old timer questions/comments

(General_Zod) #1

I’m old in the sense that I’ve been playing fps online since q1. Ahh the days of running around with keys grappling like a maniac.

Anyway, I grew bored around q3 and thought CS was an awful camp fest while the world seemed to love it. And TF2 is a spam fest with goofy upgrades now. I have some questions/comments that may be answered here, but being an old-timer now, I’m not so adept at searching like I used to be.

So anyway, I was bored at q3 and tried ET on a whim, and the addict in me was reborn. Just pure awesomeness!! And it has it’s critics but I love ETQW as well, so as far as I’m concerned, you’re two for two.

So a couple of questions. Is voip built in? I know it was added later to ETQW but relying on standalone apps for voip is annoying to me. Sidenote: games should take advantage of built in voip. Imagine having two voice buttons, one for local talk and global team talk. What I mean is, imagine I hold the local button and say med over here, and he hears it based on my proximity to him. Loud if I’m close, quiet if I’m far (or silent). One of the only games I’ve seen really take advantage of built in voip was splinter cell chaos theory. You could tag the enemy and hear their chat etc. Anyway, there are a ton of things you can do with voip and none of them can be done with a standalone voip app.

Or imagine a covie hacking an obj and the other team loses global voip but can only hear local chat? And on a side note, why not do the same with local vsays? I remember a q3 mod gave a taunt sound that was localized, in that if I was to your left and made the taunt you heard it to the left and loud, or quiet if I was far away. And others way off wouldn’t hear it at all. To me that would be perfect for ‘need a medic’ etc.

Yes not everyone uses voip, but it’s still great and I don’t want to go back to a silent game, and I’m too old to learn vsays effectively.

It may not matter in this game but in ET and ETQW it is aggravating as hell when you spawn and want to rush to the obj (cause there is a plant) and there are teammates who spawned in front of you not moving (or moving slowly). If this game is like ETQW, spawn with a knife by default!! And maybe have a 5 seconds or something where you can run through your teammate. Realistic? no. Stops frustration? yes.

I have other comments but I’m rambling and I’ll leave them for another time, but one concern I have is persistent upgrades/weapons. Even though I disliked TF2 from the get go, the bonus stuff absolutely ruined the game. Please tell me who likes this stuff?

My nephew who is 10 jumps for joy when he gets access to something new in TF2. I’m not 10 and I suspect a lot of players who play this game are not either. Yes, the core market is 18-24 year old, but I like to think that when I was 18 I wouldn’t have cared then either.

So, custom looking characters can be somewhat cool to the who really cares category (and I’m concerned about actually telling teammates/enemies apart) But upgrades bonuses that people keep downright sucks. It’s an awful idea that just sounds like jee-whiz stuff to sell games. I know you have already gone down this path and you’re not going to remove it on some old farts comment but I hope:

  1. It doesn’t really impact game play. I want a level playing field every time I play, whether I play every day or don’t have the time to play for a month.
  2. I hope there is a way to make the enemy look all the same a la q3. I don’t care about people prettying themselves up on my account. You’re not going to get asked out for a date no matter how good you look. I care about gameplay and that’s it.

Again, most of my comments probably fall into the too late category but someone needs to say it. Oh one more thing, in ETQW I think I’m colour retarded and have a hard time reading someone’s name when it was made up of a rainbow of colours. Please have a way of forcing names/handles to one colour. I remember people freaking when they could no longer animate their names in q2. If you care about that stuff deeply, give your head a shake and grow up.

So I’ve probably lost the majority of you with my comments, but I’d like to think there are some who just want a good core game and hope this stuff doesn’t actually interfere with gameplay.

(coolstory) #2

Kinda like how I feel, only care about game play and balance never really cared about customization and all that. Don’t think you can make your enemies look the same, since theres light, medium and heavy. However your enemies have a red outline and your friends a blue one.

About global voip , might be cool in pubs.

(stealth6) #3

I agree with most of your points, although voip should always be accompanied by text since not everybody has a mic.
Also your idea that if the covie destroyed something it would disable voip is a terrible idea.
They tried a similar thing in bfbc2, when you died you couldn’t type anything. Bascially just makes the whole system all together useless and people will look for an alternative.
For instance me and my friends just dumped the ingame system and took to teamspeak.

I also agree that 20 different skins will be annoying, but at least is adds something interesting, but I can see that you’d find it an annoyance, sine already with some skinpacks in ET it was hard to define a difference between the 2 teams, but I guess SD has thought of this, like valve did with tf2.

(General_Zod) #4

Well, of course i don’t want everyone to look the same. I want to be able to tell that that is an enemy med, I just meant I always want to see a standard enemy med and not have to visually decipher what type of enemy it is because of all the bling.

And you say not everyone has a mic. I never understood this. You can afford a rig to play these games but not a 20 dollar mic?!

So many times it has added to the gameplay, even when the other person doesn’t have a mic.

e.g. engr is disarming in ETQW, i say ‘eng a hyper is coming up behind you’ the engr stops disarming, turns around and fights then finishes defusing. I could never type this fast enough, nor would he probably see the text in time while focused on disarming.

I just hope this game isn’t a bling/upgrade fest.

(stealth6) #5

ye sure if they don’t have a mic they can listen, that should definately be possible in the game.

And yes it’s kind of stupid, but that’s the way it is. In the clan I’m in atm we always try to get people on teamspeak and talking, but it’s been suprisingly difficult. Only recently we’ve been making a big break through when we took bfbc2 under our supported games (previously only W:ET).

Seems people playing newer games are more used to the concept. I must also admit at first I didn’t feel comfortable talking to my computer lol, but you get used to it :smiley:

(SockDog) #6

You should be able to “squeeze” past your team mates at all times to overcome this problem. Imagine player’s collision model is like a squishy balloon.

but one concern I have is persistent upgrades/weapons. Even though I disliked TF2 from the get go, the bonus stuff absolutely ruined the game. Please tell me who likes this stuff?

My nephew who is 10 jumps for joy when he gets access to something new in TF2. I’m not 10 and I suspect a lot of players who play this game are not either. Yes, the core market is 18-24 year old, but I like to think that when I was 18 I wouldn’t have cared then either.

While also not perfect I liked the ETQW approach of rewarding as you played but then resetting. You got the limitation on use to add value to the ability but not the pokeman collect `em all focus above playing the actual game.

Then again, ETQW caught a lot of flak because of that, people expected persistent weapon unlocks and ta da here they are in Brink. Baby needs its crack.

Anyway, welcome to the forums! Brink will still be an awesome game, as you said, perhaps we’re just too old to play dress up and get excited about new toys. :slight_smile:

(light_sh4v0r) #7

They dont have real player collision anyway, it’s been confirmed a long time ago you are just gently pushed away when running into a teammate.

(LyndonL) #8

Think “Left 4 Dead”

(Mustkunstn1k) #9

TF2 is badass.
Thank you and good night.

PS: I would like to know about the voip thing myself too.

(H0RSE) #10

And you say not everyone has a mic. I never understood this. You can afford a rig to play these games but not a 20 dollar mic?!

It’s not really a price issue, as it is some people just don’t like using mics. On the other hand, everyone likes playing games at max settings with really high framerates.

So many times it has added to the gameplay, even when the other person doesn’t have a mic.

e.g. engr is disarming in ETQW, i say ‘eng a hyper is coming up behind you’ the engr stops disarming, turns around and fights then finishes defusing. I could never type this fast enough, nor would he probably see the text in time while focused on disarming.

you don’t need a mic for this. They will still hear you through speakers or headphones.

(General_Zod) #11

damn showing my age again, i don’t know how to quote without some button helping me with the syntax:

“you don’t need a mic for this. They will still hear you through speakers or headphones.”

Well, someone obviously needs a mic for that to happen, and it needs to be built in. Otherwise if I am using ts or whatever that person without a mic is probably not on the ts channel and is not going to hear me.

I don’t understand people not wanting to talk, we all must have been in that situation where you want to yell at the screen, ‘right there! heal that eng so he can disarm!’ well voip allows you to do that. So I hope it’s in or added. It’s becoming a standard on the xbox side anyway. I’m a pc dude but my nephew uses his mic all the time talking to his friends in game. If a 10 yr old can be comfortable doing it, so can you. Don’t be shy, talk.

And persistent upgrades are just awful and just widens the gap from casual to ‘hardcore’ players. And when I say casual, I don’t mean someone who is forever a noob, they just might not have the time to play all the time for the latest goodies. I hope there is some server setting that won’t let people keep their toys and have to earn them each go. The XP system employed by ET and ETQW is perfect.

And I don’t want to start some flame war but TF2 is a spam fest. I detest the game.

And I still say localalized voip (and vsays) is a great idea. Imagine saying to a med ‘heal me’ and he hears it based on his position from you.

(DepressedOptimist) #12

I saw somewhere you can tell some one’s class by the color of their gloves. It’s not much but I guess its something to tell a medic’s “red” hands from an engineer’s “blue” or soldier’s “black”.

(Nail) #13

Just had a look through a bunch of screenshots, no gloves visable

(BioSnark) #14

this is the quote

Stopping at the command post, we flirt with the idea of switching classes; watching the gloves change colours depending on which class we choose – a subtle but effective indicator – but in the end, we opt to stay as a soldier.

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/news/news-6137-Gamescom-2010--Brink-Hands-On-Preview-–-Back-From-The-Brink.html

(DarkangelUK) #15

If it’s true, I hope the colours differ enough so the colourblind of the community (ME!) can easily tell them apart.

(Zhou Yu) #16

Just to say, there are multiple legitimate reasons for players not using voip, it should never be something that players are penalised for not being able to use. I doubt that anyone would be, but its worth stating that there should be alternatives like quickchat and auto chatter.

I’ve known players who have speech impediments, or who can’t speak at all, female gamers and others who don’t want to open themselves up to abuse, and simply those who don’t feel comfortable enough in their English to voip. Its worth pointing out that mic usage is very different in America and Europe, because of the increased likelihood of players from different countries with different languages and accents. Simply put, there should always be alternatives to voip.

(LyndonL) #17

…and there are alternatives to VOIP.

BUT Voip should always be on by default. I don’t care if you have to activate using it from the menu, but having to activate to HEAR it is BS. There is nothing more annoying that talking to someone and it seems like they’re ignoring you because they can’t hear you.

If it’s so easy to just turn on by a menu H0rse, then why can’t that “easy” option be for people to turn it off instead, and have it ON by default? If supposedly noone uses it it’s not a problem to be active by default.

Almost no servers have voip on for BC2 (In Australia) and when you’re trying to coordinate with your squad its damn hard… not enough time to type in the thick of battle. All coop games should have VOIP on.

(H0RSE) #18

http://unit-13.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6563#p6563

At around 2:11 in the new dev diary -


you can see that the yellow/black gloves are Engineer - since he deploys a turret.

At 1:09, he is cycling through objectives. The Objectives are Medic based, and he is wearing the red gloves. So it appears it is:

(Security)
yellow/black - Engineer
fingerless - Operative
red with faction logo - Medic
black - Soldier

(Nail) #19

They seem to have been added since some of the first screenshots, I stand corrected

(General_Zod) #20

Hmm, tell the enemy class by glove colour? I dunno, I hope that works anyway.

Yes some people have issues using voip, (e.g. speech impediment) but even someone with that issue will benefit from “dude123, behind you”. If it’s in game and on by default that is.

Has voip never been mentioned officially? Again, I’m talking pc here, cause I assume pretty much all games on xbox now take advantage of its voip.

No one responded to my idea of localized voip (or localized vsays). I always thought it was a great idea and again I’ve only seen it in a q3 mod and it was just a gimic (ie. a taunt)