New Huxley Gameplay Footage - Looks better than you thought it would.

[damijin]

I know a lot of people here at f13 played Planetside for a least a month. And everyone knows that Huxley is coming, we're just all incredibly cynical and figure that it's Korean and will suck (or will at least be mismanaged and have massive cheating problems), or will be a shitty lagfest, or will be only as entertaining as Planetside and everyone will quit within a month.

Well, I'm not going to put any of those fears to rest, but uh... this latest video looks fucking sweet. Draw your own conclusions.

(edit: go to schild's link instead of mine unless you have some quicktime issues, since his is highres goodness and mine is IGN crap.)

[schild]

Webzen isn't completely Korean.

Also, IGN sucks.

Looks very UT (hi-res quicktime, Gametrailers).

[stray]

Graphics quality looks sub par, weapons don't look very interesting (on the website, there's only 4), but it still seems fun enough. The action and pacing resemble a traditional FPS deathmatch. In that respect, it looks more fun than Planetside. The gimmicks were cool as well (i.e. heat version and superspeed).

[schild]

Yea, there's no way those are anywhere near final graphics. I've seen Webzen produce some good looking shit. As for the game, it's been on my list but it'll take more than pretty pictures to convince me to get my computer ready for UT2k7 (Hux uses Unreal 3). And right now UT2k7 is the only thing that'll get me to get a new rig.

[Trippy]

schild will attest to the fact that Huxley is a game I've been eagerly anticipating so not everybody here thinks it's going to suck. And I think the graphics look fine. Frankly I would be worried if they were showing off environments as detailed as, say, Quake IV. This is supposed to be an MMORPGFPS, after all, and having super-high-poly graphics and super-high-res textures just means you'll be stuck with 4 on 4 battles at best. Basically it's a tradeoff between"teh shiny" and massive battles. PlanetSide with its crappy graphics picked the "massive" end, being able to support up to 400 players per continent. I'm guessing Huxley is more on the traditional FPS-end with probably 32 on 32 or 64 on 64 style batttles.

[stray]

I'm guessing Huxley is more on the traditional FPS-end with probably 32 on 32 or 64 on 64 style batttles.

Well shit, if it's that small, then why would I want to play this instead? UT2K4 has vehicles and can do 32. BF has vehicles and can do 64. Not sure about Quake Wars or UT2K7.

Secondly, all of those games look better, have more weapons, more gimmicks, more...whatever.

And apparently, Huxley still requires PvE "questing" (as they put it). No doubt it'll have a grind too (being made by Koreans and all). Other shooters have robust, heavily scripted stories -- without grinds.

About the only thing it seems that this game has over them is persistency. But it doesn't sound like that means much, when weighed against everything else.

[Trippy]

Secondly, all of those games look better, have more weapons, more gimmicks, more...whatever.

I would beg to differ that UT2K4 or BF2 looks better than Huxley. And I'm not sure why you are so fixated on weapon counts. Just cause the Web site is only showing 4 doesn't mean the game, which is unfinished and unreleased, is going to have 4. Hell the video schild linked to shows 5 weapons.

[stray]

And I'm not sure why you are so fixated on weapon counts.

Well, it is a shooter, after all. Kind of a standard fixation, I think.

Even putting that aside though, I think the other concerns I raised are valid ones. What exactly does this do better than an FPS? People raised the same question about PlanetSide, and now that I've looked at the feature list with Huxley, I think it demands that question more than PlanetSide ever did. At least PS set itself apart by having large scale battles with persistency. Other shooters couldn't do that.

It seems like everything Huxley does, otoh, is done better with normal FPS's. Story, 64 player or less competitive play, graphics (latency wise or style wise).

What does it do that sets itself apart? Huxley's world is persistent, but it has instanced, small scale competitive death matching. Big deal. Huxley has "quests" (and probably a grind). Fuck that shit. Huxley is made by Koreans -- Fuck that shit too. It's most unique features are at the same time, it's worst ones.

[Signe]

I don't know, it looked pretty good to me.  Having said that, it's going to be really really awful.  Why?  Because I hate those sorts of games!  But it looked good.

[damijin]

I think the battles will be closer to the "less than 64 people in your general area at once" scale, but even WWIIOL had (still has?) a 64 player limit and it's players still love it. If they put in enough persistance and experiences that you can't get in other online FPS games (that PvE AI looked pretty good, and advancement is sure to be key), it doesnt really matter if you can pull off Planetsides huge battle numbers.

Seeing the city shots with the cars and what not gave me a feeling that they've spent a lot of time on the atmosphere of Huxley, and it looks like a very, very, high budget title. I don't really know much about Webzen, but I think it's fair to say that this is the American-bound warship in their fleet, and they've strapped as much money to the front as possible to make sure it crosses those choppy waters in the north pacific.

editted to downtone my optimism over the PvE aspect of the game.

[geldonyetich]

Blech, that about ruined my optimism for Huxley.  A MMOG needs more depth than Unreal Tournament, it should play more like a tactical shooter.  Planetside went severely downhill when they chose to make it less tactical and more twitch, and it looks like Huxley is starting that way.  So, come on in and get owned by 8-year-olds with better reflexes.  Don't be bitter, that guy's going to be your commander soon.   Not to mention that the higher speed play makes Internet latency concerns that much more influential over play.  Webzen apparently knows squat about MMOFPS design.

Maybe some people will like it, but personally I won't pay $15/mo for an shallowly balanced FPS design I can play without a subscription fee.  Now, if it played more like Gears of War I'd be all over it.

[damijin]

To be honest, I don't care what the speed of gameplay is like. The MMOFPS genre was, and still is, on the brink of death. It has made jack shit in comparison to it's RPG cousin, and one would believe that it's operating costs are even higher than it's cash cow relative.

Huxley may save it. Even if it doesn't do it perfectly, Huxley may bring new blood into the genre, and keep it alive long enough for that next MMOFPS to enter development. And maybe, just maybe, somewhere down the road someone will realize that a good tactical MMOFPS with a slow combat pace (to make pc specs and lag less of a factor), and awesome "war"-like features such as territory control and resource management for an army, will make a great game.

[Nija]

Looks like a UT mod to me.

Also, does anyone play stuff at that framerate? There were more than a few serious slowdowns.

[Krakrok]

That trailer was pathetic. It looked like 4x4 Doom 3. They have lots of claims on their site like:

Everything a character does in the Huxley world directly affects the success of not only the individual, but also of their race and party; from battles to behaviors, all interactions are linked to the survival of a character’s entire race.

Huxley goes past traditional death match FPS gameplay by challenging players to adapt to new forms of combat to protect the interests of the camp.

Enemies in Huxley demonstrate remarkable intelligence, which can be used to a player’s advantage or demise.

The characters in Huxley are continuously growing, which is rare in FPS games.

I'm not holding my breath.

[stray]

I'm not holding my breath.

The characters in Huxley are continuously growing

This feature will make it in at least.

[Venkman]

Looks fine. But looks won't make it succeed or fail.

As Stray said, standard questions here. We asked them all on PS. Regardless of what it became and when, the results are obvious. Sub-niche experience. Big ass battles are cool, but even in PS they're rare. So what really sets PS apart from superior looking games that don't collect a fee?

Well, not enough for one.

Huxley could have 4 weapons or 100, but it's success will hinge on a lot of things, notably:

• Does it feel superior to an FPS in some easy-to-understand way?
  
• What does it cost to play?
• How much does twitch matter?

The videos don't matter to me though they were cool and all. I'm interested enough to want to play it but not enough to follow it. This is because my entire interest for it is about UI. It's got to make persistence matter or I won't feel it's any different from the already good array of options.

[damijin]

I fell into the Planetside subniche group.. actually, I associate more with the WWIIOL subniche group (just resubbed yesterday!).

Even still, I think Huxley isn't really the best way for that subniche genre to go but... when theres only 3 games that exist in your niche, you take what you can get. Maybe I'm crazy when I think it looks awesome, but I compare it to Planetside and WWIIOL, so my standards are low.

[WindupAtheist]

Change it from Huxley to Huxtable.  Nobody knows what the fuck Huxley is, but people loved The Cosby Show.

[Venkman]

when theres only 3 games that exist in your niche, you take what you can get..

It's tricky to identify MMOFPS titles though. Some consider Endless Ages and Neocron in that mix as well. Of course, you're still taking what you can get even by bringing the list to a whopping five :) Plus, complicating this is the control systems. Each of these games feels different. In PS, you sorta knew that the game took over after a certain point, using dice for their cone of fire. In a real FPS, that's a lot less obvious or not at all.

[Sky]

I don't get why so many people bag on PS. It's one of the greatest fps games of all time, imo. Only the Battlefield series comes close, and that's moving way too much in the direction of fast-paced combat. I used to fly for a clan in 1942 and I can't even stand to get in a jet in BF2.

I don't know how huge, persistent maps and enormous furballs aren't enough to make a great game. I'd probably be more interested in an updated PS engine than Huxley. Not having to waste hours every weeks just looking for a damned server was worth the sub for me.

Now with Huxley, one of the benefits is that it's supposed to be seamlessly cross-platform. Time to pwn slow-turn thumbtards! ;)

Graphics quality looks sub par

I don't even know you anymore.

[stray]

I don't even know you anymore.

The characters and monsters look horrible, and the weapons and vehicles look like Tonka toys. It just doesn't look very attractive to me, despite the engine.

[Nija]

I don't get why so many people bag on PS. It's one of the greatest fps games of all time, imo. Only the Battlefield series comes close, and that's moving way too much in the direction of fast-paced combat. I used to fly for a clan in 1942 and I can't even stand to get in a jet in BF2.

I like operation flashpoint, not being able to join multiplayer games in session and everything, better than PS and BF*. BF* would be a better game with a better engine and people that really gave a damn. Hitting escape changing me to 800x600 16bit wasn't acceptable in the bf1942 beta and it's not any more acceptable however many games and expansions later.

[5150]

I don't get why so many people bag on PS. It's one of the greatest fps games of all time, imo. Only the Battlefield series comes close, and that's moving way too much in the direction of fast-paced combat. I used to fly for a clan in 1942 and I can't even stand to get in a jet in BF2.

I like operation flashpoint, not being able to join multiplayer games in session and everything, better than PS and BF*. BF* would be a better game with a better engine and people that really gave a damn. Hitting escape changing me to 800x600 16bit wasn't acceptable in the bf1942 beta and it's not any more acceptable however many games and expansions later.

I liked Flashpoint but the multiplayer interface was horrible - waiting ages for the current map to end to then miss out on the free-for-all for the finite slots in the next map was something I hope never to have to put up with ever again /derail

Was it any better on XBox live? (been tempted several times to get it on XBox but only if they got rid of that horrible multiplayer pain described above)

[Sky]

Oh yeah. OpFlash was the king! Ok, maybe that was the greatest single player wargame of all time. I never played it multiplayer.

[LC]

The best FPS ever was the original Tribes. I'm not sure how you can even begin to call PS one of the best FPS ever. You can't even snipe with the sniper rifle in PS.

[Sky]

I believe sniping is one of the shittiest parts of fps. It sucks the fun out of a game like BF where you have a limited amount of players but 6 of 16 are crouched in some bushes getting a handful of sniper kills a round. Or BF1942 where half the team was camping planes on the airfield and the other half was sniping at them. Sniping is a selfish playstyle that's only fun for the sniper, whereas with most other weapons, you can enjoy a spirited firefight. It's just pretty lame gameplay. So yeah, I wouldn't let the lack of sniping deter me in the slightest. It's like decrying a lack of wandering damage.

[damijin]

Sniping in PS was actually pretty cool.

Useful in very limited situations, and typically used to wear the enemy down and force them into defensive positions rather than actually kill them. A lot of bases that had large hills next to them would be under the constant assault from snipers in all directions. Since a direct sniper shot wouldn't kill you, it usually made the people getting hit find some cover and pull out their med kit to heal themselves. While that's happening they're very vulnerable to infiltrators sneaking around inside the base.

So.. yeah, I liked PS sniper rifle system. However, I thought it was kind of lame that players in PS only had 1 hit box and a sniper (or anyone for that matter) had no incentive to aim at the head instead of chest.

[geldonyetich]

Planetside today is absolute crap compared to the balance in the beta.  Nice big open cones of fire that required you crouch to get anything resembing ranged accuracy and, if you crouched behind cover that half obscured you, half of the enemy fire would hit the cover instead of you.  It was a thinking man's game where hyperactive twitchmonkeys bunny hopping skills served them not at all. 

Soon after release, thanks to giant whining threads by people who refused to learn the cone of fire, Planetside had deevolved to the point where cover was useless and surging around with the run-speed cyberware (Surge) rendered anyone who tried to use cover into mincemeat.  The problem was twofold: 1. The engine couldn't handle people rapidly strafing from side to side, it would misrender them as flying off too far in both directions.  2. Getting hit a few times would open up your cone of fire, so the guy who runs at you spraying and praying would have just as bad of a cone of fire as the guy getting tickled by a few lucky bullets while behind cover.  Shotguns, naturally, became the best weapon.

Another thing that bugs me about beta balanced as compared today is that armor piercing ammo used to have a point.  Most people don't bother carrying it these days because the only target it's really good against is MAX armor, where it about halves killing time, and with Decimator disposable rockets you can kill them in three shots anyway.  The developers further dumbed things down by making anti-vehicular vehicle weapons effective against infantry as well.

Some of those ugly changes have been reverted since then.  Surge is now nerfed to put your weapon away and Reaver rockets aren't tweaked to do great infantry damage anymore.  Network code has been improved a bit so jinking from side to side isn't quite as effective.  Still, it's not nearly as deep and interesting as the beta balance, when Planetside actually had aspirations to act like a massively multiplayer game instead of an expensive and less fully featured version of Tribes with connected maps.

So, seeing Huxley starting out looking like Unreal Tournament is downright depressing.  Massively multiplayer games need to be more intelligent than that.  It's a bad sign when Counterstrike requires more intelligence to play.

[Hoax]

The best FPS ever was the original Tribes. I'm not sure how you can even begin to call PS one of the best FPS ever. You can't even snipe with the sniper rifle in PS.

Listen to this one, the rest of you are being retarded as hell.

What I want to know about Huxley is, how well will this work:

Huxley delivers the excitement and rich gameplay experience of an MMORPG while combining the knuckle-whitening action of an FPS. Players can communicate with each other in a virtual online city, and participate in side battles with the intuitive PvP (player vs. player) system. Everything a character does in the Huxley world directly affects the success of not only the individual, but also of their race and party; from battles to behaviors, all interactions are linked to the survival of a character’s entire race.

The amount of weapons or level of twitch is irrelevent as long as the game is fun and they actually get the whole "world" thing right.  I'm looking for something more then lobby + games here.

[geldonyetich]

Sorry to break it to you, Hoax, but that's all spin. 

"excitement and rich gameplay experience of a MMORPG", "knuckle-whitening action" - In the same way one can have an exciting and rich experience with a can of soup.  Fluff words that mean nothing.

"Communicate with eachother in a virtual city" - They have a chat system like any other online game.  I can communicate with other players in a virtual city in Counterstrike.

"intuitive PvP (player vs. player) system" - There's nothing 'intuitive' about what I saw in the video reel that started this thread, but given that it's yet another fluff word, it's meaningless.

"Everything a character does in Huxley world directly affects the success of not only the individual, but also of their race and party" - A claim made by nearly every single MMORPG ever made.  I could say this is true about Planetside or Dark Age of Camelot, for example, but it's fairly meaningless in execution.

Huxley, from that video clip alone, is looking to be little more than a massively multiplayer Unreal Tournament 2004 with Tribes being considerably more intelligent in execution.  Planetside might actually be a deeper, more satisfying game in comparison.  Very sad after seeing other E3 clips of people moving around in squads, because there's no way squad-based combat will work when it's playing that fast.  MMO twitchmonkey arena, here we come.  Freaking clueless Webzen, here's a free clue: twitchmonkeys do not a massively multiplayer world inhabitant make.  They arrive, they spasm, they leave.  A crowd that is looking to genuinely act like it's a virtual world is the one you want, and those folks have better things to do than spasm or be killed by those who spasm better than them.

That's it, I'm getting a video game degree.  I can make better games than 95% of the game developers in existance, it seems.

[raydeen]

How many MOBs do I need to grind to get the EXP and plat I need to buy and use a BFG? And I mean the original BFG where I can wipe the entire map thats in my FOV.

[Sky]

Planetside today is absolute crap compared to the balance in the beta.  Nice big open cones of fire that required you crouch to get anything resembing ranged accuracy and, if you crouched behind cover that half obscured you, half of the enemy fire would hit the cover instead of you.  It was a thinking man's game where hyperactive twitchmonkeys bunny hopping skills served them not at all. 

(snipped for space conservation)

So, seeing Huxley starting out looking like Unreal Tournament is downright depressing.  Massively multiplayer games need to be more intelligent than that.  It's a bad sign when Counterstrike requires more intelligence to play.

I agree with that entire post.

Unfortunately, hyperactive twitchmonkey bunnytards are the target fps demographic.

[Kitsune]

Holy shit, watching that Huxley gameplay gave me ADD.  I do not like games of SHOOTSHOOTSHOOTDODGETHATGUYQUICKROCKETJUMPNOWDROPTHREEGRENADESKILLKILLKILLARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHH!!!  Even in games with lots of mobility and open space (Tribes) it didn't feel like things were going so fast as to be retarded, you could actually be thinking ahead instead of shooting some crystal meth and wiring the controller directly to your brain for maximum reflexes.

[geldonyetich]

Unfortunately, hyperactive twitchmonkey bunnytards are the target fps demographic.

True.  Doubly unfortunate is that it seems whoever is in charge over there does not realize that genetic shoot-em-up FPS are different beasts than MMOFPS and tactical FPS.

A second look at that video shows that strafing is instant.  That means, in any kind of latency, the lag between when your target strafes versus when you actually see it strafe will displace the target considerably further than it should have.  But it's mostly the speed that kills it - you can't have squad-based combat at that speed.  Not even in a single player game.  Imagine trying to play Rainbow Six, SWAT 3/4, or Republic Commando at Unreal Tournament speeds.  That vacant feeling in your forehead is most of your brain not related to hand-eye coordination realizing they'd just get in the way and turning off.

[Nebu]

Unfortunately, hyperactive twitchmonkey bunnytards are the target fps demographic.

Can't they make more games like the original BF 1942?  It had twitch and was strategic.