What would YOU look for in a future game?

[Black Heart]

BattleZone, had you Building defense/bases RTS while inside your antigravity tank/ buggy. If your bailed from your vehcile you could snipe/headshot an enemy vehicle and take it.

It was fucking cool. This as massive multiplayer (it had multiplayer), with some kind of resource allocation to control how much you could build, and everybody being able to have a vehicle / fleet of vehicles would be awesome.

[Tiwaking!]

BattleZone, had you Building defense/bases RTS while inside your antigravity tank/ buggy. If your bailed from your vehcile you could snipe/headshot an enemy vehicle and take it.

It was fucking cool. This as massive multiplayer (it had multiplayer), with some kind of resource allocation to control how much you could build, and everybody being able to have a vehicle / fleet of vehicles would be awesome.

Oh yes. Very true!

The most recent game that was in the BattleZone style was Shogo: Mobile Armor Division. Of course, being squished like a bug by a Mech after you bail out was not so cool

[SUPA_maori_BRO]

BattleZone

Fuck I loved it....sexually.

I would want a game like Mech Commander with epic intro & cut scenes!

[SUPA_maori_BRO]

BattleZone

Fuck I loved that game....sexually.

[Tiwaking!]

I like the idea of it being real, i have to refer to Crysis for this, there are so many different way to acheive your goal

All of which involve slaughtering Koreans or running away from Koreans who want to slaughter you

Remember, this doesn't have to be just for an FPS, take single player games into account as well .

But single player games are an anomaly. Games are MEANT to be played multiplayer. Chess, poker, monopoly, handball, even tiddlywinks. The only really fall back a single player game has is either:

a) An incredibly engaging and immersive storyline coupled with excellent interface
b) Spreadsheets

FPS, Open Ended Environment (large scale maps, small are good sometimes too, lots of tress and shrubs to hide in, buildings as well), In-depth character and weapon customization (different armor suits, faces, skin colours, camo, scopes, silencers, ammo, nade launchers, etc, etc), Armor (tanks, APC's etc...) Good multi-player obviously, team work a must, ranks I suppose

The problem is that you have basically listed off the elements of(if the games currently released are anything to go by) what current games are heading in. And we are STILL no closer to making a game which includes all these elements and is GOOD. Worse still is the fact that they usually just sellotape on the multiplayer element, forgetting that two people only generate 90% efficiency

take ww2ol
give it uber graphics
maybe make it modern day
and make it an RTS at the same time.
oh and a huge player base.

In theory a WW2 or Modern day FPS with RTS elements and uber graphics should generate a huge player base, but does not.

Why?

Because seperately those elements make a fairly decent game. TOGETHER those elements make a mediocre game and since the game industry only wants your money and not your loyalty(Im mean seriously, the only loyal gamers are sports fans) they'll gladly risk capital milking you for easy parts of recognisable games, not true innovations. Which leads me to qwerty....

I am looking for a game which is an exactly clone of Freelancer, but lots of people play it. Some updated graphics would be nice as well.

Freelancer with great graphics and lots of people playing it.

I was going to criticise this but after careful reflection, its a GREAT idea

What bounty said but i'll expand on it

1 Server 10000+ people.

1 Big map

Set in vietnam or modern day

Player progression (unlock new vehicles and player classes as you rank up)

Air/Land and Sea

The ability to spawn in as the unit you desire (eg you spawn as a jet you don't sit waiting for it to spawn on an airfield so you can run and jump into it)

Spawn Lists: A set number of units at each location (eg 10 F4 Phantoms per airbase that get refreshed every 2hours)

The ability to capture territory and set up defenses (deploy AI AA guns etc).

An advanced Squad/Unit system where you can set proper waypoints and communicate things on a tactical map.

Some sort of Command structure so at the high levels of the Command the players are basicly playing a RTS against the enemy Commanders (Think BF2 commander but with x10 the tactical options) units can only capture enemy towns if thier command has ordered it, this also makes sure the battles are more concentrated which would create epic battles.


I even wrote a Game Design Document for this game outlining how everything would work heh

Planetside

By the way... what the general public (casual gamers) want and what the people of iconz (hardcore gamers) want are entirely different.

I hardly consider people of ICONZ being 'hardcore gamers', just check out all the people in the playstation forum!:heheh:

Correct.

There are so many different types of game that it's hard to say really. But the idea of a MMOFPS World War style game would be very fun. Even just being able to get online with some friends, create a squad and hold the line would be fun. Serious implications for deaths would be nice too. 5 min+ respawn timers or something along those lines. That would encourage people to actually take the game seriously.

Personally I like the PvP battlefields of Guild Wars, even though I stopped playing that ages ago, because it was jump in, have a few fun random rounds(or in some cases two hours of fighting) and then jump off again. No pressure and a good lesson in tactics

A game similar to what I just explained was made 8 years ago.
The problem with it is... it was made 8 years ago so the technology is too old to compete with todays games.

With all the huge MMOs out there supporting far over 10000 people on 1 server, and the games with really good gfx and huge view distances.
I believe this game can totally be made, the problem is companies aren't willing to risk the money to make it just yet, but someone eventually will.

Unless they get bought out by the makers of 'Peggle' first

Something that doesn't allow people to hack or use macros, I.e. just play it as it is out of the box, so we can avoid arguments about the pros and cons etc and puts people pretty much on a level playing field (apart from cpu power)

Strangely enough I have to disagree with you here. They need to put in a system where you CAN use macro's, but its not as efficient as manually doing it. Lets take buying weapons in Counterstrike. You should be given an option to auto-buy, which costs slightly more or use the menu system to buy everything. I know that is a bad example because some people out there still use the 1 & 4 4 & 2 system, but it is a start

Play console?

I was going to let this slide, but I saw to guys playing Rugby 08 on a sunny afternoon once. I told them they should go outside and kick a ball around. I sometimes believe the media that games kill social abilities

With COD5 going back to WWII, I feel somewhat disappointed as I liked the move to modern warfare.. Again, the question stands, are the developers doing it for the money or for the players. I think it would be the latter this time because the WWII games fanbase across the world is pretty damn big.

Bombing civilians into the dirt is not war. Its genocide. Dubya Dubya Two was the last 'good' war and will probably be the ONLY good war

With releases like Battlefield: Heroes and America's Army 3.0 in the near future, this will bring FPS to a new level, as they're both free games. This forces developers to rethink their approach as A grade titles like those are  being released for free with continued support for a few years to come.

They're only doing it to remove the resposibility of PATCHING their older titles. Its like taking credit for building a critical road but ignoring the fact that you wiped out six species of fish while paving over a swamp to do so

With MMOs, I think in order to attract new players, the cost of playing such games should be reduced

Why? The embarressing amounts of money made by WoW practically guarauntee that any competition MUST charge less(which they usually cant due to economies of scale) or just produce a better product. Of course, if they could produce a better product for less then Blizzard would probably just buy them.

In terms of RTS, we've gotta see the problems with CnC3 or Red Alert or even Supreme commander as they all require a lot of time.

But games such as the Total War series or (a better example) Dawn of War DONT take alot of time. We've yet to see if the latest RTS games are going head in the direction of quick fun-fests like Dawn of War or slow knit-a-thon's like Supreme Commander

In general, game developers need to ask themselves whether they're building a game for realism or a game people can pick up and play for a few hours and walk away feeling satisfied.

Lets take the games market and compare it to an equally successful and similar product: Crack Cocaine. Games for realism generally aim at creating a familiar(like driving) or sometimes unfamiliar environment(most warzones) for a player and allowing them to experience what it would be like.

Crack Cocaine generates a fantasy environment which makes your problems and previous life seem like a distant bad dream.

Only one of these has a 100% guarantee of being satisfying

[Tiwaking!]

my flatmate hates it.
He's more of an RPG guy who NEEDS the (personal) character development, and less linear plot.

Very few RPG's actually give you a "You dont have to kill the foozle" plot, which means they are usually all linear. Spreadsheets are not fun and having a little virtual character who is equipped with planet stompingly good gear or has trained up to level omnipotent can easily be emulated by reintroducing slavery. Or Pokemon

30mill, 3 years and an EA marketting campaign and you have a deal

Or you have SPORE

Like you can talk nick, all you want to make is farming games where you have to go out and grow your crops and then go and touch the horses.

Those games actually make HUGE amounts of money. Im not kidding. The amount of time and money you have to put into a farming game including adorable horses is so small compared with low distribution overheads and a basically captive audience makes me wonder if I should make "Amish life: Barnstorm!"

i would like to see a game where during the middle of an intense 32v32 tank/infantry/air support battle on a big well designed map i can stop for a second and go make some crops, and i have to water them, and pick the right ones to plant and then harvest them and take them to market

Star Wars Galaxies

I have always thought this!

Me too. Except with Ninja's

I have always wondered if it would be possible to have a strategy game such as World in Conflict that would allow you to switch to a FPS ina split second to the action going on on the ground....kinda like being a BF2 commander and then jsut selecting a unit and choosing to control it from 1st person....while the rest of the battlefield is controlled by the AI

THAT for me would be a good game of the future

Wargasm. And its game from the past

[Zhija]

Wow, very comprehensive (+rep for that). It seems to answer a lot of the smaller questions but doesn't really provide a concrete answer to the thread title... What would you look for in a future game? I suppose if you said "I would look for all of the above" etc then it would, but it's not really something that I would take to a bunch of developers and say "This is what the people want".

Again, very comprehensive and a good read. Nice and informative as well, but just a bit... broad.

[Tiwaking!]

Wow, very comprehensive (+rep for that). It seems to answer a lot of the smaller questions but doesn't really provide a concrete answer to the thread title... What would you look for in a future game? I suppose if you said "I would look for all of the above" etc then it would, but it's not really something that I would take to a bunch of developers and say "This is what the people want".

Again, very comprehensive and a good read. Nice and informative as well, but just a bit... broad.

I am really sorry my post didnt answer the thread title but so many opinions in this thread have either been answered, exist already or are just plain unrealistic.

To be honest: All I want from a future game is something with an interface I can customise fully combined with gameplay elements I enjoy, for example say, a cricket game which could be played with an electronic bat. Or a Mechwarrior style game where you have to bid for the planet contracts like in the card game Bridge.

As for what I think other people want, its easy: they want much of the same or at least an experience which somehow ties in with their previous gaming experiences. Thats why there are so many sequels to games. Unfortunately they've missed the idea boat in regard to 'sequels' because many 'sequel' games are nothing more than 4-8 hour episodes which for the most part could be replaced with an expansion instead.

I guess what Im trying to say is: My expectations for a future game are ridiculously unrealistic and what I would like is much of the same. Machiavelli 3: The Merchant King or Capitalism 3: Build your own economy or Seven Kingdoms 3: Rise of the Tiwaking!

[Bell]

Planetside

Yea I guess that game does have some of those elements and it was actually quite cool, just too far on the arcade side I think you never really felt like killing someone achieved anything.
You could spawn vehicles over and over they didnt seem to run out, so they had to make the vehicles less powerful for balance reasons and it kinda just turned into a clusterfuck of everything being of the same strength and you just spammed weapons all day long, it definatly didn't feel as rewarding as standard FPS.

The 2 MMOFPS's in exsistence are on total opposite ends the realism scale.
Just because niether of them has been massively successful doesn't mean the genre can't be.
I still think MMO is where FPS is heading, sandbox FPS is getting abit old for many.

[Bell]

I hardly consider people of ICONZ being 'hardcore gamers', just check out all the people in the playstation forum!:heheh:

Pretty much anyone who spends time talking on a gaming forum is a hardcore gamer.

Also there is absolutely nothing wrong with spore, its a great game a shit load of casual gamers love it, Kids especially.
It wasn't made for hardout RTS lovers it was made for people who like to create stuff with fun tools.
They totally delivered what they promised.

[Zhija]

Awesome, there's definitely some good stuff here, and you do make a good point about everyone basing their opinion of what they want of stuff they already have. I guess it's entirely up to the ... I really don't know what to call them, at EA and the like to put out games that will hopefully fulfill some of what we want, not what will fill their wallets the fastest (Yeah right). Personally, all I want in a game is a decent story, coupled with interesting characters and perhaps more than two deviations in the story per game, give it a bit of replay value. Oh and a multiplayer that is held on with something stronger than duct tape.

Meh, perhaps it's too much to ask of some people.

[Tiwaking!]

I still think MMO is where FPS is heading, sandbox FPS is getting abit old for many.

Two examples of this come to mind. First is Battlefield 2, a game which I never bothered playing properly because I knew that the moment you reward a person with badges or weapons for performing repetative actions you open up the possibility of ABUSE or what they call in the BF community: Statpadding

The second example is Crysis. Crysis multiplayer is terrible and having only played it LAN multiplayer it is safe to assume that it would be worse online. However I was playing the game on my awesomely powerful PC compared to other people's laptops, I-Mac's and lower-top-end desktops

Pretty much anyone who spends time talking on a gaming forum is a hardcore gamer.

Also there is absolutely nothing wrong with spore, its a great game a shit load of casual gamers love it, Kids especially.
It wasn't made for hardout RTS lovers it was made for people who like to create stuff with fun tools.
They totally delivered what they promised.

Well I believe they totally PHONED IT IN

What they promised was a hugely interactive, exploratory universe. What they delivered was a game populated with poor controls, interface and design choices coupled with a feeling that I have actually wasted a week of my life on something which should have been greater.

And YES I enjoyed using the creation tools. My entertainment buildings which took me 40 minutes to make and look like a Kiss concert and are called 'Detroit Rock City' were fun to make, but on the functional side they are no better than the yellow church buildings which took me 2 minutes to make.

[Bell]

Well I guess we had different expectations of spore, I was excepting a content generation tool first and foremost, I wasn't expecting much from the gameplay.

It is easy to tell the game wasn't made for C&C players or Counterstrike players.
It was made for kids and those that don't buy a new game and stay up until 5am trying to finish it in the first night.

The space age part I also thought was pretty arse only because all of a sudden the game tried to become challenging? After the previous games I could imagen a 7 year old getting through easily I found it kind of wierd.
I think the space age was some sort of attempt to appeal to a more hardcore audience which I think was a poor choice.

You know how kids love to sit down and draw some pictures or random crap when they are bored, spore is just an advanced version of that.
If you are playing it for the gameplay you are doing it wrong.

It sounds like you were expecting Galactic Civilizations or something.

[Tiwaking!]

If you are playing it for the gameplay you are doing it wrong.

[video]NYjL0TYzypc[/video]

[Bell]

ok?
He is talking about games in the traditional sense which I fully agree with gameplay doesn't seem to be progressing that much.

Spore IMO isn't a traditional game its more a toolset to create your own stuff this is what Will Wright has been making for years.
Sim City was a originally a tool for city planners which they ended up turning into a game.
Sim City has very little traditional gameplay there is no story no missions no win condition its just a tool given to the user to play with.
Spore has more gameplay that sim city does because it does have some loose win conditions but generally it is still a tool for the user to create thier own story.

Shit I don't even like spore that much I thought the space age was a joke, but I can see that if I was really into designing and creating stuff (which im not) I would love it.

[nick247]

All of which involve slaughtering Koreans or running away from Koreans who want to slaughter you

that seems pretty realistic for me

man that vid kinda seemed full of contradiction, hes a hardcore gamer who likes gameplay yet i get the feeling he plays FPS which arent exactly the pinacles of gameplay and he hates single player games yet those are where the unique gameplay trends start out....eg rts, gta, zelda, donkey kong, mario etc

[Tiwaking!]

ok?
He is talking about games in the traditional sense which I fully agree with gameplay doesn't seem to be progressing that much.

Maybe we should all stop nominating things that would make a great game and start focussing on removing the NEGATIVE aspects of games. That would actually make for much more progress and people tend to agree more on things that collectively annoy more than impress.

For example:

I hate pointless quick-time events. I cant stand them. I dont mind it if you've been using shoot+forward to throw your grenades or something and all of a sudden your stuck in a 'You need to throw grenade here, quick use grenade throwing!'. That makes sense. But if you are, say, sneaking along and alley and all of a sudden have to use press left then right then left to avoid a sniper shooting at you even though you had no idea he was there. Thats is just ridiculous

An EXCELLENT example of this is Call of Duty 3 on Wii. There is a bit where you learn about melee combat(which is a hell of alot of fun). You are walking up some stairs like in Saving Private Ryan when all of a sudden a german jumps you and starts fighting with you, trying to choke you with your machine gun.

You are meant to use a pushing motion to get him off you, but it happens so suddenly that you basically spazz out with the controls before he rifle-whips you and shoots you in the face killing you instantly.

That was not cool

[Scorched_onion]

you forgot to add tits into the poll

[Tiwaking!]

Metal Gear Solid 4 comes pretty close in my book to a perfect game, storyline is great, graphics looks good, but there is limited replayability. However, with Metal Gear online, that really helps alleviate that aspect. Although MGS4 is mission based and you MUST move onto the next objectives, there are bits in the game where you feel compelled to play to reach that point again (Rex vs Ray - YEEEEEAAHHH!!!)

'Limited Replayability'. Technically a perfect game would be one that either could be replayed multiple times OR takes such a long time to do and always made it worth your while.

MGS4 is none of those. Hell: MGS4 online gets shat on totally by a LAN of GTA Multiplayer

firstly me and bell have spent alot of time talking about this kind of thing and in my opinion all his ideas were either shit or rip offs of other games (yes bell lets make an RTS with a human race and an alien race that is all about large amounts of numbers and then another alien/humaniod race that is all like mystic and is all about strength over numbers)

I can find no fault with Bell's idea. All you'd need to do is take MOO3, make it good and then make the battles RTS. Throw in a Star Control style ship-to-ship battle and I'd buy it for $110

(harvest moon is one of my favorite games)

Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility is one of the best games on Wii

[Tiwaking!]

Cooperation

Although I hate to admit it, sometimes one person just isnt enough. Sometimes two people arent enough. A future game needs either a cooperative MODE, not just two people playing at once or Army Of Two's stupid "This situation needs Two people or a small box", a whole MODE devoted to increasing either enjoyment, challenge or achievement.

Games like Rock Band and GH4 do this automatically, as do classic games like Diablo 2


Depth

Kill the Foozle is no longer enough. Beyond the story, idea, concept, gameplay: The game will need to be variable enough to stay challenging, but not so much as to wreck your own 'idea' of what you want to do.

This is the hardest idea to quantify and implement, but easily the most rewarding. Prime examples of games with depth are: Deus Ex and Hitman. Depth can range from the level of player interaction to inbuilt decision-making(Neverwinter Nights or KOTOR). Multiplayer games which contain depth are usually turn based, though many RTS's fit the bill. Although there are many(MANY) FPS mods which add alot of depth to a mutiplayer game, a commercial game which does contain depth is, although I hate to admit it, Battlefield 2


Story

I dont rate this very highly. Why? Some games have terrible stories(Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing, The Sims) yet are still enjoyable games. Some games SURPASS their story-telling ability. Many Dungeons and Dragons sessions have simply ignored their stories to pursue something more rewarding.

Therefore: A story has to be rewarding to the player. Fable 1 & 2? Not rewarding. Knights of the Old Republic? Rewarding. Black and White? Story irrelevant

However some games storys are so huge, so captivating and so immersive that they've become part of gamings collective consciousness. Half Life 1 & 2, Silent Hill and Deus Ex ALL contain story elements so profound that discussions about them will always invoke passionate debate as opposed to, say, a discussion about Halo and how a boss was 'such a dik, ghey to beat'

What I'd like to see in a future game story is either a Max Payne style dystopian romp, what we are most likely going to see is a Star Trek X: Insurrection style fan-fiction-written mess or 'Humanity's hopes lie in a super soldier played by YOU!' Foozle slaying affair.


Character

Somewhat similar to story, character is one of those things that either seamlessly integrate themselves into the gameplay or are just ignored, there isnt alot of allowable leeway. Your game either contains character or does not. Games which attempt to insert(force) character into gameplay tend to create very very annoying gameplay 'mechanics'. A torch OR a gun is not a good idea *cough* DOOM 3 *cough*, nor is being old, slow and groaning every 5 minutes *cough* MGS4 *cough*

I would like to see future games contain character. However a reality check shows that we will most likely end up with games that contain absolutely no character what-so-ever or, much worse, Mr Stereotype

[swindle]

How about...wait for it...

Teamwork?

MMOFPS (beef2 style) is pretty average wothout it. An online game that you use teamwork in would be nice.

[nzjeebs]

Big juicy titties...

[Virus.]

What I want to see is a game that isnt just like all the others. Basically I don't just want play another shoot-em-up where you run around with a gun or command an army.

Things like Black & White 1 & 2, Mirrors edge and Bioshock are great because before it I had never played as a god, used plasmids and that kind of stuff. A more recent example is Spore. Yes it could have been better but what maxis did was create a unique experience. Even if it was several games rolled into one, it still had a lot of origonality (eg creature creating).

Also immersion and storyline are two things that has to be in any game. Half Life 2 has to be the best I've seen with the two. So far I've loved both.

[Zhija]

It is quite possible that the reason people love half life so much is not just because of the story, but the way they present it. I played... maybe two levels and loved it but only because it seemed so cinematic. It was literally like playing a movie.

[Bane]

It is quite possible that the reason people love half life so much is not just because of the story, but the way they present it. I played... maybe two levels and loved it but only because it seemed so cinematic. It was literally like playing a movie.

Agree

HL2 was epic in the whole presentation.. it drew you into it as you played it

Basically.. you *WERE* gordon freeman..