Things you wish a game dev would do

[Mathew952]

First Off-
Add "Trip Skip". In GTA San Andreas, you could skip the trips during a mission by hitting up on the D-pad. It's not that the driving in the game is bad, or that the driving isn't fun. But the 30th time you have to drive a box truck 5 miles to a drug deal, it gets annoying, not to mention you damage your vehicle on the drive to the location, because it's not fun to sit in traffic. All we want to do Is kill the Russian mobsters, and move on.

Second- I know that games are "4 hardcore Gamerz only!! no nubz allowd!!!" But When I have to die 20 to 30 times in order to pass a certain area (Cough*MoH:airborne*cough) it's not fun. And unless their is some sort of massive pay-off in terms of plot or gameplay for acheiving this, it's not worth it. So do What God of War did, and Max payne did. When the character dies X amount of times, it lowers the combat difficulty, subtly, so that maybe you take 3 extra hits, and the enemy AI is a little dumber, and your bullets do more damage. It's shameful that we used to do this on PS2, yet we can't on the Next-gen supercomputers.

Third- I should never have to Walk around a mansion an go up to each door to check if it's locked. If you have a door, I will assume it can be opened. Rainbow Six let's you open every door. Oblivion does too. It's been done many times. When you have a rocket launcher and C4, and your stopped by a rotted wooden door, it sucks. So If you can't open the door, don't put a door there. I don't have to waste time with it, and it makes the game more fun. Red Faction got this right, let me blow the door down.

Fourth- Make intelligent friendly AI. Why is it that in R6V2, The enemy can throw a smoke grenade, leave men in front, and go around and flank me, But my Friends can't even shoot the enemy 60% of the time. Also, If your AI is retarded, don't make me fail the mission because "Chavez is Dead".

Fifth- Make a game where you just blow stuff up. Like mercenaries, only more realistic.

 

[Mathew952]

Also, Most Importantly


MAKE A GOOD DIE HARD GAME.

 

[Mathew952]

I wish that someone would develop a great engine for interacting with NPCs. One that would make it just as likely that a wolf would run away and hide from you as it is that it would fly at your throat. One where everything animate could be friendly or neutral as well as hostile (except for the really nasty monsters of course, but they'd be the exception). One where you could negotiate or barter with goblins or bandits perhaps, instead of getting into an unavoidable to-the-death fight. Also, characters would react differently according to what they'd seen you do (a civvy who's seen you hand money to a beggar is going to react very differently than one who's seen you stab the beggar in the throat), what their and your circumstances are, what clothes or armour you wear, etc. Seriously, is it that difficult, given the technology we've got at the moment? If you can make a playable engine like Bioshock's, you can certainly do what I've said above. But nobody ever has yet.

I could imagine a great RPG that could be made like this. It would mean that "personality" as a statistic meant something other than just spellcasting ability, speechcraft could be vital to a stealthy or negotiator-type character, and best play strategy would incorporate lots of non-fighting elements, as well as several actual fighting ones that can't be used effectively when there's really only one tactic that hostile NPCs use - all out offence. (Mastery of the bow for example - in games like Oblivion, the bow is practically useless when every other living thing you're likely to come across anywhere other than on city streets is guaranteed to go for your throat before you've got time to draw it. What if you could use your bow on retreating NPCs, or ones that stay at a distance without attacking? What if NPCs like wolves waited to gang up on you with other nearby wolves before going after you - would you be able to spoil their plans with a well-timed bow shot or throwing dagger? And would killing one wolf with a bow cause others to run away in panic or attack out of rage? What if different wolves reacted differently, randomly or according to how many others were nearby?)

The effect of always hostile NPCs is that only an absolute nitwit would choose to play a "stealth" or "personality" type character over one who's a master at hitting people with swords, summoning demons or spewing high-level fireballs. In 95% of RPGs that I've played, there's practically no point in choosing any character except a high-level wizard or warrior. I put this entirely down to the total lack of intelligence when dealing with non-human characters. Does it have to be this way?

I think GTA 4 might be a start. For example, If you shoot some one, or get in an accident, Cab drivers refuse to pick you up. If theirs blood on your car, people run away from you.

 

[Gisgo Elim]

I'd like it if an American game dev. would buy the Carnage Heart license from Japan and make a new one for the PC and next gen. consoles.

 

[Maruza]

How about having the strength of mobs, make sense. In MMOs and RPGs, and..any game really.

Here's a very specific example:

Age of Conan. Before you're level 10 you've been up against giant panthers, cannibals, and demons much bigger than you. At level 20 you're fighting hyenas and snakes and pretty big scorpions.

What the hell? Where's the logic in that?

If their argument is, "it just makes the game more fun this way." I would go with that. But I don't see how this makes anything more fun.

These games are about creating incentives to progress right? New spells, better stats, cooler gear right? How about fighting scarier and more exotic mobs as you progress? I know that devs try to honor this somewhat, but why not honor it completely? It takes very few oddballs to ruin the the immersion factor in games.

I rather judge how dangerous a mob is by its appearance, rather than the numerical tag in its name.

 

[defcon 1]

If you can make the level load faster after you died, Do it! In games like Half-Life, dying means the level has to be loaded again, versus CoD4 and Bioshock where bringing us back to the game's instantaneous.

I don't see why it would be so hard to do. Everything in the game is loaded into memory and processed, right?

There are some games that display a "you died" or "you lose" screen for a bit too long before actually loading. No game should do this. 5-10 seconds may not sound like much but after dying consistently, this issue becomes a fairly large annoyance. I'm sure I'm not the only one rapidly mashing the 'continue' button out of anticipation to play again. Every game should let you instantly tap your way back into the game, or the loading screen if they really have to.

Skipable cutscenes, please!

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

Make an FPS with actual realism. I don't mean like bullets penetrating walls or enemies that jump out the way of grenades, I'm talkin' enemies that drop their gun and scream in pain, then run like hell when you shoot them in the arm. And when a grenade drops nearby, your character yells in fear. When there's bullets flying overhead with nothing but a pile of sandbags between you and certain death, your hands shake and you occasionaly clumsily drop your gun.

....Yeah. See, you know what you call a soldier who drops his gun and flees like a little girl at the first sign of danger or pain?
You call him DEAD.
A good soldier will have been seasoned and trained through live-fire exercises even before he gets to the field of battle to NOT shake and drop his gun like a clumsy freaking idiot and generally act like a fearful jackass as soon as the bullets start flying.

Now if you used the Euphoria engine (spelling might be wrong there) to simulate injury reactions in a manner not seen since the original Soldier of Fortune, THEN we've got realism going, as the game will take into account the physical bullet impact as well as simulating pain reaction on the go without pre-rendered animations.
THAT is the sort of realism you speak of. Not "Oh yeah you got shot so you drop the gun and run like a girl, and get gunned down like the not-soldier freaking loser moron you ARE.".

No, you call him human. You know, human? The things with emotions, that usually break down when they see another member of their species ripped apart by metal projectiles? Soldiers aren't some different breed of human that are completely impervious to fear, where the fuck do you think the word 'morale' comes from? So, by your logic, people who are scared in the wake of their own mortality are 'not-soldier freaking loser morons'. Yeah, I call them normal, funnily enough. Think before you vomit.

 

[Anarchemitis]

My cousin works for EA in Burnaby (The majority of EA Sports production) and he told me that many of the people working there that he talks to would love to do a game that's new, crazy, inventive and artsy with all them cel-shaders, but the big bosses never do out of fear that it wouldn't appeal to many, or get good ratings and other video-game-bureaucratic crap like that.

I suggested to him a cool idea for this Space Cowboy kind of game about a planet whose nearby celestial bodies make it difficult to avoid collision with the planet, stranding many beings on all sorts of species and languages. There would be no money, only bartering. It'd be a cool FireFly-esque sandbox game.

 

[Rob Sharona]

Fix bugs that QA testers find. QA testers get a lot of flack for not finding bugs, but devs will leave thousands of bugs unfixed.

 

[Rob Sharona]

My cousin works for EA in Burnaby (The majority of EA Sports production) and he told me that many of the people working there that he talks to would love to do a game that's new, crazy, inventive and artsy with all them cel-shaders, but the big bosses never do out of fear that it wouldn't appeal to many, or get good ratings and other video-game-bureaucratic crap like that.

I worked for EA as well, and there is a really nasty clause in your contract. If you think of a game idea whilst in their employment it becomes the property of EA if they can prove it.

 

[Zombie_King]

Something original.

Nothing with anyone in super-powered armor suits firing insanely powerful guns.

Anything with zombies and normal people.

 

[Zombie Badger]

Apart from the obligitory; No escort quests, intelligent AI, less releasing the same game every year, and for fucks sake Crytek, stop putting wierd creatures into your games, as both have gone to shit after they were introduced, I would like to see a game based on the Korean war.

 

[Yx0que]

1. More games like Shadow Of The Collosus. I haven't finished it yet(13 down)but it is great.

2.More Creativity. Probably not going to happen because of publishers. It's a shame people are afraid of trying new things.

3. Games that make people cry. It can't be that hard. Books do it, movies do it, so why can't games? I really connect with some characters. Like when Eli Vance died, I felt sorry but the emotion wasn't really that powerful.

4. Make running away a valuable strategy. If you want realism you should be able to run away. It's what I would do in most situations I encounter in-game.

 

[Stammer]

TRY to do some cool stuff with the Wii... even if it sucks, just do SOMETHING that explores the possibilities.

They did this. It's called WarioWare: Smooth Moves. It's been out pretty much since Wii's release. It's not only one of the most fun and crazy games for the Wii, but it's one of the most fun and crazy games ever. Not to mention, it has microgames for every possible way you could ever hope to wield the Wii Remote.

I wish other Wii games could take a hint from this little gem and make some stuff that actually utilizes the Wii remote the way it should be used. Why is it in Zelda, you hold the Wii remote like a sword, yet you still press "A" to attack? If you switch to your Hero Bow, you should draw your Wii remote back and hold the Nunchuck out in front, like you're drawing an arrow. Then just release the Wii remote and it will shoot. Pick the Wii remote back up again to draw another arrow. Simple!

Edit: And if you have the darn strap on your wrists, it won't break either. In fact, WarioWare:SM even added "DROP IT!" as a microgame.

 

[shatnershaman]

Stop making trailers and concentrate on the game its self.

 

[Stammer]

How about having the strength of mobs, make sense. In MMOs and RPGs, and..any game really. ... I rather judge how dangerous a mob is by its appearance, rather than the numerical tag in its name.

I couldn't agree with you more...

PartyMember>> Dude?
>>PartyMember: *Sigh* What?
PartyMember>> Did you just-
>>PartyMember: Yes, I just got owned by a Lv.75 bunny rabbit.
-PartyMember laughs at Player1 like Elmer Fudd.-