Are We In a New Gaming Renaissance?

[xWEBSx]

Wall of text:

Spoiler

Well the games im talking about are 'deathmatch' shooters. Not realism-based shooters in the vein of counterstrike or CoD.


Outside of indy devs there are really only two players in the deathmatch game, quake and unreal. There were small communities around Halflife DM, Painkiller, Tribes etc but quake and unreal have always had >90% of deathmatch players. The list of shooters that had large competitive communities goes Quake1 - Quake2 - Unreal Tournament99 - Quake3 - UT2K3 - UT2K4.

The problem was the same problem that I see happening in the fighting game communities; new players get stomped in a way that isnt fun for them. Someone who has played quake 3 for one week playing 1v1 against someone who has played for a year or more will simply never kill them. They will die over and over without really knowing what is happening. Good players are timing health/armor/powerups, denying certain weapons, and forcing spawn locations, etc etc. Things that wouldnt occur to a new player as valid tactics. It would be akin to loading up MK9 and not knowing that there was a block button. These tactics are that important. Aim and movement are a big part of winning, but if you have poor timing or tactics your good aim will rarely make up for it.
CoD you can pickup and play and even if you are terrible there is no huge penalty. You can still run around and get the occasional kill which triggers a reward response, the action is frantic and you will inevitably get a headshot or find someone turned around. There are no items to keep track of and the only real strategy is positioning. Playing quake for the uninitiated feels like you are trapped in an isolated rape chamber with a madman on the loose.

In quake 4 and unreal 3 both devs tried to correct this and in the process simplified the game to the point where the existing community abandoned them and went back to the old games, which of course with both games having been out for so long at that point attracted almost no new players.


So anyways here is why deathmatch is dead:

1) What makes the games good also makes the games extremely newb unfriendly
2) When the devs tried to make the games newb friendly, the games werent good
3) Those games didnt do well so they stopped making them in favor of other genres that sell more copies

Thanks for that... I see where you are coming from and while I can only partially relate on the shooter aspect, I fully understand in the correlation to the model and fighters.. I understand the balance between profit and ease of use.. overall however I find it a shame and the ones who lose overall are the people who put their time in (in said fighter or shooter) to just have things... "dumbed down" for the sake of more $$ (those 1 yr vets vs your 1 week newb example sticks out to me, because that vet had been in the newbs shoes when they first picked up the game, they decided to stick with it and improve, while many are just content to cry and complain to just eventually move on) <---- is a different topic all to itself.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

No. COD is the best-selling franchise, and the Xbox One is possibly the beginning of a new level of control and greed being brought into gaming.

It's not so much about what the number 1-selling title is: it's the fact that if you don't want to play Call of Duty, you can play:

The Last of Us, Uncharted, Trine, God of War, Mk9, SF4, TTT2, some really good sports games that are the best they've been in years (FIFA, NBA 2k, MLB The Show), Skyrim, Fallout, Arkham City/Asylum/Whatever, TFC2, Far Cry 3, Bioshock, Red Dead Redemption, Portal 2, Borderlands, Braid, Dead Space, Forza, Dark Souls, Mario Galaxy, Mass Effect whatever, GTA IV, Limbo, Assassins Creed, Sonic the Hedgehog games that are better than they've been in a decade, Day Z, Minecraft, Left4Dead/2, Starcraft II, DotA2/LoL (whichever you prefer), Bastion, Super Meat Boy, Dragon Age: Origins, The Witcher 2, The Walking Dead, Mirror's Edge, Dishonored.. and 50 more games.

No one will like every single title on that list, but there is literally something for everyone.

I mean, I can keep naming options for great games to play in the last few years, and not even physically have the time to play them all.

 

[chores]

Thanks for that... I see where you are coming from and while I can only partially relate on the shooter aspect, I fully understand in the correlation to the model and fighters.. I understand the balance between profit and ease of use.. overall however I find it a shame and the ones who lose overall are the people who put their time in (in said fighter or shooter) to just have things... "dumbed down" for the sake of more $$ (those 1 yr vets vs your 1 week newb example sticks out to me, because that vet had been in the newbs shoes when they first picked up the game, they decided to stick with it and improve, while many are just content to cry and complain to just eventually move on) <---- is a different topic all to itself.

Yeah its sad. I think its partially the rise of consoles and now that we have entered the CoD + ipad games era i dont think it will ever come back. It's like chess went extinct when someone invented checkers

 

[LionHeart V1]

COD caters to the absolute brain dead. Which is why its so popular. It's just a pick up and play game right away. Battlefield to me is 10x better than COD, but it will never come close to performing the way COD does. But most games in a franchise now days is a rehash of a previous game in that series. Halo, COD, GOW, etc...

 

[serge]

Thanks for that... I see where you are coming from and while I can only partially relate on the shooter aspect, I fully understand in the correlation to the model and fighters.. I understand the balance between profit and ease of use.. overall however I find it a shame and the ones who lose overall are the people who put their time in (in said fighter or shooter) to just have things... "dumbed down" for the sake of more $$ (those 1 yr vets vs your 1 week newb example sticks out to me, because that vet had been in the newbs shoes when they first picked up the game, they decided to stick with it and improve, while many are just content to cry and complain to just eventually move on) <---- is a different topic all to itself.

This reminds me of the majority of the community of TYM

 

[THTB]

There are new ideas, but the games simply aren't really challenging. Flat out. The hand holding is ridiculous at times.

I haven't played a recent non-FG game and actually really had to get good at it just to complete it in a very long time.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

There are new ideas, but the games simply aren't really challenging. Flat out. The hand holding is ridiculous at times.

I haven't played a recent non-FG game and actually really had to get good at it just to complete it in a very long time.

Even like, Dark Souls?

 

[THTB]

Even like, Dark Souls?

Admittedly, didn't pick up Dark Souls. So, I'm unaware.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Admittedly, didn't pick up Dark Souls. So, I'm unaware.

Yeah, it's a beast.

But I think it depends on the difficulty you chose, too. Like I played Uncharted 2 and 3 on normal difficulty and breezed through them. But with the difficulty cranked to the highest level (the one you have to beat the game to unlock) it was a totally different story and a lot more challenging.

And then there's stuff like Super Meat Boy which will make you want to pull hair out at times.

 

[xWEBSx]

Even like, Dark Souls?

Dark Souls is a double edge sword... and the creators knew that from jump and still did not care. Those that wanted to invest time in it did so to great enjoyment (possibly frustration ) however those that gave it a whirl and died the 10000 time said screw this.. the game is broken. It is great that things like Dark Souls exist but can not be the norm... gaming would become extinct if it did. Balance must be strived for.

 

[Gesture Required Ahead]

Sonic Generations...

GGs


Sent from my iPhone 5 using Tapatalk

 

[THTB]

Dark Souls is a double edge sword... and the creators knew that from jump and still did not care. Those that wanted to invest time in it did so to great enjoyment (possibly frustration ) however those that gave it a whirl and died the 10000 time said screw this.. the game is broken. It is great that things like Dark Souls exist but can not be the norm... gaming would become extinct if it did. Balance must be strived for.

The "dying 10000 times before you get it" type of difficulty existed in a pretty significant number of games for years until games started to really become super easy across the board. It can exist, just gamers are going to have to learn.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Thinking back, you can't put Killzone 2 on the hardest diff. and tell me it's a walk in the park either.

 

[xWEBSx]

The "dying 10000 times before you get it" type of difficulty existed in a pretty significant number of games for years until games started to really become super easy across the board. It can exist, just gamers are going to have to learn.

Not disagreeing with you there... However the attention span of our ADD/ADHD generation begs to differ with that logic and I dont think developers as whole are willing to gamble that.. as unfortunate as it is to those willing to put in the time, energy and money.

 

[DuskAlloy]

Even like, Dark Souls?

Dark Souls is definitely hard, but I dont actually like the game... while I believe that games are way too easy and hold your hand alot, Dark Souls just isnt very creative, I mean can anyone tell me the story of it?

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Day Z had a learning curve too.. I got roflstomped the first time I stepped into a server.

 

[RWDY Nori]

Overall difficulty in games is braindead easy compared to the old days. It's nice to see franchises rebooted but let's not kid ourselves the difficulty is anything on how it used to be. I know there are lot of kids born in the 90s on TYM, but if you aren't old enough to remember 3 lives 3 continues you don't know REAL difficulty I'm sorry

 

[DuskAlloy]

Overall difficulty in games is braindead easy compared to the old days. It's nice to see franchises rebooted but let's not kid ourselves the difficulty is anything on how it used to be. I know there are lot of kids born in the 90s on TYM, but if you aren't old enough to remember 3 lives 3 continues you don't know REAL difficulty I'm sorry

The thing was that back in the day the very difficult games were also just very good games, now if there is a game that is difficult for the sake of being difficult like dark souls but has nothing else to offer then I consider it a bad game

 

[Chuckychuck]

We were talking about this in TYM chat the other day -- people's tastes evolve, and it seems like people are into more complex types of gameplay now. The 'pure shooter' is like a niche genre, in between games with all kinds of skill chains/levelling systems, loadouts, extra unmanned weapons, fancy explosives, etc.

To see something like Counter-Strike or Q3 again would probably require some kind of indie-ish effort. But enough people are attempting things now that it will probably happen at some point.

Painkiller was an early stab at that kind of thing.

Actually twitch shooters died because you can't play them on consoles. It all started with CS. It was great mod but Q3 still dominated. However, CS was able to translate onto a console and twitch shooters weren't - they are too fast paced.

 

[THTB]

Overall difficulty in games is braindead easy compared to the old days. It's nice to see franchises rebooted but let's not kid ourselves the difficulty is anything on how it used to be. I know there are lot of kids born in the 90s on TYM, but if you aren't old enough to remember 3 lives 3 continues you don't know REAL difficulty I'm sorry

Fuck continues.

You lose all your lives...start the fuck over son!

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Overall difficulty in games is braindead easy compared to the old days. It's nice to see franchises rebooted but let's not kid ourselves the difficulty is anything on how it used to be. I know there are lot of kids born in the 90s on TYM, but if you aren't old enough to remember 3 lives 3 continues you don't know REAL difficulty I'm sorry

But lets not act like there weren't plenty of easy games as well.. It's not like beating Sonic and Knuckles or Turtles in Time took a particular set of skills. Then you had stuff like FF1, which was annoying, but didn't require any depth of knowledge. It was pretty much grinding and dice rolling.

You can't just walk into LoL the way you could those games. For every Ghouls n' Ghosts or Contra there are 30 more games that were big names, but not that hard to beat.

Actually twitch shooters died because you can't play them on consoles. It all started with CS. It was great mod but Q3 still dominated. However, CS was able to translate onto a console and twitch shooters weren't - they are too fast paced.

No one's playing League of Legends or DotA2 on a console -- but it hasn't seemed to stop those games or the genre. I think it's mainly that people moved on.

 

[chores]

The sad part is that if people could just have a glimpse of the mental games that go on between two players that are truly skilled, and the feeling of out-smarting someones play then they would be hooked. The problem is that the barrier to entry is way too high for most people.
Thats really why I started playing fighting games (that and shooters dying). There is nothing more satisfying than the good old 'he thinks that i think that he thinks that i think that hes going to do this, but i know he is going to do that" or 'yomi' or whatever. Thats the best part.

 

[chores]

No one's playing League of Legends (or Minecraft until recently) on a console -- but it hasn't seemed to stop those games or the genres. I think it's mainly that people moved on.

Your point still stands but a ton of people play minecraft on consoles. I think its one of the best selling games ever on xbox live. I agree with what youre saying but not that specific example.

 

[Chuckychuck]

I dabbled in Q3 and spent a good time with UT.. I would just like to open up the discussion to what makes them stand out or superior to modern shooters

Ever seen a pro Quake 3 player rocket jump around a map and be nearly untouchable yet all over the place dominating?

Ever seena pro Quake 3 1v1 battle where one player maintains control of the entire map? Do you know what this is? It doesn't exist in COD and is a skill set that is long forgotten. It requires timing, knowing when to be aggressive and knowing when to patrol the power up route you've set for the map.

Ever seen a pro Tribes player lead-shoot a disc (rocket launcher) over a hill and nail his target or two go head to head in mid-air in a full 3 dimensional space battle? The aiming required to hit a target that is further away than the largest COD map while being in the vertical space is just insane. COD is like playing with the sink hose compare to Tribes.

The skill set was vastly different but I've made my peace with it. I know it's gone and this is why I am crossing my fingers for Titanfall to be the next "clone shooter" because it has JET PACKS and big GIANT ROBOT ARMORED METAL SUITS as well as the FPS elements.

BF4 is cool and all with tanks and stuff but come on.... Titanfall has big giant robots! They scoop you up with their giant robotic hands and throw you in the pilot seat! AWESOME!!

 

[serge]

Try beating the first Zelda without internet or guide or any help from the outside. Could take months and months. You don't see games like that anymore. Now you don't have to work for shit, just follow the directions on your minimap where the huge yellow dot is flashing, that's probably where you have to go.
I beat FF13 in one week end and I hated it and I will never play it again. On the other side, I still play the old Zeldas somewhat regularly (like once a year).