The Crossing - A New Way to FPS? 184
1up has a look at Arkane Studios' extremely ambitious new project. Called The Crossing, the FPS title looks to combine single and multi-player modes in a new way. From the article: "In the simplest sense, story missions are single-player shooting with an exception: Naturally intelligent human opponents take the place of A.I. There are two types of players: Elites and skirmishers. Elites are gamers playing the game in story mode. They're beefed up, heavily armored, and heavily armed. They have to be able to hold their own against a swarm of skirmish players. Skirmishers are gamers who typically play on multiplayer maps: well-trained, rank-and-file soldiers playing primarily to have some quick fun and increase their rank through defeating the occasional Elite. Skirmish players can also invade story maps and 'possess' A.I.s ala Agent Smith in The Matrix." So even if you're playing through the story, you'll still be challenged by the 'NPCs', all of whom will be played by a real-life human. Sounds like it could either be awesome or a total flop. Which side are you leaning on?
I'm going with Flop... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm going with Flop... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, didn't Splinter Cell do something similar, with a "one spy versus the rest of the counterterrorists" game mode?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But it is indeed a valid possibility that these developers may w
Re: (Score:2)
Flop! (Score:3, Insightful)
So to sum it up: I go there for enjoyment, not to listen to crap and get 'powned' by L33T uber hackers without a life. Probably the vast majority of FPS
Balance for profit. (Score:5, Funny)
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!
Sounds like someone is trying to invent step 2, there. Like any other PvP, whether it works will depend on how well the game is balanced. One player -- who probably is not a die-hard PvPer -- against a swarm of PvP-savvy opponents? That sounds very difficult to balance correctly. Best of luck to the designers, they're gonna need it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But the experienced players are going to be playing the single player's gimpy opponents. Presumably they will be handicapped somehow according to difficulty.
Griefers & ratings system (Score:4, Insightful)
An entire game that involves folks like that is going to make me steer clear of it. I suspect other parents may feel the same. Kudos to the company for trying something different, though.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Other players (Score:2)
In general, though, Sam's pretty comfortable with FPS's in general. He doesn't get to play Doom 3 or similar games. He did play HL2, which I felt fine about.
I don't think I'd like him playing multiplayer games with people outside our family, though. That's a bit outside my comfort level.
Re: (Score:2)
Abstract, cartoonish FPS looks l[E]ss viol[E]nt (Score:2)
Do you really let a child that's too young to read play FPS games?
Some early first-person shooters were Atari's Battlezone [wikipedia.org] and BPS/Xanth's Faceball [blueplanetsoftware.com] (originally published as MIDI-Maze for Atari ST [wikipedia.org]). These were extremely abstract by modern standards and would probably be rated E if published today. The cartoonish Jumping Flash! [wikipedia.org] first-person platform shooters for PlayStation were also rated K-A (now called E).
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
How would you balance for skill? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ugh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Funny)
You mean Korean-American kids. Trans-pacific ping. (Score:2)
Pre-teen Korean-American kids, that's where your real threat is. Of course, I've come to think that the 'net neutrality' debate will end up boiling down to "Gen-X gamers with enough money to buy low pings vs Gen-Y gamers with faster reflexes but no money = fair."
Makes a lot more sense that way, until you start
Hmmm... (Score:3, Funny)
Its been done before (Score:3, Interesting)
Its was great fun to do and added another dimension to the game - my only regret was that they didn't take it to higher levels!!
Re:Its been done before (Score:5, Interesting)
I imagine that part of the reason was that at higher levels the stakes are higher and thus you'd be more likely to get a friend to throw the match, making it easier. Or it was just a chapter from the Standard MMORPG Designers Manual, where you torture your players in part by designing really cool features that you never expand enough to be anything other than a minor sideshow.
So did the "Minions of Mirth" RPG... (Score:2)
(Not sure why you'd call an RPG "Servants of Laughter", but WTF do I know?)
Re: (Score:2)
Can you say... (Score:4, Interesting)
That's just one example of a very simple tactic the "bad guys" are sure to develop in time, even if they can't communicate. The first will probably be "herding" where they stick together, all the better to take down a better armed foe.
Then there's those people who are so bad at FPS that they just won't be able to beat the game if having "real" opponents isn't just an option.
You'll also have to find a "swarm" of people playing the bad side in this odd multiplayer for every "good" player.
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can you say... (Score:5, Insightful)
And why shouldn't the players work together? They want to win and they have a common goal. Its makes a lot more sense then the standard moron AI most games have where they wait to fight you in order so that you don't get overwhelmed.
Ain't that good? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ain't that good? (Score:5, Funny)
It'll suck because the fictional heroes aren't realistic.
But if they based it on this particular fictional hero it'd rock!
Conclusion:
You're not making any sense man!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Even Half Life. Sure, he might not be up to doom marine standards, but his brain is a whole lot bigger. He's a very smart guy, lots of crazy tech at his disposal, and hey...the added incentive that he wants to save the world!
On the other hand, these mystical Jedi you speak of have 'magic' in them that
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
They just need to design the levels and balance properly. Make so that if all the characters huddle up in
Re: (Score:2)
How much PvP FPS'ing have you done? Because to me, that plan sounds a lot like, "Ok everybody, what we're going to do is all cluster together in one big clump at a bottleneck. That way, the other team won't have to worry about running low on 'nades, because they'll be able to pick us all off in one go, and they won't have to fear
Re: (Score:2)
Anyway, on further thought I really don't think that there will be enough "bad guy" player characters for it to matter. Still, the differences in skills could become terribly unfair for people just picking up the game if this wasn't just a sort of novelty endgame
Duel-Coop (Score:3, Interesting)
IMarv
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I had an idea for this type of game (Score:5, Interesting)
The goal would be try to live long enough to escape to a shelter or remote island.
Ever game would be an instance which would reset if goals are accomplished (everyone zombified, or people escape, etc..) that's the basics but the more I think about it the more possibilities for fun gameplay have seemed apparent..
Re: (Score:2)
dedicated zombie players can get the ability "brain rot" to eliminate the chance of being revivified against their will except in certain buildings when a generator is running.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I had an idea for this type of game (Score:4, Interesting)
Think about it: zombies need to be shot once, in the head, to die. A person needs to be bitten once anywhere to turn into a zombie. That seems pretty one-sided, when you consider that zombies 'in real life' don't coordinate, whereas the players will coordinate as zombies. It'd get pretty monotonous: you'd either be trying to avoid zombies, or you'd be trying to hide, sneak, or race up to get someone.
Here's the only way I can see it working: zombies are slow shamblers, except when they get near 'meat' they have a burst of speed/energy due to their desire. Say, just as fast as a human's 'walk' speed, but they don't have a 'run' speed like the humans. They can also become faster by eating meat. Humans would have stamina, so they could only outrun for a short distance; they'd have to rely on other tactics, like shooting and hiding. All of this would require a fairly complex game world, with lots of rooms, buildings, cabinets, and various other places where both humans and zombies could hide.
Zombies could bite the humans, but the humans wouldn't turn right away; it would depend on how much damage was caused. They might be able to get an antidote, or at least prevent themselves from turning (suicide), if they're fast enough and respawn as a human. This respawning could obviously be prevented by injuring them enough, fast enough, to kill and turn them quickly (group tactics, coming from behind, etc.). Zombies, if shot in the head, would die, but then they would respawn at another location.
Re: (Score:2)
I encourage you to check out Killing Floor
Depends (Score:3, Insightful)
I do see that some of this is addressed in the article but overall it appears you'd have to be very rigid in making sure your NPC player strictly follow a story line as opposed to just hoping on and treating this like UT, BF, or any other PvP online game.
Re: (Score:2)
Asymetric multiplayer (Score:2)
Asymetric multiplayer has been done before, AvP for example, and can be very fun though it is also very hard to work right. It's really not that different than Assault modes in UT, except the two sides are playing drastically different characters. In general, the idea of having one group of "players" who are trying to accomplish a mission, and another group of "monsters" with help from NPCs trying to sto
North vs. South (Score:2)
The flip side (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Everquest tried it briefly (Score:5, Insightful)
It's got several problems. None of them are insurmountable, but I would be surprised if any game company could successfully overcome all of them without several significant attempts.
1) Players will not fill the role they were designed for. Or more accurately they will deliberately choose to disengage from their intended role since that's tedious. You'll end up with all the monsters from a given level grouping up together for a single assault, or camping and taking pot shots. In EQ they had monsters from the level 10 area wander down to the level 1 area and grief the level 1's until someone bigger came along and wiped them out (only to start the cycle again 10 minutes later). You can design a game which prevents the monster from straying too far from their intended purpose, but then how fun is that?
2) Monster balance and player balance are very different things. Monsters are buffed in certain ways to make up for their lack of real AI. These same buffs are unbalanced when those abilities can be used intelligently. These different levels of buffing will make it challenging to make player controlled monsters balanced for all players. Also as a monster your intended role ultimately is to be defeated by the player. Why do you want to go into a situation you know is likely to defeat you as your primary purpose?
3) What do you do as a monster until the player arrives? Maybe you're switching around a lot between monsters so you are always near the player, but what if the player skips you (or you don't find the player)?
4) Especially in games that are approached as single player games, you really need to have a nice challenge gradient. It needs to be doable and the player needs to succeed more than they fail, but not have success be overly easy. Otherwise the player will get bored or frustrated.
5) If you successfully overcome all of these obstacles, how are you really any different from any other pvp game that has classes? Zomg my rogue can take out a priest before they even knew what hit them, or my hunter can two-shot a mage. What is the real distinction here other than one player vs many (and how do you make the many aspect interesting enough that it's not just a standard pve game all around, and how do you keep it from being so interesting that noone wants to be the single player?)
The only thing that's different about this from MMO PVP is that one side is the good guy (maybe) and the other side is evil (maybe).
Re:Everquest tried it briefly (Score:5, Interesting)
The best AI I've played against (the list is short) were the levels in Half-Life where the Marines in the warehouses. They would alert each other and lock down the target, hailing the player with grenades and machine gun fire. If the same units were human controlled and locked into only playing that one particular room, or building, while main character players were streaming through there one after another, it could be lots of fun. The game for the marine players would be to see how many main characters you can kill off. It'd be like goal tending in soccer.
Re: (Score:2)
You would, of course, have to restrict monsters to a certain area, and you'd have to remove the AI "Buffs".
You'd have to change the rules quite a bit for monsters...
Perhaps you could only move to a harder area by defeating a set number
Auto-Nerf (Score:2)
If they wander down to the level one area/levels, reduce the monster level to level 3, if there are 40 of them within a certain space (on-screen together) , make them level one or even negative levels of ability.... or make them cross-attackable if they are too densely in an area..
If the monsters abilities are tied to the region, the motivation to go grief a bunch of beginners fails.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd say that if it's a tool just to "trick" (for lack of a better term) people into thinking Army life is better / more glamorous / less risky than it realy is, then no, it's not a very good recruiting tool at all.
However if the game is as delibritly realistic as it is so that potential recruits are given a more realistic view of the risks, etc - therefore generating more recruits with a more realistic expectation going into the recruiter, then I'd say it's a
Re: (Score:2)
If you were to put together a ranking system or some long-term reward for people that play NPC characters and give them specific tasks to perform, then I would imagine that it could increase the chance people would stick to those tasks.
Bleed Orange - ride KTM [ktmcyclesport.com].
Re: (Score:2)
It's plenty fun if their natural enemies come after them when they stray. You CAN do this sort of thing in-character. Besides, you think that dragon the wizard set to guard his treasure stays there because it's a party atmosphere? (I'm speaking in fantasy-genre generalities here, I don't pay-monthly-to-play anything.)
"The Diamond Age" Ractives (Score:2)
The bit that's missing is the bit about being paid to be an NPC.
Man on a mission (Score:2)
I can easily see Rainbow6/SWAT living in a Simcity world. It could be like the real world only different, maybe some sort of Second Life or something.
Flop (Score:2)
The idea sounds good to some degree. It sounds like they're trying to implement something like a DM
Don't hate the PKs, give them what they want (Score:5, Interesting)
I just wonder how many players will be interested being an expendable minion. The article/company claims that the PKs will be drawn to this role, but the griefer PKs will likely prefer the "elite" role that is closer to a PvE experience (griefing has always been closer to a PvE experience, but with realistic suffering/domination). The real PvP people usually prefer "fair" fights which might not make them that interested in fights against "elites". I suppose it depends on how it is balanced. If the fight is fair, but just asymmetric so that one side has few troops with great power and the other has many troops with little power, most PvPers shouldn't have an issue with that. I suspect though that the "elite" experience is supposed to be more like a PvE experience, i.e. you almost always win. In that case the minions can only strive for stats: to be the best of the chumps which may have limited appeal.
Regardless of the success of the mechanic, it is a great experiment. I can't wait to play.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Look at Pokemon (Score:2)
And who gets the credit? The one who killed the marine. That's not very satisfying for the other 7 or so aliens who helped you bring the super-powered marine down.
I think Pokémon, a role-playing game for Game Boy published by Nintendo, solved that issue rawther well: each of your own gamecocks [wikipedia.org] who has attacked the opponent creature receives a share of the experience when the opponent faints.
Re: (Score:2)
That is the solution that was eventually introduced into Natural Selection. All aliens in the area are awarded a share of experience(Often a teammate acted as bait as an important contribution to the kill, but that doesn't always involve damage.) however, the kill count problem persisted though the experience side was alleviated somewhat.
However, the experience was divided between players. So what if a leech
I think you've got the griefer role reversed (Score:2)
I don't think you quite understand the mentality of your average griefer. It's not that they like having more power, or enjoy beating up on people. Rather, they get joy out of caus
Re: (Score:2)
I've had AI opponents dodge, camp, and team up on me when playing as the hero in various single-player games. What's the issue here?
Re: (Score:2)
Normally, you can adjust the difficulty level if you're having a hard time in a shooter. AI being too cheap? Or you're just not that good? Simple enough, tweak the settings down, and you should be able to get by.
I can't really see that working in this system. Sure, it will try to quick-match your rating, pitting you against people that it thinks are at your skill level. But tha
Re: (Score:2)
For example, let's say that as the Elite, you're supposed to kill every last mercenary. So, as an asshole thing to do, I can just backtrack the entire level and make it very difficult for you to even find me, let alone kill me. That's not what an AI will do.
Yes it does. Yoshi, a block-stacking game for NES and Game Boy [wikipedia.org], has a "B-type" mode where the player is supposed to remove all blocks from the field. The random piece generator likes to asshole me by repeatedly not giving me the exact set of blocks I need to finish the level. In fact it is a roughly 1 out of 36 chance that the next pair of blocks is going to be appropriate.
Yeah, the designers can get around this by not having those type of objectives, but you can see where there's a challenge in designing objectives around NOT being griefable.
It's called play testing.
Re: (Score:2)
So, the conversation is about an FPS game and how the AI typically reacts in them, and now you throw in a puzzle game example?
There are
This is old (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I had this idea a few years ago... (Score:3, Interesting)
The idea was, whenever a player reached a certain repeatable milestone - X hours played or whatever - they would get a chance to "jump into" a boss-level mob out in the world somewhere. So when a party of players encountered that boss mob, it would be another player controlling it and not just an AI. The critter-playing player wouldn't be given any indications as to who the players were - depending on the intelligence level of the mob in question, the critter player would just see X number of pieces of meat walking around, or perhaps basic shapes (say a mob can pick out a magic using enemy vs. a melee-oriented enemy), that sort of thing, to help prevent griefing of certain other players.
The critter-playing mob would have a certain amount of time they could control boss mobs - say a few hours, total - and could use their time as they saw fit, piecemeal or all at once. I figure I would have also built in some sort of alert system - i.e. when a player had some critter time available, they could turn these alerts on - so that when normal players were getting close to a boss mob encounter, alerts would go out to the players with critter time letting them know, so if one wanted to hop in, it wouldn't be too much of a wait until the party arrived and the fun began, and they would get the most out of their critter time.
Madden has this also (Score:2)
Not many people did it, but it worked fairly well since online Madden is almost always 1 on 1. I don't see a decent number of people volunteering to take the place of NPC's.
Flop.
Counter-Strike (Score:2)
There is an actual mission where you play against fellow players? This seems to be a larger extension of what Counter-Strike already does. While not wholly innovative, I think this is a very good idea. Too bad my FPS skills are so weak. I enjoy a FPS with good ambiance and story, but I'm a poor FPS player since I rarely play them.
RTS? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who wants to be a skirmisher? (Score:2)
AvP and Tribes2... (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_versus_Predato r_(computer_game)#Screenshots [wikipedia.org]
Tribes2 also had the idea of radically different armor classes
RTS vs FPS!!! More fun (Score:2)
Cyberpunk Novels (Score:2)
pacman where ghosts are controlled by humans? (Score:2)
The maps would have to be made in such a way that the player can not easily be trapped though. Think about pacman: what would have happened if ghosts were controlled by humans? not many players would get past the first screen...
Re:Single Player... Vs Multi (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't wait. The Hobgoblin of story-based FPS is that predictability of the NPCs. Even when they're pretty smart, you can count on them to behave in certain critically flawed ways. Or, they're un-realisically fast and impossible to deal with.
Not to mention, re-play will be much more interesting.
Animal Crossing (Score:3, Insightful)
NPC predictability gets even worse in another video game (albeit not first-person, not shooter) whose title includes "Crossing". The game Animal Crossing for Nintendo GameCube is intended to be played in at least 730 sessions spanning 365 days, but the NPCs run out of things to say after about seven.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Of course
Here is where you jump off the deep end. Being good at single player is enough to get you "noob" status online. Nobody who can play at a decent level limits themselves to single player because it would be like Kasparov playing against a 4th grader.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:that is why... (Score:4, Interesting)
Thats the issue I see with this game as it comes out. Even if the single player character is "awesome" if they weaken the little henchman characters to the point were skill no longer matters, then the game will be fun for neither party. The stronger player character will simply mow through them regardless of how much they suck. If the better player on the NPC side is truly a lot better, say me vs my room mate or maybe my Dad or something, then the person playing the single player part of the game will not enjoy themselves.
My original post was not flame bait either.
Re: (Score:2)
There are certainly many people, such as your roommate, who are really bad at the game. However, not all of them play single player.
Your point about the potential superfluousness of skill is interesting, and will probably be what makes or breaks the game.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Of course Pippy bunny-hops. She's a bunny. (Score:2)
Even if the enemy character looks like an anthropomorphized rabbit? Remember this when you run into Bunnie, Dotty, Genji, Pippy, Claude, Gabi, Coco, Gaston, Doc, or Snake in the Crossing [neoseeker.com].