Interesting Game Concepts That Amazingly Haven't Been Copied Yet

[cojo965]

So I was watching videos on a little game called Natural Selection 2, a game whose big feature is being both a first person shooter and a real-time strategy game. The way this works is, one player plays an rts as the Commander while his units do the fps part of the game as they are controlled by other players. The Commander's... well, commands in the other player's perspectives as that voice in the single player fpses telling you to build stuff, shoot stuff, or repair stuff. You know what though? It would probably be easier to just show you all what I mean.


Now I've never played the game, mind but this looks very intuitively designed. See, I don't like how in the experiences I've had with rtses is how I have to watch any battle that unfolds because the guys you control cannot be trusted to do the best thing in a situation. However, in Natural Selection, because the units are self aware human beings, you don't have to baby them so much, meaning that if an engagement doesn't go so well I can spend more time thinking of how to help the next battle go better for your allies. It's the sort of thing that appeals to me, so then why are the Natural Selection games the only ones I can name that try this? What other concepts have amazed you by how they haven't been copied to death?

 

[Chessrook44]

They aren't. Savage: Battle for Newerth and Savage 2: A Tortured Soul came up with the concept a while ago. I don't think they really took off though, and of course there's a few complications with it. For example, the commander may get frustrated when his minions don't follow his orders, or minions get frustrated when the commander doesn't build the right stuff in the right place or such. It's not perfect, but it IS still fairly fun.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

So I was watching videos on a little game called Natural Selection 2, a game whose big feature is being both a first person shooter and a real-time strategy game. The way this works is, one player plays an rts as the Commander while his units do the fps part of the game as they are controlled by other players. The Commander's... well, commands in the other player's perspectives as that voice in the single player fpses telling you to build stuff, shoot stuff, or repair stuff. You know what though? It would probably be easier to just show you all what I mean.


Now I've never played the game, mind but this looks very intuitively designed. See, I don't like how in the experiences I've had with rtses is how I have to watch any battle that unfolds because the guys you control cannot be trusted to do the best thing in a situation. However, in Natural Selection, because the units are self aware human beings, you don't have to baby them so much, meaning that if an engagement doesn't go so well I can spend more time thinking of how to help the next battle go better for your allies. It's the sort of thing that appeals to me, so then why are the Natural Selection games the only ones I can name that try this? What other concepts have amazed you by how they haven't been copied to death?

As someone who owns Natural Selection I can tell you that the concept is a lot of fun when it works and it works extremely rarely. If you play with pubs either no one wants to be the commander, or the commander ends up being terrible and always focusing on the wrong thing, or the players are terrible and blame everything on the commander. The only time the game really works is if you're playing with people you know and everyone is actually working as a team, which is something that you can't expect to happen very often considering the low population of the game.

So yeah, the reason no one else copies this concept is that it's too hard to implement well, and even when you do implement it well the entire thing is dependent on everyone participating to actually know what they're doing. The game takes too long to learn and because of that has a very small population of people who actually know what they're doing and how to play properly 80% of the matches end up with neither team using the mechanics to the fullest.

 

[gigastar]

There isnt really anyone out to try and make the concepts behind Planetside into a good game. Well, not any successful attempts at any rate.

One guy i know reckons he can cobble together a Planetside 2 clone for about 250k euros. I think he might actually go through with it if PS2 gets shuttered.

 

[DFDelta]

There have been quite a few games with commander and unit roles for players similar to what natural election does, but usually they are rather unsuccessful. People mostly either don't like being ordered around even if following orders would mean victory, are about as smart as a particular dense brick or way to egoistical to support/lead a team.

 

[CrystalShadow]

RTS style games seem to get a lot of peculiar stuff attempted with them.

I'm reminded of Achron. Which somehow pulls of realtime dynamic time travel. You can go back in time during a game, mess up the past, find the consequences in the future, have the other players go back and stop what you did in the past...

Problem is it lacks the polish and balance of a mainstream RTS.

But it's a crazy thing they even managed to get something like that to work. And you don't see that much in games...

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

They aren't. Savage: Battle for Newerth and Savage 2: A Tortured Soul came up with the concept a while ago. I don't think they really took off though, and of course there's a few complications with it. For example, the commander may get frustrated when his minions don't follow his orders, or minions get frustrated when the commander doesn't build the right stuff in the right place or such. It's not perfect, but it IS still fairly fun.

The original Natural Selection mod for Half-Life outdated Savage by almost a year. It was released in oktober 2002, while the first Savage was from september 2003. So, no, Savage did not actually come up with the concept. Then again, neither are actually the first games with that idea that I know of.

Because, Team Fortress 2 at one point early in development (around 1999) was planned to have a 10th class, the Commander, which would function much like it does in Natural Selection or Savage. Valve scrapped the idea for pretty much the same reasons Dirty Hipsters mentioned above. It's somewhere in the Developers Commentary for Team Fortress 2.

Speaking of Developers Commentaries, many of Valve's games since Lost Coast have had them and I love them. I think more games should have them. They give nice glimpses into all the processes that go into games development as well as how a developer goes about tackling them.

 

[josemlopes]

The movie Die Hard.

Like, have an office building where you can go on about however you want, have hostages and a small number of very lethal enemies. Let the player fuck around with tools and systems and take out the bad guys.

Rogue likes are getting popular, this could be a good setting to get out of the fantasy or sci-fi stuff that are usually out there.

 

[lunavixen]

The memory remixing out of Remember Me, I don't think I've seen that in any other games, a shame RM didn't expand on it further itself.

The movie Die Hard.

Like, have an office building where you can go on about however you want, have hostages and a small number of very lethal enemies. Let the player fuck around with tools and systems and take out the bad guys.

Rogue likes are getting popular, this could be a good setting to get out of the fantasy or sci-fi stuff that are usually out there.

You do know there is a Die Hard game that actually sort of follows that, don't you? It was released on the PS1 as part of Die Hard Trilogy.

 

[Phoenix1213]

The movie Die Hard.

Like, have an office building where you can go on about however you want, have hostages and a small number of very lethal enemies. Let the player fuck around with tools and systems and take out the bad guys.

Rogue likes are getting popular, this could be a good setting to get out of the fantasy or sci-fi stuff that are usually out there.

Instantly reminded me of Hotel Carone
http://www.moddb.com/mods/hotel-carone

It was a medium sized Deus ex mod with the main level revolving around a fully detailed 20+ story hotel that was taken over by terrorists. You had to rescue hostages and neutralize the threat all while trying to avoid having the terrorists kill hostage or set off alarms which would have them blow up the building. The exploration options were endless. Front entrance, back entrance, garage, fire escape, elevator, vents, dumbwaiter, window washers lift, crane, service elevator, secret passages, ladders, climbing up the scenery,etc. and since it was all just one big map you could move around freely and take care if business however you wanted. The problem with most games is they try to keep up with the lastest and greatest graphics and trends so they can't support having a fully realized 20 story building all in one map, and so instea your get linearity, bare corridors, loading screens for every level, and scripted events as opposed to ones you create on your own.

 

[josemlopes]

The memory remixing out of Remember Me, I don't think I've seen that in any other games, a shame RM didn't expand on it further itself.

The movie Die Hard.

Like, have an office building where you can go on about however you want, have hostages and a small number of very lethal enemies. Let the player fuck around with tools and systems and take out the bad guys.

Rogue likes are getting popular, this could be a good setting to get out of the fantasy or sci-fi stuff that are usually out there.

You do know there is a Die Hard game that actually sort of follows that, don't you? It was released on the PS1 as part of Die Hard Trilogy.

I think I know what game you mean and its rather fast paced with a shitload of killing, something like Syphon Filter. Not that its bad, I just dont think that its an original attempt out of a concept that isnt that common.

The movie Die Hard.

Like, have an office building where you can go on about however you want, have hostages and a small number of very lethal enemies. Let the player fuck around with tools and systems and take out the bad guys.

Rogue likes are getting popular, this could be a good setting to get out of the fantasy or sci-fi stuff that are usually out there.

Instantly reminded me of Hotel Carone
http://www.moddb.com/mods/hotel-carone

It was a medium sized Deus ex mod with the main level revolving around a fully detailed 20+ story hotel that was taken over by terrorists. You had to rescue hostages and neutralize the threat all while trying to avoid having the terrorists kill hostage or set off alarms which would have them blow up the building. The exploration options were endless. Front entrance, back entrance, garage, fire escape, elevator, vents, dumbwaiter, window washers lift, crane, service elevator, secret passages, ladders, climbing up the scenery,etc. and since it was all just one big map you could move around freely and take care if business however you wanted. The problem with most games is they try to keep up with the lastest and greatest graphics and trends so they can't support having a fully realized 20 story building all in one map, and so instea your get linearity, bare corridors, loading screens for every level, and scripted events as opposed to ones you create on your own.

Now that looks cool, gonna have to check it out latter.

 

[wizzy555]

The timeline/time-travel system in Majora's mask.

While it was wonderful in the game I thought at the time it would end up as a staple in every game for a while and I'd end up hating it.

 

[go-10]

I always default to Valkyria Chronicles and/or Fire Emblem. Both games have very unique gameplay/combat/romance system that I've never seen in any other game

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

The concept of Devil Survivor with the variables changed as needed.

You are trapped in the government lockdown of a major city intended to contain a monster outbreak that grows daily. You are one of the only ones given the power to fight said monsters and are being sent messages telling you where and when people will die each day ahead of time, and it's not always possible to save everyone in danger. In fact, some characters may threaten others later as civil order and rationality transforms to desperation and anger. Who is still alive towards the end of the week determines what endings you can access, and you are expected to New Game Plus repeatedly in order to learn the best schedule for saving the most number of people (DS didn't do this, but maybe have some characters you simply won't be strong enough to save the first/second time around).

Most shockingly, they haven't even done a zombie version of this unless The Last of Us counts. Actually it would be interesting to see one aspect of zombies brought over for this- if a character dies to the monsters, they turn evil and start killing people as well, but retain their personalities.

 

[coheedswicked]

I've never played natural selection but it sounds exactly like Warfare mode in ArmA, not sure which came first but the game mechanic has definitely been used in more than one game.

 

[Rayce Archer]

Twinkle Star Sprites!

It was a Neo-Geo game that was described as "competitive shooting." Two players each play a vertical SHMUP; your performance in your game dumps additional attacks and enemies into the other player's with the caveat that should they beat THOSE challenges they will come back at you stronger, etc.

An amazingly fun little party game that to my knowledge nobody has duplicated at all.

 

[Prime_Hunter_H01]

The Dynamic Campaign map needs to be used in more places than Hardcore Flight Simulators. Outside of that Genre the risk style Map is close, but I think it would be cool to have varying degrees of progress, and territory hold in games that use that kind of system.

 

[Winthrop]

There isnt really anyone out to try and make the concepts behind Planetside into a good game. Well, not any successful attempts at any rate.

One guy i know reckons he can cobble together a Planetside 2 clone for about 250k euros. I think he might actually go through with it if PS2 gets shuttered.

I would personally love a mix of Planetside 2 with borderlands. Huge weapon variety, raids, and some PvE thrown in with PS2's huge openworld PvP

Sanctum is an FPS tower defense game. With the exception of Sanctum 2 I haven't seen much like it.

 

[Lightspeaker]

It's the sort of thing that appeals to me, so then why are the Natural Selection games the only ones I can name that try this?

Battlefield 2 and 2142 ran with this kind of idea in the commander role. Amped up to 11 with Project Reality mod (at least when I played it, it went a little strange after a while). Also Nuclear Dawn.

Just a handful of games off the top of my head without looking up anything. Its not a particularly widespread thing but its not THAT rare.


Captcha: happy clappy
Er...okay there captcha. Yeah they're fun but I don't know if I'd go that far.