After Halo 3 what next for the FPS
Discussion
Halo 3 was more an evolution of the FPS rather than a revolution. It has a similar style of gaming to Halo , but just more often fighting with allies and with the larger scale battles just that bit bigger.
But during the bigger battle scenes, like the fight with the Scarabs, it occured to me why can't a FPS be at this sort of scale, or larger, all the time?.
The war between the Convenant and humanity must have involved, at the very least, millions on each side. Is it really convincing if key battles in that war are decided by little more than a score of combatants on each side.
Are battles with scores of vehicles and hundreds of combatants feasible given current technology, or will we have to wait for future generations of consoles?
But during the bigger battle scenes, like the fight with the Scarabs, it occured to me why can't a FPS be at this sort of scale, or larger, all the time?.
The war between the Convenant and humanity must have involved, at the very least, millions on each side. Is it really convincing if key battles in that war are decided by little more than a score of combatants on each side.
Are battles with scores of vehicles and hundreds of combatants feasible given current technology, or will we have to wait for future generations of consoles?
Yes there is a slightly longer ending, you see them drifting towards a planet.
Plenty of vids on youtube if you don't fancy doing it on Legendary.
As for the original question, yeah I think there will be a lot more big battles in the future, as people aren't going to be wowed by enclosed corridors for much longer. Crysis promises to have some truly massive battles in it, but I'm not sure I want to spend all that money upgrading my PC to play that one game, when 99% of my gaming these days is console based.
Plenty of vids on youtube if you don't fancy doing it on Legendary.
As for the original question, yeah I think there will be a lot more big battles in the future, as people aren't going to be wowed by enclosed corridors for much longer. Crysis promises to have some truly massive battles in it, but I'm not sure I want to spend all that money upgrading my PC to play that one game, when 99% of my gaming these days is console based.
Fidgits said:
it would be nice in a FPS - if you could command an army.
Not just 3 AI guys like in GRAW - but i mean a 500 strong army... a huge conflict - maybe even sieges etc... but then that gets more RPG than FPS..
I think one flaw of Halo 3 is that you cannot command the squads of soldiers you meet. After all your rank is Master Chief, which must be a senior non-commissioned officer. So why can't you command the soldiers you meet?. Nothing too fancy maybe setting a basic formation &/or telling them to attack or hang back. Not just 3 AI guys like in GRAW - but i mean a 500 strong army... a huge conflict - maybe even sieges etc... but then that gets more RPG than FPS..
I agree there is a great potential for a convergence between RPG & FPS. You could be a super soldier commanding an army. Going in to fight yourself where the need is greatest.
jimmyjimjim said:
Its the general idea. But I really like a game I can pick up for 10-20 minutes then put down again. Planetside did the whole MMOFPS thing years ago, had tanks, planes, troop transports and so on. I used to love it. Was basically capture the base and hold on a massive scale with several continents, each with about 9 main bases and each main base having several smaller support bases.
Once you held a continent you got bonuses for your faction, but the battles would rage for entire days over certain key bases, and then in the dead of night when no-one was on you'd get maybe one or two guys sneaking in and taking over an entire continent whilst most other people were asleep.
I think Huxley (due out on PC and 360) is going to repeat the whole idea with massive amounts of PC and 360 players facing off against one another.
Once you held a continent you got bonuses for your faction, but the battles would rage for entire days over certain key bases, and then in the dead of night when no-one was on you'd get maybe one or two guys sneaking in and taking over an entire continent whilst most other people were asleep.
I think Huxley (due out on PC and 360) is going to repeat the whole idea with massive amounts of PC and 360 players facing off against one another.
JagLover said:
I think one flaw of Halo 3 is that you cannot command the squads of soldiers you meet. After all your rank is Master Chief, which must be a senior non-commissioned officer.
Master Chief Petty Officer is the highest non-com rank in the US Navy. It's the equivalent of Sergeant Major in the Army.I'm new to the Halo series but I had assumed that the back story is that the Spartans operated outside the usual command structure (sort of uber-Special Forces) and so didn't fit into the usual command hierarchy. Sgt Major Johnson is the guy who seems to be in charge of all the grunts you pick up along the way.
There comes a point where if you have to worry about what too many other characters are doing and to give them orders, it's not so much a FPS shooter any more as more of a squad, platoon or company based strategy game. I quite liked GRAW and having a few other troops to give commands to (when they could be bothered to do what I told them to do!
) but I'm not I'd really want any more than that - it would (IMO at least) change the nature of the game. Not that that would be bad - it just wouldn't be a "proper" FPS.Edited by Lurking Lawyer on Wednesday 10th October 16:01
JagLover said:
The war between the Convenant and humanity must have involved, at the very least, millions on each side. Is it really convincing if key battles in that war are decided by little more than a score of combatants on each side.
Are battles with scores of vehicles and hundreds of combatants feasible given current technology, or will we have to wait for future generations of consoles?
Take a look at WW2 history books, a lot of key battles didnt rely on millions of guys, merely thousands, with the (daily) casualties being down to double digits. Its only when you add them up after 6 years and thousands of encounters later, than you end up with the millions of KIA numbers we see. Also personel tend to be spread apart, you wouldn't see 1 million guys in a neatly organise block, like a roman legion, approaching the enemy, they would be spread over hundreds of miles, with a density not much more than what you would see in Halo anyway (imagine how many friendly fire incidents you would have if you did bunch up your forces).Are battles with scores of vehicles and hundreds of combatants feasible given current technology, or will we have to wait for future generations of consoles?
Another reason for not having millions of guys in your vicinity is simple gameplay, you would end up getting killed by random gun fire / grenades all the time. In parts Halo can get too hectic (too many guys in one place).
The biggest technological hurdle is network latency and bandwidth. Im sure modern pc's can render hundreds if not thousands of guys (well, probably with some aggressive LOD algorithms).
Edited by scorp on Wednesday 10th October 17:38
Fidgits said:
it would be nice in a FPS - if you could command an army.
Not just 3 AI guys like in GRAW - but i mean a 500 strong army... a huge conflict - maybe even sieges etc... but then that gets more RPG than FPS..
You would inevitably have to use macromanagement for that (commanding legions of soldiers rather than individuals or small groups).. so the end result is a RTS, with a funny camera angle.Not just 3 AI guys like in GRAW - but i mean a 500 strong army... a huge conflict - maybe even sieges etc... but then that gets more RPG than FPS..
scorp said:
Fidgits said:
it would be nice in a FPS - if you could command an army.
Not just 3 AI guys like in GRAW - but i mean a 500 strong army... a huge conflict - maybe even sieges etc... but then that gets more RPG than FPS..
You would inevitably have to use macromanagement for that (commanding legions of soldiers rather than individuals or small groups).. so the end result is a RTS, with a funny camera angle.Not just 3 AI guys like in GRAW - but i mean a 500 strong army... a huge conflict - maybe even sieges etc... but then that gets more RPG than FPS..
What about some imagination in FPS games. Halo 3 was nothing original and I can't even believe people are discussing it as if it was something groundbreaking and the pinnacle of the FPS genre.
What about some historical based FPS games, including time travel or even solely based in the past. Rather than the COD/MOH style games maybe a full WW2 game making your way from a say a downed plane back to the Allied territory - soloing your way back in a mix of fighting, stealing things, sneaking about etc. Or even medieval/ancient Rome based FPS's. Surely some decent story lines could be put into these.
What about some historical based FPS games, including time travel or even solely based in the past. Rather than the COD/MOH style games maybe a full WW2 game making your way from a say a downed plane back to the Allied territory - soloing your way back in a mix of fighting, stealing things, sneaking about etc. Or even medieval/ancient Rome based FPS's. Surely some decent story lines could be put into these.
kiwisr said:
What about some imagination in FPS games. Halo 3 was nothing original and I can't even believe people are discussing it as if it was something groundbreaking and the pinnacle of the FPS genre.
What about some historical based FPS games, including time travel or even solely based in the past. Rather than the COD/MOH style games maybe a full WW2 game making your way from a say a downed plane back to the Allied territory - soloing your way back in a mix of fighting, stealing things, sneaking about etc. Or even medieval/ancient Rome based FPS's. Surely some decent story lines could be put into these.
It did have to compete with the storyline of Halflife 2 and associated episodes though which did have a pretty strong story. What about some historical based FPS games, including time travel or even solely based in the past. Rather than the COD/MOH style games maybe a full WW2 game making your way from a say a downed plane back to the Allied territory - soloing your way back in a mix of fighting, stealing things, sneaking about etc. Or even medieval/ancient Rome based FPS's. Surely some decent story lines could be put into these.
Only thing I know of that looks good on the radar is Unreal Tournament 3. The UT series doesn't have much of a story though - The Unreal story and ending (floating lost in an escape pod) seems to have been repeated by every other FPS game of late (Unreal 2, Halo 3) which certainly doesn't help matters...
scorp said:
JagLover said:
The war between the Convenant and humanity must have involved, at the very least, millions on each side. Is it really convincing if key battles in that war are decided by little more than a score of combatants on each side.
Are battles with scores of vehicles and hundreds of combatants feasible given current technology, or will we have to wait for future generations of consoles?
Take a look at WW2 history books, a lot of key battles didnt rely on millions of guys, merely thousands, with the (daily) casualties being down to double digits. Its only when you add them up after 6 years and thousands of encounters later, than you end up with the millions of KIA numbers we see. Also personel tend to be spread apart, you wouldn't see 1 million guys in a neatly organise block, like a roman legion, approaching the enemy, they would be spread over hundreds of miles, with a density not much more than what you would see in Halo anyway (imagine how many friendly fire incidents you would have if you did bunch up your forces).Are battles with scores of vehicles and hundreds of combatants feasible given current technology, or will we have to wait for future generations of consoles?
Another reason for not having millions of guys in your vicinity is simple gameplay, you would end up getting killed by random gun fire / grenades all the time. In parts Halo can get too hectic (too many guys in one place).
The biggest technological hurdle is network latency and bandwidth. Im sure modern pc's can render hundreds if not thousands of guys (well, probably with some aggressive LOD algorithms).
Edited by scorp on Wednesday 10th October 17:38
For those who say you would be taking too much fire and it would be too confusing, the maps would also of course have to be larger. The only way enemy at the other end of the map would be able to hit you would be via Sniper or artillery/tank fire.
kiwisr said:
What about some imagination in FPS games. Halo 3 was nothing original and I can't even believe people are discussing it as if it was something groundbreaking and the pinnacle of the FPS genre.
I agree, not much new, if anything. However, its well polished, tons of configuration options in the custom games/forge modes, net code is stable (this is a big let down in many a FPS, bar the ID-Software ones)JagLover said:
I would agree that you don't have to have millions on the screen to be realistic. However for many of the battles upping the scale by a factor of 10 would have been realistic. For example think how weakly defended the Prophet was.
For those who say you would be taking too much fire and it would be too confusing, the maps would also of course have to be larger. The only way enemy at the other end of the map would be able to hit you would be via Sniper or artillery/tank fire.
You would have to diverge from reality a bit though, in a real battle everyone would be spending most their time down a fox hole avoiding the 50 nearby snipers / constant artillery bombardment. It wouldn't actually be much fun.For those who say you would be taking too much fire and it would be too confusing, the maps would also of course have to be larger. The only way enemy at the other end of the map would be able to hit you would be via Sniper or artillery/tank fire.
I've played a few large online games (64player counterstrike / battlefield / etc) and the maxed out servers, whilst amusing for a little while, become frustrating due to your inability to defend yourself against 20 enemies and hundreds of randomly fired projectiles at the same time.
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