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

[Sky]

I really get turned off when I see hordes of monsters running directly at the player's avatar without the slightest bit of thought to their own safety, and the player backing up as a reactionary tactic. Like I said, 1996 all over again. *yawn*

That's also why I disliked that part of Far Cry with the trigens, although at least the trigens and mercs would duke it out before they noticed you.

Hellgate just looks bad...at least according to what I've seen. I'd welcome being wrong. Ditto for Huxley.

[Hoax]

@Margalis:  That Quake comment is really sad coming from you, dont stoop to same level as the rest of us...

The rest of you, fuck off.  Dont like traditional fps gameplay where you know, aiming might be one of the more important things?  Then just fuck off.  I dont post in the WoW board because endgame raiding and massive grinds make me sick.  Besides I find every reference to Planetside being super tactical and wow so great to be pathetic musings from somebody enamored a long time ago.  That game blows ass, gameplay as an infantry man is NOT fun.  There are tons of other cool things you can do with the vehicles but basic infantry?  Fucking weaksauce.

Yay I can make statements and say "this is fact, bitchasses" just like everyone else in this stupid thread!

[geldonyetich]

Late to the party, but you've brought your own angst.  Two thumbs up.

[tazelbain]

Hoax: read the damn thread, no one is saying that.

Mindless twitch is fine.  But I still have no clue why I'd bother with MMFPS, with so many good FPS around?

[Trippy]

Mindless twitch is fine.  But I still have no clue why I'd bother with MMFPS, with so many good FPS around?

Hey we're back on topic!

[Murgos]

Hoax: read the damn thread, no one is saying that.

Mindless twitch is fine.  But I still have no clue why I'd bother with MMFPS, with so many good FPS around?

That's not the real issue.  If the MMFPS had as good graphics as and as good gameplay as the FPS's then playing the MMFPS would be a no brainer.

[Sky]

The rest of you, fuck off.  Dont like traditional fps gameplay where you know, aiming might be one of the more important things?

Listen up, kid. How about aiming counts but you can't fucking rocket jump and bunnyhop?

And if you'd actually read the pro-Planetside posts, you'd see we all agree with you. The devs changed the fundamentals of the game and none of us play anymore.

Reading is hard.

[Megrim]

We just wish you'd stop your bitching. By the way, if i ever meet you in real life, i'll buy you a drink.

OK, topic, etc...

[Hoax]

@geldonyetich:  Thank you, where do I pick up my trophy?

Hoax: read the damn thread, no one is saying that.

Mindless twitch is fine.  But I still have no clue why I'd bother with MMFPS, with so many good FPS around?

I'm sorry I tried to read it but the stupid was hurting my eyes.

Envision this, Tribes1 gameplay but on an even bigger scale.   With maps that feed into eachother and just generally more persistence, one war being fought on multiple fronts with multiple large flying bases etc.  Tribes1 was a great fps.  In fact it required a great deal of twitch skill, and disc jumping at times was a very valid tactic.  So why would I bother to play a MMFPS version?  I do not understand this attitude.  The only way the argument that you seem to be trying to construct makes sense is if I believe that games that require a person to use twitch skillz cannot be called tactical.  Which I dont, at all.

@Sky:  Hey old man, see my reply to tazelbain you've been making that same statement for awhile.

P.S.  No I will not read your thoughts about Planetside, I just dont fucking care.  I believe I was clear when I entered the thread that I didn't read the whole stiff-finger brigade versus Megrim bullshit that gheyed up the last however many pages. 

[geldonyetich]

Though there were times on this thread we may have been confused to have read the contrary, even writing the contrary, I don't believe this was ever truly an argument of "stiff-finger brigade versus Megrim."  Instead, it was an argument about how how to avoid going too far in the extreme of either direction. 

Megrim misinterpreted my Planetside rants as suggesting that there should be a gigantic Cone of Fire in "more tactically minded games", rendering aim pointless.  Then I misinterpreted him as suggesting that all weapons should have zero cone of fire, removing any inaccuracy from the game, making a fully automatic MP5 as accurate as a sniper rifle and rendering cover useless.  This went back and forth a bit until he realized that I wasn't arguing in favor of Cone of Fire so extreme as to eliminate the importance of aim, and I realized he wasn't arguing in favor of no Cone of Fire so much as a cone of fire light enough not to eliminate the importance of aim.

In typical Internet message board fashion, we were in agreement the whole time but were too busy being offended and coming up with inflammatory comments to see that. If we didn't come to an agreement, that too would have been fine.  I can see games with extremely tiny to zero cone of fire and games with larger cones of fire having their place.  The former emphasizes twitch and the later emphasizes strategy, but they're both viable gameplay styles.

Playing a bit of the BF2142 demo today, I have to say that the cone of fire remains alive and well.  BF2142 has it at a pretty good balance.  I actually found it to be a bit excessive in the Support class, I couldn't hit the broadside of a barn unless I was prone.  The assault class had an excellent cone of fire though, accurate at a pretty good range but not more than the Scout, inaccurate enough that a foe laying in wait behind cover has a big benefit over one charging blindly at them.  I could crouch behind a cover in the Titan Core and enemy assault members would have a hard time hitting me.  Yes, Megrim, grenades could flush me out quite effectively... but they were a bit rare on a Demo server. 

But Huxley's inertialess instant strafing is madness personified.  Wisen up, Webzen.

[tazelbain]

Envision this, Tribes1 gameplay but on an even bigger scale.   With maps that feed into eachother and just generally more persistence, one war being fought on multiple fronts with multiple large flying bases etc.  Tribes1 was a great fps.  In fact it required a great deal of twitch skill, and disc jumping at times was a very valid tactic.  So why would I bother to play a MMFPS version?  I do not understand this attitude.  The only way the argument that you seem to be trying to construct makes sense is if I believe that games that require a person to use twitch skillz cannot be called tactical.  Which I dont, at all.

And it had the dumbass ski jumping also.  My point is, whether your are pixel accurate or not, what do you get for tacking the MM on a FPS.  You could say "why not?" Added complexity, cost, lag, and administration.  And what do you get?  A chain of fortresses to fight over.  At least with WWOII you got the scale model of Europe to tool around on.  In the long run, a world of fortresses isn't better than one fortress that resets every so often.  Victories are hollow, it all becomes the same.

Any game coming along, like Huxley, is going to give a compelling reason to play over Halo 3 or its going to have just as good and be like Guild Wars.

[Megrim]

Oh no no no, i totally don't agree. Cone of fire is the devil and should be banned from all FPS on pain of death. However, this thread should serve as a perfect example for Stray (i think it was Stray) as to whether why we should not have a discussion about Starcraft.

As far as the stiff finger brigade vs Megrim, ha! I'll battle the crusty old guys anyday (and win).

[geldonyetich]

Be warned, you may find most of the members of the "stiff finger brigade" to be far better shots than your cone of fire hatin' has been telling you.

[Trippy]

In the long run, a world of fortresses isn't better than one fortress that resets every so often.  Victories are hollow, it all becomes the same.

Aye, there is the rub. The dilemma is how reward a side for achieving strategic victories without succumbing to "the rich get richer" syndrome. With PlanetSide while there were certain strategic advantages for capturing and holding continents (gate routes, cave access, etc.) those sorts of things were way above the head of the average player so all they cared about was racking up the battle/command experience points. Also capturing a continent is not very "sticky". If your side's attention is elsewhere it doesn't take much for an opposing side to retake a continent you may have just spent hours fighting for.

[Sky]

I guess I won't bother trying to talk to Hoax, who is just being an asshole in this thread and not interested in actually talking about the topic at hand. I will reiterate my point one last time: Just because I don't want mindless bunnyhopping, rocketjumping style gameplay in an fps doesn't mean I'm not a great fucking shot.

But hey, you shine on, crazy diamond. Continue to misread (or not read) what others are saying. It's really making you look intelligent.

Cone of Fire as implemented in Planetside does suck. I think geldon's point is that other games implement it better, but less obviously. Am I correct in thinking that Megrim is asking for pinpoint accuracy from all weapons in any situation, whether jumping, running, in a vehicle, etc? Because that's nucking futz.

[bhodi]

My most recent annoying hatred of COF was in far cry, which I reinstalled this weekend wanting to love it. I'm playing on challenging, because hey I'm a decent FPS twitch guy. One step above normal shouldn't be too bad, right? Wrong.

In the first freaking area coming around a hill in a jeep and there's the patrol boat with rocket launcher and two guys with jeeps. First of all, the 'stealth' is sort of worthless in this game, I can be covered in foliage, prone, peeking up over a hill 200 yards away from someone and they can instantly see me and start firing. The patrol boat opens up and never misses, and yet when I try and take them out, well, I can't, because they are more than 50 feet away. They all shoot like they've got radar and heat seeking bullets. I tried several different tacts but all failed because I couldn't snipe the enemies and I get destroyed by rockets from the patrol boat when I stick my head out. Thanks, cone of fire. It was so frustrating I just quit the game right there and I probably won't go back to playing the game at all. The ability to get noticed when you can't even see the enemies along with the inability to actually hit them means no fun gameplay for me.

[geldonyetich]

Am I correct in thinking that Megrim is asking for pinpoint accuracy from all weapons in any situation, whether jumping, running, in a vehicle, etc? Because that's nucking futz.

So far as I can gather, it's either that he wants total pinpoint accuracy from all weapons in any situation, or that he thinks that weapons can be inaccurate without cones of fire (in which case it'd probably be a matter of time until he figures out that they're the same thing).  He seems to be okay with the idea of "recoil", though, which I find just another flavor of the cone of fire where instead of having a bullet land randomly in a cone your entire view jumps randomly in a cone.  I got called on it a couple times, but I think I prefer the cone of fire over the recoil just because it's less obnoxious than having your entire screen jump.  Funny how most the games I play these days seem to do a slight implementation of both - it's like they've got bigger cones of fire but are hiding it by only putting part of that into the cone of fire and the rest into recoil.

It was so frustrating I just quit the game right there and I probably won't go back to playing the game at all. The ability to get noticed when you can't even see the enemies along with the inability to actually hit them means no fun gameplay for me.

It's been awhile since I've played Far Cry, and I recall the foes being accurate, but not more accurate than the player can be.  I wonder if maybe you're playing on a higher difficulty mode where the developers figured they'd make it harder by giving the foes sniper accuracy with all their shots.  The stealth is pretty iffy but it works once one gets used to it.  Remember there's both a visual and an audio component - foes get alarmed when they see even a piece of you sticking out of foliage, and rustling around in foliage makes noise besides, but they don't have eyes in the back of their head.  Observing their patrol routes from afar and moving behind them is often the best method.

[bhodi]

It was pretty much the patrol boat that tore me up. I had no way of taking it out because it would stay out in the water and fire rockets that were 100% accurate at me. I tried to swim out, but they gunned me down in the water. Even below the waterline you aren't stealthy.

[geldonyetich]

Yeah, they can see through those clear tropical waters without any difficulty.  I think the patrol boats were there deliberately to force players out of the water, which the devlopers seem to not want to players in for some reason.  The patrol boats usually have an achilles heel though, which becomes evident if you watch their entire travel path through your binocs long enough.  Careful with the angle on your binocs though, as the sun refracting off them may clue the enemy into your position, or so I recall as there were a few times I alerted enemies when watching them from afar with the binocs out that would not have happened if they weren't.

[Sky]

Actually, you can indeed snipe out the guys on the patrol boats, I know because I've done it many times. But I'll certainly agree with you about their preternatural senses and the near-uselessness of stealth in that game. That's one reason I cheated through it (Far Cry having the best godmode I've seen, I've discussed it in other threads), there is also a nice overlay cheat mode where you can watch AI states, it's very interesting imo.

As far as the great accuracy, I'll also have to assume it's because of the higher difficulty level. I forget what I played on, probably one higher than the easy mode. But I was able to time the explosions. Actually, I think I used a jeep-mounted machine gun to snipe those initial patrol boats. Make sure to spray down the gunner first, then the driver is simple.

Trees are definitely your friend in Far Cry, though that doesn't help vs rockets, of course.

[bhodi]

Yeah, on the difficulty I was playing on they take 5 body shots to go down, or if you are really really lucky one in the head. With the cone if fire even with the R2 steady aim mode, it's pretty rough and nearly impossible when they are firing rockets at you because you have to constantly dodge them.

So, I went back and played riddick, that was one of the best and most fun FPSes I've ever played.

[Margalis]

Quake viewed from the 3rd person looks retarded. Whether or not it has "intertial player acceleration" it sure doesn't have anything resembling real physics, even the most basic distillation. Super Mario 1 has more realistic movement.

Yes we understand you think it looks stupid but we don't care. Those games are all about running around blowing other people up not about wondering why the game let's you spin around freely or why you can run as fast sideways and backwards as you can forward.

I made that comment as part of a greater point.

1. Consoles don't support that type of movement/aiming very well.
2. Consoles tend to be more 3rd person perspective. (Partly because of #1)

The control scheme does not translate well to console game pads and it does not translate well to a game viewed from a 3rd person perspective. That was my entire point, not that Quake is a bad game. I used to play UT a lot and loved it to death. My point is just that I don't think games like that will be a long-term force. I see the market moving towards console-friendly control schemes with more realistic side/backwards movement, jumping done differently (maybe not more realistically but differently), caps to turning/aiming rate, and physics and movement that look better when viewed from a 3rd person perspective.

The run and gun precision accuracy movement and aiming of games like Quake/UT is going to become a somewhat niche PC market. That process started a while ago. Compare Halo and Gears of War to Quake/UT.

[Yoru]

Yeah, on the difficulty I was playing on they take 5 body shots to go down, or if you are really really lucky one in the head. With the cone if fire even with the R2 steady aim mode, it's pretty rough and nearly impossible when they are firing rockets at you because you have to constantly dodge them.

So, I went back and played riddick, that was one of the best and most fun FPSes I've ever played.

I played some Far Cry over the long weekend; got up to the part where the trigens appear before having to bust out the cheats hardcore (walk into room, get jumped by trigens, die instantly - not fun). The cone of fire in that game definitely sucks. I find I prefer to use pistols in FPSes for some reason, and the pistol in that game blows nuts in terms of damage, range and accuracy.

My preferred tactic involved sneaky-sneaky up onto a hidden ridge far away from the enemy, marking as many as I could with the binocs, and then sniping the living daylights out of them, using grenades if anyone tried to get close. Wish the sniper rifle got more ammo though.

I used to play AQ2; the sniper rifle there had pixel-perfect pinpoint accuracy as long as it was zoomed, regardless of movement or position. Lots of fun if you were good with it, not so much if you weren't, particularly given the one-shot-kill nature of AQ2. Getting used to that sort of rifle has ruined the modern COF-based sniper rifles in CStrike and other shooters for me.

Anyway, if anything, high accuracy makes tactics a lot more important, in my book. The larger the spray, the more of a chance you have to get through a barrage of suppressing fire being targetted at you. With highly accurate cones, you have to find some way to stop that fire, or you're going to eat it if you step out from behind cover - flanking, flashing, grenading, smoke, distractions, etc.

As for the highly-unrealistic fun-focused deathmatcher FPSes (Q3, UT) - I never really got into them. I fall much more towards the "one shot kills you" school of shooterdom. Not necessarily just headshots either - I like bleeding gut-shots, movement impairment from leg injuries, and so forth.

[geldonyetich]

Do I get formally inducted out of the "stiff finger brigade" if I reveal that I beat FarCry on the default difficulty without cheating?

Of course, it'll take more than that for me to leverage myself free of "captain shoelaces".  Thank goodness for velcro.

[Samwise]

I saw a trailer for Hellgate and I'm now completely uninterested in that game (as opposed to my previous 'tentatively curious'). 1996 called and it wants its gameplay back.

THANK YOU.  About time someone else said it.

[HaemishM]

I saw a trailer for Hellgate and I'm now completely uninterested in that game (as opposed to my previous 'tentatively curious'). 1996 called and it wants its gameplay back.

THANK YOU.  About time someone else said it.

I just figured saying "Diablo bores me fuckless" was a good enough approximation of that sentiment.

[Sky]

No, it's a statement beyond that. I was more interested in Hellgate because it looked to have better gameplay than the Diablo clickfest. But I guess when you translate Diablo into 3d, you get Doom (1993). As I mentioned, it's the hordes of monsters with backing up through the level as a defense tactic. I instantly thought of something like Hexen or Doom (maybe Serious Sam, I haven't played them because I don't dig that style). Maybe I was being generous with the 1996 statement.

[geldonyetich]

Not to come off as a Hellgate fanboi attempting to stand against a just tide of well needed critique, but I did see a few more things that reflected that there's more to the game than shooting down mindless hordes SmashTV style.   Customizable weapons, spells/skills that do more than just kill things, and foes that actually seem to be able to hurt you at range.  Still, I'll have to reserve judgement until I actually play the thing.  Here's crossing my fingers we'll get a demo before the apocolypse.

[Sky]

I understand about the cool inventory and items and stuff, it's just that if I don't like the core gameplay, it's for naught. It doesn't look like a Gothic, where the story surmounts the gameplay which is pretty meh. I'm also looking forward to a demo of Hellgate.

[Samwise]

Saying that Hellgate is like Serious Sam is doing Serious Sam a disservice.  Serious Sam was pretty brainless, but it did have some occasionally brilliant level design.  Hellgate's levels use the same randomly-generated "every time you get to play a slightly different shitty level" thing that Diablo used.  Interesting level design is about half of what makes an FPS sink or swim IMO.  Which is why I never got into Halo.

[Venkman]

Necro!

New screenshots up

If this game is still massive enough to matter (in terms of number of units on screen, I don't care how many are at the Auction House), then I'm particularly intrigued by the quality. This isn't going to give Gears of War a run for its money, but it continues to look very impressive when compared to the "next gen" engines like VG and EQ2. I attribute that mostly to the style and the textures. Object-wise, outside of the avatar models, the world seems pretty "low res" (if that's the right term for object models).

Interesting that it's "Q2 2007" release, but there's no word on betas or anything. Or maybe I'm not hitting the right site. I can't even find an adequately-updated main page for the game. What up wit dat?!

[Sky]

Object-wise, outside of the avatar models, the world seems pretty "low res" (if that's the right term for object models).

Low poly.

I don't really care for the art style or the apparent run and jump gameplay. Zerg ftl.


Ecch.

[Falconeer]

but it continues to look very impressive when compared to the "next gen" engines like VG and EQ2

I take that as a pun. Graphics are the weakest part of Vanguard and are as "next gen" as my ass.

Those Huxley screenshots looks great, and given that asian games are well known to have smooth and steady framerates, I am definitely excited.

[stray]

Ecch.

It's amazing what kind of crap some people will get hyped up about just because of persistency.

I'm pretty sure they'll all quit fairly quickly though.

[damijin]

but it continues to look very impressive when compared to the "next gen" engines like VG and EQ2

I take that as a pun. Graphics are the weakest part of Vanguard and are as "next gen" as my ass.

Those Huxley screenshots looks great, and given that asian games are well known to have smooth and steady framerates, I am definitely excited.

I think Huxley is being developed by an American studio of Webzen's, but it might be being partially developed in both countries. I can't remember nor be bothered to back up a source. You read my baseless "fact", you can't un-read it.