Your ultimate game

[Richard M]

Posting this because I'm slightly bored and can't be bothered to play UT atm.
If you had unlimited resources to make a game, what would it be like?
What would you do in this game and what genre would it be?
Describe your ultimate game...

[Acathla]

Originally Posted by Richard M

Posting this because I'm slightly bored and can't be bothered to play UT atm.
If you had unlimited resources to make a game, what would it be like?
What would you do in this game and what genre would it be?
Describe your ultimate game...

Half-Life 2 Virtual Reality....

what ever happened to virtual reality machines?
The ones where you put the headset on and run about thinking your in the game...

[Richard M]

Originally Posted by Acathla

Half-Life 2 Virtual Reality....

what ever happened to virtual reality machines?
The ones where you put the headset on and run about thinking your in the game...

You can still get 3D glasses I think, they work with all decent graphics cards.

Originally Posted by Acathla

what ever happened to virtual reality machines?
The ones where you put the headset on and run about thinking your in the game...

Well, for one thing they were sh*t. All the games I've ever played on them were utterly dire.

The main problem is getting the lag down on them, if there is a delay of even a few milliseconds between turning your head and the display being updated to reflect that then the brain will notice and you end up with motion sickness.

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/h...erg/9603v2.htm

The above article covers that, as well as a whole other raft of problems with them.

[greencreeper]

I wonder if thinking you're injuried produces the same physiological response as being injured?

My ideal game? Crumbs. No character interaction or a second character to cart round with you. A sense of fun - like Heart of Evil (HL mod) or NOLF. Excellent range of realistic weapons but nothing too powerful - just becomes pointless. Huge number of levels, exceptionally difficult but not impossible. I want to be frightened and challenged. When I first played Half-life it took me ages to leave the pipe. Going down the cliff face was hell - I was dripping sweat, my heart rate was nearly 120 bpm, and my blood pressure could have been measured in PSI. I don't do heights I want a range of enemies with differing characteristics and weapons. I want realistic damage - if someone shoots me in the head, I expect to die. Puzzles are important - something to test my brain. Maps with choices - different routes - would be good.

I think that covers it

BTW - I'm largely an FPS man. I've played a couple of point n click games, and I like The Lost Vikings, but that's it.

[Richard M]

OK here's mine.

The future of gaming is ultra-realism.

I have a plan for a game which will probably need at least an AMD FX-53 + Radeon 9800 to run it.

Imagine something like this:

You install the game from a DVD onto your HD then double click the icon on your desktop to start.
There is no configuration to do because it will auto detect your system capabilities and adjust all the details to the max that your system can do.
There is no menu screen, just straight into the "game".

OK... the screen fades from black and you find yourself in a dark, derelict building with a group of about 8 soliders, looking down you realize that you have an SA80 in your hands.
You can hear the distant rumbling of explosions which makes the floor shake a little sometimes, apart from that there is only the sound of the wind.
One guy is telling you that we have to move out quickly because an enemy group of soldiers were spotted heading this way.
We start walking out of the building and you put on your night vision goggles which makes the distant anti aircraft tracer fire glow bright green in the sky.
All of a sudden the "leader" guy yells at us to get down, so you find cover in a muddy ditch, full of freezing cold water but you can't move because you'll be spotted by the enemy seen creeping across the field towards us.

The guy to the left of you takes a frag grenade out and pulls the pin, then cooks it off a little to give them no chance to run.
He throws it high and far then everyone starts opening fire with a vicious roar of gunfire.

The noise of your rifle makes your ears ring as you pick out the opposition with their AK47s but just before the last enemy guy falls he gets up in a kneeling position and throws a grenade over, a soldier over to the far left shoots him in the chest but it's too late, the nade lands about 30 feet away, instantly killing two and your vision blurs as a piece of red hot shrapnel tears into your lower leg.

Only two other remain, one with a severe gunshot wound to his upper arm and the guy on the right who seems to be in shock but otherwise physically unhurt.
No opposition remains but you must find a road patrol quickly to get the soldier with the shot wound to medical aid.
Your injury is not life threatening but it hurts to walk and you can only limp around.

Then, you suddenly realize that you are sat in front of your computer, not in a dark, cold, hostile location fighting to survive.
Of course, the graphics would need to be ultra realistic to pull it off and the AI would need to be indistinguishable from real humans but I think it would rock as a "game".

Maybe in the future games will be more a form of escapism than they are now but the best games are always the ones that are realistic.
I really want to make a game that's like watching a movie, Raven Shield has been the only game to come close - walk up some steps with your team following when you are using night vision: like watching a live raid!

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by greencreeper

BTW - I'm largely an FPS man.

So join the nthw pc clan playing mohaa:sh

[greencreeper]

Originally Posted by Richard M

OK here's mine.
<snip>

Your use of language is very telling - you need to get out more

Life doesn't come with a manual, there's no trial run, no help, and no second chances. Games should be the same - built-in save points at the start and end of a level/map, and at key points such as before bosses, but that's it.

Originally Posted by Ramrod

So join the nthw pc clan playing mohaa:sh

Never played an online game - I'm not big on teamwork Is an online FPS game still an FPS?

[Richard M]

Originally Posted by greencreeper

Your use of language is very telling - you need to get out more

Life doesn't come with a manual, there's no trial run, no help, and no second chances. Games should be the same - built-in save points at the start and end of a level/map, and at key points such as before bosses, but that's it.

You don't play enough games.

Never played an online game - I'm not big on teamwork Is an online FPS game still an FPS?

You're more than welcome to join, I might kick your arse though.

[greencreeper]

Originally Posted by Richard M

You don't play enough games.

I only have a P3 with a naff Voodoo 3 card. One day (hopefully) I will have the cash to buy a decent gaming machine I have RtCW but I can't enable the best features, like dynamic lighting, without the game gradually slowing down. Some of the HL mods become choppy on the big maps, which makes it tricky to hit anything

Originally Posted by Richard M

You're more than welcome to join, I might kick your arse though.

If and when I get a decent PC, I'll have a look at joining.

[Bifta]

My ultimate game would probably be a version of Microsoft Flight Sim with a proper, fully renderered world taken from live satellite data in real time detailing every tree, house, hill, river and road running on some form of massive curved screen so you can see detail out of the side windows without having to use the virtual cockpit, it'd also have a form of ATC which would interpret your verbal requests to the tower. It'd also be housed in a replica 737 fully wired up cockpit sitting in my shed in the back garden. Theoretically this is already possible, with the obvious exception of the fully detailed world, but finding a 737 cockpit kicking about isn't an easy task.

[punky]

My favourite game would be somewhere between Commandos and Conflict: Desert Storm 2.

Basically it would be a full army career game. At first you start off as a private in full FPS mode. You go through training then out into the field. Once out in the field, you have to strictly do as you are told, otherwise the game would punish you (make you start over). If you excel above your computerised peers, you become a sergeant where you are still in FPS but you have to people under you (as well as above), so you still have to follow orders from your bosses, as well as giving out orders to the people under you. With the promotion, you slightly lose some of the "action" but become more stratergic, like in real life. If you excel again, you get promoted again, etc. This happens all the way up til you make 5-star General. Once you become up to the upper ranks of the army, it completely loses its FPS and becomes a C&C styled game because like in real life, you'd be in an office, or an army tent giving orders from the field. Relying on intelligence, which may or may not be good. Being disconnected from the action and relying on the delayed communications. Having to display a good strategic brain to outwit the enemy.

Why have a FPS, or a strategy game, when you can have both? It starts out as a raw FPS, then works its way up til you get to issue orders for hundreds of thousands of men and how they should deploy/act. Add lashings of real life events into it, such as rebellious officers, unforseen cirumcstances, etc. Also you can things like, differing superior commanders' personalities. You'd have to show some initiative to save the day, but like in real life, some officers would reward you for it, some would bust you down again.

CDS is the closest i've seen so far, but was fairly badly coded. It had a really fiddly interface which made it hard to use, but was a good idea, just badly implemented. But why fix yourself to one rank? I'd love to be able to start at the bottom and work my way up. How about a special forces expansion pack, for the seriously good gamer. SF style missions/weapons, with SF styled difficulty.

I think that would rule anyway. It is far from impossible, just really time consuming. Essientially you'd have to write 5-10 different game engines as the game gradually goes from FPS to full strategy.

[Richard M]

Excellent ideas so far, I like yours Bifta.
What you have in mind is possible, the only question is: why don't they do it?

[Bifta]

Originally Posted by Richard M

Excellent ideas so far, I like yours Bifta.
What you have in mind is possible, the only question is: why don't they do it?

FS 2004 only renders a miniscule amount of detail, when you start to up the scenery complexity/density it'll hog even the most powerful machine, it'd probably also take a lifetime to properly map even something the size of a small county let alone the world, and even then, you'd need a machine spec. that we'll probably not see for at least another 5-10 years to render it all.

[Richard M]

I don't understand that though, every modern GPU is capable of moving the pixels around.
I can't help thinking that the gfx card companies are doing things in a very inefficient way.
Surely you could display whatever you want on the screen, like render a 2d image of how the view should look like outside your aircraft window then render that in real time?
There's no need to render all those things in real time that are hundreds of miles away imo when you can emulate what they look like in 2d then use blitter features to put the textures on the cockpit window?
Maybe I'm totally out of sync but the way I see it, games like that should be far more efficient than they are at the moment..