My (many) gaming philosophies.

[I)eadnerzhul]

Let's get the obvious out of the way: I am a gamer. I play games. I review games on Youtube. I've been a gamer since I was five years old, and as such, I've a lot of experience with games. I will use this thread to share with you my many gaming philosophies, starting with the FPS genre. Keep in mind that this thread will be constantly expanding to include more genres of video-gamesl. So... let us begin!

Topic 1: FPS

Identity

When deciding to make a first-person shooter, developers should think about their game's identity: whether their game will be a fast-paced, twitch-based (Quake style) hyper shooter; a semi-realistic/arcade-like skill-or-team-based shooter; or an ultra-realistic tactical shooter. You cannot try to mix the different archetypes of shooters. Why? Because then the game suddenly loses it's identity. And I don't mean it becomes one of those "its own genre of game" games, like Portal. I mean it becomes a horrendous mish-mash of seemingly good ideas that just doesn't work. A perfect example of this is the upcoming free-to-play FPS "Parabellum" that I was given access to by a buddy of mine. See, Parabellum is a semi-realistic team-based shooter. Guns have a fairly realistic amount of recoil, and players can look down their weapon's sights to aim more accurately. But the movement speed is incredibly fast, and most players just run up to you and spam with a submachine-gun, which just so happens to be super-effective. This is a perfect example of how a lack of identity can ravage an otherwise good shooter.

Don't worry, more philosophies are on the way! But in the meantime, discuss my philosophies, whether or not you agree, and if you have any of your own philosophies you'd like to share, then by all means do so!

 

[Dreadnought[dA]]

RTS's fall under three categories IMO.

Tactical with perfect balance. Starcraft (1998) is THE balanced RTS. I doubt I need to explain much about it. Some problems include, lack of fun mechanics, and unforgiving to casual gamers.

Casual with insane gameplay and highly modifiable. Total Annihilation (1997), had physics with projectiles exploding on hillsides and debris from units flying in all directions, and airplanes actually fly like airplanes, unit wreckage that could be reclaimed for resources, over 225 units (compared to Starcraft's 84), unlimited unit selection, unlimited command queue, water units, air units, land units, amphibious units, seaplanes, hovercraft. Did I mention that each unit has individual moving parts and can fire on the move? You can have a Millennium battleship moving in 1 direction, with 1 cannon fire at one unit, and the other cannon firing at a different unit. 40 Reasons TA is better than Starcraft.
You can read that for yourself if you don't believe a game from 1997 could accomplish all that. Some problems include, poor balance, and very long games (which are fun for some but overall bad).

Squad based RTS's are kind of new such as Company of Heroes and Dawn of War 1 & 2. I feel that they aren't competitive enough or very moddable to fit into the other 2 categories. These are the kind you pickup and play for a few weeks and then never touch again. They tend to suffer from bad unit pathing, high CPU demands, and they don't reward skill like the others.

Might give you some ideas, might not. I played Total Annihilation when I was very young and I loved it. I got into console gaming for a while and when I came back to the computer, I watched some competitive Starcraft matches and was hooked. I eventually tried Total Annihilation again, and now I'm totally convinced it is the greatest RTS ever made.

 

[I)eadnerzhul]

RTS's fall under three categories IMO.

Tactical with perfect balance. Starcraft (1998) is THE balanced RTS. I doubt I need to explain much about it. Some problems include, lack of fun mechanics, and unforgiving to casual gamers.

Casual with insane gameplay and highly modifiable. Total Annihilation (1997), had physics with projectiles exploding on hillsides and debris from units flying in all directions, and airplanes actually fly like airplanes, unit wreckage that could be reclaimed for resources, over 225 units (compared to Starcraft's 84), unlimited unit selection, unlimited command queue, water units, air units, land units, amphibious units, seaplanes, hovercraft. Did I mention that each unit has individual moving parts and can fire on the move? You can have a Millennium battleship moving in 1 direction, with 1 cannon fire at one unit, and the other cannon firing at a different unit. 40 Reasons TA is better than Starcraft.
You can read that for yourself if you don't believe a game from 1997 could accomplish all that. Some problems include, poor balance, and very long games (which are fun for some but overall bad).

Squad based RTS's are kind of new such as Company of Heroes and Dawn of War 1 & 2. I feel that they aren't competitive enough or very moddable to fit into the other 2 categories. These are the kind you pickup and play for a few weeks and then never touch again. They tend to suffer from bad unit pathing, high CPU demands, and they don't reward skill like the others.

Might give you some ideas, might not. I played Total Annihilation when I was very young and I loved it. I got into console gaming for a while and when I came back to the computer, I watched some competitive Starcraft matches and was hooked. I eventually tried Total Annihilation again, and now I'm totally convinced it is the greatest RTS ever made.

It certainly gave me ideas, and I thank you for that. I'll update my post with an RTS section later today.

 

[Nudl9]

I think your misusing the word indentity...

 

[I)eadnerzhul]

I think your misusing the word indentity...

I'm not sure about that. Even if I am, I think my point still comes across.

 

[Steel_Stallion]

Your voice on the FEAR Combat review was so damn annoying.

lol.

 

[I)eadnerzhul]

Can you guys keep your console wars in some other thread, please? I don't want my thread which was made to discuss GAMING PHILOSOPHIES to be closed because of off-topic, well... spam, to be quite frank.

 

[Deathcom3s]

Agreed.

~Thread Cleaned.

 

[I)eadnerzhul]

Thanks. Anyways, it's late, so I'll update this thread tomorrow.

 

[Gilles]

I totally contributed. : (

 

[Deathcom3s]

I totally contributed. : (

As did I.

Alright, i await your next addition.

 

[Dreadnought[dA]]

So where's the next addition?