Let's Design an Actually good FPS

[Bells]

So, of all the genres of gaming out today i think we can agree that First Person Shooters are right near the top on "Most Stale Genre" or "Most beaten Horse"... and i can even include a slice of Third Person Shooters in this too.

So, just out of fun, instead of talking about what makes bad games bad or what is a good game, help me out design the "framework" of an actual good FPS that you would buy and play.

Just to keep an structure in place, let's design by "Take a feature, leave a feature" . Feature here being a loose term... in essence, Remove something from the game, something that it will not have, and then place in something that it could have, something that would make it good.

Like this:

Won't have: Russians as Main badguys.
Could have: 2010 Poland as a scenario.

Won't have: german as Main badguys.
Could have: Canadians as Main badguys.

Every page or so i'll come by and compile your picks, just to see what this game would look like.

Give it a go guys.

[Kerensky287]

Won't have: Shitty AI squadmates who shout plot and/or orders at you and then stand in front of you absorbing your bullets.
Could have: AI squadmates you can order around, a la Star Wars Republic Commando.

IF THE ABOVE:

Won't have: "Realistic" blood splatters when you get shot.
Could have: "Realistic" body damage that slows you or impedes your aiming, for example, until you apply first aid. (Wouldn't be any fun if you're just a lone soldier, though...)

REGARDLESS OF EITHER:

Won't have: Any sort of movie as source material.
Could have: Firefly as source material.

[Azisien]

I would totally love a solid shooter with Canadians as the bad guys. I mean we ARE the bad guys in the real world, so why deviate so much in video games?

[Marc v4.0]

Won't have: Press "X" Rapidly to not die!!!
Could Have: Press "X" Rapidly to Die!!! Snuck in

[Kerensky287]

I would totally love a solid shooter with Canadians as the bad guys. I mean we ARE the bad guys in the real world, so why deviate so much in video games?

Oh god yes, a level where you have to fight Canadian Ninjas (caninjas... they throw maple leaf shaped throwing stars and attack you with razor sharp hockey sticks) while running up the stairs of the CN Tower, which was actually a massive ballistic missile all along, to prevent Stephen Harper from pressing the button on the world? I'd play it.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Won't have: Blam blam blam gun sound effects
Could have: Pew pew pew gun sound effects

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Won't have; The same 10 identikit main guns as seen in every other modern FPS.
Could have; Ridiculously awesome, over the top guns ala Painkiller and Unreal.

[Krylo]

Won't Have: Realistic War Scenarios.
Could Have: Time Traveling Dinosaur Nazis.

Won't Have: Regenerating Health and Red Screen.
Could Have: Fuck you, bring back medpacks, you motherfuckers. And armor pick ups.

Won't Have: Assault Rifle.
Could Have: Freeze Ray.

Won't Have: Brown.
Could Have: Bright Pink.

Won't Have: Plucky Female Side Kick with Triple D's
Could Have: Female main character with biceps bigger than her breasts. Which are A-Cups.

Won't Have: Ridiculous Moral Choices That Don't Matter Anyway.
Could Have: Ridiculous enemy that you never actually stop to talk to.

Won't Have: Grenades.
Could Have: Care Bear Stare.

[Marc v4.0]

Won't Have: Assault Rifle.

Go screw off a mountain, the AR/MG is FPS Bread and Butter going way back. It has proudly served alongside a small nation of freeze rays and shrink guns and rebar crossbows and alien dongle throwers.

The Grandfather of all FPS games had a machine gun weapon for craps sake!

[Gregness]

Which is why, I think, he's motioning for it's dismissal. I love me an assault rifle as much as the next guy, but let's face it: it's time for it to take some time off.

[Marc v4.0]

That is like getting rid of the Shotgun. It is shameful. You can't even have weapons that are rifle like with auto or burst fire to replace the AR, because then what was the point of removing it? What sort of setup for weapons would you suggest that could lack the medium range supression weapon?

[Fifthfiend]

Won't have: Call of Rainbow Strike Duty Ops Counter

Will Have: Timesplitters 2

[Krylo]

1: Punch/Stomp
2: Freeze Ray
3: Shrink Ray
4: Remote Detonated Sticky Foam Bomb
5: Time Gun.
6: Gravity Gun.
7: Portal Gun.
8: Area Effect Gravity Inversion
9: Fully Automatic Gatling Missile Launcher.
0: Care Bear Stare.

[Marc v4.0]

That's too many different specialty things at the same time, I can't see it working outside a niche of people who want some sort mash up from special weapons only

[Krylo]

Guns that shoot bullets are boring.

Edit: Monofilament Net Gun.

Edit2: Electrified monofilament net gun.

[Fifthfiend]

facts
-nobody in TF2 has an assault rifle
-TF2 is the best game

conclusion
-fuck assault rifles

[Krylo]

Addendum: Turret Gun.

Yes, a gun which shoots gun turrets.

[Marc v4.0]

sure fine then

Won't Have: Token MacGuffin Weapon/Power
Could have: A Solution that doesn't involve throwing a MacGuffin at a problem

[Aldurin]

Won't have: You have to do it the way the mission says word by word, even if the game designers forgot to hide another way to do it.
Will have: Anything that gets the final objection works (normal way, kill-everything way, or even making destroying the terrain until you have a straight path to your objective viable)

Won't have: Static environment where doors and windows don't even work right.
Will have: Environment that behaves realistically to the point that you can use it tactically (opening and closing a door to beat somebody to death, propane tank shrapnel, rewiring the water heater to explode when a trip-wire is hit).

Won't have: Falling means you die, or it means you survive but have to painstakingly climb back
Will have: Falls don't kill you if you activate the right move/ability/ninja-landing-technique, then you can fly/warp/ninja-wall-run back up to where you were within a reasonable time.

Won't: You hold the gun the same way no matter what.
Will: Fire the gun around the corner without have to look or use said corner with the "hide and get to cover" button.

[MuMu]

Hire the Timesplitters writers
Hire the guys that developed Red Faction
Have Valve test it
Funded by, dunno, someone with lots of money.

And a decent Multiplayer.

[Aldurin]

And a decent Multiplayer.

Why are you having to use such abstract terms? Can't you be more specific? Do you mean like if TF2 and Halo had a baby and then that had a baby with any of the recent CoD games? It's a big gray area.

Thought it's easy to identify crappy multiplayer, like Medal of Honor's or the Ratchet and Clank ones for PS2.

[MuMu]

I only recently got back into gaming so I don't really know what a bad Multiplayer is. I have both TF2 and L4D2 and they're pretty good at it so let's say it's like those two.

[Loyal]

Won't Have: Shaved-head marines, of a space persuasion or otherwise.
Could Have: Irreverent, one-liner spouting badasses with something resembling personality. Should ideally not overlap with the above.

Won't Have: Deathmatches with communal respawn points all over the map (also known as the "where the fuck did you come from?" factor)
Could Have: Concrete multiplayer objectives a touch more complex than "hold this capture point for a higher score".
Will have: Anything that gets the final objection
http://i887.photobucket.com/albums/ac77/Loyal_AA_Sprites/MVonKarmaWrightEd/karma-tsktsk.gif

[Magus]

Won't have: Machine gun
Will have: Gun that shoots robotic killer wasps (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/01/killer-micro-drone/)

Won't have: Knife
Will have: Ninja Death Claws

Won't have: Nazis
Will have: Mutant Scorpions from another planet that espouse a fascist galaxy-view

*Note: Mutant Scorpions shoot exploding napalm stingers

[Bells]

Holy crap... ok, let's see what we got so far...

This game Wont Have:

* Germany as the main villain
* Russia as the main villain
* Bossy/Stupid Ai teammates
* No "Based on..."
* Quicktime events
* Generic/"Realistic" gun sounds
* Visiually generic characters
* Realistic War Scenarios
* Regenerating Health
* Assault Rifles (maybe optional as a pickup weapon here and there?)
* Brown-based color Pallete
* Female Sidekick with huge tits and "'ttude" (as in.. attitude)
* Redundant Moral choice systems
* Grenades
* Not Like a Masturbatory American Army Movie (i supposed this is the point of "no-call-of-duty-or-medal-of-honor-isms"
* MacGuffin weapons or solutions
* Strict mission rules
* Falling = Instadeath
* Bold Space Marines and the like
* Multiplayer filled with Space warping portals on tha maps

And, as a compilation of what you guys liked the most, this game COULD have

* Set in canada
* Scalleable / Body part damage (as in, a Shot Rifle shot to the leg causes different than a shotgun blast to the arm and etc..)
* Sci-Fi theme
* Colorfull Color pallete
* Non intrusive / Fun hogging Interactive scenes
* Unique Sound effects (Fallout laser/plasma weapons for example)
* Weird and unique weaponry
* Medpacks and Armor pickups though level
* Female Lead?
* Actually Evil AND ridiculous enemies
* Ability to intimidate targets
* Multiple ways to cover objectives and missions
* Sandbox mindset to scenarios ("make your path")
* Blind Firing with any gun
* Better characterized bad guys
* Clear goals for multiplayer maps

Actually... so far so good! But you slackers forgot a few...

Won't have: "Destroy the enemy Helicopter" Sections
Could have: Rechargeable force field (i don't mind those)

Won't have: Obligatory "war is ugly and so is this controversial stage" shit
could have: branching objective mission paths you can pick at will (as in Mid-stage you get to pick Objective X or Y to do, and they don't have to represent a moral choice or a "Mission Turning" Decision. Just pick if you want to raid the enemy bunker or head forth to the other enemy base down the line with the other team)

[Marc v4.0]

Won't Have: The same 4 VAs as everything else
SHOULD Have: Major, non-hamfisted, voicework by Bruce Campbell, Billy Zane, Bruce Boxleitner, and Michael Clarke Duncan

(Four of the best voices in existence)

[Aldurin]

Won't have: Hangovers (refer to Dead Rising)
Will have: Shit that actually scares you (these days it's only creepers and Amnesia: Dark Descent for me)

[Krylo]

* Sci-Fi theme

More 'ridiculous' than 'Sci-Fi'.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Won't Have: Realistic War Scenarios.
Could Have: Time Traveling Dinosaur Nazis.

I'll just leave this here. (http://www.dinodday.com/)

[Krylo]

Nah, see, those are genetically cloned nazi dinosaurs. I want dinosaurs to travel forward in time and, inexplicably, be nazis. No human nazis, no Hitler, just dinosaurs.

Maybe Tyrannohitler Wrex.

[Bells]

More 'ridiculous' than 'Sci-Fi'.

Ok then... SyFy Theme would work?

[Doc ock rokc]

(Four of the best voices in existence)

Sorry Where is Mark Hamill on that list?

Shouldn't have: Kill based multiplayer scoring
Should have: more points based on assists, objectives, Environmental kills, and If class based a higher score multiplyer the smaller ammount of people are in that field.
This would promote people to stop mimicing high scorers and encourage objectives over kills.

Shouldn't have: a typical angsty Anti-hero
Should have: ether a Villain protagonist or a Big Damn Hero

Shouldn't have: a Typical unexplained hud
Should have: a EXPLINATION for the Hud. (glasses that project the huds info?)

Shouldn't have: Locked arm View weapons (I bob my gun up and down)
Should have: Reactive hands and weapon holds (when I run up to a wall at full speed then the guy should put his hand out or move his gun so it doesn't hit the wall.)

Should have:Some form of vertical movement. It adds to the game...as long as it's not totally based around it.

[Bells]

We are moving REALLY FAST towards A futuristic Shooter where you play as a German lady that battles Canadian Spies that are trying to unleash Zombie/Robo/Nazi Dino apocalypse in the world while using a jetpack and a tesla cannon with no cleavage and some sassy...

...this is oddly arousing.

[Aldurin]

no cleavage

Nobody said anything about cleavage (I think) and if someone did say no they should be disregarded.

[Doc ock rokc]

The best type of game is sometimes the one you just can't hope but fool around in. While the story is a means of entertainment if you make it your main idea for it then it won't be bought. However If you provide means for players to entertain themselves then you get a game players will cling too. Sometimes the best way to do that (without resorting to Skinner's methods (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2487-The-Skinner-Box)) is to make a game you can't take too seriously. So we can ether go Ha ha funny or Dr.McNinja crazy...

[Marc v4.0]

Sorry Where is Mark Hamill on that list?


The basic point was get the most bad-ass voices you can find.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I just want an acid gun. Cause whenever I'm playing an FPS there is always some enemy who needs an acid in the face. But I can never do it :(

[Bells]

You know what i would like? a Game where you make your own guns... like, your character is a genius Scientist or some such, and you can pick crap on the scenario and between missions you can assemble your own guns. The parts you use would define how the gun works (rate of firing, Reloading time, Damage, Range, Precision) and you can visually assemble it they way you want it (Garry's Mod Style). The player would follow "Blueprints" he would collect on the stages, along with the parts collected from enemy guns and other scenario parts.

So, in that case, i would be able to Adapt an Flamethrower to shoot acid, or adapt an Ak 47 into a Mini Rail Gun

[Jagos]

And that's why I couldn't quite grasp Borderlands...

[natowarhead]

Won't Have: Lose-if-you-accidentally-hit-the-ONE-civilian-while-fighting-a-Horde type scenario

Could Have: 3 or 4 way team matches.