State of the Industry
by Pat Wilson · in General Discussion · 02/02/2001 (11:39 am) · 4 replies
(Abridged format)
I've been kicking this thought around for a while. According to VoodooExtreme, the most popular game of last year was Half-Life: Counter-Strike. In fact, 30 min before the Superbowl kickoff, there were over 24,349 people playing Counter-Strike. The next closest FPS game, Unreal Tournament, had 6,417 players, about 1/4 the people. Is Counter-Strike 4x better of a game then Unreal Tournament?
The most involving single-player game, that I've played, was Half-Life. This was becuase it walked the fine line between reality and fiction quite well, at least until you went into the alien world...I lost interest after that. And this is what Counter-Strike has over it's compedators. The weapons are real, the people look real, but on the other hand, if you get shot in the leg, you don't fall over and roll around on the ground till you bleed to death either. It walks the line quite well. (Note that this will probably be the best I will ever treat Counter-Strike)
Quite frankly, the fact that this game is so popular pisses me off. I view Counter-Strike the way I view Brittney Spears. Yes, she may have hoards of screaming fans. Yes, her music may be played on radio stations all the time. Yes, she may have cood CD sales. Yes, she may look good...but it doesn't make up for the fact that she didn't write her music, and she can't sing very well outside a studio. Counter-Strike is a mod, first off, so obviously it doesn't have the flexibility of someone with their own engine, however I don't see that this game would be better with it's own engine. This game is probably one of the best examples of piss-poor code that I've come across.
There are more cheats for Counter-Strike then probably all the other FPSs being played put together. Now, there are also more people playing CounterStrike, however the cheats that I see all make me wonder...speed cheat. This is where the cheater is able to move about as fast as he wants to. What does this mean? From what I can see, this means the client determins how fast he moves. Invis cheat, this is where the player is...invisible. (tough one) From what I can see (or can't see...bah), this means the client determines how others see his model. There are other cheats, and many of them, however these two will do for now. As should be obvious, the client/server interaction is something that trancends ignorance. It shows a complete lack of foresight.
One of the insainly maddening features of Counter-Strike is the recoil implimentation. In real life, when you fire a gun, you get kick that pushes the gun back against you, and up a little bit. Counter-Strike attempts to duplicate this, but in Counter-Strike style, the implimentation is 'piss poor'. It first occured to me that I should do further testing when I had an AK-47 to the chest of my roommate (in the game of course) and was missing him. (He then killed me with his hand gun.) After quite a lot of cursing, I decided to do some tests to figure out just how this recoil was implimented. Much to my suprise, I found that bullets do not originate at the muzzle of the gun. (Amazing how that works, isn't it?) It's pretty interesting to find that, while crouched inside a ventalation duct, you can miss a person crouched in front of you because magically your gun seems to cut a circle around you. This, to me, is enough to damn the game to a Nintendo 64 title. This screams lazyness to me. The fact that you can aim at a person's foot, and get a headshot is rediculous.
All this said, Counter-Strike is still the most popular online game out there by a LOT. And dispite it's offensive implimentation techniques, there are some things that I have pulled out of it's success:
1. I think the market is saturated with shooters that fling the player into a world that he has no connection to. The best stories are usually ones that take reality, and project it onto a different setting. Quake doesn't have anything a player can link himself to, and it doesn't have a storyline to get involved in. (Come on now, be honest...it has no story line)
2. Single player is for RPGs. People want multi-player.
3. Once again, graphics that aren't spectacular, and buggy implimentation don't mute gameplay. CS had a huge playerbase BEFORE it had all the pretty skeletally-animated models and such. It still has the biggest following dispite it's flaws. Gameplay is king.
I don't think upcoming games such as Serious Sam will do well. I think Tribes 2 will do pretty well, I don't think it will beat Counter-Strike in player base...but I hope I'm proved wrong. I am not sure how Red Faction will do. The whole geo-mod thing is pretty cool sounding, but I don't think that will be a feature that wins. It will be interesting, I have a very definite picture of what I think, "the next step" in the FPS genre will be. Whatever happens though, I think that the current state of the FPS genre is stagnent, and I don't see something that will forward the industry in the upcoming titles.
I've been kicking this thought around for a while. According to VoodooExtreme, the most popular game of last year was Half-Life: Counter-Strike. In fact, 30 min before the Superbowl kickoff, there were over 24,349 people playing Counter-Strike. The next closest FPS game, Unreal Tournament, had 6,417 players, about 1/4 the people. Is Counter-Strike 4x better of a game then Unreal Tournament?
The most involving single-player game, that I've played, was Half-Life. This was becuase it walked the fine line between reality and fiction quite well, at least until you went into the alien world...I lost interest after that. And this is what Counter-Strike has over it's compedators. The weapons are real, the people look real, but on the other hand, if you get shot in the leg, you don't fall over and roll around on the ground till you bleed to death either. It walks the line quite well. (Note that this will probably be the best I will ever treat Counter-Strike)
Quite frankly, the fact that this game is so popular pisses me off. I view Counter-Strike the way I view Brittney Spears. Yes, she may have hoards of screaming fans. Yes, her music may be played on radio stations all the time. Yes, she may have cood CD sales. Yes, she may look good...but it doesn't make up for the fact that she didn't write her music, and she can't sing very well outside a studio. Counter-Strike is a mod, first off, so obviously it doesn't have the flexibility of someone with their own engine, however I don't see that this game would be better with it's own engine. This game is probably one of the best examples of piss-poor code that I've come across.
There are more cheats for Counter-Strike then probably all the other FPSs being played put together. Now, there are also more people playing CounterStrike, however the cheats that I see all make me wonder...speed cheat. This is where the cheater is able to move about as fast as he wants to. What does this mean? From what I can see, this means the client determins how fast he moves. Invis cheat, this is where the player is...invisible. (tough one) From what I can see (or can't see...bah), this means the client determines how others see his model. There are other cheats, and many of them, however these two will do for now. As should be obvious, the client/server interaction is something that trancends ignorance. It shows a complete lack of foresight.
One of the insainly maddening features of Counter-Strike is the recoil implimentation. In real life, when you fire a gun, you get kick that pushes the gun back against you, and up a little bit. Counter-Strike attempts to duplicate this, but in Counter-Strike style, the implimentation is 'piss poor'. It first occured to me that I should do further testing when I had an AK-47 to the chest of my roommate (in the game of course) and was missing him. (He then killed me with his hand gun.) After quite a lot of cursing, I decided to do some tests to figure out just how this recoil was implimented. Much to my suprise, I found that bullets do not originate at the muzzle of the gun. (Amazing how that works, isn't it?) It's pretty interesting to find that, while crouched inside a ventalation duct, you can miss a person crouched in front of you because magically your gun seems to cut a circle around you. This, to me, is enough to damn the game to a Nintendo 64 title. This screams lazyness to me. The fact that you can aim at a person's foot, and get a headshot is rediculous.
All this said, Counter-Strike is still the most popular online game out there by a LOT. And dispite it's offensive implimentation techniques, there are some things that I have pulled out of it's success:
1. I think the market is saturated with shooters that fling the player into a world that he has no connection to. The best stories are usually ones that take reality, and project it onto a different setting. Quake doesn't have anything a player can link himself to, and it doesn't have a storyline to get involved in. (Come on now, be honest...it has no story line)
2. Single player is for RPGs. People want multi-player.
3. Once again, graphics that aren't spectacular, and buggy implimentation don't mute gameplay. CS had a huge playerbase BEFORE it had all the pretty skeletally-animated models and such. It still has the biggest following dispite it's flaws. Gameplay is king.
I don't think upcoming games such as Serious Sam will do well. I think Tribes 2 will do pretty well, I don't think it will beat Counter-Strike in player base...but I hope I'm proved wrong. I am not sure how Red Faction will do. The whole geo-mod thing is pretty cool sounding, but I don't think that will be a feature that wins. It will be interesting, I have a very definite picture of what I think, "the next step" in the FPS genre will be. Whatever happens though, I think that the current state of the FPS genre is stagnent, and I don't see something that will forward the industry in the upcoming titles.
About the author
#2
02/19/2001 (8:09 pm)
I know this might be a little off the subject, but not much, I recently heard that the Metroid game for the Gamecube will be a first person shooter instead of a third person game. I also saw a web site that has a mod in development for Half Life to look like Metroid. I have no idea if this will make the fps world move, or just take the metroid series back. Hopefully this game will not alienate the fans who long for a new metroid since the SNES days. Just decided to shed some light on this subject.
#3
02/19/2001 (10:27 pm)
Gameplay, which used to be the main thing in games back in the eighties and early nineties has been missing in most present day games. Back then, it was all the game really had, now, it gets lost in the whole asthetic craze. If it looks good, it'll sell is the likely theroy. Probably has to do with deadlines. Ah well... that's why we're all here working on making out own games, right?
#4
The problem with all mod's I think is that the engine restrictions placed on them tend to make them all feel too "samey".
I have to own up here, I spent quite a lot of time doing mods for some fun, including a CS like game originally called Sherman Project (now hostile intent and taken over by some others when I got too bogged down at work).
Everyone who plays CS for a long enough time gets annoyed at its "nearly realistic but not quite" problems, and most seem to want something that actually addresses the CS problems.
Frankly though, there is nothing in comparison to having your own engine code to play with. Having full control is a major major advantage. I wouldnt have dumped my old engine if it wasnt for the V12 stuff having full source.
If we dont see some original games with the V12, well, then thats only because people lack imagination.
The same cant really be said for HL derived stuff.
Phil.
03/26/2001 (2:52 pm)
Pat, I agree with you that CS is appalling in several area's, but I wouldnt really condemn the CS programmers too much. The HL mod tools your given really ARENT as flexible as you need. For instance the firing point and such, and the recoil model are all pretty much standard halflife fare.The problem with all mod's I think is that the engine restrictions placed on them tend to make them all feel too "samey".
I have to own up here, I spent quite a lot of time doing mods for some fun, including a CS like game originally called Sherman Project (now hostile intent and taken over by some others when I got too bogged down at work).
Everyone who plays CS for a long enough time gets annoyed at its "nearly realistic but not quite" problems, and most seem to want something that actually addresses the CS problems.
Frankly though, there is nothing in comparison to having your own engine code to play with. Having full control is a major major advantage. I wouldnt have dumped my old engine if it wasnt for the V12 stuff having full source.
If we dont see some original games with the V12, well, then thats only because people lack imagination.
The same cant really be said for HL derived stuff.
Phil.
Peter Hatch