The Future of First Person Shooters

Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2004 12:02 am

Tim Gravenites of FileFront posted an article the other day that hit very close to home. Basically he discusses the past, present, and future of First Person Shooters. He remises about the days of playing cooperative Doom and the fun he had. Now that I have read the article he brings up some very valid points. I am tired of being force feed the same old same single player FPS. Games such as FarCry or Unreal 2 would be a lot more fun with human interaction. However cooperative play seems to be on the back burner of every major single player game for the PC. Team based games are fun and mostly what I play but what about variety? The fact that Xbox Live customers get to play Doom 3 single player with a buddy is upsetting to me. I don't have Xbox Live and would rather not play Doom 3 on a console so I miss out. Often I feel the urge to just play a single player game with a human rather than competing against them but there are very few options out there for PCs. I have no idea what will wake up the game industry but hopefully articles like Tims and maybe this post will be the start. Why not make PC single player experiences even more rewarding by allowing us to play with our family and friends?

Guest

I had heard that coop was supposed to be an Xbox-exclusive for three months and then they would patch it in to the PC version. I haven't followed the development of D3 too closely, so I may be way off.

But we can always hope, right?

Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2004 9:20 am

Obviously I am not an ID fanboy but everything I have read points out that coop play for Doom III is an Xbox exclusive feature. But I hope you are right!

UO Noob Joined: 16 Jul 2004 Posts: 25 Location: San Diego

I can't think of many FPS's that are co-op for PC.. and right now my mind draws a blank. I know there are some. Halo?

This is why I have tons of consoles and tons of games for them. Many are 2-player co-op. It's fun to play through a level, taking on objectives and whatnot with your friend. This is the bread and butter of many console games. Where PC games are meant for one person, sitting in one spot for the most. Yeah, there are LAN parties, but, you're doing the same thing as playing online...

FPS now, seem to be like "quick thrills". Nothing really to grab you other than to blow the head off [XYZ]Battle\/sack::// and claim the most online kills.

Imagine FarCry as a 2p Co-Op! Or Medal of Honor...

Many PC games overlook the single player and go headfirst into the multi-player frag-fest.

Unreal2K4 made some co-op levels/modes of play, but really need to exspand a bit more. Just like capture the flag w/waypoints really..

Guest

System Shock 1 (or 2 or both ?) had the option to play the SP-campaign as a team.
Doom had it pretty much from day 1.

Of course there's Diablo, Baldur's Gate-series and NWN that support multiplayer-mode for the campaign, altough I'm not sure about the expansions for these games.
Then there's Dungeon Siege that has a separate multiplayer-campaign.

I think the problem is that there's no reason to stop at 2 players for multiplayer in pc-games. Usually it's the internetconnection that limits a pc's maximum amount of players per server.

Consoles can't comfortably host more than 2 players on a single machine, while networks are possible they're still stuck in the early 'stone-age'.

And even then they're still limited to the machines that are sold unless a company starts offering servers for console-games, which might not be that far away now that Live! introduces console-owners to pay-to-play scheme as the 'normal' way of playing.

Perhaps the real problem is that no one is willing to pay for co-op games ?

Sure ... even people at home are placing their pc's in a network.
And slowly but surely these pc's become powerful enough to play more modern games, altough I doubt that the average network is more than 1 game-pc and several ex-game pc's.

But I doubt everyone makes sure there's an official license for all the software on each pc, since installing a single game across multiple pc's is so easy ...

Guest

Didn't Serious Sam support co-op as well ?

Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2004 6:17 pm

Well you have to think, online play has been around, but not really for that long. The games are advancing, everybodies wants something and they want it now. Relax and play the games you have now, new and improved online co-op play will come, and off-line co-op with AI would be boring. Things take time and there are a few out there that can keep you busy. There is a new game called Pariah, made with the Unreal Tournament Engine - UnrealEd, I don't know to much about it, but from screenshots I have seen, it looks like a co-op game. Also UT-'04 offers alot of co-op game play. Without the co-op it's really hard to win. Anyway, if you really want to get things rolling write some letters to gaming companies, offering them ideas. That or goto school and start working on some games. It's infinite.

Thanks ENocK>>> Very Happy

Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2004 7:19 pm

Yep. My bud and I used to play it on his lan....it was good fun....same with freelancer....good game.

Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2004 9:12 am

I might just pick up a copy of SS or maybe SS2 for the PC. My friend and I are jonesing to play some coop. You see the problem with UT2K4 coop is the scoreboard. I am a great deal better than he at UT so he doesn't want to play for long after I whoop up on the bots. Without a scoreboard I would predict he would play for longer times. This way we feel more like a team than a team competing within itself. I really want to experience DIII with a friend so we can be freaked out at the same time. I preordered last night and got the exclusive Gamestop DIII figurine. Which is kinda cool.

I really don't included RPGs in my list of games so Neverwinter and Diablo are not going to satisfy my needs. I like shooters, RTS, and few plat formers. Although there are exceptions to every rule and I may end up trying KOTOR due to high reviews and the Star Wars universe. Thanks for the replys.