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I dislike first person perspective for anything but fast action shooters. Fast response time is important for twitch games, for stuff that has to do with exploring, experiencing or just moving around, I prefer at the very least third person perspective to get rid of the artificial "tunnel vision" of first person camera.

If you use the same logic, then, views won't matter. As I see it, your issue is more of accessibility rather than camera views. Whether we call it visceral or twitch control scheme, if it requires high reflex or familiarity to a certain input devices, accessibility becomes low. As I am accustomed to keyboard and mouse, I wonder how much I can adapt myself to the games with PS3/Xbox360 video game controller. Somehow, I doubt the Aliens RPG will be on Wii although the accessibility in this sense would be much higher.

 

That said, what I expect in the game is interesting NPCs, well-thought plot, deep themes, well-written dialogs and the feel of customizing my own story and interactive world. Especially for Aliens, I think the feel of the world and the artistic direction are much more important rather than detailed information about the world. However, of course, these are mostly about the content rather than the camera and/or game-play issues.

If the game is more of a traditional party based game with loads of NPC

It all depends on what the game has for content and gameplay and must be balanced accordingly.

 

If it were to have platforming elements, it should ideally have a 3rd person over-the-shoulder or behind-the-back camera. I dislike having to do Turok jumps. It's doubtful it will have platforming.

 

If it has 3rd person camera at all, it should be designed with the knowledge that the player can easily look around corners without being seen.

 

If it uses a 1st person camera, then that "cheat" Sawyer mentioned of having off-camera (behind the back, to the sides) action hold back a bit will likely be necessary.

Did anyone play Giants: Citizen Kabuto? That was a fun mix of perspectives.

 

Tale: How is it a cheat more than any other method of balancing the game? I think cheat is the wrong word to use. I know Sawyer coined it, not you, but I still disagree with its usage. If it makes the game fun and interesting in FPV, what's the problem? That's what balance is all about. Anyway it's not a necessary method - others exist, like a skull camera or motion sensor... or just no random spawns, but well scripted spawns instead. Most games don't actually reduce the difficulty of enemies out of your POV... although HL2 had a funny "if you can't see them, they can't see you" idea.

 

Another interesting idea might be an intuition meter: whenever the player thinks he hears noises or just *senses* something behind him, this meter rises. It'd be a great anxiety creator, especially if you added false positives.

Giants: Citizen Kabuto was a great game,I loved everything coming from Planetmoon studios...until they decided to work only on psp (

Giants: Citizen Kabuto was a great game,I loved everything coming from Planetmoon studios...until they decided to work only on psp (

I can't find anything to support your claim that they decided to work only on PSP. They made one game for it, then they did some work for SEGA for the PSP, but now are working on a Wii game.

Edited January 1, 200818 yr by Tale

I suppose he meant console-only, not PSP-only. Either way it's a shame, but makes little difference to me, since I thought they died with Interplay.

Tale,I read a long time ago that Planetmoon decided to not work on home consoles due to the heavy cost of development and instead decided to work on portables consoles,especially the psp.

That's all I know,after the release of Infected,I kinda lost the interest for them,so I don't know what they're up to now.Maybe an Armed & Dangerous 2? that would be great.

I can't see a way to squeeze a whole party into the Alien context, it just seems practically hard to implement.

 

A behindview for walking and talking and a weapon POW for shooting would be my preference, that might support tactical awareness of say one or two followers, more than that and it just becomes either too confusing, or like Kotor, too simple : a game that can virtually play itself without your imput via the ally AI.

 

I have seen plenty of games that have both behind and weapon views, but very few to do both equally well. Maybe thats because a weapon HUD and a behindview have different demands, still, it would be nice to have both options in equal quality.

Edited January 2, 200818 yr by Gorgon

I can't see a way to squeeze a whole party into the Alien context, it just seems practically hard to implement.

How so?

because of the fast pace of the action in a shooting game, a large party would simply mean that most of the game would be decided by the friendly AI vs the hostile AI, not you.

But we've already seen fast paced shooting games with parties. Gears of War is an example. Which was received rather well.

Edited January 2, 200818 yr by Tale

It might have had good mechanics, I could never get past the rather childish general premise. Haven't played it for more than 5 mins.

Edited January 2, 200818 yr by Gorgon

What? Large guys with guns and chainsaws fighting against an unexplained alien horde while yelling profanities and "WHOO, THAT'S RIGHT, BABY!"

 

Obviously you're not a hardcore gamer who appreciates high quality games.

 

Mocking satire aside, I thought it was ultimately fun regardless of that. But this is a bit of a sidtrack, heh.

Edited January 2, 200818 yr by Tale

But we've already seen fast paced shooting games with parties. Gears of War is an example. Which was received rather well.

 

Large parties don't fit into the Aliens universe. They distribute the damage, fear, worry, etc, over the number of party members, essentially nullifying things like tension.

 

Also, it's an RPG not an RTS. Any RPG should have 4 party members max, though personally I'm a fan of KOTOR's 3 limit.

But we've already seen fast paced shooting games with parties. Gears of War is an example. Which was received rather well.

 

Large parties don't fit into the Aliens universe. They distribute the damage, fear, worry, etc, over the number of party members, essentially nullifying things like tension.

 

Also, it's an RPG not an RTS. Any RPG should have 4 party members max, though personally I'm a fan of KOTOR's 3 limit.

Who's talking about numbers like an RTS has? Gears of War has, at max, four people and sometimes only just the two.

Edited January 3, 200818 yr by Tale

If we are to want a multiplayer coop game for the Aliens RPG, 4 is a good number.

 

Left 4 Dead, Rainbow Six Vegas, Serious Sam Alien Swarm are some games I know that has coop of 4 players in it.

On Rainbow Six Vegas : your backup gun has unlimited ammo, if one of your team members die, thats it, mission over.

 

 

Every damn mission is a babysitting mission, What the hell kind of kindergarden crap is that. Are we to assume that the world stops just because whatshisface has a few lines later on, so ohh no, he can't be allowed to die. As a way to avoid deaths, your squad consists of massively overpowered tanks, and can usually be depended on to clear a room on their own, unless they happen to get cornered.

 

 

The only reason that pisses me off is that the game is actually quite intense and exciting, and they had to go and make it less than it could be.

Edited January 3, 200818 yr by Gorgon

Any RPG should have 4 party members max, though personally I'm a fan of KOTOR's 3 limit.

 

Yeah, like all the most awesome RPGs ever. Like BG 1 and 2, or Torment, or Fallout 1 and 2, or the Icewind Dales, or Ultima VII. They're all examples of games that turned to crap due to having more than four party members.

Any RPG should have 4 party members max, though personally I'm a fan of KOTOR's 3 limit.

 

Yeah, like all the most awesome RPGs ever. Like BG 1 and 2, or Torment, or Fallout 1 and 2, or the Icewind Dales, or Ultima VII. They're all examples of games that turned to crap due to having more than four party members.

 

Was that sarcasm? Because I could easily give reasons to support that statement, sarcasm or no (except maybe in the case of BG1 & Torment). Anyway that comment was directed at RPGs in todays market, which are mostly 3D 3rd person.

It just that I think one of the main reasons combat has uniformly been so dire in recent party based RPGs, is that party size has been restricted to so few characters. It means no tactics, no action, nothing except waiting for the rounds to go by.

It just that I think one of the main reasons combat has uniformly been so dire in recent party based RPGs, is that party size has been restricted to so few characters. It means no tactics, no action, nothing except waiting for the rounds to go by.

 

Which recent RPGs do you think the combat has been bad in?

Pretty much every single one I've played since NWN1. NWN1 and the KOTORs are the worst, probably.

But do you think adding more NPCs would have improved those games? IMHO, It wasn't the number of NPCs that sucked, it was controllability of them. I think it's something 3D 3rd person RPGs have a problem with - there's no consistent perspective as with 2D isometric, and changing characters also changes camera position - produces a sort of lag which makes it annoying to switch NPCs. Two annoying flaws which I feel need attention paid to them, regardless of the number of NPCs.