Hi all, Our team is creating a 3rd person shooter. What I would like to get from you guys and gals are suggestions....do's and don'ts of this genre. We are working on a publisher demo that composes of 4 office floors and an eight floor weapons, mech, and machinery research facility/lab (4 floors because each floor is as tall as two). What elements or suggestions would you suggest to make this a great demo to play. Do places like office floors bother gamers to play through? (there will be other environments in the full version of the game....underground corridors, warehouses, alleyways, subway stations, etc) Also anything you can throw my way will be of a great help. I am sure gamers like lots of interactive environments..I could be wrong. hehe Thanks in advance.

I recommend the 3rd person combat/shooter Oni, about the only thing in that game i wouldn't recommend is having players have to perform tricky manuvers in order to progress through some levels, very stressful.

For me, a third-person shooting game is all about the character being in the environment, and less about me being in the character. I like idle animations, commentary from the player character, and lots of interactivity, even if it's passive.

Character animations are absolutely essential to the genre. I can handle a character in an FPS who moves a little slowly. It's okay. In a third-person game, if I'm running at top speed, my guy should be booking it. Simultaneously, I walk a good creeping animation. In Metal Gear Solid, Snake didn't have walking anim or a sprinting anim. He was either creeping about in ninja-mode or jogging nonchalantly. Sometimes, you just want to be walking. Another issue is interactive/destructible environments.

Take the office environment, for instance. In an FPS game, I would want everything to be rigid, so I can take eight tries to get up over a cubicle wall, or scuttle backwards against a wall until I am stopped by a water cooler. Third-person, I want that wall to wall down and the water cooler to tip and shatter. After you get done having a gunfight in the office area, it should LOOK like someone just had a gunfight there.

Another important part of interactive environments and character animation alike is at least the illusion that your character is aware of his location in the world. Sidling on walls is good. If you can make crouching behind a box look different from crouching on a ledge, more power to you. The character should look at important things, and seem aware of threats. Different animations for different kinds of "hits" is also good.

If the mech area has high ceilings, they should matter. Catwalks, snipers, hanging cranes, all that good stuff.

Try to avoid repetition in areas. If you have two office corridors that end in a T-intersection and have two doors on each side, then switch up the textures to prevent confusion. Different colored walls, a bulletin board in one hall and not the other, a stained ceiling tile or burnt-out light fixture could reduce the monotony. I can handle offices, but if it's just an endless labyrinth of doors and turns, it's going to need some waypoints.

Good luck with your project. I'd like to hear more about it.

Look at good 3rd PS like DMC.

Also make sure the camera follows the character well...stupid cameras in games like Rengoku spoils the gameplay especially while you are fighting hordes of enemies or dodging bullets.

Not sure if you at this stage yet but I like good AI, especially a realistic vision system so you have changeling opponents that have the same limitation as the human player, ie, can hide and go for cover but cant see through walls