Strafe jumping

(DarkangelUK) #81

You say others enjoy newer games, but in the same reply agree that more than likely they’ll just ship 6 months down the line… that doesn’t strike me as a group of players that aren’t easily bored, and those are indeed good questions, what does cause this? Again if I see boring and lack of depth gameplay and others don’t, then why is attrition so high for new games these days? It suggests that I’m not alone. Could be the movement, could be the gun mechanics… both of those are different in games today than they were back then… and so its player retention. All sounds a little obvious to be the answer but you never know.

(H0RSE) #82

You re treating it like they are 1 in the same… Whether players enjoy newer games or not, if a game isn’t their cup of tea, it doesn’t matter what mechanics it uses, it isn’t going to keep their interest. It has little to do with whether or not they are easily bored. Keeping on the subject movement, have you played Halo? The movement in that game is quite slow, even clunky. Sprinting is slow and limited, jumping is very floaty, no sprint strafing (that I remember.) In addition, the damage scales are also pretty high. You need to punch through the player’s shield, then finish off their regular health, and if you damage a player without finishing them off, they can just recharge the shield back to full health. These sounds like mechanics that maybe you would consider lacking depth or boring - yet the game is insanely popular.

I don’t bring this up to mock you, only to perhaps show you that their isn’t only one direction to make a game fun and engaging. At the end of the day, if DB turned out to be everything you (or I) despised in a game, yet it had a steady following and populated servers, that’s whats more important. I care less if DB is the game I want, and more that it’s a success for SD.

Again if I see boring and lack of depth gameplay and others don’t, then why is attrition so high for new games these days? It suggests that I’m not alone. Could be the movement, could be the gun mechanics… both of those are different in games today than they were back then… and so its player retention. All sounds a little obvious to be the answer but you never know.

You leave out the possibility that perhaps it has more to do with the people playing games, rather than the games themselves.

(DarkangelUK) #83

So which do you think it is, have the games changed or have the gamers changed or both? For me at least it’s the games but I agree that I have seen a shift in gamer mentality as well… but IMO it’s the games that have pushed this mentality. Seems there’s no focus on the long term goal unless it’s for unlocks and XP gathering and purchasables which is completely fine in a business sense… why have the gamer keep playing the same game for years when you’d rather they bought the next one? Why develop a system that takes years to master if you don’t want/expect the players to still be playing for that length of time? Whittle it down so much and at the end of the day you’re left just another shooting game… a point and click adventure.

Personally I think I need to branch out and get away from fps, it’s completely my own fault that I’ve saturated myself with them and felt like I’ve experienced my peak of excitement. Been tempted to get Guild Wars 2… given the mood I’m in just now regarding shooters then this is probably a good time to get it.

(H0RSE) #84

You should branch out to other genres. Perhaps that is why we differ so much on opinions. I play all genres, and as such, maybe some of the ideas I have bleed over from different genres. My genre of choice isn’t even FPS, it’s RPG. I used to be like you and played pretty much nothing but FPS games, but there’s just too many good out there. Oh, and I own Guild Wars 2. It’s pretty good, but coming from a strict FPS background, I don’t know what you would think of it.