Of course, one of the most entertaining parts of an FPS is to see what the weapons are and how many of them there are. But I ask this, is it better to have a huge arsenal of weapons with great specialization, or a more simplistic, and ultimately more user friendly approach, with fewer weapons but with a broader range of actions for each (i.e. Flame thrower can double as an acetelyne torch)? Thanks for your opinions! Peace out. MrMexTaco

Personally, I''d go for more creative weapons. Quality over quantity. Some weapons in Half-Life came pretty close to the fun level...

For example, the Gauss rifle. You could fire rapid single shots. Or you could charge up for one powerfull shot. (keep charging and your rifle explodes). Or charge up, and fire to the ground, so that the kickback would propel you into the air. Pretty neat

Have as many weapons as you can, providing that each of them is ''the best weapon'' in a given situation in your game. That is, it''s good if they are different ways of approaching a problem, rather than being the same way but bigger than before.

I actually like the approach that more realistic shooters and mods have taken with weapons. Lots of similar weapons with different properties (a slow and strong pistol, a fast pistol that''s weak, etc.) I kind of like this more then throwing in a bunch of silly gimicky "creative" weapons (like the shrink ray in Duke Nukem.) Maybe it''s a little more boring, and it also depends on the type of FPS you''re making, but I personally like it more.

Ok, so it seems split, some people want a lot, some want a little. So, what about dynamic weapons, like the Gauss Rifle that Ronin mentioned, what if there was a harpoon type attachment, and it could be used to hit an enemy, hit a switch, pull an item to you or for a grappling hook? And like i mentioned before, a flame thrower/acetelyne torch, used to burn enemies, burn items (torches, wood) or to cut through a steel door? Do you think that these could satisfy both types of people, or just one? And do you think that if the rest of the gameplay is deep enough, that no one will care anyway?



Peace out.

MrMexTaco

Hmmm... Gunamn Chronicles had an approach that would probably please both sides.

Just take the simple handgun. It starts out with just being a handgun. But it can also shoot as fast as a machinegun, immediatly burning nearly all your ammo (and not hitting a thing). You could also empty your energy cells into one heavy blob, and hope to do massive damage. Or you could be on the look-out for a sniping module, so that you could snipe your enemies.

In the end, you had lots of ''different'' weapons. But in reality you only carried a handgun, a rifle, a shotgun and a chem-gun. But with endless possibilities when you desired

There was once a game called "Redline" and it actually had one gun that can do around 9 things... If you collected add-ons the gun could do all these strange things and turn into a sniper rifle, rocket launcher, machine gun, gatling gun etc. and look like something totally diffrent but still was actually the same gun...

I like the approach of using more realistic weapons... Like maybe you could have an M16 that had a grenade launcher of a grappling hook, an 9mm that you could load with a silencer, laser sight, tranqs or live ammo... Endless possibilities

Mitch Rockidge
OWner/Founder of Ethereal Chaos