18 replies to this topic

[StompingOnTanks]

http://toxikk.com/

https://www.unrealen...nt-begins-today

http://reflexfps.net/

This looks very, very interesting. I do love me some arena shooters, but sadly they've fallen out of favor and the entire sub-genre has been in the ICU since modern military shooters took over. I always thought the FPS genre needed a resurgence of these kinds of games, instead of the cookie-cutter "realistic" shooter that every dev studio pumps out year after year.

Disclaimer: I like Battlefield and CoD, but when every new shooter looks like a Battlefield or Call of Duty clone, that's when I start feeling really annoyed. I think it's time to go back to the roots of what made FPS games great - reliance on pure, unfiltered, uncapped skill.

No regenerating health that forgives you for being shot, no iron sights with auto-aim (iron sights by themselves are OK), no unlocks or customization options that give you an unfair edge over people who don't have them. That's what I think a great multiplayer FPS should have.

So what do you guys think of this?

Edited by StompingOnTanks, 03 February 2015 - 06:42 PM.

[Vassago Rain]

I think that people should just play quake 3 instead.

[StompingOnTanks]

Unfortunately, Quake Live is pretty much dead.

[Widowmaker1981]

Vassago Rain, on 04 February 2015 - 02:35 AM, said:

I think that people should just play quake 3 instead.

While Quake 3 is cool, people want to use their modern hardware on something that looks the part. im very excited for the new UT - apparently its being designed in collaboration with the community, with the objective of feeling closer to the original UT99 than UT2004/UT3 - and UT99 was one of the best games ever created IMHO.

not that i could even come close to competing in muitiplayer, some people were WAY too ninja

[Hex Pallett]

"Arena shooters are back." Pfft don't be silly. The time for arena shooters is gone and gone.

Nexuiz, Rise of the Triad, Painkiller HD, all are "arena shooters" that came out in the last few years. Nexuiz is closest to what I would call the "next-gen" arena FPS and that had about three months of lifetime. The other two had about five people playing online at any time.

The problem with arena-FPS is its lack of longevity. Steep learning curve, gameplay that requires extremely-high concentration which exhaust you so fast, lack of progression feedback. Those are signs of being outdated and continuously will they be. A genre of games needs to be "back" when they're commercially available to some extent, and right now except for Epic I don't think anyone could make that happen.

At least Insurgency and Red Orchestra 2 are easy to learn.

[StompingOnTanks]

Helmstif, on 04 February 2015 - 06:41 AM, said:

"Arena shooters are back." Pfft don't be silly. The time for arena shooters is gone and gone.

Nexuiz, Rise of the Triad, Painkiller HD, all are "arena shooters" that came out in the last few years. Nexuiz is closest to what I would call the "next-gen" arena FPS and that had about three months of lifetime. The other two had about five people playing online at any time.

The problem with arena-FPS is its lack of longevity. Steep learning curve, gameplay that requires extremely-high concentration which exhaust you so fast, lack of progression feedback. Those are signs of being outdated and continuously will they be. A genre of games needs to be "back" when they're commercially available to some extent, and right now except for Epic I don't think anyone could make that happen.

At least Insurgency and Red Orchestra 2 are easy to learn.

I like you Helmstiff, but man do I disagree.

Arena shooters are dead because when FPSs went "mainstream", every developer rushed to appeal to the lowest common denominator to attract the most buyers. Arena FPSs, which are by nature extremely competitive and do anything but appeal to casuals, were the first to go. While I do think the whole sub genre needs to be modernized a bit, I see no reason why it couldn't work in a modern day market. The problem with the shooters you mentioned is they lacked various important aspects, like reasonable matchmaking in Nexuiz's case where it took ~10mins to find a game. An arena shooter, if done right, and tweaked a bit to appeal to the modern gamer's sense of progressive reward without unbalancing the gameplay, could be huge.

The problem is a big dev doesn't want to take the first step because they think the only way to make money is to pump out yearly blockbuster games following a tried and true formula, rather than take a big risk with an entirely new style of game.

[StompingOnTanks]

Marack Drock, on 04 February 2015 - 01:38 PM, said:

*Snip* I liked Call of Duty series until I realized that they were the exact same games cut and pasted into a new game engine. *Snip*

Actually, not even that.

Call of Duty 4 MW, released in 2007:



Call of Duty: Black Ops II, releasted 2012:



These two, and all four games in between were on the exact same engine, just with the graphics updated slightly between games. Not just that, but weapon models, sound effects, character animations, and weapon animations were constantly recycled between games. Even text FFS.

That's forgivable once, maybe two times, but when you do it for six games in a row you know something is wrong.

As much as I like Call of Duty I can't forgive the devs who do this.

Edited by StompingOnTanks, 04 February 2015 - 01:54 PM.

[StompingOnTanks]

Marack Drock, on 04 February 2015 - 01:59 PM, said:

Well now I like it even less. There needs to be a major shift in the FPS genre and the Gaming Industry in general or there will never be a change.

Exactly, and often the best thing you can do to make something that was one great great again is by going back to what made it great in the first place.

[xengk]

I heard Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Team Fortress 2 is still going strong.
And we have Heavy Gear Assault coming up for another Arena Shooter.

But Nosgoth Online makes me sad.

[Prc]

reflex is the way to go every1 on ESR it's pending on it unless they pull out something amazing with the new UT but ive played the alpha and it was worse than ut3

[Pet Dude]

Wish they would make a sequel to Tribes: Ascend. It was a good sequel to Tribes 2 and Tribes:V.

[Pet Dude]

Thats pre-Earthsiege and pre-Starsiege right? For those too young to know of the greatness that is the HERC. I even liked it more than Mechwarrior.

[Pet Dude]

Yeah metaltech came before earthsiege or starsiege. Cyberstorm was awesome! Electron fletchettes beats shields. Scientifically speaking actually makes sense. Was metaltech spelled metaltek?

[Lily from animove]

anyone played nerf arena blast? that was actually a arena shooter that I realy liked.