One of the biggest problems in FPS's, IMO, is that they've done well with (some)problems in movement (such as the sidestep/circle-strafe) but have restricted the creative or realistic use of weapons. What FPS allows one to stabilize a pistol against the other wrist, with that hand holding a flashlight or a knife? What FPS allows one to take an assault rifle off the shoulder, tip it sideways, and fire, creating a horizontal spray? Melee in FPS is laughable, of course...that isn't a priority of the genre. The FPS view neglects general body movement and turns any avatar into some sort of (possibly jumping) tank-like machine.

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Original post by sirGustav First Person Strategy(idea): You are a great commander during some war/conflict/fight whatever. You are in major trouble. You have lost your arms so you can't fight but don't fear - you can still talk and point. Command your soldiers to win.

"Freedom Fighter" had some system where you could direct allies to a spot and have them defend it. I don't remember what the other options were (probably something like "attack these guys") but that was a good mechanic.

Back when I played the FPS Genre - Doom, Doom2, Quake, Duke Nukem, Serious Sam, etc, I remember thinking there are only 2 kind of sub-FPS genres, serious shooters or fun shooters. The serious shooters with their uber 3d engines and the fun shooters with uber gameplay.

What I tend to miss in the current shooters is atmosphere, back in the day, Doom1&2 really scared me, Halflife interested me and Duke Nukem/Serious Sam got me laughing and shooting for fun.

In short I experienced some real emotions while playing those games (fear, fun, etc) and now I don't, it's all cardboard. Same goes for the RTS these days.

An addition to this is that I only see quality products come out of quality developers and at this moment I dare to say that only Valve and Blizzard, maybe Epic releases fully functional, worthy games that I want to play. They atleast tend to add something extra that I would like, without being bound to some producer company.

ps

Really looking forward to Quake Wars, Duke Nukem Forever

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Original post by future farmer One of the biggest problems in FPS's, IMO, is that they've done well with (some)problems in movement (such as the sidestep/circle-strafe) but have restricted the creative or realistic use of weapons. What FPS allows one to stabilize a pistol against the other wrist, with that hand holding a flashlight or a knife? What FPS allows one to take an assault rifle off the shoulder, tip it sideways, and fire, creating a horizontal spray? Melee in FPS is laughable, of course...that isn't a priority of the genre. The FPS view neglects general body movement and turns any avatar into some sort of (possibly jumping) tank-like machine.

I agree. The most important thing in an FPS is that the weapons, vehicles, and accessories are original.
One of my favorite FPS games is Project Snowblind because they didn't just have guns and grenades. They had mines, deployable energy shields, invisibility, personal shielding strength augmentations, x-ray/thermal/night vision, a "telekineses" gun, EMP's, computer hacking and bullet-time. Not to mention EVERY gun had a cool alternate fire mode.

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Original post by future farmer What FPS allows one to take an assault rifle off the shoulder, tip it sideways, and fire, creating a horizontal spray?

Good call for the Wii!
Red Steel needs a Wiicall!

...

Oh my god shoot me.

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Original post by grusifix_ Quote: Original post by Moe It's been done. (It was a 2nd person perspective deathmatch game). I remember reading about someone's experiment with this a while back (like at least a year ago). I'd be very grateful if you could post more info (e.g. link, keywords). I can't believe that someone else is as stupid as I am.

Not the only one. I came up with a similar idea one day while bored. But since I'm working on it, I'd rather not disclose the details. But I'm sure lots of other people have thought it'd be fun (or at least odd) to have a second person camera.

As for improving the FPSs, it's hard to say. The number one thing to help nowadays is length. Gears took me 14 hours to beat. I can speed run Halo or Halo 2 very quickly. Besides length/depth, extra modes. Too many FPSs nowadays have no co-op. FEAR for instance would have been great for co-op if they had properly worked it into the story. It was a good game, but I would've bought it for the 360 if there had been co-op.

I think one thing to really consider when trying to improve the genre is simply look at WHY Halo and Halo 2 seem to be so popular/innovative. I personally don't believe they were that innovative beyond a few concepts or weapons, but their popularity is something to definitely look at. In some video with Bungie, one of their devs said that Halo didn't do anything new, it just took everything everyone had done and did it better and all in one game. The vehicles with the co-op or deathmatch, the variety of weapons, grenades, and melee. Basically they just upped the bar on every aspect of FPSs. Even the story was better than most FPS stories at the time (granted it's still no interactive novel). Basically to find out how to improve the genre, you have to examine all the previous improvements to the genre and see the reactions from players.

FPSs are my favorite genre to play, and this slump definitely hits me. I'm waiting for Halo 3 just to have something new to play. Also Army of Two looks like it'll be real good because of the new involvement between players during co-op. It also looks like it might have a neat story.

After a quick bit of digging, the oldest thing I came up with was one by Julian Oliver back in 2005. There was also mention of it part way through a thread here, back in 2003 (although nothing substantial, other than mentioning it).

I could have sworn that there was something older than that, as well as more of a narrative. If I am recalling correctly (which I may not be), the author of the program thought that the experiment was just that - an experiment. Gameplay was incredibly difficult, and didn't please the author. Stumbling through a level to find yourself so that you can shoot whoever is holding the camera didn't prove to be that much fun.

Multiplayer:
Most FPS suffer from weapon balance issues. Perhaps an incentive for players to diversify their weapon usage would help reduce complaints.

Add more blood to it! Just kidding, but seriously it seems like every other company thinks that by adding squirting, gushing, disgusting bloody scenes will somehow cause people to buy thier game rather than the other games.

Maybe something that would help the FPS genre is giving the player a reason to play it. This might sound funny, but how many times can you blow off someons head or crowbar someone in the face before you want to move on? Give it character, give it puzzles to solve. Even something as simple as the 'Crimson Room' has more character than a lot of the FPS's out there.

I thought Half-Life1 was awesome. The different puzzles and sound effects were really creepy! That was a game you couldn't play with the lights off, and the surround sound going. Graphics will naturally get better as technology gets better, but character and story is what makes a good game.

By character I mostly mean AI and game elements. In WOW I thought it was SO FREAKING cool that a NPC dwarf I had helped find his fishing pole emailed me a thank you not and a package a few days later! Or else how when I took a potion I could suddenly see monsters or objects that 'normal' people couldn't see.

In UO, you can use 'Spirit Speak' ability and talk to people who were dead. Things like this are cool. In 'God of War2' you can climb on and interact with your enemies in ways never done before. Things like this are amazing and set these games apart from every other game out there.

So far, I am seeing a few repeated things in this thread:

1. Do something original. Change the perspective, add a new game mechanic, or try something that hasn't been done. Take an abstract idea and apply it to a real world scenario in a way that hasn't been done before. For example, Red Faction's ability to blow holes in walls and deform the environment. It was something that was thought about, but at that point hadn't really been done before in a FPS. This seems to be the most difficult one to do.


2. Improve/extend existing ideas. Take an existing concept, such as NPC interaction, existing weapons, physics, or whatever you want, and improve it. For example, take the idea of alternate fire on guns, and make it so you can completely modify your original weapon (a la Deus Ex style mods), but taken further as to change the entire behaviour of the weapon. Regular and alternate fire has been done to death. Now take it further.


3. Spit and Polish. Take concepts that have already been done, but make it look, sound, and feel better than anything previously done. As previously mentioned, Halo did this very well. It really didn't add anything new, it just did everything very well.

I think at this point, it takes a bit more than a new "aliens invade the world!" story for people to see it as original, even if the story itself is original.