quote: Original post by doctorsixstring
[...]How did you come to this conclusion? Most people said the same thing a few years ago before a little game called Rainbow Six came out...[...]

Any many still do (and many more like realism but hate Rainbow Six)... I don't want a 100% realistic game, but some realism is nice. I do prefer realism to cheezy fixes claiming to be realistic but not being anywhere close (see counter-strike's 'jump-stumble' feature to eliminate 'bunny hopping'), but I'll always prefer fun over realism.

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Almost typo-ified using Extrarius' AUTOMATIC Typo Generator, but I decided to be nice =-)

[edited by - Extrarius on March 3, 2003 2:11:07 PM]

TechnoHydra-
Do we develop games for what we think people want, or do we develop games that we think are good in their own way? It''s an age old question, but I tend to follow my own creative juices more than trying to anticipate what the "masses" want.

More often than not, it''s the original games that are the best sellers. What would have happened if Castle Wolfenstein had never been invented ("what do you mean 1st person persepective...nah, that''s too weird,") or if no one came up with Dune ("a real time strategy game?? No way, turn based is the only way to do this..."). Look at movies too...I like to give Braveheart as a great example of a movie that by all accounts should have floppped. I mean who would want to see a movie about an obscure 12th century Scottish hero?

So I think all games have their place, and a game designer shouldn''t be afraid to tackle a project simply because he thinks it may not be particulary attractive to a huge audience. He may have trouble getting a large studio or publishing house to take his idea, in which he can try to go indie if he likes. I honestly think one of the hugest problems with the game industry today is that we don''t make games creatively anymore. Game designers stick to the tried and true formula and ideas that they think will sell.

And to be very honest, I don''t WANT to produce something that the mainstream audience will necessarily like. If games like Grand Theft Auto, DOA Beach Volleyball, and BMX XXX are any indication, I simply don''t want to pander to that. To be honest, I want to create a game with values, with substance, and that will hopefully make the player think and wonder. Choice is a great thing, but it seems like with many games today, we are catering to the lowest common denominator and we don''t have a choice. I also realize that I''m an indie, and more than likely my game will never sell (indeed, my first pet project is going to be freeware), but at least I''ll get my idea out there. Maybe it won''t have the best graphics, the best music and sound effects, but by God, it''s going to be different.

As for your last point, I was trying to get across in the whole post that many changes need to be done to FPS games in order to get rid of the sniper/camper problem. I''m only against snipers and sniper weapons because it is way too easy to hit people in FPS games. Also, sniper weapons in indoor locations (i.e Quake and many UT levels) just doesn''t make sense. I think once you get things like a "fear factor" built into games, and once you make weapon handling more realistic, you''ll see snipers start to lose a lot of their potency...and only players who are truly good will be able to become one. Simply eliminating or including a trail effect does not solve the problem. If people got hit in wars as easily as they do in FPS, wars would be over a lot more quickly (so, maybe that''s not a bad thing...). I believe in Vietnam they calculated that it took more than 100 rounds fired to hit one enemy in a regular platoon sized engagement. Also, in the infamous LA burglary shootout in 97, the robbers fired more than 1200 rounds, and wounded only 16 people in a shootout that lasted 2 hours. In games, how many bullets do you have to shoot in order to hit someone at about 25 yards? I''m sure it''s not 80-100. But realistically, that''s what it takes sometimes under intense heavy firefights.

If you really want Sniping as part of the game, and don''t want ''campers'', you have a few options.

First, a Metal Gear Solid like shaky hand. This is actually quite irritating and makes sniping a pain in the ass. In MGS2, You have the option of standing of laying flat, which standing would have a high shake rate, laying having a low shake rate. Laying has its disadvantages because it takes some time getting up.

Second, which is actually quite simple, design the levels with a lot less ammo.

Third, penalize snipers by taking away the cross hair, and instead having a ''zoom'' option thats kinda slow, so sniping takes much longer to acquire a target, and the tunnel vision makes it hard to follow moving targets.

Anyone that knows their Schwarzenegger movies will know that the Quake 2 and Quake 3 railgun effects are inspired by the really cool looking (although unrealistic, of course) Railgun effect in the movie Eraser. The railguns (and that effect) made the movie.

most people dont like that movie but i happen to be a fan too (and yes, the railgun effect was very cool) . . . heres hoping Terminator 3 doesnt suck . . .sorry to get off topic -- onto the railgun though, i like the above post that said to focus more on sound. I know this coulndt work that well, given the speed of the rail gun and all, but imagine hearing your impending death coming at you, but not being able to see it at all. Maybe you could see the sonic boom flattening grass over the terrain as it rushed toward you and bending tree limbs, etc., but other than that, just a shrieking boom (those two dont go together really) that annihilated you.

DoctorSixString/Dauntless:
I wasn''t saying that Fiction IS better then realism, I was saying that it''s not something that can necesarily be forced on the masses. Example: (Note this is just an example so don''t start arguing my scenario) Let''s say the majority of consumers want to have super powers and the majority of the game designers want realism. Who''s more Likely to sell a product to the average consumer? The designer who caters to a KNOWN desire or the one that designs a game based solely on what he wants? Why does Origin keep making more incarnations of UO when it could make an original MMORPG with no magic, dragons and such which are very strongly based on fiction? Why? Because they see an established market and they are catering to it. Now again I''m not trying to be argumentative, I think you just misunderstood my post. I''m all about originality but at the same time I''d like to take some creative liberties where I beleive it will add to it.

quote: Original post by mstein
I know this coulndt work that well, given the speed of the rail gun and all, but imagine hearing your impending death coming at you, but not being able to see it at all.

Indeed it couldnt work given that the bullet is at supersonic speed, meaning it gets there (that is, in your head) before the sound waves...


Dauntless :
I fail to understand, you mention Operation Flashpoint but then talks about things that could be done that *Are* in Flashpoint.

A crosshair in Flashpoint ??? Are you joking ? Veteran is the only way to play !
The best part of sniping in Flashpoint is the use of the scope sights to modify your aim to compensate for the bullet dropping because of distance.
Even when you are a sniper, hitting targets is quite a challenge and does take some training (again, I never play in Cadet mode, so I dunno how easier it is).
I never hit anything unless I use the weapon sights, anyway.
You mention breathing ? Well, try sniping after a good run... as far as I remember the view *does* move with the sound of your breath. Which is really cool ''cause you can synchronize with it and compensate for the breathing movement.

When you mention the element of bravery, I think Flashpoint is the first to ever give me "realistic" creeps. As in, I was scared all the way in Aliens, but Operation Flashpoint is just on another level altogether.
When I played for the first time, it took me a good dozen tries before I realised that there was no way I was going to survive by charging the enemy guns ablaze. Going prone and praying that the enemy would not spot me usually works better
Although I do end up being the only survivor in my squad quite often...

Oh, and to come back to the Quake Railgun :
The whole point of the trail is that the Railgun is the ubergun in Quake 2. Takes out 120 points of damage IIRC, which means one shot one kill if you have no armor.
Also the bullet speed is infinite, as in, there is no travel time. Which means there is no need to lead a target when sniping.
So you can see how powerful the gun is.
To compensate, they added the trail that clearly tells you where the sniper is. It''s sniping, but Quake style

Compare this to being sniped by some schmuck 300 meters away on top of a building in Operation Flashpoint Resistance demo... (I never even saw the damn sniper until after i was dead and the camera showed the bastard)

Aaaaaah, and now I need to go and train my Flashpoint skills again

Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

op flashpoint rules! i was up until 2 last night (again) getting killed by ruskies. It does a great job inducing something like fear in the player - sometimes I really don''t want to stick my head over that hill, especially back when I was new to the game. I can picture it now, coming down the slope of a hill, seeing the tracers fly past me. The whole squad hits the dirt and I start to hear that bullet-in-people sound. I should have called in sick today

To stay on topic, which I believe is a tank game - I remember reading somewhere that modern artillery will set up, fire a few shots, and then move on to a new location. I think that radar can detect them when they fire (or trace the projectiles backwards). So when someone fires a weapon like this, you could put them on everyone''s radar for a few moments.

actually, now that I reread the orignal post, what''s the question? It seems like there''s at least one word missing in there somewhere.

I play the veteran level at OPFlash, and I almost always use weapon sight mode. I noticed far greater accuracy in weapon sight mode rather than in "look" mode. Those shots I made at 300m were only possible in weapon sight mode...I couldn''t hit jack if I used the regular mode, though it''s almost impossible without the crosshairs. And yeah, not using cross hairs is awesome in any game, although I''ll tend to reduce the diffuculty to easy level if I play without crosshairs in other games. I didn''t notice my aim going off after a long hard sprint though....do the sniper weapons have that problem? The only thing bad I noticed about sprinting hard was that my breathing got so labored that I couldn''t hear anything else, which gave you a kind of claustrophobic feeling (unfortunately, there are no foot fall sound effects in OpFlash which would have greatly helped).

As for the fear factor, the one-shot one kill technique does make you really skittish...especially in that mission where you''re trying to make the evac point and dodging Russian patrols left and right with no help. I''ve played that one mission a million times trying to save that long machine-gunner out there, and while twice I''ve been able to stop him from dying (you have to pick up two LAWS at the very beginning of the mission off your dead comrades and nail the two T-72''s that try to blow up the machine gunner...a technique that only works by hitting them in just the right spot against the rear armor with one hit, or two good hits from the side) he doesn''t follow you to help you out, and stays in the forest. When you play that mission against those odds, you do get creeped out though. Actually one of the times I played that mission was pretty damn funny as I got wounded no less than five times...once by the Hind-24, once by shrapnel from a tank (he only barely missed me as I was crawling like mad through some bushes), got hit by a machine gun bullet at extreme range by a BMP, and got hit the other two times by Russian soldiers.

But I''d like to see something actually put into the game that affects your shooting skill based on how courageous your character is. I''d also like to see some physical exhaustion/health effects (sometimes I got wounded in my arm in OpFlash, but my aim was never affected...and yet a wound to the leg could cause you to only crawl). I definitely find playing OpFlash and Ghost Recon ten times more fun than QuakeX or UT. Heck, even System Shock2 had a more fun gun fighting role than the Quake or UT (and talk about fear factor...). So I think tactical shooters have got it going in the right direction, but I think more things can be added in.

I was thinking about the original topic of using railguns in a game and I was wondering if you were going to use them against personnel or as a defense against other tanks or mechanized units? The reason I ask is because the railgun in the traditional sense won''t be necesarily effective against personnel. Yes it''s very accurate and fast however unless it has a way to destabilize on impact it''ll do little damage unless it hits a vital organ. It''s the same reason the flechette was never used much after tests in Vietnam it has good penetration but passes through in most cases and has no "stopping" power. The same could be said of the railgun if the ammo is relatively small in diameter. It''ll be great for penetrating armor but won''t do more then leave a hole of that same diameter. Now if it was large around (possible if equipped as a tanks main weapon) or made to destabilize severly on impact then it could well cut people in half. Just a thought.