If you designed an FPS, what would it be like?

[BathorysGraveland]

Well, my big influence above all, would be the first Vietcong. An atmospheric first person shooter. I'd also set it in Vietnam (my favourite recent conflict). Missions would be set up in a similar way, actually patrolling through the jungle, receiving radio checks, not knowing if an enemy is watching you through the foliage or a sniper from an elevated position with a Dragunov. When shit hits the fan, it would be chaotic. Gunfire coming from everywhere, getting your arse down behind fallen logs and rocks, crawling around the mud on your stomach calling for the machinegunner to suppress the enemy so you can throw a grenade or fire a few accurate shots off. Shouting for the medic when you've been hit and asking for a magazine when you're low. Every enemy killed would actually mean something in the missions. The enemies won't be pushovers, and won't rely on hordes to be a challenge. A single VC or NVA soldier could wipe out you and your entire squad if you aren't careful, let alone an entire four-six man squad of them. Then there would be traps to disarm and shit... basically a Vietcong 2.0.

I'd make three main campaigns too, equally fleshed out - one as a U.S soldier, one as a South Korean soldier and the third as a VC guerilla. So you have some variety and choices that are not usual in first person shooter games. The VC campaign would be particularly fun, sneaking through the jungle, ambushing South Korean soldiers with grenades and gunfire, and then retreating when they counter attack. Fighting alongside an entire regiment in an assault on a hilltop U.S military base. Things like that.

Now, I don't usually like first person shooters, but Vietcong was always that one big exception for me, and I'd love for there to be another game like it sometime. Vietcong 2 sadly sucked real bad.

 

[PsychicTaco115]

"Kids, this is what crack does to you. It makes you think of AWESOME IDEAS FOR VIDEO GAMES. So take it whenever you get writer's block at your game development company. That s**t helps."

Well, I'm glad you think so highly of my initial concept. But, I must point out that I have never taken any form of drug in my life, let alone get high or drunk.

I came up with this idea purely of out sheer boredom. That's just how my mind works. We needs more games that are just plain fun. Not with too much focus on context.

Then if more game developers were to try and think like that, the world would be more awesome.

Or experiment with different substances. It could kickstart the old imagination train up.

My turn! *Snorts loudly into a small pile of white powder*

You play as a Saturday morning cartoon actor in the 1970's as the super villain. The good guy beats you up one too many times and you snap, turning to a life of petty crime.

You can:

Make Weapons of Mass Annoyance

Use children as henchman and do donation scandals to earn money

Create your own _______ Mobile!

And much more hijinks!

 

[Gottesstrafe]

Off the top of my head?

Well, one idea I have is an abstract FPS taking the parkour gameplay of Mirror's Edge and the stage generating elements of Audiosurf. Basically, you load a music track and the game creates a stage (cityscape, colored polygons, etc) based on and unique to that track. Movement around the stage is fast and hectic with a variety of game modes, and the shooter elements are more muted to focus on the platforming elements. Game modes may include racing from point A to point B (shooting your opponent along the way to hinder them), target shoot (race around the stage to shoot randomly placed targets, competitive play optional), and maybe the more traditional death match and CTF.

Another idea I've been playing around with is a more RPG based FPS taking cues from the movement and combat of the newer Elder Scrolls and Fallout series. Setting and plot would borrow heavily from games like Skies of Arcadia and perhaps Mass Effect 1. The gist of it is that you're in a time period reminiscent of the colonial 19th century where world powers are emerging and expanding their spheres of influences to gather resources and territory. Whereas warships back then were water bound, they now sail through the sky using a combination of advanced tech (and perhaps mysticism, though probably more muted than the technological aspect). You play the captain of a free ship, exploring the world sandbox style and engaging in whatever activities you prefer to keep yourself afloat. You may choose to side yourself with an emerging power, play a merchant and transport goods, or perhaps play the part of a corsair and ransack ships for loot with a squad of your shipmates. In addition to ground based combat you'd also engage in ship-to-ship combat (where you take turns tactically maneuvering around and bombarding the f*ck out of each other) and getting close enough to board each other (you and your mates rappel onto their ship and clean it out, or them and their mates try to do it you).

 

[The Night Shade]

A combination of Deus Ex with mirrors edge and with time travel

 

[Slayer_2]

A semi-realistic military multiplayer FPS/RTS combo focused on intense battles and a feeling of immersion. NOT like CoD or Battlefield. Very few times will someone die instantly, but rather they'll lie on the ground wounded and yelling/screaming for help. No magical revives or anything, but if you manage to save a wounded team-mate, you'll get a medal, and experience (plus save a soldier on your side). I say semi-realistic only because you will be able to see your enemy most of the time, and I'd try to avoid ARMA-like gameplay, as I find that dull. You can survive grazes and try to bandage up bigger wounds and keep going, at the risk of dying, or having reduced combat ability and/or mobility.

There will be one commander for each team, who has access to helmet-cams (if the soldiers have them), satellite views, and UAV/recon plane cameras. The commander gives orders to fireteam leaders, and calls in reinforcements and air support.

Destroyable environments, with debris and bodies lying around for the entire match. Battles will only last for 5-10 minutes, depending on play style, so this shouldn't take too long. Also, when people want to respawn, the commander must purchase them, and their transport, so they can be flown/boated/driven in. No magical appearing or parachuting down, you have to come in the slow way, and risk AA fire. This makes you value your character's life more, and adds a more random aspect to the battle (since a heli can rappel guys in almost anywhere, as long as it isn't shot at by anti-air fire). Also encourages teamwork, as you all go in as a unit, instead of appearing randomly solo.

The guns WON'T be attached to the side of your character's head, instead you'll move the eyes/head with the mouse, and the body/gun will adjust. Stopping or aiming down the sights will center the body to the head's location. There will be a first-person cover system, including blind-fire, aiming out of cover, and quickly moving to other nearby cover.

There will be a very in-depth communication system that will somehow intelligently play dialogue for your character. Think of spotting in BF3, but more complicated, and with 2-3 buttons. For example, you can look at a friendly, click button one to yell at him, then click button two while looking at an enemy to tell him to take him down. Characters will do the usual automatic VO's, too (I'm getting pinned down, need a medic, grenade, frag out, etc). On top of that, you're ASSIGNED a last name when you first join, and this name will be used so characters can yell at you. Also, they will use a comm system if you're farther than X amount of meters away. Not sure if you'll be able to select preferences for names or what, but I don't want XXX420lgSlayer running around the battlefield.

Oh, and NO HUD! At all. Instead you'll have animations and character comments to determine what's going on. For example, HOLD reload and your guy will do an ammo check and count. Hold R and the fireteam leader comm button, and he'll order his whole fireteam to do an ammo check and count.

Overall, the plan is for a visceral and bloody game that emphasizes working as a team, while portraying war as a brutal and horrible place, instead of a sterile math game that most videogames make it into. You'll be surrounded by the screams of the dying and wounded. The goal is to make it far less fast-paced than CoD or BF, but still fast enough to be scary and fun for everyone.

Sorry for the wall of text, if you read that all, you're a champ, that's only a small portion of it too

 

[kingthrall]

when you blow off limbs from enemies, crippling them.

Realistic deaths from weapons on humans for instance instant kill for a bullet in the head. with no helmet protection, glass damage on visor to begin with bigger cracks untill gone.

No blood pumping on screen if you get hurt too much like cod and regen.

Healing is done by medikits and have some drugs but leaves you totaly vulnerable like in Left for Dead. Drugs would increase damage like psyco or buffout in fallout games but makes your character addicted for that round if you use too much.

Interesting weapons with a mix of the usual stuff like shoguns ect, Railroad guns, baseball bats, spears, slings with explosive rounds, chainsaw swords/axes like warhammer.

Hiding in Terrain- Just like RTS why cant FPS have invisible enemies in bushes without proper scouting by in fared binoculars or shooting/blowing up the bush.

As said earlier, better objectives like capture the terrorist alive. But id prefer to have an option as the commander to do multiple choices with a list brought up of possible options when the crunch moment arrives.

Depending on the whole game if its fantasy, sci fi ect, i would like to see more of a theif approach to my fps games. where sounds and shadow make a difference but your not slaying every enemy you see.

 

[wetfart]

1) Silly idea. Master chief lands on Cybertron and has to help Optimus Prime stop Megatron and the Decepticons from installing GLaDOS on Cybertron. As they battle their way through the destroyed surface of Cybertron, they suddenly are bombarded by Imperial class Star Destroyers. Just before Duke Nukem, a double agent working for the autobots, can destroy GLaDOS core the Star Gate Replicators show up and steal it. Tracking the Replicators, a truce is called and the combatants decide that only one person can solve this crisis. Zim. Using his mighty Irkan brain and weapons destroys not only the Replicators but also Unicron and several nearby star systems. In the end, its all revealed that the events of the game were a dream that Gaz had after eating too much Freckle B*tches. No iron-sight aiming. No cover. No regenerating health.

2) Serious Idea. Probably something like Thief. Fastest way to die would be to fight head on. Instead stealth and trickery would be your friend. Rob people blind, get rich quick and save the world all at the same time.

3) Serious Idea. Something open ended. Where you can take several paths and make several choices in your game that affects the next mission. For instance, if your mission is to hold the town/bridge until help arrives you could A: Fortify your position and fight the enemy. B: Fall back across the bridge and try to hold them there. C: Fall back and abandon the town, destroying the bridge behind you. If you took A, your next mission would be pressing the enemy. Lots of air/artillery support to back you up. B would put your next mission as retaking the town and protecting army corp engineers as they rebuild the bridge. C would have you choosing to either harass the enemy using guerrilla tactics or trying to make your way through the wilderness to an extraction point. At any point during the missions you could change your goal from A to B or C letting the player have more control over their fate. No Iron-Sight aiming. No regenerating health. If you want to hide behind a wall go ahead, but no forced cover mechanics. Also, everything would be destructible.

 

[1080bitgamer]

I'd try to create something that tried to play around with the first person perspective, maybe putting it in an anti gravity based battlefield, calling more on the player to move to the correct position

 

[Professor James]

It would be a game that allows to use a special suit that gives you bullet time, telekinesis, and maybe X ray vision. The intro would probably be a ripoff of half life 1. The telekinesis would be very in depth and would allow to do abilities like fly, redirect and control almost everything, and also allow you to take things apart. The game would probably work better as an TPS though. It would probably have assassins creed health with Health packs scattered around and allow you to carry every weapon at once a la doom.

 

[Doneeee]

Mine would be a game where you throw pickles at poeple. It would be called The Alliance of People Who Throw Pickles at Pedestrians on Pteradoctyls.

 

[TakeyB0y2]

Well, it would be slightly futuristic (we're talking maybe just a decade into the future), take place in a large city, and most of the game would take place in skyscrapers, whether your exploring offices, penthouses, skyline bars and clubs, there'll be some excuse for the protagonist to have to always be on the top floors of really tall buildings... At night too! Maybe when it's raining...

Sorry, that's the kind of scenery porn I like, and would love to see more of it in an FPS. Basically a whole game with levels like the Nightclub - Stakeout one from Perfect Dark and the Night Shift mission from 007 Nightfire.

And, as per my personal tastes, less emphasis on cover-based shooting and no regenerating health.

 

[General BrEeZy]

If a military shooter, then no hip-firing. real soldiers move with their eyes down the sights, and dont only move at 1/100th mph when doing so. how everything would work control-wise with that setup, idk yet, but i'm not gonna be making one, so i'll just stop there.

also, there would be no respawn-based multiplayer. it'd be army-on-army, and when you die, you view an npc's location, then assume control and go until the opposition is eliminated.

 

[Luca72]

Jeez, if you asked me this like 5 days ago I would have had a lot to say.

But then I found out I'd just make Tribes.

 

[Alssadar]

Here's the idea, but it has to rely on players not being complete dicks.
The gameplay is rather STALKER like--few shots equal your death, but nonetheless; technology is somewhere around Warhammer 40k with lasers, but more bullet-based weapons. (You get three revives). The game itself is a co-op, competitive shooter.
So, the world itself is a set of vast plains, which are turned into a set of randomly generated set pieces (Military complexes, camps, cities) with npc's and enemies to fight. Each player is given a special character that all have different attributes (Farmer has 10 more life, shotguns aim better, for example), but none of them are displayed to create a placebo for playing that character.
The players are spawned in their set piece (A farmer on his farm--event raises as ex-military attack his farm)and, once they don't die from their event, have to set out and fulfill a task they're given (Multiple tasks for each specific character that randomize--Convict needs to eliminate military base, destroy the mine he once worked at, escape off-planet, or kill enough people to become a bandit--all randomized for different playthroughs).
The players are all given a map full of blank stamps (5x5? 4x4?), except for their starting position, which is marked. From there, they need to explore, and label the areas to note whatever they may need (Exact details of tasks are not specified or pointed out).
With interactions of other players, you are given a set amount of speech conversations (to avoid breaking interactivity), that can ask them to aid each other, or give map info by exchanging marks.
Some players may need to work with others (as you can die easily) or kill them for loots. The factions around would react to how you treat other players/npc's, so you would have to watch that as well.

 

[Darknacht]

Something like Penumbra but with a more destructible/intractable environment and more open game play. Also with co-op if one person dies you have a choice reload or keep playing with one person, unless you are playing in hardcore mode then all deaths are final.

 

[Patathatapon]

(If anyone happens to be a game designer they're allowed to use my ideas, wink wink, nudge nudge)

-no cover mechanic bullsh*t
-run gun fun
-easy, regular, aim
-lots of enemies
-no friendly A.I.
-a bunch of awesome guns like:
-"the O.P." Can only carry one "bullet" for it, but it can kill many enemies with a single blade that keeps whizzing till it kills 10 enemies
-"The Yahtzee" It shoots flaming dice at your foes with multiple variations (shotgun, rifle, and smg) you can switch between the three with an easy button click
-"Acid Launcher" It shoots highly corrosive acid to give enemies a dissolved area of there bodies (but not necessarily killing them!!!)
-And a jetpack! for flying around shooting people with while they shoot you back!
-Lots of explosions (I'm a pyromaniac)

 

[bigfatcarp93]

I would beg Valve to let me make a Half-Life spinoff.

No cover, run'n'gun combat, but broken with heavy puzzle-solving and exploration. Same as the real thing, but with a different story and character.

 

[Chimichanga]

If I designed an FPS...

Because I like games like the later Fallout and The Elder Scrolls games as well as the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, they would be closer to RPGs, preferably one in a modern, or post-modern era so I can create and deeply immerse in a universe that is familiar, but distant enough so I may take as many liberties as I can (albeit still based on the laws of reality) for the sake of entertainment.

Essentially, a very heavily modded Fallout 3 or New Vegas without the dust brown and gunmetal gray vision filter that makes everything look brown; mixed in with a touch of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.; and if I had the imaginary super-funding that only exists in theory, much, MUCH better voice actors.

And tighter, less clunky controls, and maybe more of Skyrim's method of dialogue interaction. Better and more in-depth melee weapon combat and fighting mechanics, and maybe not a shit engine like Gamebryo. I like great, big, open worlds, but fuck gamebryo.

So, perhaps more like Fallout and etc. in spirit. Except that all of the 50's Americana and such would be swapped out with the similar concept of the retrofuture, only one looking back to the 1990s to 2020s (because in the future, the 90s - 2020s era IS the distant, quaint, campy past that is exploited for ironic value) and I would allow retrospect on current events in a way we do not allow ourselves to see as now (even though it's kind of an over-used trope).

It's not so much that I like FPSs because I think of action shooters and the like, but because I see the FPS as the most immersive perspective you can have in a game second only to some The matrix-esque dream/VR simulator. Because of that, if I had one tailored to my pure imagination, it would center around being immersive as possible. Yet still with a huge focus on gunplay due to my insatiable thirst for blood.

And jet packs. I'd find a way. Somehow...

 

[KILRbuny]

I'd probably make something like the godfather. a deep, engrossing character drama that focuses on a broken individual who is just trying to make it but gets mixed up in some nasty shit. i wouldn't mind a sort of supernatural twist to it (heaven vs. hell, something like the darkness) as long as it was well written and brought up well.

I WOULD put less shooting set pieces in it. I want the world I'm in to feel realistic and lived in. I also want to have an open world. I want to be able to go to my house, go to my crime families headquarters or do whatever I want, but if I miss a deadline for something like a mission start I want to be punished for it. I guess a sort of time management system would be in place to keep up with that. I want to be rewarded for making those points with a well written thought out storyline though. My game would be written to engage the player and make them care about their character and the world around them.

I'd focus a lot on the little details. When I look down, I want to see my feet. I want other people in the world to respond to my actions (if I murder another character, I want to feel like it mattered). I want to put a bullet in the wall and see the hole when I come back on my next visit through and remember the impact that pulling the trigger had.

Short and to the point: my game would be detailed fantastically well and have one of the most engrossing stories ever in a game.