Team Flying

#1 I know I enjoyed Starfox 64 :]
Have you every played the Ace Combat series? I don't remember if it was the 2nd or 3rd one, but my friend and I would play against each other and I thought it was very fun. It too was death match, but I don't see any reason not to have a co-op mission. If you don't restrict yourself to keeping all of the players on the screen at the same time (like an on-rails game) it should work out just fine.

Probably the biggest consideration would be communication between players (it's hard to type and escape a missle). You would need a good HUD for keeping track of your team mates. I'm sure there are other important considerations... I just ran out of time though :[

#2 I've heard of Ace Combat, but never actually got the chance to play it. That brings me to another question actually, though... What are some favorite flying games out there and why? What was their appeal, what did they do right or wrong, what was the mission structure, etc? (It's actually fairly hard to find games that are centered around flying, I'm coming to realize.)

Another problem I thought of was the powerup issue... How exactly would you go about dividing powerups among the group? Chances are, it would devolve into a demolition derby for the powerup, which is bad for team spirits. Also, if there is freedom of movement rather than rails, what would stop people from picking up every powerup without fail? Stuff to consider, eh?

#3 Topgun had some team flying combat, not too much unlike StarFox. But you didn't reside on a path, rather.. you were flying free.
Great games.

#4 I think it would be particularly sweet to have a multiplayer mode something like the assault mode from Unreal Tournament... The result would feel something like the big dogfights in Starfox 64, but much more challenging with real people in every cockpit. (One team could have objectives to fulfill while the other team's objective is to blow them out of the sky.)

That's a good point about communication... Maybe a few alert messages or SOS messages could be hotkeyed, but that's fairly limiting. I'd definitely want to see mic support, just because it would be nifty talking to your buddies on the radio like that. (What flight team has ever done without?)

As for style, it would have to be futuristic. Realistically, planes aren't capable of the kind of stuff I'd want in a flying game. (MS Flight Simulator can pander to realism buffs.) One thing definitely missing from the Starfox games was selection. You could choose Fox's Arwing, orrrrr.... Fox's Arwing! The wider the selection of aircrafts, the more personal styles they will appeal to. Failing "powerups", maybe each aircraft can come equipped with a default laser style weapon, a rechargeable "power" weapon and a limited "super" weapon.

Any other ideas or input?

#5 I never got to play tie fighter or x-wing or something, but the stories of the multiplayer battles made me want to play it even years later.

#6 Power up-s could be handled by color or such.
i.e. Player A is assigned a color tag (say BLUE), all power-ups in that color would only be available/pickup-able (such a word) by that color tag.
Player B gets green, etc....

Means fair game play.

#7 Isn't something like that in the works right now? Or released? "Dogs of Prey" or something like that...

Yeah! Dogs of Prey. Looks like they just opened their "public website" today. www.darkhand.net/. It's been in development for at least three years: www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=2648

There's also "Void War", available for sale from GG.


I haven't played either one, but they do exist.

#8 Man did I hate Star Fox Assault for those awful on foot levels. There was like 2 real flying levels in the whole game. After I beat that garbage I sold it back to Gamestop (what a waste of $20) I went back to Star Fox 64 to clense the GC version out of my system and tried to forget it ever happened.


I think an on rail style Multiplayer flight shooter would be good. I want to make something like Star Fox very badly. Just make the level very wide and tall so nobody really crashes into each other as you go forward. You could also have player one always in the front and player 4 always in the back so that when they are all clumped up they wont ever run into each other. Instead they always form a line (except when someone brakes or boosts).

It must be either online or split screen of course. I prefer both on rails and free flying though. I like on rails a little more. Those levels seem to be the best looking for some reason and have more going on in them (in Star Fox anyway). Also I get to concentrate on just shooting and doing moves rather than trying to track down an enemy and losing your teamates. Both on rails and fre flying levels are a must though. Can you imagine online 4 on 4, or 8 on 8, or even 32 on 32, Star Fox style. Man I'm getting carried away:)
-Ajari-

Edit: Crimson Skies for Xbox is pretty fun online and off.

#9 Hmm, heres another issue with multiplayer on rails... How do you stop one person in the team from accelerating ahead of everyone and triggering all the enemies and events before the rest of the team even gets there? You would almost have to omit or weaken any brake or accelerate functions to keep the team in line for everything. At the same time, having a scout to flush out any ambushes would be kinda cool. (I'm torn here.) I suppose the simple answer to keeping everyone from crashing into one another would be to either make the range of movement 4-5x larger than a single screen. That gives a lot more freedom for placing enemies and the like as well.

Personally, I like the idea of free 3D movement better, but after playing a little Starfox last night, I realized one thing that it had going for it was that they could be creative with enemy placement. It was like rolling through a shooting gallery on skates or something. The question here is: Is it better to emulate past success through a tried and true method, or try to make something not-so-proven better? Some seem to think the dogfights were a little TOO spontaneous. (In my opinion though, that opens it up for more gameplay, rather than running through the same shooting gallery over and over.)

The last bit I just said gave me an idea. I'm a big fan of randomized content found in games like Diablo. Maybe the principle behind that could translate well to a shooter? (Particularly a rail shooter!) If the levels were divided into subsections, with 5 varieties per subsection... For example, if there were 4 subsections with 5 varieties each, you would have effectively created 625 varieties of a single level. (I think the math is right on that.) If that's not replay value, what is? I realize, of course, that eventually people would still come to recognize each subsection for what it was, but at least you wouldn't be able to play through a level with your eyes closed.

First person, third person or player choice? I'd personally go third, but choice is always best right? (Although that means balancing gameplay so that the experience is equal in both.)

More ideas as they come! Feel free to throw out any ideas or comments you have.

#10 Rogue Squadron 3 had an excellent, if somewhat buggy, co-op version of RS2 included. Flying a pair of X-Wings through the Battle of Endor is quite cool. Actually, scratch that. Screaming down the Death Star trench with a buddy is just freaking awesome.

#11 Micrsoft Combat Flight Sim 2 ,, this was once a favorite of mine, a online co-op flight game. witch you dident just fly and shoot, you hade to really learn to pilot your craft, as it is a flight simulater, but with guns ;-) as a newbee taking off and LANDING at a diff airport is challenging on its own, and as a experenced pilot you can ingadge in some edge of the seat dog fighting.

#12 Man did I ever play the hell out of Falcon 3.0 multiplayer whenever I could. Flying formation and having a real wingman to talk to made the game that much more immersive and feel that much more realistic (and for a game that was widely recognized as one of the most realistic flight sims at the time, that's saying a lot).

#13 For the boost issue the only thing I can think of is have it to where it does nothing like in Star Fox when your fighting a boss that's standing still. Boosting just kinda pushes you forward and then you go back to your original place. Or just leave the boost and brake option out of the game all together.

Definatley gotta give people a choice but 3rd person has to be defalt. It wouldn't be as cool if you didn't see your ship spinning and flipping everywhere.
-Ajari-

#14 Sweet! Check out my post if you would.

http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=35305

#15 M Ryan Haag your idea is completley different from what we are talking about in here. Your idea seems to be a mix of Wing Commander and Colony Wars with the FPS aspect and open space and Crimson Skies because of the huge cruisers with manned gun turrents.

The game we are talking about would be like Star Fox to where most of the game is on rails as you and your team fly forward. The thing I like most about that kind of game is that while your going forward or where ever the camera takes you, your doing all these flips and spins, dodging enemy fire while you try to get back in position quick enough to counter attack before the enemies defenses come up or flies right past you.
-Ajari-

#16 Ahhh, sounds great

#17 Your idea does sound cool though. I hope you find a talented team to see it become a reality soon.

#18 Well thanks, I hope your successfull too!

#19 A team flyer sounds very fun! I remember playing Descent II and III and wishing that I could fly co-op with my friends over the LAN. It has the capacity to be very fun. Also, there haven't been any flying combat games in a long time, which is strange, given that those games have been very fun and very popular. Of course, the indie community is cranking these out by the dozen, but I ment the Professional owned-by-publisher circles of game development. I keep waiting for there to be a Descent IV to quench my desprate craving... :(

#20 @M Ryan Haag: My bad man. I went back and read the original post and it seems he was talking about free flying games like Rogue Squadrin too. It wasn't untill later in the thread that we seemed to start talking about Star Fox style gameplay exclusivley. I'm sorry man. You seem so cool too. Good luck.
-Ajari-