We have two options in regards to this and I wanted everyone's input on this. Option A.) Player is allowed to load weapons in a quickbelt style setup, and can have as many weapons in the quickbelt as possible.. This is similar to say quake, or Unreal Tournament. Where a player can set it up to have gun A drawn when he presses '1' or gun b with '2' or gun c with '3' and so on and so forth up to 0. Option B.) Player is limited to a smaller amount, such as 2 larger guns and one small pistol style firearm. This is similar to Planetside where there are 2 slots for larger weapons and a pistol holster. A player cannot have more than 3 weapons easily accessible at any time, if they want to use say a 4th weapon that they are carrying in their Backpack, they must drag weapon #1 out of #1 slot into their backpack, and then drag that 4th weapon into the #1 slot for quick access. Now, there are pros and cons to each setup. Obviously option A allows for a lot more ease in switching weapons and less frustration on the players part. Whereas option B tends to promote more strategy and planning when going into battle. Thanks for your input

Depends about what you're going to do (a game based on killing or something with a more real feel) AND the weapons you'll have.

See Slave Zero. One Energy gun, one Ballistic, one Missle Launcher and one random thing you grabbed. Except by the random thing you grabbed, there wasn' much strategy with the weapon setup -- there were four weapons of each kind, one clearly better than the other. Limiting the amount of weapons only sped up the switching.

Besides, about Method B, even if I don' care about worrying with a backpack, I doubt most FPSers will like it.

Well there will definitely be an abundance of weapons in the game.. I mean not to say the player will be carrying 20 on him, but he will have a lot of choose from.

Definitely going for a more realistic feel to the game, but wondering if it would piss players off more than get them to appreciate the strategy in it

I'm not sure anyone can make a good determination based on just the info given: Is this a tactical game like Counterstrike? Is this a run and gun game like Quake or Unreal?

Generally, the faster the pace, the less options there should be and vice versa. In Counterstrike there's a long lead time possible before many conflicts (depending on the map and objectives), so there strategy makes sense.

One thing I've seen, though, is that even if you restrict weapons players are going to try to find a way around the restriction: In Halo, for instance, you can defeat the 2 weapon limit by throwing down a weapon and picking up a new one repeatedly, creating a kind of silling sideways tornado of weapons rolling in front of the player.

I actually think option B would be the better choice in either situation.

(I personally) never needed more than 2 or 3 weapons in a multiplayer FPS. Assuming there was adequate ammo, I chose the weapon with which I was most proficient, then went on a killing spree. And then, usually, died. No need for unnessary sidearms.

i prefer games where the number of weaps you can cary is limited.

but still, each weapon will need its strong points and its weak points for thsi to work. for example an energy weapon might be effective against energy shields, while ait is inneffective against armor and vice-versa for the bullet/solid projectile based weapons.

this is how im gonna have it set up in my game:

player can carry one pistol, one rifle, one melee weapon(read: knife) and one stun gun. none of these is more powerful than the others. each has its strengths, etc.