The Jedi Knight series has everything I want in an FPS. Namely, force grip. More FPS's need force grip.

Cheeze_Pavilion:

Indigo_Dingo:

And bosses who function on principles other than sight? Say, one who can detect you via their sense of smell? The only way to confuse it is with the flamethrower (You ever tried to smell something with a room full of smoke?)

There are the Berserkers from _Gears of War_ who are blind and work mostly on their sense of hearing.

Hearing was done before in Half Life. I want the other senses. And as taste would probably be out...

Hey wait...

How about an enemy that functions as a psychic - reading your past play styles and reacting according to- Oh damnit, Hideo you magnificent bastard, you beat me to it by many years.

Khell_Sennet:
Games are in a rut, anything expected to be good has been pushed back over and over, and what we've been left with isn't even good enough to roll into a Katamari. The FPS in particular has hit what could be considered a mid-life crisis, but he can't fix it like we would; divorce his wife for a slutty blonde and buy that sports car he always wanted...

What FPS gaming needs most is to break away from the carbon-copy cloning and try something new. My suggestions:

-Female player characters. Perfect Dark is the last true FPS I can recall where you didn't play as a mute soldier-dude of some sort. Womans-Lib crap aside, it might be nice just to mix it up a bit.

-Unambiguous back-stories and main character dialog would be nice. I for one have had my fill of games where caveman grunting was the extent of the main character's vocabulary. It's become a running gag, much like Morn from Deep Space Nine. Everyone speaks to him, but he never speaks back. This isn't the Commodore-64 era with AD-Lib sound and 5 1/2" floppy discs, I want some gods damned voice acting. Duke Nukem and Lo Wang were the most vocal FPS characters ever, and their games are STILL epic.

Yeah & No... I think there's a 3-pronged problem with this one. Many people would argue that the faceless nameless mute SOB which seems to be the default (face & name notwithstanding) allows you mentally to step into the "1st person" more easily than a set personality.
Also, most "personalities" in such games are Grade A 'tards, who induce you to turn your speakers off just to ignore their witless contributions, which are often not germane to the topic, or what the player woud say if given the choice... Which leads to the last of the problems: put conversation options in and you're in FPS/RPG country. No bad thing by my reckoning, particularly as the conventions observed in RPGs (such as encumbrance) usually make for a more realistic game. It's just that some people find it slow and over-thought, as opposed to the high-speed run & gun sessions they might enjoy.

Khell_Sennet:
-Some original firearms please. Digital entertainment is not bound by that retarded contract that keeps the US military from using non-Colt firearms, I don't want to see another M-16 or Colt Commando for at least five years (Historic games aside). The firearms choices are tired, lets mix them up... No more M1911 pistols, no more Uzi or Mac-10 SMGs, and no more gods damned miniguns. Miniguns don't exist as man-pack weapons, never did, never will, there simply isn't a way to carry enough ammo for sustained use. Last item to mention, who's idea was it to put Crossbows into every fucking FPS possible? The crossbow was a mostly-failure weapon in its own era, and complete fraking slag today.

Amen to that brother. I know this thread is dangerously close to turning into an epic gunwank but the AR15/M16 in all its incarnations pisses me right off. It's not even a decent gun (shitty 5.56mm NATO rounds & unreliable, especially in jungle or desert terrain, where all America's recent wars seem to get fought) but it turns up time after time in FPS games. Understandable in games where it's historically mandatory but otherwise give me a break. Likewise the M1911- I had the dubious pleasure of firing one of these in Manila, and while the .45 ACP bullets are reassuringly large and intimidating, the gun jammed 3 times in the course of 50 rounds. It might not have been maintained ideally, but this took place in an air-conditioned range, not out in the jungle, so conditions wouldn't seem to make a huge difference.

Ultimately, the problem seems to be the iconic symbolism of the two guns- whilst they're still in use by the US Military, they'll remain the symbols of military power, even though they suck balls.

Khell_Sennet:

-New and interesting locations? Just a thought, but I've had my fill of brown castles and underground lairs, and historic games aside, I won't go near another bombed-out city. Lets try POPULATED cities... Or how about something set in Japanese pagodas, a Tibetan temple, Greek ruins, the forests of British Columbia, or the mountains of Slovenia? Not to mention some other, more "controversial" areas... Schools and the Vatican come to mind... Pope-Hunt III, make your way through the catacombs under Rome and battle Nazi-Pope in his secret chambers.

I'll add more as I think them up, but what are your ideas or beefs with FPSs?

A couple of other things:

No FPS game (except Gears of War with its infamous chainsaw bayonet) seems to let you use melee weapons and firearms together. In historical games, a fixed bayonet should be an option if you have a rifle, whilst a pistol in one hand and a sword/machete/cutlass in the other seems quite reasonable and is bourne out by historical examples.

Line Of Sight should be the prime method for antagonists to find you in most games, presuming they're unaugmented humans with no supernatural abilities or uber high-tech devices. Where do they train these psychics who automatically know where you are in a building and are impervious to stealth or distraction tactics, and why aren't they doing special ops instead of guarding pointless grey corridors?

You know what I want? Bosses. Yeah, bosses. When was the last time you fought a really challenging and fun boss in an FPS. Sure, Portal had a good one, but to be honest, how hard was picking up orbs and incinerating them? Look at Return to Castle Wolfenstein. It had some pretty epic bosses: When was the last time you fought a giant demon in a World War 2 game?

Indigo_Dingo:

And bosses who function on principles other than sight? Say, one who can detect you via their sense of smell? The only way to confuse it is with the flamethrower (You ever tried to smell something with a room full of smoke?)

Halflife Pit Monster that only works through sound.

Which reminds me, what ever happened to the Hound-Eyes in HL2?

GenHellspawn:
When was the last time you fought a giant demon in a World War 2 game?

Just before there was the fan-boi move to 'REALISM'. :)

Solid Snake versus the Cyclops could be cool.

Indigo_Dingo:
The fact that gaming is new. Simple as that. Film was seen as less than art when it was first introduced, and games will have to go through the same period.

video games are the heavy metal of the 90s/00s, metal was the hippies of the 80s/90s, disco and the hippies before that, rock and roll before that, jazz music before that and so on

Khell_Sennet:

-Some original firearms please. Digital entertainment is not bound by that retarded contract that keeps the US military from using non-Colt firearms, I don't want to see another M-16 or Colt Commando for at least five years (Historic games aside). The firearms choices are tired, lets mix them up... No more M1911 pistols, no more Uzi or Mac-10 SMGs, and no more gods damned miniguns. Miniguns don't exist as man-pack weapons, never did, never will, there simply isn't a way to carry enough ammo for sustained use. Last item to mention, who's idea was it to put Crossbows into every fucking FPS possible? The crossbow was a mostly-failure weapon in its own era, and complete fraking slag today.

the firearms thing i agree with, i'd like to see better stats on them, like the h&k g36 is WAY under powered in most games, to make the american guns look good in comparission. there have been a few fps to use real stats and the g36 seems over powered. the issue is the m16 is an old gun much like the ak-47 but both are still widely used, so it's something we're familiar with

i would like to see different guns in games but the issue is balance, in stuff games like cod and battlefield and counter-strike, you are playing in a modern setting, what fun is it to be on the terrorist side using an ak-47 against a force using a gun that has 5 times the range, firing rate and way better accuracy? it's not fun, it's like trying to drag race a ferrari in a honda civic, it would be better closer and better if ppl knew and followed some strategy

i just get annoyed at ppl who will say you're camping as a sniper when you find a nice god spot and start picking ppl off, well i'm a sniper dude and that's what snipers do, they sit in one spot for a bit and then move when ppl figure out where they are

i would like to see some alternative weapons, base them on real weapons but don't make the exact copies of them, kinda like how uncharted did with all it's guns. tho i do like the GoW and UT weapons, they are futuristic without being cartoony and over the top, well for the most part

I really want more than 2 teams in Team Deathmatch, grand theft auto IV had that idea. Was one of the few good things about the game. Also, if it has vehicles, is it still an FPS? if yes then I want them all to be like Battlefield 2 on PC. Troop, Vehicle and Aircraft = win.

Indigo_Dingo:

Cheeze_Pavilion:

Indigo_Dingo:

And bosses who function on principles other than sight? Say, one who can detect you via their sense of smell? The only way to confuse it is with the flamethrower (You ever tried to smell something with a room full of smoke?)

There are the Berserkers from _Gears of War_ who are blind and work mostly on their sense of hearing.

Hearing was done before in Half Life. I want the other senses. And as taste would probably be out...

It would basically just be Lightcycles from Tron except you'd be trying *not* to get the other person to cross your previous path.

Comments regarding the original topic:

Indigo_Dingo:
How about enemies that can actually take you by suprise...

....And bosses who function on principles other than sight? Say, one who can detect you via their sense of smell? The only way to confuse it is with the flamethrower (You ever tried to smell something with a room full of smoke?)

Wonderful ideas. I sure as hell would love to see enemies sneaking up on ME, instead of me stumbling into THEIR path.

paint_by_numbers:
I would like a FPS that doesn't deal with modern warfare. Not caveman, but more like hunter-gatherer style with bows and rival clans etc to fight, or hunt wild animals etc. Kinda like stealth-fps but periods of creeping around in grass etc, crawling, to outflank/outmaneuver enemy interspersed by intense battles haha. Would be cool multiplayer too lol. Perhaps set in like a jungle, or even desert plains, or anywhere really.

That's actually a good unique and intriguing concept. As a game on its own, I don't think hunting would make it, but mix in some RPG elements (FPS-RPG) and make it a life sim from the first person view. Now I have 10,000 BC stuck in my mind, the mammoth hunts would ROCK as a game.

Comments regarding "Postal/Bully" Hybrid

Fire Daemon:
khell, you do know that people are going to think your fucking insane if you make a game centered around killing "bullies", and the Lawyers will have a fucking field day with it. Not to mention that it will fuck up some kids. Fuck em up real bad like...

They're already fucked up
Lawyers also work FOR gaming companies, if paid
And I AM insane

TheNecroswanson:
Not any worse then the drugs people feed their kids because they're "too uncontrollable and hyper", or those bastards who raise their children on coffee and family guy.
If anything Khell's ideas will only be guilty of being informative and educational, even artistic.
Games are a new form that people need to understand shouldn't be scapegoated, and beleive it or not messages can be delivered through them. Fox news went on a tirade that mass Effect told kids to rape based on one man's words, who eventually retracted the statement. How influencial would it be when in a video game a kid shoots himself because his parents never listened. Sometimes morals have to be removed to create results.

I thank you for your support, and for being able to think outside the box and realize what others blind themselves against. As I've always stated, games and movies and music do NOT cause the problems people think they do, PEOPLE cause the problems. Research studies have been conducted on the impact of violent games on kids, teens, and adults, but any study that doesn't support the media view of "it fucks them up" is repressed. One I read five years ago had found that playing violent games RELEASES the pent up urges, making the participant more well adjusted for not bottling up their feelings.

shadow skill:
You are right but at the same time no one will ever push the envelope if no one tries to do so. You have to confront people like this head on; are they going to suggest books that deal with controversial subjects be banned just because it deals with ccontroversial subject matter? You have to be able to ask the question "Why are games treated differently from books or movies? What is it that prevents games from being considered art?"

What I feel is the biggest holdback for game developers is the past incidents of blame. D&D for decades has been blamed for anti-christian behavior, violence, sexual misconduct, and suicide/murder. Comic books used to get the same treatment until a coalition of moralistic fuckwads made a censorship board for comics which any member company must obey their guidelines (retarded shit like no perma-death, no nudity or vulgarity, no blood, christian morals only). Marvel and DC for YEARS was a member, but eventually Marvel broke away when more risque non-member comics started showing success (Spawn, Heavy Metal). Now games are under scrutiny any time a gun is fired, yet the NRA is allowed to hold rallies at school shooting sites. Fucked up? YEEAAAAH!

Fire Daemon:
I agree that this game will have a very strong message but the kids raised on sugar and Family Guy won't see that, they would see a kid running around and killing his bullies. While having the kid (lets say age 14) kill himself would shock any adult gamer, I don't think an immature idiot would feel the same. Hell they might find it funny.

Daemon, lets not confuse the issue... I never said or intended this game to be for a younger audience. It's a shame that the AO rating is considered more for pornography than simply "Not for Kids" entertainment. This would be a game intended entirely for the 18+ crowd, if any parents are dense enough to still buy it for their kids let THEM carry the blame for their actions.

Cheeze_Pavilion:

...I mean, are you *really* interested in playing a game where you play an Indian killer in the American west? Pretty insensitive, but, I think what you're really looking for is a game that touches on your own 'I know better and it's not civilized, but sometimes I just wish I could take a FLAMETHROWER to these IDIOTS' type sentiments.

I mean, do you *really* want to play a game that depicts American Slavery a la _Viva Pinata_?

OOOh. Fun ideas. Colonial period RTS where you must expand your civilization at the expense of the natives. Also could have a fun flipside game where you play as Natives and go off scalping and killing the white man in a more GTA-style engine. And the Viva Pinata slavery one, it MUST be on the Wii. The Wiimote can simulate a whip. /sarcasm

Jokes aside, yes I do have a special hatred of the Church and would LOVE to see it targeted in a game, and yes I DO think a game where bullies bite bullets is bitchin, but my support for insensitive games mainly boils down to what underlying message is being taught. My Bully/Postal game would be a poignant view on the dangers of repressed emotion and abuse. Some would only see it as a slaughterhouse gore game, but they'd be the thick-skulled idiots that don't get the message when written on huge signs held in front of their face. These kinds of thickies won't get the point, but does that mean such a game shouldn't be made? Should we handicap the industry just because some people don't think outside the box? If this game was just a shooting spree, it would be just another Manhunt and I'd not care less about it...

Okies, that's replies to all of what's on the FIRST page of the thread, the replies to the second page, I'll do a separate post.

FPSs' that target bullies? How about games that target psycotic murderers. Turn Condemned into more of a shooter, take away 507% of the violence, throw in realistic gameplay [because there's a definite difference between FPS Realism (yet to be made), Cartoony (TF2), Violent(Aforementioned Condemned), and Arcade(Everything from Medal of Honor to Halo)] and you have yourself a somewhat righteous fairly decent FPS.
What I have yet to see is a game based on being an Ordinary SWAT specialist. None of these Uber-secret Commandos (Rainbow 6) or in the words of Yahtzee "Magical suits of armour".

As said above, comments on page 2...

Benny Blanco:
Yeah & No... I think there's a 3-pronged problem with this one. Many people would argue that the faceless nameless mute SOB which seems to be the default (face & name notwithstanding) allows you mentally to step into the "1st person" more easily than a set personality...

... words.

Just having voice acting doesn't mean the game has to be bogged down, and putting a name and voice to the character doesn't make it a role-play (at least, not any more than a FPS is to begin with). I mentioned in my first post two epic characters, Lo Wang and Duke Nukem. Both of them spoke, catchy phrases abound, and a face put to the name. Both games were happy fun death time on crack, never slowed down by the dialog except when taunting the anime chick in the waterfall. You want to wash Wang, or you want to watch Wang wash Wang?

I'm not saying cut away to machinima cinematics just to add some conversation in the game, but some chatting over a commline is nice once and a while. Farcry was one of the few games to do this well... Prey really defined the character and I loved it for doing so, didn't suffer from it. Shit happens, talk with your team/help, continue on. Even in a game like Doom3, some realism could be added if the main character spoke to himself. Freaky ass demons popping out of thin air, I don't think some paranoid rambling is all that unthinkable.

GenHellspawn:
You know what I want? Bosses. Yeah, bosses. When was the last time you fought a really challenging and fun boss in an FPS. Sure, Portal had a good one, but to be honest, how hard was picking up orbs and incinerating them? Look at Return to Castle Wolfenstein. It had some pretty epic bosses: When was the last time you fought a giant demon in a World War 2 game?

Thursday. J/K... No, I totally agree, we need boss battles back in FPS games. And someone PLEASE off the current trend of a boss battle being an enemy that becomes rather commonplace later in the game, and was mainly a challenge because of bad location and restricted firearms. Offenders in this category; Doom 3, Halo, Halflife 1, Halflife 2 (though to a lesser extent), and biggest offender, FEAR.

The_root_of_all_evil:

GenHellspawn:
When was the last time you fought a giant demon in a World War 2 game?

Just before there was the fan-boi move to 'REALISM'. :)

I wonder at just how many of the people who thought Nazi Demons in RtCW were "cheesy and unrealistic" were just fine with clockwork nazis in Hellboy...

cleverlymadeup:

i just get annoyed at ppl who will say you're camping as a sniper when you find a nice god spot and start picking ppl off, well i'm a sniper dude and that's what snipers do, they sit in one spot for a bit and then move when ppl figure out where they are

Yes and no. Good snipers (wartime, not policework) make one kill then relocate. It's the fact that dying doesn't actually KILL the player that lets game snipers play Johnny Q Camptastic until killed, THEN they find a new spot. What beefs me about that style of play isn't the whining about camping or the campers whining about "it's a legit strategy"... No, what pisses ME off is that by NOT relocating, and staying put until found, these campers are revealing all the good sniper locations to everyone else. Makes my job all the harder when the other players know every single place I can hide in advance.

Well, that's all for now...

cleverlymadeup:

i just get annoyed at ppl who will say you're camping as a sniper when you find a nice god spot and start picking ppl off, well i'm a sniper dude and that's what snipers do, they sit in one spot for a bit and then move when ppl figure out where they are.

I know Khell already took you up on this, but I just remembered the story about the Iraqi insurgent with a bolt-action rifle and a pushbike who kept a platoon of US Marines pinned down for the best part of a day...

I think it depends on a number of things: objective, environment and training levels (many military units have a spotter and sniper team as opposed to a lone gunman) but once a sniper is aware that he's been spotted he's not usually got the time to move out as suppressive fire or indirect fire (from mortars, air support or whatever) has usually been brought to bear on him.

In an FPS context, you can usually assume you don't have a spotter, your enemy have no indirect fire capabilities and the reduced lethality of weapons means that suppression fire is unlikely to acheive its desired result. Your goal is not to harass the enemy or pick off key personnel and then withdraw, so you just blast people until you run out of ammo or die. Also, cover degradation (beyond cosmetic bullet-hole decals) is unlikely to be a factor, so a perfect hide is even better unless your enemy have a grenade/RPG expert amongst them.

Fire Daemon:

TheNecroswanson:
Not any worse then the drugs people feed their kids because they're "too uncontrollable and hyper", or those bastards who raise their children on coffee and family guy.
If anything Khell's ideas will only be guilty of being informative and educational, even artistic.
Games are a new form that people need to understand shouldn't be scapegoated, and beleive it or not messages can be delivered through them. Fox news went on a tirade that mass Effect told kids to rape based on one man's words, who eventually retracted the statement. How influencial would it be when in a video game a kid shoots himself because his parents never listened. Sometimes morals have to be removed to create results.

I agree that this game will have a very strong message but the kids raised on sugar and Family Guy won't see that, they would see a kid running around and killing his bullies. While having the kid (lets say age 14) kill himself would shock any adult gamer, I don't think an immature idiot would feel the same. Hell they might find it funny.

If the kids raised on sugar ignore the strong message and only buy the game (illegally) for the fact that they are killing the bullies...well if they are ignoring the message what is stopping them from ignoring the outcomes of the characters action. What is stopping them from ignoring any of the messages expressed in the game?

Any message you send is never seen by others as you see it. Some people will see this game as a message that murder is ok. For teenagers against bullies at any rate. Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that games "make kids evil" and I am against television raising but you can't say that this game will not affect kids. Or it at least those who live on sugar and cartoons.

I would buy this game, and I would push its meaning but I would still feel like this game may be a bad thing for kids.

I also think that the Media will feel the same, maybe more so. We have all seen the Mass Effect story on fox; imagine what will happen when this game is brought into the public eye? If it ever is made I would be very surprised.

That's all true. But it would encourage parents, wink, to teach their children between right and wrong, and the difference between reality and fiction. Hopefully, maybe when people stop being irresponsible pricks with their children.

Irridium:
But what I want in an FPS is a gun that shoots cows, not THAT would be origional

Hehe I bet they never believed this would happen, but .... South Park did it!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park_(video_game)#Weapons

TheNecroswanson:

That's all true. But it would encourage parents, wink, to teach their children between right and wrong, and the difference between reality and fiction. Hopefully, maybe when people stop being irresponsible pricks with their children.

Vote for me as President of Canada... I vow to make it law that people obtain a license to become parents.

what about a good old lever action rifle?

and why is viva panata a kids game? you lure in defensless littele animals filled with candy, make 'em feel all happy and safe; then bludgen 'em with a shovel! and thats perfectly fine, but you can't have six minutes in a churhc that acualy exists in a game thats supposed to be realistic (you kno past the whole alian invasion and no WWII)

TheNecroswanson:

That's all true. But it would encourage parents, wink, to teach their children between right and wrong, and the difference between reality and fiction. Hopefully, maybe when people stop being irresponsible pricks with their children.

It would if the Parents of the children this game will effect paid attention to their children.