Community Question: Preferred Period of History

(Humate) #41

So when are we going to find out the name of this new pc game? cough

(Apples) #42

Secession war

(Thundermuffin) #43

I picked far-future, but only because I feel that if you take a game and set it hundreds/thousands of years in the future you have no boundaries to what is possible. No one knows what technology will be there, so for all we know bunnyhopping and strafejumping is a legit way to move around and we can carry 10 weapons and just magically hide them in our pockets. Everything is allowed in the far future scenario and hardly anyone will question it. Too many developers pick “near-future” for their games and that really restricts how crazy you can be. Crazy, if done right, is the most fun you can have in gaming.

(SockDog) #44

You could set the game in an alternate universe with no gravity and quantum singularity pockets and it wouldn’t make a console gamer climb a learning curve steeper than a “push correct button, get cheese” experiment for which there would be only one button but 1000’s of types of cheese. :slight_smile:

(haternet) #45

Historical period doesn’t matter much to me. I notice it when a game is new, and I appreciate the effort when done well, but I quickly forget about it to focus on a game’s mechanics. There’s a lot of nice attention to history in Wolf:ET, but it’s a long time since WWII came to mind when I play it.

I’m more interested in the ideological basis behind the conflict, but there’s not often a sharp enough contrast for me. Killing Nazis is fun, but I’m not thrilled to be doing it in the name of the Allies, who I have plenty of ideological issues with as well. Ditto the “anti-terrorist” genre. I’d like to see an unambiguous clash of beliefs in a game, with no hypocrisy from either side. That might stay with me and keep me excited while clicking stuff.

Then again, team-based multiplayer means playing both sides, so it might as well just be red-versus-blue. :slight_smile:

(SockDog) #46

I agree.

I actually think an enemy being “evil” is quite important. Nazis, Strogg, Helghast etc. They have this dark, inhuman image about them. At best the terrorist henchmen in games like CoD come across as nameless generic targets and at worst some comedic stereotype, there is just little to engage in. This is worse so when you create a future where the people are even less related to something the player understands. I wonder what Brink would have been like if the Security forces were actually some alternate reality future Nazis and in was set on the moon. :slight_smile:

I’m not sure if this is just my personal opinion or there is some wider logic to having that clear ‘good vs evil’ dichotomy rather than ‘good vs good but maybe one is naughtier than the other, you decide’ type deal.

(Humate) #47

I liked how the humour in the vsays offset the whole good vs evil thing, in etqw.
I hope SD does that with their next game.

(BioSnark) #48

I don’t like the “Us vs. Them” universes. It seems cartoonish to me, regardless of whether it’s about The West/America versus Nazis, terrorists or aliens. Seems like a shortcut to story telling that doesn’t tell anything about either side. Fascism vs. communism, order vs. anarchy, biology vs. technology or similar are far more interesting yet clearly delineated factions that don’t reduce to us versus the other.

However, the thing I like least about WW2 and Modern is that the setting is usually a repeat of what’s been done countless times before. Same props, architecture, color palette and ballistic weapons.

(badman) #49

Interesting. Does this make it harder/easier to pick a team in multiplayer, or does the motivation/ideology of the teams not matter to you in that context?

(SockDog) #50

No, for me this is purely an aspect of immersion, using established conventions to define the sides just lets you get into the game without the need for a huge backstory to be told (or needing to care about the back story).

When it comes to MP team selection I’m more concerned with the actual game being balanced and fun than role playing a particular side (which IMO contributes nothing to an MP FPS game).

Question for everyone?

Has a commercial game ever offered multiple versions of the same game? By that I mean the core game is identical but the assets are changed. Perhaps the cost is prohibitive but it would be interesting to see a WWII, Near Future, Far Future game, all playing together but each person would see the game played out in their chosen setting. I guess this could be a DLC type thing too. But again, I’m sure the cost of redoing a whole game is way more than you’d get from reusing assets for a new map or weapon.

(Dthy) #51

COD4 onwards anyone? :smiley:

(SockDog) #52

LOL. Fair enough :slight_smile:

But I did mean at the same time and with interoperable play. :slight_smile:

(tokamak) #53

I agree with Sockdog. Invading the Earth/Europe is just as much fun as defending it. Nuance is interesting from a story-based perspective but for immersion it works if the roles are cut and dry.

(Humate) #54

The good vs evil thing definitely motivates people to pick a faction, but it also motivates the ‘gameplay focused’ players as well.
For example if youre a ‘gameplay guy’, and you see a whole lot of players waiting in queue to play GDF it definitely amps the motivation levels to smash GDF. cough

But ofcourse thats not to say there arent faction loyalists based on mechanics either. :wink:

(.Chris.) #55

Aye, I know they made a big deal in Brink that there were no clear cut bad or good guys but judging by that Brink competition thread a fair amount people assumed the resistance were good and the security bad when citing what team they picked first. Not sure how many people paid attention or cared about the backstory, it felt like it was wasted on an MP game, deserved a real single player campaign.

(Humate) #56

^ I cared about the back story

:infiltrator:

(Humate) #57

“Oh its container city, quick join resistance!”

(haternet) #58

I didn’t want to get too specific and risk sparking an off-topic flame war, but I suppose my dream game (the singleplayer part, anyway) would have something to do with the working-class majority fighting to take back control of productive resources from the elite minority of absentee owners.

(Stroggafier) #59

I prefer near-future for multi-player (and single player).
The conflict should include a good-evil dichotomy.
Graphics and sound must be immersive.
These statements all speak to my ability to relate to the game.

I believe, near future allows greatest variety depending on the back-story elements. What’s interesting to me is the mix of known elements (found today) with unknown elements, but still based in today’s physical reality (near or distant future), especially if done with stunning graphics The further the game goes into the future, the more I would need to suspend plausibility, and that would make it harder to relate. The game becomes more abstract, the further into the future, so it becomes more important to ground it with other plausible things. i.e back-story. grit, photo realism, etc.

Back-story in a multi-player game, I’d guess is difficult. Story can perhaps can be injected into the game via AI dialogue, sign-posts/bill boards, rewards/cookies, instructions, orders. at time of character selection, or whatever the creative teams can come up with. Without it, unless the back story is obvious, the game sacrifices plausibility…if there are too many “huh?, wtf, really? how does that work?” moments, I for one would lose interest.

The perceived good/evil dichotomy can be also be near-good/near-evil, as that would make it easier to integrate heroics into both camps. Heroics meaning actions that risk the individual for a better team outcome. i.e. Its hard to believe in a game where excessive evil can still be heroic, but near-evil is plausible.

If others are like me, then there is a clear preference in choosing to play either good or evil. (I’d imagine good is the big winner here). Drawing these two closer would entice a player into either role. Too close and it would be perceived as homogenous and an uninteresting difference. In RPGs a player builds character and good/evil is clearly a main differentiator. If that could be done in a MP FPS game, you’d have a winner.

(Pegazus) #60

I think that the Cold War era has been long forgotten by most game developers. I think giving the player the ability to rewrite history in their own matter would be an excellent way to go. Also I think it would be rather interesting to see what would have had happened if Cold War had suddenly turned hot. And maybe let the player decide either to be good or evil.