Innovative FPS Features

#21 I second the storyline notion. Half-life 2 was the best game ever for one simple reason - amazingly engaging storyline.

#22 Some good innovation I saw was in Gears of War where when you stacked on a door, a gui menu would pop up with different moves you could do (barricade shooting, rabbit to the other side of the doorway, etc). It's the same sort of trigger-use that prompts you to be able to use the window-mounted machine guns in CoD, and it takes literally 5 minutes to demo that functionality in TGE (set up a trigger so that when you bump into a tower wall, it pushes and pops the about dialog- all in script).

I think if that technique was used to bring out certain tactics not seen before (knock over boxes to block other players, hide in vents, a million other things I can't think of right now, etc), you could have a really interesting FPS on your hands.

#23 @ted

I pop up gui's using a multi-purpose use button. When you're facing an object, and it can be any object, in TGE.. or TGEA you press a button. It then shoots a ray to the object and returns what object type it is. I put specifics about the the object in it's datablock and return that info to pop up the correct gui for that object. I made it a resource a while back. The good thing about this method is it has a range you can set for the ray, so you can be futher back from the object to pop up the gui.

#24 @mb: Sounds a bit like the object selection resource? What I do now for things is have the player click on the object, which changes the gui that comes up. Yours is much the same, though more in style to the Assassin's Creed thing where you face your target before selecting it. It might be useful to a game that made use of these features to use several different ways, and that would probably open up some interesting gameplay for FPS games...

#25 Yeh thats what my game does. I use it for different things. This is this resource I made.

#26 Very nice and to the point resource. Another option for features along those lines (just about the same, actually) was something I did with the object selection resource to pop a "right-click" style context menu (Edit: To elaborate, it also had fly-out sub-menus). It's something I abandoned for my own use- it was supposed to be for the speed-chat feature for PC/NPC convo's, but I think it's still useful for other features. If in an FPS you highlight something with your crosshair, you can add right-click functionality to it this way, the same as you could get it from what mb has done, or even how you get it with triggers or GUI-in-texture functionality.

Come to think of it, there's a huge amount of gameplay innovation out there that really can be put into FPS (or any other) games to jazz up the interactivity. For hardcore FPS players though, I wonder if it would be a problem weening them from the standard systems to something that would be substantially different, or if games like Splinter Cell, Assassin's Creed, and Portal have opened their minds up to much broader interpretations of action gameplay...

#27 FPS game <-- It need hardward revolution.

Double mouse using and movie glass wearing.

We all want real.........more than real world...........

About the gameplay,,add some fore funny things in it......

#28 Incorporating the interactive cutscenes of Resident Evil 4 into a first person view would be neat.

#29

Quote:About the gameplay,,add some fore funny things in it......

What do you mean by that?

Zachary: sounds like a cool idea. Haven't played the RE games, but just on general principles, a 1st person cutscene would be kind of cool.

#30 What about if there were moves or elements in the game where players came together in cooperation. We've all seen vehicle seats before, but what about a giant rock that needs 5 people to lift and move in unison? Or a huge dresser that two people control both ends of? What about 3 players crossing ghostbuster streams for a super shot? A player riding on another's back? What about a large player that others can cling to? Like a player-controlled giant with little players on his shoulder.

What about a player's ability to turn into a different asset that others can cling to and use assets from? You know, turn yourself into a dragon. Your controls are the for the dragon where maybe your mouse will bend an IK chain down the neck to aim the head and you get a flame-thrower or snot-rockets.

Making a fire that grows across particular materials is something interesting and can be done with material collisions against invisible geometry emitted from a single particle. The new Alone in the Dark engine has quite inspiring results, though I firmly believe it is entirely too high-end and advanced for now. It appears to be their main nitch, or innovation. The game-seller, if you ask me.

What about ragdoll games?

What about voice chat emination from player positions to talk trash in real-time 3d that increases in distance with volume so you have to yell for a far away player?

What about being able to control another player?

What about cameras on player helments with a feedback to an ATV with an interior layout of 18 monitors and have each one see the right thing with a little name in the corner. Like Aliens? Nah

What about cameras with separate monitor views at all?

What about the ability to zap any object and have a standard set of animations for it like idle, walk, run, attack and die and give it basic tracking behavior? You know, bring the chair and table to life and send it after 'em. Or the trees! Or a whole house like in Monster House. (yeah, a LOT!!! of work).

What about the ability to befriend animals and issue commands or ride them? What if it took time to gain trust with lots of gifts and holding your ground and careful movements? What if you coded several contextual-based encounters such as a grizzly bear that if it notices you will stand up and challenge you and if you're weaker then you need to stand your ground so if you run or move or turn your back, it goes for you. You get locked into an encounter until either one of you is dead or eventually it leaves or perhaps follows you. A Panther will be more quick to attack and a horse may be inclined to run away if you move too fast. It will only attack when cornered.

What then if you created items that you could drop in the world to either repel or attract certain animals? I like hunting but the games I've played in the past are gayme. A simple world populated with animals or alien critters and a simple Gather objective mode where you cross animals off a list is rewarding enough. You could make a whole forrest and literally give zero mission objectives and still have a lot of fun, me thinks. Assuming you have a large variety of creatures with a variety of behaviors. Idle, walk, run, attack are the only animations you need. You can use those for fleeing, attacking, ignoring. You could get creative and add sleeping or the best of them all, squatin' one out.

You could also further enhance the depth by adding a hunger level to the creatures. Also, setting the creature behaviors to intermingle amongst themselves would create a naturally living environment chock full of drama and horror. You can add more variables such as whether they perceive a large threat or easy prey and it can be based on something as simple as the volume of its bounding box or just a size variable in the code. They can base the level of threat against their current hunger level and determine the next course of action. They may attempt to take down a larger species if they're very hungry and they may very well lose. As we all know, the actual attack strengths and speeds aren't always based on how much a creature weighs or by how much the water rises in the pool when it sinks. Some animals are stronger and possess deadlier weapons than others. For instance, a snake can kill in seconds with one tiny bite and it's lightning quick. A little frog may not have any attack at all but it will kill you if you eat it, or touch it.

An animal that attacks another can further make decisions during an encounter. It may attack a smaller animal and receive an attack that does too much damage for its tastes and it can then decide to retreat. The animal can then remember what did that to it and not take the chance again.

There's always the possibility of doing proper research and making quite the informational piece of software if the facts were accurrate and the information robust and the behaviors and assets are decent.

Nobody's made a real world yet. Not even stinking close and it really can be boiled down to some quite simple logic.

#31 Nice thread.

First Person Shooters. reminds me of Nessy, a C64 game. You job was to get pictures of the lock Ness monster, the better your aim and timing and amount of the monster you got in the picture the better the score.

FPS, RTS, RPG, Racing, Flying... their everywhere. But always room for another because new generations of gamers are being born every day and Technology changes the face of these favorites.

Why not Sky Diving, Shark Hunting, Mountain Climbing... Add a Gun and BLAM! instant FPS. =)

Maybe some Parachutes and Speed Boats and you can shoot the SeaGulls before they rip your parachute to shreads.. Add a gun is all it takes.

#32 Realistic ammo and clips, the only game I have ever seen do this is America's Army, but the ammo isnt an issue because most rounds are over in 5-10 mins. It would add a very unique dynamic to when you should reload in a long term play style, too early you risk wasting ammo, too late and you will need to reload in the middle of a fight.

Edit: And a thought occurs, the first Red Faction game gave you the ability to blow your way through walls to get around locked doors, or blow up a stone bridge to take out a tank that was on it using a rocket launcher. I have never understood why the ability to do this is not seen in more games. I never played the 2nd Red Faction, but it has been 7 years since the game came out, and I cant think of a single game I have played that allowed me to do this.

#33 I think it's cool that you want innovative features, everyone does. but it's inevitable that someone will say, "Hey didn't i see this before?". So getting a truely original idea is very difficult. Just make a great game that evryone enjoys. Some day you'll just wake up with a killer idea.

#34 Seen in a movie, not in a game...
but guided weapons would be cool. think of the "curving bullets" from "wanted". though i think it was a stupid idea in the movie, too unrealistic for a game or a movie.
but in a FPS i think it'd be cool if you fire a rocket and immediatley after the players control switches to guide that rocket around corners to find the target.

#35 Done and done :P
Though some elaboration on that could be good in a tactial shooter - bullets that can explode in mid-air, set for a certain distance. So you could hit people hiding behind cover or around corners - or use it like a shotgun, but control the spread over long distances. Bullets that curve, like a soccer ball (sort of like you said), though that might be harder to use.

#36 @David

The Guided rockets was used in Metal Gear Solid. Not to much just with the Nikita missile launcher, although that didnt have enough control, the rocket could only go left right faster or slower, so if you added a "flying" like quality, and making the rocket able to go up down left right and obviously a diagnol directions as well.

Keep in mind that people like to keep it realistic so you might want to put a fuel gauge, and some kind of structural integrity on the missile itself.

Oh and if the missile is going upwards, use more fuel than it flying down, at first anyways, once the speed hits its potential the fuel consumption would lessen.

oh and i havent seen alot of landmine varieties lately, come up with something creative like a jumping land mine that sticks to your opponents and goes off when something passes em ^.^ 2 fer one boom

and have your guns somewhat customizable, i know you didnt want to make it a 7+ month game but your gonna have to deal with it, well if you want to make it bad ass ^.^

or you could make a bouncy bullet to go around your corners, make em like a shotgun spread, but they richochet alot, only thing tho they would do less damage, ^.^ but if you were fightin someone they might get scared and try to rush ya

and i didnt read everything on here but
and the traps idea, is great, depending on what time you have your game set to you could use trip wire, invisible laser (which means someway to see it if your the enemy, and not super easy either) motion (even for your logs of death off the cliff, who said you cant mix future with jungle stuff?) and chained trip explosives!
you know where one goes boom, and then from behind that guy your other bombs go boom boom boom boom and kill like 20 men or so ^.^ its genious dont see it, and i like the distruction of it all

#37 The guided rocket was also used in Half-Life 2. Though they were bad at explaining the fact that it followed the laser pointer, so most people would shoot, turn to take cover, and it would turn back at them. Anyone good at Half-Life 2: Deathmatch can tell you though, good control with the rocket never loses. With a quick twitch of the mouse, a rocket flying straight up going over someones head (for example on a ledge above you a straight projectile couldn't go through) can shoot it over them and curve it back down to slam on their head.

Quote:or you could make a bouncy bullet to go around your corners, make em like a shotgun spread, but they richochet alot, only thing tho they would do less damage, ^.^ but if you were fightin someone they might get scared and try to rush ya

Wasn't that exactly the flak cannon alternate fire in Unreal1/2/3? Not trying to seem pessimistic here, but just saying, most weapons have been used in other games. And it wouldn't be easy to come up with a weapon that is very different, without having to break the mold immensely in other areas of the game. I think that the best way to go across with creativity in your game is not to change or improve one aspect of it entirely. But to change every element of gameplay slightly; it will give everything else in it more potential to change with it.

#38 Don't forget Kung-Fu and melee.
IMO, every FPS needs more than an axe or a chainsaw.

#39 So heyyyy..im back lol

its been awhile but i want to ask...how about mind control..ive been experimenting with this and it doesnt seem to be a feature that ive seen before

#40 It's not exactly mind control, but posession has appeared a few times. Messiah and Geist come to mind...