Crytek Dev On Fun vs. Realism In Game Guns 324
An anonymous reader tips a post from Pascal Eggert, a gun enthusiast and Crytek developer, who sheds some light on how weaponry in modern shooters is designed. Quoting:
"Guns in games are like guns in movies: it is all about looks, sounds and clichés. Just like in the movies, games have established a certain perception of weapons in the mind of the public and just like in movies games get almost everything wrong. ... The fact is that we are not trying to simulate reality but are creating products to provide entertainment. ... if you want to replicate the looks of something you need to at least see it, but using it is even better. You should hold a gun in your hands, fire it and reload it to understand what does what — and at that point you will realize, there is nothing on it that does not have a function — because guns are tools for professionals. Lot of weapon designers in the game industry get that wrong. They think of guns like products for consumers or magic devices that kill people at a distance when really it's just a simple and elegant mechanism that propels little pieces of metal. Unfortunately 3D artists often only get access to the photos that Google Image Search comes up with if you enter 'future assault rifle' or, even worse, pictures from other games and movies that also got it wrong. This may explain a lot of common visual mistakes in games, especially since guns are mostly photographed from the side and egoshooters show weapons from the first person view."
This article is drawn from his personal experience in the game industry. The images shown are Pascal's personal work and are not related to his work at Crytek.
Maybe... (Score:3, Insightful)
Crytek can look at making their games fun first...
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't "get" the hate for Crysis. I've played the original Crysis through three times and Warhead twice, and have always found it highly enjoyable. Many of the levels are quite open, allowing for a number of different approaches (so different playthroughs can feel radically different). The nanosuit system is slick and allows for a lot of variation in how you fight (though I suspect a lot of people never get past just using armour-mode and playing in a very traditional fps style) and the AI is reasonable enough. Ok, it's not flawless; the plot is pretty stupid (though that goes for almost all fpses), the "float around in the alien ship" section goes on for too long and the Warhead expansion is maybe a touch on the short side (though while it lasts, it does tend to emphasise the better aspects of the first game), but despite being several years old, I'd say it holds up well against more recent fpses - while still looking better than them.
I think what I like most about Crysis is that it's a PC game that actually feels like it's making use of the hardware. Don't get me wrong, I like my PS3 and 360, but it does frustrate me that almost anything I play on the PC has been limited for cross-platform compatibility with console hardware that's more than 4 years old. I remember in the latter days of old console cycles, such as the SNES/Genesis cycle, the PC was putting out the kind of gaming experiences and the kind of visuals that made console gamers' jaws drop in astonishment. Crysis is the only PC game I've seen that has come close to replicating that for the current generation.
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Informative)
I love Crysis because it is at least three different FPS games rolled into one. You play in the standard armour mode, you head in, kill some bad guys, win the day. You play in stealth and pick off opponents from far away, then slip away into the shadows to attack from another position. You mix it up with speed and strength to charge in and beat the living hell out of something. I've never played a game with such dynamic alterations to gameplay without having to stop, quit, and change class. You're a HW Guy, a Sniper, and a Scout all at once.
If you've completed it and fancy some awesome God-like carnage, edit the ini file to make suit recharging almost instant, clips hold 999 ammo, and run speed twice as fast. Super sweet.
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Informative)
I loved playing through most of the game using the stealth mode... It's a bit slower but takes more finesse.
However, the multiplayer design of Crysis was absolute shit. Anyone should've picked up from the DX9-clients-can't-mix-with-DX10-clients that Crytek violated one of the first rules of multiplayer game architecture - DO NOT TRUST THE CLIENT. In Crysis' case, apparently they offloaded world physics calculations to the client, and also trusted the client WAY too much.
For example, if a client said, "my 9mm pistol does 9999 damage", the server would say, "OK, 9999 damage to your target. Oh look, it's instadead."
Similarly, if a game client said, "My vehicle is immune to all forms of fire.", the server would happily say, "You got hit with a missile. Oh, you're immune to explosive damage - no damage at all!"
I played multiplayer for two weeks, the second of which was playing with the INI files figuring out what degree of cheating would not get noticed. (Thanks to the blatant instakillpistol cheaters, there was a LOT of potential for nonobvious cheating, such as the 400HP Toyota truck with a tweaked suspension.) After that I uninstalled the game and haven't played since. Cheating was, of course, unexciting other than the technical challenges of modding the game. Playing legit was pointless because of the ease of cheating.
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So it has potential as an MBA teaching tool, then?
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Agreed. I like Crysis because of its overall polish and the flexibility allowed in terms of how problems can be solved. It doesn't hurt that the eye candy is ALSO rather stunning if your rig has the hardware to handle it. So I'm willing to accept less "realistic" gunplay for better overall realism and more engaging environment.
If you want 100% realistic gunplay, get off your ass, give the sofa a rest, and visit a rifle range.
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I sure agree, Crysis is an excellent game by many standards. Most games are nowadays "Source Engine" based and acquirable via Steam, they feel all roughly the same (even if the scenario, textures, models are different) and the engine itself is not all that polished despite it's many years (it feels like Quake 1 based and mostly rewritten but keeping the same bases - because, it actually is). It doesn't mean games like half life aren't fun and good - they quite damn are, but the engine polish is not there.
Cr
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I'd say both.....there's no point in playing a "fast tech demo"......if I wanted to do that...I'd actually play Doom 3.
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hunting rabbits with my .20 guage shotgun
I'm not sure what a guage is, but a .20 gauge shotgun, if such a thing existed, would probably tear your shoulder off with recoil. A 20 gauge shotgun is quite controllable and suitable for rabbit-hunting.
and squirrels with my .22 caliber rifle
On the other hand, a .22 caliber rifle (again, if such a thing existed) would pose little threat to even the smallest squirrel -- the critter might feel a bit of a sting when you hit it, but that's about all. A 22 caliber rifle, of course, will do for a squirrel quite nicely.
Maybe if Crytek hired people with three digit IQs they could make some fun games; this guy's obviously one of the 50% of humanity with a two digit quotient.
Beam. Eye. Pot. Kettle.
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Dan I'm a little confused.
You're picking on someone for mis-spelling gauge as guage. Okay, I got that one no problem. You progress to sarcastically point out that a .20 gauge shotgun would "tear your shoulder off with recoil". I'd ask you where you're getting this idea? The smaller the gauge of a shotgun the LESS powerful it is. Commonly available progression in order of most to least powerful is 10, 12, 18, and 20. You're already wickedly confused so I'm going to leave out the .410.
Once you're done display
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22 caliber, when written, is informal usage. When spoken, the decimal is always assumed to be there unless specified otherwise.
Captain obvious (Score:4, Interesting)
Is anyone really surprised by this?
And further more, who asked for an explanation?
It's quite obvious the rocket launcher from UT isn't real. I never once thought a "rocket launcher" was that easy to handle.
I never expect weaponry in games to be life-like, depending on the game.
Certain games require certain realism, but I also know, too much realism would kill the fun.
Re:Captain obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought it was a mildly interesting read.. it seems the author has two main complaints...
1. the design of guns being unrealistic
He argues that 'future gun'-designs should be evolutions based on current gun designs, aiming to address problems with those current designs and integrating that into the 'future gun' design.
On one hand, that makes sense. On the other, look at the P90 - that doesn't look anywhere near the typical AK-47 or or M16. If you've never seen one before, you might think it -is- a 'future gun'. So obviously as long as the designers design a gun that could theoretically work, all bets are off as to what it actually looks like.
Not to mention that this only really applies to guns shooting bullets anyway - and even there you've got things like the MetalStorm that operate radically different from conventional guns.
2. the use of the guns being unrealistic
Recoil would tend to ruin the 'fun' of most games. A sniper rifle that gets you near-zero accuracy (floating barrel) when on the run / flying through the air would force those people to camp - and although that's exactly what snipers do, camping tends to be frowned upon in gaming
However, as another commenter posted below, it couldn't hurt to have reload mechanisms work as they do in real life -if- you're using a real life gun design in the first place. They also argued about the sound effects, though.. I've shot a few guns - I'll take the game/'Hollywood' sound effects anytime as far as entertainment goes.
Re:Captain obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
1.
If game designers have to take an realistic approach to future weapon designs, what are they doing designing games? They should design weapons.
2.
Regarding the reload issue, one of my peeves in "realistic shooters" is when you reload your gun, you don't loose the ammo in the magazine. It's just added to your current ammo. There is a FEW games out there that handles this differently, but majority doesn't care about magazine count, it's all about ammo count.
And I agree with you on the sound issue. Have you ever heard a M96? It sounds strangely familiar to the blinker in my car.
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Re: your second point, that's because games are usually about fun. And fun usually means removing all the dull bits unless they're strictly necessary to game balance or overall pacing. Because hanging on to the partially-used clips to redistribute them into a smaller number of fully-used ones later during a lull in fighting is an exact analogy to various RPG games that insist on you rearranging your irregularly-shaped loot in a jigsaw-stylee to fit in your inventory when you get the chance; boring stuff tha
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All I am saying is, when you reload, you toss the clip, but the ammo stays in your inventory.
When you reload, your character should toss the clip, WITH remaining ammo in it.
A few "realistic" games I've played, did this. And I like it.
Of course, this should only be valid for "realistic" games, "combat emulators" and other games in that genre. A regular FPS shouldn't adopt this.
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For most people, even if they think they want realism they wouldn't actually like realism.
There are only a few people who would use a flight simulator to fly from Singapore to London and actually take the 13+ hours nonstop to do it...
Same goes for realistic military stuff. You might get dropped off an hour or so away from the original planned
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Alien Swarm (now free on Steam) does this.
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Alien Swarm was free before Valve made it ;)
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No, because you had to buy UT 2k4, while now it's a proper standalone free game.
Re:Captain obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
A regular FPS shouldn't adopt this.
correct, mostly because of the large amount of ammo carried in regular FPS games. 700 rounds of 7.62mm, 500x5.56mm, 12 grenades, eight rockets, four medkits, (ad nauseum). I love running at full speed, jumping and strafing whilst carrying 230 lb of ammo, not including weapons, armor and a NAV system.
If I wanted realism, I would have joined the Corps years ago.
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If you haven't, you might want to look into ArmA2/OA. Sounds like you'd be interested.
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1. you are implying that games can never have realistic weapons, that's kinda dumb. There's a big difference between knowing how a weapon works, sound and look, and actually making your own weapon.
2. it's pretty annoying when you waste the ammo by reloading. game devs aren't so dumb to think real life ammo add up when you reload you know... it's just a game play issue.
In the end it's all about compromising between realistic feeling and enjoyable game play, which is I believe what the Crysis dev wanted to s
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These are arcade style FPS. Now a game like Arma 2 is what I would consider a realistic shooter.
When you reload, its based on clips rather than ammo count. Weapons behave and look like their real world counter part and sound effects are accurate. You mainly hear the sound of the bullets breaking the sound barrier.
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Regarding the reload issue, one of my peeves in "realistic shooters" is when you reload your gun, you don't loose the ammo in the magazine.
If you loosed the ammo in the magazine, the ammo would fall out!
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To me it looks like someone took a submachine gun and went all ergonomic on it.
It's just like a Canon 350D compared to an F1.
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Camping is a perfectly sensible tactic if you're defending. Anyone who complains about that is just bitter that they might actually have to use tactics to win.
Camping to me is only really a problem when someone on an attacking team is ignoring the main objective and just going for kills. If you just want to score kills, go play a deathmatch game, morons.
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Recoil would tend to ruin the 'fun' of most games. A sniper rifle that gets you near-zero accuracy (floating barrel) when on the run / flying through the air would force those people to camp
Deus Ex has both of these built into the gameplay, and that's one of the many reasons it's still considered one of the best FPS of all time.
Machine guns are almost impossible to control, and pistols recoil fairly realistically. You can acquire improved weapons tech that reduces this. Likewise, until you build skill as a sniper, your sight point moves randomly to simulate muscle tension.
Actually... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, as someone who's had at least the basic infantry training (our main role was to shoot down aircraft) it seems to me like it is indeed very very easy to handle. Ever since some guy tied a bow to a plank, weapons have been point and click basically.
And I imagine we'll probably find some parchments where the old guard argues that command line weapons were better, and how you should give lusers an IQ test before letting them anywhere near a weapon. ;) Actually, that is only half joke. A pope actually treated the crossbow as some kind of WMD and prohibited its use against fellow Christians. But I digress.
Anyway, a non-guided anti-tank rocket launcher like the one in most games is the epitome of easy to use. You don't even have to compensate for distance as much as with an assault rifle. The only thing that's unlike the game is basically that you should be sure there's nothing behind you, and shooting most rocket launchers in a room is an awfully bad idea. When the rocket comes out the front end, a jet of flame comes out the back end, see? You don't even have much recoil to deal with, since the hot gas just goes out the back end instead of pushing against something. Truly point and click, really.
Now guided ones that can take down a low flying helicopter may need a tad more training, but the basic principle is the same.
As for the other point, while I'll concede the general point that too much realism kills the fun, there is a difference between lack of realism because you understand exactly why it would be less fun, and lack of realism because you have no clue how a weapon works. The latter can be unrealistic without gaining any fun, or even being less fun.
Heck, probably the most baffling weapon-related example comes from the post-NGE SWG, where one quest gives you a sniper scope for a sword. No, literally. I can't even imagine what they were thinking, what were they smoking, and what's the phone number of their dealer so I can get some of that good shit too ;) And I can't even start to imagine why that would be more fun than a more believable (i.e., realistic) attachment like a mastercrafted grip or pommel.
Or take the meme that assault rifles kick so hard that you spray bullets in a 30 degree cone, or make that 45 degrees if it's an AK-47 or SAW. Such a weapon would be fracking useless. I once calculated that if a real SAW had the spread from counter-strike it would be useless even for suppression at its rated effective range, because you'd need to fire many many full belts and more ammo than a squad carries, to even put one bullet in the same square metre as the guy you're shooting at. Sorry, that won't make me keep my head down. I'll take that kind of chances.
And anyway trained soldier (most games pretend you're one) wouldn't spray lead like that. Except maybe if he's shooting from the hip while dancing the Macarena ;)
And the AK-47 is actually a very manageable weapon, although the larger calibre tells the average clueless gamer nerd who never shot one "OMG, higher calibre must kick like a mule." The key there is that it really was designed as a mid-range weapon, in the same line of thinking as the German MP-43/STG-44 (the first assault rifle) it was trying to imitate. It has a shorter cartridge case and shoots a larger but slower bullet, which means you're not really putting more impulse in the bullet. It's also why its effectiveness takes a nose dive beyond 300 metres: the slow bullet needs a too curved trajectory to hit the target and increases the chance to estimate wrong and shoot over or too short. But even then (A) it's 300m, not the distances on the average game map, and (B) it's the ballistic problem described before, not some kind of spraying lead in all directions.
At any rate, exactly what fun does that inaccuracy bring? Games have been balanced just fine and had interesting weapons even in the "stone age" when guns were hitscan weapons. And games like WoW still are such a bad offshoot of hitscan that you can even see the projectile curving and even zig-zaging to its target, and sold more copies than a lot of the "but it's realistic!!" (if you don't know how guns work, that is) idiocies. _Someone_ must like that.
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I was going to the extreme and using the Unreal Tournament rocket launcher as an example.
Ever played UT? That thing can load several rockets in the bay and fire them in a swirly fashion. Like a twisted pair...of rockets!
Oh, and let's not mention the amount of rockets you can carry and the reload time..
Regarding the recoil you mention, anyone who had any kind of military training, would know you don't "spray" any thing. You fire in bursts, unless you are firing for support, which is just to keep the enemy fr
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I'm using the term "spraying" because in most games that's really what you end up doing even if you fire 3-4 round bursts. The second round already leaves some ten degrees off, which frankly is bogus. Heck, in some games (e.g., Vampire Bloodlines) by the third round you're already looking at the freaking ceiling. In a lot even the first round will go somewhere in a wide circle (e.g., start a soldier in Alpha Protocol and go into _aimed_ mode with that starter tranquilizer pistol and see what a huge angle ge
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Also, dunno, I'm answering to the ease of use point because that's what you mentioned. The behaviour of rockets or quantity of ammo carried is indeed funny, but a whole other topic than ease of use. A real rocket launcher would not shoot swirly bunches of missiles, but it would be easy enough to use that even a child could do it.
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And I agree, a standard rocket launcher, a common LAW for example (well known from many games), is indeed point and click.
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A pope actually treated the crossbow as some kind of WMD and prohibited its use against fellow Christians.
That was because a crossbow was the first weapon that was cheap, able to be used with a minimum of training, and capable of killing a fully armoured warrior.
Fully armoured warriors in those days tended to be the nobility. It used to be (generally) that the only people who could kill nobles, were nobles (even pikemen were regularly frowned upon for that reason). The crossbow was the first really democratic weapon.
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Sort of. While a crossbow did allow one to use any untrained peasant, a longbow could do the same thing at the time. Far more important IMHO was the advent of the bodkin tip, essentially a pencil-like narrow metal spike, as opposed to the more traditional triangular or broadhead arrow tips.
In tests, a bodkin tip has been show to go right through both sides of a chain hauberk (hoodie;)) mounted on a wooden pole, as well as quite a way into the pole. And in historical accounts a point blank shot was described
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I once calculated that if a real SAW had the spread from counter-strike it would be useless even for suppression at its rated effective range, because you'd need to fire many many full belts and more ammo than a squad carries, to even put one bullet in the same square metre as the guy you're shooting at. Sorry, that won't make me keep my head down. I'll take that kind of chances.
Most games I've played get this more or less right. Some have taken it to ridiculous extremes, such as in the Tactical Ops mod for Unreal Tournament, where the bullet tracking is based on actual ballistics patterns. You SHOULD be more able to hold a FAMAS on target than an AK-47.
At any rate, exactly what fun does that inaccuracy bring?
It prevents kills which are too quick and easy.
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Eh, it was a joke about the point-and-click vs command-line flame wars we used to have. About 10 years ago you couldn't have a thread without a group bitching about how point-and-click is truly the spawn of Satan and a sign of the Apocalypse, and only drooling idiots would ever want to use a mouse... even if the topic was Natalie Portman naked and with hot grits ;)
I was just poking fun at it by positing a debate about point-and-click crossbows vs (non-existent) command-line weapons in ye olde days of the 12
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Except that the "castle" is a basket mounted on top of an elephant, filled with archers and spearmen, not a fortress designed to tie up enemy troops in sieges. My problem with the realism in chess is that you cannot panic enemy troops and have them attack your their own lines -- panicky elephants/rooks could be really fun :-)
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Rocket jumps would not have existed it if realism was simulated. We built a unique style of play because of those, in Quake I :-)
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>Rocket jumps would not have existed it if realism was simulated. We built a unique style of play because of those, in Quake I :-)
And how awesome was it ? I miss rocket-jumping - there were quite a few places where knowing how to do it could sway the game one way or the other. My all-time favorite Q2 map was the space-station. Low-gravity, huge jumps and lots of momentum - if you could keep from banging into the walls a rocket jump could send you clear to the other end of a hall while blowing the hell ou
More of this kind of complaint please. (Score:5, Insightful)
On top of that the recoil was vastly understated and I can guarantee you that after putting two 7.62mm NATO rounds through someone they will not still be firing or running at you. I'll give you a laugh, the game that always impressed me in terms of rifle sound effects was Army Men on the first Playstation. I had to read a horrible review of the game from a UK magazine stating that the sound effects and shooting mechanics were unrealistic. I read that after returing from a weekend at a firing range and the only game I had ever seen capture a 7.62 or
Next time a game promises more realism I expect more than just graphics and crazy Dirty Harrry style sound effects. Operation Flashpoint 2 got it right for the most part, firing a sniper rifle mid-air while running and jumping in CounterStrike is nonsense.
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Operation Flashpoint 2 got it right for the most part, firing a sniper rifle mid-air while running and jumping in CounterStrike is nonsense.
Well, at least it's better than some games that deliberately gimp sniper weapons when not using the scope to avoid players using them for their single-shot firepower.
The average anti-personnel sniper rifle isn't really more powerful than a regular army rifle at the ranges typically seen in games (anti-materiel rifles OTOH) so the extra power makes little sense (especially not in games that practically let you kill enemies with a single shot with most weapons anyway) other than to make sure they can punch th
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I think games should add some randomness to the aim of any weapon in any circumstances. And some games do. Guns are not dead accurate point and click weapons. The tiniest breath, tremble, whatever, can make your aim wander all over the place. For long range accuracy, you need to steady your gun. The quick snap shots in most games are only accurate at really short ranges.
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Oh, I have no problem with a little randomness thrown in to increase realism, it's when the weapon is clearly aimed straight at someone not 5 meters away and the bullet hits somewhere that indicates that it's either magic or that my in-game character is suffering from some kind of spontaneous intermittent muscle spasm that bothers me.
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You have to consider that in real life often times the sights on
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I'm not talking about missing the target by a few inches or even a meter, I'm talking about pointing the weapon at an enemy and having the bullets hit somewhere 3-4 meters to the side, and without moving the mouse at all and firing again the bullet will miss the enemy by a meter to the other side. And like I stated, I don't mind a bit of randomness thrown in for realism (and to mess with the "headshot!" crowd who try to learn all the little quirks of the game engine just so they can pull off stunts you coul
Re:More of this kind of complaint please. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Particularly in the situation GP described, where you've just been surprised by someone coming from an unexpected angle.
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Even cursory investigation would tell you that changing mags before empty requires no recocking and changing on an empty mag only requires a flick of the bolt-locking device to allow the breach to move forward; only a first load would require recocking.
Still, the fact that they differentiate between the two is a good start, and not common in most FPS's.
Of course come the last round being fired the character slowly changed magazine and recocked the rifle.
Oh come on, the FN FAL (SLR) is the only one in the game that DOESNT reload like that. He (you) take a new magazine and use it to knock the eject mechanism to remove the spent magazine. The FN FAL is the only rifle in the game that does this (despite the AK having a similar eject mechanism, making it possible. In fact, this nonchalant reloading was originally going to be used on the AK, not the FAL).
On top of that the recoil was vastly understated and I can guarantee you that after putting two 7.62mm NATO rounds through someone they will not still be firing or running at you
Whic
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Oh come on, the FN FAL (SLR) is the only one in the game that DOESNT reload like that. He (you) take a new magazine and use it to knock the eject mechanism to remove the spent magazine. The FN FAL is the only rifle in the game that does this (despite the AK having a similar eject mechanism, making it possible.
I don't think we're talking about the same thing. There are two controls by the magazine port, the magazine eject and the bolt hold-open device. Hitting the magazine eject is irrelevant to what I am talking about, it is the hold-open device that you release after you change magazine. The breach-block has been held to the rear and the ejection port is now open to view the open magazine; release the HOD when you affix the new mag and it will charge the breach from the new magazine. Essentially to the onlooker this can be one fluid motion where the magazine is affixed and the rifle appears to automatically ready itself. The AK47 famously does not have a hold-open device, it is famous for the old "Dead Man's Click".
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Re:More of this kind of complaint please. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but pretty much every recent shooter I've played has you drop a magazine, seat a magazine, and then pull the charging handle. Which... is dumb.
If I had a round in the chamber, it is entirely unnecessary to work the charging handle at all. Seat the mag, pull the trigger.
If I did not have a round in the chamber, seat the mag and unseat the charging handle from its held open position.
Now, if the game were to have weapon failures, it would be necessary to pull the charging handle. Clear a jam, or because the bolt failed to lock back on an empty magazine, failure to feed/fire/extract/eject. Whatever. I suspect people wouldn't like that because its less fun. But.. where is the fun in the reloading animation being pointlessly long? In fact, it punishes players with less skill to a greater degree than those with high skill. They're more likely to need to reload under fire because they use more bullets to score a kill.
I guess its an incentive to not suck.. but.. it is neither fun nor realistic.
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I haven't played many FPS games, and most that I have played, weren't much fun to me. The original Doom was okay because it was new, but in Counterstrike and most other games, movement is ridiculously fast en jerky, and the way the fight happens isn't exactly convincing.
The only FPS I really enjoyed was America's Army. Movement speeds that I can believe (and they give me some to think about what the hell I'm doing too), you need to aim carefully at hazy silhouettes, and with a powerful scope, your aim wande
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Movement in Doom was and is way faster than most FPS nowadays. And it was fun that way- arcade-style battles, rockets vs shotguns etc, with players outrunning rockets sometimes...
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Guns are taking the path of swords : compared to more modern weapons like missiles, mortar, airstrikes, they are less and less efficient and useful in far less cases but we like them. As kids we were given wooden swords and plastic guns so we like our toys
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A reference to infiltration! That old beast has not yet been forgotten. That made my day... thank you.
Realism is usefull only to a point (Score:5, Insightful)
Games are, in the end, games. Inmersion is important, but inmersion withouth fun will be... well.. not fun. So in the end videogames are mostly like complicated boardgames with the rules written in programming code.
In a game where having pistols works as very short distance weapons is not fun or usefull, the pistol will work mostly like another rifle.
( Ex: Games modeled after Rock, Paper, Scissors will force rockets as antivehicle weapons, that will not kill a soldier in a direct hit. )
And who cares? some people care... people that know real weapons, like (maybe) soldiers, and people that love weapons and love to read all details. And this affect games, because these people play videogames and is a very vocal group, and can get his point right.
There are lots of games, so generalization is poor here. There are games that aims for high levels of realism, or different levels of realism / gameplay. In one side of the spectrum there are games like Unreal and Modern Warfare 2, subreal products. On the other side there are "combat simulations" like ArmA. In the middle you have games like Battlefield.
Games are not getting wrong anything, games are remodeling weapons for his own purposes. We all know Kings are not forced to move in only 8 different directions, but is usefull for chess to model kings that way (and this don't make chess 'wrong').
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Like you say, some people play the games for the realism, and the others play for the fun. I personally like games with ridiculously entertaining weapons like Ratchet and Clank. The weapons designers for that game have a great sense of humor and create weapons that do more than just blow things up. They turn your enemies into exploding ducks and shoot wads of slime. Clearly, there's nothing even remotely realistic about those weapons, but I get a chuckle out of them.
If you're going to whinge about the
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Games are, in the end, games. Inmersion is important, but inmersion withouth fun will be... well.. not fun.
What exactly is "fun" according to you? Fun is highly subjective. Lots of people like immersion and don't enjoy having their suspension of disbelief broken rudely because some designer thought something needed to be more "fun".
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And when you go to too real, things just get un fun Real warfware isn't fun. A "realistic" wargame would be one where you rush to get setup and deployed, stand around for weeks waiting for orders, and if you get shot and die you can never play again because you are dead. Perhaps a bit too realistic.
Even in terms of weapons realism it can be bad. Take the Battlefield games, especially the current day Bad Company 2. Well, if that were "realistic" the vehicles the US had would be superior to the Russian ones (
You answered your own question (Score:2)
In the real world, the US has better weapons. No surprise, they spend a shitload on them. [...] Nobody would want to play on the weaker side
I think you answered your own implicit question. Make the weaker side free to play.
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This question of fun vs immersion or fun vs realism has always been on the table. As a former developer for a game aiming for what a gamer would call extreme realism, I've asked myself these question all the time. One thing I found is that it's extremely something to simulate something you never lived. I fired rifles, but I've never been into combat. I can only assume that it can sometimes be a real pain. How can one simulate this in a game, while still making it enjoyable.
The pistol example you bring up is
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In COD4, which isn't exactly a master of realism, pistols aren't useless. They're better than snipers and machine guns at close range, because the former have terrible close range aim and fire rate, and the later are so heavy you move much slower, and take too much time to start firing (and take an eternity to reload).
almost everything wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Then set up as needed and test, test, test.
Perhaps build a rig to measure push back and chart the different guns?
That will give you the laws of physics, you will have sound and visuals from every aspect.
This is not the old days of a quick sketch, a low res gui and a royalty-free gun audio license on a cd.
Why is the young digital generation of artists so sheltered should be the only question.
If they are unable to travel and work with real life, time to rethink the staff?
If your an aspiring 'artist' turn of the anime, xbox, sony time wasters and learn to draw in the real world.
Re:almost everything wrong (Score:5, Informative)
well, racing game designers often go and remeasure the various test tracks, and run the stats of their modelled cars through the manufacturer, why not the same with FPS's? doesn't have to be in a warzone, but these weapons are available to be photographed, measured, tested and modelled.
dave
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Unpossible! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Unpossible! (Score:5, Funny)
Shocking isn't it? At least the HL gravity gun was based on solid research.
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AKA-47 (Score:2)
I dont care what you all day, my KF-7 Soviet is a real gun, I have seen them on TV.
That's because the Goldeneye 007 guns are mostly renamed versions of real guns [tvtropes.org]. What you're seeing on TV is an AK-47 [wikipedia.org].
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Just like monopoly money is designed to look and feel like real money, it's not. It's a game device.
As long as some of the functions are preserved, it served its role.
That BFG 9000 sure dominated.
"And The Science Gets Done and You Make a Neat Gun For the People Who Are Still Alive."
--GLaDOS
Obligatory XKCD (Score:3, Insightful)
http://xkcd.com/359/
On guns in games (Score:4, Interesting)
Immersion & "draft damage": Having been a conscript for 8 months, I've had my perception of small arms altered. I know now that regular infantry man usually engages the enemy with single fire, and that the precision and stopping power afforded by a modern assault rifle is something thats too often is only portrayed by sniper rifles in games. I tire of the inability to take proper aim, and alter the firing mode in many games. Crouching and going prone is also something that's often being shunned by the industry.
We're are, as the article puts it, often left with a hollywood version of weapons. I'm not suggesting that each virtual m16 should come with a virtual cleaning kit, but I would like to see more "portrayed" realism in the handling: that the (deadly) tool can be operated with some of the freedom and functionality that it provides in real life. I realize that this approach is not for all types of games.
I realize that games are abstractions and aspects of realism can be costly and complex to implement in carefully balanced game mechanics; especially if they're intended to provide a competitive space for players.
For gun nuts: I was trained with a Diemaco C7 with an elcan optical sight
P.s: We we're missing a proper ww2 tank movie
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We we're missing a proper ww2 tank movie :/. Most ww2 hollywood tank portrayals pre-"saving private ryan" are horrendous.
Dude, Kelly's Heroes...soooo good!
What utter bullshit (Score:2)
"there is nothing on it that does not have a function -- because guns are tools for professionals"
Spoken like a man that has never been inside a gun shop.
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Most of these games try put you in the role of military professionals in combat situations.
You're mistaken in the same way you would mix up professional race cars with riced-up corollas.
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There are a lot of professional tools in a gun shop.
Lighten up! (Score:2)
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I don't *expect* a BFG 9000 to be realistic.
If it were, it would kill half the fun.
I'm pretty sure that BFG9k would kill *all* the fun, and then some.
realism? in MY games?! (Score:2)
So, you're telling me that game designers are sacrificing realism to produce entertaining weapons?
Shocking!
Next thing you'll tell me is that there is no secret Black Mesa research facility.
Sure, for some games some degree of realism adds to the enjoyment. STALKER, for example, benefits from having vaguely realistic settings and weapons. But even if you're playing something that's genuinely set in the real world - like one of the Call of Duty games - you're still playing a game. You still have to simplify
Reply from Pascal Eggert (Score:5, Interesting)
You must be mistaken. (Score:3, Funny)
Slashdot prides itself on the accuracy of its headlines. I don't believe we've had a misleading one since the 2003 incident.
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Why? Crysis isn't about story and dialogue, is it?
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A gun is a tool, not a toy. Games are a toy.
Yet games focus a lot more on guns than on all other tools put together.
Re:Effort (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, you're quite right. People play games because they are games. People play with guns because ... ok, we don't play with guns. Anyone who's been to a shooting range knows that it's a very serious place. If it's not, that's an excellent time to leave quickly because someone's going to get hurt.
There was a show on not too long ago, where they took a kid out to an outdoor shooting range. The only people there were the kid, his mother, the instructor, and the video crew (off camera, of course).
He was a brave hero in the video games, blasting away at all the enemies. At the shooting range, he was terrified of the guns. They left his full reaction out of the initial cut, but put it in later in the show. He wasn't just terrified. He was crying his eyes out.
I took a 13 year old to the shooting range. He'd been playing FPS games for quite a while. He was sure he wanted to join the military when he turned 18. He wanted his parents to buy him real guns, so he could go to the range with them. I spent about 3 hours with him, tearing down my weapons, cleaning them, and reassembling them. I explained every part of them, so he knew the names and functions, and how they worked together. Then we were off to the shooting range.
The range we went to had two sections, a pistol, and a rifle range. We agreed that I would demonstrate proper firing techniques, and then instruct him while he fired. We went to the rifle area first. The only other person in the rifle range was firing a Kel-Tec PLR-16 [kel-tec-cnc.com] (.223 pistol). We were using my Springfield 03A3 [wikipedia.org]. For those who haven't used one, it's a cannon. :) Without shoulder padding, I'm limited to about 30 shots per arm (I shoot ambidextrously). It has no padding on the stock, and a vicious recoil. I had him stand a few feet behind me, and observe what I was doing. I fired the first shot, and brought the target back to show him what I did. While the target was coming back to me, I turned around, and he had gone from standing behind me, to hiding in the corner.
Mind you, this kid wasn't timid. It was the sudden reality of "the things that go pop in the games are really dangerous" came flooding into his world. I spent a while trying to get him to take even a single shot with it. That didn't happen.
We moved over to the pistol range. I had brought my Ruger P97DC [google.com]. It's a nice weapon. .45 ACP, fairly light, easy recoil. I fired a single shot. This time, he didn't go running all the way to the corner, but he did back up several feet. I demonstrated proper use of it for him, put a fresh magazine in. To show it was ready, I fired 3 shots from the new magazine, and then made it safe and put it down. I then began instructing him. I got him to pick it up, and he even got his finger onto the trigger, but never pulled the trigger. He was terrified.
Now, what kind of lunatic would give a 13 year old with no shooting experience a loaded weapon? Not me. I didn't tell him, but the last "loaded" magazine I put in only had 3 rounds in it. After my last shot, I hit the slide release (the slide stays back when the magazine is empty). I just told him it was ready. I'd been telling him for years "Every weapon is a loaded weapon." I'm sure anyone who's been around firearms has heard that one. I told him again, and then demonstrated that it was empty by dry firing it. I told him, even though I knew it wouldn't fire, it was still to be treated as a loaded weapon. Since he wouldn't fire what he believed to be a loaded weapon, he wasn't ready to actually do it.
It's not an age thing though. My father had me shooting when I was about 8 years old. The
Re:Effort (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's what I was thinking as I read that. I mean, yeah, a .22 isn't as intimidating, but it's also a lot more comfortable to fire, especially for someone who's never fired a gun, and especially for a kid. That, and the ammo is cheap.
Re:Effort (Score:4, Interesting)
That show was Penn and Tellers "Bullshit" and I was extremely dissapointed with that demonstration. Thier "Hero" marine appeared to give the child no instruction in the proper technique for the use of the firearm. And he specifically failed to correct the child who was holding the weapon in an inproper firing position. As a result it appears that he was struck in the face or glasses by the charging handle, or triangular projection on the left side of the weapon (sorry I havent used that (or any model) since my army days so I dont remember the proper name of that part.
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It's not an age thing though. My father had me shooting when I was about 8 years old. The first weapon I ever used was a Colt 1911. By the time I was 13, I had fired a decent collection of weapons, and had free reign to use a .22 for target practice pretty much any time I wanted. The larger weapons were for special occasions, since the ammunition is more expensive.
1) Free "rein". Like a horse.
2) Yeah, my dad had me shooting long before I was 13, too. I still own the first gun I ever fired, A .22LR Winchester semi-auto. Very nice little gun. I shot that sucker until my shoulder got tired the very first time.
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You might not want to tell that to the people shooting the different pistol competitions. We sure consider it a lot of fun.
IDPA, USPSA, IPSC, and Cowboy Action shooting are all very much like video games with real guns. And they are a helluva lot of fun.
You still have to be careful, because a gun is still a dangerous tool. But it's safer than car or dirt bike racing, which both use tools to have a ton of fun.
Sure if you take a little kid, hand him a gun that's too powerful for him to control, and don't tell
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Yes. I am gratified to see that in the "Realism vs Fun" debate, there's a game developer who comes down on the side of "Fun".
But entertainment takes different forms. Just as there are people who will spend thousands of dollars, dress up in funny clothes, carry heavy equipment into the field, paint themselves with stuff that smells like pee, and sit in a damp blind for hours for the enjoyment of snuffing the life of some woo
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Any parent letting a politician or political organisation control their child's perception of the world should be sterilised at gunpoint.
I say that one as a person who likes Australia's gun control methods (Read: gun license required, dear gun nuts).