Multiplayer fps

#1 I like your approach to this, and I tend to agree (though I really enjoyed TF2! ;)). You might want to check out Rising Eagle, which is pretty close to what you described. It's free, too.

Torque is also a perfect choice of engine for you to start developing this idea. Though since you've got a huge terrain, you may as well use it - why not have settings such as a town and some surrounding countryside? Or even going into a full-blown wilderness setting?

Quote:Some sort of research system perhaps to allow for improvements and changes in gameplay as the round continues.

If you're going for 'realistic', then I personally would cry 'NO!' I mean, a system for advancing and improving the gameplay, yes, but research? Uh...no...

Quote:I would like the classes to be original but it's tough to get off the idea of a sniper, healer, regular guy, heavy weapon guy, engineer etc. Those classes are so ingrained at this point.

Take the basic premise of science-fiction and apply it to your game. In SF fiction, there is some fundamental change made to the setting to differentiate it from now, and to allow the story to develop. So, for example in Asimov's stories, the change is basically the assumption that humanoid robots are easy to build and much stronger/more intelligent than people. In Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth saga, the assumption is the existence of wormhole technology. In Alien, the change is the introduction of a 'perfect predator' species.
So figure out some change to your future setting that means we can get rid of the standard classes. This is much tricker than it sounds, I know... the change, in your case, would probably be related to weapons or armour technology. It would mean that for some reason, the previous set of skills are redundant - you're not going to get rid of the 'sniper' class if you're using conventional weapons, because face it, some soldiers will be better shots, and train more, than others. You're not going to get rid of the 'heavy' class, because some weapons are just heavier than others (and consequently more expensive, so only a few guys get them).
I'm thinking you need some radical future soldiery gear. Here's sme terrible examples:
-Weapons become based on sonic resonance, able to break glass, rupture ears, and generally incapacitate the enemy without killing them. Your classes now morph into guys carrying different types of resonance gear, so I guess we're half-way there: the 'heavy' guy would now just be the one with a resonator that is really large, powerful, and relatively short-ranged. Sniper would have an array of resonators that can be focused over large distances (but might need to be set up first).
-Armour can now deflect or absorb most bullet impacts pretty easily, unless caught in crossfire. That makes snipers pretty useless, unless they're perfectly coordinated to fire at the same time. So maybe your battles mostly consist of fire-teams of semi-snipers, who manoeuvre into flanking positions, and spotter-teams of guys with lots of sophistiated communications devices, who get the snipers aiming and firing in synchronisation. The heavy guy is pretty useless, because for all the rapid-firing weapons in the world, you're not going to do much damage. Maybe some weapons (laser-based?) can cut through this new armour, so they're the equivalent of the guy with the shotgun, who can get close and just blast people away. If enemies are in a good covered position, those are the ones you send in.
-Last one... um... weapons become ridiculously powerful and advanced, so much so that the main means of defence is camouflage and stealth. Unmanned drones aid in the search for enemies, but once you know where an enemy is, it's easy to take him out. Techniques like visual cloaking aid soldiers to hide, but the critical factor is disrupting the enemy's recon drones, while managing your own. Here, your typical soldier classes might be the same (guys with more accurate guns, guys with bigger guns) but you'd have the additional reliance on a management class, who can control drones, or a communications class, who's responsible for screwing up enemy surveillance.

Okay, so those weren't very good ideas. And this definitely isn't the only way you can accomplish your goal. But you get the idea :P.

#2 I had never heard of rising eagle before, sounds interesting I am downloading it now to check it out.

The only problem I have with huge terrains is you are pretty much forced to used vehicular combat, the big problem with the delta force series was the terrain was huge but there wasn't any reason not to run off to the edge of the map and just snipe the entire time (which is exactly what I did to always rack up the high scores)

For research I wasn't talking a deeply involved system but one where the team gains points through the round for completing objectives, getting kills or whatever. Then those points get used in a system of unlocking new weapons abilities for the team to use, then some skills wouls require other skills to be unlocked so hopefully there would be different strategies to take making the game different each play.

I had thought of the sci-fi route of giving each class special ability (ability to send out a force wave to knock back enemies, ability to use telekenisis to move objects for short periods of time etc.) which would allow for making the classes drastically different and making them have to work together to win, not sure how well this would translate into game play though. And there would be tons of room for error to make the game unbalanced or ridiculous.

I had thought of both a cloaking class and dynamic armor for players. I was reading about an attempt for future armor that will change to the color of the background in a chamelion like effect. I don't know how you'd pull it off in a game so that depending on what direction a player was looking t you and what was behind you'd change color. I guess for a game the easiest way to go would be a check on what the player is closest to and change to one of several preset model colors.
Stealth classes are tricky because they either become overpowered or useless. In TF2 the spy is so overly powerfull it's crazy, the only balance in place is there's no damaging teammates so you just keep shooting everyone you see no matter what. But the one shot kills is always annoying to players. For this example I was thinking they could be forward observers and if a research system was used, able to hack to steal information or disrupt the enemies research

#3 You sound like me. I was a huge BF1942/Desert Combat fan, but finally just got tired of it, and everything else out there was the same, as far as gameplay goes. Which is what motivated me to make the game I wanted to play.

I'm coming up on 3 years into the project, and it's starting to resemble a game :-) Check my profile, it's a free game.

#4 About the research system, it all depends on how serious you're being. If you think about it, research does not happen in the time-scale of a single battle. To me, being a realism-purist, it seems a ridiculous way to facilitate unlocking weapons during play. But if you're less anal about this stuff than me, then there's no reason why a research flavour to the game wouldn't work.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't have a system for getting access to new weaposn and stuff; I'm just pointing out that if you're being realistic, 'research' does not work that way :P. Which I'm sure you know... I just feel the need to say it :P

I guess that's true what you're saying about vehicles and terrains. Although you can solve that problem without resorting to vehicles - to pull an example from Rising Eagle, all soldiers have a power-run mode where you travel super quick for a little while. It makes it easier to get across the map.
I would take a different approach - instead of having fixed spawn points, I would operate on a moving front-line system, so players spawn where their buddies are (or slightly behind). So while you have a huge map to fight over, you're not having to move far to get to combat.
Of course, that system has to be balanced somehow, or you'll just get a huge scrum developing in the centre of the map, with none of the shift back and forth of the battle line. But I think it could work...

Stealth - I always thought that stealth armour would be quite useful in very specific situations. Like you say, the armour would really only camouflage you from one direction. But if you have an enemy approaching from a slightly different angle, you can be spotted easily. That would mean that the camouflage doesn't become overpowered - sure, it'll be powerful against lone players, but that will add incentive to play as a team, so you don't get picked off individually.

#5 Lee that is looking very nice, in my Duke Nukem 3D days I made a map that was a super sized world so it would seem like you were a toy, so I definetly like the concept of the game you've got there.

Well for me super realism in a fps leads to less fun, so I would prefer what I would call close to realism. For instance in CSS you can take up to 3 shots with an AK before dying, not completly realistic but realistic enough that it's still fun. Delta force was on a pretty similar scale, sniper shots killed in one hit but most other weapons at normal range took about 3-4 shots.

I think a research system would resemble more of an RTS where as you build new buildings you get new options, in real life it would take quite a long time to get those buildings up and functional but in the RTS it's at most a minute or so from when you clicked build.

For single player game I love stealth, I will spend hours on end sneaking around picking just the right time to kill someone and drag their body into an alley. In multiplayer it's so much more difficult to get it right, because it's not fun for people to keep getting insta killed from a cloaked guy behind them.

I think I'm trying to find a good blend between hardcore game and casual, one where a new person to the game won't just be completly owned the first couple hours playing and get fed up. It's a strange premise for me because I play games as seriously as possible and always aim to win and destroy the other side. But I understand the need for someone to be able to pick up the game jump in and instantly have fun.

I do love the idea of a moving objective area to keep battles focused and changing all at the same time, will take some thought to find an amazing way to do that. All the games I've played that have these systems are nice but still lacking. In halo it just has a moving hill, and quickly the spots become known, other games have a progression of captured this now on to that, which is also very nice but becomes the same strategies each time played because the results are always the same.

Thanks for discussing this with me btw.

#6 So I've been thinking more about this and after thinking it over I agree a research system is probably not worth it or fun for what I'm trying to do, a game with a lot more depth to it might be able to pull it off though.

Now I was thinking it would be cool to have two unique sides. Most major games don't really go with this style, they pick very slight differences that really don't matter too much. BF series and CS both had slightly different looking models and slightly different weapons. But they were close enough that is was pretty much the same experience for each side. Then there's TF2 which just did the same exact sides so that everything was completly balanced.

Which brings me to the biggest challenge on this and that is making 2 fairly/very different sides but keeping balance. As soon as one side has enough of an advantage everyone will only want to be on that side. Also how do you come up with enough difference between the sides?

I'd rather not have the same exact classes on each side but with just slightly different weapons or abilities, I'd like to have several classes unique to either side then weapon and ability differences between the main classes.

For example every side in a war will have some kind of basic infantry/soldier. So each side would have one of those but different weapons/abilities. But one side might have (to use an extreme example to make the point clear) a shape shifter and one side might have an all metal melee guy.

Wondering if any ideas on cool class styles that could be unique for a near future time frame fps

#7 Lee that is looking very nice...

Thanks.

And I think your idea about multiple classes of fps players is worth exploring.

I suggest you start by making a simple level where 2 guys can shoot at each other.

Then start making them different. :-)

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