I have a question to all of you: Concerning the game design, what makes a 3d shooter attractive to play?? Charlie McSow /Paradigm Game Design www.rarebyte.de.st

Obviously, graphics. Considering most game players only care about very nice graphics. Also multi-player is a big thing these days. Also this may sound stupid but, the higher the violence and weapon selection, the more it sells.

But then again that's just based on what my (very stupid and inexperienced ) friends talk first about a game.

For example, when they first finished Half-Life, the first thing they talked about was not the great story (for a 3rd shooter anyway) it was the graphics and the violence .

Edited by - Blah! on 4/13/00 6:39:03 PM

I must agree with Blah!.

It seems though that people focus very much on the multiplayer part.

A few days ago I overheard a conversation in my local computer store between to Unreal Tournament fanatics. They were discussing loadly and with much passion how cool it was to play some "last man standing" level. They seemed to think that first person shooter was the best thing around.

I guess what drives them is the follwing:
1. The angrenaline rush.
2. Enjoyment of doing a social activity with can be of any length.
3. The great graphics and sound.

While that may be true for the initial reaction I don''t think you can stress how the game over all plays. Look at Half-Life. It had quite a few DM players on the net when it came out. QW and Q2 still pretty much ruled the on-line universe. The game was programmed with the fact in mind that they would be releasing an SDK for programmers to make mods. It was probably the smartest descision Valve made on HL. Counter Strike is probably the most played game on the net right now, followed closely by TFC. Both are mods for Half-Life. These user made mods are moving units of the Half-Life game right off the shelf. The code is open ended enough to incorporate completly different game types and that is a big selling point. I think that makes a game attractive. Game play and an extensible design will help your project succeed I believe. I also feel what the others are saying. Get some good modelers and artists. No one will get into the game play if they think the graphics are archaic these days....


Mike Barela
mbarela@earthlink.net

Fear!

If you can just walk into a room, unload your ammo and drop the creature without having to worry, the game is almost pointless.

However, stepping round a corner to hear the roar of the Cyberdemon, knowing you can''t stand still or you -will- die somewhat quickly, now -there''s- an experience. Raise the tension levels. Make them scared to go round the corners.

Must games (even half-life) does not give this tension in my opinion. The reason for this is SAVED GAMES.

See the thread on saved games also in this topic group.

I guess that saved games are slightly detrimental to the over all fear element, but a game like Half-Life would be too inconvienant to play with out that feature. Only hard core gamers would play and that cuts down so much on the total video game audience right now. Just for the record though, single player Half-Life did make me jump a number of times and I thought it was a very ambient, moody game.


Mike Barela
mbarela@earthlink.net

What makes 3D shooters attractive...

1) Graphics
2) Great weapon balance: In my opinion UT doesn''t have "the feeling" on weapons. Same with Quake 2. When you compare these two games to original Quake weapons (which were off balanced badly BTW.), you notice that Q1 had "FEELING" in weapons: You saw when you hit your enemy, you REALLY SAW, and somehow everything was better (in my opinion) in Q1 weapons than Q2 or UT... somehow...
3) Good moving. Again, in Q1 character continued turning a little bit even after the mouse didn''t move, and I seriously think that this caused better control over the character for some reason... anyone else agree with me ?
In Q2 I didn''t have this feeling in turning, and it caused me a problems...
4) Well, the real things: Great SP levels. I would actually like to see somekind of tournament system that wouldn''t be so simple like in UT or Q3, but it would have... something

I fully agree with you, Paladin.

Weapon balance is very important. In UT, the weapons are a badly balanced, but in Q1, Q2 and Q3, the weapon balance is great.
The FEELING when you play a game is also very important. I can''t describe this feeling...well, it''s a mixture of movement, weapon handling and sound impression. You do not only play the game, but you''re in the game, you feel it.

I did not have this feeling when I play UT, but the feeling is great when I play Quake.

Another important thing is blood. I''ve seen german versions of a few 3d shooters with green blood or no blood...
I think these are not the real games, ''cause you''re not afraid of monsters or enemies with green blood. No blood is just good for people who do not have fast hardware...

I also think DM is better than SP. ok, I must admit that HL has a very good SP Storyline and it rockz, but I prefer the ultimate DM experience...



Charlie McSow /Paradigm Game Design
www.rarebyte.de.st

a good shooter is one that is realystic, has good graphics(but supports lower hardware from gamers also, not all of us have the last vodoo card that came out!) has a multiplayer, some squad game and good communication. aquarate ballistics is an atractive feature too.