics are incredibly limited and boring

Not to mention they are used to propagate this GI Joe Real American Hero stereotype/fantasy where the player is basically just rewarded for running around and shooting brown people and russians because America fuck yeah. Like we don’t have enough crap media overglorifying the gun and the idea of spreading democracy to the third world?

But from a strictly game design perspective, FPS mechanics are clunky and basically are only good for simulating a world from the perspective of a psychopath who can’t turn his neck and therefore has to turn his whole body to look at anything. And is always pointing a gun at whatever they are looking at, because as previously mentioned, they are a murderous psychopath.

I had a phase with these games when I was like 12, but I quickly grew out of it when I realized how boring they actually were. I just kinda realized that once you’ve played one, you’ve basically played them all.

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So many lol parts… I don’t agree with most of this but very funny.

"simulating a world from the perspective of a psychopath who can’t turn his neck and therefore has to turn his whole body to look at anything. "

Never occured to me… how hilarious.

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In the meantime next Call of Duty will sell 20+ millions of copies. :slight_smile:

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Only because you can’t get the remastered Modern Warfare without getting Infinite Warfare.

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I would say WoW was the most successful game ever…

Considering…

how much $$ it pulled in (which was hundreds of millions/month in its peak)
how many people played
how long they played
size of the game

FPS come along and are popular for a year or two, but thats it. They dont run for 10+ years thats for sure.

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FPS or just FP?

FPS works because it’s point and click with no camera problem (it never stuck into the environment).

What we need is better character interaction.

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Hey now wait a minute @Master-Frog I had thought you “quit” the unity community a couple weeks back? Your hiatus over already eh? :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway FPS style controllers are useful for much more than FPS games, even archviz and stuff use first person walk through controllers and stuff. I think survival games really have taken the focus of first person games away from combat, and into other much more interesting areas like crafting and building and whatnot.

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Well… I think of it like this. @masterfrog or whatever person I was becoming, or had become… and all of the head crazy nonsense he had begun to believe, I feel is not relevant any more. It’s just a user name.

I think it’s important to note, World of Warcraft is not a genre, and I am not sure but if you combine all the revenue from all of the fps games since Doom… I think that you will find I am right about what I said.

Survival games are big right now, but will they be popular for the next 20 years with people playing them religiously. I don’t have any clue. Remains to be seen, though.

Nobody has really touched on the specific appeal of fps games though.

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sounds like nobody’s bothered to try overwatch yet

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Mindlessness? Ease of completion? Power fantasy? Basically all the things that make a successful mainstream title, wrapped up into a package thats easy and cheap to mass produce. Pretty easy answer really.

I had no idea what Overwatch was from the trailers, they made it look like some sort of fast paced acrobatic action game of some sort, not some TF2 knockoff.

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It’s way, way better than TF2. Arguably, it’s the best competitive FPS ever made. Obviously, people need to play it to know though. It’s got it all, the energy of the old school but with the addiction of pvp. What’s not to love.

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Tried it during the beta, tried the robot…

Seemed way too powerful, as in wiping out waves of opponents in turret mode, until a ‘mortar dude’ turned up. :wink:

More of a BF4 FPS player myself but getting old don’t have the reflexes.

PS Love the art style of Overwatch, sort of cartoony PBR??

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Yeah I love the art, seems like it’s not expensive to render either given that it’s 60fps 1080p on console.

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…You mean the one with a giant robot turret, where you get sniped every time you walk through a door way? It’s neat having lots of abilities and stuff in an fps, I just hate dying all of the time. When I go target shooting, I don’t hear anyone saying “it’s more fun when you’re getting shot at!” I like to run and jump and shoot and dodge… not get murdered by rocket whores and camping snipers because they found ways to play the game that I wouldn’t enjoy… that tip the tactical scales in their favor whenever they employ them. Winning isn’t so important to me that I am going to sit in one spot or learn every conceivable exploit or play for 9 hours a day just to eek out a 5% win/loss advantage over my peers.

/rant

Edit: but winning once in a while is nice. And unless you play a certain way, you won’t win or even come close to winning. I can beat someone who is rubbish at video games who has barely played shooting games before, or certain people who are terrible… but seriously, little kids beat me no problem because they play 18 hours a day during summer break… its pointless.

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800×1440 97.7 KB

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I am for them and against them. I don’t have any interest in the military shooters they keep pumping out year after year (the kind @KnightsHouseGames mentioned). But I like the potential offered by such games or at least the viewpoint. And I don’t think it has really been explored much yet.

Like you mentioned, Minecraft used the FP perspective and did a great job with exploring the possibility space. I’m not sure what @neoshaman means by character interaction but in general I am all for having more interaction in games and that is something I would like to see in a FPS.

But the same can be said for basically any games really as far as limited interaction. I don’t really care whether the game is 2D pixel art side scrolling platformer or a 3D FPS, third person whatever as long as it offers many interesting interactions.

It’s this area where I think games still have a lot of potential to explore. We’ve seen games explore gee whiz graphics for (well the past two decades or more), they’ve explored story telling, movie effects, etc. Some have explored richer interaction such as Minecraft but what I would like to see is just games in general explore that possibility space.

Of course, doing all of that is not easy. That kind of thing takes a lot of work.

As far as FPS in general go though I think just having some more variety would be nice. I enjoyed Total Invasion and its sequel Total Invasion 2 (both are free downloads on GameJolt) made by one person with programmer art. Just because it was a different theme.

Here is a WIP (which I don’t know if it was ever released)

I stumbled upon these when I was researching alternatives to Unity dev last year. They are done in something called NAALAA (Not An Advanced Language At All). BTW - The free download of NaaLaa comes with a tutorial on making a ray casting style FPS such as the above.

Also you can check out the 7DFPS (unfortunately doesn’t seem to be a thing anymore but who knows maybe they will do one again some year) and other FPS on GameJolt and other places from hobbyists and maybe find something fresh at least as far as story, environment, mission and presentation are concerned. Possibly some unique gameplay too.

So I guess… why do I like the FPS that I like… because of the potential they have. The simpler games are pretty fun just in themselves things like Blake Stone and such. They feel smooth and fairly fast. Instant gratification of kills. Dancing with enemies. Sometimes some basic interactions such as secret panels, doors and such. But in general it is because I always think maybe this new (which may be old) FPS I just found might surprise me and have something more to it. They have a lot of potential to be more than they are.

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I think the problem with games that have that sort of breadth of mechanics, like Minecraft, is they’re not guaranteed to be fun. It’s still head scratching territory. Why was Minecraft so charming? Iono. Why is some music so catchy? Sometimes lightning strikes in the darndest places.

But a solid fps game is a solid fps game…

Oft imitated, never duplicated… that’s Minecraft and I think even the developers are baffled. Notch plays Overwatch all day.

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Tisch Minecraft is a block shooter!

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